The Cooler

Everyone is talking about the Marlins this morning. That and much more in your Cooler.

A- Herald: Opinion, the Miami Marlins and Jeffrey Loria.

What this franchise just did feels like the sports equivalent of a Ponzi scheme, a crime against the spirit of sports. No wonder South Florida is only passionate about baseball when we are winning the World Series or experiencing an abomination like this, with no in-between. We’d fill that new ballpark today in a way we didn’t during the season, standing-room only, if there was a way for our outrage to be seated.

B- Herald: Build more parking for the Marlins!

City of Miami finance officials announced Wednesday that they unexpectedly closed the fiscal year with a $45 million surplus — almost $37 million more than had been projected.

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Commissioner Frank Carollo said he was puzzled by the latest development.

“I’d rather have a $45 million surplus than a $45 million deficit,” Carollo said. “But it’s a big difference from what they told us a month ago.”

C- Herald: Hope and change.

New requests for unemployment aid have dropped to a four-year low in South Florida, as the labor market slowly recovers from the recession.

D- Herald: They write letters.

Loria a ‘mad man’

Jeffrey Loria better have a crowd-noise sound track because that’s the only way he will hear it. Let’s see how he pays the rent, if he has any to pay. And he better be ready to eat a lot of popcorn, hotdogs and Cuban sandwiches. We made a deal with a mad man. We should give him back his money, take back the stadium and rent it out to a real team and management on our terms.

Barry White, Miami

E- Palm Beach Post: I agree.

Why not count all the ballots cast in St. Lucie County again?

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The decent thing to do at this point is to start from scratch — and with both sides watching — feed every ballot cast in the county, about 117,000 of them, back into the tabulating machines.

OK, I’ll admit, I’m not only motivated by fairness here.

I also think it’s important to make sure that if this is West’s final act on the South Florida political scene, it ends with an exclamation point, not an asterisk.

F- TC Palm: It's the stupid ones that get caught.

VERO BEACH — Indian River Sheriff's Office deputies received help from social media to nab a burglary suspect.

Deputies on Tuesday charged Alix Norris, 21, of the 2500 block of 2nd Street Southwest with burglary, grand theft and fraudulent use of credit card after seeing pictures of his stolen loot on Facebook, the arrest report states.

The incident began with a 2 p.m. Oct. 30 burglary call in the 800 block of 26th Avenue, where homeowners reported missing a 19-inch flat screen TV, a DVD player, a pair of white Oakley sunglasses and a PlayStation 3.

About a week later, the victims noticed a Facebook friend, who was later identified as Norris' mother, selling the sunglasses.

G- NBC Miami: Cool.

Fort Lauderdale is going digital to help drivers find parking spaces.

The city is launching a free app called Parker, where drivers can see available parking spaces in real time.

Sensors in the pavement detect the open spaces and the app gives the location and availability web-enabled devices including smartphones and tablets.

H- WPLG: Marlins management explains.

Samson said the trade improved the Marlins, who have finished last in the NL East each of the past two years. This season they expected to contend for the playoffs with the highest payroll in franchise history but instead went 69-93, their worst record since 1999.

"We sat down after the season and talked about the team and said we cannot keep finishing in last place," Samson said on his weekly radio show on WINZ-AM. "We found a way to possibly in one fell swoop get a whole lot better. I recognize that the names coming back in a potential trade are not names people are familiar with, but in the baseball world, people are familiar with them."

When asked about fans feeling betrayed, Samson said, "I think that people should feel betrayed by the fact we're losing so much, and that they wouldn't want us to stand pat and keep losing."

I- WPTV: Guilty!

STUART — When Stuart police executed a search warrant last week at a home on Southeast Florida Street, one sergeant reported it looked as if it were "raining" baggies of marijuana.

In the end, police recovered 50 "nickel bags" of pot — $5 amounts of marijuana packaged for sale — on Friday after executing a search warrant at a home in the 400 block of Southeast Florida Street, according to recently released records.

When Stuart police entered the residence, they saw Aaron Finley, 24, running away from the front door. Officers saw "multiple baggies in the air" as Finley ran.

"It looked like it was raining baggies," a sergeant is quoted as saying.

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