Defying Billionaire, Stephen Ross

Never thought the day would come when someone would bravely defy the lures of a billionaire by making an unpopular decision. Such was the case last week when the speaker of the Florida Congress, Will Weatherford, decided that the bill for improving the Sun Life Stadium in Miami would not be heard on the final day of this Florida legislative session. This was a shock to the Miami Dolphins management and apparently more so for the billionaire owner of the team, Stephen Ross. It must have been quite shocking to Ross who was adamant that his stadium needed to be in contest for SuperBowl 50, so the stadium needed to be renovated with contribution from tax dollars. Even more so, Weatherford's decision not to address the bill, must have been even more alarming for Ross since, prior to obtaining any decision on the bill from the Florida senate, his organization prematurely spent $4.3 million dollars to fund the Miami-Dade county's snap elections for voters to decide on using tax monies to improve the stadium. Further, another $3 million was shelled out for additional expenses which may have included the large contingent in the state capital representing the Miami Dolphins along with Dan Marino. So, with so much money circulating, the news was certainly not expected. Ross and his Dolphin executive team have now lashed out and laid the entire blame on Weatherford and even made threats to Weatherford's future political career. However, what is concerning is that from all indications the Sun Life stadium had needed repairs for years, yet the billionaire Ross had never made any efforts to make any of these repairs known to the public until it was time to bid for SuperBowl 50. At that time, he bundled the general repairs into the need to get a retractable roof at tax payers expense. Even more devious was that, as the final days approached and the matter look unattainable, the Miami Dolphin executives began to use the minority community in an effort to play upon getting sympathy votes from the Florida Congress. So, such inaccuracies that the minority community would get jobs from the renevotation and even holding a job fair was only a sham intended for the Miami Dolphin's benefit to win votes in the Florida Congress. Mr. Ross's spokesperson indicates that Mr. Ross will not be spending any of his billions to improve the stadium in the future. That's not surprising..............his original, bad intentions were never to spend his money in the first place, and his deceitfulness backfired in his face!