Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez: I’m running for mayor

It’s official: Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez is running for mayor.

The 35-year-old son of former Mayor Xavier Suarez will make the formal announcement Tuesday at a press conference at his Coral Gate home.

Suarez’s candidacy has long been the subject of speculation around City Hall. The chatter intensified late last week, when campaign finance reports showed that in the last three months of 2012 he raised $460,000 through his “political communications organization.”

Suarez, in an interview Monday with The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, outlined his vision for the city. It includes replenishing rainy-day funds, promoting small business, beefing up the police department and making the mayor a player on the national stage.

“It starts with having a stable government that is forward-thinking and innovative,” he said.

Despite having flush campaign coffers and key allies, Suarez faces a tough road to the Nov. 5 election. Incumbent Mayor Tomás Regalado has already launched his bid for reelection, and observers say his popularity remains high among likely voters.

“It is going to be a competitive race,” said Barry University political science professor Sean Foreman.

Suarez, a real estate attorney, first ran for the City Commission in 2009. He was elected to represent District 4, which includes Flagami and stretches to the city’s western edge, and was previously held by Regalado.

Early on, Suarez and Regalado often appeared in public together. The mayor asked Suarez to serve as City Commission chairman in late 2011.

But the relationship soured last summer, when Suarez grew increasingly critical of Regalado’s administration. He voiced concerns about the high turnover among top staffers and questioned the finance department’s ability to balance the $500 million budget on time.

Suarez said those frustrations prompted his decision to run for mayor.

“I fundamentally believe that the administration is not being run professionally,” he said. “I have concerns about what will happen if nothing is done about it.”

Suarez said he has already proven his leadership abilities. He points to a pair of controversial motions he made, both of which passed the commission: one to cut employee salaries and another to fire then-Police Chief Miguel Exposito, who was feuding with the mayor at the time.

“I’ve taken the lead on very difficult positions,” he said.

During his three years in office, Suarez has had mixed results passing policy. In 2011, he championed changes to the city zoning code that made it easier to build affordable housing. But his biggest legislative push to date — an effort to create a strong-mayor form of government — failed to find support.

Suarez said he has a couple of new proposals to pitch, including a measure that would reduce permit fees for home repairs that cost less than $2,500. He also said he has ideas for using technology to make city departments run more smoothly.

If campaign contributions are any indication, Suarez will have the support of key business leaders, including Jackson Health System CEO and former city manager Carlos A. Migoya and former Mayor Manny Diaz.

Regalado, who has raised about $160,000 for his campaign and enjoys popularity in neighborhoods like Little Havana and Flagami, said he welcomed the competition.

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Apple shares fall on reports of cuts to iPhone parts orders

(Reuters) – Shares in Apple Inc dipped below $ 500 for the first time in almost one year after reports it is slashing orders for screens and other components from its Asian supplier as intensifying competition erodes demand for its latest iPhone.

Japan‘s Nikkei reported on Monday that the world’s largest technology corporation began sharply reducing buying of liquid crystal displays about a month ago from suppliers like Japan Display Inc and Sharp Corp.

Sharp’s stock dipped as much as 7 percent in early trading on Tuesday and shares in South Korean Apple suppliers such as LG Display also fell.

“We can’t comment on individual clients,” said Miyuki Nakayama, a spokeswoman for Sharp, which builds iPhone 5 screens at its Kameyama plant in central Japan. Japan Display, a state-run business formed from the small LCD units of Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd also declined to discuss its orders.

The Nikkei report, later matched by the Wall Street Journal, comes as hard-charging rivals like Samsung Electronics, which makes phones based on Google Inc’s popular Android software, continue to expand market share globally.

Apple stock slid more than 4 percent to an intraday low of $ 498.51 — a level not seen since February 16, 2012 — before bouncing back to trade just above $ 500 at midday. The news also hurt shares of suppliers such as Cirrus Logic Inc, which dived 9 percent.

Some analysts argued that Apple and its manufacturing partners had struggled with quality issues that might have curtailed production times.

Dogged by low production yields, Sharp last year fell behind schedule for iPhone 5 screen shipments in the run-up to the phone’s launch in September. Sharp has yet to acknowledge that Apple is a customer.

“Our checks with supply chain contacts close to the situation identified a very different cause: a slower ramp in the manufacturing of iPhones and iPads (reflecting some quality control issues) and insufficient production lines,” said JoAnne Feeney of Longbow Research.

“Rather than ordering more components and having inventory build up further, Apple put component suppliers on notice to hold off, for the time being, on further shipments until it expanded its production lines – which it plans to complete by the end of the quarter.”

By some estimates, the holiday quarter may have been the worst for U.S. retailers since the 2008 financial crisis, with sales growth far below expectations. Other data yields a more mixed picture of holiday season demand.

Apple was not immediately available for comment. No one at Sharp was immediately available to comment on Monday – a national holiday in Japan – and parts suppliers to Apple in Taiwan declined to comment.

CUTBACKS

Apple has asked Japan Display, Sharp and LG Display Co Ltd to roughly halve supplies of LCD panels from an initial plan for about 65 million screens in January-March, the Nikkei cited people familiar with the situation as saying.

Japan Display’s plant in southwest Japan, where Apple has invested heavily, is expected to temporarily reduce output by up to 80 percent from October-December levels, the Nikkei reported, while Sharp’s dedicated facility for iPhone 5 LCDs will trim production in January-February by about 40 percent.

The move, if confirmed, would tally with analysts saying that sales of the new iPhone 5, which was released in September, have not been as strong as anticipated.

Apple has lost ground gradually to South Korean rival Samsung, as well as smaller, fast-growing rivals such as China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

Samsung overtook Apple in 2012 to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones, helped in part by the popularity of its Galaxy Note II phone-cum-tablet and a vastly wider range of low- to high-end devices that appeal to a broad swath of consumers. Apple rolled out a single new smartphone last year.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek trimmed his iPhone shipment estimates for the January-March quarter on December 14, saying that the technology company had started cutting orders to suppliers to balance excess inventory.

Apple also cut its orders for memory chips for its new iPhone from its main supplier and competitor Samsung, Reuters reported in September, quoting sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The company has been cutting back its orders from Samsung as it seeks to diversify its memory chip supply lines.

Samsung said on Monday that global sales of its flagship Galaxy S smartphones had topped 100 million since the first model was launched in May 2010. The Galaxy S3, launched last May, sold more than 40 million in seven months.

The Galaxy S IV is expected within months and may sport an unbreakable screen, full high-definition quality resolution of 440 pixels per inch, and a more powerful processor.

It’s expected to increase its smartphone sales by more than a third this year and widen its lead over Apple, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. It forecast Samsung will sell 290 million smartphones in 2013 versus iPhone sales of 180 million.

Kim Sung-in, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities in Seoul, sees Samsung shipping 320 million smartphones this year and doubling sales of its tablets to 32 million.

(Reporting by Tokyo bureau, Avik Das and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore, Clare Jim in Taipei and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Editing by Supriya Kurane, Andrew Hay and Alex Richardson)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Nicki Minaj Cannot Trust Herself on American Idol

On tomorrow's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, American Idol judge Nicki Minaj confesses that she's worried about looking like 'a crazy psycho again' on the popular singing competition.

"I am not really a crazy psycho you guys," Nicki says, referring to the infamous web video that showed the singer/rapper launching into a tirade during Idol auditions. "No, I am serious. I am really not."

Nicki calls the outburst a defense mechanism, explaining that she began to suspect that fellow judge Mariah Carey was displeased with her being on the panel.

VIDEO: Nicki Minaj on Idol Drama: There is No Feud!

With the incident still fresh in her mind, Nicki admits that she is "not looking forward to live shows" because she "cannot trust [herself]."

"Just, like, if there's a slick comment being made..." Nicki says before catching herself. "I just want it to go well. It's about the contestants."

Watch the entire interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Tuesday, January 15. Check your local listings.

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Liu’s top aide a tax cheat: IRS

The top campaign adviser to city Comptroller John Liu is a tax deadbeat, the federal government claims.

The IRS has filed a lien against Chung Seto, claiming she owes $103,872 in back taxes, records show.

The feds had previously slapped Seto with $175,000 in liens.

Seto declined to comment.

The timing could not be worse for Liu, who is running for mayor. His ex-treasurer, Jia “Jenny” Hou, and fund-raiser, Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan, face trial next month on charges they schemed to funnel illegal contributions into Liu’s campaign war chest.

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.CO sets sights on changing ‘the fabric of the Internet’

For the millions of people who equate the Web with .com, . CO Internet is out to change that mindset.

The Miami company that manages and markets the .co domain is already making impressive gains — more than 1.4 million in 200 countries have hung their businesses, blogs, personal projects or dreams on a .co virtual shingle. Still, that’s just a tiny fraction of industry titan VeriSign’s 105 million .com registrants.

“We want to change the fabric of the Internet,” Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet, said during an interview in .CO’s Brickell office. “We can only make that happen not by changing what happened in the last 25 years of the Web, which is owned by .com. We want to change the next 25.”

About 2½ years after the launch of .CO Internet, .co — the country code of Colombia — continues to be one of the fastest-growing Internet domains in the world and grew by 24 percent in 2012. .CO Internet is profitable and is projecting to bring in more than $25 million in revenues this year, the company said. The early success of .CO Internet, with operations in Miami and Colombia, is powered by passion and perseverance.

Calle moved to Miami from Colombia at age 15 with his family. He started several businesses, including one he sold in 2005 providing seed capital for what would come next. “I can’t say I ever sat still.” When he learned Colombia would be commercializing the country's .co domain extension in late 2006, he said it hit him like a lightning bolt.

With the right strategy and by “marketing the hell out of it,” the entrepreneur believed .co could solve a huge problem in the market — vanishing Internet domain names. If you’ve tried to nab a new .com address lately, you can relate — it’s difficult to find one that hasn’t been snatched up.

Calle thought that by appealing to the hearts and minds of the entrepreneur, .co could go where .info, .biz, .net or .me had never gone before. But first he needed the right team.

One of this first stops: The Big Apple, to visit Nicolai Bezsonoff, who had been an advisor and shareholder in Calle’s TeRespondo.com, a sort of Ask Jeeves for the Latin American market that was sold to Yahoo in 2005. At the time, Bezsonoff was the director of technology and operations at Citigroup.

“We went out for coffee, he started pitching me on a napkin. I said ‘really dude you want me to leave a big job at Citigroup for this?’ ” said Bezsonoff. “But he kept showing me the numbers … Later, that napkin was on my desk and it was one of those boring days and I kept looking at it and thought maybe I should.” He would become .CO’s chief operating officer.

Lori Anne Wardi, a lawyer and serial entrepreneur who was working at a venture capital firm at the time, became vice president in charge of brand strategy, business development and global communications. “She’s the heart and soul of the company,” said Calle. Eduardo Santoyo, based in Bogota, would become corporate vice president over policy and be the liaison with the Colombian government. “Some would say it was overkill talent but I needed the best. ... When you have a big dream, you have to think big and hire the right people,” Calle said.

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SunPass coming to Rickenbacker, Venetian causeways in 2014

The introduction of SunPass on two Miami-Dade causeways is the latest in a series of initiatives to expand use of Florida’s electronic toll-collection system beyond state highways.

“We are hoping that a year from now, in 2014, the new system will be in place on both the Rickenbacker and then the Venetian Causeway,” said Michael R. Bauman, chief of the Miami-Dade public works and waste management department’s causeways division.

Originally, the county had planned to activate SunPass on the causeways in 2012, but the project was delayed because of contractor issues and efforts by all Florida tolling agencies to centralize back-office operations that include billing and other customer services, Bauman said.

Conversion of causeways’ C-Pass system to SunPass transponders will be one of the most significant changes in the history of the storied roads that carry tens of thousands of commuters every day to and from the mainland.

The 5.4-mile Rickenbacker, the longer of the two causeways, is also the newest. It opened in 1947. The 2.8-mile Venetian opened in 1925.

Tolls have been charged on both causeways for decades. The Rickenbacker was the first to adopt electronic tolling in 1997 with the C-Pass system, followed by the Venetian shortly after.

Both causeways still take cash at some toll plaza lanes.

While the plan is to eliminate cash tolls, Bauman said details are more advanced for the Rickenbacker than for the Venetian.

As a result, he said in an interview, details of how SunPass will operate on the Venetian remain undecided.

On the Rickenbacker, however, he said the toll plaza will be removed and its eight lanes will be reconfigured into four lanes with electronic gantries. Cash will no longer be accepted.

In both cases, said Bauman, lower annual tolls paid by residents and commuters served by the Rickenbacker and Venetian will be preserved under the SunPass arrangement.

The vehicles of residents and commuters already registered with causeway systems will be recognized by SunPass, and no additional toll charges will be made, Bauman said.

The current cash toll price on both causeways is $1.50. Whether that rate will remain once SunPass kicks in is still under discussion, Bauman said.

On the Rickenbacker and Venetian, residents with C-Pass transponders pay a flat $24 per year. Nonresidents who drive the Rickenbacker pay $60 per year and Venetian commuters pay $90.

Registration will continue, but it will be done online.

Drivers who don’t have SunPass will still be allowed to use the causeways. They will be billed later via Toll-by-Plate, Bauman said.

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Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to boy, Facebook

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man and his sister have reunited 65 years after being separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend’s Facebook search.

Clifford Boyson of Davenport met his sibling, Betty Billadeau, in person Saturday. Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Mo., with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson‘s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $ 125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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70th Annual Golden Globes Show Recap

Universal/ Warner Bros.

Some big surprises and lots of humor kept the 70th Annual Golden Globes fun, interesting and fast-moving Sunday night in Hollywood. On the film side, Argo was named Best Picture of the Year - Drama, while Les Miserables was named Best Picture of the Year - Comedy or Musical, with Daniel Day-Lewis, Hugh Jackman, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway among the stars taking home trophies. On the TV side, Showtime's Homeland scored big and so did HBO's Girls, with Lena Dunham, Claire Danes and Damien Lewis among those recognized.

Get the complete list of winners HERE.

The Best in Movies

In addition to Best Pictures Argo and Les Mis, Amour was named Best Foreign Language Film (Austria) and Disney-Pixar's Brave was named Best Animated Feature Film. A shocked Ben Affleck was named Best Director for Argo, quite the vindication after being snubbed for a Best Directing Oscar nom, and a very jovial Quentin Tarantino got the Best Screenplay award for Django Unchained.

Daniel Day-Lewis picked up the Best Actor - Drama award for his turn as Lincoln, and was quick to credit the other actors in the room: "Such beautiful performances this year; I'm very proud to be one amongst you." He also singled out director Steven Spielberg, "a humble master with a quicksilver imagination. ... You've given me an experience that I will treasure until the end of my life." Day-Lewis beat out Richard Gere, John Hawkes, Joaquin Phoenix and Denzel Washington.

Hugh Jackman was named Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for Les Mis, beating out Jack Black, Bradley Cooper, Ewan McGregor and Bill Murray. Thanking the "most amazing cast in the world" and his "visionary director," he also singled out his wife for "talking him off the cliff" when he doubted his singing abilities during rehearsals.

Related: ETonline's Complete Golden Globes Coverage

Jessica Chastain was named Best Actress - Drama for her role as a tenacious CIA analyst in Zero Dark Thirty. Calling her win a dream come true, the emotional and proud actress she pointed out that she's "been on the sidelines for years, and to be here at this moment, it's a beautiful feeling to receive this encouragement and support." She also told her director Kathryn Bigelow, "You've done more for women in cinema than you've taken credit for." Chastain bested Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren, Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz.

Silver Linings Playbook star Jennifer Lawrence was named Best Actress - Comedy or Musical over tough competition Emily Blunt, Judy Dench, Maggie Smith and Meryl Streep. Joking, "Oh, what does [the statuette] say? I beat Meryl!" She went on to thank her co-star Bradley Cooper, "who made me better every day," and surprisingly started to choke up while thanking her family.

Les Mis star Anne Hathaway was named Best Supporting Actress, and practically had to pinch herself to see if the moment was real. She excitedly said, "Thank you for this lovely blunt object I will forevermore use as a weapon against self-doubt," and gave a shout-out to the "great and gutsy actresses" (Amy Adams, Helen Hunt, Sally Field, Nicole Kidman) in her category as well as her "fearless" cast and director.

Christoph Waltz owes a lot of gold to Quentin Tarantino: He was named Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Django Unchained, his second nom and win following his audacious Inglourious Basterds introduction to the mainstream film world. The Austrian actor told his director, "My gratitude knows no words," and concluded, "This journey was incredible. To borrow a sentence from my character … The North Star is that one. Ta-da." Waltz bested co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, Alan Arkin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tommy Lee Jones.

Pics: Golden Globes Red Carpet Fashion

The Best in TV

Homeland hit a major home run Sunday night, winning Best Television Series – Drama and beating out Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, The Newsroom and Mad Men, while seeing its two stars, Damian Lewis and Claire Danes, win Best Actor and Actress in the category. Calling the statuette a true "perk" to have picked up along the way, Lewis dedicated the win, "To my mom, who I know is out there looking down on me, bursting with pride and telling everyone how well her son is doing acting." For Danes, it was her fourth Globe win, and she thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press for being "so insanely generous for so many years now. I was up here when I was 15." She lauded the women in her category, saying, "I'm very proud to be working in this medium, in this moment, in this company," and thanked her co-workers for accommodating her pregnancy during the production of the show.

Girls was named Best TV Series - Comedy or Musical, and its star and executive producer Lena Dunham upset the competition to win Best Actress – Comedy or Musical. Besting Zooey Deshanel, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, she declared "I worship them" before sharing her award with "every woman who felt there wasn't a space for her; this show made a space for me."

Other Awards of the Night

HBO's Game Change also hit a triple, named Best Motion Picture Made for Television, with its star Julianne Moore landing Best Actress in the same category for her portrayal of Sarah Palin, and Ed Harris winning the Best Supporting Actor prize for his portrayal of presidential hopeful John McCain; Hatfields & McCoys star Kevin Costner was named Best Actor in a Mini-Series Made for Television; Don Cheadle was named Best Actor in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical for his performance in House of Lies, while Maggie Smith was singled out for her Best Supporting Actress in a Series for her performance in Downton Abbey.

Best Original Score – Motion Picture went to Mychael Danna for Life of Pi, and Adele's stirring Skyfall was named Best Original Song – Motion Picture. The new mom and multiple Grammy winner exclaimed, "Oh my God!!!!" when she hit the stage and candidly said that this was really just a fun night out with her friend, also a new mom: "We've been pissing ourselves laughing over there." She also thanked her "lovely Simon."

Related: Best Golden Globe Award Zingers

Show Highlights

Co-hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler kept the proceedings full of laughs, with their opening monologue especially putting the celebrity audiences in stitches. Throughout the show, the pair also slipped into the audience, wearing goofy disguises as actors looking to accept faux nominations; Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell played clueless presenters who saw none of the movies in the Best Actress category -- but tried to fake it anyway when describing the performances; Tony Mendes, the real-life CIA agent behind the true story of Argo, took the stage with John Goodman to present Argo, and Bill Clinton also surprised the audiences to introduce Lincoln; Sacha Baron Coen roasted his Les Mis co-stars; and Francesca Eastwood, daughter of Clint Eastwood and Frances Fisher, and Sam Fox, son of Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan, were presented as Mr. and Miss Golden Globes.

And there wasn't a dry eye in the house when Jodie Foster was presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Award by good friend Robert Downey Jr. Starting with plenty of self-effacing comedy ("I'm 50! You know, I was going to bring my walker tonight, but it just didn't go with the cleavage."), Foster turned the podium into a confessional and half-joked about giving a big "coming out speech" before turning the focus to how important privacy truly is as a celebrity ("If you had been a public figure since the time that you'd been a toddler, you too would value privacy above all else.") and declaring how proud she is of her "modern family." Getting emotional, she concluded, "This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else."

Watch ET for complete coverage of the 70th Annual Golden Globes.

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Duck, goose! Another JFK wing ding

A Caribbean-bound JetBlue flight was struck by a bird yesterday for the second day in a row after lifting off from JFK Airport, officials said.

In the most recent incident, JetBlue Flight 721 struck the fowl “on departure” around 10 a.m., according to the FAA.

“It was not a direct hit,” said JetBlue spokeswoman Tamara Bentham, but the plane nonetheless returned to JFK as a precaution.

The jet, an Airbus 320 with 125 people on board, hit a “pretty large bird” between 500 to 700 feet above ground and the feathered fiend “probably fell onto the runway,” Aviation Week reported.

After an inspection, the plane departed again without incident about 90 minutes later.

On Saturday, a Dominican Republic-bound flight had to go back to the airport after the pilot reported a bird strike to the plane’s nose.

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the city’s most famous bird strike — the “Miracle on the Hudson” incident in which Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed his disabled US Airways plane on the river.

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Miami Dolphins worry Marlins stand between them and a tax-funded redo for Sun Life Stadium

The Miami Dolphins are reviving their failed bid to win tax dollars for a football stadium. But team executives want no comparisons to a successful bid to win tax dollars for a baseball stadium.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has called a press conference for Monday to unveil a plan for an improved Sun Life Stadium. Sources say the plan will include asking state and local governments to help pay for a $400 million renovation of the 1987 facility.

State lawmakers in recent years rebuffed the Dolphins when the team asked for help on a less-expensive renovation. And while the economy and state finances are more favorable this time around, Dolphin executives see a bigger challenge now from lingering backlash against the $639 million ballpark taxpayers built for the Miami Marlins in order to move the baseball team from their old home in Sun Life. .

“It can’t be anything close to what the Marlins did,’’ said state Sen. Oscar Braynon, a Democrat whose Miami Gardens district includes Sun Life Stadium and who sponsored a 2011 bill to raise hotel taxes to fund the Dolphins renovation plan. “Unless you do something totally counter to what the Marlins did, nobody is going to vote for it.”

Both the Marlins and the Dolphins declined to comment for this story. The Dolphins have not released details of how they want to pay for the renovation, or what they want to do the stadium. But sources close to the team describe an extensive renovation of Sun Life, including adding a partial roof, a redesign of the seating configuration to improve views of the field, and shifting capacity from the low-priced seats in the upper deck to the more expensive seating closer to the sidelines. Without the space demands of a baseball field, the front row will move 18 feet closer to the field, according to a person briefed on the plans.

Polls showed Miami and Miami-Dade’s 2009 votes to build the baseball stadium with 75 percent public money were never popular. But the Marlins’ recent stripping of star players from their payroll has made the new Little Havana park Topic A when it comes to plotting a Dolphins’ victory for winning tax dollars themselves.

Dolphins executives plan to pursue two funding sources from state and local government, according to several people familiar with the team’s plans. For the first funding stream, the Dolphins plan to ask Miami-Dade to raise taxes charged mainland hotels from 6 percent to 7 percent and earmark the extra money for the stadium. The Dolphins also plan to ask Florida for an additional $2 million rebate on sales taxes on top of the $2 million the stadium already receives from the state each year under a special subsidy for professional sports teams.

Ross is expected to pledge a significant amount of the renovation money himself. Sources who have been briefed on the Dolphins’ proposal say the total pricetag for the project is $400 million. That’s almost double the renovation budget the Dolphins proposed when the team last went to the Legislature for money in 2011.

Staying competitive

At the time, the Dolphins unveiled a $225 million redo of Sun Life with expanded sideline seating, high-definition lighting and a partial roof that would both shade seats during hot games and shield spectators from the kind of downpour that drenched the stands during the 2007 Super Bowl in Miami Gardens. The Dolphins, top executives at the NFL and some community leaders have warned that without upgrades to Sun Life, South Florida risks losing its standing as one of the nation’s top venues for the Super Bowl and college football championships.

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