One of Norman Braman's main beefs with the Marlins shady stadium deal was that the public never got to directly vote on the matter. Though, the fact that Dolphins are supporting a public vote on their quest to get tax money to fund a portion of their planned upgrades to Sun Life Stadium isn't enough to get Braman to back down in this fight. He tells the Miami Herald he'll do "whatever I can possibly can" to make sure the stadium referendum is defeated.
Braman says he plans to use his own money to back a campaign to get voters to oppose the deal.
Braman says the he recently met with Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, but his mind wasn't changed.
"I respect Steve. He's a good person," Braman told Barry Jackson. "But the man is worth over $4 billion. He can afford to do it himself. It's welfare for billionaires. The [proposed] roof [over the stands] has nothing to do with attracting Super Bowls; they're playing outdoors in [New Jersey] next year. The vote is a gimmick."
A billionaire auto-magnate and one-time owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, almost all of Braman's political efforts are fueled by his disdain for taxpayer funding of sports stadium.
He failed to derail the Marlins deal, but then turned around and had the mayor who approved the deal, Miami-Dade's Carlos Alvarez, recalled. What can we say? The man just really, really hates public funding for stadiums.
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