Published by: The Miami Herald
Written by: Michael Vasquez
Posted: September 16, 2008

In a ruling carrying implications for Miami’s megaplan -- a public-works package that includes a new Florida Marlins stadium and other projects -- the Florida Supreme Court Thursday ruled that voter referendums are not required when spending large chunks of community-redevelopment money.

The ruling had been holding up the final court decision in auto dealer Norman Braman’s lawsuit attempting to derail the stadium. But the Supreme Court’s ruling could well pave the way for the end of Braman’s case.

The development money, usually administered by community redevelopment agencies, or CRAs, is the glue that holds Miami’s megaplan together. Although not used to directly fund the Marlins stadium, CRA money would flow to other pieces of the megaplan -- freeing up separate dollars to pay for the stadium.

The voter-referendum issue has been one of the biggest headaches for megaplan backers, though they have done their best to work around it.

The issue was raised by megaplan opponent Braman in court, and despite Braman’s string of recent court defeats, it still had the potential to complicate the issue of stadium funding going foward.

No longer.

Thursday’s ruling is a 180-degree about-face from a 2007 decision by the same court. Last year, Florida Supreme Court justices found that in order to bond out CRA money -- the typical method of funding big-ticket projects -- voter approval had to be obtained.

That decision sent shock waves to local governments throughout the state. With CRA coffers swelled by the recent real estate boom, local governments had been assembling a virtual laundry list of construction projects to use the money on.

For decades, taking that spending to voters was never a requirement. In its new ruling, the court acknowledged that its decision last year held the potential to upend the state’s financial structure, which had come to depend on spending CRA money under a certain set of rules.

Adding the voter requirement, the court found, "would cause serious disruption to the governmental authorities that have relied upon that precedent for planning public works that are in various stages of development and approval."

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