Mar 18, 2009 1:26 pm US/Eastern
New Curve Ball In Marlins Stadium Battle
Read More About This In David Sutta's Blog.
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
-
-
New rendering of the Florida Marlins Stadium to be built on the site of the now-demolished Orange Bowl.
Urban Design Review Board/CBS
-
-
New rendering of the Florida Marlins Stadium to be built on the site of the now-demolished Orange Bowl.
Urban Design Review Board/CBS
-
-
New rendering of the Florida Marlins Stadium to be built on the site of the now-demolished Orange Bowl.
Urban Design Review Board/CBS
On the eve of a vote for a financing package to build a new stadium for the Florida Marlins Miami city commission Michelle Spence-Jones has upped the ante with a new list of demands.
Considered by many to be the swing vote when the Miami city commission takes up the issue on Thursday, Spence-Jones told
CBS4 reporter Natalia Zea on the phone that her demands are not about leverage, but about getting more out of the deal for her district.
Tuesday Spence-Jones announced that she wants half of the stadium construction and operating jobs to go to City of Miami residents who belong to unions. She is demanding the contracts to go to local business owners, and she wants to create a trust fund for youth baseball programs in the inner city. She is also asking for guaranteed penalties in the contract so if the promises are not kept the Marlins will have to pay into that youth trust fund.
Spence-Jones has asked for some of this before, and a source close to the deal questions whether she is simply grandstanding before the big vote. Spence-Jones denies that and says the listed issues are non-negotiable for her. But this isn't the first time she's used her key vote to get what she wants. Just last week, she secured millions of dollars to revitalize part of her district.
The Spence-Jones curveball comes the same day that the NAACP and the Marlins withdrew their written compact promising that 15-percent of the building and operating contracts will go to black-owned businesses. The deal was created last week.
According to the Miami-Dade County Attorney, the pact would have jeopardized the entire deal. The attorney voiced concerns that if the County Commission voted for the Stadium, and it included the black owned business guarantee the County could be sued. It's happened before, in the late 1990s a federal court ruled race-based contracts were unconstitutional.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Police: Youth Minister Molested Teen
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
9/11 Defendants Will Explain Reasons For Attacks 29 mins ago 
I-Team: Tracking The Florida Stimulus Money Trail 
Stumble It!
Reporting
