4 August 22-28, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | ▼ INTER MIAMI OWN GOAL DESANTIS AWARDS INTER MIAMI STADIUM $8M IN STATE FUNDS. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN I n 2018, before Miami voters approved a no-bid deal to build Inter Miami CF’s new soccer stadium at a publicly owned site, Inter Miami co-owner Jorge Mas promised the development would be privately funded. “New Miami park/soccer village/tech hub will be privately funded with NO public dol- lars for stadium,” Mas tweeted on July 5, 2018. “Will be unique paying fair market value for land and property taxes. Diametri- cally opposite of egregious Marlins deal! Plus we want the voters to decide!” Notwithstanding the Major League Soccer club’s assurances, the team’s project will now be padded by several million dollars from Gov. Ron DeSantis for infrastructure im- provements around the site. On Thursday, flanked by Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez and Florida’s secretary of commerce, Alex Kelly, at Inter Miami’s temporary home at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, DeSan- tis announced that the state will allocate $8 million for Miami Freedom Park. The project is a planned 25,000-seat soccer stadium and commercial complex at the site of the former Melreese Country Club. The governor said the state will grant the money to Miami-Dade County to build new roadways for the stadium to help with traffic flow. A site map shows the multimillion-dollar funding is bankrolling a street that will run through the heart of Miami Freedom Park. The grant application describes the road as the property’s “main artery.” New Times reported in December that Mas’ assurances — that the project will be “privately funded with no public funding for the stadium” — appeared to be contradicted by the Miami-Dade County Commission’s resolution seeking millions of dollars in infra- structure improvements for the project. At the time, the public dollars were requested to help clean up arsenic-contaminated soil, im- prove drainage, and install electrical compo- nents at the project site. Mas touted the project at the media con- ference Thursday, saying the stadium will create 13,000 direct and indirect jobs and generate $40 million in local and state tax revenue annually. He maintained the “sta- dium is 100 percent privately funded.” In 2022, the City of Miami Commission approved a 99-year lease with Inter Miami co-owners David Beckham and Jorge and Jose Mas, which included the development of the soccer stadium and a mixed-use complex to include a large hotel and a 58- acre park. As previously reported by the New Times, the Miami Freedom Park has been heavily criticized by Miamians who say city officials are bending over backward for wealthy devel- opers and giving them a sweetheart deal without sufficient benefits to taxpayers. Before the 2022 commission vote, docu- mentarian Billy Corben released a mini-doc- umentary slamming the controversial deal narrated by none other than former Miami Marlins president David Samson. (He nota- bly convinced Miami-Dade County to issue $500 million worth of bonds to build LoanDepot Park.) “Melreese giveaway is so bad it would make the Marlins stadium deal look good — take it from me,” Samson said. DeSantis claimed the state funding will bolster the local economy and make access- ing the stadium more efficient. “Today’s award will significantly boost job creation and attract businesses to South Flor- ida,” DeSantis said. “This investment in road- way and transit infrastructure will ensure a greater capacity of people can travel effi- ciently through Miami as new projects like the Miami Freedom Park reach completion.” The Florida Job Growth Grant Fund, whose awards are reviewed by the Florida Commerce Department and controlled by the governor, is the source of the money for the Miami Freedom Park roadway construction. The fund granted money to 38 projects in fiscal years 2021 and 2022. Recent awards provided funds for Miami Dade College’s Construction Trade Institute and a planned mixed-use development in Cape Coral with a hotel, veterans housing, and medical office buildings. | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS Gov. Ron DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez pose with superstar Lionel Messi and Inter Miami co-owners Jorge and Jose Mas at the club facility in Fort Lauderdale on August 8. Screenshot via X ▼ PLANTATION CASE CLOSED? BODIES RECOVERED FROM CANAL COULD SOLVE 50-YEAR-OLD INVESTIGATION. BY ZULEKHA PITTS T he half-century-old cold case of a miss- ing mother and daughter from Planta- tion has finally been cracked. A mystery that haunted Plantation for decades had a heartbreaking development on Saturday, August 10, when authorities discovered what are believed to be the two family members’ remains submerged in a Broward Boulevard canal. Doris Wurst, 35, and her 3-year-old daughter Caren vanished without a trace from their home on NW Second Street in Plantation, a residence in the now-defunct Sunshine City Trailer Park. Their disappearance in November 1974 left the commu- nity and law enforcement baffled for 50 years. Despite follow-up investigations in 1977, 1988, 1992, 1994, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2018, the case remained cold, with no sign of the mother, child, or their red and white 1961 Chevrolet Impala. According to the Plantation Police Department (PPD), the breakthrough came during an operation by Sunshine State Sonar, an organization that conducts volunteer searches for vehicles tied to missing person cases in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, using state- of-the-art sonar equipment. The group began working on the Wursts’ case in June 2023. “Usually when someone goes missing, a car is found on the side of the highway, it’s abandoned in a parking lot, or it’ll show up somewhere in a junkyard at some point. So, we get involved with these cases where the vehicle is never found,” Mike Sullivan, founder of Sunshine State Sonar, tells New Times. Sullivan deploys sonar imaging devices to scan through as many water bodies as possible in the search field, which typically encompasses a radius of several miles around the last known location of a missing person. “Here’s the problem with South Florida. There are so many waterways, so many canals — hundreds of them, and it’s like finding a nee- dle in a haystack. These waters are just endless,” Sullivan says. On August 10, the team zeroed in on the canal in the 10100 block of West Broward Boulevard, near where the Wursts were last seen. Sonar de- tected something unusual beneath the water’s surface around 11:17 a.m. The sonar im- age matched the description of the classic car the mother was driving before she and her daughter vanished. The PPD and the Broward Sheriff’s Of- fice (BSO) were immediately notified of the dis- covery. Sunshine State Sonar says a scuba dive search revealed the submerged vehicle was in- deed the Wursts’ Chevy Impala. Inside the car, BSO divers found two sets of skeletal remains, one unmistakably belonging to a small child. Photos from the scene show the rusted-out frame of the vehicle being pulled from the water behind a residential community with pool enclo- sures and manicured lawns. Clothing, a small saxophone, and toy cars were recovered from the wreckage and laid out on a sheet near the site during the recovery operation. The next of kin have been contacted regard- ing the likelihood that their long-lost loved ones have been found, but official identification of the deceased is pending verification through DNA results or dental records. The finding provides some hope that, after five decades, the Wursts’ family and the Broward community can finally have some closure. “The investigation was a result of a 14-month collaboration with the Plantation Police Department. The dedication of the detectives involved in the case was incredible, as they never gave up on finding a resolution, even 50 years later,” Sunshine State Sonar said in a statement. [email protected] SULLIVAN DEPLOYS SONAR IMAGING DEVICES TO SCAN THROUGH AS MANY WATER BODIES AS POSSIBLE.
