{"id":78172,"date":"2025-12-10T09:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/78172\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T09:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T09:10:10","slug":"goodies-are-still-dropping-from-the-pinata-of-airport-leases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/78172\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodies are still dropping from the pi\u00f1ata of airport leases"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tWritten by Michael Lewis<\/a> on December 10, 2025<\/p>\n

\"www.miamitodaynews.com\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Goodies<\/p>\n

Fallout from a pi\u00f1ata of blatant favoritism that is raining down golden Miami International Airport leases landed in a county meeting last week as commissioners who didn\u2019t share in the bonanza asked who was gathering in the goodies.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

That freeze could actually last far longer. Commissioner Keon Hardemon, who long has fought to change the airport\u2019s 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 pi\u00f1ata.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not alleging payoffs for making political instead of business decisions, but that\u2019s what the public may think. Anytime a commissioner says his own choices trump those of the county\u2019s specialists, you\u2019ve got to wonder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s discussion surfaced as the county amended the new leases of two long-time tenants. Talk quickly shifted to the pi\u00f1ata of goodies at the airport, as Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez asked who won the race for the gravy train.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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,\u201d stand, he said. \u201cWe need to get reports at some point where we are on those agreements\u2026. I was not enamored of awarding contracts from the dais, still am not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve also not been told by the airport or by the administration as to who finally got in, who didn\u2019t, so I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s taken place,\u201d said commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

They were told that the divvying up of the goodies has yet to take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are establishing a pool of concessionaires that will consist of the 45 concessionaires that we were directed to engage by this board,\u201d replied Deputy Aviation Director Basil Binns. \u201cSo once that pool is established, as any other spaces become available we will go to that pool to select other concessionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cwe are negotiating with those 12 concessionaires now\u2026. We expect to have all of those agreements done by the end of the year. Then we will move forward to that list\u201d of 45 more.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bermudez pointed out flaws in the process. \u201cI\u2019m not going to let go of giving contracts from the dais,\u201d he said, shaking a warning finger. \u201cI\u2019m not going to let it go. I\u2019m like a pitbull on this one. And I\u2019d like to know what\u2019s going on, because the chair doesn\u2019t know, which scares the heck out of me too. That\u2019s an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think accountability is a metric,\u201d he added later. \u201cResponsibility is a metric.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe original problem was, who gets to be a concessionaire?\u2026 Why is it that this is offered to a select group of people?\u201d said Commissioner Raquel Regalado. \u201cI think that\u2019s an issue \u2026 that is the undertone of this conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

She returned to the impact of that lack of procedure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere you get the mistrust in government is when people believe that we\u2019re picking winners and losers and deciding a procurement process from the dais,\u201d Ms. Regalado said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that people might believe that winners were picked without a process. It\u2019s the clear truth of what happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At best, it\u2019s very bad business at the airport and bad governance at county hall to limit contract selections to the names of friends in commissioners\u2019 own pockets when no contracts were ever advertised. Limited competition for government business always costs taxpayers money.<\/p>\n

And at worst? That\u2019s the stuff that triggers official investigations.<\/p>\n

For sure, it\u2019s 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\u2019s what destroys the public\u2019s trust in local government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Written by Michael Lewis on December 10, 2025 Advertisement Fallout from a pi\u00f1ata of blatant favoritism that is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-78172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}