FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

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Sunday, February 28, 2016

Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!
















Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!; A reminder of what has come before...

Miami Today News
Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority losing power
Written by John Charles Robbins on February 16, 2016
Miami city commissioners have begun altering the powers of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority, building in more oversight.
What some see as a shakeup of the 11-member authority comes on the heels of a delayed and prolonged review of a lease of prime city-owned waterfront property to a private company.
The authority leased property on the southwest corner of Watson Island as part of a plan to revive a seaplane base and heliport.

 Read the rest of the article at;
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2016/02/16/miami-sports-exhibition-authority-losing-power/

 Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority
http://egov.ci.miami.fl.us/Legistarweb/Attachments/64346.pdf

After years of my writing/blogging/tweeting countless fact-filled emails/blog posts/tweets and attending innumerable public meetings throughout South Florida about the latest efforts by the owners and lobbyists of the Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers and Florida/Miami Marlins to improve THEIR bottom line directly via taxpayer funds or hotel tax revenue, it's great to see someone like new City of Miami District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell pushing back against the entrenched and well-heeled sports establishment that for DECADES has seen South Florida taxpayers as an obstacle to be manipulated and overcome, not a legitimate stakeholder whose interests demand respect -and first priority.





















My first Dolphin game at the Orange Bowl came in Dec. 1970, aged 9, a 45-3 win over Buffalo that propelled them into their first ever playoff appearance.
I attended 99% of every home game -preseason, regular season and playoff after that until leaving for Indiana University in August of 1979.
My first season as a Dolphins season ticket holder, at the Orange Bowl, was... the Perfect Season of 1972.





Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.) 

 My first U-M football game at the Orange Bowl was in 1972, age 11, against Tulane in the infamous "Fifth Down" game. In order to drum up support and attendance for the U-M at the Orange Bowl, that game had a promotion whereby South Florida kids who were school safety patrols could get in for free IF they wore their sash. 
I did, driven to the game by a U-M alum who happened to be the librarian where I then went to school, Fulford Elementary, in North Miami Beach. 
Clearly they knew that it was better to let kids in for free, knowing their parents would give them money to buy food and souvenirs, perhaps even become a fan and want to return for future games. 

 The ballgame made an interesting impression on the New York Times, resulting in this gem from the "View of Sport" column of Oct, 14, 1990, labeled 'Fifth Down or Not, It's Over When It's Over.' -"
In 1972, aided by a fifth-down officiating gift in the last moments of the game, Miami of Florida defeated Tulane, 24-21. The country and the world was a much different place that fall because The New York Times took time and space to editorialize on the subject. ''Is it right for sportsmen, particularly young athletes, to be penalized or deprived of the goals for which they earnestly competed because responsible officials make mistakes? The ideal of true sportsmanship would be better served if Miami forfeited last week's game.' 

 I hardly needs to tell you that this was YET another New York Times editoral that was completely ignored!

 After that first ballgame against Tulane, as l often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl. Onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio. 
A few times, I was just about the only person onboard besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. 

 Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside. I probaly had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on everyone's list of things to do. Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!) 

 For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?) 

 I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual-national champion Notre Dame (under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0. Their rationale? 
To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0. 
Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl. 

 A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Alabama and Bear Bryant, a rematch of the '73 national title game. 

 I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out -september 10, 1973- with Texas on the cover.
I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.

 Any reader who is new to my blog and wants to see of what I speak the past nine years here, simply do a search in the search box of this blog in the upper left corner for past posts about the ham-handed and duplicitous efforts of the Dolphins, Heat, Marlins and Panthers, esp. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross.
 
And you can also check https://twitter.com/search?q=%40hbbtruth%2C%20marlins&src=typd

Dave 

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