Inspector General: Probe raises ‘serious concerns about integrity’ of monorail project

Miami-Dade’s inspector general on Friday backed reconsidering the vote to advance the monorail proposal from Genting and partners, citing “serious concern” about the secrecy and insider access granted the company during a 2018 county trip to Hong Kong to discuss the project.

Inspector General Mary Cagle’s letter to Commissioner Eileen Higgins endorsed her request for a new vote approving county review of the $770 million monorail proposal, which would cost about taxpayers about $60 million a year for a privately built and run public train system between Genting’s Miami property and South Beach.

An Ethics Commission report released a week after the May 19 vote detailed how the administration of Mayor Carlos Gimenez met with Genting in Hong Kong two years ago about the project, events left off the itinerary the mayor’s office released to the media. The administration also erased temporary phones issued county employees for the trip, which included stops in China, deletions revealed after the Miami Herald requested texts from one of the phones.

The “finding of this report create serious concern regarding the integrity of this corridor project,” Cagle wrote.

The report also revealed an email from Gimenez transit chief Alice Bravo showing lobbyist Ralph Garcia-Toledo, a monorail partner with Genting and lead investor Meridiam, was handling arrangements for the mayor’s trip to Hong Kong. Investigators found Bravo using a private email address and a chat app to communicate with Garcia-Toledo and a Hong Kong-based developer that played host to the county delegation in Hong Kong.

Gimenez, his wife, Lourdes, and Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson filmed a promotion video for the project at Garcia-Toledo’s request in 2019, weeks before he and partners submitted their first monorail proposal to the county. County lawyers declared the video a public record since Garcia-Toledo showed it to Gimenez, but Genting has so far declined to release the video.

Higgins wants a revote on the monorail project with the County Commission meets on Tuesday. It’s not clear what a second vote would mean for the proposal, which was the only one Miami-Dade received after a six-month procurement process. The high-dollar project — Genting and partners said total costs would top $2 billion after 30 years — drew initial interest from other transportation developers, but none opted to compete with the monorail proposal.

Higgins wrote Cagle on May 27 asking advice on “who can best lead an objective” contracting process for the project. Cagle expanded on the concept, saying the language assumes commissioners would “limit the involvement of certain county officials in the process.” That could leave the monorail review process intact, but with limits on who can contribute to the recommendation that comes back to the commission for an award vote.

The monorail consortium issued a statement Saturday that read: “The Ethics Commission (COE) already clearly established that the participants of the trade mission to Asia did not violate any laws of Miami-Dade County. Therefore, we don’t understand why the Inspector General would now write a page and half letter that doesn’t add anything to the COE’s report, and rather seems to actively push a political agenda.”

Gimenez has criticized the Ethics investigation for taking two years to finish, and noted it ended in no charges against anyone involved.

Of the report, Cagle wrote: “Findings like these erode public confidence in the Miami-Dade County government. In cases like this, it is up to the governing body to take corrective action to address public perception. Reconsideration of the action taken at the last meeting of the Board will create an opportunity for the [Ethics] report to be openly discussed.”

Last year, the monorail group submitted an initial proposal that prompted the commission to launch a competition for the transit route long known as Baylink.

While the first monorail proposal used Chinese trains, the second one has vehicles from a Canadian train maker. Gimenez had commissioners ban Chinese trains as a requirement for the competition that concluded in March with only one bid submitted. The May 19 vote authorized Gimenez to continue the process with a lone bidder and attempt to negotiate a proposal that would come back for another vote.

In a statement from Gimenez’s office, the mayor said of the trip at the center of the probe: “the only influence I received on the Asia trip was the ability to see first-hand the problems with quality and transparency that would result when dealing with Chinese-made products.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 12:22 PM.