Miami-Dade’s mayor was ready for a contracting fight at MIA. Then she backed off

Two weeks after setting up a showdown over a contracting fight, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Friday backed off an effort to reject all bids for a $33 million construction agreement at Miami International Airport and give the losing firms a fresh shot under new criteria.

Levine Cava set up a high-stakes contest on April 12 when she surprised county commissioners with a memo recommending a third competition for the stalled contract, first opened to bidders in 2016 under then-mayor Carlos Gimenez. This time, Levine Cava wrote, she wanted more focus on resiliency, diversity and workplace safety.

The two teams recommended in December by a county screening panel, Hill International and CBRE Heery, questioned Levine Cava’s motives and logic in pursuing a new bidding contest. Losing teams urged commissioners to back the mayor.

Then on Friday, Levine Cava issued a brief memo saying the recommended teams have agreed to rework their proposals to meet her requests — a step the companies had already said they were willing to take.

“Moving forward, we expect all companies seeking to do business with the County to reflect those core values,” she wrote.

Winning bidders: Hill, CBRE Heery

Hill International and CBRE Heery had said from the start Levine Cava could secure different terms during negotiations, and that there was no need to start again with a costly procurement contest that would delay improvements at the county airport.

The contract would assign the two teams to oversee 15 years of upgrades in MIA terminals and at the other county-owned airports.

“Respectfully, it is not efficient to take half a decade to award a contract,” Hill lobbyist Miguel Diaz de la Portilla wrote in an April 21 letter to commissioners.

Among the lobbyists working to block the mayor’s initial recommendation to start over: C.J. Gimenez, a Coral Gables lawyer who is a son of the former mayor. In April, he registered to represent Bermello Ajamil & Partners, an architectural firm that is part of the Hill bid.

Alex Heckler, a lobbyist for fourth-place finisher WSP, hosted a fund-raiser for Levine Cava’s Our Democracy in March. The invitation said the committee was working “to support the important work of Mayor Levine Cava and her commitment to bring reforms to Miami-Dade County.”

On April 15, Heckler joined lobbyists for third-place finisher Jacobs — a Heckler client in other matters — at County Hall to urge the most powerful commissioner, Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz, to back Levine Cava’s recommendation for a new bidding contest.

A lobbyists’ meeting, plus Alice Bravo

Also there, according to a sign-in sheet Diaz’s office released: Alice Bravo, transportation director under Gimenez and now an executive with fourth-place finisher WSP.

While covered by Miami-Dade’s two-year lobbying ban on former officials, Bravo maintains no rules were violated since the former transit director didn’t participate in the meeting.

“Alice showed up at the meeting, gave me a hug,” Diaz said Thursday of the meeting, first reported by the Political Cortadito blog. “She showed up and stayed there and was quiet the whole time. It was just awkward.”

Bravo left her post in February. In March, Miami-Dade Ethics Commission Director Jose Arrojo told her in an opinion that “direct meetings” with county officials are allowed “as long as there is no advocacy involved in the interactions.”

“You are simply cautioned against engaging in any action that might be perceived as advocating or seeking to influence County elected officials or personnel...,” he wrote.

Bravo declined to answer questions about the Diaz meeting with Heckler and Jesse Manzano-Plaza and Ralph Garcia-Toledo, lobbyists aligned with the Jacobs team. In a statement, she said: “I strongly believe in the importance of the County’s ethical requirements...I did not try to influence Chairman Diaz.”

Levine Cava’s reversal

In her first memo, Levine Cava described the MIA contract redo as part of a larger reset of county procurement with a “renewed commitment to our values.” In an interview this week, she added a new justification: a flawed bidding process in a contract fight that was reset twice under Gimenez.

“Unfortunately this particular procurement has been very troubled. Obviously it’s been tried multiple times, and most recently with some flaws in the process,” she said. “We’re going to put out some more details.”

Those details didn’t come in Friday’s memo, which said the administration will resume negotiations with Hill and Heery based on the original procurement recommendation and “present a final award” to the commission at a later meeting.

In the interview, Levine Cava said she wanted to put her stamp on contracts moving through the pipeline while Gimenez was mayor.

“I have inherited some very major contracts that were developed by my predecessor and without my priorities being reflected,” said Levine Cava, a commissioner for six years before becoming mayor. “When we’re talking about an issue of great consequence and opportunity for our community I want to be sure we get it right.”

The challenge of locking down 7 votes

The MIA contract was the latest test for Levine Cava’s ability to lock up a coalition on the 13-seat commission, where six of the seats are filled by newcomers.

In an unrelated MIA fight, her administration in early April recommended a rival bidder for a small-job construction contract currently held by MCM, the contractor on the Florida International University bridge that collapsed in 2018. That also appears to be a fight the administration now wants to avoid. On Friday evening, Levine Cava’s office released a memo asking commissioners to withdraw that bid recommendation too, in favor of MIA managing the small construction jobs internally.

Delays in the contracting process was an argument the winning bidders made in fighting the Levine Cava request to start again with the MIA work, saying the smaller firms competing would be hurt the most.

“We followed the process by the book,” Carmen Olazabal, vice president of business development at the Alpha Corporation, a Miami construction firm on the Hill proposal, told the Miami Herald Editorial Board. “It’s very hard for companies with good will to go after these contracts if they know the results are going to change.”