Should Joe Carollo-sponsored gym equipment stay in Ferré Park? Miami voters will decide
A months-long political battle over the installation of gym equipment in one of Miami’s downtown, bayfront parks could be resolved when the issue goes to referendum in the August primary.
If the topic seems granular for a citywide ballot question, that’s because it is. But it’s also part of a larger clash between veteran City Commissioner Joe Carollo and newcomer Damian Pardo over who controls the Bayfront Park Management Trust, a city agency located in Pardo’s downtown District 2 but chaired by Carollo, the District 3 commissioner.
On Aug. 20, Miami voters will decide whether gym equipment installed in Maurice A. Ferré Park last year at the behest of Carollo and the Trust — but not in accordance with proper permitting and design procedure, according to the city’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board — should remain. In November, after a group of residents filed an appeal, the board voted to reverse the planning department’s approval of the gym.
Then in May, Carollo asked his colleagues on the City Commission to let voters decide the fate of the outdoor gym. His request came in the form of a “pocket item,” meaning it was not included on the publicly-available meeting agenda. Carollo said he brought the proposal forward on “an emergency basis” to ensure there’s enough time to get it on the August ballot.
Pardo was absent from the meeting. The commission voted 3-1 to send the question to voters. Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela was the only no vote, saying he was concerned that Pardo was unable to weigh in.
“Well, he’s not going to be affected because whichever way he feels on it, he can campaign for it,” Carollo responded.
Pardo has taken him up on that, penning an op-ed this week calling the ballot question a “sneaky attempt to weaponize government.”
Carollo’s response: “The only weapon that I use is the truth.”
‘A dirty trick’
The outdoor gym, which consists of about 20 pieces of green and beige exercise equipment, is situated in the park between Kaseya Center and the Pérez and Frost museums. From that vantage point, park-goers can catch a glimpse of the Dogs and Cats Walkway, another Carollo project.
But as of Thursday, the gym remains fenced in, with a yellow sign affixed that reads “CAUTION WORK IN PROGRESS.” According to Carollo, “hundreds and hundreds” of people want to access the gym and are asking: “Why do we have a fence around it?”
A series of setbacks have kept the exercise area off-limits to Miamians. After the gym was installed in October, a group of downtown residents filed an appeal. In November, the city’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board voted to reverse the city Planning Department’s approval of the gym after determining that it was not installed according to proper permitting and design procedure. Board member Adam Gersten said at the meeting that it appeared that the park proponents took “active steps to disregard the neighborhood’s input.”
Gersten said the outdoor gym was “slapped together dangerously without permitting. It’s just a slap in the face to every resident in the city, and every visitor.”
The director of the Bayfront Park Management Trust then appealed the Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board’s decision, but the City Commission ultimately voted down the appeal 3-2 in May, effectively directing the gym equipment to be removed.
However, two weeks before that, at the meeting where Pardo was absent, the City Commission had already decided to send the question to voters. It is unclear how the referendum’s outcome will impact their denial of the director’s appeal.
The official ballot question asks voters if the city should keep the already-installed gym equipment in Maurice A. Ferré Park “to enhance recreational facilities and promote community health and fitness for all our residents.” The question also points out that outdoor gym equipment is not unusual, and can be found “in many of our parks” in Miami.
Michael Feuling, one of the residents opposing the outdoor gym, said the ballot question language is like “asking a kid if he’d like ice cream for breakfast. Of course he would.”
The gym equipment question is a binding referendum rather than a straw ballot, meaning that if it passes, any future effort to remove the gym equipment would need to go back to voters, according to Carollo.
“It’s just a dirty trick,” said Feuling, who lives in a condo that overlooks Maurice A. Ferré Park. “Who would vote no on that?”
Carollo said the gym’s adversaries are “a small group of elitists, some of which are racist, that don’t want Blacks or Hispanics to come to that park.”
But Feuling said the opposition is based on the fact that, according to its master plan, the park was designed to be passive, meaning it is free of sports fields or facilities.
“And Carollo has just totally ignored it and with no community input,” Feuling said. He also countered Carollo’s argument that only a handful of neighbors oppose the gym, pointing to a petition from earlier this year with over 1,000 signatures calling for Carollo’s removal from the Bayfront Park Management Trust. (When Feuling presented the petition at a meeting in June, Carollo claimed that “scores of people” who signed the petition live outside of Miami.)
The Downtown Neighbors Alliance also announced its opposition to the referendum Thursday.
Pardo called the referendum a “backhanded maneuver” by Carollo and said he did not follow the proper procurement procedures to install the gym equipment — which Pardo said residents never wanted in the first place.
As for the ballot question language, Pardo said it is “deceptive and wrong” because it doesn’t reflect neighbors’ pushback against the gym equipment, nor does it acknowledge that the Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board voted to reverse the city planning department’s approval. He said the park situation is the latest example of Carollo misusing his position as chairman of the Bayfront Park Management Trust. He believes Carollo should step down from his post in the agency.
“It’s demagoguery,” Pardo said.
While the outdoor gym’s opponents are vocal, there are members of the community who support it. Carollo presented their positive commentary at a meeting in April by showing an 11-minute video featuring about 30 park-goers, as well as Grammy-award winning jazz musician Arturo Sandoval, praising the gym and the value it brings to the park.
“A privilege, that’s priceless,” a woman featured in the video named Isabel said in Spanish. “Do you know how many people in this world would dream of having all these machines? How much one has to pay for a membership to be part of a gym?”
Carollo dismissed his critics, saying that if his name wasn’t attached to the outdoor gym, “They’d be saying what a wonderful, great thing it is. But everything we’ve done there, they criticize.”
This story was originally published August 9, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
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