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Miami "Mega-Plan" Protest After Mediation Failure

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Jul 12, 2008 11:35 am US/Eastern

Miami "Mega-Plan" Protest After Mediation Failure

Judge Asks Parties In Marlins Stadium Suit To Try Mediation Until Monday

MIAMI (CBS4) ― A small group of people joined business leader and civic activist Norman Braman Saturday to protest the billion-dollar Miami Megaplan which is set to face a judge Monday Morning, after efforts Friday to come to a mediated settlement failed.

About 70 people joined braman at Watson Island across from the Port of Miami, one of the beneficiaries of the Megaplan's millions. City officials want to use community development funds to help build a port-to-interstate tunnel and other civic improvements, freeing money to help the Marlins build a stadium at the former Orange Bowl site. 

His campaign and lawsuits against the plan aim to overturn an agreement he says violates taxpayers' rights on several levels.

A lawsuit challenging a financing plan for a new Florida Marlins ballpark and other public projects was to go to trial on Thursday, but the judge in the case ordered the two sides back to mediation until Monday. Efforts failed Friday, and the trial is expected to begin Monday morning.

Braman claims in the lawsuit that a proposed financing plan is unconstitutional because it didn't allow residents to vote on the issue. Braman has sued the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County and the Florida Marlins.

"This is another example of the type of contempt that our public officials have for the citizens who live here," said Braman.

Braman has his supporters on the Miami Dade Commission including Javier Souto who was so angry over the push to approve the stadium plan that he ripped the proposal in half the night the vote was taken.

"This is a disgrace to the democratic process, what we're doing here today," Souto told his fellow commissioners, "we're not consulting with the people."

City and county government officials say the mega-plan project will benefit a community that is in need.

"The way I see it, we're not building a stadium for the Marlins," County Mayor Carlos Alvarez said before the city vote. "We are building a stadium for Miami-Dade County residents. We are going to own that stadium."

The $3-billion plan also includes a tunnel to the Port of Miami, a downtown trolley and pay off $484 million of construction debt at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

The Marlins hope to begin playing at the new 37,000-seat stadium in 2011.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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