Two top Miami-Dade County officials are out after the county’s failure to permanently secure the only fuel depot for Port Miami.<\/p>\n
Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava announced that Chief Operations Officer Jimmy Morales and Port Miami Director Hydi Webb were retiring.<\/p>\n
In his resignation letter, Morales said to the mayor, in part, “I acknowledge that you and I have a difference of opinion with respect to the purchase and sale transaction of the port fuel facility on Fisher Island”.<\/p>\n
The fuel depot is crucial to keeping Port Miami’s massive economic engine running. The port has an economic impact of $61 billion and supports 340,000 jobs, according to the county.<\/p>\n
It currently sits on a 10-acre site in Fisher Island. But the land’s private owner sold it to a developer last year under the county’s nose.<\/p>\n
“There isn’t a port in the United States that doesn’t have a fuel depot,” said former congressman Joe Garcia, who has been critical of the county’s failure to buy the land first.<\/p>\n
The current owner wants to turn the fuel depot into luxury condos. The county has struggled to come up with alternatives.<\/p>\n
The Fisher Island Community Association does not want the fuel depot to stay, it says, partly for safety reasons. In a lawsuit, the association alleged the county had agreed to pay the developer a combined $400 million for the land, more than double what the developer paid.<\/p>\n
“I’m talking about that the county failed, this yacht full of billionaire pirates literally are trying to hold up our city,” Garcia said.<\/p>\n
In his resignation letter, Morales alluded to a deal and said he was instructed to find a way to buy the land that Port Miami could afford and would not use taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n
No deal has apparently gone through, and the mayor’s office did not provide an update on negotiations. CBS News Miami reached out to the developer but has not heard back.<\/p>\n