Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

City gives kids a great reason to give thanks November 26, 1986

Now it will be a good Thanksgiving at 1640 S. Bayshore Drive.

Now the kids who live there can stay as long as they need. The Miami City Commission said so Tuesday in an act of decency and wisdom.

The house is owned by CHARLEE, Inc., a nonprofit group that places abused and neglected children in foster home settings. Opened in July 1985, the home on South Bayshore operated successfully and without controversy, until a few neighbors complained this year.

They didn't complain so much about the kids; it was the idea of such a place in their neighborhood. They said it wasn't really a foster home, but a therapeutic facility. They said it was a zoning matter.

Three years ago the city said that CHARLEE houses qualified as foster homes, and should be treated the same way. This year a different zoning official gave a less favorable opinion.

The dispute could have shut down the Bayshore house and three others in the city. Doris Capri, CHARLEE's executive director, said: "The majority of our children do not have healthy homes to return to."

Curiously, the two most prominent opponents of the Bayshore home, lawyer A. J. Barranco and County Judge Murray Klein, did not appear at Tuesday's meeting. City Hall filled with other neighbors who felt strongly both ways. An attorney for CHARLEE got up to talk about definitions. The city zoning man got up to disagree. The commissioners wrangled about concepts like "equitable estoppel."

While all this was going on, the kids were home doing their school-work. The house parents, Mima and Fadi Aftimos, kept it a secret that Tuesday was the big day. They didn't want the children to worry. The children have been worried most of their lives.

Some of them have been beaten and sexually molested by their real parents. The home on Bayshore is the safest they've ever known.

Back at the commission chambers, everybody was agreeing that CHARLEE was a wonderful program, and that the children now living at the Bayshore home are model kids. Even Commissioner J. L. Plummer, who wanted the issue taken to a full-blown public hearing, felt obliged to say: "I gotta tell you, I think the CHARLEE program is doing a terrific job. Let's put that in the record."

And having put that in the record, Plummer then launched into a rather odd and irrelevant inquisition into the finances at 1640 S. Bayshore—how much are the house parents paid ($9,000 each), how much the state pays CHARLEE for each foster child ($53 per day) and so on. This would have been understandable if the city of Miami were paying the bills, but it isn't. The house is owned outright by CHARLEE and every dime of expenses is paid by the state.

The real issue was not zoning, finance, or improper definitions. It was the children—whether or not they belonged.

"These are not juvenile delinquents," said attorney Gary Brooks.

Said one neighbor, "Give us some control, that's all we ask."

Said another: "Are we, the residents of this area, going to add to their neglect and abuse? … Let's do what is right and just."

Another man implied that he saw one of the youngsters jump from the roof into their swimming pool.

"My kids do the same thing," remarked Mayor Xavier Suarez, "and I don't even have a pool."

The house on Bayshore is only a few blocks down the road from City Hall. One of the commissioners, Rosario Kennedy, actually took the time to visit. She talked with the children and their foster parents, and even their teachers in school.

On Tuesday, after listening to nearly two hours of debate over whether the place should be zoned as a foster home or something else, Kennedy finally just said:

"All I saw was a very neat house with two caring parents … All I saw was a house full of caring and love."

The vote to reverse the zoning administrator was 4-1, with Plummer dissenting. Afterward Fadi Aftimos couldn't wait to get home to tell the kids they can stay. No one needs to hear it more.

Politicians waking up to the green vote November 5, 1990

Another election season comes to an end, leaving many voters confused, disappointed, unenlightened, uninspired and depressed.

Deeply depressed. One more day of campaign commercials, and we'll all need a dose of Prozac. Bob Martinez is still rhapsodizing about the electric chair, while Lawton Chiles has enlisted the sheriff of Sumter County—Sumter County!—to tell us crime's a darn big problem.

Is there any hope for Florida?

Maybe a shred. Somehow the citizens have managed to educate office-seekers about some new priorities. For the first time, the issues of conservation and "growth management" have been pushed toward the top of the political agenda. It doesn't mean candidates must listen, but they'd better act like they're listening.

In 1986, Martinez got elected without mentioning the environment. In 1990, it's the emotional centerpiece of his re-election campaign. Television commercials show him ambling along a beach, with a dolphin splashing in the surf. All that's missing is a tame Key deer and a baby manatee.

The mood of the state certainly has changed.

The governor isn't alone in his reverie with Nature; Chiles, too, has been touting his own environmental record. It's not insignificant that both candidates have spent so much time and money trying to out-Audubon each other—the votes are waiting to be won.

In future campaigns, you'll see other politicians paddling the Suwannee and hiking the Big Cypress. Such photo opportunities will be staged to show how much these folks really truly care, which might or might not be a lie.

One thing they do care about is preserving their careers, which is why you don't hear anyone campaigning in favor of new offshore oil leases, more beachfront high-rises, or more cane fields near the Everglades.

Not so long ago, environmentalists were treated as a fringe movement to be ignored or ridiculed, depending on where you happened to be campaigning. How things have changed. Today in Dade County, an endorsement from Marjory Stoneman Douglas gets you more votes (if not more campaign contributions) than an endorsement from the Latin Builders Association.

All over urban Florida, people are upset about what's happening to the place they live. Sick of the clotted traffic, the rising crime, the overcrowded schools, the destruction of coastlines, the paving and subdividing and mailing of what was once a beautiful place.

The message from the cities and suburbs is strong and clear. A threshold of public tolerance has been breached: Metastatic growth is no longer seen as necessary for prosperity. That Florida remains one of the fastest-growing states is nothing to brag about; it's terrifying, given the condition of our budget, our water supply, our highways, our schools, and our jails.

Many who moved down here are discouraged by the deteriorating quality of life and angry enough to punish those responsible. Voting is a good way to start. Consequently, politicians from Pensacola to the Keys are leaping on the Big Green bandwagon and proclaiming their ardor for tall trees and clean air and blue water. Some are sincere, and some are just scared.

The trouble is, it's hard to tell the phonies from the real thing. One clue is to check where the campaign funds are coming from—and in that department, not much has changed.The big money still flows from developers, and rare is the candidate who mails back the check.

Still, we can hope that some have gotten it through their thick skulls that it's a new day. Anti-development feelings that simmered below the surface 10 years ago are boiling over now. Lip service might get you elected, but it won't keep you there.

In the end, the private motives of officeholders aren't as relevant as their actions. If they cast one vote that saves a park or cleans up a river, it really doesn't matter if they did it out of passion, or cold naked fear. Just so it gets done.

At last, Florida has a program worth keeping November 10, 1991

Occasionally we find intelligent signs of life in Florida government. Occasionally something actually works.

One quiet success story is Preservation 2000, an ambitious program designed to buy up endangered lands and save them from development. The first purchase occurred in Sarasota County—914 acres once marked for residential housing would instead be annexed to a state park. Since then, more than $90 million has been spent on river basins and marshes, from the Withlacoochee to the edge of the Everglades.

"It's the only happy story in Florida," says Eric Draper of the Nature Conservancy, which compiled a list of top-priority purchases for the state.

The largest land acquisition program in the nation, Preservation 2000 owes its existence to former Gov. Bob Martinez. Searching for a constituency among environmentalists, Martinez had proposed P2000 as a way to preserve sensitive lands, while ensuring that property owners were fairly compensated.

The concept got support from respected conservation groups, so the Legislature went along. "They didn't realize what a good thing they'd created," Draper says.

Currently, money for the land purchases comes from revenue bonds sold by the state, grossing $300 million a year. Half goes toward the Conservation and Recreation Lands (carl) plan, and another 30 percent bankrolls the Save Our Rivers program. The rest goes for parks and forestry.

Working with local agencies, water districts and private philanthropists, P2000 has helped secure vital tracts along the Steinhatchee River, the Green Swamp Basin in Pasco County, and the Corkscrew Swamp. By contributing money for cleanup projects, P2000 played a role in settling the big federal lawsuit over agricultural pollution of the Everglades.

A list of areas targeted for future purchase stretches from the hammocks of North Key Largo to the pinelands of the Big Bend. Several counties have launched their own acquisition programs with bond issues approved by the public. The votes left no doubt that most Floridians will pay to protect threatened green space.

The best part of P2000 is that its bite is barely felt by taxpayers—at least for now. Unfortunately, lawmakers approved a 10-year spending project without a 10-year funding plan.

Consequently, in this season's budgetary panic, Preservation 2000 could be jeopardized—and with it, hundreds of thousands of acres of irreplaceable wilderness.

With any bond project, someone's got to pay the annual debt—about $26 million on each issue of P2000 bonds. In 1990, lawmakers got the money by raising documentary stamp taxes on liens and stocks. This year the debt service will be covered by a small hike in documentary stamps on real estate.

But what about next year? And the year after that? Each new P2000 bond carries a debt that the state must pay. For this reason, Gov. Chiles and some legislators are uneasy about issuing new bonds; rather, they want P2000 to have a dedicated source of funding.

Given the fiscal crisis in schools and prisons, it's unlikely lawmakers will simply appropriate $300 million for land acquisition. The money must come from a fresh well.

Some say bonds are still a good deal because interest rates are low, and raw land will never be cheaper. Whatever course is taken, any snag in the P2000 program would be bad news for conservation. Every lost day is costly, as illustrated by recent events near Apalachicola.

There the state had its eye on a vast stretch of swamp and pine groves called Tate's Hell. At 183,000 acres, it would have been the largest parcel ever saved from bulldozers.

But a developer with $22 million got there first. Last month the deal was signed, and soon Tate's Hell will have houses, "plantations" and a logging operation.

At least they won't have to change the name.

Proposal gives green power to the people March 14, 1993

The days of carving up public parks for private profit might soon be over.

An amendment that appears on Tuesday's ballot would give more control of Dade's rich park system to those who own it—the people.

If the measure passes, no large commercial ventures could be launched in county parks without voter approval. That includes race-car tracks, pro tennis stadiums, flea markets and other extravaganzas that have been allowed to occupy public lands.

The premise of the charter amendment is that parks are meant to be preserved, not exploited. It's a concept that worries a few local bureaucrats, who look at Dade's shrinking green spaces and see not just trees, but money.

Piecing out park projects is a high-stakes deal; contracts and concessions often go to those with strong political connections. Letting the public get involved throws a wrench into the works. That's why Metro commissioners refused to put the Save Our Parks proposal on a ballot.

Supporters quickly collected almost 94,000 signatures on a petition, so the amendment is now on its way to voters. Meanwhile, officials in Miami and other cities are fretting aloud over the possible consequences. Imagine—allowing common citizens to decide how their parks should be used!

Politicians fear that voters might not appreciate some of their bold moneymaking schemes. Say, for example, that the city of Miami Beach wanted to build a parking garage in an oceanfront park. The uninformed masses might think poorly of the idea and vote against it, thus halting the march of progress.

Miami planners envision just such a scenario. They're trying to turn what's left of Bicentennial Park into a working annex of the seaport. If the Save Our Parks amendment passes, voters might block the expansion on the grounds that the cruise lines can damn well afford to buy their own docks. In anticipation, the city is hastily hunting for loopholes to allow the port landgrab to proceed, no matter what happens in the election.

The notion that parks should bring in revenue isn't new. It makes sense to have a bait shop at Crandon Marina, or an outdoor snack bar at Matheson Hammock. The public gets a needed service, and the county gets money from leasing the concessions.

But look at large-scale boondoggles such as the Grand Prix and the Lipton tennis tournament, which have transformed Bicentennial and Crandon parks respectively. Heavily subsidized by tax dollars, both events supposedly still bleed red ink, and each year the promoters come begging for more public money.

While the arrangement has been lucrative for Ralph Sanchez and Butch Buchholz, the county is hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole. We're told that the deepening deficit is offset by the gazillions spent by fans attending these events, but documenting the alleged windfalls has proven difficult.

Perhaps voters will look kindly on such ambitious schemes, and eagerly surrender more local parks to private enterprise. If some dreamer wants to put a NASCAR oval in the Deering Estate—stock cars screaming around a gorgeous infield of royal palms—that's fine, as long as the voters say yes.

They probably wouldn't. Had the Save Our Parks amendment been the law a few years ago, the Grand Prix and the Lipton today might be held on private lands; same fun, different venue.

Even if the amendment passes, local government will still play die major role in initiating new projects. For once, though, the people who use the parks will get to decide whether commercializing a green space really improves it, and for whom.

If Tallahassee won't do it, voters will December 11, 1994

If Tallahassee is the mule, then Amendment 3 was the proverbial two-by-four upside its head.

Last month, 72 percent of Florida voters approved a ban on the use of entanglement gill nets in state waters. The law took the extreme form of a constitutional amendment because it was the only way to get the issue before the people.

The governor and Cabinet wouldn't do it. Regulators hemmed and hawed. The Legislature chickened out. So a petition drive put it on the ballot.

Amendment 3's landslide passage was a powerful political proclamation: Floridians don't want their oceans and rivers raped anymore. They care passionately about conservation and will turn out in huge numbers to say so.

Was anybody in government listening? Somebody was.

"Today represents a defining moment in the care and nurture of our marine resources … The vote on the constitutional amendment clearly mandates that we do things differently and better."

The words come from Dr. Robert Q. Marston, vice chairman of the Florida Marine Fisheries Commission. The MFC was created in 1983 to prevent the destruction of coastal fisheries. Because of intense pressure from commercial groups, change has come slowly.

Too slowly, Marston concedes. In a new report to the MFC, the former president of the University of Florida uses uncommonly blunt language to summarize what's gone wrong.

Rather than stand up to the lobbying blitz from special interests, the state repeatedly has enacted weak conservation rules. "Such attempts have failed uniformly," Marston asserts. "Fishery stocks have failed to respond, and ultimately more stringent action is necessary."

Remember how overfishing was allowed to decimate four prized saltwater species—snook, redfish, king mackerel and Spanish mackerel—before emergency measures were taken.

Recently the MFC staff reviewed the survival prospects for 40 Florida species: 16 are considered stable, six are recovering from overfishing, and 18 "are still overfished without an apparently effective recovery plan in place."

One of those is the spotted sea trout, which has declined drastically in numbers because of heavy netting. Efforts to protect the popular food fish have been inadequate, tangled in politics and conflicting scientific data.

Even if you never touch a fishing rod in your life, Marston's call to action is a cause for hope. Wise marine management benefits not only the commercial and sportfishing industries, but every taxpayer, too.

The death of marine habitats would be calamitous for the state's economy, especially tourism. The MFC estimates that recreational fishing now brings in nearly as much money statewide as the citrus industry.

Politicians wouldn't dare stand idle if the orange harvest was being ripped off, but many have done exactly that while the fish stocks were plundered.

The MFC staff wants a streamlined rule making procedure, tougher penalties and stronger, better enforcement. Otherwise, Florida's sea waters will remain vulnerable to the same threats that have depleted two-thirds of the world's major fisheries.

Every Floridian lives within a short drive of a beach, a bay or a river. The vote on Amendment 3 proved that people have a deep affection for these places. Most biologists believe the net ban will greatly rejuvenate stocks of sea trout and other species. It's probably the most important, far-reaching conservation initiative in half a century. And the people had to do it, because the geniuses we send to Tallahassee wouldn't pay attention.

Maybe they will now. If not, there are plenty of other two-by-fours that'll do the trick.

Preserving bay today is good for the future May 12, 1996

The most spectacular waters of Biscayne Bay are found in Biscayne National Park. This is no quirk of nature.

An unpaved swath of coastline, the last in the county, is one reason the park has stayed so healthy. The Metro Commission has an extraordinary opportunity to keep it that way for your children and grandchildren, and perhaps generations to come.

It's far-fetched, but not impossible to believe that the same political body that erected a mountainous dump on the shore of Biscayne Bay would now vote to protect the rest of it. That's what must happen, or a tragic decline is inevitable.

The southern part of the bay has been shielded from urban pollution by thousands of acres of agriculture and open green space, which acts as a filter for rainfall.

From an airplane, you can see the dramatic contrast in clarity between the water off downtown Miami and the water at the Arsenicker Keys. On some days it's the difference between chowder and gin.

To preserve South Dade's stretch of bay, Biscayne National Park Superintendent Dick Frosthas asked Metro commissioners to make two changes to the master land-use plan.

The first amendment affects 2,700 acres adjacent to the park, which now is designated for urban development. Frost believes the land provides an "essential" buffer for the bay, and should remain farms and open space.

A second, broader amendment asks the county to hold the line against any major housing projects near the national park, until the long-term impact on water quality can be determined.

Frost's recommendations were endorsed 8-1 by Metro's Planning Advisory Board, but that's no guarantee the measures will be approved. Commissioners have been known to ignore their own planners rather than rile their campaign donors.

The amendments are set for a vote Tuesday, and opponents will be out in force. Leading the fight against an expanded park buffer are Homestead City Council members, some of whom continue to invoke hurricane hardship as a justification for subdividing everything in sight.

Councilwoman Ruth Campbell complained that the park's proposal "will stymie the development at the Homestead Air Reserve Base."

A revealing remark indeed. Remember that one selling point of the HABDI giveaway was the assurance that the new airport and commercial park would be not only self-contained, but incompatible with Hialeah-type sprawl.

The proposed buffer area—lowlands between Florida's Turnpike Extension and the air base tract—faces enormous development pressure. As has been the trend in South Dade, some farm owners-turned-speculators are eager to sell.

The problem with cramming thousands of tract houses along Biscayne Bay's drainage corridor is obvious: Asphalt and concrete cannot filter water the way soil does. Instead, rain becomes dirty runoff, degrading the bay.

Those who argue that buffering the park will stunt Homestead's economy are overlooking the 500,000 visitors a year who go there to dive, snorkel and fish.

Besides the Everglades, there's no bigger tourist attraction in South Dade than Biscayne Bay. To endanger it permanently for the short-term benefit of a few powerful interests is reckless.

The superintendent said it best: "You can make a bold and daring decision today to preserve the bay and preserve agriculture in South Dade, or you can sit back and watch it disappear piece by piece.

"Then one day you look out the window and the bay is murky and dark, and you wonder how it got that way. And then it's too late."

One company had courage, fought graft October 10, 1996

Miami's latest scandal has produced scads of villains and only one shining hero: Unisys Corp.

God knows how many companies have been hit up and shaken down by the crooks at City Hall. Unisys is one that blew the whistle.

Its executives chose not to pay outlandish bribes for the privilege of selling computers to the city. Imagine that. Imagine somebody going to the police and FBI to report a crime.

I know nothing about corporate Unisys or its reputation in the business world, but I know Miamians should be grateful. With their city government a cesspit, any such act of honesty qualifies as an act of courage.

If it weren't for Unisys, a thief-commissioner named Miller Dawkins wouldn't be pleading guilty to bribery and conspiracy, and destined for prison.

If it weren't for Unisys, a conniving bagman named Manohar Surana would still be Miami's finance director. Now a federal informant, Surana, too, is on his way to the slammer.

If it weren't for Unisys, the FBI wouldn't have been tipped to the antics of ex-City Manager Howard Gary, soliciting payoffs disguised as consulting fees.

If it weren't for Unisys, Gary wouldn't have led investigators into the murky world of the municipal bond racket. County Commissioner James Burke would never have surfaced on tape, discussing a $100,000 payment.

And if it weren't for Unisys, Cesar Odio would not stand charged with corruption. Instead, he'd still be city manager, and Miami would still be spiraling blithely toward bankruptcy.

If Unisys hadn't cracked open Operation Greenpalm, Miamians would still be under the naive impression that their city could pay its bills.

If it weren't for Unisys, Merrett Stierheim wouldn't have been deputized as acting city manager, and nobody but a handful of schemers would be aware that Miami was a boggling $68 million in the hole (give or take a few million).

Just think of what we would've missed, if Unisys had kept quiet and paid those bribes.

We would have missed the spectacle of Odio—the man who was in charge of running the whole city—asserting with that deer-in-the-headlights expression of his that, gee, nobody told him the finances were a wreck.

We'd also have missed this week's firing of the city's outside auditors, Deloitte &Touche. The firm claimed it had warned of a serious pending shortfall, but said city commissioners hadn't read either the firm's reports or the financial statements.

And, finally, we'd have missed the performance of the commissioners, who've been portraying themselves as shocked and clueless, a description with which the public can hardly quibble.

Naturally, the commissioners will blame everybody but themselves, even though it was they who let Odio and Surana run wild. The fiscal scare a few years back apparently wasn't quite dire enough to motivate the commission into paying closer attention to the books.

So, if it weren't for Unisys, nobody would have learned about the city's unique "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on insolvency.

Balancing the budget will be an ordeal that hits every city taxpayer and many honest city workers in the pocketbook. Their anger and disgust is justified. They've been deceived by bureaucrats who were crooked, lazy or grossly incompetent.

As brutal as the budget crisis is today, it would be worse—maybe even unsalvageable—had it remained a secret much longer.

Which is what would've happened if Unisys hadn't done what it did, and started the dominoes falling.

Too bad it didn't happen sooner. Too bad some other company didn't have the guts.

Golden arches not welcomed in Islamorada December 9, 1997

When the people of Islamorada heard that McDonald's was coming to town, they got mad and vowed to fight.

The prevailing wisdom said they didn't stand a chance against the corporate fast-food titan. The prevailing wisdom was wrong.

Islamorada is a sportfishing community about halfway between Miami and Key West. Busy us. i is the main thoroughfare. It runs parallel to what locals call the "Old Road," the original two-lane Highway One.

Because it's less traveled, the Old Road on Upper Matecumbe Key is a favorite stretch for bikers, joggers and rollerbladers. It's one of the few streets on the slender island where you can see moms pushing baby strollers.

McDonald's wanted to level an abandoned motel on U.S. 1 and build a restaurant/gas station/convenience store. The exit to be used by trucks, trailers and RVs would have emptied onto the Old Road.

People who lived there were upset. They hired an enthusiastic young lawyer, Frank Greenman, and collected hundreds of signatures on petitions. McDonald's insisted that it wasn't building the complex to lure passing tourists, but primarily "to serve the needs" of the local neighborhood.

Neighbors said cripes, they didn't need another gas station or stop-and-go store; Islamorada has plenty. As for fast-food joints, a Burger King stands only 100 yards from the proposed McDonald's site. Nobody saw an urgent burning need for more cheeseburgers.

But other communities have fought McDonald's, and most have lost. Nobody gave Islamorada much hope—Monroe County officials aren't famous for standing up to powerful interests. And the staff of the planning commission, which originally rejected the McDonald's proposal, had later changed its mind.

On Thursday, the planning commission met at the Key Largo Public Library to vote. Scores of Islamorada residents drove 20 miles through torrential rains to attend.

They were shown an artist's color rendering of the proposed restaurant/gas station/convenience store, lushly landscaped, and were not impressed. Once you got past the palm trees, it was still your basic high-volume gas station, convenience store and fast-food joint.

Some residents booed the drawing. They fumed as McDonald's engineers asserted that the hundreds of additional cars passing through would have "no adverse impact" on the neighborhood.

"I'm so mad. I live behind there," Jessie Wood said. She sat through much of the all-day meeting with her 11-month-old baby. "I used to ride my bike up and down that road when I was a kid. Now I have a son—where"s he going to ride his bike?"

After the paid experts were done testifying, Greenman called the neighbors to the microphone. They talked about crime and noise and safety concerns, such as the nearby school bus stop. They also talked about the unique but vanishing character of the Keys.

When they finished, Planning Commissioner Lynn Mapes spoke first: "I think there are more gas pumps in this town than I've seen anywhere outside of New Jersey. I can't see any need for more gas pumps."

Commissioner Billy Gorsuch expressed other concerns. So did Commissioner Jim Aultman and Chairwoman Mary Hansley. The final vote went 4-1 against McDonald's.

A cheer erupted, hesitantly at first, because people couldn't really believe what had happened: They had actually been heard—and trusted to know what was best for their neighborhood.

McDonald's can appeal the decision, but the company will face a new hurdle next time around. In less than a month, Islamorada officially incorporates as a city.

From then on, island residents will make their own rules about density, zoning, traffic capacity—things that help determine a community's quality of life.

In paradise, that includes cheeseburgers.

Feds are right in grounding jetport project January 4, 1998

The White House decision to delay development of the old Homestead Air Force Base has drawn instant criticism from South Dade officials, Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas and even Sen. Bob Graham.

They say the delay unfairly punishes a needy community that's still struggling after Hurricane Andrew. A new commercial jetport, they say, is necessary to invigorate South Dade.

Blaming Uncle Sam for the setback is convenient. It's also a crock. The county screwed up the air-base project so badly that the feds had little choice but to step in and enforce the law.

The fiasco began when commissioners, including Penelas, chose to lease the storm-battered property to a bunch of politically connected home builders. The group, called HABDI, includes Carlos Herrera, a former president of the Latin Builders Association and a heavy Democratic contributor.

HABDI announced elaborate plans to convert the military airfield into a thriving cargo jetport. Hotels, shops and warehouses would sprout up—not to mention plenty of new subdivisions, which is what the Homestead deal is really all about.

That Herrera and HABDI had zero experience in the airport business didn't seem to bother the commissioners. They awarded the lease without considering any other bids.

Angry South Dade residents tried in vain to kill the deal. They felt like pawns in a political trade-off, and they were right. HABDI had the votes it needed.

Then somebody noticed that the group's plans for the Homestead base were far more ambitious than those originally presented to the Air Force. The number of predicted flights was doubled, and suddenly there was a drawing of a second runway.

That meant the original environmental-impact report was worthless. (On one map, for example, Biscayne Bay was labeled "The Atlantic Ocean.") Friends of the Everglades, the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council demanded that the feds review HABDI's plan.

Because of its location, the Homestead jetport will have an impact on two national parks, Biscayne and Everglades. The effect of constant aircraft noise on wildlife is one issue, but questions have also been raised about potential fuel spills, air pollution and traffic.

Those concerns evidently aren't shared by Penelas, Graham or other politicians who opposed an environmental-impact statement. A new study would postpone construction unnecessarily, they insisted. The old study would do just fine.

Their argument was made at a Nov. 25 meeting between county and federal officials in Graham's Miami office. According to New Times, the county lamely tried to backpedal away from HABDI, saying it had not yet accepted all the company's projections.

In other words: Sure, we let 'em have the air base, but we don't agree with all their big ideas.

How's that for a cop-out? Luckily, the feds didn't buy it. On Dec. 22, the White House agreed that the revamped air base should be studied for potential environmental damage. The work is supposed to take about 18 months.

In a way, HABDI brought on the delay itself by outlandishly predicting that its airport would be a $12 billion boon to South Dade's economy. County consultants chimed in, projecting 230,000 flights a year, comparable to JFK in New York.

The price for all that wild hype is scrutiny, because the stakes are high. Industrializing a rural community shouldn't happen overnight. Nor should anyone lightly dismiss ecological threats to the Everglades, Biscayne Bay and Florida Bay—vital resources that also happen to be multibillion-dollar tourist attractions.

So the county is stuck; stuck with HABDI, stuck with the hype, and now stuck with a long delay. It's nobody's fault but the commissioners' for agreeing to such a disgraceful deal.

No wonder they're looking for somebody else to blame.

Bush listens to smart talk on environment February 5, 1998

Jeb Bush, conservationist?

Stop laughing. The Republicans are wising up, and the Democrats had better pay attention.

A column recently appeared in this newspaper that might have made you rub your eyes, to make sure you weren't hallucinating. The headline: "Let's protect Florida forever."

The byline: Jeb Bush.

Yes, the same Bush who had no environmental platform whatsoever—no clue, in fact—when he ran for governor on the GOP ticket in 1994.

This year Bush is running again, and he's full of ideas about how to preserve wilderness and wetlands. Did he suddenly get religion, or is this an act?

It doesn't really matter, as long as promises are kept.

Bill Clinton didn't start talking like Thoreau until he ran for president, and there's no reason—based on his record in Arkansas—to believe the rhetoric came from his heart. Nonetheless, his administration has done some good things, mainly because he installed some good people.

Early in the new gubernatorial race, Bush is listening to smart talk. Republicans have a reputation as the anti-green party, and in Florida that translates into thousands of lost votes. Bush's supporters appear to have convinced him of the importance of a credible environmental platform.

The centerpiece is an extended edition of Preservation 2000, the successful land-acquisition program initiated under Florida's last Republican governor, Bob Martinez. Although Martinez made some terrible appointments to environmental watchdog agencies, he will be well remembered for pushing "P2000."

It works like this: The state issues tax-free bonds to raise money for the purchase of ecologically sensitive or imperiled lands. The benefits have been felt from the Panhandle to the Keys, wherever green space and wildlife habitat have been spared from destruction.

Preservation 2000 expires at the turn of the century, and Bush pledges to renew the concept for another decade, with $300 million a year allocated for buying and managing land.

And when a parcel is too expensive to purchase, he says, the state should secure the development rights or a conservation easement. That would preserve the land while compensating the owner for maintaining it—an approach that makes sense, as long as everyone plays by the rules.

These are interesting ideas from an unlikely source. But the greening of Jeb Bush, developer, is being guided by Martinez and his onetime running mate, J. Allison DeFoor, an attorney and ex-sheriff of Monroe County.

DeFoor is a rare breed, a Republican with solid environmental credentials. He and Martinez recently formed a GOP think tank called the Theodore Roosevelt Society. The name is meant to remind voters that the nation's most impassioned and progressive president, conservation-wise, was a Republican.

Bush is a city boy at heart, and will never be mistaken for the second coming of T.R. He's happier on the tennis court than on a mangrove island, but that's all right.

He wouldn't be the first governor, Democrat or Republican, to act out of political expediency rather than deeply held conviction. And while we can hope that Bush is losing sleep over the future of the Everglades, he's probably just losing sleep over the votes.

That's all right, too. You can't expect an overnight spiritual conversion. It'd be swell to have a governor who truly believes, but most of us will settle for one who does the right thing, for whatever reason.

Judge humbles Humberto August 30, 1998

Thank you, Roberto Pineiro, for sparing us from another dispiriting Humberto Hernandez trial.

Taxpayers are grateful. Prosecutors are grateful. And we in the media are eternally grateful.

Pineiro is the Miami-Dade judge who socked it to Hernandez on Aug. 19 for his role in the vote fraud committed during last fall's Miami elections.

The defrocked commissioner was so crushed by Pineiro's stiff sentence—and cutting words—that last week he threw in the towel on pending bank fraud and money laundering charges.

Now there's one less cockroach in the public cupboard, and for that Judge Pineiro deserves a standing ovation.

A jury had convicted Hernandez of helping cover up phony absentee balloting. It was only a misdemeanor, and Pineiro could have let Humberto off with token jail time or a fine.

But instead he hammered him with the maximum: 364 days. Smirking Bert was smirking no more. He listened gloomily as the judge told him: "I cannot envision a more felonious misdemeanor."

For Hernandez, it was a decisively deflating moment. He couldn't endure another trial, or the prospect of a 13-year prison term. Within days his lawyer began negotiating with the U.S. attorney's office.

On Thursday a deal was announced. Hernandez pleaded guilty to one conspiracy count, for which he could get four years. He admitted his role in falsifying mortgages that ripped off banks for $2.9 million. Prosecutors say the scam also laundered a fortune in stolen Medicare funds.

Hernandez's attorney describes him as "depressed and embarrassed." Good. The idiots who voted for him ought to feel the same way.

Bert's grimy past was well-publicized before the November election. Everybody knew he'd been canned as an assistant city attorney for running a private law practice out of City Hall. Everybody knew about his abominable ambulance chasing after the Valujet crash.

And everybody knew he was facing 23 heavy-duty charges involving bogus sales of condominiums and houses.

But Humberto easily got reelected anyway. So who could be shocked when it came to light that he was mixed up in vote fraud? What'd you expect from a crook?

And a cocky crook he was, grinning in handcuffs during his arrest. Later, hidden microphones in the paddy wagon recorded Bert and his pals joking and discussing how to manipulate talk-radio to rally support.

As for the bank-fraud charges, Hernandez vowed to win at trial. That would come after his quick acquittal in the ballot-fraud case, he predicted confidently.

Bert planned to play the "race card," to claim he was being persecuted because he's Hispanic. This despicable scheme came back to haunt him before Judge Pineiro, a former prosecutor and, like Hernandez, a Cuban American.

"Sadly, you were willing to polarize our community in order to save your political power," Pineiro said as he passed sentence. "This is unconscionable."

I don't know if the judge's stern sermon sent a message to other corrupt politicians, but clearly it sent one to Smirking Bert: Your luck's run out.

Thanks to another tough judge, Joan Lenard, Hernandez has been sitting behind bars while awaiting his federal trial. It's been lonely, demoralizing and brutally hard on his family. To risk 13 years would have been the ultimate cockiness.

Copping a plea is the first decent thing Hernandez has done in a while, but decency never comes easy to crooks. First they need to get their socks scared off.

Thank you again, Roberto Pineiro.

Glades buyout has to happen November 15, 1998

The uprooting of 350 families in the boggy East Everglades is no cause for joy, but it's necessary, overdue and inevitable.

Last week, the South Florida Water Management District decided to buy out landowners in a sodden patch of southwest Miami-Dade known as the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area.

Planners say the purchase is essential to restore the flow of clean, fresh water to Everglades National Park. Residents are in a furious uproar. They want to stay in the Glades, and they want government to provide new roads, sewers and drainage ditches to help keep them dry.

It's the classic Florida yarn, with villains and victims but no tidy ending.

Want to blame somebody? Start with the clowns on the old Metro Commission who allowed folks to sell "property" on the wrong side of the Everglades dike.

That's right, the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area is west of the flood-control levee. That means—surprise!—no flood control. It's a wetland, as in: wet land.

That self-evident fact didn't discourage people from hawking lots, and nobody stopped them. This is Florida, after all, with a proud tradition of submersible real estate.

But here's the problem with living in a swamp: You live in a swamp.

Water managers have been diverting some flow from the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area, parching the national park to benefit the homeowners. Yet every rainy season the ritual repeats: TV crews slosh out to the East Everglades to interview folks who are ankle-deep and miserable. Of course they want flood protection—who wouldn't?

It's impossible not to feel heartache for those who will be forced to give up a home, a neighborhood, a way of life. But it's ludicrous to liken—as some have—the Everglades acquisition to Fidel Castro's property confiscations.

The comparison should insult anyone who lost land in Cuba—Fidel didn't pay a dime, he just took it. Landowners in the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area cumulatively will collect as much as $113 million, according to officials.

However, the longer the buyout takes, the more it will cost. That's a serious concern for both conservationists and budget watchers. Litigation could prolong the haggling for precious years.

Meanwhile, the park gasps for more water, and speculators snap up border tracts in hopes of gouging the government—meaning you and me—when the buyout finally begins.

But the alternative could be even more expensive. Engineers say the cost of letting people remain in the S1/2 Square Mile Area and making it flood-free could reach $180 million.

Behind the scenes are a few landowners who deserve scorn, not sympathy. They want flood control not just to dry out the families, but to enable further development.

Astoundingly, these operators want more houses, more ranchettes, more farms … in a swamp. Swell idea: Don't fix a dumb mistake. Subdivide it.

Without a healthy Everglades, all South Floridians will face dire water shortages. The 8 1/2 Square Mile Area is needed for re-creating an unbroken flow. It's a patch that needs to be wet. It's supposed to be wet.

If officials guarantee drainage for homeowners there, a long line of swamp peddlers would form at the water management district. Everybody who owned any wetland would demand publicly funded dikes, ditches and sewers.

The cost would be outrageous and, more importantly, the Everglades restoration project would fall apart.

It's truly a shame that people need to move out of the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area. A worse shame is that anyone was allowed to build there in the first place.

That's why there's a law December 13, 1998

History was made recently when the Florida Ethics Commission found an actual lapse of ethics in Florida. It's a rare instance of the system working the way it's supposed to.

The case centers on a man named Dennis Wardlow. In 1995, while mayor of Key West, Wardlow was charged by U.S. prosecutors with taking a bribe from lawyer John Bigler.

Bigler owned a company that rented Jet Ski-style water bikes to tourists on the island. He put Wardlow on his payroll for $100 a week, an arrangement that lasted 19 months. This was not disputed.

The mayor claimed he was being paid to do "public relations" work for Bigler. The feds said the money was meant to buy Wardlow's influence.

These payments came during a period when Key West officials were trying to regulate water-bike vendors. Wardlow participated in the key votes. He never told fellow commissioners or the public that he was taking money from a firm that was affected by the new laws.

It seemed like a textbook case of small-town bribery, with the facts weighing gloomily against the indicted mayor.

But this wasn't just any small town; it was Key West, where juries traditionally have a higher tolerance (or a narrower definition) of corruption. This is particularly true when the accused happens to be a native "Bubba."

Wardlow took the stand to proclaim that he was not a crook, and that he had done nothing wrong by taking the $100 payments. He insisted his work for Bigler was giving business advice, on weekends, with special attention to possible water-bike opportunities in the Dominican Republic.

As lame as that sounds, it was enough to sway jurors. They acquitted the mayor, and he went back to work. Bigler didn't fare so well. He pleaded guilty to attempted bribery, received one year's probation and gave up his law license. His water-bike business is no more.

The case would have ended, too, except for one indignant citizen named Jace Hobbs, a Key Wester fed up with graft. He wrote to the state Ethics Commission, not the most tenacious of watchdog agencies.

"I didn't even know it existed," Hobbs said, "until a week or so before I did it."

Yet a wondrous thing happened to his complaint: It got taken seriously. The ethics panel eventually found probable cause that Wardlow broke state rules by taking Bigler's money and failing to disclose it.

True, the commission needed almost two years to reach a conclusion that most clear-thinking adults would regard as a no-brainer. Then it took another nine months to hold a hearing, and another seven months to make a ruling … but, hey, at least something got done. For a change.

On Dec. 3, the Ethics Commission unanimously declared that Wardlow had violated seven state rules and should cough up $12,900—a $5,000 fine, plus the $7,900 he pocketed during his so-called "employment" by Bigler.

The panel also recommended a reprimand, which won't mean diddly since Wardlow is no longer Key West's mayor. Still, with the governor's backing, the fine could send a message to politicians sniffing around for extra cash: There's a chance you'll actually get punished for it—not anytime soon but long into the future, when you can barely remember which bribe they're talking about.

Jace Hobbs was out of town when news of the Wardlow ruling reached Key West. A week later, no one had yet told him about it.

He seemed quietly pleased when he heard the outcome. When I asked why he had bothered to pursue the case, Hobbs paused for a moment, then said: "I felt obligated to the community."

That's why there's a law. Sometimes, when the stars align, it even works.

Bush on track with 'bullet' January 14, 1999

It was the first test for Florida's new governor. Was Jeb Bush really a different breed of politician, or just another Brand X hack who knuckled under to heavyweight lobbyists?

Now we have a clue. Today Bush is expected to put a bullet in the bullet train, the most egregious public rip-off ever contemplated by the Legislature.

It was a proposed 320-mile rail link between Miami, Orlando and Tampa—a $6.3 billion boondoggle that was doomed to lose money until its tracks rusted out. Its chief selling point: a train ride that would take longer and cost more than traveling by air. All aboard!

During the gubernatorial campaign, Bush criticized the bullet train because of the immense risk to taxpayers. Beginning in 2001, the state was to begin subsidizing the Millennium Turkey to the tune of $70 million annually, escalating over 40 years to a total handout exceeding $6 billion.

And that's if everything went right.

It's nice to think Florida's worsening highway gridlock and traffic pollution could be alleviated by a railroad, but it wouldn't.

Like Metrorail, Tri-Rail and Amtrak, the bullet train would never have attracted the promised passengers. Taxpayers would have been stuck with a 200-mph rolling disaster that bled cash every time it pulled out of the station.

Bush's skepticism worried those pushing the project. The most avid shill was the state Department of Transportation, which adores expensive, endless construction extravaganzas.

The DOT's ridership predictions for the bullet train were so wacky they should have been on Comedy Central—though not too wacky for lawmakers, who had already had set aside $77 million for research.

However, a preliminary planning budget was due to run out Jan. 31, with $56 million remaining in the kitty. No more could be spent without the governor's OK.

In addition to Bush's wariness, bullet-train boosters faced a dubious upcoming report from the U.S. General Accounting Office. The GAO raised questions (surprise!) about both the estimated cost of the train and the demand.

Uncle Sam's interest was substantial because Florida had sought a $2 billion federal loan for the train, to be backed by revenues from future passenger fares. The idea transcended mere optimism, and entered the realm of the hallucinatory.

Nobody was more worried about the train's political future than Florida Overland Express (FOX), the consortium seeking to build the railway and hand it over to the state. Be certain there was a fortune to be made off the bullet train by those doing the promoting, planning and engineering. The trick was to hang taxpayers with the debt for running it.

To win over Bush, FOX hired high-profile lobbyists with strong GOP connections, including Mac Stipanovich, one of Bush's top advisors in his 1994 race against Lawton Chiles. FOX even donated $5,000 toward Bush's inaugural festivities this month.

For their efforts, company big shots got some face time with the new governor last week. Evidently they failed to change his mind.

Today Bush announces that he won't approve future funding for the bullet train. It's unlikely the Republican-led Legislature will rise up against him, so the project is as good as dead.

Had the governor caved to the lobbyists, he would have been indelibly linked to Florida's costliest transportation fiasco. Jeb's Folly, it would have been called.

But by running the bullet train off the rails now, before another penny is wasted, Bush saves future generations of taxpayers from a multibillion-dollar debacle. He also sets a promising precedent for his administration—common sense instead of common politics.

Let's hope it's not a fluke.