BankAtlantic stock drops nearly 40 percent, by gimleteye

As hundreds of billions in equity vanish from the books of financial institutions, because the speculative bubble in housing has popped, it is necessary to pound--again and again--on the role of local government in assessing community needs through zoning and master planning. Local public officials can't be held directly responsible for the millions of foreclosures anticipated in the next few years. What they can be held accountable to is the need to rationally plan growth.

The building frenzy in Miami-Dade county was unconscionable, from every point of view except the land speculators. The wealth that was generated accrued to the advantage of political insiders, many of whom Eyeonmiami has tracked and can be viewed through our archive feature.

There was enough wealth, enough money made over the past decade, that many of the players have fat bank accounts to weather an economic storm. But no one knows how severe this recession will be: it is shaping up to be far nastier than if Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve had allowed the air to deflate from the dot.com bust in 2000.

So why, under these conditions, would the Miami-Dade County Commission even entertain for a minute, the four applications by developers to move the Urban Development Boundary? County planning staff recommended against all four applications, but the pro-development Planning Advisory Board--that reflects the county commission--voted to let most move through the approval process.

It would be a miracle if, during the upcoming County Commission meeting on the UDB applications, questions were raised by county commissioners themselves: what about all this ill-advised development that we have approved, for which vacancies are rampant while infrastructure costs pile up on the backs of taxpayers and voters? And what about Century Bank and Ocean Bank and all the other operations that helped to inflate the speculative bubble? Should it really be the role of local government to fatten their profits?

Of course, these questions are political taboo. What you can expect is that local commissioners who are always griping about wanting more "local control", will foist off the decision on Tallahassee--letting the state be the bad guy for decisions they don't have the guts to make.

And because of behavior like this, a strong majority of voters in Florida would sign Florida Hometown Democracy's petition to amend the Florida constitution, to provide direct vote by citizens on amendments to master plans that are supposed to protect taxpayers and communities.

And it is also the reason that the building industry is pulling out all the stops, to ensure that the signature collection effort, to qualify for the 2008 state-wide ballot, fails.

Sign your petition today, for Florida Hometown Democracy!