FEC slip is now "off the table"

The slip will remain a slip.

According to NBC6, it looks like David Beckham and his flim-flam group will have to go elsewhere to find land for their proposed soccer stadium. Late this afternoon, Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado took the FEC slip off the table. The Beckham Group originally wanted to build the stadium at PortMiami, then when it was suggested that Museum Park could be expanded by adding acres of land by filling in a large boat slip, that was presumed to be the plan. Channel 6 got the story from blogger Al Crespo who broke the story at about 3:20 pm.

County Mayor Carlos Gimenez was the one who originally came up with the idea of filling in the huge slip (both the city and the county had part of the land that made up the whole parcel if the slip was filled in), but today Miami Mayor Reglado and the City Manager Daniel Alfonso decided against the plan. It was originally felt that filling in the slip would make a large park downtown, adding to the green space.  Although recent Miami Herald polls showed a 50-50 split by voters who were for or against the slip being filled in, most of those against it were older people who actually vote. Younger people were all for filling in the slip, but they don't vote. So the whole thing probably would not have happened anyway.

Guess the old Orange Bowl land in Little Havana is looking good about now. No waterfront views for Beckham. For once Miami and Miami-Dade County may have actually done the right thing, they didn't sell out the taxpayers on a whim.