The latest news about the Florida Marlins’ quest for a new ballpark.

The circus surrounding the Norm Braman trial continued today when Judge Jeri Beth Cohen postponed a decision on one of the two remaining issues for at least 5 weeks. The issue in question is whether money can be reallocated for a different purpose without a referendum. The Judge wants to wait for a Florida Supreme Court reconsideration of case concerning reallocation of bond funds.

Frankly, this seems like the only real legal issue left in this case so everything else that happened is irrelevant (hence the term “circus” in this post). The issue of whether the stadium is a good public use of money is not an issue for a court to decide, that’s why we have elected officials. Now, if Braman wanted to challenge the elected official’s authority to make such decisions, that’s a legal challenge. But in this case, debating whether the Marlins will leave town without a stadium or whether they cannot afford to pay more is not an issue for the court to decide.

Anyway, Judge Cohen is scared to make a decision because she doesn’t want her ruling overturned but the end result of her decision is to give the Braman a big victory.

It looks like Braman’s lawsuit is going down in flames (as expected) but a big concern may be his decision to continue wasting his money by appealing the decision.

We are not happy with the prospect, but we are not concerned. One thing to keep in mind is that Braman did not obtain an injunction (and no court has issued an injunction) against the projects. Absent that, the county, the city, and the Marlins are going ahead full steam. Even if Braman ultimately prevails in some sort of appeal (keep in mind that appeals can’t just be a disagreement with the ruling, there has to be an obvious error), the city/county will have to find a way to pay for the ballpark or else they would have to pay the Marlins for all costs incurred as well as damages.

At the opening of today’s trial involving Norman Braman’s attempt to stop the Miami Megaplan (which includes the Marlin’s Ballpark), the following happened:

”At this time I am ordering all the parties back in mediation,” Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jeri Beth Cohen told a packed courtroom just before 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

Her order may indicate that the parties — which had scrambled Tuesday and Wednesday to broker an agreement — may in reality be close to reaching such an accord.

This move apparently surprised the parties but is actually common in today’s busy court systems where busy Judges prefer to force sides into a settlement, especially if one is possible as is suggested above.

The proposed compromise seems to conflict with Norman Braman’s holier-than-thou arguments:

Those familiar with the proceedings said the last minute negotiations centered around an offer to build a community center next to the stadium and more public use of what will be a county-owned ballpark. But no closure was reached — at least not yet.

I think Greg Cote captured the double-standard/hypocrisy in his editorial today.

Assuming nothing changes in the next few days, the parties will meet again with the Judge on Monday.

The Marlins ballpark plans on the Orange Bowl site still face some hurdles (a law suit, another vote) but that hasn’t stopped the city and private firms from working on new development projects around the ballpark. If these ideas materialize, it will only strengthen the notion that the ballpark is anchoring the redevelopment of the area.

Here are some of the latest developments:

• If you haven’t seen it yet, the Orange Bowl is now completely gone (at a cost of $2,348,050)
• Plans for an MLS stadium are on hold as the City cannot commit in time to meet deadlines. The city is reserving the right to build one on site at a future date.
• The city is now focusing on planning and building a 6,000 spot parking garage for the ballpark.
• The developers of Midtown Miami contacted the city to pitch redevelopment ideas for the area.
• Ballpark construction and and management contracts should be done by the end of this month.

A fan over at the MarlinsBaseball Forums says he received the flyer below at his home calling fans to the Orange Bowl area Saturday at 11 AM. Seeing that the Marlins, the City, and the County are all listed, it makes one wonder whether the ballpark will be revealed. It is also a good opportunity to announce Hanley Ramirez’s new contract.

Look’s like Norman Braman’s ballpark lawsuit is going to go in front of a jury:

Judge Pedro Echarte dismissed one count of Braman’s lawsuit against Miami-Dade County but said the remaining issues would be decided at a trial in July. Attorneys for the county wanted all of Braman’s complaints thrown out.

In all honesty, making it to this stage just means that there is some issues of contention worthy of a jury’s consideration so the situation isn’t worse then it was a few days ago, but it does allow a sideshow to go on while the city, county, and the Marlins continue with the design and development process.

Braman’s battle focuses on the ballpark, but is likely bigger than just that:

Braman’s attorney, Robert Martinez, claims the plan is in violation of Florida’s constitution and the money invested is not being used as it was intended.

“What we have alleged here and what the facts show, as far as we know them, is that the Marlins are getting a business operation delivered to them on a silver platter for business purposes,” said Martinez.

County attorneys said spending taxpayer money on a new stadium is perfectly legal.

As we have previously discussed, Braman was a terrible NFL owner who has a history of challenging these kinds of efforts (maybe sore that he never got his stadium in Philadelphia). Additionally, any of the transportation projects including the the 3 billion dollar funding may have long term impact on his ability to sell cars through his dealerships.

Let’s hope this circus ends soon.

Quick disclaimer: As we’ve heard now, the ballpark is not finalized so read this post as if the future has already happened. I’m wondering if the Marlins’ strategy is to just act like it’s a done deal so when someone in Miami tries to block it they will look bad.

OK, back to the future:

The official Marlins website is starting a twice monthly series where Dave Samson will talk about our beautiful new ballpark. The first such report discusses the detail in which HOK and a design committee made of of people from the city, county and the Marlins are reviewing the plans:

“We’ve spent many hours going from room-to-room with HOK, and figuring out exactly what is happening with the stadium,” Samson said. “We’re looking at different seating areas. How the offices are going to look. How the suites are going to look. How the clubhouses are going to look. How the press boxes are going to look. Literally, we’re going room-by-room from the top level of the stadium, all the way to the bottom. That’s taking up a lot of our time right now.”

The ballpark will likely include a downtown view (which, BTW, will ensure the sun is not in the hitters’ eyes) and will attempt to integrate Little Havana with the downtown. We’ve all heard the design will be ultra-modern/artistic, but looks like the environment inside will try to capture old-school Cuba:

“We want to have the culture of Miami. For example, we can picture having a place to drink coffee, a place to smoke cigars, a place to have Cuban food. It’s really to capture the diversity of our population. We want something for everyone.”

We’ll see. Anyway, feel free to spam Dave with your ballpark ideas at D.Samson@flamarlins.com. DS — when are you going to write us back??

Now back to reality.

We’ve previously discussed the concern that the Ballpark may be facing obstacles at the County level. Now comes word from Bob DuPuy that this is potentially a real problem:

DuPuy said “the coalition at county commission level is tenuous” for the Florida Marlins’ proposed new ballpark.

The City and County did a great job trying to ram the ballpark through as quickly as possible but it’s clear that some politicians are ready to sink this ship. I don’t know if they are sincere in their concerns or merely grandstanding for cheap political tricks but it’s time to pick sides.

Consider me worried.

One day, Miami-Dade will stop voting on the ballpark and just move forward. Apparently, the County has two more votes to go (ugh!) by July first and Commissioner Joe Martinez says there is not enough support.

“You need nine votes” to pass the ballpark management and construction agreements “and you don’t have nine votes,” Commissioner Joe A. Martinez warned commissioners Tuesday during a discussion of how stadium police and fire protection would be divided among the City of Miami and the county.

He sites his vote along with that of Javier Souto, Carlos Gimenez, and Katy Sorenson and that a two-thirds vote is need to pass the deal.

Martinez then continued to tell us how much money is being wasted already

“It’s going to come back and bite us,” Mr. Martinez said about the money the city and team are spending, because if no stadium deal is completed by Aug. 31, the city, the county and the Marlins are to share those out-of-pocket costs equally.

Let’s just hope that this rhetoric is nothing more than alot of noise from one guy.

Officials from the City and Miami and Miami-Dade County have finally agreed on how and who will police and protect the new ballpark. In what was reminiscent of an old-school Chicago-style labor dispute,the city and county negotiated this issue under pressure and threats from the police and fire unions who were trying to maximize over-time and other benefits (um… that sounds more like the Sopranos, but anyway).

The agreement states that:

- County police are to provide off-duty staffing within the stadium and within about 100 feet of the park for baseball events, and the city is to staff other areas, including the garage, retail and commercial development and a planned soccer stadium.

- City police are to staff the surrounding neighborhood and streets during ballgames.

- The city and county are each to provide one fire-rescue unit for ballgames.

There are mixed responses coming from the unions:

Members of the county’s police and fire-rescue union told commissioners the agreement was equitable, but not Armando Aguilar, president of Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police.

“We have not agreed to this,” he told the commission.

Despite that, the pact was approved and this issue is resolved.