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Ruiz (y Mas) vs Corben

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ItsMeD said:
People hate on Billy Corbem a lot. A lot of times, it's deserved. A lot of times, I think people just don't agree. He's spot on here. The Inter Miami stadium deal is a trash deal for the city/county. This is all about getting a massive real estate deal. They can build the stadium in the Overtown site Beckham owns and previously approved by MLS.

I obviously love what Ruiz is doing for the Canes, but what's he doing here? That's a stupid legal threat. I've never seem Billy say or so anything that is warrants a legal threat. Especially not here.
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I'd respectfully disagree. Corben only knows (or only chooses) one way to make his supposed cases and it almost exclusively involves public shtick about EVERYONE is a con man and a criminal that he opposes. That's convenient for his movies but if you pay attention to what he actually says on many fronts it's almost exclusively based in that shtick and not actual knowledge.

Take his characterizations of Ruiz alone and what he was spewing about the guy on a weekly basis on Lebatard's platform. None of it was based in actual info but was just him putting forth his idea of a stereotypical Miami hustler that is "fake" rich or temporarily rich due to dirty money. I'm not an attorney but it absolutely seemed to verge on slander and even defamation and I think this was evidenced by how uncomfortable Mike Ryan was seemingly made by it.

I'm not current on what he's obviously insinuating about Mas now but I'd assume it's along those same lines.

It's almost like he has an issue with successful Hispanics but I'd personally never actually say that because I don't peddle in self-promoting shtick.
 
For sports in our city, the best thing would be for Mas and Ruiz to build a state-of-the-art football/soccer stadium next to Marlins park. For their bottom lines and egos, individual mixed-use land deals like Melreese and Tropical Park make the most sense to them.

Billy isn't wrong about what he's calling shady politics and corrupt development deals for billionaire welfare-queens.
 
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ItsMeD said:
People hate on Billy Corbem a lot. A lot of times, it's deserved. A lot of times, I think people just don't agree. He's spot on here. The Inter Miami stadium deal is a trash deal for the city/county. This is all about getting a massive real estate deal. They can build the stadium in the Overtown site Beckham owns and previously approved by MLS.

I obviously love what Ruiz is doing for the Canes, but what's he doing here? That's a stupid legal threat. I've never seem Billy say or so anything that is warrants a legal threat. Especially not here.
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www.theguardian.com

The Beckham Boondoggle? The fight against Inter Miami’s stadium ‘landgrab’

Soccer paradise? Or another great stadium heist? Inter Miami’s Freedom Park deal has come under scrutiny ahead of a key vote next week
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com


 
Empirical Cane said:
www.theguardian.com

The Beckham Boondoggle? The fight against Inter Miami’s stadium ‘landgrab’

Soccer paradise? Or another great stadium heist? Inter Miami’s Freedom Park deal has come under scrutiny ahead of a key vote next week
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com


Click to expand...

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I’ve noticed some things in my life. Deals like this rarely pay the community nearly as well as they claim, and they almost always take more than they say. I’d bet those tax numbers don’t turn out to be anywhere close to accurate. In the end, people don’t build things like this without a plan to maximize profit, and that usually involves getting the public to foot as much of the bill as possible. Just my two cents.
 
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Tad Footeball said:
Except the part where he just conveniently poo-poos the fact that the public actually DID vote on it. Not to mention that he seemingly doesn't care that IF his efforts are even successful to save a crappy golf course of all things (and one that LOSES money) that it'll just equal gentrification in Overtown as the team already owns a parcel of land there.

And I say this as someone that obviously isn't a fan of Corben but also has almost zero interest in soccer too and thinks Mayor Suarez is a legit moron.
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Nailed it
 
Tad Footeball said:
Yeah, it's a garbage course next to an airport. First Tee can and should exist somewhere better. And there should be ironclad guarantees about that if this deal goes through.
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Lol tee sheet is full all week long and hosts Monday qualifiers for pga events. Not garbage but okay.
 
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supersaiyanshel said:
May not be popular, but everything Corben has been saying about Mas and the stadium recently has been spot on.
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Agree, and people like Mr. Ruiz just supporting his buddies yet allowing all of south FL to get ****ed again only limits his validity in the local climate. No matter how many NIL deals you sign you still look like a tone deaf idiot. This it’s why it’s hard to support this guy. Everyone forgot when he was gonna build a stadium on top of CGHS already?
 
Tad Footeball said:
I'd respectfully disagree. Corben only knows (or only chooses) one way to make his supposed cases and it almost exclusively involves public shtick about EVERYONE is a con man and a criminal that he opposes. That's convenient for his movies but if you pay attention to what he actually says on many fronts it's almost exclusively based in that shtick and not actual knowledge.

Take his characterizations of Ruiz alone and what he was spewing about the guy on a weekly basis on Lebatard's platform. None of it was based in actual info but was just him putting forth his idea of a stereotypical Miami hustler that is "fake" rich or temporarily rich due to dirty money. I'm not an attorney but it absolutely seemed to verge on slander and even defamation and I think this was evidenced by how uncomfortable Mike Ryan was seemingly made by it.

I'm not current on what he's obviously insinuating about Mas now but I'd assume it's along those same lines.

It's almost like he has an issue with successful Hispanics but I'd personally never actually say that because I don't peddle in self-promoting shtick.
Click to expand...
Look I think Corbin has a ton of bad takes, (like him bashing the airport ped bridge for leaking and creating a parallel to the GC that did the FIU bridge) however, his take on Melrese is correct, and generally his historical accounts of many major players in south Florida history are necessary for preserving our shady-*** way of life. I don’t think it’s a race or creed thing, just happens to be that the big criminals profiled from down here tend to be Hispanic. There was plenty of white protagonists in cocaine cowboys…
 
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Some simple realities.

Billy is not wrong about Crazy Joe Carollo and the Diaz de la Portilla family and the impact that the Hardman family has had. But let's be honest. Crazy Joe Carollo has been elected and re-elected by Miami and/or Dade County residents SINCE THE 1980s. At some point he needs to acknowledge that nothing he says is revelatory, nothing he says is shocking. If Miami voters want to keep voting for the same batch of corrupt politicians, then nothing that Billy Corben does will change their minds.

The same is true of the no-bid land lease, no matter how some posters try to convince you that this is some sort of "shady" deal done in secret. It was put on a referendum. The voters approved it. And the words "no bid" were included in the literal text of the referendum. It wasn't one of those underhanded "triple negative" Constitutional amendments that we routinely vote on in statewide elections, some of which are (justifiably) struck down by the Supreme Court for being intentionally misleading.

Let's be honest. Let's keep it real. For DECADES, we have watched "stadium-only" deals fail because of the fact that non-baseball facilities are only used a few days per year (unless a facility is also a concert venue). When a stadium is stand-alone, there is not enough of a concentration of economic activity to bring permanent jobs and business to the area. And in more recent decades, we have seen the MOST SUCCESSFUL stadium/arena deals are the ones that create other forms of economic activity. None of this is complicated or secret.

What Billy is doing is disingenuous. He would have you believe that the "best" way to redevelop a large parcel THAT NOBODY HAS WANTED TO TOUCH FOR DECADES is to let a wealthy person take the largest parcel, the one with the lowest rate of return (a stadium that will host 17 home games in a 34 game MLS season), and then let every other land developer in the county bid separately on the little slices of commercial land that want, thereby preventing the developer of the stadium from being able to use the profits from the economic development to subsidize the "less profitable" stadium component.

---Billy whines about Jorge Mas "paving over" Melreese. Yet his plan to let other developers "competitively bid" on developing Melreese WOULD HAVE AN IDENTICAL IMPACT. So Billy is saying it's OK to pave over Melreese, as long as Miami gets paid more for the privilege. Billy Corben can say that Jorge Mas "doesn't care about soccer" and that this "isn't about soccer", but it also quite clearly is not about Billy Corben's desire not to see Melreese "paved over", since he's OK with it if developers PAY MORE to do so.

---Billy whines about Jorge Mas "profiting" from the development of Melreese. He goes on and on about the 100 year history of Dade County and "Ponzi schemes" and bad infrastructure. Yet the core of his argument is that developers are "lined up" to proffer money for Melreese. So this really isn't about Billy Corben "fighting the good fight" against all the corrupt developers in Dade (and we all know that most real estate developers in Dade are corrupt and shady), this is about Billy being mad at JORGE MAS for doing what Billy apparently is OK with OTHER Dade developers for doing.

---Billy whines about Dade County politics, drawing massive conclusions about the eventual political success (or failure) of politicians who either supported or opposed the Marlins Stadium, as if this simultaneously proves and justifies all of his ranting, while he indirectly threatens the "swing vote" commissioner by including ONLY his phone number in his hillllarious video. But, again, the reality is that the Carollos and Diaz de la Portillas and Hardman-adjacents have been elected and re-elected for decades. Crazy Joe Carollo double-crossed Maurice Ferre IN THE 1980s. But somehow Billy can't seem to analyze these things properly. The Marlins deal WAS AN ESPECIALLY DISHONEST BOONDOGGLE for the simple reason that the Dade County voters HAD ALREADY VOTED TO USE FUNDS TO RENOVATE THE ORANGE BOWL FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI AND OTHER EVENTS. So what David Samson did was particularly vile and offensive BECAUSE there was already an approved use for the Orange Bowl property. Thus, David Samson STOLE the property from UM and the community, which is why some voters punished the politicians involved. There is no comparison for Melreese, however. Melreese has not been promised, say, to the Panthers for them to relocate to Miami. And the weak "but there's golfers who use the golf course" flies in the face of EVERY OTHER GOLF COURSE in South Florida.

---Speaking of David Samson, Billy is soooo disingenuous. I could even tolerate Billy getting into bed with David Samson if Samson exhibited even a shred of remorse and self-awareness for what he did and the impact that it had. Instead, he gets on these TV and radio shows and continues to gloat for the way that he used and abused the SoFla community and the politicians whom he corrupted. Good lord, Hendry Hill showed more remorse for his life of organized crime than David Samson expresses for his time destroying the Montreal Expos, the University of Miami football stadium, and the South Florida taxpayers. This is a particularly egregious mistake for Billy to make. He will bring up every bad thing that a POLITICIAN does ("hey, remember that time that Crazy Joe Carollo hit his wife with a terra cotta vase?"), he will bring up every bad thing about Jorge Mas and David Beckham ("hey, let me tell you about the complex and lengthy process by which Beckham got his MLS franchise"), but at the end of the day, HE IS USING AN UNREPENTANT SCUMBAG TO MAKE HIS CASE.

---At the end of this all, Billy is not even arguing that Miami taxpayers will have to EXPEND money on this project (and that, of course, assumes that all cost-overruns will be borne by Inter Miami, and not the taxpayers). Sure, maybe roads will be widened at taxpayer expense, but if anyone on the planet thinks the roads around the airport are perfect as is, and ONLY need to be widened for a 17-game soccer schedule, that person needs his/her head examined. Really, what Billy is arguing is that he wants Miami (and "Miami taxpayers") to make a huge profit on land that Miami has owned for over 100 years, and has never properly maintained. Furthermore, nobody else WANTED that land for over 100 years, and not a single developer has lined up to "develop" Melreese for over 100 years. And, sure, while I can acknowledge the mathematical point at which Miami land becomes SOOOOO expensive...AND scarce...that Melreese FINALLY becomes desirable, I am also not so deranged to make the false claim that Miami taxpayers will be "ripped off" because they finally off-loaded a white elephant park JUST AT THE MOMENT that every corrupt real estate developer in South Florida finally wanted to pay to pave over Melreese.

Billy is right about certain factual matters, and wrong about others. But the two things that undermine Billy's entire argument are (a) acting as if "Jorge Mas as a real estate developer" is BAD, while accepting that the alternative is to allow every other "highest-bidder" corrupt real estate developer in Miami to pave over Melreese, and (b) getting into bed with an unrepentant scumbage con man who stole the Orange Bowl from Miami and the University of Miami while he makes jokes about all of the Miami politicians that he corrupted to approve Marlins Stadium.

I have liked and respected Billy in the past, but those two miscalculations are pretty much unforgivable in this argument. Much though I might possibly be convinced by the "park land belongs to the people and should remain park land" crowd, Billy's dishonesty and hypocrisy in this matter is just too much.

The Miami City Commission should do what the voters have ALREADY approved (99-year land lease) and then negotiate for the best possible deal on all of the rent and construction clauses (WITH JORGE MAS).

Fvck Billy Corben.

But more than anything in life...FVCK DAVID SAMSON. That guy regrets NOTHING. And he'll go on TV and radio to brag about it and will continue to act as if he is just sooooo mucy smarter than the rest of us. He will luxuriate in his old stories about how he corrupted every politician in Miami. He will laugh his self-satisfied laugh that came at our expense. FVCK DAVID SAMSON.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
Some simple realities.

Billy is not wrong about Crazy Joe Carollo and the Diaz de la Portilla family and the impact that the Hardman family has had. But let's be honest. Crazy Joe Carollo has been elected and re-elected by Miami and/or Dade County residents SINCE THE 1980s. At some point he needs to acknowledge that nothing he says is revelatory, nothing he says is shocking. If Miami voters want to keep voting for the same batch of corrupt politicians, then nothing that Billy Corben does will change their minds.

The same is true of the no-bid land lease, no matter how some posters try to convince you that this is some sort of "shady" deal done in secret. It was put on a referendum. The voters approved it. And the words "no bid" were included in the literal text of the referendum. It wasn't one of those underhanded "triple negative" Constitutional amendments that we routinely vote on in statewide elections, some of which are (justifiably) struck down by the Supreme Court for being intentionally misleading.

Let's be honest. Let's keep it real. For DECADES, we have watched "stadium-only" deals fail because of the fact that non-baseball facilities are only used a few days per year (unless a facility is also a concert venue). When a stadium is stand-alone, there is not enough of a concentration of economic activity to bring permanent jobs and business to the area. And in more recent decades, we have seen the MOST SUCCESSFUL stadium/arena deals are the ones that create other forms of economic activity. None of this is complicated or secret.

What Billy is doing is disingenuous. He would have you believe that the "best" way to redevelop a large parcel THAT NOBODY HAS WANTED TO TOUCH FOR DECADES is to let a wealthy person take the largest parcel, the one with the lowest rate of return (a stadium that will host 17 home games in a 34 game MLS season), and then let every other land developer in the county bid separately on the little slices of commercial land that want, thereby preventing the developer of the stadium from being able to use the profits from the economic development to subsidize the "less profitable" stadium component.

---Billy whines about Jorge Mas "paving over" Melreese. Yet his plan to let other developers "competitively bid" on developing Melreese WOULD HAVE AN IDENTICAL IMPACT. So Billy is saying it's OK to pave over Melreese, as long as Miami gets paid more for the privilege. Billy Corben can say that Jorge Mas "doesn't care about soccer" and that this "isn't about soccer", but it also quite clearly is not about Billy Corben's desire not to see Melreese "paved over", since he's OK with it if developers PAY MORE to do so.

---Billy whines about Jorge Mas "profiting" from the development of Melreese. He goes on and on about the 100 year history of Dade County and "Ponzi schemes" and bad infrastructure. Yet the core of his argument is that developers are "lined up" to proffer money for Melreese. So this really isn't about Billy Corben "fighting the good fight" against all the corrupt developers in Dade (and we all know that most real estate developers in Dade are corrupt and shady), this is about Billy being mad at JORGE MAS for doing what Billy apparently is OK with OTHER Dade developers for doing.

---Billy whines about Dade County politics, drawing massive conclusions about the eventual political success (or failure) of politicians who either supported or opposed the Marlins Stadium, as if this simultaneously proves and justifies all of his ranting, while he indirectly threatens the "swing vote" commissioner by including ONLY his phone number in his hillllarious video. But, again, the reality is that the Carollos and Diaz de la Portillas and Hardman-adjacents have been elected and re-elected for decades. Crazy Joe Carollo double-crossed Maurice Ferre IN THE 1980s. But somehow Billy can't seem to analyze these things properly. The Marlins deal WAS AN ESPECIALLY DISHONEST BOONDOGGLE for the simple reason that the Dade County voters HAD ALREADY VOTED TO USE FUNDS TO RENOVATE THE ORANGE BOWL FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI AND OTHER EVENTS. So what David Samson did was particularly vile and offensive BECAUSE there was already an approved use for the Orange Bowl property. Thus, David Samson STOLE the property from UM and the community, which is why some voters punished the politicians involved. There is no comparison for Melreese, however. Melreese has not been promised, say, to the Panthers for them to relocate to Miami. And the weak "but there's golfers who use the golf course" flies in the face of EVERY OTHER GOLF COURSE in South Florida.

---Speaking of David Samson, Billy is soooo disingenuous. I could even tolerate Billy getting into bed with David Samson if Samson exhibited even a shred of remorse and self-awareness for what he did and the impact that it had. Instead, he gets on these TV and radio shows and continues to gloat for the way that he used and abused the SoFla community and the politicians whom he corrupted. Good lord, Hendry Hill showed more remorse for his life of organized crime than David Samson expresses for his time destroying the Montreal Expos, the University of Miami football stadium, and the South Florida taxpayers. This is a particularly egregious mistake for Billy to make. He will bring up every bad thing that a POLITICIAN does ("hey, remember that time that Crazy Joe Carollo hit his wife with a terra cotta vase?"), he will bring up every bad thing about Jorge Mas and David Beckham ("hey, let me tell you about the complex and lengthy process by which Beckham got his MLS franchise"), but at the end of the day, HE IS USING AN UNREPENTANT SCUMBAG TO MAKE HIS CASE.

---At the end of this all, Billy is not even arguing that Miami taxpayers will have to EXPEND money on this project (and that, of course, assumes that all cost-overruns will be borne by Inter Miami, and not the taxpayers). Sure, maybe roads will be widened at taxpayer expense, but if anyone on the planet thinks the roads around the airport are perfect as is, and ONLY need to be widened for a 17-game soccer schedule, that person needs his/her head examined. Really, what Billy is arguing is that he wants Miami (and "Miami taxpayers") to make a huge profit on land that Miami has owned for over 100 years, and has never properly maintained. Furthermore, nobody else WANTED that land for over 100 years, and not a single developer has lined up to "develop" Melreese for over 100 years. And, sure, while I can acknowledge the mathematical point at which Miami land becomes SOOOOO expensive...AND scarce...that Melreese FINALLY becomes desirable, I am also not so deranged to make the false claim that Miami taxpayers will be "ripped off" because they finally off-loaded a white elephant park JUST AT THE MOMENT that every corrupt real estate developer in South Florida finally wanted to pay to pave over Melreese.

Billy is right about certain factual matters, and wrong about others. But the two things that undermine Billy's entire argument are (a) acting as if "Jorge Mas as a real estate developer" is BAD, while accepting that the alternative is to allow every other "highest-bidder" corrupt real estate developer in Miami to pave over Melreese, and (b) getting into bed with an unrepentant scumbage con man who stole the Orange Bowl from Miami and the University of Miami while he makes jokes about all of the Miami politicians that he corrupted to approve Marlins Stadium.

I have liked and respected Billy in the past, but those two miscalculations are pretty much unforgivable in this argument. Much though I might possibly be convinced by the "park land belongs to the people and should remain park land" crowd, Billy's dishonesty and hypocrisy in this matter is just too much.

The Miami City Commission should do what the voters have ALREADY approved (99-year land lease) and then negotiate for the best possible deal on all of the rent and construction clauses (WITH JORGE MAS).

Fvck Billy Corben.

But more than anything in life...FVCK DAVID SAMSON. That guy regrets NOTHING. And he'll go on TV and radio to brag about it and will continue to act as if he is just sooooo mucy smarter than the rest of us. He will luxuriate in his old stories about how he corrupted every politician in Miami. He will laugh his self-satisfied laugh that came at our expense. FVCK DAVID SAMSON.
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I love every single bit of this comment. As always.
 
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