MIAMI JUNE 13, 2019, – While the law abolishing the MDX entity and creating the Greater Miami Expressway Agency remains on the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis, the rumors are in Tallahassee about some possible agreements made behind closed doors ahead of the vote to approve the law SB-898 in the Senate.
The legislators removed the authority of the Miami-Dade highway (MDX) as part of the legislation that works the Miami Dade County toll system, and replaced it with the Greater Miami Expressway Agency that will do the same job as MDX but with our dollars going to Tallahassee instead.
Apparently this legislation will not be easy, MDX officials are already challenging the States and filed a lawsuit in which they have deemed as “unconstitutional” the elimination of said agency, Miami-Dade County is also in line to file suit in case the Governor DeSantis signs the law.
The bill sponsored by Senator Manny Díaz (SB 898) and the House version (HB 385), by Representative Bryan Ávila, would freeze tolls until 2029, and also block the Board members who currently administer the MDX from serving in the new agency.
MDX was “sold” by the state of Florida to Miami Dade County in 1996, which paid about $ 91 million dollars for the administration of those roads. Governor DeSantis, in signing this law, will be confronting the current situation of the loans as they would be more expensive for the highway system, after Standard and Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of the agency one level, citing political interference in the MDX governance.
Wall Street lenders use credit ratings to determine how much interest a borrower charges on bond sales. Without being law, it is already hurting Miami-Dade.
RUMORS IN TALLAHASSEE
According to our sources in Tallahassee, there are rumors that the Cuban-American Senator Anitere Flores who was in favor of SB-385 and expected to change her vote, disapproving of the law, made a pact with a senator not very far from the senator Flores, Oscar Braynon, for him to vote against the law and her in favor, although she then backed down and voted against that law.
Speculation in the state capital indicates that either Senator Flores set a trap for Braynon to obtain the only Democratic vote in favor of the law and then she changed her vote, or did so to get along with her colleagues Ávila and Díaz , sponsors of the law.
Flores and Braynon, she Republican and the Democrat had an extra-marital relationship, after a website published photographic evidence confirming, Senators Oscar Braynon and Anitere Flores admitted having had a relationship of infidelity and said they sought forgiveness of their families in a joint statement: “We have sought forgiveness from our families and we also seek forgiveness from our constituents and from God,” the statement said. “We ask everyone else to respect our families and the privacy they deserve,” they added.
MDX AND MIAMI DADE BEFORE THE COURTS The reality is that the famous law should be vetoed, that would be best for Miami-Dade County where the governor has so many supporters. In addition, both MDX and Miami-Dade County are prepared – if necessary – to take the case to court.
The lawsuit of the county specifies that “the State of Florida granted more than 20 years ago to Miami-Dade expressways 836, 112, 874, 878 and the Gratigny, in the amount of $ 91 million dollars and specifies that the sale is for life “, Said an official who is well aware of the details of the lawsuit.
MDX advocates have warned that the meddling of Florida lawmakers and the financial burdens brought by the law threaten to condemn the Toll Agency’s $1 billion plan to extend the 836 approximately 13 miles into West Kendall.
For his part, the mayor of Miami-Dade, Carlos Giménez, MDX President-designate and the head of one of the five seats of the County Commission, wrote to Governor DeSantis on April 28, a letter citing “the costs for the higher interest rates, “due to credit reduction” because legislation would diminish our ability to help with infrastructure, it would be doubtful that the MDX work program and the Kendall Parkway can be completed in the coming years,” Giménez wrote in his letter to the governor.
DeSantis has not publicly endorsed the law, but his Lieutenant Governor has publicly praised it. Jeanette Nunez called the legislation of Diaz and Avila a “real reform”, something very far from the truth, since the losses that it would have would negatively impact Miami-Dade County.
However, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis still has time to do the right thing, VETO the law.
