Posted by: WFOR – CBS4
Posted: March 2, 2009

MIAMI — (CBS4) — Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez is shutting down any further negotiations with the Florida Marlins and the City of Miami over a new stadium for the team.

“The fate of the proposed Marlins stadium is in the hands of the Miami City Commission. Miami-Dade County will not be held hostage by conditions that absolutely nothing to do with baseball,” Alvarez said in a hastily called Monday afternoon news conference.

Alvarez then announced that the county will not spend another minute negotiating the multi-million dollar project in the heart of Little Havana.

“The art of negotiations has been made a mockery of. Thoughtful and serious negotiations have been hijacked. Good intentions have been morphed into unreasonable demands. The politicking has become a distraction. It's non-sense.’

In 2007, in a series of last minute votes the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County and the Marlins agreed on principal to build the new stadium, but left the key issues to be resolved later.

Those issues are now coming up and not sitting well with commissioners at the city and county level. Last month, at a vote on the stadium, Commissioner Marc Sarnoff demanded that the city get more for its money. During Monday's news conference, while Alvarez didn't call Sarnoff out by name he did make it clear he was disappointed in him.

“I’m appalled as a citizen of Miami-Dade County. I have lived in this community since 1960. And quite frankly if that’s the way some of our elected officials are going to do business then we will never get any major project done in this community.”

The decision apparently means that the county will take no further action on the new stadium will be taken on at the county level until the Miami city commission takes its final actions.

“Too often our community is it’s own worst enemy. This is one of those occasions,” said Alvarez.

Miami’s City Commission is scheduled to vote on the stadium funding plan on Friday, March 6th. The county commission was then scheduled to take their vote on the following Monday if it is approved by the city. Approval by both commissions is needed before the Marlins could break ground on the proposed 37,000-seat, retractable roof stadium in Little Havana.

Supporters of the deal said a new baseball park will create two thousand badly needed construction jobs, would spark renewed development around the old Orange Bowl site and boost civic pride. Opponents of the plan argued that taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill. Over the 35-year life of the loans, the cost with interest will be $1.8 billion. They called the deal a "“Marlins Bailout” and think the money would be best spent elsewhere.



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