As was also reported in Aviation Week online, a protest was held at Opa Locka Flightline yesterday June 9th, at 10am. The NAACP, NBC news, PULSE, ariport tenants, Opa Locka residents and a over a hundred supporters gathered on Flightline’s ramp and help a press conference with high powered litigator, Willie Gary.
In concert with the other dozen evicted tenants of Opa Locka Airport they are going to push forward their litigation and FAA part 16 complaints. The result of which could be the goverment withholding federal funds for Miami Dade Aviation (inlcuding Miami International Airport).
Aviation Week noted that “AAA was found during a county audit to be 90 days past due on $252,030, and further, that the developer was in violation of its obligation to provide $22.6 million in leasehold improvements within 18 months of acquiring the lease, or by Sept. 9, 2008.” Adler has not laid down a single brick in the airport and is now in default of their lease obligations with the county. Who within the city management can argue in favor of defending AA Acquisitions?
Business & Commercial Aviation magazine has published a 7 page expose on the illicit happenings at Opa Locka Airport. The magazine is published by Mcgraw-hill under their Aviation Week subsidiary. It has a very broad reach throughout the aviation community and will undoubtedly land on the desks of airport and FAA administrators across the country.
George C. Larson’s investigative reporting is fair and even handed. It balances the positive intentions of developing the airport with the scummy, and sometimes Machiavellian tactics used to remove competition from this airport.
A long-term development lease was supposed to have been accomplished by April 2006. “The county kept stalling and stalling, because at the same time they were negotiating with Adler, and they didn’t want us to know this,” [Tony Robinson] says. “Essentially what they did was to give him our land.”
The pressure on Miami-Dade Aviation and AA Acquisitions is building. How long until the county – or the courts, decides to dissolve their lease and distribute the land properly among the aggrieved tenants of Opa Locka Airport?
Read the full Business & Commercial Aviaiton – Opa Locka War story at AviationWeek.com
The Miami Times’ Tariq Osborne had an interesting cover story in their last issue regarding Opa Locka Flightline. They are an Opa Locka Airport tenant in the same situation as the rest of the long established businesses at the airport. While in the midst of negotiations over a long term lease at the airport, Miami Dade Aviation signed over their land to AA Acquisitions. Their new landlord (and direct FBO competitor) subsequently asked for 10x the monthly rent.
Flightline’s Tony Robinson is quoted in the article stating, “You want me to come sharecrop for you, and I’ve got a multi-million dollar business? No. We’re going to take our rightful spot in this community,”.
The company sought out the legal council of Wille Gary, a Tampa based litigator with a record of multi-million dollar victories against the likes of Disney and Anheusur Busch. He promises to bring the fight to MDAD, and gave them fair warning in this article from the Miami New Times.
Being Force Out
Potential for billion-dollar lawsuit?
By Tariq Osborne Osborne@miamitimesonline.com
The only Black-owned Fixed Base Operator in the nation, Opa-Locka Flightline, may file a potential billion-dollar lawsuit against Miami Dade County’s Aviation Department. The fiveyear-old company has retained the services of Willie E. Gary, who has earned the nickname “the giant killer” for winning suits against such corporate giants Disney and AnheuserBusch.
At issue is Opa-Locka Flightline’s (OLF) leasehold interest. Gary contends that during OLF’s negotiations for a new lease with the county, the county improperly assigned OLF’s lease to a company called AA Acquisitions (AA).
Read the rest of this entry »
An article by Julia Neyman of the South Florida Business Journal covers the impact of Miami-Dade and Adler’s moves to wrongfully evict the small business tenants of Opa Locka Airport.
Opa-locka Executive Airport’s National Aviation building stands deserted.
The former private jet and fuel-based operator service hasn’t turned on the lights since June, and the broad tiled hallways are starting to fill with dust.
Nearby, ALCA Avionics‘ repair shop is also dark, and owner Sergio Alen has started a life vest business across the way because he doesn’t think ALCA’s lights will ever come back on.
The classrooms at Wayman Aviation Services are empty. Nobody wants to plunk down a $10,000 deposit at a school that might not be there tomorrow.
The owners said they moved out after developer Michael Adler took over the Opa-locka land a year ago and started raising rents. They had been paying 15 cents a square foot, similar to the 18 cents charged at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines, but Adler is asking for higher rents because it is redoing the worn-out building.
“My business is paralyzed,” said National Aviation owner Alex Rodriguez, who on Feb. 6 filed suit against Miami-Dade County for allegedly altering his lease and awarding a few tenants long-term leases before Adler took over – while leaving the rest of the tenants to deal with the new owner. “I put 32 years of my life into the airport, and they’re kicking me out.”
Continue reading the article at the South Florida Business Journal’s website.
The Opa Locka Tenants Rights Organization (OTRO) is 100% in favor of developing the airport to it’s full potential. More business in the airport is good for everyone involved. In a series of articles in the South Florida Business Journal some of Adler and Miami-Dade Aviation’s wishes come to light.
The story Opa Locka Airport Seek 410 new Jobs states,
“An unnamed German aviation manufacturing company considering a move to Opa-locka Airport may add to the $450 million worth of development planned for the site.”
An incentive to wipe out current tenants of the airport without providing assitance for relocation or to mitigate the damage caused to those businesses. The very secretive deal has been put on hold according to certain sources due to the poor global economic outlook. The county and adler are still pursuing their evicition proceedings but with new found generosity in allowing current tenants to stay for one year. In exchange for this “deal” signers must give up their businesses after that year and all rights to sue for compensation and damages. As well as dropping their part 16 FAA complaint.
In New Developments Hope to revitalize Opa-Locka airport grounds the well intentioned plans of developing the airport are discused while touching on how the airport came to be in such a state of direpair.
“A quarter of the airport’s land was leased to developers who had not moved on any projects since leases were handed out in 1999. Many of the buildings on the airport grounds dated to World War II and, while general aviation was booming around South Florida, Opa-locka was only using about a third of its capacity.”
Ten years later the new chosen monopolistic lease holder, Adler Acquisitions has again failed to make any meaningful improvements to the airport. Millions have been allocated in infrastructure with only a partial fence to show for 3 years of development. The traffic control tower is condemned with the ATC staff working from a portable that does not have a visual line of sight to all of the runways and taxiways on the field. Dangerous and neglectful actions by Miami-Dade.
Lastly the article Adler to purchase land at Opa-Locka Airport chronicles Adler’s intial push to move onto the field. Good quick reads from the South Florida Business Journal to fill in the picture of the tenants struggle at Opa Locka Airport
In this time of economic uncertainty Miami-Dade county has chosen to side with do-nothing developers and force a dozen profitable family owned small businesses to close their doors. Small businesses should be protect and allowed to flourish. The original FAA airport lease to the county specifically stipulates that no undo discrimination can be leveled against small business at Opa Locka Airport (KOPF).
The county has taken the brazen step of leasing the airport in mass as a monopoly to Michael Adler’s AA Acquisitions. They in turn quadrupled the rent of current tenants and promptly forced eviction procedures even though most of these business were in good standing, and up-to-date with their rents. Some businesses have been in Opa Locka Airport serving South Florida customers for more than 30 years. Alca Avionics is the sole independent repair station on the field, without which aviation customer simply won’t come to KOPF. Wayman Pilot Supplies is the largest pilot shop in Miami, a regular stop for international pilots that brings much needed foot traffic to the airport. They have been doing all they can to keep the airport alive during Miami-Dade Aviation’s decades long neglect. Causing what was once the country’s busiest airport in the 1970s to sputter into a ghost town in only one generation.
Opa Locka is already a depressed neighborhood. Why is Miami-Dade allowing the only economic engine available to it be dismantled and sold off?