MIAMI October 19, 2015, nhr.com- The veto of Mayor Carlos Giménez to the resolution overwhelmingly supported 10-2 by his colleagues, the County Commissioners, is being compared to the old story of the rich kid from the neighborhood who brought the ball, the bat and the gloves, but decided to end the game because it wasn’t going his way.
Mayor retaliation against the commissioners is being viewed by some of the commissioners as a lack of respect, as he drags them into the violation of a contract which he wrote.
The weekend I was walking and talking with skycaps and employees of SafeWrap at the airport, and we were told that they were ready to start a marketing plan to educate those passengers who come with bags wrapped in unapproved plastic.
Both the skycaps and employees of Safe Wrap, complained that some radio stations have misrepresented the facts and are not thinking about them, the more than 200 employees working for SafeWrap, “we are voters too, we have families and friends totaling thousands of votes, those votes go against Giménez in the next elections” they said, annoyed by the mayor’s veto.
The current vendor, SafeWrap employs more than 200 people at the airport and fully complies with their contractual commitment paying the Airport a huge sum of $9.6 million annually, which is just over $800,000 US dollars monthly, approximately $ 27,000 daily, then factor in the cost of the operational infrastructure.
Reading the mayor’s veto it contains 34 pages, many of which are letters allegedly sent “voluntarily” by managers of airlines conveniently expressing exactly what the administration wants to demonstrate to commissioners.
Our sources within the Aviation Department told us on Wednesday, October 7 that the Airport Director Emilio Gonzalez, and Asst. Director Ken Pyatt were busy soliciting letters from the airlines, “in some cases they had to press, giving them ‘bullet points’ to draw up the letters and some airlines refused,” the sources said, adding, “Notice that all the letters are dated October 8th and 9th”
However the resolution sponsored by Commissioner Juan Carlos Zapata and seconded by Commissioner Audrey Edmonson, has nothing to do with the airlines, but with a contract signed between Miami-Dade Aviation and SafeWrap. So we ask, what is a contract??
ACCORDING TO THE DICTIONARY: A contract is a voluntary agreement that creates or conveys rights and obligations on the parties that sign. The contract is a type of legal act that involves two or more people and is intended to create rights and obligations.
This contract was approved by a majority of the commissioners, vetoed by Mayor Giménez and the veto then overridden by almost all commissioners.
ACCORDING TO THE DICTIONARY: ‘Approved’ means to consent or agree to.
Both sides agreed that the vendor shall pay $ 9.6 million to the airport, this year the payment went up to $9.8 and every year the MAG goes up, at the end of the last year of the contract SafeWrap will be paying more than $11 million.
ACCORDING TO THE DICTIONARY: ‘Payment’ is the fulfillment of an obligation, satisfying the interests of the creditor and releasing the debtor. The payment of the debt must be in full (partial payment does not apply).
“It seems to me that some radio announcers are being manipulated by the agencies that send packages to Cuba using “mules”. Right here on 58th Avenue and 8th Street there is an agency where two or three times a week a white van comes and loads bags wrapped in their own plastic and take them to the airport to give to the mules,” says Raul Hernandez, a regular customer of a small Cuban restaurant that is next to this agency.
“Other agencies that sell tickets for travel to Cuba have phone banks to call the radio and speak out against the plastic, to manipulate the speakers,” Hernandez said.
SafeWrap has said that if Giménez veto is not overturned, they would go to court exactly what Commissioner Rebeca Sosa warned her colleagues and the administration of on October 6. Saying it would be an unnecessary battle: “This company has said it simply would go to court, they will enforce this contract they have with us, and this contract says the TSA must approve all plastic and apparently that was done, and if we review the contract there are many other things that would lead to a legal battle that is unnecessary” Sosa said.
Miami-Dade Aviation and County Administration are violating the contract, commissioners should not be accomplices to this violation. Overriding the veto sends a message to the Mayor Carlos Giménez that he should respect the decision of the Commissioners and a message to the other partners of Miami-Dade County, that this is not a Banana Republic.
