070-2001 LTC
F:\CMGR\SALL\LTC-Ol\ARTICLES.CDT
Attachments
JMG:ptw
Should you require additional information please contact me.
As most of you know, staff and I met with the Editorial Board of the Miami Herald last week. The
attached "Local Perspectives" was included in Saturday's Local Section. I believe they captured our
side of the story accurately and appear to have endorsed our position.
The attached articles from the Miami Herald and Miami Today regarding the baseball stadium tax,
are submitted for your information. These columns outline Miami Beach's position on this issue.
Jorge M. Gonzalez Q' ~
City Manager t' . U
CONVENTION DE ELOPMENT TAX
SUBJECT:
FROM:
Mayor Neisen O. Kasdin and
Members of the City Commission
TO:
April 9, 2001
LETTER TO COMMISSION
L,T,C, No,1fi!J-c2(2)0/
CITY OF MIAMI BEACH
CITY HALL 1700 CONVENTION CENTER DRIVE MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA 33139
http:\\ci.miami-beach.f1.us
staging areas. The $35 millIon,
plus annual $1.5 million, can't
cover these major renovations.
Meanwhile. the money col-
lected from the bed tax has
grown b~' leaps and bounds.
The tourist-jammed Beach de-
livers a whopping 40 percent
of what the county collects.
The county is collecting 50
much that it could recently
pledge $118 million in bed-tax
money to build a stadium for
the Florida Marlins. These
funds also helped build the lat-
est arena for the Miami Heat,
give a boost to the Ericsson
tennis tournament and a civil-
rights memorial on Virginia
Key and gone to a smattering
of cultural facilities.
The city still stands solidly
behind the Performing Arts
Center. but wants a bigger slice
of the tax money.
A tentative December
agreement between the city
and the county still is in nego-
tiations. It includes a one-time
lump-sum payment of $15 mil-
lion for convention center and
hotel projects; $3 million in
2002; $4.5 million a year from
2003 to 2040; plus a percentage
of any excess revenues raised
over projections.
The city says that it has the
right to terminate the 1996
agreement because one of the
conditions - that the PAC be
constructed by March 31, 2001
- has been breached.
It shouldn't come to that,
however. What the city seeks
is fair. The county, which
freely has doled out the bene-
fits it reaps from Miami Beach,
should play ball.
..
,
P ity and Miami-Dade
~,County administrators
are in negotiations to make
sure that the Beach gets a fairer
share of its hefty contribution
to Miami-Dade's pot of tour-
ism-tax money.
The city deserves that
share. Its willingness five years
ago to share its revenues with
others now stands to cost it
dearly. Miami Beach, by law, is
entitled to two-thirds of the
convention-development tax
i called the "bed tax" because
it's levied on hotel rooms)
:c develop its municipal con-
vention center and related
facilities.
But in 1996, the city handed
over its portion of the tax to
the county to help build the
Performing Arts Center. In
"::change, the city got $35 mil-
lion in a lump sum and $1.5 mil-
lion a year. Then it looked like
a good deal. Now administra-
tors rightly fear the city will
get shortchanged for such civ-
ic-mindedness because the
co-unty is earmarking the
money for many other pro-
jects.
.. The convention center is an
important revenue generator,
not just for the city, but for the
entire county. If it's not
upgraded to compete with
such luxurious facilities as
those in San Francisco or Seat-
tle,we all lose.
. The Beach needs a steady -
and bigger - stream of bed- tax
revenue to make the major
upgrades that will let it com-
pete: more parking and better
;;,...;"
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";'./
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