Billionaire Trump gets millions worth of Miami land free of charge, but not free of controversy
News and views for Floridians and other discerning Americans
As expected, the Miami Dade College board of trustees has once again given away millions of dollars’ worth of downtown Miami real estate to the family and friends of President Donald Trump who are organizing his presidential library.
It was deja vu all over again as board members voted in lockstep with the wishes of Gov. Ron DeSantis to transfer the roughly three acres of land next to Freedom Tower to the state, which, in turn, will give it to Trump’s foundation.
You’ve heard of money laundering. This is real estate laundering.
This special board meeting only took place—again—because back in September, when they first voted to give away the property, they may have violated state law requiring proper meeting notice.
A lawsuit has been filed about this alleged violation of the state’s Government-in-the-Sunshine laws, which has held up the land transfer.
While that suit is still active, the board sought to sidestep it and simply meet again, this time with proper notice. The result was the same, of course, with the DeSantis-appointed board members bowing to his wishes.
But this time, people had at least a limited opportunity to speak up, and among the questions the board faced was a fairly straightforward and obvious one:
Why were they just giving away land worth, potentially, tens of millions of dollars, when they could sell it, instead, and use the money for the benefit of the school and its students?
As Politico reported:
“Think of all the good you could do for this college,” pleaded filmmaker Billy Corben. He then offered up a hypothetical: “I presume some of you own property in the county, residential, commercial. Why don’t you donate it for free to the president? Of course not. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous for me to even say it or suggest it. It was absurd when you heard it out loud. If you wouldn’t do it with your property, don’t do it with the college’s property.”
Well, you know the old saying: Do as I say, not as I do.
But, as I noted earlier, that first lawsuit is still on the docket, and there is the potential that it could still throw some sand in the gears of this transaction.
The suit was brought by Marvin Dunn, who Wikipedia describes as a Miami “historian, psychologist, professor emeritus, author and filmmaker.” And now, troublemaker. In the best possible way.
It is perfectly clear that the Miami Dade College board wanted to wrap up this giveaway with as little fanfare as possible. In fact, Miami’s mayor said he was sworn to secrecy about it.
The crux of Dunn’s lawsuit is that the board’s original meeting notice failed to provide the details any reasonable person would need to understand what the board planned to vote on.
The whole point of the Government-in-the-Sunshine statutes is to promote open meetings and open records in the interest of good government. Transparency and sunshine being corruption’s natural enemies.
Hide the details, you may as well not post a notice at all.
Miami Dade College attorneys, for their part, argue that they satisfied the minimal notice requirements.
The trial, currently scheduled for August next year, will test all that.
As Politico also reported:
… the attorneys arguing the case … said the legal fight is nowhere near over. Dunn himself told the trustees, “We’re just getting started.” And one of his attorneys, Richard Brodsky, warned them that despite the meeting, his team would still “conduct discovery, depositions, document requests and the like to get to the bottom of what happened here.”
“If you think you can make this lawsuit go away by holding this meeting and making a decision — which I predict will be to go ahead with the so-called library — you should have another thing coming,” he said.
Depositions. Documents. What will all that reveal about the behind the scenes manipulations that led up to this decision?
We shall see.
J.C. Bruce, journalist and author, is the founder of Tropic Press. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and his native Florida. His Strange Files series of mysteries has won numerous awards including his latest—Strange Timing—being named Book of the Year in the Royal Palm Literary Awards.
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The only thing the convicted criminal president does is make deals for himself, doesn’t handle any other business for people in our country.
Trumps Golf Course, which is in West Palm Beach and not Palm Beach, was given to him because he brought a suit against the county, because the air planes were flying over The Post estate. The airport and planes have been there longer than Trump. Now the part I enjoy has to do with the north part of the property is the Palm Beach County Jail. The jail is not across the street, it borders the Golf Club.