Miami-Dade Priced Its Vice City Package at $3.9 Million. Voters Can Trace Only $975,000 of It.

Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on November 19, and Miami-Dade County intends to be dressed for it. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava's office has announced a marketing and advertising package with Rockstar Games 'valued at $3.9 million,' timed to the release: themed lighting at Miami International Airport and PortMiami, promotional displays on the walkways between the airport garages and terminals, decorative wraps on selected traffic signal cabinets, and the 'Welcome to Vice City' display already standing on the county-owned Kaseya Center. Rockstar covers installing, maintaining and removing the advertising. 'These agreements allow us to turn that excitement into additional revenue for our community,' the mayor said. It may be a good deal for taxpayers, the Miami Patriot wrote on Monday. From what the county has published, nobody outside county hall can yet say.

The difficulty is the ledger. By the county's own description, the package has two parts: an agreement between the county and Rockstar, and 'separate advertising purchases' through two media companies that manage ad space at the airport and across the transportation system. The county's October 28 release does not say how the $3.9 million divides between them, or how much of the media-company purchases reaches the county. It prices exactly one component: the $975,000 the county is set to collect for the Vice City lettering on the Kaseya Center. That money also has the package's only stated destination — the mayor's communications director, Carlos Suarez, told Miami New Times that 'the full $975,000' from the rooftop agreement went to a park project at Dan Paul Plaza, behind the arena. That leaves about $2.9 million in stated value with no published split and no published destination. As the Patriot put it: nothing suggests that money has gone astray; the public simply cannot tell from the announcement. 'Valued at' is not the same as 'deposited.'

Then there is who decides. The mayor may sign deals under $1 million without a commission vote, and the rooftop agreement cleared that line by $25,000. Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III anticipated the process problem at the September 18 budget hearing, as WLRN reported: 'I do not agree that you can do $900,000 for this, and $700,000 for this, and $400,000 for this, and because you did different agreements, then you don't have to come before the board.' Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez and Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz want county resources kept out of the promotion entirely; Commissioner Rene Garcia led the October objections to the negotiations. The administration may have a clean answer — if most of the value is Rockstar buying space from media companies, the county's own contract could sit within the mayor's authority — but the number that would settle it has not been announced, and the agreements themselves are public records any resident can request. One thing Tuesday's ballot does not decide is this package: County Referendum 6, on park advertising, touches none of it.