CITT Special Meeting to Consider Giving Virgin Trains $50M+

This is an old post that I didn't publish in time, but decided to go ahead and get it up as an example of something I did.

Since Tri-Rail's Steven Abrams was first quoted in articles by the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel as saying Virgin Trains was thinking about building a station in Aventura, all the focus was on them looking at Boca Raton and Hollywood.

On July 22, the Palm Beach Post suggests the thoughts are now a plan. Author Jeff Ostrowski writes that Virgin Trains "now says it will add stops at PortMiami, Aventura and on city-owned property next to Boca Raton’s library." Though they don't particularly cite whether this is actually a shift from the less committed statements by newspaper writers previously. Interesting to note in this article is that "Virgin Trains USA President Patrick Goddard proposes that Virgin Trains would pay to build the train station..."

On August 12, the Sun-Sentinel quotes Virgin Trains USA senior vice president of corporate affairs, Ben Porrittm as saying "Boca Raton, PortMiami and Aventura are our top priorities today."

Pretty early on I somehow got it in my head that Virgin Trains wanted to break ground by the end of the year. I can no longer find that link, so I won't make that claim any more. Maybe I confused a promise to announce three new stations by the end of the year with breaking ground. However in trying to search for that article I came across some interesting information about Virgin Trains USA's finances.

On June 12, The Bond Buyer reported "$950 million in bonds for Florida's Virgin Trains USA," and seeing this I couldn't help but think, why would this company need corporate welfare? Reading the article I discovered that "the FDFC sold $1.75 billion of bonds USDOT-authorized bonds on behalf of Virgin Trains..."
From an April 3 article, again from The Bond Buyer, they detail that this bond was partly used to service a previous $600 million bond offering.

I didn't even know about their bond offerings until today, however I think this demands even more attention to what the Miami Herald revealed on Friday, September 30. Published just after people many people left work, it claims "Miami-Dade may spend $76 million to build a Virgin rail station by Aventura Mall." And based on everything I know now this headline seems unfortunately accurate.
On Monday the Herald further clarified that the station would possible not include any connection for regional Tri-Rail.

---Unfinished