Big headlines in the Miami Herald today: The public cost of paying off $347 million in Miami-Dade County debt for a Florida Marlins stadium, the paper estimates, “could swing borrowing costs from as low as $528 million to more than $1.1 billion.”
It’s not quite a fair assessment – the Herald counts money deferred for 20 years the same as money due tomorrow, for starters, which skews its figures. But they do have a point in that two days before a final vote on the stadium project, nobody knows what the interest rate would be on the county’s stadium bonds, how much hotel tax money would be available to pay them off, or what would happen if there were a shortfall. This should be an interesting county commission debate on Friday.
Could the tide finally be turning? There is even some fairness in reporting on the Miami project: http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/898914.html