Once Miami-Dade commissioners were sure all could get lucrative Miami International Airport concessions for 12 to 15 years for friends, they agreed last week to a vast tenant mix and space remake at no cost to the county even if a few outsiders somehow slip in.
Business names flew in out of nowhere, because choosing tenants wasn’t on the agenda or given public notice. It was simply an insider deal divvying up the spoils among commissioners who reluctantly opened the door to others so long as they got what they wanted.
In doing so, the county trampled the rights of other businesses to seek locations at the airport through the ordinary competitive process, because a concession at MIA is like a license to mine gold from a captive and growing throng of passengers expected to top 70 million a year by 2040.
The major airport change will see the mix of businesses shift within months from majority retail to primarily food-and-beverage spots. But the way the commission handled the shift would turn the stomach of anyone who thought government offers a level playing field.
“This is one of the most important items we’ve voted on in a long time … based on the investment to our airport that we so desperately need,” Chairman Anthony Rodriguez said early in a debate that ignored the legislation’s $280 million bill that existing concessions must pay to improve their locations. The fight, instead, was which commissioners would get what friends into tenant slots.
Oliver Gilbert III opened the feast by saying he wanted more airport diversity and sought to amend the voluminous change to concession leases in order to bring in new businesses, whose names he had handy.
Next to dine was the legislation’s co-sponsor, Kevin Marino Cabrera, who had two of his own. Kionne McGhee had three in his pocket. Marleine Bastien had another, as did Keon Hardemon. René García added a chiropractor in the lightning blitz. The carcass of the prey was picked over in minutes.
Then came the complaints of those who were left out of the dining spree. In the old days of big city politics, where the spoils system ruled as those in government divided the goodies among themselves, the complaining of those who didn’t get their cut was known as “where’s mine?”
“So all these being added are going to be companies that will be at the airport chosen by the commission?” asked an incredulous Juan Carlos Bermudez. “We’re choosing at the last second, without any vetting, any company that we would like to put there?”
“There’s a motion to do that,” Mr. Rodriguez replied.
“I thought that there was a process to actually get these companies there, but apparently we’re going around that,” said Mr. Bermudez, who said he wouldn’t support doing so.
Mr. Rodriguez noted that the original motion was to extend contracts for tenants, all of which had been vetted earlier and had been chosen following requests for proposals.
Mr. Gilbert’s amendment would bring in tenants straight out of commissioners’ pockets. But he and others assured colleagues that they personally had carefully vetted their choices, so it was all OK.
“If this amendment were to pass, does that mean that the administration is directed to negotiate with those businesses regardless of credentials?” Mr. Rodriguez asked a county attorney, who said yes, they would be chosen by a non-competitive process.
Mr. Gilbert noted also that some commissioners had been talking with concessionaires around the nation about airport slots. “We know that we have empty spaces at the airport and we want to increase the level of concessionaires, especially food concessionaires, in the airport.”
The airport, as you would expect, does employ professionals whose job it is to do what the commissioners decided to do themselves out of their pockets. Several commissioners noted they had friends who coveted airport spaces. It’s easiest if they don’t have to compete with others but just are handed the deal by a friendly commissioner.
“There really should have been a meeting on each of us suggesting who should be the entity that should be added to the airport,” Mr. Bermudez complained.
Actually, no. There should have been competition for the spaces that opened the door to all, not just to commissioners’ friends.
“We’re still picking winners,” noted Raquel Regalado. “In the name of diversity, you’re still picking winners…. What distinguishes these different vendors?” She listed four bakeries in her district, one of which a commissioner had already put on the winners list. “What says that one is better than the other is that the county commission picked a winner, and it shouldn’t be that way.”
She offered a compromise: “Open it up for a certain amount of time. Let people know that this is happening. I didn’t come prepared with a list of people. Commissioner Bermudez didn’t come prepared with a list of people…. We’re not here to pick winners.”
But they clearly were there to pick winners rather than let professionals blend types of tenants or let outsiders, rather than just supporters of the elected officials, seek those airport goldmines.
“Maybe we should take a moment and have a process that is transparent, that is competitive,” Ms. Regalado continued. “Because you can’t say diversity and then exclude competition…. And this isn’t just about people who know county commissioners who got their name on the list. And if they really are the best of the best, then they will be fine in the process.”
That is how the county’s process is supposed to work – the opposite of commissioners divvying up the spoils.
Mr. Gilbert explained why he and the other commissioners decided to make their own choices. “We’re the elected representative of 3 million people,” he said, overstating the number a bit. “This same process happens in hallways and offices, and you have nothing to say about it…. Who are we not to decide?”
By that reasoning we don’t need a professional administration at all, just 13 commissioners to spend the $9 billion county budget.
“I went and found people,” Mr. Gilbert said. “I think some of my colleagues had the same idea.” Somehow they coordinated that idea in the first few minutes of debate without any prior contact – and if you believe that, we have a bridge in Brooklyn we’d like to sell you.
“We were put here to decide” on the concessionaires, Mr. Gilbert said – though the 244 tenants now at the airport were chosen in competitive processes by county professionals.
Mr. Bermudez had the proper objection to that:
“For purposes of transparency, no, it doesn’t look good to the public that any of us are suggesting who should go there if we’re not saying that’s what the process is.”
“I don’t have a problem with staff making decisions because I don’t distrust staff,” Ms. Regalado added. “I don’t have the bias that county staff is somehow doing something wrong or bad or the omission of elected officials makes the process illegitimate.”
It was the spoils system of dividing goodies that in fact led in the early 1900s to hiring impartial government staffs to stamp out as much graft as possible and to make the best use of tax monies without regard to who supported which elected officials. That impartiality is what commissioners ultimately circumvented last week.
“Obviously, it’s not thrilling that we didn’t have a competitive procurement for concessionaires at the airport,” Eileen Higgins noted, complaining that airport directors should have done so years ago. “So do we lallygag and dillydally around forever waiting for our airport to be improved, or do we take action as the commission?”
Or, should commissioners have taken the proper action by ordering an immediate competitive process rather than totally ignoring competition in favor of being able to say “I got mine”?
What resulted from delay, Ms. Higgins said, is commissioners “suggesting, hey, go negotiate with some of these folks that we happen to know or think might be good.”
What could be more professional or fairer than that? Almost anything.
In the end, the issue was decided by that most professional of all political processes: counting the votes before the vote.
Mr. Cabrera noted that he could count to the nine votes needed to carve up the spoils. Danielle Cohen Higgins, the other co-sponsor, said they should be willing to give Ms. Regalado 30 days to add her own names to the list “because it’s something that she’s saying that she would like to participate in,” but the door can’t open wider to others “because there’s only so many spaces that we have open and available in the airport right now, i.e., only 12, so we can’t come with a list that is 200.”
No, of course not, because that would mean competitors for the lists of businesses that commissioners had pulled out of their pockets at the meeting.
Mr. Cabrera asked directly if Ms. Regalado would vote yes if she got her list of tenants in play.
“My request was to open it up for 30 days not so that Raquel can submit names but so that people who are interested could reach out,” she replied. “That’s what I was saying. I’m not saying that you have to pick people, I’m just saying that if we’re not going to have an RFP (request for proposals) and we’re not going to have an RFI (request for information) for those 12 spots, you’re at a minimum opening a time where people could reach out to the administration and say that they’re interested, whether I tell them to do so or they’re watching this or Commissioner Bermudez tells them to do so.”
“Is that a yes or no?” Mr. Cabrera asked. “Yes or no, do we have your support?”
“If it’s 30 days open for people to reach out to the administration, yes,” she replied. And so it was passed.
And that’s how vital legislative changes and sausages are made, and how spoils are divvied up in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
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