Coral Gables could soon sue group linked to city’s youth center. Here’s why
A dispute between Coral Gables leaders and the association that describes itself as a watchdog over the city-owned War Memorial Youth Center is heating up. And legal trouble may be brewing.
The civic organization tied to the city-funded center told the Herald it would not comply with the Dec. 23 deadline it was given by the city to turn over all of its financial documents, despite the city threatening to take it to court.
“The Association has already produced all documents it is legally required to produce, including its publicly available corporate filings and IRS tax returns,” Jane Muir, the attorney representing the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center Association, told the Miami Herald in an emailed statement.
“What the City is now demanding goes far beyond any lawful obligation and resembles a broad fishing expedition rather than a request tied to a specific legal issue,” she added.
The group’s refusal to turn over the additional documents gives City Attorney Cristina Suarez the green light to follow through with a directive approved in a recent commission meeting to sue the association.
The bad blood between city leaders and the association began months ago and has to do with the association’s operations and a clause in a decades-old deed that gave the property to the city.
The clause requires the city to never change the name of the youth center and to continue using the property for youth recreational activities for children in Coral Gables. If it does not, ownership of the property will go back to the civic organization, which initially gifted the land to the city decades ago and is now run by former Gables Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who grew up at the youth center and has been involved with the organization and the center for years. In her statement, Muir described the city’s recent actions as fueled by political motivations or a desire to develop the property.
Mayor Vince Lago, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Richard Lara want the clause gone, describing it as a “cloud on the title” that is unnecessary and could cause problems for the city in the future. The association disagrees and argues that the clause protects the youth center.
Here’s what to know:
The players
Lago, Anderson and Lara earlier this month voted to give the association a two-week deadline to turn over the requested documents, including some that the association has argued are not public records. As part of the vote, Suarez was directed to sue the association if it failed to meet the Dec. 23 deadline.
“A little added pressure goes a long way,” Lago said during the Dec. 9 commission meeting. The mayor said he believes any group with “power over something as important as the jewel of our youth center” should comply with the city’s request.
The association, which has been around for over 80 years, says it has about two dozen active members. Various civic leaders have served on the board over the years, including U.S. Congressman Carlos Gimenez, federal Judge C. Clyde Atkins, and a series of Coral Gables commissioners and mayors, including Don and Jeannett Slesnick, according to a presentation made by Commissioner Melissa Castro during the December meeting.
The group’s current president is Menendez, who appeared before the City Commission last minute over the summer to defend the organization and its right as a private entity to keep some of its financial information confidential.
“If the City were to bring suit to compel production of private records, it would lack legal standing to do so,” Muir told the Herald.
Menendez ran against Lago in the April mayoral election but lost the race. One of Menendez’s family members is listed as the group’s vice president in Florida business records.
The vote
The directive to have the city attorney file a lawsuit against the association if the group misses the deadline passed in a 3-2 vote during the Dec. 9 commission meeting. Castro and Commissioner Ariel Fernandez dissented, describing the comply-or-get-sued treatment as political retaliation against Menendez, a motive the mayor has publicly disputed .
“I won’t support this because this is using taxpayer dollars to support vendettas” and “go after political enemies,” Fernandez said. He also questioned whether there was another motive behind the push to scrap the reverser clause.
The association is wondering that, too.
“We are mindful that outside entities may have an interest in the Youth Center property for purposes unrelated to its original dedication or in violation of the reverter clause,” Muir wrote to Suarez in a Sept. 11 letter.
Lago has rebuked those accusations, describing them as political attacks.
“This isn’t about Kirk Menendez. This is about getting the facts,” Lago said. “If it was Kirk Menendez or anybody else, I would want to make sure that there isn’t anything that is holding the city hostage, and I believe that this entity is hosting the city hostage.”
The issue
A Coral Gables family deeded the land to the city in 1958 with the promise, cemented in the deed, that the land would always be used for recreational activities for Gables children. The deed also requires the center to always retain the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center name.
Lago has raised concerns about the association’s operations and that the city is unable to access all of its financial filings, even though the youth center is on city-owned land and is funded by the city. The center is managed by the city’s Community Recreation Department.
“There’s been a lot more commingling and more collaboration [of financial involvement] between the city and the War Memorial Youth Center than we thought before,” Lago said at the meeting.
Both Lara, who considers himself a good friend of Menendez, and Anderson have backed the mayor and believe the association should just turn over the documents. The two attorneys are also not fans of the clause that could return the property to the association, which they believe is kryptonite for the city.
“Mr. Menendez has the keys to his own cell,” Lara said. “Just produce the documents.”
Lara told the Herald it doesn’t make sense for the city to not have full control over a property that it has spent, and will spend, millions on to operate and improve. Both Lara and Anderson have also expressed concerns over the deed’s language, which they say could make it possible for future claims that the city is not complying with the deed’s requirements.
“Like any contract, the language can be interpreted,” Anderson said in the meeting, noting that she’s also concerned with the organization’s operational history.
The association argues the clause is what ensures the youth center will always be around and that removing the clause leaves the door open for the city to make changes to the property that are not in line with the donor’s wants, similar to what happened in 1968. At the time, the city challenged the reverter clause in court in an attempt to relocate Coral Gables Elementary onto the youth center’s land.
The courts determined that the association could activate the clause if the city continued with its plans. The city backed off.
“The original donor made this gift with two clear and enduring goals: to commemorate the sacrifice of those who died in the World Wars and to ensure that the property would forever serve the children of those fallen veterans and the youth of Coral Gables. The conditions attached to the gift are straightforward,” Muir said.
Lago has repeatedly said at the commission meetings that there are no plans to sell or change the youth center, nor would the city want to.
In the December meeting, he floated an idea: If the association doesn’t want to turn over all of its records, it should agree to kill the clause — and then both the association and the city could sign a “covenant that the youth center will never be developed.”
