Miami Herald l Tuesday, May 7, 2024 
‘We cannot afford it’: Miami-Dade’s waste director resisted mayor’s $269M office deal

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s plan to move Miami-Dade’s Solid Waste Department into a $269 million office complex had an early detractor last year: her solid waste director. “The cost is too high, and we cannot afford it,” Olga Espinosa-Anderson said in an Oct. 16 email to Alex Muñoz, the department director overseeing real estate deals for Levine Cava. The objections from Espinosa-Anderson, then interim director of the Department of Solid Waste Management, didn’t gain traction, even though the cash-starved agency in charge of the county’s garbage collection expected its office rent to double after the planned move. Instead, Solid Waste ultimately agreed to the administration’s plan to create a new suburban government center out of a 1970s office complex once owned by Florida Power and Light. But the deal for Miami-Dade to purchase that property stalled in December after the Miami Herald raised questions about the proposed purchase price being almost double the appraised market value. After the Herald report, Levine Cava said her staff would renegotiate with the complex owner and come back to the County Commission with a new agreement. This week, the administration said the base sales price of $205 million proposed in December has been negotiated down 11% to $182 million…Read more