Part 35 (1/2)
A smart lawyer could contend that, indicted or not, the ex-city manager should be rewarded for quitting-and thus ”saving” Miamians the $6.2 million a year in deficits that was averaged during his tenure.
Stacked against those kinds of figures, a $58,166 send-off seems almost stingy.
On the other hand, if taxpayers had known City Hall was being run like a traveling flea market, they wouldn't have waited for Odio to be busted for corruption. They would've demanded he be canned for incompetence.
That fear is perhaps what Odio had in his mind when, in 1994, he persuaded commissioners to give him a ”phantom” salary increase that existed only on paper. The sole purpose of the bogus raise was to inflate his future pension benefits to $76,635 a year.
The tricky ploy was later scuttled, but in retrospect it might have been worth a shot. Maybe it would have inspired Odio to retire a bit sooner.
Numbers don't lie. An earlier exit by the city manager would have been a bargain to taxpayers, at almost any price.
In these shady times, we need creative ways to entice other felons to leave office, preferably before they get arrested. Too many of them are doing worse things than Odio did, and taking more of the public's money.
Maybe they wouldn't steal so much if they knew it was coming out of their own nest eggs.
Ralph Sanchez and Other Subsidized Sports
City gave away park to get rid of problem February 21, 1986 This weekend thousands of Grand Prix fans will pay big-ticket prices to visit a park that already belongs to them, sit in bleachers they already own, and watch a road race that their tax dollars have subsidized.
You've heard of Live Aid and Farm Aid; this is Ralph Aid.
Ralph Sanchez is a terrific promoter, a magician when it comes to raising money. For instance, after the inaugural Grand Prix got rained under three years ago, state legislators agreed to help Ralph out of the hole by buying the bleachers for $500,000.
Our generosity didn't stop there. This year Tallaha.s.see kicked in another half-million bucks to Ralph's races, while the county agreed to pony up $350,000 to cover any deficits. And the city of Miami-well, the city not only put up $250,000 for the new racetrack, but loaned Sanchez the same amount, interest free, to pay his share.
If all businessmen had pals like these, we could board up the bankruptcy courts.
The new Grand Prix course snakes through 35 acres once known as Bicentennial Park. It's not a park anymore, of course, it's an asphalt racetrack with two baseball diamonds stuck between the curves. How it got that way is an interesting story.
The Grand Prix got shoved out of south Bayfront Park because some big developer needs the land for fancy restaurants and macrame shops. The city of Miami felt so crummy that it agreed to ”compensate” Sanchez by paying him $350,000 and annihilating a suitable stretch of Bicentennial Park to augment the race course.
All this happened very fast and very quietly-the paving, especially. If only the Department of Transportation crews could work so quickly.
When folks started asking about why the city paved the park-a public park purchased with bond money-everybody stuttered a little until they came up with one of the craftiest excuses I've ever heard: Basically, they said, we did it to get rid of the winos.
To hear Grand Prix boosters tell it, the winos of Bicentennial Park are the urban equivalent of the Viet Cong. Apparently the only thing to dislodge them is a Porsche bearing down at 140 miles per hour.
In defense of plowing the park, supporters recited all the nasty things that have happened there since it opened in 1977. Rapes, murders, muggings, a.s.sorted corpses. No wonder hardly anybody goes there.
Some cities would've taken a slightly different approach to these problems. Some cities might have opened shelters to get the winos off the streets. Maybe put more cops in the park, installed brighter lights, improved the parking, added tennis and racquetball courts. Bulldozed that stupid San Juan Hill of a berm that blocks the bay from the boulevard.
Other cities might have done more to save the park, but what Miami did was to give up, and give it away.
It's true that for two whole weekends the Grand Prix draws thousands of fans to downtown Miami, which is swell if you happen to own a hotel or parking garage. It's also true that the TV coverage gives the city lots of valuable exposure, providing the sun is out.
And it's true that one of the prime missions of the Grand Prix is to make some bucks for Ralph Sanchez. Nothing wrong with that.
But carving up the park?
I guess the city commissioners couldn't help themselves. They saw this luscious hunk of bayfront not making money, just sitting there being a park, and they couldn't stand it. The shakes set in, then drooling; an uncontrollable urge to bulldoze. Apparently shrubbery was not the kind of green that Bicentennial Park was meant to sprout.
The giveaway occurred so swiftly that critics have questioned its legality. The city's staff says everything is proper because the racetrack technically is a ”park amenity.”
A country mile of four-lane blacktop-some amenity. What does that make the Palmetto Expressway, a national shrine?
The Indy races to put Metro in debit dust July 18, 1986 First there was Hands Across America. Then Farm Aid II.
Brace yourself, South Florida. Now comes Ralph Aid II.
In a heartrending gesture of charity, the Metro Commission is considering bailing out auto racing impresario Ralph Sanchez with $5 million over 10 years.
In return, Sanchez promises to give the county 17 percent of the ”adjusted gross income” from his Indy races at Tamiami Park.
What a deal. Except for one glitch: The Tamiami event lost money last year. A ton of money-$1.3 million, according to Sanchez.
On a similar note, this season's Grand Prix, held at the mutilated Bicentennial Park, lost $652,000-that, after getting a $350,000 subsidy from the tourist tax.
Isn't government wonderful? Used to be that when a private entrepreneur couldn't turn a profit, he or she was doomed to a cold fate. Going out of business, it was called. Used to be that the idea was to take in more money than you spent.
Apparently this isn't always possible when you're trying to put together a ”world-cla.s.s event,” whatever that might be. Costs add up-you know, little things, like $23,500 for your lobbyist's new Mercedes-Benz.
Can't have a world-cla.s.s event without a world-cla.s.s lobbyist. G.o.d knows what Ron Book would have gotten if the Grand Prix had actually made money-maybe Sanchez would've sprung for a Rolls.
The architect of the latest giveaway is County Manager Sergio Pereira, who-invoking the Miss Universe Pageant Boondoggle Theorem-says the TV exposure makes the road races worth every nickel, tourist-wise. Pereira selflessly took it upon himself to review the ledgers of the Tamiami affair, and concluded that Sanchez needs help.
Right now he gets a piddling $100,000 a year for the Indy race. Pereira wants to increase the stipend to $500,000 annually for the next decade. What a guy, and what a grand gift at a time when Dade's economic condition is so bleak!
It seems like just last week that Pereira asked for property tax increases of 12 percent in unincorporated neighborhoods.
It seems like just last week that he proposed raising water and sewer rates, and cutting funds for meals for the elderly.
And it seems like just last week that the cost-conscious county manager declared an urgent need to wipe out the Dade Consumer Advocate's Office, as well as the Fair Housing and Employment Appeals Board. Citizens, he said, would simply have to go elsewhere with their job and housing discrimination complaints.
Pereira computed that these last two budget items would save the county a whopping $303,000 next year. Why, that's almost enough to pave another park and put in a race track.
The question is, would anyone show up?
Contrary to rosy press reports at the time, only half the expected crowd turned out at Tamiami, according to Sanchez's own estimate. We may never know the true attendance because, he says, he didn't bother to use the turnstiles for two days.
Such casual bookkeeping doesn't seem to disturb Commissioner Barry Schreiber, content with Sanchez's a.s.sertion that ”we fill hotel rooms.” Others, such as Commissioners Bev Phillips and Clara Oesterle, have expressed serious doubts about Pereira's plan.
Since the races are partly bankrolled by the city of Miami, Dade County and the state of Florida, taxpayers might be interested in details about the bottom line, which currently is red. Call us nosy, but we'd sure like to see the books before donating another half a million bucks.
Next week the county's finance committee will consider whether or not to set aside its fiscal worries, dig into your pockets and give generously to this sporting cause.