Later, when it appeared the city’s permit applications were stalled, Bateman emailed Osterholt about the urgency of expanding the pumping station.

“I have been advised of a rumor that Homestead is ‘closed for business’ because of this situation,” Bateman wrote on March 6. “That rumor is starting to hurt us and businesses are starting to turn away.

“I pride myself on over 600 new businesses in three years,” he added. “Please HELP us. … Perhaps I misunderstood something during our meeting two weeks ago, but nothing has changed.”

Batemen also advised and billed CHI behind the scenes on its application to be a grant recipient of nearly $1.9 million in county bond funding to help pay for the company’s planned children’s crisis center.

The county mayor’s office said this past week it had no clue about Bateman’s employment with CHI when he went to bat for it.

“Neither Mayor Carlos Gimenez nor Jack Osterholt had any information that Mayor Bateman was working for that company,” Miami-Dade spokesman Fernando Figueredo told the Herald. “If the mayor [Gimenez] had known [Bateman] had come in on behalf of a company, he would have required him to meet with staff and not the mayor.”

The head of CHI, a nonprofit chain of healthcare facilities in South Florida, said Bateman was hired as a part-time employee on Feb. 1 at an hourly rate of $125.

“We have a contract with Steve Bateman,” said Colonel Brodes Hartley, CHI’s chief executive officer, adding that he was hired to “manage our projects” renovating existing facilities and building new ones.

Asked how CHI came to hire Bateman, Hartley told Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4: “We’ve had a relationship with Steve for many years.” Originally, the relationship had been a personal one, Hartley said. When it came to initiating the contract, Hartley said: “I didn’t bring it up, I didn’t initiate the discussion with him.”

Pressed further, he said Bateman’s name “came up” with his staff. Asked how it came up, he replied: “I don’t know.”

Hartley said he hired Bateman because “he has a construction background.” Bateman owns a Homestead construction business, but is not a licensed general contractor. He has a county license to install shutters, awnings and screening enclosures.

Asked if he was concerned about a possible conflict of interest — paying someone who could vote up or down on his projects — Hartley said it was Bateman’s responsibility to handle that issue.

CHI’s project had a checkered history from the start. In June 2010, Homestead architect Robert Barnes obtained an administrative variance from then-City Manager Sergio Purrinos to allow the company to place 22 parking spaces in front of the proposed new building on West Mowry Drive.

According to Homestead’s director of development services, Joseph Corradino, the variance request should have been reviewed by the city’s Planning and Zoning Board.

Months later, in September, Bateman and fellow City Council members, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) board, voted to upgrade pump station #1, which had reached capacity.

Bateman, in his role as mayor, became CHI’s head cheerleader.

In September 2012, he scheduled a meeting for himself and his public works director with Hartley “to discuss the proposed children’s crisis center.” The question of when the pumping station was going to be approved by the county so that CHI could start construction became more urgent.