Is it right to spend public dollars to lobby for boat parking to support "working class" people with boats under 100 feet long?
Richard Lydecker, who is Walmart's lead lawyer in Midtown -- along with partner former Miami Mayor Manny A. Diaz -- has a radically different view of "working class" than the rest of us.
Lydecker seems like the main advocate of using his board member position in Miami's taxpayer supported public agency, Downtown Development Authority to fight for "working class" boat parking.
According to Miami Today:
"Boats of 100 feet or less -- working-class boats -- can't dock there, in the Intracoastal, the busiest waterway in the country," Mr. Lydecker objected.
Miami's DDA reportedly sidestepped the environmental problems posed towards manatees, such as those which happened during the Miami Boat Show International this past February.
Walmart lawyer Lydecker presented a robust argument in favor of his "working class" boat problems:
"Floridian Partners knows how to get marinas built," said board member Richard Lydecker, senior partner of the Lydecker-Diaz law firm and member of the Waterfront Committee. Floridian Partners assisted in establishing the deep-water dockage on Watson Island, he noted.
"Brian has those relationships," Mr. Lydecker said. "He can contact elected officials and bird-dog it, bring it from the back of the desk to the front."
Just like that, a public agency will spend $5,000 a month on a lobbying contract that the elected Commissioner for District 2 said was "too open-ended" before the remainder of the board voted to proceed.
And Walmart's lawyer must be happy that he'll have a place to park his not yet mega-yacht in downtown Miami at the other end of this pot of gold given to Miami's lobbying community.
DDA Board members indicated that they'd like to start water taxi service, and over the objections of the area's highest elected official, approved the lobbying contract to Floridian Partners without any specific plan of action.