And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 15:31:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Little via Nativeamericanlaw list
USA: September 29, 1999
MIAMI - The State of Florida agreed yesterday to put up $15 million to
buy and preserve an ancient stone circle in Miami that is believed to
be an important ceremonial site carved by Tequesta Indians.
But the deal is only good if Miami-Dade County can raise another $12
million needed to buy the 2.2 acre (0.9-hectare) site on the mouth of
the Miami River, county Mayor Alex Penelas said. The county has
earmarked $3 million from a bond sale for the project and has 60 days
to find the rest of the money.
Penelas announced the tentative $27 million deal after settlement
talks with the site's owner in Miami and meetings with Gov. Jeb Bush
and other state officials in Tallahassee.
"I don't think anyone should be claiming victory at this time. This
does not signify that the Miami Circle has been saved," Penelas
cautioned.
Penelas, who introduced $38 million of spending cuts in his $4 billion
budget proposal earlier this month, has said previously the county
does not have the money.
The City of Miami is in even worse shape. A state oversight board
appointed to guide the city back to solvency in 1996 has rejected its
latest $303 million budget as unrealistic, leaving it without a budget
for the fiscal year that begins on Friday.
"Clearly the private sector still needs to come up with a substantial
amount of money," Penelas said.
The relic was discovered last summer on land where the Miami River
flows into Biscayne Bay in the heart of the city centre and the
banking district. The circle is a series of holes and basins bored
into the bedrock in the form of a perfect circle 38 feet (11.5 meters)
in diameter.
Carbon-dating tests on artifacts suggested the site was occupied by
humans at least 2,000 years ago.
Believed to be the foundation of a ceremonial lodge built by Tequesta
Indians who inhabited Florida before the arrival of Europeans, the
circle quickly became a hot political topic in Florida's largest
metropolis.
Environmentalists, preservationists and Indian groups joined to
preserve it. Miami-Dade County declared that the circle should be
saved and moved in February to seize the site through eminent domain,
the right of government to take private property for public use if it
compensates the owner.
County officials have been negotiating since then with the property's
owner Michael Bauman and the developers, Brickell Pointe Ltd. and BCOM
Inc, to settle on a price.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine
of international copyright law.
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