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This past Friday, May 4, the Miami Herald prominently featured the announcement of major gifts of art to the Miami Art Museum on page four. Most readers doubtless concluded that “Museum Park” remains a done deal in redefining Bicentennial Park. Yet the public needs to know that it is not a done deal, nor should it be.
Fundamental questions need to be asked before the city gives more public funds to the Miami Art Museum through its Homeland Security bond issue at its May 10 meeting. (1.) Do we really want to create another financial disaster like the Performing Arts Center without adequate oversight of the entire required matching funds? (2.) Should we take away $100 million in public waterfront land for an elitist museum without a significant art collection that has not followed anything close to an adequate public process? (3.) Is this a responsible use of public funds when there are so many other pressing social needs?
A new coalition (and website) has been formed from several local groups called commonsensemiami.com to examine these and related questions. Its goal is to promote fiscal accountability for OUR money, assure increased attention to public parks and waterfront planning, and promote greater public inclusion in planning that creates community consensus rather than more division and private deals done before closed doors.
We challenge the assertion that the public supports the museums in the park in their present form. Two public design workshops held by the city (March 2000 and February 2001) advocated only very limited building in the park, nothing like the eight acres plus that the museums have demanded. We have video from that event to prove it while the city “lost” its documents. The language that a majority of City voters agreed to in the 2001 Homeland Security Bond issue asked: “Shall the city of Miami issue General Obligation Bond for homeland security, neighborhood improvements, capital projects and infrastructure improvements in an aggregate principal amount not exceeding $255m…” Does anyone read about Bicentennial Park here? When County voters agreed to fund $552 million from Article 8 in the 2004 GOB bond issue, they voted for the following: "'To construct and improve libraries, cultural facilities, and Head Start Learning Centers for Pre-School Children to offer multicultural educational opportunities and activities.” Did voters understand that $275 million would go to two museums taking eight acres of valuable waterfront land in Bicentennial Park?
Before that vote, the Urban Environment League reluctantly supported the bond issue due to the large amount of funds for historic preservation, based on a signed agreement with representatives from the city, county and museums. It stated in part that the design committee for the park should also include representatives from “neighborhood communities and other involved constituencies.” Not only was this agreement never followed but when asked recently, none of the parties one could even locate a copy of it. What a mockery this makes of public inclusion in the design of such a major public project.
The trend in taking public land for non park purposes is clear in recent years. The police took a large chuck of Lummus Park for their stables. The final report by city consultants Goody Clancy presenting the new city park Master Plan has said that “Miami’s financial difficulties in the last two decades exacerbated the tendency common to many municipalities to look at park land as “free” land for municipal buildings and other activities. Miami’s relatively small amount of park land has been diminished over the years by the siting of buildings for other municipal uses as well as other activities.”
Even worse, the Miami Art Museum has not met the basic benchmarks for gaining public funding, nor has the city or county provided adequate oversight in assuring that it has met any clear timetable of its matching funds. Many are concerned that they will never reach their goal of $100 million and the public will be holding the bag – again.
Cost? A $9 million architectural fee for a $208 million building and $920 per square foot building costs to pay for highly expensive specialized skin and design is not responsible, notably when there are such a wide variety of other social needs in this region and when MAM has not provided even minimal information about the matching cash needed for public funding.
In the midst of such irresponsible behavior, we wonder why the rush? The funds wont even be available until August. We urge city and county commissioners to hold the museums to a basic standard of public accountability that, from our perspective has not yet been met by MAM. Many of us wish that more of the park could be saved for green space and seriously question the viability of the park plan. Why not only one museum? Where will the funds for the park come from? No one has yet said. The Cooper Robertson Plan, done at a cost of $1.6 million, is a hot park, more like a theme park, over designed with few spaces for human scale activity. Present plans are an insult to the early public involvement in planning our public waterfront. The “Green Mayor” and the commissioners must do better to assure that public assets are guarded for the future. There has been only one public forum assessing the plan. What would the nation’s founders say about this tawdry expropriation of park originally named in their honor?