The very dangerous precedent for the future that the Hollywood and Miami Beach City Commissions are making by showing thru both word and deed, that their own land use ordinances mean nothing when The Related Group comes calling

Residents and stakeholders of #HollywoodFL and #MiamiBeach are quite rightfully fearful of the very dangerous precedents their two respective City Commissions are clearly making by showing thru both words and deeds, that their own land use ordinances mean nothing when The Related Group comes calling. 

Mean nothing, that is, IF there are deep-pocketed real estate developers interested in doing something the clear majority of the community is opposed to, but the firm is willing to ignore existing public sentiment against it because they have the resources not to care about the optics to others of ignoring the community's desires.

I've been meaning for the last few months to share my thoughts regarding this New York Times story by former Miami Herald reporter Patricia Mazzei, at bottom, involving The Deauville Hotel, 

The Deauville is a historic Miami Beach property and also is one that I had occasion to go to several times over the years while growing-up in South Florida from 1968-1979, before I left for college and the cream and crimson of Indiana University, Bloomington.

I hasten to add, in my case, I was always going to The Deauville to see people visiting from out-of-town, NOT to stay overnight and make myself known to room service. 

For me at least, the story on The Deauville, below, serves as a timely reminder that the worst thing about The Related Group's incompatible plan for 1301 S. Ocean Drive on Hollywood Beach isn't merely that Mayor Josh Levy's snarky, passive-aggressive, and decidedly anti-transparent approach led to approximately ZERO of the REQUIRED public in-person COMMUNITY meetings taking place. either before (or since) the first public Hollywood City Commission meeting, when the Hollywood public was NOT even allowed inside Hollywood City Hall to directly confront the very people trying to change the charm and ambiance of that part of Hollywood Beach. The most natural part of Hollywood Beach that remains..

Nor was it even the City's thin-skinned Communications Dept. peevishly and repeatedly attacking and demeaning people like my friend, Cat Uden and I online in our individual efforts to let the larger Hollywood and South Florida community know via the South Florida news media what was REALLY taking place. 

That includes the continuing lack of good faith the City's elected officials had shown Hollywood's citizens and stakeholders, whom THEY work for.

As it happens, Cat and I both have strong backbones and thick skins, plus, we have the advantage of having the facts on our side, and if you didn't already know it, the City's elected officials and Communications Dept. really, really hate... facts.

So this discrepancy, this ability to use their own information against them, really burns them, as does our success in getting the facts out to the larger public and the local, state and national news media.

Especially self-evident facts that can be wholly substantiated by both contemporaneous photographs and video.

No, it's not even the fact that supposed nature-lover, water sports-loving Josh Levy would, if successful, destroy, FOREVER, for nothing more than money, a place with a certain and unique ambiance that the community places a very high value on maintaining for future generations - THE most natural part of Hollywood Beach.

 

vs.

 

It isn't even that both proposed projects are -coincidentally- the handiwork of The Related Group. That almost was predictable, given the landscape of real estate development in Florida in 2022.

No, what's the worst thing of all in the case of the Hollywood Beach project is the terrible precedent it sets for the future, since it would likely set in motion a constant game of musical chairs on the beach, as local Mom and Pop hospitality businesses owning smaller properties decide that if the city's elected officials are publicly declaring by both their words and their deeds that the city's own rules and ordinances don't mean anything -since Related wants to build a luxury condo tower there for multi-millionaires that's 5-7x's larger than what's currently allowed on that part of the beach- why should they stay on the sidelines and be played for suckers?

If you understand anything at all about human behavior and how things have traditionally operated in South Florida when it comes to real estate, then you know that I'm right.

The reason is simple.

Because, suddenly, as a result of what Hollywood City Hall will have done, there will be no incentive at all for the smaller and successful property owners to invest more of their money and time to improve their current low-scale site.

They'll simply wait the neighborhood out until someone comes in with such a huge offer for their property that they decide to seell.

When that happens, goodbye Hollywood Beach ambiance and charm.

Forever.

If you didn't know it or may've forgotten it, The Deauville is where The Beatles, famously,  stayed and performed in February of 1964 on CBS-TV's Sunday night blockbuster, The Ed Sullivan Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEzPROIIlk4

One last thing, and it's a sign of the times about journalism as it's practiced in South Florida these days. You know what I could not find?

A single local story where Cuban-American Alex Meruelo, owner of the Meruelo Group, the owner of The Deauville, was/is actually asked why he allowed the property to become so run-down that it was deemed unsafe by the City of Miami Beach. 

How do you explain that?

Exactly.

"Today, the Deauville is shuttered, enclosed by an ugly chain-link fence. Soon, it is likely to be demolished. Preservationists fear the hotel’s slow demise will set a troubling precedent in their efforts to protect South Florida’s history."

 

Miami Beach owes its iconic status in no small part to the preservation of its Art Deco district, known the world over for the string of pastel-colored boutique hotels. But it has not always been easy to preserve buildings elsewhere in South Florida.
In its heyday, the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach hosted the likes of The Beatles, Sammy Davis Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. Soon, the hotel is likely to be demolished, which historic preservationists fear will set a troubling precedent.
“Miami is a place where the land has always been more valuable than the building...There’s no shared history, and when you have no shared history and no shared culture, you have no shared commitment to maintaining that history or that culture.”
"The four-acre property, valued some years ago at $100 million, is owned by a corporate entity registered to the Meruelo family, which runs other hotels and casinos and also works in construction."

New York Times

A Grand Miami Beach Hotel, and Its History, Might Be Torn Down.
The Deauville Beach Resort played host to the Beatles, Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy. But it has been deemed unsafe after years of neglect.
By Patricia Mazzei
Published Jan. 17, 2022, Updated Jan. 20, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/us/deauville-hotel-miami-beach.html

FYI: "In the event of a total demolition, Miami Beach would be legally entitled to limit future construction to the Deauville’s same size."

Dave 

David B. Smith  

Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog: http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/ 

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hbbtruth/ 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DavidSmith0215

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/david-bruce-smith-b945b376/

Travel Massive: https://travelmassive.com/dbsmith 

More proof of why South Florida is NOT the Land of Lincoln! Local10 News video re govt. incompetency (& secretiveness) in Miami Beach; Reader comments show how many Internet trolls South Florida has who reflexively defend govt. over individuals and their rights

Pump stations built directly in front of homes Miami Beach residents say city officials never asked for their input 
Author: Jeff Weinsier, Reporter, jweinsier@Local10.com 
Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com 
Posted online December 19 2013 11:00:00 PM EST
http://www.local10.com/news/pump-stations-built-directly-in-front-of-homes/-/1717324/23567002/-/jm4r9oz/-/index.html

Here's my comment to the Local10 story above and the predictable reader comments that appeared the first week after it aired. 

I only came across it Saturday night.

Watch that and read those comments first before seeing what I've posted below.

"I can't say specifically that we went door to door and say you all have this type of facility directly in front of your house," said David Martinez, acting director of the city's capital improvements.
Martinez added that he didn't believe an impact study was done.

Yes, local government making conscious decisions to NOT do an impact study.

No, THAT can't possibly have any bad consequences, now can it?

This reminds me so much of the half-assed nature of municipal bureaucracy here in Hallandale Beach. A few years ago, the city paid for a consulting firm to do a Transportation Master Plan.

The consultants they hired were clearly smart, savvy, motivated and were very open to hearing from residents about their concerns, certainly more open to ideas and suggestions than the mayor and the city commission and City Manager and their retinue ever were. 

But then the former were being paid to listen to the public -the electeds just pretended to be.

But at the heavily-promoted final presentation meeting -heavily-promoted on my blog, not by the city on any of its portable electronic message boards - I asked a series of logical and common sense questions during the Q&A that nobody else though to ask before me, and then made some predictions about things to come.

Did the city make drivers of its FREE Mini-bus system available to speak to the consultants to answer any questions about common complaints or suggestions they heard on a daily basis, since they were the city's eyes and ears on this subject? No.

That sort of managerial genius and decision-making explains why so many years later, the #1 place in the entire city where passengers utilize the service to get on and off the city's mini-buses is a place where there is NO timetable or map at all for passengers to check -the Publix on Hallandale Beach Blvd. & SE 14th Avenue.

Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders, the city commissioner who claims he primarily represents the city residents who use public transportation on a regular basis, in NW HB, despite the fact that all commissioners are at-large, DIDN'T even bother showing-up for the meeting. 

Years later, that is crystal clear since residents show a facility and knowledge of it that is continually above his head. Where's the sense of personal accountability?

That failure by an elected official like Sanders to even show-up meant that Sanders could NOT only NOT hear anything said by taxpayers and residents at the meeting, but also meant that he couldn't be asked hard questions by me and other residents about about why nearly 90% of the city-maintained bus shelters had lights that DIDN'T work at night -for YEARS at a time, despite it being self-evident, as any drive at night will show, including the bus shelters closest to HB City Hall.

A fact that is STILL TRUE!

In all of Hallandale Beach, there's but one city-controlled bus shelter on the east side of busy U.S.-1, north-bound, one of the three main streets in the city. 

And that one bus shelter is NOT at or near Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino or the next-door Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex, but rather 2 blocks south of the Hollywood cityline. Why?

No explanation has ever been publicly given for such stupidity or why all these years later, the city can't manage to keep more than 10% of its own bus shelters lit at night for its own residents. 

Again, where's the sense of personal accountability at HB City Hall among elected officials or city employees? MIA.

And I didn't even mention yet that there are now LESS bus shelters in the city than there were five years ago, much as I predicted would happen, given the mindset here.

Does that sound like any kind of Transportation Master Plan that you would want your city to have?

So, those of you commenting here that there may've been public meetings about where the pump stations would be located, how come Jeff Weinsier couldn't find any record of them and how come the city officials couldn't refute him by stating when and where they were held.

No, instead, you impugn these particular residents as being too lazy to get involved.

Based on what evidence???

What we all know now is that the one person who appears on camera who ought to know the answers says nothing at all about any such meetings, and even while stating that he doesn't think an impact study was ever done, also never adequately explains why some pumps stations were placed on medians and some weren't, which is something that residents directly-affected were certainly entitled to know about beforehand. 

And yet they weren't, now were they?

Again, that sounds exactly like how things happen in Hallandale Beach -conscious stealthiness to keep the residents in the dark.

Some of you folks ought to stop reflexively defending government bureaucrats who can't or won't explain their own actions and decisions when given a chance to, instead of being sympathetic to the plight of the residents who were just minding their own business. Instead, you choose to bash these residents with legitimate and justifiable concerns just because you don't like the fact that someone else chooses to make a housing/lifestyle choice that's different than yours.

I wouldn't live there, but would I want to wish that person's home gets flooded, like some of you clearly do?

You're biased.

Only wish the Local10 website was better and required people to use either their real names or a certified name that couldn't be changed so that in the future, I'd know better than to waste my time reading the comments of dopes, given so much of what I've read here.

C'est la vie.

-----
One of my most-popular blog post on that City of Hallandale Beach Transportation Master Plan debacle was posted on June 9, 2009, and has been seen 3242 times as of right now, titled, Tonight's Hallandale Beach Transportation Master Plan meeting is a Sign of the Times in HB: We Need Change!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/tonights-transportation-meeting-is-sign.html 

Urban Beach Weekend -Today's 4 p.m. mtg. on Miami Beach may prove to be a High Noon for some hospitality industry sycophants -truth or more Kool-Aid?

Josh Wilson video: Miami Beach shooting -Memorial day Weekend 2011 [Official Video]

http://youtu.be/c5nkz8fzSxI

r

Urban Beach Weekend Fallout: Today's 4 p.m. meeting on Miami Beach of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce's Board of Governors may well be a "High Noon" of sorts for certain sycophants of South Florida's insular and greedy hospitality industry, so often disconnected to reality and forever offering up a smile to out-of-town visitors while often treating them in a second-class fashion -when not ripping them off.

Not that anything will happen to anyone on the CoC Board, per se, rather now we may well see who in that group can see the situation for what it really is, and will say so publicly, and who still swallows the Kool-Aid and will try to obfuscate, conflate and dissemble behind that curtain.

And despite the fact that someone was killed, almost unmentioned in the subsequent discussion among South Florida residents?

The truly dreadful performance of the Miami Beach Police Dept., seeming to show no appreciation for the fact that their unprofessional behavior -by losing their cool- nearly killed innocent people.

Is it merely bad training or... and their amateurish/standoffish handling of the media's legitimate inquiries are only making it look worse.

Here's the thing: nobody-but-nobody who lives in South Florida and who pays attention is the least bit surprised at what happened last week on Miami Beach -a police-involved shooting.

Most residents of South Florida, especially those who have traveled anywhere and have a history of having attended large outdoor events/festivals elsewhere in the country or the world, will tell you that all the ingredients were there for an explosion.

And now that it's gone off, what will happen?

Question: which newspaper had not a single word about this incident in their Sunday edition?

Yes, the same day that Channel 10's Michael Putney had an excellent discussion of the issue on his This Week in South Florida telecast on Sunday morning, following ABC-TV's This Week telecast?

Answer: the Miami Herald.

(I was going to post the video of the TWISF segment on UBW aso you could see it for yourself, but Channel 10 STILL hasn't put it on the website yet, as their most recent one is from May 22nd. It's the year 2011 -what's the hold-up???)

Seems to me that this afternoon's meeting could turn out to be ONE hell of a meeting!

Channel 10/WPLG-TV newscast video with reporter Ross Palombo: Video Gives Up-Close View Of Officer-Involved Shooting.

Includes video of Miami Beach Policeman who grabbed bystander Narces Benoit's cellphone recording and smashed it; driver kept SIM card!

http://www.local10.com/video/28151859/index.html

Channel 10/WPLG-TV newscast video with reporter Roger Lohse:

Questions Linger Over Police-Involved Shooting

http://www.local10.com/video/28082524/index.html

And proving that some people never quite 'get' it:

http://www.browardbeat.com/fields-urban-week-gets-a-bad-rap/

----

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/06/2254048/man-behind-rally-to-end-urban.html

Man behind rally to end Urban Beach Week says efforts got him fired

By David Smiley

June 7, 2011

.

When Peter Tapia took to Facebook to protest the rowdy parties that descend on South Beach every Memorial Day weekend and organized an anti-Urban Beach Week rally at city hall, his goal was to end the city’s annual but unofficial hip-hop street festival.

So far, the only thing Tapia’s activism has ended is his job.

Tapia, 23, says he was fired from his position as a Shore Club concierge Thursday after his bosses learned he was pushing to end Urban Beach Week, a rowdy and controversial hip-hop street party that was marred this year by two police-involved shootings in which an alleged gunman was killed and four bystanders were shot.

“I became unemployed because of all the attention I got,” Tapia said. “My employer decided it was a breach of contract.”

Tim Nardi, general manager of the Shore Club, said hotel policy would not allow him to discuss Tapia’s employment.

“I can’t confirm or deny his employee status,” Nardi said. “But any issue related to Peter did not have anything to do with this weekend.”

Nardi is also chairman of the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association.

Leading up to Memorial Day weekend, Nardi said Urban Beach Week is a historically positive event for Miami Beach’s hotels, which are typically packed with guests during the weekend. Nardi said Monday that he isn’t advocating for or against Urban Beach Week in the midst of controversy, but said the city’s hotels “welcome everybody to South Beach.”

Tapia said he had been previously warned by the Shore Club not to have involvement with the media and signed some kind of agreement. He also mentioned on Facebook that he was a Shore Club concierge, which he said his bosses didn’t appreciate.

“That’s something I shouldn’t have done,” he said.

Though Tapia was fired Thursday, he went ahead with a Friday rally that drew roughly 150 people. He said he will continue to push to end Urban Beach Week while looking for employment.

“Even though I lost my job I will still continue to fight for the community,” Tapia said. “I’m still active in this. We’re still organizing.”

-----

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/02/2248248/it-takes-just-one-fool-to-ruin.html

It takes just one fool to ruin everybody else’s fun

By James H. Burnett III

June 2, 2011

There’s a civics lesson to be learned from the debacle that was the 10th annual Urban Beach Weekend in Miami Beach, and it’s a lesson we all learned in kindergarten – either when we were mush-headed 5-year-olds or when we read the book All I Ever Really Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten.

And here is part one of that lesson: Even if nine out of 10 people exercise good sense, when number 10 makes a habit of acting, as my grandmother would say, “a fool,” he will ruin the other nine folks’ good time.

Eight people were shot at this year’s UBW along South Beach — one fatally — and three police officers were injured. Granted, fair questions remain as to whether some of the injured were actually innocent bystanders shot by cops who’d fired at a dangerous drunk driving suspect — and missed — like they were “shooting” a scene in a John Woo movie. But still.

During the gathering’s first year, 2001, a fatal shooting took place on South Beach. UBW has been tame some years. But in 2006, police snagged more than 70 firearms from partygoers, and in 2007 two men were killed in a drive-by shooting.

And no one with the ability to keep a straight face — and who isn’t a defense or civil rights attorney — would dare suggest that the occurrence of these crimes and weapons confiscations were likely to happen on South Beach when they happened, absent the coinciding UBW festivities.

I’ve never attended UBW — I’m too old, too far removed from college age, too easily bored by parties, and beginning to turn gray. But here’s how my good time was ruined by a similar gathering.

In the fall of 1989, when I was a young, svelte, even better-looking high school student in Virginia Beach, I held the unfortunate part-time job of women’s shoe salesman at the Leggett department store in a local mall, squeezing oversized, sweaty feet into new shoes that hadn’t done anything to deserve that punishment. I was working the night a riot broke out at the Labor Day weekend Greek Fest, a similar event to Urban Beach Weekend in that it brought together thousands of black college students (and thousands of local non-students who mingled with the visitors) for several days of nightclub and beach parties.

Residents of beachfront neighborhoods had been complaining to city officials for years that the rowdy spillover from Greek Fest was putting a serious crimp in their quality of life.

No one was seriously hurt, but stores and hotels along a 10-block stretch of Atlantic Avenue suffered so many broken windows it appeared they’d been visited by a hurricane. Police were overwhelmed. Looters had their way. Rifle-toting National Guard troops even responded.

When I left the mall close to midnight after staying late for inventory, the rioting hadn’t started, but the tensions were high. And before I’d made it three blocks on my drive home, I was pulled over by a police officer, who for the next 15 minutes questioned me nervously about where I was going and warning me that it had better not be to the beach. He let me go after I convinced him that my proximity to the mall, my suit, tie and name tag, and my lack of beachwear, were enough proof that I was going home.

The officer was out of line. But I’d never have encountered him if the fool (multiplied by several hundred) in my grandmother’s anecdote hadn’t turned a party sour. By way of the rioters, Greek Fest ruined my good time.

Frankly, I don’t care one way or another if Miami Beach decides to ban UBW and all related gatherings. But I hope the city follows Virginia Beach’s lead and makes the issue behavior and not race. If the majority of UBW attendees over the years had been white, their skin color would never sneak its way into the conversation. The conversation would be “Let’s keep these crazy folks off the beach…without chasing away the harmless people they mingled with.”

If UBW does come to an end, part two of that civics lesson is: You don’t have to do anything wrong to have your quality of life negatively affected. Spoilers are everywhere. And as the students and other mannerly attendees to UBW grow up and move on, hopefully they’ll remember this year and keep in mind that good times can be maintained if we can slap a scarlet letter on the spoilers and figure out how to impress upon them that they have two choices: straighten up and behave or be isolated out of the mainstream.

So Chic, So Loud, SoBe: 36 Hours in South Beach, FL, and the noise violation known as the Gansevoort South rooftop

So Chic, So Loud, SoBe: 36 Hours in South Beach, Fla.,
and the noise violation known as the Gansevoort South
rooftop

New York Times
36 Hours in South Beach, Fla.
By Damien Cave
December 6, 2009

South Beach gets a lot of abuse from residents. Too much cologne, critics say; too expensive, too crowded. But like other American meccas of decadence, SoBe still has an irresistible, democratic pull.

Read rest of story at: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/travel/06hours.html
----------
"And at the Gansevoort South in Miami, an employee died after a gate fell on him. A source said the unidentified worker "was sent to fix a gate which his employer knew he could not. The gate fell and crushed him. They didn't even call police. At a Miami Beach planning-board meeting, the Gansevoort directors showed up and acted like nothing happened."

see DEATHS HAUNT TRENDY HOTELS
New York Post
March 29, 2009
http://new-yorkpost.biz/p/pagesix/item_IXt8DoS76fm9SZDitmOv1O
--------------------
Miami Beach Planning Board
http://web.miamibeachfl.gov/planning/

Tuesday December 15th, 3 p.m.
Agenda item 2,
File #1840, 2301 Collins Avenue,
(a/k/a 2377 Collins Avenue
Gansevoort Rooftop venue) -
progress report related to a written warning
and a noise violation.

see http://www.gansevoortsouth.com/

Architect Bernard Zyscovich loses high-profile case; shown as elitist, egotistical obstructionist tool. Oh well..

Sept. 13th, 2009
2: 30 a.m.
(Am up watching the replay of the IU-Western Michigan
ballgame on The Big Ten Network, which the Herald
Sports Dept. pretends doesn't exist. More on that soon.)

One of the very few nationally-respected and admired
professionals and visionaries based in South Florida
have revealed themselves to be perfectly willing to
misplace their integrity for personal spite and ego,
even if that meant keeping the public good at bay.
Biscayne Bay.

That there are so damn few in the first place,
of course, only makes the reality of this case worse.

AIMCO spokeswoman Cindy Duffy really goes
old-school Clinton-style in trying to spin this,
doesn't she:
She declined to address the city's allegations.
`We feel that's old news,'' Duffy said.

Wow!
When she says "That's old news" I hear
Paul Begala's voice in my head out of habit.

Shades of Rahm Emanuel walking over from the
White House alongside Lafayette Park to the
NY Times Washington bureau on Eye Street
to attempt to spin William Safire and Maureen
Dowd -and maybe even Jill Abramson.
Which, as many of you know, I regularly heard
about soon afterwards.
LOL!!!

As anyone who regularly comes to this site knows,
since I returned to South Florida, I've come to
greatly admire South Beach architect and designer
Bernard Zyscovich.

I've seen a lot of him over the past few years in
neighboring Hollywood, specifically, over at
Hollywood City Hall, as he and his firm have worked
hard and quite creatively to assist the city in making
the transition into a place that's not only fun, inviting
and aesthetically pleasing to the eye,
but also more logical and predictable in zoning
and design for other professionals to keep up
the momentum in the future.

Sadly, this particular case in South Beach has
revealed him to be yet another brilliant guy in
South Florida who cares more about winning
at all costs, and, seemingly, not afraid of
subverting the law to suit his own needs,
regardless of the public's rights and desires
to see the rule of law respected.

So much for HIS integrity.

Looks like cities that employ him in the future
-like up in Palm Beach County- ought to
consider asking him to testify under oath when
he speaks publicly to their elected officials and
citizens, to more effectively limit the city's liability,
lest he ever try this sort of shameless unethical
stunt again.

Frankly, I'm more disappointed than angry
and in any case, it's his own fault
C'est la vie.
----------

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1231153.html

Miami Beach wins costly legal battle for public baywalk

By Andres Viglucci

September 13, 2009

What does it take to open a two-block stretch of public baywalk in Miami Beach?

Apparently a battalion of attorneys, a convoluted and costly court case that alleges fibbing by a well-known architect and a prominent lawyer, and a peeved federal judge.

Twelve years after the developers of the Flamingo South Beach residential complex on Biscayne Bay seemingly promised Beach residents a public baywalk in exchange for permits to build a massive tower, they have finally agreed to open it.

But it took more than a year of litigation, with at least seven lawyers on each side, after the developers balked at opening the baywalk, contending they thought the city wanted a private promenade. The Flamingo then failed to produce the documents that would have cleared up the question in court, claiming they were missing.

Only some of the records weren't really lost, prompting U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga to call the developers and their attorneys ``obstructionist and careless'' in a strongly worded order.

The case put Flamingo architect Bernard Zyscovich and lawyer Lucia Dougherty under the microscope. The city found e-mails between Zyscovich and Dougherty that its attorneys contend show the two concocting a scheme to avoid acknowledging they knew the baywalk was to be public.

The Flamingo's owners, a Colorado company named AIMCO, their lawyers and Zyscovich have insisted in court their position was consistent from the start: They never agreed to a baywalk for public use.

This week, however, AIMCO folded, agreeing to a settlement that calls for the baywalk -- which must be redesigned and partially rebuilt -- to open to the public within two years. The settlement was approved in principle by the Beach city commission on Wednesday.

NO MISCONDUCT

AIMCO spokeswoman Cindy Duffy said the company acted properly during the dispute. She declined to address the city's allegations.

"We feel that's old news,'' Duffy said. "It was a long-standing disagreement, but the issue is resolved, and the result will be a real improvement for the public.''

With the agreement, the city's long-held goal of a continuous public pathway along Biscayne Bay south of Lincoln Road is well on its way to fulfillment. The 1,500-foot Flamingo stretch, from 14th to 16 streets, would be the longest piece.

The neighboring Capri now has opened a baywalk that connects to the Flamingo's. The Flamingo's southern neighbor, the Waverly, recently lost a property-rights case in state court to keep its baywalk private and, under an agreement similar to the Flamingo's, has opened it to the public during daylight hours.

What baffles some Beach activists is how the Flamingo's representatives could argue ignorance so vehemently when planners and elected officials had long publicly discussed plans for a continuous, accessible baywalk as renovations and new development occured along the western edge of South Beach.

WHY DENIAL?

"Why go to such lengths to deny it?'' said Beach architect Arthur Marcus, a member of the city's Design Review Board when the Flamingo was approved. "Every one of those projects along the west side was required to have a public baywalk.''

The events began in 1997, when the new owners of Morton Towers, an aging apartment complex on the water, proposed to renovate the property, which they renamed the Flamingo, and expand it by adding a large oval central tower.

To make up for the fact that the tower would block bay views, the city imposed several conditions in a series of public hearings, including construction of a baywalk behind the complex that would connect to planned public pathways to the Flamingo's north and south. Zyscovich and the developers objected to the public baywalk idea, citing security and privacy concerns, but never formally challenged the requirement.

"Then, when the developers were finished, they put up a fence and said, `This is our baywalk,' '' neighborhood activist Mike Burke recalled.

The city admits one mistake: The written condition for a baywalk did not use the word "public'' -- on the presumption, city officials say, that everyone involved understood perfectly well that meant a path open to all.

When the city ordered the complex to open up the completed baywalk, the owners sued. They alleged that not only did their architects and lawyers believe the baywalk was to be a private amenity, but that, even if the city had made its conditions clear, it was an unconstitutional "taking'' of private property.

The suit sent the city searching for Flamingo documents that would show, as one lawyer put it, "what they knew and when they knew it.''

After months of delay, Flamingo's attorneys claimed the records were missing -- only to belatedly come forward with a hard drive containing 142,700 relevant documents and a ``room full of documents,'' as Altonaga wrote in an order criticizing Flamingo for "persistently pursuing a pattern of dilatory tactics.''

The most important material, however, was never located, said Richard Ovelmen, an attorney for the city.

"Those documents would show they agreed to a baywalk. But they were gone,'' Ovelmen said. "It made it very hard to prove what they knew.''

The city did locate several documents that its lawyers say strongly suggest Flamingo officials -- Zyscovich and Dougherty in particular -- knew the city wanted a public baywalk, but tried to evade the obligation.

In one 1998 exchange, as Flamingo's application was pending at the city, Zyscovich e-mailed Dougherty that city staff "will be a problem regarding the shoreline walk.'' He added: "We need to establish a strategy that will get us approved while delaying or eliminating the need to accept their proposal.''

Answered Dougherty: "I agree.''

A DELAY

Questioned in a recent pretrial deposition what he meant, Zyscovich said: "Well, it might be possible to delay the bay walk for 20 years, 50 years, a hundred years, or it might be possible to simply eliminate it as a condition altogether.''

Much later, in 2006, Dougherty e-mailed city officials: "The bay walk was required by a DRB [Design Review Board] order which did not specify when the public bay walk had to be implemented.''

And a 2007 settlement of a lawsuit against Zyscovich by Flamingo, which alleged construction and design defects, makes a reference to claims related to "the design of a public bay walk on the property.''

At the very least, city attorneys contend, those records show that Dougherty, Zyscovich and AIMCO officials knew the baywalk was supposed to be public.

Recent orders by Altonaga in which she was critical of AIMCO, including one in which she expressed skepticism about their representatives' credibility, significantly undermined the developers' legal position, Ovelmen said.

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