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Miami taxpayers should vote to do what’s best for marina on Virginia Key | Editorial

In addition to deciding who will be Miami’s next mayor and filling two commission seats, voters are being asked to settle, through a charter amendment, a long-standing fight for a coveted piece of city-owned property on Virginia Key.

The issue has landed in voters’ laps because city commissioners punted on resolving the land dispute between the current 30-year lease holder of a marina on city-owned Virginia Key land and high-powered developers who also covet this 27-acre waterfront property.

After almost six years of failed procurement and bidding processes and many accusations flung, a Miami Commission, unable to decide, passed its responsibility on to voters.

The commissioners’ action sounds noble and democratic, It’s not. Rather, they seem incapable of doing their duty to Miami residents.

The commission is asking voters to allow it to waive competitive bidding and give it permission to negotiate a 75-year waterfront lease with the current operator, Aabad Melwani and his company, Biscayne Marine Partners, whose long-standing lease came up for renewal.

Here’s the ballot question: “Shall Miami’s Charter be amended authorizing the City to waive competitive bidding, negotiate and execute a 75-year waterfront lease . . . of approximately 27 acres with Biscayne Marine Partners LLC? The company would pay the city $2.7 million annually in rent and other financial perks?”

Court to weigh in

This would be a no-bid deal, locking out other bidders, including those that have previously offered the city a better rent deal. Alarms should be going off.

However, the referendum question could be in vain. A lawsuit filed by the main company pushed out of bidding, Virginia Key, LLC, led by the RCI Group principal Robert Christoph, seeks to invalidate the ballot question and its results, plus force the city to pay $4 million of their attorneys fees for leading them on what they consider to be a charade. A judge has yet to decide.

Virginia Key, LLC’s lawsuit states that: “It is now apparent that the City Commission never would have awarded the project to [Virginia Key LLC] or anyone other than its favorite, regardless of the merits of its bids, because the city all along intended to award the project to [Aabad Melwani] by any means necessary.”

The Editorial Board has met with both sides. Virginia Key, LLC detailed for us what they consider to be improprieties in the bidding process during the two Requests for Proposals solicitations, or RFPs. They say that in the past five years, current proprietor Melwani has placed last in two city competitions — yet city commissioners on both occasions rejected all bids and wanted to start over.

We’ve also heard about the failure by Virginia Key, LLC to disclose during the bidding process its role in a major sewage spill that endangered Biscayne Bay. A company representative told the Board that there was no requirement to disclose this. As for accusations that the company has ties to Cuba, it says that it’s not true.

Melwani and his supporters have told us that he has been a responsible steward of the land and is ready to make improvements — if granted the decades-long lease. Melwani says he hopes to build upon his father’s hard work there. His dad first won the lease back in the 1980s, when the property had little perceived value and was favored only by drug dealers needing an out-of-the-way location.

Master plan

Now, developers want to build restaurants, retail shops and dry storage at the land west end of Rickenbacker Causeway, likely changing its character forever. Melwani’s supporters, including the Virginia Key Alliance and the boating community support his desire to continue to run the marina, because he will follow the Virginia Key Master Plan and cares for the health of local waters.

To be clear, the Editorial Board is not taking sides in this dispute. The only side we’re on is that of Miami taxpayers, who are the real owners of this valuable waterfront land.

We have learned the high cost of approving no-bid contracts in our community and, therefore, cannot support waiving competitive bidding.

Taking a pass

There is a process in place for winning a lease from the city. Unfortunately, city commissioners twice have been derelict in carrying it out.

Voters should kick this matter back to the commission, where it belongs.

We’re not naive. When it comes to awarding contracts and leases in this town, politics and favoritism drive the process. But in telling the commission, “You decide,” they will be telling these elected officials that they are expected to act responsibly on taxpayers’ behalf, award after bids are properly vetted, make a decision, then let voters give the deal the final thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Reject this charter amendment, Miami voters, and tell city commissioners, “Do your jobs.”

On the Miami charter amendment for the lease and development of the marina on Virginia Key, the Miami Herald Editorial Board recommends NO.