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1. The Miami Commission vote on the $2 million Homeland Security bond issue is the last chance for the city government to have a major impact on the shape of Bicentennial Park. Subsequently, it is primarily a County driven issue in terms of the $275 million bond funding. Does the city really want to relinquish all control of the $200 million in prime waterfront land it has “given” for free to favored museums who were so effective in lobbying and may never come up with the matching money? Residents will loose out on parkland for years more in the process. Why can't the park be designed (in human scale) as a park for people by landscape architects sensitive to local conditions and reflecting public needs? The city should move ahead to open the park as soon and as inexpensively as possible so non-professional soccer or baseball players can play there and kids and families and tourists can enjoy it over the next several years. Enough delay in providing public parkland for the public in downtown Miami, an area with an embarrassingly small amount of open space! The museums may take forever in raising their funds - if they ever do.
2. How can the city assure that costs for the museums are monitored adequately? So far the city is allowing 27% in soft costs while the County limits them to 17%. Why the discrepancy in this? Where is the oversight by the Bond Oversight committee in this? Clearly their work has been insufficient.
3. Where is the oversight on this project from the Parks Advisory Board or the Bayfront Park Trust on the Cooper Robertson Plan? Has the Cooper Robertson Plan or the overall procedures in planning the park been vetted through those bodies? Hardly. Why not take the time to do it right?
4. Shouldn't the city be assured of a clear schedule of matching gifts that add up to the entire $100 million before the building begins? Should it be assumed that a large percentage be matched after the first shovels go into the ground? Do we really need to wait for their notions of a "quiet campaign" to bear fruit - or not? Who knows, maybe interest in the project by wealthy donors will fade, or the economy will go bust.
5. Operational questions: About half of the MAM’s $5 million yearly budget comes from the County. Future budgets must include huge windstorm insurance (on the waterfront) and far larger operating subsidies. What will the tab be for the public? In what ways will the MAM endowment -if it is ever raised- pick up those costs? A check on attendance figures shows their projections of something like 154 cars on a Saturday. Is that much of an market - worthy of so much in the way of public funds? How does that public subsidy compare to that of other local museums?
6. Having been given $200 million in free land for their museums why aren't the museums required to provide security and maintenance for the entire park? Why hasn’t the city extracted more concessions from the museums from their “gift” of free land? What are they giving back to the community?
7. The architect selected (in private) by Miami Art Museum uses very few windows in his expensive buildings around the world. Is that what he is planning for Miami? What a waste of prime waterfront land. And who gets to stand up and object when we see his final plans? County CDMP language says that county funds should go to build "water related and water dependent facilities" on county waterfront land. Is an art museum water related and water dependent? The County bond funds – and if it were wise the city as well - should be used towards those criteria.
8. No public "mandate" was given by voters for the museums in Bicentennial Park as they allege. Neither museums nor Bicentennial Park, nor the vast amounts of public money they would directly receive were ever specifically mentioned in the two bond issues passed by voted in 2001 (city) and 2004 (county). Only in backup material and some mailers. The voter turnout was abysmal. There were two public design workshops (or charrettes) held. The first, done in March 2000 and organized by the Bayfront Park Trust and the Urban Environment League provided for small scale active elements in the park and one very small museum building. Only limited (1.5 acres) building footprints were agreed to by most participants in the 2001 City wide Charrette. Although there are apparently (and conveniently) no city records of the outcome of that charrette (other than a promotional brochure), a video was shot by the UEL cearly illustrating that the public sought far less building footprint in the park than the museums claim. A detailed history of this case matters.And the public has been shut out of the public process since 2004, even with the bogus agreement originally pushed by the Urban Environment League but subsequently ignored by all concerned – including the city, county and the museums. That agreement called for inclusion of representatives of area neighborhoods in planning the park. None of the parties could even find a copy of the agreement until this past month. Thus, park and public space advocates were not adequately represented at the table set so far. So MAM's notion of democratic support is highly deceptive.
9. The Cooper Robertson plan is a hot house modernistic theme park, a hallway to the museums but not an active public space that has been given adequate input by the public. Unique local vegetation is not adequately featured, nor are the elements particularly identified with South Florida. It is an attempt to duplicate Chicago’s Millennium Park, and Chicago has miles of open waterfront and plenty of park space, unlike Miami. Yet what kinds of criticism have been heard and to what end? Is one public hearing in March 2007 at the end of the process to announce the plan sufficient? We trust that the Mayor and City Manager will rethink that limited view of the public.
10. In sum, the Cooper Robertson Plan is an insult to the notion of public involvement in the planning process. Far to many meetings were held behind closed doors; a limited number of meetings allowed in one UEL member and but no other representative of the public. A renewed process is needed to build public consensus for an overall waterfront plan that works for all local residents. Most critics are not opposed to museums but not such a wide expropriation of public land for non-park purposes. This would never happen in relation to New York's 800 acre Central Park. Enough time and money has been wasted on the Bicentennial Park project. A new firm should be hired ASAP to build upon useful elements of the existing plan but re-invite the public back into the process while assuring a broad view of the waterfront, community access, and greater fiscal responsibility. New public forums to examine the Miami waterfront should be initiated as soon as possible towards this end by the City Manager in conjunction with local universities and other institutions. In the absence of that, check out commonsensemiami.com and add your comments.