Preservation board to decide on Herald building

The city of Miami’s historic preservation office has compiled a lengthy, detailed report that substantially bolsters the case for designation of The Miami Herald’s “monumental’’ bayfront building as a protected landmark based on both its architectural merits and its historic significance.

Somewhat unusually, the 40-page report by city preservation officer Megan McLaughlin, which is supplemented by 30 pages of bibliography, plans and photographs, carries no explicit recommendation to the city’s preservation board, which is scheduled to decide the matter on Monday.

But her analysis gathers extensive evidence that the building’s history, the influential executives and editors associated with it, and its fusion of Mid-Century Modern and tropical Miami Modern (MiMo) design meet several of the legal criteria for designation set out in the city’s preservation ordinance and federal guidelines. A building has to meet just one of eight criteria to merit designation.

A spokeswoman for the city’s historic preservation office said there is no obligation to make a recommendation and the city’s preservation board didn’t ask for one.

Supporters of designation, including officials at Dade Heritage Trust, the preservation group that has received sometimes withering criticism from business and civic leaders for requesting designation, said they felt vindicated by the report, even as they concede that persuading a board majority to support it remains an uphill battle.

“It’s important that an objective expert is saying basically the same thing we’ve been saying, particularly in an environment where there is so much pressure,’’ said DHT chief executive Becky Roper Matkov. “It’s very hard to refute. When you look at the building’s architecture and history, it’s so blatantly historic, what else can you say?’’

The report also rebuts key pieces of criticism of the designation effort leveled by opponents of designation, including architects and a prominent local preservation historian hired by Genting, the Malaysian casino operator that purchased the Herald property last year for $236 million with plans to build a massive destination resort on its 10 acres. The newspaper remains in the building rent-free until April, when it will move to suburban Doral.

Citing federal rules, McLaughlin concluded that the building dates to its construction in 1960 and 1961, and not to its formal dedication in 1963. That’s significant because it makes the building legally older than 50 years. Buildings newer than that must be “exceptionally significant’’ to merit designation under city regulations. Opponents of designation have claimed the building does not qualify because it’s several months short of 50 years if dated from its ’63 opening.

The property also has a “minimal’’ baywalk at the rear but there is room to expand it, the report indicates. The building is considerably set back from the edge of Biscayne Bay, between 68 feet at the widest point and 23 feet at its narrowest, the report says. That’s comparable to what many new buildings provide, thanks in part to variances granted by the city, and could blunt criticism that the Herald building “blocks’’ public access to the bay.

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Three firefighters injured battling Brooklyn blaze

Three firefighters were injured battling a blaze in Brooklyn, officials said.

The fire started around 6:20 p.m. Friday on the second floor of a two story home in Sunset Park, officials said.

“The hallway was filled with smoke,” said a resident of the building who was almost overcome.

The three injured Bravest were transported to Lutheran Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries, according to FDNY sources. The extent of their injuries is unknown.

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the tournament-style program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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Driver of fatal MIA bus crash that killed two offers his “deepest sympathy.”

The driver behind the wheel of a bus that rammed into an overpass at Miami International Airport — killing two passengers and leaving many more injured — expressed his sympathies Thursday to those affected, while a group of survivors began speaking with a lawyer.

On Thursday, a relative sent out a short statement in Spanish from driver Ramon Ferreiro. In it, Ferreiro extended his “deepest sympathy” to the families of those killed in “the terrible accident.”

“I know there are no words of comfort for what happened, but my family and I are praying for all those affected and their loved ones,” he wrote in Spanish. “I’m emotionally and physically very shocked by what happened, and for this reason I ask you to respect my family’s privacy during this difficult time.”

The crash happened a few minutes before 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The bus carried members of a Jehovah’s Witness congregation on their way to the annual general assembly meeting in West Palm Beach.

Ferreiro, 47, took a wrong turn on Le Jeune Road. He sped past multiple signs warning of the low clearance at the airport’s arrival concourse, smashing the 11-foot-tall bus into an overpass.

Two people sitting in the front were killed; the remaining 30 passengers went to hospitals for examinations and treatment.

As of Thursday, four people from the crash remained at Jackson Memorial Hospital, spokeswoman Lidia Amoretti said. Of the group, three were in good condition and one was in critical.

Another eight people admitted after the crash already had been discharged.

And some of the survivors have begun speaking with West Palm Beach lawyer Patrick Cousins.

Cousins, who also is Jehovah’s Witness, said that members of his religion tend to shy away from legal battles, and that’s why he hopes to settle the matter with the bus service’s insurance company out of court.

The goal, he said, would be to get compensation for costs such as their hospital bills.

“We are not the type of people to create problems or issues,” Cousins said. “But this is not something we really created. We just want to make sure everybody gets their compensation.”

Saturday’s accident appears to be the first blemish on the record of both the driver and the bus company, Miami Bus Service Corp., which is owned by Mayling and Alberto Hernandez.

Ferreiro has a valid commercial driver’s license with the proper endorsement to carry passengers, according to records from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

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New equity options exchange owned by Miami company starts trading on Friday

MIAX Options Exchange, a new fully electronic, equity options trading exchange, said it will begin trading on Friday.

MIAX Options Exchange is based in Princeton, N.J., but its parent company is Miami International Holdings. While MIAX’s executive offices, technology development center and national operations center are based in Princeton, additional executive offices, and a multi-purpose training, meeting and conference center will be located in Miami, the company said.

MIAX Options Exchange’s trading platform has been developed in-house and designed for the functional and performance demands of derivatives trading, the company said.

INA PAIVA CORDLE

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To win in 2014, Florida Democrats must build on momentum

Democrats just concluded their most successful Florida election cycle in more than three decades, not just delivering the state to President Barack Obama and re-electing Sen. Bill Nelson, but also picking up state House, state Senate, and Congressional seats.

But don’t get cocky, Florida Democrats. In many respects, 2014 is more important for the vitality of the party than 2012.

As you prepare to elect a new state party chairman there’s every reason to worry heading into the new election cycle, even against vulnerable Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

You won’t have the massive Obama grassroots machine registering and turning out tens of thousands of new voters. Or a lavishly funded TV campaign like Obama’s. And if past is prologue, Florida Republicans will have far stronger turnout than Democrats.

“Democrats have a long history of not coming out to vote in the non-presidential election years. We’ve seen that four times in a row,” Alex Sink, the 2010 Democratic nominee for governor and potential 2014 candidate, said in a Political Connections interview on Bay News 9.

“The big question I believe for Democrats in the next election is how much of that energy and enthusiasm that we had during this presidential election can carry on to the 2014 races,” Sink said. “I think it’s probably going to be unfortunately very difficult.”

On Jan. 26 in Orlando, Democratic Party leaders will elect a new leader to succeed former state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua, who took the helm of the state party after a GOP wave left Democrats holding just one of Florida’s six statewide offices, Nelson’s Senate seat.

Against that change of leadership, there is no more important question facing the party than whether it can take advantage of demographic changes in Florida and come even close to following the model set by the Obama campaign.

“We’re at the threshold of a new Florida, and we’ve got to seize that opportunity,” said Alan Clendenin, an air-traffic controller and union organizer in Tampa running for party chairman against Annette Taddeo-Goldstein, a Miami-Dade County businesswoman and former candidate for Congress and County Commission.

“Demographics are on our side, the issues are on our side, the wind is at our back, and we just can’t screw it up,” said Clendenin, 53, whose extensive “Rebrand, Rebuild, Recruit” plan for the state party includes decentralizing to create at least five “regional hubs,” more emphasis on low-dollar fundraising, and a “bottom-up” structure for grassroots organizing.

A key to Obama winning Florida’s 29 electoral votes was his strong performance among African-Americans, Hispanics, and voters under 30 — overwhelmingly Democratic groups that tend to show up in much lower numbers during off-year elections.

“The question is how do we take what is the Obama coalition and translate that to a Democratic coalition that outlasts Obama,” said outgoing party chairman Smith.

Consider that in 2008 the Florida electorate was 42 percent Democratic and 39 percent Republican. Two years later, when Scott narrowly beat Sink, it was 45 percent Republican and 39 percent Democratic.

In non-presidential years, the Florida electorate is invariably older, whiter, and much more Republican.

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Dancing with the Stars Partners Reunite on Big Screen

Dancing with the Stars pro Karina Smirnoff is joining her Season 12 partner Ralph Macchio in a new movie, Us Weekly reports.

RELATED: Ralph Macchio Gets 'Happily Divorced'

According to the news source, the 34-year-old dancer plays a woman who becomes the object of a 10-year-old boy's fascination when he sees her dancing in a neighboring house.

"It is a dream come true to have this opportunity in working with Ralph again," she says of her former dance partner who writes and directs the film. "He wrote such an inspiring script, and I'm grateful to be a part of it. The story is sweet but profound, and my character is very compelling. I'm loving the process!"

This is Smirnoff's first movie role but she gave her acting qualifications, saying, "I feel like I've always acted within a dance ... Now I get to just act, and I'm extremely excited for the opportunity."

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Subway wife wants 1 last ‘I love you’

She just wanted to say goodbye.

Ki Suk Han’s grieving widow bared her pain yesterday over the death of her husband, with whom she had argued just hours before he was hurled to his death by a madman at a Midtown subway station.

“I just really wish I had one last chance to tell him I loved him,” said Serim Han at the Maspeth, Queens, church where they had attended services.

“Our family is grieving now, but we want to thank everyone who has reached out and offered help,” she said.

“We are suffering, but we have the support of our family and church to help us through it.”

Ellis Kaplan

HOLDING ON: Grief-stricken wife Serim Han, followed by 20-year-old daughter Ashley, enters a press conference yesterday at their Queens church holding a photo of late husband Ki Suk, who was killed this week after being thrown onto subway tracks. “We want to thank everyone who has reached out,” Serim said.

Later in the day, more than 200 people gathered at the Edward D. Jamie chapel in Flushing to pay their last respects.

The couple’s 20-year-old daughter, Ashley, told mourners at the funeral service, “His words usually went in one ear and out the other. [But] I would do anything to hear those words one more time.

“I’m sorry for all my years of teenage angst. I promise to fulfill my role as your daughter.”

Ki Suk Han, 58, of Elmhurst, had immigrated to the United States from South Korea 25 years ago.

He was on his way to the Korean consulate to get a passport Monday when he was shoved onto the tracks and struck by a train at the 49th Street station near Times Square.

Serim Han told The Post earlier this week that her husband had a drinking problem and that she threw him out of the house just an hour and a half before he was killed.

“He was drunk. We had a fight before he left here at 11 a.m. I told him to leave,” she said Monday night.

But yesterday, his family and pastor remembered only better times, saying Han was a devoted father who encouraged his daughter’s education and volunteered at his church.

“He really enforced my education,” the Hunter College student said. “I’m still in disbelief.”

The family was shocked to see The Post’s dramatic front-page photo on Tuesday of Han scrambling to try to escape from the oncoming train.

“Actually, after they saw the photo, they couldn’t sleep,” said Pastor Won Tae Cho of Woori Presbyterian Church.

Cho said the family has been struggling financially in recent years.

Han was unemployed at the time of his death, and his wife could not work because of a disability. Serim Han filed for bankruptcy in 2010, citing nearly $100,000 in credit-card and bank debt, records show.

“Due to the economy, Mr. Han was in search of a new beginning to provide for him and his family,” said the pastor.

Han worked at a Midtown dry cleaners, but lost his job after the economy went south, said city Comptroller John Liu, who spoke on behalf of the family before the funeral.

“Mrs. Han became disabled a few years ago, so she has not been able to work for the last few years,” Liu said.

“The family lived a pretty simple life pursuing the American dream.

“Mr. Han was a hardworking immigrant and a New Yorker in every respect of the definition.’’

Despite the obstacles, the religious man kept his faith and helped out at the church.

“For one year, he cleaned the church although he was unemployed. He said to me. ‘I will overcome this barrier,’ ” Cho said. “Sometimes, he was just discouraged, but just last Sunday, after worship, he said, ‘I was encouraged by your sermon.”

Additional reporting by Joe Tacopino

dmacleod@nypost.com

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Innovate MIA puts spotlight on startup community

If you think the next week is all about art, you may be surprised to learn there are also six entrepreneurship events vying for your time.

And that is all by design.

In much the way that Art Basel helped put Miami’s arts community on the international map, organizers of the first Innovate MIA hope their weeklong grouping of events will shine a light on the city’s growing tech startup community and its position as the gateway to Latin America.

Many of the events — ending with Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference — are after Art Basel. That’s also why the third annual AVCC was moved to Dec. 13-14 from its previous mid-November dates.

“Our message is come for Art Basel, and stay for AVCC,” said Juan Pablo Cappello, a lawyer, entrepreneur and investor who is on the steering committee of the venture capital conference and several other Innovate MIA events. And all week, there will be plenty of opportunities for Miami’s entrepreneurs, creatives and investors to mingle with their counterparts from all over the Americas and beyond.

In addition to the AVCC, there’s Incubate Miami’s DemoDay, where its class of startups present their companies, the martial arts-inspired TekFight and HackDay, which dangles a $50,000 cash prize. Endeavor, the global nonprofit that promotes high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging economies, is bringing its two-day International Selection Panel to Miami, and Wayra, an international accelerator, is holding a one-day event to showcase its promising startups from Latin America and Spain. It’s all part of Innovate MIA week: “I don’t think anything like it has ever been organized here in South Florida,” Cappello said.

The AVCC will be the big draw, with about 300 people expected to attend the two-day event at the JW Marriott Brickell. The conference, themed “Data, Design & Dollars,” will feature thought leaders from all over the world, particularly Latin America, and presentations by 29 selected companies. This year, the format has been overhauled and energized, with lots of short talks and more time for question-and-answer sessions and networking, said Jerry Haar, associate dean of FIU’s College of Business, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and AVCC co-chair.

The AVCC’s 36 speakers include Martin Varsavsky, Argentine tech entrepreneur, investor and founder of Viatel, Ya.com, Jazztel and FON; Hernan J. Kazah, co-founder and managing partner at Kaszek Ventures and co-founder of Mercadolibre; and Jason L. Baptiste, CEO and co-founder of Onswipe. There’s also Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and now a venture capitalist; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of Miami-based CareCloud; and Bedy Yang of 500 Startups.

Chosen from more than 100 applicants, the 29 presenting companies hailing from all over the Americas will be giving either two-minute or five-minute pitches, fielding questions from a panel of judges and competing for prize packages valued at about $50,000. Eight of the startups are from South Florida: itMD, Kairos, Trapezoid Digital Security, Esenem, LiveNinja, OnTrade, Rokk3r Labs and Zavee.

The presenting companies have “proven innovation, proven management teams and the ability to scale well and be a pan-regional player,” said Faquiry Diaz Cala, president of Tres Mares Group and co-chair of AVCC. “The word is out this is a great place to come and pitch to great investors in addition to potentially being one of the prize winners.”

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On shared stage, Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan take steps toward 2016

WASHINGTON --
Just days after he was sworn in, Sen. Marco Rubio was trying to knock down speculation.

"This is the one job that I wanted. I wanted to be a U.S. senator, not a vice presidential candidate, not a presidential candidate," he told a radio interviewer in January 2011. "I didn’t run to use it as a stepping-stone."

But Tuesday night at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel, Rubio took another step in reaching for the next thing.

Encircled by the buzz over a potential run for president in 2016, the Florida Republican delivered a speech on ways to lift the middle class, calling it "the answer to the most pressing challenges we face" as he tried to project a fresh outlook for a GOP still reeling from last month’s election.

Rubio shared the stage, and a similar message, with another GOP hotshot and likely presidential candidate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan. The ambitious, young politicians — Rubio, 41, Ryan, 42 — competed for the spotlight under the watch of several hundred guests, more than two dozen reporters and viewers of C-SPAN.

Rubio is more polished and charismatic, using the emotional power of his immigrant parents’ tale to drive his message. But Ryan, of Wisconsin, is beloved among conservatives and was equally well received.

The positioning was acknowledged only through a joke.

"You’re joining an elite group of past recipients — so far, it’s just me and you," Ryan said to Rubio, who was given a leadership award by the Jack Kemp Foundation at the group’s banquet Tuesday at the Mayflower. "I’ll see you at the reunion dinner — table for two. Know any good diners in Iowa or New Hampshire?’’

Rubio, who traveled to Iowa on Nov. 17, later joked, "I will not stand by and watch the people of South Carolina ignored."

For Rubio, who arrived in Washington by defeating a sitting governor knocked as a relentless office climber, his continued national emergence is a delicate balance of managing his vow to focus on the Senate with his political drive. He played down talk of becoming Mitt Romney’s running mate, a job that went to Ryan, but with the GOP left without a clear leader and searching for direction, Rubio won’t close doors.

Romney’s loss and other election disappointments have left the party searching for a new direction, and Rubio’s and Ryan’s speeches reflected their efforts to appeal to a broader group of voters. Both made an effort to distance themselves from the impression Romney left that half the country is hopelessly dependent on government — the infamous "47 percent" comments delivered at a private fundraiser in Boca Raton.

They pulled back on partisan rhetoric and tried to project a more hopeful and inclusive vision with a heavy focus on middle-class families.

"Some say that our problem is that the American people have changed," said Rubio, born in Miami to Cuban immigrants who worked blue-collar jobs. "That too many people want things from government. But I am still convinced that the overwhelming majority of our people just want what my parents had — a chance."

Ryan, in his first speech since the election, said: "We’ve got to set aside partisan considerations in favor of one overriding concern: How can we work together to repair the economy? How can we provide real security and upward mobility for all Americans — especially those in need?"

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Adorable Tots: Celebs and their Cute Kids!

Mariah Carey & Nick Cannon

"Monroe's in paradise," posted Mariah Carey along with an adorable snap of her daughter lounging in a room full of Hello Kitty toys as her twin brother Moroccan looks on.

"Roc doesn't share the fascination lol," she remarked.

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Anguished fotog: Critics are unfair to condemn me

Post freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi captured the dramatic moments before Ki Suk Han was struck by a downtown Q train. A day after the pictures were published, a flurry of criticism erupted — from other media and over social media like Twitter. He recounted the or
deal to The Post yesterday:

I was on an assignment, waiting for a train at the 49th Street subway platform, when I suddenly heard people gasping.

The announcement had come over the loudspeaker that the train was coming — and out of the periphery of my eye, I saw a body flying through the air and onto the track.

David McGlynn

'TOO FAR AWAY TO HELP': A day after snapping the slaying of a man pushed onto the tracks, photagrapher R. Umar Abbasi returns to the scene.

I just started running. I had my camera up — it wasn’t even set to the right settings — and I just kept shooting and flashing, hoping the train driver would see something and be able to stop.

I had no idea what I was shooting. I’m not even sure it was registering with me what was happening. I was just looking at that train coming.

It all went so quickly; from the time I heard the shouting until the time the train hit the man was about 22 seconds.

At the same time, the perp was running toward me. I was afraid he might push me onto the tracks.

The victim was so far away from me, I was already too far away to reach him when I started running.

The train hit the man before I could get to him, and nobody closer tried to pull him out.

What keeps playing over in my mind, what haunts me when I think back on it, is that the man did not scream at all.

I didn’t hear the man cry for help.

And then I was standing there, with this poor man, twisted like a rag doll, and it was so painfully hopeless.

A young doctor named Laura Kaplan came immediately. She was so brave, the way she remained calm. She asked if anyone knew CPR, and there was a man who kneeled down next to her who said, “I don’t know how to do it, but I will try if you tell me.”

And they just kept trying, even though there was no hope.

Then a crowd came over with camera phones and they were pushing and shoving, trying to look at the man and taking videos.

I was screaming at them to get back, so the doctor could have room because they were closing in on her; she thanked me.

I remember telling a woman — whom I later learned was the MTA chaplain — to give the man his last rites.

It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen, to watch that man dying there.

When it was over, I didn’t look at the pictures.

I didn’t even know at all that I had even captured the images in such detail. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t want to.

It was just too emotional a day.

I brought the camera memory card back to the office and turned it in. Two detectives came and looked at the photos and I just sat in a chair.

When I finally looked at them late that night, my heart started racing. It was terrible, seeing it happen all over again.

I didn’t sleep at all.

All I can hear is that man’s head against that train: Boom! Boom! Boom!

I have to say I was surprised at the anger over the pictures, of the people who are saying: Why didn’t he put the camera down and pull him out?

But I can’t let the armchair critics bother me. They were not there. They have no idea how very quickly it happened.

They do not know what they would have done.

Before I went into the subway, I had been up in Times Square, and my camera was still set for outside lighting. The flash was on 1/64th of a second, which would be split-second recharging.

People think I had time to set the camera and take photos, and that isn’t the case. I just ran toward that train.

The sad part is, there were people who were close to the victim, who watched and didn’t do anything. You can see it in the pictures.

The truth is I could not reach that man; if I could have, I would have.

But the train was moving faster than I could get there.

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iPad’sdominance limits apps for other tablets

Q. When are companies going to start writing applications for tablet computers other than the iPad? I own a Pandigital tablet, and when I try to download apps, I’m told they’re either for the iPad or iPhone.

LeRoy Hilton,

Oro Valley, Ariz.

You can expect more apps for non-Apple tablet computers when those devices gain more market share. How soon, or if, that will happen is anyone’s guess.

People who write apps are motivated by the revenue they’re likely to get. They can maximize that revenue by focusing on the tablet computer that is owned by the largest number of people.

Right now, the best opportunity for app writers is the iPad, which in the first three months of 2012 accounted for 68 percent of the 17.4 million tablet computers sold worldwide, according to market research firm IDC. The iPad’s chief competitors, in order of market share, are tablets made by Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo and Barnes & Noble. Pandigital is further down the list.Q. I recently bought a Kindle Fire tablet computer, and I’m disappointed that it cannot be read in the sunshine as other Kindle devices can. Is there anything I can do to make the screen more readable outdoors, such as buying an anti-glare screen protector?

Mary Jo Ready,

Shoreview, Minn.

An anti-glare protector won’t help. The issue is that your Kindle Fire’s LCD, or liquid crystal display, screen is lit from inside, but isn’t bright enough to compete with sunlight. Your only outdoor options are to raise the screen brightness and find some shade. A video that explains how to adjust screen brightness can be found on Amazon’s help pages, at http://www.tinyurl.com/7289vlo. Q. My Windows task bar was always at the bottom of my screen, but the other day it went to the top for some reason. How can I get it back to the bottom of the screen?

Kathleen Gignac,

Bartow, Fla.

The task bar can be dragged to a new location using your mouse. Left-click a blank space on the task bar and, while holding down the mouse button, drag the bar to the bottom of the screen.

You can skip this manual process if you are using Windows XP or Windows Vista. Just go to http://www.tinyurl.com/c7qwp8 and click the automatic “fix it” button. That will return the task bar to its default position at the bottom of the screen.

If you have problems with either of these techniques, the task bar may have become “locked” in its current position. There are directions on the same Web page that explain how to “unlock” the tool bar’s location so it can be moved.

Contact Steve Alexander at Tech Q&A, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn. 55488-0002; e-mail steve.j.alexander@gmail.com.

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Son of slain Miami Gardens car wash owner: ‘He put his own life before someone else’

When Dameion Peart got the phone call from his uncle, he didn’t believe it. He drove to his father’s Miami Gardens car wash to see for himself. He hoped the news wouldn’t be too bad, or maybe the shooting happened someplace else.

He pulled up, saw flashing lights and police tape, and knew it was true.

His father, Errold Peart, had been trying to protect a customer Sunday afternoon from armed robbers at the car wash he ran at Northwest 191st Street and First Place.

The robbers turned their gun on Peart, killing him.

“He put his own life before someone else,” his son said.

Now, Peart’s family began the unexpected task of planning a memorial. He was five days away from his 60th birthday.

He won’t get to see his daughter, Mishka Peart, 23, graduate from the University of Miami’s medical school.

“It’s just sad,” Dameion Peart said. “It was unnecessary.”

When the community heard of the shooting, they started dropping by the scene. They were the ones who lived nearby, longtime customers and friends, each with their own tale of how his father had helped them through the years.

They talked about the times Peart, 59, didn’t charge for carwashes to people short on money. They told Dameion Peart, 32, how his father would give money to people who needed help paying for water and electricity, never asking for the money back.

They shared stories about people who couldn’t get jobs because they had convictions — until Peart gave them work.

One of the younger employees told him it was Errold Peart who convinced her to go back to school.

“He was a very good, kindhearted person and a good father at the same time,” Dameion Peart said. “The community where his business is located, he really helped them out here.”

Errold Peart hailed from Jamaica, where he played cricket and worked at one point at a school for problem children, his son said. He eventually came to the United States, where he continued to play cricket for the USA national team.

Peart represented the USA in five matches at the 1990 International Cricket Council Trophy in the Netherlands, where the batsman was the team’s leading scorer, ESPN reported. The USA made it through the first round that year before losing in the second, according to ESPN.

At first, Peart worked with an airline, his son said, but later decided to open his own business.

He started the car wash more than a decade ago, his son said. He chose the location because it was near a busy stretch of U.S. 441 and near Florida’s Turnpike, the Palmetto Expressway and Interstate 95.

“It was like a landmark,” Dameion Peart said. “Everyone knew him.”

But Peart worried about safety.

“He didn’t like guns. But every year, around this time, for the past three years he got held up at gunpoint and people tried to rob him,” Dameion Peart said. “The last time they even followed him home.”

So Errold Peart got a concealed weapons permit.

On Sunday afternoon, he noticed a pair of young men trying to rob a customer. Errold Peart went out to try and stop it, his son said, only to be shot himself.

The men ran away, leaving behind the customer and a bleeding Peart.

Miami Gardens Police still were looking for the suspects on Monday.

Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

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First Look at TLC's Neat Freaks

Think you're a neat freak? Meet Alfreta.

Video-'Crazy Obsession': The $150K Love Doll Collection

The self-confessed germophobe not only spends the majority of her day scrubbing her home with gallons of bleach (as well as public bathrooms and friend's houses when she gets the chance), she utilizes her favorite cleanser to sanitize her meals before eating.

Check out a sneak peek in the player above!

Neat Freaks premieres Wednesday, December 5th on TLC.

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Left ‘fine’-tunes sick-pay bill

So much for compromise.

Left-leaning groups pushing the City Council for a bill forcing private companies to provide paid sick leave have redrafted their proposal to include fines to punish companies that don’t comply.

Advocates for paid sick leave had been expected to offer a compromise to make it more palatable to the city’s business community.

Instead, the latest version puts costly fines into the bill, such as ordering a business to pay employees three times their daily salary or $500, whichever is greater, if they were not paid after calling in sick.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Miami-Dade proposes spending $1.5 billion over 15 years to cure sewer system woes

Six months into negotiations with federal regulators over Miami-Dade’s aging sewer system, the county has come up with a $1.5 billion, 15-year plan to rebuild pipes, pumps and sewage treatment plants that in some cases are almost 100 years old.

County leaders devised the proposal in an attempt to fend off a federal lawsuit, and potentially millions of dollars in fines, for not abiding by the federal Clean Water Act. The county also has proposed replacing or repairing a good portion of the 7,500 miles of sewer lines that regularly rupture and spill millions of gallons of raw waste into local waterways and Biscayne Bay.

Before any work is to begin, the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency — which put the county on notice in May — must accept the county’s terms. The plan, referred to as a consent decree, also must be endorsed by a majority of county commissioners. That could come as soon as late January or early February.

One of the largest repair jobs would be a $555 million reconstruction of the controversial wastewater treatment plant on Virginia Key. Entire concrete structures would be rebuilt, and pump stations and electrical systems would be replaced. The plan calls for spending another $394 million on similar fixes to two other wastewater treatment facilities, in Goulds and North Miami.

Another $408 million would be spent replacing and rehabbing the county’s 1,035 pump stations, and miles of transmission lines that run to and from the plants.

The plan has already garnered some criticism.

The Biscayne Bay Waterkeepers, clean-water activists who filed to join the federal action against the county, say spending hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild on Virginia Key is a waste, because the spit of land is likely to be under water within 50 years.

The group points to a recent study by the journal Science that showed the polar ice caps in Greenland are melting at three times the rate originally believed. They also say a climate change compact Miami-Dade agreed to with three other counties — which accepted a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study that shows sea levels will rise 3 feet by 2060 — shows the Virginia Key plant could be in peril.

“Doubling down on Virginia Key the way they’re doing it is just stupid,” said environmental attorney Albert J. Slap, representing the Waterkeepers. “There’s not a dime in it for armoring the plant, or raising it. It’s on a barrier island.”

Doug Yoder, deputy director of the county’s water and sewer department, didn’t dispute the Army Corps findings, and said the county could abandon the Virginia Key plant for a new plant on the western edge of the county if federal regulators make such a demand.

“We certainly don’t want to spend a lot of money fixing up a facility we’ll soon abandon,” he said.

Most of the costs for the overall plan will be covered through county revenue bonds, Yoder said, meaning a future increase in water rates and debt service bills. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been warning for months that rate hikes are in the offing.

To meet demands from the feds, the county also must abandon by 2027 an outflow system it now uses that dumps up to 120 million gallons of sewage each day miles offshore. The county has until July 2013 to come up with an alternate disposal method.

A project cited in the new plan that had not been publicly addressed previously is the installation of 7,660 linear feet of sewer mains in an industrial area just below State Road 112 and between Northwest 27th and 37th avenues, which now depends on septic tanks. The job of hooking up local businesses there to county sewers would cost a little over $2 million.

Federal regulators began talks with Miami-Dade in May after a series of massive raw sewage spills released more than 47 million gallons of untreated human waste throughout the county. DOJ and the EPA, along with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, sketched out the 78-page consent decree.

Four times between October and December 2011, the sewage treatment plant on Virginia Key alone ruptured, spilling more than 19 million gallons.

The county also has agreed to pay a $978,000 fine for past spills within 30 days of the plan being accepted, with about half the money going to the DOJ and the other half to the state.

DOJ spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment Friday.

In October, the county denied 12 permit applications in the Coconut Grove area by businesses that wanted to install sinks, toilets or showers. The county said it was imposing a moratorium on new sewage outflow from a Coconut Grove-serving pump station.

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Larry Hagman's Dallas Co Stars Bid Emotional Farewell to the Actor at Funeral

Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy eulogized their late Dallas co-star Larry Hagman in an emotional memorial service in Texas on Saturday.

Video-Larry Hagman's Son: 'Dallas' Kept Him Alive

Gray, at one point overcome by tears, spoke affectionately of Hagman, her TV husband of many years.

"To work as Sue Ellen Ewing with J.R. was magical," she recalled. "To call him my friend for 35 years, priceless."

Duffy, who played Hagman's on-screen rival in the series, reminisced about his passionate and ever-positive friend.

Video-Matt Damon: Larry Hagman Impacted My Life

"There was never a day that went by that he didn't tell me how lucky we are to be working," said Duffy. "Anything he could do within the realm of his profession was the most exciting thing he could possibly do and he personified that."

According to DallasNews.com, Josh Henderson, Jesse Metcalfe, Brenda Strong, Julie Gonzalo and Sheree Wilson, of Dallas' TNT reboot, were also in attendance.

Video: Larry Hagman Reflects on Cancer Struggle

Hagman, 81, passed away from complications related to chemotherapy November 23. His ashes will be spread all over the world, per the late actor's wishes.

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Raise be to God

Knocking down heaven’s doors is harder than it looks.

It took workers two nights and a 55-ton crane to remove the massive bronze doors at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to be worked on as part of the ongoing three-year, $175 million restoration project at the renowned Midtown church.

The doors — each weighing about 9,000 pounds and featuring three-dimensional sculptures of American saints — were removed one by one Friday and Saturday morning, shutting down Fifth Avenue completely so the crane could be inched up to the cathedral steps.

The doors have been in place since the 1950s — and haven’t been cleaned since.

NY Post: Chad Rachman

LORD’S WORK: Hardhats lift one of the 9,000-pound doors from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, upon which future cardinal Timothy Dolan symbolically knocked (below) in 2009 to seek acceptance.

For their removal, each was covered in thick padding and encased in a steel frame weighing 2,100 pounds, then pulled off the hinges as Monsignor Robert Ritchie, rector of the cathedral, kept watch.

Temporary doors made of sheet metal and wrapped in vinyl with a printed image of the real doors on them will serve as placeholders.

As part of the restoration, a layer of paint will be removed from each door and the bronze will be polished and waxed to prevent tarnishing.

The project is being completed by Remco CEO Robert Maher — an Xavier HS alumnus whose graduation was held at the cathedral.

“I lit five candles today,” Maher told Ritchie as the doors came down, to which the monsignor replied, “To Saint Jude, I hope” — a reference to the patron of hopeless causes.

bdefalco@nypost.com

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Wrong turn, then shock and horror at MIA

What began as a day of prayer and fellowship turned into a surreal scene of stunned, bloodied passengers and twisted metal.

There was the sickening sound of crunching metal early Saturday as a busload of Jehovah’s Witnesses was low-bridged by a concrete overpass at Miami International Airport, peeling back the top of the vehicle “like a can of sardines.”

Airport workers running to the scene found shocked passengers thrown into the aisle or trapped in their seats by the wreckage.

Riders in the front rows were crushed — two of them killed, others seriously injured.

The driver of the bus, 47-year-old Ramon Ferreiro, took a wrong turn off LeJeune Road, entering the airport by mistake, then rolled past multiple yellow signs warning tall vehicles. He drove on, approaching an overpass whose sign said “8ft-6in”. The driver either didn’t see it, couldn’t read it, or realized it too late.

The bus stood 11 feet tall.

“The last thing he should have done is to keep going,” said Greg Chin, airport spokesman. “That goes against all logic.”

Ferreiro, whose driver’s seat was lower than those of the passengers, was not injured.

One passenger, 86-year-old Miami resident Serfin Castillo, was killed on impact, and all 31 others were taken by ambulance to local hospitals. Thirteen ended up at Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center, where one of them, 56-year-old Francisco Urana of Miami, died shortly after arriving.

Three remained in critical condition Saturday night, and three had been released.

Luis Jimenez, 72, got a few stitches on his lip and hurt his hand. He said the group left the Sweetwater Kingdom Hall about 7 a.m., bound for West Palm Beach.

“I was sitting in the back when it happened,” Jimenez said. “We were on our way to an assembly and lost a brother today. I’m very sad.”

Delvis Lazo, 15, a neighbor and member of the same congregation, described Castillo as a “nice, old man.” He often saw Castillo at religious gatherings, and their families have known each other for more than 15 years.

The last time Lazo saw him was about two months ago, as he prepped for a talk before his congregation.

“He gave me a thumbs up, told me that everything was going to be all right,” he said.

The bus, one of three traveling to the Spanish-language general assembly on Saturday, had been contracted by the congregation, which has fewer than 150 members.

According to public records, the bus belongs to Miami Bus Service Corporation, a Miami company owned by Mayling and Alberto Hernandez that offers regularly scheduled service between South Florida and Gainesville, often used by University of Florida students. At the home address listed for the company and the owners, Mayling Hernandez told The Miami Herald that passenger safety is her primary concern.

“At this time I’m worried about the driver and the families of the victims. I’m praying for them,” she said. “My job is to worry about the safety of the passengers who are our clients. What we do requires a lot of responsibility. I didn’t know the passengers but that doesn’t mean I’m not suffering.”

Neighbor Armando Bacigalupi described the owners as “caring people” and said he had seen buses park briefly in front of the house.

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Bachelorette Ashley Hebert and JP Rosenbaum are Married

Ashley Hebert is a bachelorette no more!

The 28-year-old dentist and her construction manager fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum, 35, walked down the aisle on Saturday in Pasadena, California, reports People Magazine.

The ceremony, officiated by Bachelor and Bachelorette host Chris Harrison, was attended by familiar faces from the series including Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick.

Video: 'Bachelorette' Ashley Hebert and Fiance J.P.'s Passionate PDA

Ashley and J.P.'s exchanging of vows will be televised December 16 on a two-hour special on ABC.

The season seven sweeties will be the second Bachelorette couple ever to televise their walk down the aisle, following in the footsteps of Trista and Ryan Sutter, who married in December 2003.

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SI man torched in cooking accident, neighbors put out flames: sources

A cooking accident turned a Staten Island man into a human torch who staggered in flames onto his front lawn, where horrified neighbors tried to extinguish him with blankets, sources said.

Louis Gloria, 60, was cooking in the kitchen of his Eltingville home at about 4:30 p.m. today when a grease fire erupted, engulfing his entire body, fire officials and neighbors said.

The desperate man first tried to douse the flames with water, but that only made the fire worse. In agony, he stumbled out of his Winchester Avenue home.

“He was burning alive,” said neighbor Edward Leavy Jr., 43. “It was a pretty horrific sight.”

Edward’s brother Matthew Leavy, 46, called 911 and then quickly ran over to aid the burning man, but the flames wouldn’t go down.

“The problem was you would try to smother the flames but it would just reignite, Leavy said. “His screams were just nightmarish. When the flame didn’t go down after two or three minutes, we all thought he was going to die.

Neighbors and relatives did their best to keep the flames under control until firefighters showed up on scene. Gloria was transported to Staten Island University Hospital in stable condition. His wife, who was home at the time, was also transported and is being treated for shock.

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Boat Show may block Miami’s 2016 Super Bowl bid

This winter, the biggest NFL match-up in South Florida might be Super Bowl versus Boat Show.

As South Florida readies a bid for the 2016 Super Bowl, it must contend with a major potential conflict on the tourism calendar. The National Football League may move the Super Bowl to Presidents’ Day weekend, already home to the five-day Miami International Boat Show since the 1940s.

It’s a significant enough conflict that, in the past, local tourism officials have declined to pursue a Super Bowl if it fell on boat show weekend. But this time around they may have no choice. For the first time, the NFL is requiring that potential host cities agree to a Presidents’ Day weekend Super Bowl if they want to pursue the big game at all, said two people who have seen the NFL request for Super Bowl bids.

The NFL “invited South Florida [to bid] knowing there was going to be an issue with Presidents’ Day weekend and the boat show,” said Nicki Grossman, Broward’s tourism director. “In the past, South Florida has not responded to a Super Bowl date that included Presidents’ Day weekend. This package is different.”

South Florida vies with New Orleans as the top Super Bowl host, with government and tourism leaders touting the game as both a boon to the economy and a publicity bonanza. But the notion of accommodating both Super Bowl and boat show — not to mention a major arts festival in Coconut Grove — strikes some top tourism officials as a bad idea.

“There is not sufficient hotel inventory available in Miami that weekend to host a Super Bowl,” said William Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We have taken a close look at that weekend, and it’s not physically possible in Miami to host Super Bowl during the Presidents’ Day weekend because of the boat show and the Coconut Grove Arts Festival. The hotel inventory is all being used for these two great events.”

His comments are at odds with the region’s top Super Bowl organizer and reflect the burden that the boat show may be to South Florida’s Super Bowl hopes for 2016 and 2017. The NFL invited Miami and San Francisco to bid for the 2016 Super Bowl by April 1, with the loser vying with Houston for the 2017 game. Talbert said the bid package states both decisions will be made in May.

For now, South Florida’s Super Bowl organizers face a largely hypothetical challenge, because the current NFL schedule has the Super Bowl occurring two weeks before Presidents’ Day weekend. The bid requirements for the ’16 and ’17 Super Bowls include three consecutive weekends as possibilities for the game, with the latest falling on the Presidents’ Day holiday.

Still, possible logistical hurdles may combine with political obstacles if the Miami Dolphins resume their push for a tax-funded renovation of Sun Life Stadium, the Super Bowl’s South Florida home.

Last year, the Dolphins proposed that Broward and Miami-Dade counties subsidize a $225 million renovation at Sun Life as a way to keep the region competitive for Super Bowls and other large events. The renovation includes a partial roof that would prevent the kind of drenching Super Bowl spectators suffered in 2007 when a rare February downpour hit Miami Gardens.

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