Florida officials’ rush to transfer a chunk of coveted downtown Miami property to Donald Trump’s presidential library foundation hit yet another snag on Tuesday.
I previously wrote about a legal complaint filed by Florida educator and activist Marvin Dunn, who alleged officials at Miami Dade College broke Florida’s Sunshine Law when they failed to adequately notify the public about a meeting to transfer the land to the state of Florida, which turned around and gave it to the nonprofit raising funds for Trump’s presidential library. Dunn’s lawsuit argued that the law’s transparency requirements compelled the college trustees to notify the public about its plan and give the community adequate opportunity to comment.
The law is designed to ensure public business is conducted in public view rather than behind closed doors — and Circuit Court Judge Mavel Ruiz said in her ruling Tuesday that officials involved in this deal likely violated it.
Judge Mavel Ruiz of Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit found that the board of trustees of Miami Dade College most likely violated the state’s Sunshine Law, which requires a certain degree of transparency in government. … Judge Ruiz’s ruling does not permanently block the state from conveying the property to Mr. Trump, as Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican state officials voted to do on Sept. 30. The college trustees could meet again, this time providing more specific public notice, for the property transfer to be properly completed.
This excerpt makes clear that the judge’s ruling was rooted in procedure and not the act of handing such a gift over to the president (however ugly that may be):
‘It is understood that the board can provide the reasonable disclosure and convey this property as they see fit,’ Judge Ruiz said in her ruling, which followed hearings on Monday and Tuesday. ‘That’s why this is not a case, at least for this court, rooted in politics.’
Critics like Dunn have denounced the library’s hasty deal for its general air of corruption. Others have denounced the library plan because it involves handing over the plot of land right beside the Freedom Tower, a historic landmark once used as an immigrant processing center that now serves as a symbol of immigrant acceptance. Some in the community object to the prospect of such a symbol being literally overshadowed by a library — one that Trump’s son Eric has fantasized as being visible for “miles” off the Florida coast — for a president so unabashedly xenophobic.
The lawsuit seems unlikely to doom the project, however. Ruiz’s ruling acknowledges Florida officials have a right to do this — but they can’t get around state laws that require them to let the public know what they’re doing.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
