Showing posts with label Jeffrey Loria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeffrey Loria. Show all posts

Thursday, November 15, 2012

After latest Marlins' salary dump, South Florida's amateur screenwriters will be busy devising plot twists that involve a murder-suicide element or body dumps in The Everglades with Marlins' Loria and Sampson; To quote Ben Diamond: “Dictators come and go like the weather down here.”


http://www.starz.com/extras#/magic-city-new-trailer

“Dictators come and go like the weather down here.” 
-Ben Diamond

Hmm-m... how would our fictional friend and hotelier Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, pictured above) or for that matter, even our fictional enemy Ben Diamond (Danny Huston), over at Starz' addictive "Magic City" -about Miami Beach in 1959- have handled things after getting double-crossed but good by Marlins owner and president Jeffrey Loria and David Samson to spend real money and field a competitive team, after City of Miami and Miami-dade taxpayers were forced to pay for a new stadium that they never got the chance to vote on via a referendum. 


You know, the salary dump that everyone in South Florida is talking about but which the Marlins are refusing to even hint at on their official Twitter page? https://twitter.com/Marlins
And you saw that fact reported where in local Miami media? 

If you ever needed more proof of how completely imaginary so much of the world of Twitter is, how it's often nothing but sheer chicanery, not facts, the Marlins have answered that question adn are Exhibit One in their typical pathetic way.

Yes, definitely a body dump in the Everglades.
But body dumps in the swamp are so last year!
(The body dump in The Everglades comes at 0:55 in the trailer above.)

Tossed overboard from a prop plane on the way to The Bahamas is this year's LBD.


After this week's latest salary dump and multi-player trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, I strongly suspect that South Florida's amateur screenwriters (and creative writing classes) are going to be busy devising novel plot twists that involve a murder-suicide element or body dump in Everglades with Marlins' Loria and Sampson.


More soon on the predictable Loria move that did not surprise me a whit.

http://www.starz.com/originals/MagicCity

http://www.starz.com/originals/magiccity

http://twitter.com/magiccity_starz

Magic City: The Complete First Season (2012) is only $24.99 at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-City-Complete-First-Season/dp/B007PTCP7K/ref=tmm_dvd_title_0

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Michael Lewis of Miami Today appears today on WQAM @ 4:30 pm re proposed Marlins Stadium -DON'T MISS IT!

On the chance that you haven't already heard, one of THE most well-informed individuals on the subject of the proposed Marlins StadiumMiami Today publisher Michael Lewis, will be a guest of Jim Mandich on his daily WQAM radio show this afternoon at 4:30 p.m.

Lewis is that rare individual in South Florida who can actually speak to the issue from a knowledgable point-of-view, since he has actually read the entire contract, all the hundreds and hundreds of pages.
He can make both the logical and common sense argument against the stadium plan based on both the finances as well as the public policy ramifications. 
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/090212/story-viewpoint.shtml


Yesterday on his afternoon program, after reminding his listeners about Lewis' appearance today, Jim posed a few logical questions that are entirely deserving of a thorough public response from the powers-that-be, people that have seemingly been in hiding, before a vote is cast on Friday.

Let me summarize those good points he made:

Who are the principals involved in the shell companies that are specifically mentioned  in the contract? 

What is their relationship to Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria?

Why does Loria's name never appear in the contract?
The Marlins are actually going to be receiving money loaned to them by the govt.: where is their collateral or supporting evidence of surety bonds, or even a recent, accurate appraisal or valuation of Loria's personal holdings, whether art or real estate?

Why is it that it took a year for the contract to be drafted, yet the County Commissioners were supposed to read it and make sense of it in two weeks? 

The irony of this awful deal is that with the possibility of actually having a convenient commuter train on the
 
FEC tracks in a few years that quickly connects millions of people from Palm Beach County to downtown Miami, and with MLB always in
the default position that stadiums should be engines for real-not-fanciful economic redevelopment in their new neighborhoods, as was the case in San Francisco, which I saw ample evidence of for myself even months BEFORE the Giants stadium opened, in hindsight, the general area near the site of the old Miami Stadiumright next to the FEC tracks, would've made infinitely more sense than this awful mish-mash of a plan that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. 

You could hardly claim you need to build a $100 million dollar garage if you made it possible for people to literally walk across the street to the stadium from a train.

That's something I know about first-hand, from taking the "El' train from Evanston or Wilmette down to Cubs games at Wrigley Fieldor from taking the MARC train up to Baltimore from D.C.'s Union Station.

Dozens and dozens of times.

Here are a few more things I've been wondering about that I've yet to see either mentioned or answered in local media coverage of the stadium deal, which I'm against, despite being a longtime and enthusiastic sports fan who was going to Baltimore Orioles spring training games at Miami Stadium 35 years ago, and was both a Dolphin, Hurricanes and Toros season-ticket holder for their games at the Orange Bowl before leaving for IU in August of '79 .

The number of Marlin game tickets and parking passes per game/per year to be given to the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County and any other South Florida governmental entity?
Where are those seats? Bleacher, reserved, box, suites?

Have the Marlins intentionally under-estimated value of those tickets and passes?
I ask because I was living in the Washington, D.C. area when investigations were conducted to see whether or not Abe Pollin, the Washington Wizards owner, intentionally mis-represented the costs of certain arena tickets so that they would be just under the lobbying "gift" limits, despite the fact that those tickets were clearly superior to similarly-priced tickets.

Pollin's goal was clear: he wanted D.C. lobbyists to buy LOTS of Wizards tickets.
By intentionally pricing tickets at the value the Wizards did, they made it easier for lobbyists to dole them out to whichever pols or influential city, county, and state employees the lobbyists wanted to influence, knowing that the gift recipients wouldn't have to publicly declare them.

Honestly, given South Florida government's sordid longstanding history of ethical problems, to me, that sounds EXACTLY like the sort of thing that would happen here!

Will existing city and county ethics procedures be changed to reflect this?
At each governmental unit that's given tickets, what official will decide who gets to use the tickets, or are they for the exclusive use of elected officials and their family and friends?
If for all employees, how will they be distributed?
Are individuals, including elected officials, limited to using a certain of tickets per season?

I'll be writing some things about the proposed stadium deal and the Marlins consistently awful marketing strategy over the next few days on my blog, much of which I've kept in draft form for months, and will also be attending the County's meeting Friday afternoon.

By the way, not that you'd know it if you'd actually gone to the Marlins broadcast partner's website, Fox Sports Net Florida, i.e. FSN Florida, but unlike last year, when the Marlins did NOT televise a single one of their spring training games back into their home market, this spring their games against the Twins on March 14th and March 23rd against the Astros will be televised at 1:00 p.m.

I've already spoken this morning to someone at FSN Florida and they will be updating their website to reflect this important fact.

Given their marketings miscues, last year, the only way I could see Marlin spring training games via TV was by watching the other teams' telecasts to their home market via DirecTV

Friday, January 16, 2009

Smart, interesting observations on sports stadium financing provides lots of lessons for South Florida to know in advance of any discussions about a new and Marlins stadium


Sorry, Google's Blogger editing is messed-up again, so some of the post below is chopped-up, despite numerous efforts to fix it and make it right.
---------------------------------
Today we have proof positive that even devout sports fans recognize that at some point the bread-and-circus show must be tempered by financial realities, regardless of what the elite fan may be willing to pay for premium service.
And in some cases, the days of the tail wagging the dog may be nearer an end than we thoought, which is all to the good.

The very readers that Newsday's Neil Best addresses in his column today are the intended consumers of the new Yankee Stadium, yet they reveal thru their common sense comments, below, that they have a much more realistic feel for the economic cost appropriateness of certain enhanced 'gold leaf' stadium design aspects being paid for by taxpayers -versus the Yankees share- than the columnist, whom I often agree with.
Just not this time.

It's the same sort of gut-check and uneasy feeling about who should be paying for what in a prospective Marlins
Stadium that currently exists in NE Dade (and SE Broward) today among many of the sports fans and voters I speak to on a daily basis, even among those who STILL SUPPORT a taxpayer-funded Marlins Stadium in Little Havana.
Which is to say, one without reliable mass transit nearby.

They also wonder why the Marlins have had so little public pressure placed on them by the powers-that-be of this community to be more forthcoming and transparent with quantifiable facts and figures.

Could it be because many of those very people and their organizations have bought completely into the Miami Mega-Plan as a panacea for this area's ills, ignoring its resemblance to a runaway 'Edifice Compex ?  


Before spring training starts next month, it would be a great positive change for the better locally if South Florida's print and TV reporters actually picked-up on that fan/voter sentiment, and gave some voice to it, rather than relegating it to the perpetual cynic column.

Instead, though, South Florida's media seem to be generally be following what seems like almost a scripted format, wherein they show-up at press conferences at the Steve Clark Bldg. or Dinner Key to record what is said, regurgitate what they hear without asking any hard questions, and then take the Marlins' word for every thing, seemingly doing no original research of their own regarding the accuracy of the time and costs estimates given by the govt. and the Marlins, despite how laughably absurd they seem on their face.

I hadn't originally planned on mentioning it until the time came, but one of my small number of New Year's resolutions, to the
extent that I believe in that sort of thing, is to to start publicly calling out the wimpy local South Florida sports reporters who refuse to ask tough questions of the Marlins, the county and the city, especially those on TV who seem to flinch at the oppotrtunity when it present itself.

Darn, there just never seems to be enough time for them to ask the questions that ought to be asked.

So far, in the years since I've returned to South Florida, the only two local TV sportscasters I've seen who've distinguished themselves by reliably refusing to swallow the Marlins' baloney that other sportscasters swallow whole, are former Dolphins Joe Rose and Kim Bokamper, of Channel Six/WTVJ and Channel Four/WFOR respectively. 
And that's true of them on both TV and their appearances on WQAM.
That's it, that's the whole list.
That's pathetic, of course, but that's the sad reality of the quality of journalism in Miami in the year 2009.

Obviously, Michael Putney and Glenna Milberg have done more than their fair share in trying to illuminate the myriad Marlin stadium issues, thru both their news reporting and their segments on Channel 10's Sunday morning public affairs program,
This Week in South Florida, but it shouldn't be their job alone to shoulder the burden of asking questions on this issue in this TV news market. 

You'd think that the provision in the deal that literally makes the TENANT Marlins the de-facto Lords of the Stadium Manor, able to limit the number of outside county/city-sponsored commercial events held there to a minimum, even during the winter, wasn't a common sense deal-killer to begin with, if the idea is NOT to be a white elephant for taxpayers.

As if the fact that the majority of last year's Marlins' season ticket holders -people who've ALREADYvoted by putting their money where their mouth is, unlike Loria & Co.- actually live in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, not Miami-Dade, wasn't enough of an obvious marketing and logistical obstacle to a stadium being built on the sainted memory of the Orange Bowl.

All this time later, and WQAM's Jim Mandich is still the only media person in South Florida to consistently mention publicly how little the Marlins have actually contributed towards the costs of the preliminary plans and drawings.
Or the surety issue.
As to the latter, see Risa Polansky's straight-forward article from Miami News Today titled, Some Miami-Dade commissioners dissatisfied, 'disappointed' with meetings on Marlins Stadium agreements

Being a lover of American history, it's really not so surprising that I still recall the small area in front of the entrance to The National Archives on Pennsylvania Avenue that I passed hundreds of times during the 15 years I lived and worked up there, and the dozens of times I went inside the Archives, often doing tedious family history research looking at rolls and rolls of 19th-century Texas census records on microfilm.

When I lived there, I was often told that for most of the past sixty years, until the new FDR Memorial opened a few years ago, it was the only monument in D.C. to FDR, supposedly, done at his specific request.

All it says is a variation of Shakespeare's quote "The past is prologue."

"The Future," 1933-1935'The Future'
Designed and modeled by Robert I. Aitken
Carved by the Piccirilli Brothers Company


Exactly!

So despite all the past lip service of Jeffrey Loria and David Samson to make some changes in their approach, when was the last time we ever saw an honest-to-goodness interview, print or TV, with someone in South Florida interested in joining the Marlins as an investor, to give them the deeper pockets they need to make the team more competitive on the field?
Or, actually able to pay their projected share of the proposed stadium and infrastructure costs?

Yeah, that's what I thought -me. too.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15thu3.html

New York Times 
Editorial
January 15, 2009

Whatever Yankees Want
The new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx is still months away from the first pitch of Opening Day. But suddenly a lot of people are questioning yesterday’s package deal for this luxurious ballpark in light of today’s struggling economy.
Seats for $1,500 a game? Suites fit for the royal family? A scoreboard fit for the Big Board? A fabulous steakhouse and granite ramps (no ordinary cement for this crowd)? This $1 billion-plus pavilion and park financed with a lot of taxpayer help is beginning to sound like something fit for the Wizard of Oz.
To pay for many of these add-ons, the Yankees now want — surprise! — more help from the city. They have asked the Industrial Development Agency for an additional $400 million in tax-free financing to finish the project. Unless the city’s leaders show some courage, the agency is expected to rubber-stamp that request by the end of the week, after a pro forma hearing on Thursday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the development agency should renegotiate this latest round of what has always been an incredibly generous deal for one of the richest teams in the country. At a very minimum, they should insist that the Yankees pick up more of the city’s share of the project, which now amounts to $362 million.
About $326 million of that money will pay for demolishing the old stadium, building new infrastructure and replacing 22 acres of city parkland that was lost to the new stadium.
Yankee officials like to say that they are the ones paying to build this stadium, not the city’s taxpayers. That is only partly true. The public has subsidized the project in many ways — providing generous tax-exempt financing and a variety of other assistance like rent abatements.
Meanwhile, the total $362 million price tag to the city has almost doubled since the project was announced in 2006. And, according to the Independent Budget Office, the price dwarfs the $138 million the city will provide for the Mets’ new stadium across town.
Some city contribution to costs for these stadiums makes sense. But the real question is how much New York gets in return on this very hearty investment.
The Yankees promise over 6,000 construction jobs. But once their new house is built, there could be as few as 22 full-time, year-round positions.
What makes this latest request feel like “icing on the cake,” as Assemblyman Richard Brodsky puts it, is that the rest of the city is staring at such hard times and a looming $1.5 billion budget deficit.
Mayor Bloomberg has — rightly — had to cut city budgets and increase property taxes and explain to residents how times are bad and how we all will have to share the pain. It is time for Mr. Bloomberg to make that same pitch to the Yankees.
If the Yankees can sign megamillion-dollar contracts (C. C. Sabathia just landed one for $161 million over seven years), they should be flush enough to contribute more toward their new stadium and to the parks for people living nearby.
Mr. Bloomberg should insist that the Industrial Development Agency postpone consideration of this latest Yankee request and then renegotiate this deal. Is A-Rod’s agent available?
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Newsday

Bonds for Yankees is hardly a handout

Neil Best
January 16, 2009

In a purer capitalistic world, sports teams wouldn't ask cities to help with stadium financing, the federal government wouldn't bail out failing companies and the tax code wouldn't offer perks such as deductions for mortgage interest.

That's not the world we live in, though, for both better and worse. 

Thus, while New York City's role in helping the Yankees and Mets build their new sports palaces is and should be a subject of intense public interest and debate, the core mission remains valid: Part of what government does is throw its financial weight around for perceived common good, whether that be attainable home ownership or iconic public gathering places, especially in depressed areas. 

The former goal might be more obvious and noble, but the latter has its place, particularly in a city such as New York, whose unapologetic grandeur is part of its global brand appeal - just as with one of its most powerful sub-brands: the New York Yankees. That's a theory, anyway. 

Yesterday, it confronted reality in a crowded meeting room in lower Manhattan in which the New York City Industrial Development Agency held a hearing on whether to approve more tax-exempt bonds for the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. 

The Mets strictly were bit players in the ensuing drama, their relatively modest building and relatively modest financing getting relatively little mention. 

It was the big, bad Bronx Bombers who were the subject of most speakers, pro and con, as the IDA heard arguments before today's vote - widely assumed to be a done deal -- on whether to approve $370 million in new bonds ($259 million of them triple tax exempt) atop $942 million the Yankees got in 2006. 

Many of the pro-Yankees speakers were off-point, praising the team's largesse in the community. 

Many anti-Yankees speakers simply were off, talking as if the city had handed over to the team the entire cost of the stadium, snatching it out of the hands of New York's hungry, homeless and undereducated. In fact, the point is to ease the financing path with government-issued bonds the Yankees will repay.

 It was easy to get lost in the fog of information and misinformation, which only was exacerbated by the latest spat between Yankees president Randy Levine and Assemb. Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), who seem to have developed a strong personal dislike of one another. Brodsky ripped the IDA, calling yesterday's hearing and events leading up to it "illegal" and "an abuse of the democratic process" and "disgraceful." 

Levine once again accused Brodsky of "grandstanding on the Yankees name," called him "pathetic" and accused him of using "Soviet-style politics." "He'll say anything, do anything," Levine said. 

"It's a shame people cover him because he's involved with the Yankees." I'm trying not to be naive here. 

The city is picking up tens of millions in infrastructure costs, combined with lost tax revenue from the bonds. 

It wouldn't hurt for the Yankees to try to ease that burden somehow, even with a token few million here or there, given the current economic malaise. 

The most compelling community-oriented argument presented at the hearing was the loss of parkland in the Bronx, which has been "replaced" by a patchwork of small sites in the area. It's all spectacularly complicated, and there is no doubt the Yankees and city leveraged what they could in the inevitable back-and- forth of the project, as less visible businesses do all the time. 

But beyond the financing data and free-agent spending sprees and typical Yankees overstatement when it comes both to the facility -- steakhouse, granite ramps, etc. -- and political rhetoric is a simple argument that Levine made yesterday: "At the end of the day, I would ask you one question: In this city, at this time, if you can find me another employer, one, who's putting this kind of money into the City of New York and employing this many people in the City of New York, I'd like to know.

 I think the answer is there are none."
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