A man with a lot to lose, such as a mayoral campaign, has joined us in studio. Former city of Miami commissioner Ken Russell is running for mayor of Miami. He came in to face a grilling by Billy Corben in an often terse but enlightening conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is running for mayor of Miami in 2025?
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Former Miami City Commissioner wants to be the city's mayor. About an hour ago, Ken Russell filed the paperwork at Miami City Hall, setting the stage for him to run for mayor in November 2025. Current Mayor Francis Suarez has termed out. Russell won a seat on the City Commission in 2015 and left City Hall in 2022. Corruption in Miami government, he insists, has to be rooted out.
Ken Russell is what the Miami Herald is calling the first prominent candidate to formally enter the 2025 City of Miami mayoral race. Also, there's a first time for everything. He's here with us live in studio. I'm shocked. Also a last time for everything, Roy.
I would not be shocked.
To be fair, he might very well be the first of the prominent mayoral candidates to join us on this program. But he was the commissioner of District 2, which we are in right now, presently. District 2 generates over 70% of the revenue for the entire city of Miami, which is then, of course, spread out to all of the other four districts. Bravo! That's socialism, Roy. That's what that is.
Nonetheless, this has often been the most significant, obviously powerful, obviously wealthiest district. It consists of Coconut Grove, of Brickell, of downtown. I think parts of Edgewater. It's been redistricted, but it's basically up the coast, which is where the money is. And Ken Russell and I, like a lot of elected officials in this town have had a longstanding adversarial relationship.
Yeah, Roy is doing sign language. Is that a diplomatic way of putting it? And I'll say this, that we don't hang out a lot. But since going back to 2018, two out of the last three times we had met publicly publicly kind of one-on-one-ish or like getting together, ended in shouting matches. There was alcohol in between. As I recall. I yell sober, too.
But I get very passionate and worked up about issues. And I think the origin of my beef with you would have to be the Mel Reese, Inter-Miami, Beckham boondoggle, where you were the swing vote, the deciding vote,
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Chapter 2: Why is Ken Russell's mayoral campaign controversial?
both in 2018 to put the item on the ballot for referendum, and then again in 2022 to give a 99-year no-bid lease on the city's largest contiguous piece of property, its largest, what was then a green space, then the only public golf course in the city of Miami. And... What was the basically the largest real estate deal in the history of the city?
And we've kind of come full circle in a way because Mel Reese appears to be in that deal with Jorge Moss and David Beckham and Inter Miami appears to be why you're running in the first place. Is that accurate?
Yeah.
Well, first of all, thanks for having me here. You're welcome. I can't imagine there's a lot of politicians that come rolling through, and I don't know why. But when I heard that you wanted me on to endorse my mayoral campaign live on the show, I couldn't resist, and so I'm here, and I really appreciate that. So thank you for this time.
To be honest, he thought this would also be the last day of his campaign, potentially.
And to be fair, he was good enough to risk that to come on. It's been one week, so put me out of my misery. But I, no, but my beef was I thought this was a bad deal. And I always say with these, what they call public-private partnerships, that a contract is only as good as the willingness of the parties to enforce that contract. We can have the same conversation we had back in 2018.
But the truth is, is that everything I told you then was true then, it is true now, but you seem to be coming around to the fact that the deal that you were the deciding vote on, your argument is it was a boondoggle, but you're the guy that made it happen. So, like, what exactly... Fair enough. And how has that influenced your inspiration to return to...
the possibility of public or elected life? It's not the reason, but it's definitely one of the straws that's breaking the back of me deciding to come back to the city of Miami, because I was very happy having left and enjoying private life. But I would say our relationship was super solid up until that vote. And we had a drink right around then in 2018.
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Chapter 3: What is the Mel Reese Inter-Miami deal?
And you said over that drink that if I voted for that, our relationship would be over, basically. Because you were very passionate about this. Sounds like something I'd say. I don't think you were trying to leverage me for the sake of, please let me keep this friendship. No, I didn't think you gave a shit about that. But you did keep to your word. I'm a man of my word. So, in my...
first term in office, let's say I had some naivete that wanted to believe that we could make a good deal out of a bad deal, and that if the right contractual terms were put in place and the right public benefits were there, this could be a good deal.
And I was torn, because a lot of the folks that supported me, a lot of the activist crowd, a lot of the green space environmental crowd, they weren't crazy about this. And so I struggled a lot leading up to 2018, but I thought I'd solved it. And the reason I'm here with you today is to really
but this is really hard i'm i'm not willing to say that you were all right i can't i can't do it i can't say billy corvin was right well billy could do it for you he says it every day but he always says wait a few years and i always say that if you think if when it comes to politics if you think i'm wrong just wait two years sometimes you only have to wait two days or two weeks but in this case i'm almost like almost spot on and i'm not trying to be funny you were right because
I put all of the legal teeth into a vote that would hold the public benefits that kept this from being a bad deal, in my opinion. You may still disagree with even what I was able to extract being the swing vote and having that leverage, but it was everything from living wages for every single person that worked there, from the ticket takers to the person at McDonald's.
It was full cost for remediation of all the contamination, and this is a very contaminated site. And a big part for you was that since it was a no-bid deal, that there was no competition in the pricing. Correct.
In contravention with the city charter, which requires an RFP, competitive bidding process, which is what went to referendum. Right.
amending the charter to say these guys could get right no way when it came down to the lease I was able to use my leverage to take the highest possible assessment of that land valuing it not on the contaminated value but after they cleaned it and paid for it what was the true value of that land and people could argue whether or not the three appraisals were impartial or correct but we took the highest of the highest one
But the big thing for me was about the green space that was going to be lost there. Even though this is an artifact, it's a golf course, really. And the pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that are put right there on the Miami River aren't great. The actual landfill that's under it was never properly remediated, and that's not great. But I was okay with this deal if it made sense financially.
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Chapter 4: How did Ken Russell defend his vote on the stadium deal?
But I knew I had the leverage to demand not promises or handshakes or bro slaps, but actual amendments to legislation that would result in a better deal through public benefits. And I was able to get it. And so even for this last two years, and this is where we're gonna come to the present. Able to get it? You weren't able to get it.
But I was. You squandered your leverage, you didn't.
No, no, no, no, no.
I was not trying to destroy this deal. I was trying, like death and taxes, sports welfare is inevitable. I was trying to get a better deal for the taxpayers. By the way, I don't think it's unfair for you to say that you were trying to do the same. The problem was and what I said to you is how do you enforce that?
How can you what you you can't actually guarantee that you can't actually paper it in such a way? Because later on, some other I said this to you in some other elected some some other commission, some other city manager, some other city attorney. You guys will all be long gone by the time they're totally us with this deal. It'll be well past anything you could even do about it.
let alone what you thought you could do about it in the moment. I want to show this clip from that meeting. What, for a fleeting moment there, was a pretty exciting moment for those of us who thought we had somebody representing us on that dais in this boondock.
Well, you weren't reading the moment right. I'm going to walk you through it.
All in favor? Aye.
It's going to be a no.
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Chapter 5: What were the consequences of the Mel Reese stadium vote?
And I don't know why they thought I was going to vote yes in that moment. Because they were going to lie to you. But they hadn't even agreed at that point to anything on my list. Okay, they hadn't lied to you yet. Yeah, they hadn't lied to me yet.
So when they decided to break, I sat there because I didn't want the perception of what ended up happening that everyone goes back to their offices and deals are cut and everything. What I wanted and what I believe happened is once they realized that I'm a hard no and I don't give a shit, that I can walk away from this as it is, that they need to give me every one of those things.
And I believe the mayor went around to each office and whipped them and said, these votes have to happen for these amendments that Russell wants. I understand DLP likes to get whipped. I can't speak to that, but I could tell you his breath was whipping me on that day just then when he was yelling at me.
But the only moment I stepped off the dais was when Francis kept saying, bro, talk to me for a second. I need to talk to you. And I hadn't talked to him in that moment. Since the time I was at his house and he kicked me out of it.
And did you tell him, Mr. Mayor, you're brilliant. You were super smart. Well, let me ask you about that. Did you have any contact with the Inter-Miami MLS group outside of a public meeting? Any of the Moss brothers, partners or lobbyists?
So for at that point, what was it, four years that they had been working on this thing? No, I would only meet with them in my office with my staff. And we had long, hard meetings on in terms of the negotiation. But I never went out for drinks, no cigars, no coffees, no breakfast. And it was important to me. So when the mayor said to me one day, hey, this is just a few days before the vote.
Meet me in my house. I never expected I would see the Moss brothers sitting in his living room. And that really pissed me off.
And how many of those demands get met on that list that you had?
So, theoretically, all of them are getting met until I find out this last month they are voting to undo them at the City Commission through an illegal vote. And that's what brought me back to City Hall.
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Chapter 6: Why is the Miami government facing criticism?
And I wouldn't have gone because that's what I was able to say up to that point. You were sandbagged. I have not met with them outside my office without my staff present and all of that. But when I got there, it wasn't. So this was on purpose. The mayor obviously invited you there. Of course. And they were doing the rounds.
And I believe I was the last stop because I from what Alex had said on the day as he had had private meetings in living rooms with the masses and with the mayor and during which he was promised certain things. And then they wanted to see that I would agree to those things. That's a sunshine violation.
To be to be clear, by the way, this is this required. There's five commissioners voting commissioners on the days. This needed a supermajority because of the size and scope of this project. No, because of the no-bid. Yeah, and the charter issue, this required four out of five commissioners. So you were the last stop, ostensibly, because you were the swing vote.
So what you're saying is the sunshine violation there came when, effectively, the mayor was negotiating— between you and DLP, and kind of, or on behalf of?
He's allowed to whip votes. He's allowed to call up a commissioner and say, vote this way if this is what I really care about. He's allowed to do that. But he's not allowed to say, Alex is going to vote this way, and you need to vote this way, too. And what they said to me was, well, this has already been promised to Alex.
The full $20 million public benefit for green space has already been given to that commissioner, so you can't demand that it be taken away. The votes aren't there for it. And they thought Alex wouldn't budge. And so I already knew at that point I'm on a collision course with the public benefits I'm demanding and what Alex wanted with that money. But I already knew where I stood.
So when he said at that point, get the fuck out of my house because I wouldn't agree. Who said that? Francis did. I happily got up and the Moss's faces went white because they knew they needed my vote. Francis couldn't control his anger because he was losing grip on it. They had really said, Francis, I need you to help go around and whip these votes. And when they got to me, I wasn't agreeing.
And so he kicks me out of his house. But inside, I was happy because now I realize he had given me the ability to send a message to him that I don't care. I will walk out of your house. I'll walk out of this vote and I'll vote no on the dais. And I thought that that was enough for them to then realize that I need to get these benefits for the public or I'm a no vote.
But you didn't get the benefit. But I did get the vote. I got the vote. I got the vote. And here's where we get to the reality where you're right and I'm wrong. Because I really stood my ground. And what happens after that tape is not Ken waves the white flag. It's that Ken got every single one to a letter of that list of public benefits.
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Chapter 7: What role does corruption play in Miami politics?
You showed up at the commission meeting last month, made a very good point, which was they raised taxes by $10 million. Yes.
At this very lectern seven years ago, David Beckham stood and made the promise to us and the city. He said, I am doing this for your children and your children's children. And his development partners made the promise to us, which resulted in legislation, which was our promise to the city. And the mayor signed that legislation, which created a lease.
And part of that promise is for the land that was going to be taken up. the green space that would disappear for the stadium, we would find, rezone, and fund new parks throughout the city. We identified those four parks, and they are in districts throughout. And we rezoned those parks and we funded it with half of the $20 million contribution.
This is an additional $10 million to the Moss family and their development group because this actually defunds one of the new parks that would be going into District 1. And the money that they are going to use to build up that park is already meant to be spent by them. Miami has a history.
of recalling mayors who make bad decisions on sporting deals mayor suarez has been a friend of mine for over 10 years but if the promise of this deal is broken i will be the first signature on any recall effort for any elected official who tries to break the promises of this deal because it is my integrity is your integrity because you carry the promises of commission's past
That was a bit theatrical. Francis Suarez's term limited in eight months. Nobody's going to mount him. He shouldn't be there for 10 more minutes. Well, you don't have to convince me to sign that petition. But as Joe will tell you, I don't even live in the city. But you are correct in that that was a bait and switch. That is more welfare for a billionaire, which is what I told you many years ago.
That's all this was to begin with. But you had not announced that you were running at that point, though.
Yeah, I hadn't decided myself at that point. But was that it? So, no. I mean, I'm looking at what are the possible remedies for this issue. A recall won't fix the issue, but it'll try to hold punitive those who are voting for it that day. And four out of five of them voted for it that day based on the lies Francis told them and the money that he handed out.
He literally handed out taxpayer money to them to get them to vote for this issue, which now violates the ballot language as well. Because this project of those new parks are part of this project are now being taxpayer funded. Well, the mayor argued that the ballot language was deliberately...
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