Written by Michael Lewis on December 10, 2025
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Fallout from a piñata of blatant favoritism that is raining down golden Miami International Airport leases landed in a county meeting last week as commissioners who didn’t share in the bonanza asked who was gathering in the goodies.
They were told that the gold is still being passed to a dozen hand-picked winners and that 45 consolation prize candidates then will get their turns to board the gravy train of lucrative airport concessions. Commissioners earlier this year hand-picked concession winners and froze out all competitors for at least four years.
That freeze could actually last far longer. Commissioner Keon Hardemon, who long has fought to change the airport’s tenant mix, told fellow commissioners last week it would be 15 to 25 years before their successors will get a whack at the airport goodies piñata.
In April, commissioners voted to extend more than 200 airport leases 12 to 15 years while tenants pay to improve their retail and dining sites in Miami International Airport’s terminals. The county will get at least $1.1 billion in physical work done at the airport, while the tenants face no competition for their sites.
At the same time, commissioners bypassed competition for a dozen vacant spots and pulled from their pockets candidates to fill those spaces. As some commissioners with no pocket names objected to ignoring process to hand out golden leases, the commission was forced to open for 30 days nominations for vacant spaces, going beyond the friends of commissioners. Then in July, commissioners put favored firms on a list to get all vacated airport spaces for the next four years.
A few members objected throughout the giveaways that the commission had no selection process other than being first in line with names of friends to get lucrative leases. That’s not only bad business, because limiting choices limits quality, but it smells of dealings that ethics and criminal investigators probe and the public resents as favoritism or worse.
We’re not alleging payoffs for making political instead of business decisions, but that’s what the public may think. Anytime a commissioner says his own choices trump those of the county’s specialists, you’ve got to wonder.
Last week’s discussion surfaced as the county amended the new leases of two long-time tenants. Talk quickly shifted to the piñata of goodies at the airport, as Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez asked who won the race for the gravy train.
“At some point I need to get an idea where the concessionaires that were shortlisted by this board [for the vacant spaces], which I voted against,” stand, he said. “We need to get reports at some point where we are on those agreements…. I was not enamored of awarding contracts from the dais, still am not.”
“I’ve also not been told by the airport or by the administration as to who finally got in, who didn’t, so I don’t know if that’s taken place,” said commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez.
They were told that the divvying up of the goodies has yet to take place.
“We are establishing a pool of concessionaires that will consist of the 45 concessionaires that we were directed to engage by this board,” replied Deputy Aviation Director Basil Binns. “So once that pool is established, as any other spaces become available we will go to that pool to select other concessionaires.”
Asked by Mr. Bermudez what had happened to the original names that commissioners pulled out of their pockets in the April meeting, Mr. Binns said “we are negotiating with those 12 concessionaires now…. We expect to have all of those agreements done by the end of the year. Then we will move forward to that list” of 45 more.
Mr. Bermudez pointed out flaws in the process. “I’m not going to let go of giving contracts from the dais,” he said, shaking a warning finger. “I’m not going to let it go. I’m like a pitbull on this one. And I’d like to know what’s going on, because the chair doesn’t know, which scares the heck out of me too. That’s an issue.”
“I think accountability is a metric,” he added later. “Responsibility is a metric.”
“The original problem was, who gets to be a concessionaire?… Why is it that this is offered to a select group of people?” said Commissioner Raquel Regalado. “I think that’s an issue … that is the undertone of this conversation.”
She returned to the impact of that lack of procedure.
“Where you get the mistrust in government is when people believe that we’re picking winners and losers and deciding a procurement process from the dais,” Ms. Regalado said.
It’s not just that people might believe that winners were picked without a process. It’s the clear truth of what happened.
At best, it’s very bad business at the airport and bad governance at county hall to limit contract selections to the names of friends in commissioners’ own pockets when no contracts were ever advertised. Limited competition for government business always costs taxpayers money.
And at worst? That’s the stuff that triggers official investigations.
For sure, it’s bad judgment for elected officials to divvy up the spoils in a wide-open public meeting. Even if everyone is 100% honest, Ms. Regalado hit it on the head: that’s what destroys the public’s trust in local government.