In the summer of 2024, a senior administrator at Miami International Airport discovered a surprise addition to the Miami-Dade Aviation Department’s promotional budget: a $100,000 allocation to a county rodeo that didn’t seem eligible for airport funding under federal aviation rules.
“We did not budget any funds for CountryFest,” Arlyn Rull Valenciaga, the Aviation Department’s chief of staff, wrote in a July 2024 email to the agency’s finance director. “I do not have an explanation as to how that made it to our budget, but do ask that it be removed.”
But county emails obtained through a Miami Herald records request show that removing CountryFest from the Aviation Department’s budget proved impossible for the airport staff last year…