When Pinocchio said something that wasn’t true his nose grew. For Mayor Bain to say, or even suggest, or imply, that ALL of the gymnasium alternatives have been explored is simply NOT TRUE. I believe the Mayor is being somewhat disingenuous and that he is making a misleading statement with NO basis in fact. Call it what it is.

I am aware that, of the four times Pistorino has been mentioned by the Council, at the Council session August 13, 2007 Mayor Bain agreed with the Council that the gymnasium CAN be refurbished and IS a viable option. If they had reservations at that time it would have brought up, but it wasn’t. Mr. Borgmann stated at that time that Mr. Pistorino had provided the City with “ good starting point because it identifies certain areas of need and provides cost estimates”. That meeting concluded with The Council directing the City Manager to obtain a cost estimate for refurbishing the existing gym.

Instead, the City Manager came back two weeks later with two absurdly low bids for a new structure. The Pistorino report has not been heard of since then. Why not?
If what Mayor Bain wants for the City is ‘something special” and means a totally unnecessary waste of MILLIONS of our tax dollars and possible bankruptcy, this is a sure path to it. Is the Mayor’s ego so large that he would force a new gym upon the residents that we don’t need and can’t afford? Is his need for a “legacy” project overriding what’s left of his common sense? Does he really want the Bain legacy to be one that will be known for a generations to come as the one that mortgaged their future and sold them out? Is it possible he thinks we DON’T KNOW that neither he nor the Council has looked seriously into the merits of the refurbishing alternative at all, and apparently has no intentions of doing so. What is he afraid of?

Due diligence is a detailed and thorough process where ALL the options are carefully scrutinized and examined item by item, weighing the pros and cons, like they did with the Recreation survey, among others. How can they come to a rational and responsible decision without doing that? The Council, led by Mayor Bain, is not even bothering to make an APPEARANCE that they have examined ALL the options!!! What arrogance! He just ignores the Pistorino report like it didn’t exist. He asked for it and then buried it when it didn’t fit his preconceived notions, agenda, and legacy.

Why Mayor Bain? Does he think that can simply make a mental Mayoral proclamation that the Pistorino alternative doesn’t exist as a viable option, without SOME explanation? That would be a distortion of reality, or perhaps a delusion of grandeur. If a report falls on the Mayor's desk and the Mayor ignores it, is it still a report?

If he thinks its not a viable option he should go on record in a workshop as to his objections. The workshop should explore ALL the pros and cons of, at least, this report, in detail. Afterward, a comparison could be made with the other, much more costly, proposals and hopefully, a rational and reasonable decision made. There IS no local groundswell for this new gym project, except the vendors and contractors who will make BIG bucks.

The Mayor claims he always does what is in the best interest of the residents. I respectfully disagree. A new gym is NOT in our best interests. A completely refurbished gym in like-new condition THAT WE CAN AFFORD is in our best interests. We are in a time of diminished tax revenues, daily dropping property values, large job layoffs, cutbacks on services, and overall ever-deepening economic recession. NONE of that suggests that we should take on a significantly larger debt load because we won’t be able to pay it back, unless they raise our taxes considerably. WE will be paying for THEIR mistakes, AGAIN. WHAT are they thinking?

If you believe the city’s laughable lowball bids of around six million will be anywhere near the final cost just look at their recent construction history. The Country Club project started at $150,000 and ended up very close to triple that figure. The current bathroom project currently is also triple the usual and customary construction costs and they aren’t even finished yet. The flood plain elevation could be done in one day for less than $5,000; instead we paid $38,500, which is SEVEN TIMES what it should have cost. When you add in the $33,000 we paid to hook up the sewers, a $5000 job (at 8 dollars a linear foot and SIX TIMES THE COST), its just one financial Black Hole after another. Two bathrooms cost over 414k.

This Council, Mayor, and City Manager can’t build a BATHROOM for less than TRIPLE the normal costs, why would we think that they could build a 35,000 foot gymnasium and attached structures for anything less? Millions of our hard-earned tax dollars will disappear this time, as opposed to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS before.

To allow this travesty would be an act of Mayoral, Council, and community insanity.
For Mayor Bain to state, or even suggest or imply, that ALL the options have been explored, in open Council session, is so patently false, fictitious, absurd, and so lacking in credibility that it makes me wonder WHAT he was thinking at the time, if anything.

Earth to Mayor: The Pistorino alternative has NEVER, EVER been examined at any time in any detail. Willfully denying its existence by ignoring it will not make it go away or disappear. The people have a right to know where their taxes are going, and why.

If you are thinking the Mayor’s steadfast refusal sounds incredibly hard, if not impossible, to believe, you are right. How can we trust them? Has he somehow wished the report into nonexistence by ignoring it? Has he magically made it disappear? If the Mayor (King?) decrees Pistorino is not an alternative it is so (?), and he somehow doesn’t have to explain to anybody how or why he came to that decision. This is democracy in action???? How so? Debate and discussion are the foundations of our democracy and THE AMERICAN WAY!!

The Mayor has leaned heavily in the past on his political slogan, “I will listen”, but has obviously stopped listening to the people, his own consultants, and the financial realities of life in a deepening recession in Miami Springs, the state, and the US of A. The nose knows, and this idea stinks.

When Pinocchio started telling the truth again his nose stopped growing.