Opinion
Capricious Cats & Dogs
Cristina Palomo’s open letter of resignation from the Bayfront Park Management Trust (BPMT) over an installation of cats and dogs sculptures at Maurice Ferré Park.
[Opinions are the writers’ and do not reflect the opinion nor the support of Downtown News, nor the DNA.]
Executive Director BPMT:
Please be informed of my resignation from the BPMT advisory board effective immediately.
As you know, at our regularly scheduled February meeting, some new business of a sculpture garden with an approximate $1M scope of work was introduced by the Chairman. This item had not been included in our agenda and zero information on this proposal had yet been made available to any board member prior to this meeting. Despite this, the Chairman called for a board vote on this item. After I expressed concern that we have not been presented with any facts on this last minute proposal, at my urging the Chair agreed to hold a special meeting yesterday March 8th at which we could receive a proper presentation on this proposal prior to voting on it as a board.
The Issue with Process
I am a huge proponent of art in public spaces and consider it worthy of such a significant investment. That said, I am very disappointed and taken aback at the process and the way that this was hastily rushed through without a real chance to seek public input and perform our due diligence. We should have received more than just one bid. We should have evaluated more than one concept for the subject matter of the art. We should have discussed in more detail the costs of maintenance and added security associated with the installation and made sure these costs are accurately reflected in our budget. We should have sought out a collaborative approach from our neighbors the museums who will have this work displayed right on their front lawn. The PAMM in particular could surely contribute some valuable input towards a permanent art installation of this magnitude. All of these things are what I would expect we should do to ensure that such a permanent and costly project turn out to be a true community success for the City of Miami.
Instead, we rushed it through after brief discussion, prioritizing a quick installation of this poorly vetted project while the completion of other long promised essential park elements such as canopies for our existing children’s playground, a new dog park and children’s playground at MAF continue to experience delay after delay for years on end.
The proposal included yesterday in our board package was directed via email not to the Board, but instead to what appear to be the personal email addresses of Commissioner Carollo and Marjorie Carollo. This alone speaks volumes about the flawed decision making process under which this board is currently operating. I can no longer justify volunteering my valuable time to operate in this dysfunctional fashion. In my experience, it is impossible to add any value or be effective as a board member when any position taken that disagrees with that of the Chair is misconstrued as a personal attack.
Serving the Community
Nonetheless, it has been an honor serving the community and the City of Miami over the past 3 years on this board, and it’s been a sincere pleasure to work with you, Valerie, Karina, Camila, Santravia and the entire dedicated and very hardworking staff of BPMT. Please feel free to reach out to me if I can be of any help as a friend and neighbor of the park who cares deeply about it.
Sincerely, Cristina Palomo.
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