I've been out of town and couldn't post Here is what I've heard. No one knew he was going to go off and not vote towards the stadium. He surprised the city manager which really pissed him off, but they are still optimistic the stadium will be voted in favor of.

 

Its been such a long and aggravating experience.

 

 

oh yes

 

but that will make the taste of victory all the more sweeter...

This comes from Miamitodaynews.com a paper that is strongly against the stadium.

 

It appears as if the waving of the bidding for the infrastructure work needs a super majority in the City Commission. I don't see this happening if Regalado and Sarnoff vote no. See the article below.

 

 

Marlins Stadium bid rules posing new hurdle

 

 

By Yudislaidy Fernandez

A stadium deal for the Florida Marlins could return to square one if two city commissioners keep a pledge to reject waiving competitive bidding for infrastructure work for the ballpark.

The city commission does not have the required four-fifths vote to allow a no-bid contract to go to Hunt/Moss, which the Marlins selected to do infrastructure work as well as build the stadium.

County Manager George Burgess warned that a failure to name Hunt/Moss the contractor for the infrastructure would cost the city and county many cost-overrun protections contained in the proposed contract. In that arrangement, Hunt/Moss guaranteed it would do the infrastructure work for $25 million.

Without the cost overrun protections, the whole construction agreement would have to be renegotiated, Mr. Burgess said in a Friday memo. "Please be mindful that many of the protections described in this memorandum with respect to cost overruns are dependent upon the selection by the county and the city of Hunt/Moss as the construction manager for the public infrastructure."

City commissioners Marc Sarnoff and Tom?s Regalado said this week they won't vote to waive bidding. They say they want to give local construction companies a fair swing at the major public project.

Mr. Sarnoff said the work might cost less than $25 million. "The best way to know what something is going to cost is to do an RFQ (request for qualifications)."

Mr. Regalado said he is not persuaded by the Marlins' promise to open more of the work to local companies. "I think everyone should get to participate."

He added he is displeased that the Marlins are using the prospect of cost overruns to justify the bid waiver.

This is a technical issue that should not have an impact on the stadium approval and if the city wants this put out to bid because Sarnoff just wants to be a thorn in the Marlins' side it's easy to accommodate him as it was on the garage construction issue which he foolishly put the city in peril with his demand that David Samson called his bluff on. The city will rue the day the parking garages have a cap on construction spending and when it blows up in city's collective face Sarnoff will look like a fool.

 

The same is true of the infrastructure work. Opening it up to competitive bidding will eliminate the Marlins cost overrun obligations and leave the city and county responsible when they take the cheapest bid and the contractor is unable to perform satisfactorily. The other way to go is to prepare the RFP with such specificity that either a) no one bids on the work, b) no one qualifies to do the work or c) all the bids are found to be "non-responsive" meaning they do not cover the scope of work envisioned in the RFP.

 

In the long run this is not a deal-killer.

Opening the bidding on the infrastructure work will probably cause a significant delay. I doubt the stadium vote can proceed if the infrastructure construction issue has not been settled.

 

I am not in the construction industry, but I am sure there are rules that govern the competitive bidding process which allow a certain amount of time ( probably weeks or months) for the project to be announced publicly in writing, time to be properly evaluated by the interested parties and finally a deadline for the bids to be submitted. Then a committee of some kind would probably evaluate the bids and examine each company to see if they qualify for the work , etc. I would venture to guess that the project could probably be delayed 3 to 4 months while all of the above is going on.

 

Perhaps it may not be a deal killer in the long run, but it certainly can make it very difficult by the delays it will cause at the city level which will automatically continue to delay the county vote.

 

The more we delay the more hurdles seem to pop up.

Both the city and the county have procedures they follow and professionals overseeing the bid preparation and RFP response review process so there is no need to have anyone else involved other than the two commissions acting on the results. Because of all the problems at both the city and county (and it's not just here, it's across the country) had with favoritism and corruption the process is strictly monitored and enforced so no party has a future action against the government because they were treated differently than another bidder.

 

I may be wrong but I believe the infrastructure work being talked about here is off-site, mostly street and utility work AROUND the OB property and as such really isn't going to affect the progress of stadium construction because utilities (other than those needed for construction purposes) are really one of the last things to be done. And roadwork certainly isn't going to get done until construction is all but done and the finishing trades are the only ones on-site.

 

Like I said I can be completely wrong but from a staging standpoint unless the scope of the work is different than what was originally discussed as "infrastructure" work the stadium construction need not be impacted by putting this work out to bid. And when, as I mentioned above, there are no responsive or qualified bidders, and the Marlins' guarantee goes away, the current choice is going to wind up with the project anyways.

Both the city and the county have procedures they follow and professionals overseeing the bid preparation and RFP response review process so there is no need to have anyone else involved other than the two commissions acting on the results. Because of all the problems at both the city and county (and it's not just here, it's across the country) had with favoritism and corruption the process is strictly monitored and enforced so no party has a future action against the government because they were treated differently than another bidder.

 

I may be wrong but I believe the infrastructure work being talked about here is off-site, mostly street and utility work AROUND the OB property and as such really isn't going to affect the progress of stadium construction because utilities (other than those needed for construction purposes) are really one of the last things to be done. And roadwork certainly isn't going to get done until construction is all but done and the finishing trades are the only ones on-site.

 

Like I said I can be completely wrong but from a staging standpoint unless the scope of the work is different than what was originally discussed as "infrastructure" work the stadium construction need not be impacted by putting this work out to bid. And when, as I mentioned above, there are no responsive or qualified bidders, and the Marlins' guarantee goes away, the current choice is going to wind up with the project anyways.

 

I hope you are correct. If you are, and the stadium construction can be voted upon and begun before the infrastructure contract is finalized, then I agree with your optimistic point of view.

The question regarding infrastructure work is - with HOK managing the work the Marlins were willing to enter into an agreement that stipulated they would be responsible for cost overruns - now if the work is put out to bid and Manny's Electrical Contracting and Transmission Exchange (yes, I'm being silly) wins the bidding process (they wouldn't but just go with it) will the Marlins be willing to enter into the same deal? The answer almost guaranteed would be no.

 

Understand this is being brought up by people attempting to kill the whole deal or bring it to enough of a halt that 2012 is now in jeopardy. This is not being spoken about in the media, it is being reported as if the other side is raising legitimate questions, which in the context of what they are attempting, they are not.

 

It might be cheaper and more convenient to just take the City out of the infrastructure deal completely so they no longer have a justification for approving it and leave it to the county and the Marlins to hash things out. But that may be premature.

IT GETS MORE INTERESTING (also posted this as new topic)

 

In The Miami Herald today (Feb 21, 2009):

 

On page 5B, the announcement appears for the special City of Miami Commission meeting scheduled for March 4, stating that it's purpose is to "deliberate on the proposed Definitive Agreements ...related to the Proposed Baseball Stadium and to consider amending the Interlocal Agreement related to the amount of Convention Development Tax Funds (CDT) payable by the County to the City in connection with the development of Parking Facilities for the Stadium at the former Orange Bowl Site."

 

 

On page 16A there are two Miami Dade County announcements concerning the special County Commission meeting scheduled for March 9.

 

1) Announces that the purpose of the meeting is to "consider the conveyance of naming rights for the proposed Marlins Ballpark in considerations of other terms and conditions set forth in the Stadium Agreements.

 

2) Announces that the purpose of the meeting is to consider waving formal bid procedures for the infrastructure work. It goes on to mention the long list of items which composes the infrastructure work to be done. It states that the County manager will suggest the County to follow one of the two following solutions:

a) The waiver of the bid proceedings authorizing the infrastructure work to Hunt/Moss, subject to the successful negotiation of terms and conditions of the construction management contract. Hunt/Moss has been competitively selected by the Marlins to construct the ballpark.

b) The waiver of the bidding proceedings in order to authorize the County to contract with an appropriate contractor to construct the infrastructure work because the time it would take to competitively award the contract would increase the cost of the project.

------------------------------

My comments:

 

Does the City want more money from the County? Has there been more negotiations since Friday 13 that would make the City ask for more from the County?

 

There appears to have been some negotiations about the naming rights with the County. Are the Marlins now willing to give part of the naming rights money to the County? Is this the reason why the City wants more County money?

 

It is obvious that voting separately on the waver of the bidding process favors the approval of the stadium, since only the waver vote would be subject to the super majority requirement and the stadium agreements would only need a simple majority. This would allow County Commissioners Sorenson, Gimenez, Heyman, Souto and Martinez to all vote against the stadium as long as one of them (Martinez? Souto?) votes in favor of the waver of the bidding process. This would let the commissioner go on the record as opposing the stadium while not being blamed for the failure to build it.

 

At the city level, the waving of the bidding process for the infrastructure work is more of a problem because Commissioners Regalado and Sarnoff are against it. A supper majority would be required, meaning a vote of 4-1 would be needed for its approval. This will not be possible if neither of the mentioned commissioners change their minds. However, I have a feeling that if Regalado wants to have a chance at being the Mayor of Miami, he needs to find a way to look as if he is fighting for the "suffering taxpayers" while allowing the stadium to happen.

 

Like I said at the beginig, it is getting more interesting!