Bollettieri Tennis Center Hoax in Miami Beach

8/13/2019 Bollettieri Tennis Center Hoax in Miami Beach

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MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

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Message to Public from Green Square Bollettieri

Posted on Flamingo Tennis Center February 13, 2014

GREEN SQUARE TENNIS HOAX NOT A HOAX

The Fat Lady Was Just Rehearsing

UPDATE March 5, 2014

By David Arthur Walters

MIAMI MIRRROR

Miami BeachEveryone present thought Howie Orlins tennis management team had finally

trounced Jimmy Bollettieris team 5-1 at the City of Miami Beach Commission meeting held on

February 12.


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As opposing teams left the meeting to respectively guzzle champagne or gnash their teeth, it

seemed that the Bollettieri team, doing business as Green Square Inc, had by final resolution of

the commission lost its contract to manage the historic Flamingo Park Tennis Center and its

North Shore facility, after a dozen years of mismanagement and contractual breaches that had

been ignored by City of Miami Beach Officials.

However, on the very next day, Bollettieri fans at the Flamingo Park center were informing the

public that the ball was still in the air because the decision had been revoked. Tennis center

staff posted a notice on the entrance:

PROCEEDING

OF RD9

WAS REVOKED

AT END OF DAY.

NO WINNER

I received an image of the notice with someone giving the finger in front of it. I was incredulous

because Wednesday afternoons decision in favor of the Orlin team was supposedly final.

Finally, a motion to waive the bidding and award the contract to Orlin passed with the

necessary five votes, I had reported, much to the dismay of the Bollettieri fans, with only

Wolfson voting against it. From the city commissioners: You have to have five. We have five.

You have five? Good, then its over with, congratulations!The outcry was outrageous, with one

man yelling that he wanted his tennis membership dues back. Commissioners, adopting a

paternalistic tone, did their best to quiet the temper tantrum.

Surely the notice that the decision had been revoked was just another display of bad

sportsmanship by the Bollettieri fans who had booed every play the Orlin team made at the last

two commission meetings.

But my usual distrust of politicians, especially if they are lawyers, set in, especially when it was

rumored that professional politician and lawyer Jimmy Morales, currently city manager of our

strong, apolitical city manager, weak mayor system, had managed to undo what appeared to be

the final decision.

After all, Morales had stated at the meeting that he had collaborated with the Bollettieri team

on certain issues, and emphatically stated that, whatever happened, he would not recommend

a waiver of the bidding process, as is required by the city charter, which was precisely what the

commission proceeded to do with the necessary five votes, on their own motion to waive and

give the contract to the Orlin team.


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Commissioner Jonah Wolfson, an old guard turned reformist commissioner, the only

commissioner supporting the Bollettieri team at the hearing, was actually overheard

apologizing for supporting Bollettieri to reformist mayor Philip Levine, who is emulating a

strong mayor although his formal executive powers are minimal.

Previously, Wolfson had insisted that, The law is clear, the ordinance says the commission

needs written recommendation from manager to waive competitive bidding.

But Raul Aguila, the chief deputy city attorney, said, I don't agree with that. In order to waive

competitive bidding you have to have a recommendation from the city manager, but the

commission is not bound by that recommendation. The city manager doesn't necessarily have

to make a recommendation in the affirmative to waive competitive bidding.

Now the logical ramifications of the deputy city attorneys proposition are a little mind-

boggling. The record of the hearing indicates that an affirmative recommendation of a waiver of

bidding was expected from Morales but was not tendered when asked for. The applicable city

code seems to require the city manager to recommend a waiver in order for the commission to

vote upon it.

Sec. 2.367 (e) provides that, The city commission, upon written recommendation of the city

manager, may by resolution adopted by a five-sevenths vote of the city commission waive

competitive bidding when the city commission finds such waiver to be in the best interest of

the city. In the event of such a waiver the city commission may authorize the execution of a

negotiated contract.

The ordinance does not declare that, if the city manager is asked for a waiver and does not

provide one, then the commission can waive by a five-sevenths voteonly six commissioners

voted on the instant matter since Commissioner Deede Weithorn recused herself because the

general manager of the tennis center is her brother-in-law.

Aguila did not provide any authority for the doesnt necessarily of his opinion, but I shall buy

it nevertheless. After all, the city manager serves at the will of the political authority. That is,

the city commission is his boss. If he refuses to waive the bidding process, he can be fired and

another manager appointed to give one. At least that is my nave opinion as a layman with

scant knowledge of the law.

My further inquiry into the revocation notice affixed to the door at the tennis center led me to

think that it was poppycock plain and simple, that Bollettieris Green Square wastoast. What

was actually happening, I was told by persons who said they were in direct contact with the

commissioners, was that the commissions decision wouldbe placed on the consent agenda for


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the next meeting, to be held March 5, where it will be then be routinely rubber-stamped along

with other items. I was nonetheless somewhat suspicious, since my job is to be skeptical.

For one thing, I intuited that the public notice made by Green Square at the tennis center must

have some factual basis. As for consent agendas, I learned that items thereon can be and are

often challenged by commission members and members of the public, and voted down.

Despite the hoax at the tennis center that resulted in wildfire rumors, Jimmy Bollettieri was

alleged overheard admitting the contract has been lost, and stating that he would get the

contract back the next time around. However, when I called the tennis center to say that I had

guests coming into town who wanted me to ask if Bollettieris team would still be managing the

place in May, the answer was resoundingly affirmative from the mouth of Green Square

manager Victor Weithorn.

I should have taken Morales advice to listen to every single minute of the September 12. If I

had rented a computer to do so, I would have discovered that the commission took up the issue

again, at 4:00 pm, after their final decision had been made at around 2:30. Practically everyone

was gone by then. City Attorney Raul Aguila referred the commission back to the tennis item,

and advised that a step to be taken to prevent complaints about due process. He reiterated his

casuistic stretching of the charter language: the city manager does not have to positively

recommend a waiver of bidding for the commission to waive. His recommendation not to waive

would be sufficient but it must be in writing and not oral as then given.

He did not urge the city manager to jot down a negative recommendation in long hand for the

record. Instead, he suggested that the last final decision be amended in order to put theresolution on the agenda at the next meeting along with the necessary written

recommendation of the city manager and thus suit due process requirements. In fine, it was

finally moved, and unanimously passed, that the last final decision be amended to express the

non-binding sentiment of the commission that the bidding process be waived and the

contract finally awarded to Howie Orlin again at the next meeting.

That is not what happened on March 5. The conclusion, arrived at in a few minutes without

public discussion, was obviously forgone during maneuvering upon which the Sun did not shine

for everyone who thought the proverbial Fat Lady had already sung for them.

As for the waiver, Morales made his intentions quite clear: He would not recommend waiving

the bidding process. However, if the commission reverted to the old bidding process, which he

deemed fair and reasonable, he would reiterate his endorsement of Howie Orlins team,who

was the first bidder. No decision to award the contract had been made back then; Green

Square had remained in month-to-month possession of the tennis centers pending further


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action, and then Orlin was supposedly awarded the contract. Therefore it was moved and

unanimously passed to revert to and take up the old bids, consider public opinion again, and

award the contract to one of the bidders.

So the Green Square Hoax was not a hoax at all. Ultimately the decision in favor of Howie Orlin

was revoked. The judges behind the scenes have ordered a rematch. Absent a waiver, one less

vote will be necessary to give Green Square a win. The wishy-washy commission may very well

come down in its favor. If it had wanted to do the right thing, it would have stuck with its so-

called final decision to waive the bidding process and aware the contract to Orlin.

# #

Note: this is not a joke.

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Bollettieri Tennis Center Hoax in Miami Beach