Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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Miami conclave to help map the next 50 years for Southeast Florida

On a Google map, the long stretch of Florida coastline from deep South Miami-Dade County to Sebastian Inlet appears a seamless mass of urban development jammed between a thin border of sand on one side and wetlands and farmland on the other.

But zoom in and it’s soon sliced up by lines both real and imaginary: roadways, highways, railways, waterways and the boundaries of numerous, and often overlapping, governmental jurisdictions.

Now this vast area, at once connected and disconnected, is the subject of one of the most ambitious planning efforts ever undertaken in Florida. Called Seven50, it aims to chart a coordinated, integrated future for the development of Southeast Florida’s seven counties for a couple of generations, through the year 2060.

On Thursday, the big moveable feast of thinkers, planners, economists, government officials and business leaders that is Seven50 will convene in downtown Miami for the effort’s second public summit since its launch in Delray Beach last June.

It may sound like “wonky stuff,’’ said Seven50 lead consultant Victor Dover, a Coral Gables-based planner. But he said Seven50’s scores of participants are convinced that agreeing to coordinated plans across jurisdictional lines is critical if the region is to prosper and meet a long list of common challenges. They range from transportation logjams to the prospect of rising seas and U.S. and international competitors trying to grab our share of international investment, tourism, cargo and trade.

And that competition is serious and well-organized, Dover said. In Texas, for instance, 13 counties and 100 cities between Houston and Galveston have banded together in a similar planning alliance, and so have cities and states along the Great Lakes.

The advantage Southeast Florida has, Seven50 planners say, is that old real-estate cliche: Location, location, location.

But it risks throwing its advantage away unless it better links up its airports and seaports, installs more and better-connected mass transit, and develops strategies to improve education and retain and attract the kind of skilled, educated young people considered key to economic prosperity in today’s economy.

“Planning at this scale is profoundly American, from Jefferson to the creation of Washington, D.C., and if we don’t do it, we’re going to get blown away by the competition,’’ said Andres Duany, a renown Miami-based planner who will give the keynote address at the downtown gathering. “They’re gunning for us.’’

The free, full day of sessions at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson campus is designed to gather public input and share a still-in-development snapshot of the region as planners build what they describe as a massive data warehouse covering everything from demographics to housing, economics and transportation networks. Key discussion areas will be transportation, education and the daunting implications of climate change.

Because Southeast Florida will be among the first regions to experience rising sea levels, across-the-board planning on how to adapt will be essential. That could include difficult options like steering investment for new public infrastructure away from vulnerable areas, or protecting the region’s underground water supply from saltwater intrusion by raising freshwater levels in drainage canals, which could produce more seasonal flooding in some areas.

Some 200 public agencies, advocates, business groups and academic institutions, including the region’s principal universities, have signed up for the effort. Any resulting plans are purely voluntary, and no town or agency is obligated to adopt any ideas it doesn’t like, planners stress.

Still, the process hit a roadblock in the northernmost county, Indian River. The county commission and the Vero Beach city council voted to drop out after Tea Party-linked activists raised a public ruckus over their participation. The activists contend Seven50 is part of Agenda 21, a 20-year-old, nonbinding United Nations resolution that called for environmentally sustainable urban development, which they describe as a conspiracy to evict people from their homes and force them into dense urban housing.

Seven50 planners had to post a response on their website explaining they intend no such thing. Since then, the Stuart city council voted to join Seven50. Other Indian River agencies remain as participants.

The two-year planning effort, led by a consortium established by the South Florida Regional Planning Council and the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, is funded by a $4.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The federal agency is encouraging local governments to engage in long-range planning under the sustainability label, which covers a range of strategies to foster development of pedestrian-friendly urban zones that put jobs close to homes and save energy by providing alternatives to auto transportation.

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Let’s Welcome Back Hockey with This ESPN Commercial

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:  

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Hockey, schmockey. As a whole, the Atlantic Wire staff is sort of ambivalent that the NHL is finally back. (Our Canadian correspondent, however, is thrilled.) But you know what we are thankful for? The ESPN commercial reminding us that the NHL is finally back: 

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These people are awesome (and, hey, maybe some of them play hockey):

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People are awesome, and also quite strange. Like this guy, who offers the world a video review of the Astor CB-100 (totally SFW), and the 33,000+ views his video has already gotten:

And finally, these are ponies in sweaters. Ponies in sweaters, people:

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Michelle Williams Destiny's Child Interview

Destiny's Child is back together, and ET's Rocsi Diaz sits down with 1/3 of the dynamic girl group to talk about their reunion after nearly a decade of time off with new music, the Beyonce lip sync controversy, Michelle's new stage role in the musical Fela!, her love life and her battle with depression.

Pics: Beyonce's Candid & Personal Photos

"Happiness is a choice," says Michelle, who says she had to face her "repressed anger" issues to understand why she was depressed, clarifying that it all happened before Destiny's Child went their separate ways. "There were times in depression where I could stay in the bed all week -- but it's like, 'Girl, you've got to get up! Honey, get fabulous, curl your hair, put some lip gloss on it, do something -- you have to choose life!'"

Earlier this month, Destiny's Child (Williams, Beyonce and Kelly Rowland) announced that they're reuniting after eight years with some new music. Love Songs, out January 29, will be a collection of the trio's most romantic tracks over the years, in addition to at least one new song: Nuclear. Michelle is also working on a solo album that is described as an "inspirational" project.

The new Destiny's Child album release date coincides with the national tour kick-off of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Fela!, which is produced by Jay-Z, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and Ruth and Stephen Hendel. In the production based on a true story, Michelle plays Sandra Isadore, an activist and the love interest of Afrobeat originator Fela Kuti, whose music and rousing lyrics openly attacked the corrupt military dictatorships that ruled Nigeria and much of Africa. The multi-city engagement kicks off at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC and travels to Detroit, Chicago, Charlotte, Atlanta, Miami, Schenectady, Memphis, Dallas, Cleveland and Los Angeles.

Video Flashback: Destiny's Child on 'Sesame Street'

As for Beyoncé’s alleged lip-synced performance of the national anthem at President Obama's Inauguration, Williams offers, "I will say this, it's not the first or the last time that someone has had to lip-sync…my greatest singer of all time, Whitney Houston, it came to light that her anthem was in fact lip-synced."

CLICK HERE for more of Williams take on the lip sync controversy, and watch the video above to hear Michelle talk about her love life!

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Mother & daughter victim of peeping Tom at H&M -- and employees let him get away, lawsuit claims

A Manhattan boutique owner and her daughter say they got more than they bargained for when they used an H&M dressing room to try on lingerie — they were videotaped by a camera-wielding perv who store employees let get away, a new lawsuit claims.

Zia Ziprin, 51, of the Lower East Side haven Girls Love Shoes and daughter Aishling Labat, 23, were shopping at the discount fashion giant’s Fifth Avenue Flatiron store in January 2010.

The women were “in a state of undress within the dressing room stall” on the second floor when the unidentified man in an adjoining stall filmed them “with a camera or video camera,” according to the suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

PATRICK MCMULLAN/PatrickMcMullan.com

Zia Ziprin and Aishling Labat

As Labat was changing into the negligee, “She saw there was something above the dressing room. She thought it was a security camera, but when she reached up there was nothing there,” her attorney, Ross Rothenberg told The Post. “She started screaming and he ran from the second story down to the first” and escaped, the lawyer said.

“Their assumption is that somewhere on the Internet is videos of both of them,” semi-naked, Rothenberg said, adding that they haven’t been able to track down the smut.

Both Ziprin and Labat “pleaded with H&M’s security and store personnel to stop [the man] from leaving the store ...with the compromising video and photographs,” the suit says. Ziprin, a curvy blonde, “begged for help from security and/or store personnel, who ignored her request.”

Rothenberg said police obtained security footage of the creep and investigated the incident but never caught him.

The women want unspecified damages for the “embarrassment, humiliation, fear, panic, torment” they suffered, the suit says.

The suit charges the store with building flimsy, unisex dressing rooms that allow easy accesses to eavesdroppers and peeping toms.

An H&M spokeswoman said the company hasn’t seen the suit, but its policy is to decline comment on legal matters.

Additional reporting by Sabrina Ford and Dana Sauchelli

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Recalled Mayor Carlos Alvarez wins — in bodybuilding contest

Former Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez is back, in rare form, displaying bulging muscles from his pecs to his calves, bronzed from head to toe, dressed in the skimpiest of black briefs.

After almost two years of seclusion, Alvarez reemerged in November Hulk-like, taking home first prize in the National Physique Committee’s South Florida “Over 60s” Master’s bodybuilding competition at Miami’s James L. Knight Center.

Event promoter Sergio Pacheco said Alvarez’s victory over five other men qualified him for the more prestigious Junior National Master’s competition.

Pacheco, who owns Pacheco’s Physique Gym in Hialeah, said he had heard the former mayor competed in an event a few weeks earlier in West Palm Beach, but had no idea he had entered the Knight Center contest.

“When I saw him walk in, I said, ‘Wow, I know him,’ ” Pacheco said.

The former mayor and county police director was recalled from office in March 2011 by 88 percent of the electorate, after constituents had a hard time wrestling with a series of raises he awarded his inner circle and with his backing of the new, $634 million Miami Marlins ballpark in Little Havana.

Since the recall, Alvarez, 60, has rarely been seen in public. He has been spotted spending lots of time at a tony gym at Merrick Park in Coral Gables. Deanna Clevesy, a spokeswoman for Equinox Gym Coral Gables, confirmed Tuesday that Alvarez works out there, but refused to share details on his regimen.

Spotted on the field before the Marlins’ inaugural game at the new ballpark last April, it was apparent Alvarez had been hitting the barbells — muscles ripped from his short-sleeved shirt, various media reports noted.

Peter Potter, who judged Alvarez to victory at the Knight Center, said there was no mention of Alvarez’s mayoral past in his bio, just a mention that he was the former police director. Potter initially had no idea of Alvarez’s former life.

“One of the other judges who lives in Miami pointed out to me’’ that Alvarez was the former county mayor, Potter said. Alvarez “didn’t broadcast it.”

The mayor’s bodybuilding victory was first reported Tuesday by the Miami New Times.

Michael Sansevero photographed the event. He said Alvarez forked over $75 for pictures and video.

“I was kind of surprised when I saw him,” Sansevero said. “He must always have been in good shape, but he was in real good shape.”

Alvarez, whose current employment status is unknown, could not be reached for comment.

Alvarez spent 35 years with Miami-Dade County, the first 28 in the police department, where he worked his way up to the top job.

When the former mayor left office, he was earning salary and benefits worth $325,309, county records show. His last financial disclosure put his net worth at $1.74 million.

Alvarez’s annual police pension pays him $180,216, and he received a one-time payout of $287,879 for entering an early retirement plan.

Alvarez also participated in a retirement investment plan during his seven years as mayor, during which the state matched his contributions. Numbers weren’t immediately available for that plan Tuesday.

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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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‘Atari’ Is in Trouble Again

Atari is declaring bankruptcy — twice. Both the U.S. video game company and its French parent have done so, the latest twist for the company which largely invented the video game industry and remains synonymous with it, despite having seen its glory days end by the mid-1980s.

But wait. Even though the Atari name celebrated its fortieth anniversary last year, it’s a mistake to talk about Atari as if it’s a corporate entity which has been around for four decades. (The Los Angeles Times’ Ben Fritz, for instance, refers to it as an “iconic but long-troubled video game maker.”) Instead, it’s a famous name which has drifted from owner to owner. It keeps being applied to different businesses, and yes, for all its fame, it does seem to be a bit of a jinx.

Here’s a quick rundown of what “Atari” has meant at different times (thanks, Wikipedia, for refreshing my memory):

1972-1976: It’s an up-and-coming, innovative startup cofounded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney.

1976-1984: It’s part of Warner Communications (which, years later, merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner, overlord of this website). It’s a massively successful maker of video games and consoles, but then it crashes, along with the rest of the industry.

1984-1996: Atari morphs into a semi-successful maker of PCs when it’s acquired by Tramel Technology, a company started by Jack Tramiel, the ousted founder of Commodore.

1996-1998: Tramiel runs Atari into the ground. After merging with hard-disk maker JTS, the company and brand are largely dormant.

1998-2000: Atari resurfaces under the ownership of  toy kingpin Hasbro as a line of games published under the Atari Interactive name.

2000-present: It becomes a corporate entity controlled by French game publisher Infogrames, which increasingly emphasizes the Atari moniker over its own and takes over completely in 2008. In recent years, it’s focused on digital downloads, mobile games and licensing of its familiar brand and logo.

The above chronology doesn’t account for Atari’s original business: arcade games. As far as I can tell, the arcade arm was owned at different times by Warner Communications/Time Warner (twice!), Pac-Man purveyor Namco and arcade icon Midway, among other companies. But use of the Atari brand on arcade hardware petered out in 2001.

Basically, Atari has never been one well-defined thing for more than twelve years, max, at a time. That the name has survived at all is a testament to its power and appeal. And even though the current Atari has fallen on hard times, I’ll bet that the brand survives for at least a few more decades, in one form or another. Several forms, probably.

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Sheryl Crow on Lance Armstrong Doping Confession to Oprah Winfrey

Sheryl Crow (who will be advising Blake Shelton on The Voice this season) opened up to Nancy O'Dell on the set of the singing competition over the weekend, commenting on Lance Armstrong's doping confession.

RELATED: Shelton Taps Sheryl For The Voice

"I think that honesty is always the best bet and that the truth will set you free," said Crow, who caught "bits and pieces" of her ex-fiance's interview with Oprah Winfrey. "To carry around a weight like that would be devastating in the long run."

Armstrong, 41, and Crow, 50, began dating in 2003 -- the same year that Armstrong divorced his wife of five years, Kristin -- and split in 2006.

Last year, a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency led to Armstrong's downfall. The shamed cyclist was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and, until now, vehemently maintained his innocence.

RELATED: Biggest Celebrity Scandals of 2012

During a series of rapid-fire yes or no questions, the retired cyclist confirmed to Oprah last week that he had blood transfusions and used the banned substance erythropoietin (EPO) during his career -- particularly during all seven of his Tour de France victories. Although he expressed a desire to make things right with the people he may have hurt, Crow was never mentioned by name.

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Weberman victim's impact statement

Thank you, Honorable Justice Ingram for your role during this trial (and beyond.) A very special thank you to Assistant DA Kevin O’Donnell for your endless hard work and sleepless nights throughout the trial in order to see justice served.

Standing here, I think back to those years throughout my ordeal when I suffered great psychological damage and fell into severe depression. I clearly remember how I would look in the mirror and see a person I didn’t recognize. I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin. A girl whose innocence was shattered at the age of 12.

A girl who couldn’t look at her own reflection without feeling repulsed knowing what abuse that tortured person was continuously experiencing. A girl who couldn’t sleep at night because the horrifying images of the recent gruesome invasions which had been done to her body kept replaying in her head. A girl who numbed her feelings and froze her emotions every minute of the day just to stay sane. A girl who was forced to lose any respect for herself. A girl who lost the right to say NO, to an abuser who used and abused her repeatedly for years that seemed like forever and ever. A sad girl who so badly wished she could have lived a normal young teenage life but instead was stuck being victimized by a 50 year old man who forced her to experience and perform sickening acts for his sick sense of pleasure again and again.

I saw a girl who didn’t have a reason to live.

I would cover up the burn marks inflicted on the body he used to serve his sadistic pleasures. Every time I would look at it, I would get flashbacks and feel my body burning all over again. I would cry until my tears ran dry.

But now, with the help and support of so many officials, family members, friends, supporters, and of my dear husband, I finally stood up and spoke out.

I gathered all my inner strength and courage to go through this battle. A battle of justice, to right in some small way the terrible wrong, to prevent further evil, to protect the innocent, and most of all, to heal. It continues to be a very rough battle that brought me, my parents, and family great humiliation and intimidation, aggravation and rejection, strain and loss of business, each too great to describe.

However, this same battle was one of righteousness. A battle that was the voice of other silent Weberman victims coming forward to bring this monstrous perpetrator to justice. Unfortunately, the others could not or would not publicly testify. Many were too scared to face the opposition and repercussions from the community while others had already passed the statute of limitations — but we were all one voice as they were with me in spirit.

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