Boycott Lowes and "I got to get mine" ... by gimleteye

We've been blogging about the Urban Development Boundary for a long time, and it was gratifying to see that Time Magazine picked up the story --highlighting the decision by the unreformable majority of the county commission to put a Lowes outside the UDB. Oh, you can hear the shrieks of complaint.

One aspect of media coverage that local power brokers count on (ie. the unreformable majority lead by de facto chair Natacha Seijas) is that their work stays local and "under the radar". Oops.

Poor Rebecca Sosa, the county commissioner who next thing you know will say how "misinterpreted" her deciding vote was, while failing to add any detail to the role of one particular lobbyist.

Along those lines, I very nearly missed commenting on yet another tale of corruption reported yesterday in The Miami Herald. It is Florida City, again.

Along with neighboring Homestead, where farmers turned land speculators and developers, Florida City was a gold mine for production home builders during the last phase of housing bubble. All those platted subdivisions along the Florida Turnpike sprouted from vegetable and potato fields were fueled by the combustible mixture of local zoning and lenders-gone-wild.

Whatever the case may be, the stories now popping up in federal court-- the few that do-- deserve context.

"Life savings gone: after a development in Florida City failed, the people who financed the project say a city official had guaranteed it" is how the story reads.

So here is the deal: in the early 2000's a middle-class couple, nearing retirement, wants in on the gold rush and gambles $100,000 to finance a development of the kind of cookie cutter, bottom of the barrel housing that speeds through local zoning councils with the halo of "affordable housing" wrapped around the developer's forehead like a garland wreath of an Olympic athlete.

"It sounded safer than the stock market," Harriet Fass told The Herald of the real estate deal because "A Florida City public official had guaranteed in writing to bail out the project if it stumbled." Go ahead, read it again. The Fasses and four dozen other investors poured nearly $4 million into the project which is now abandoned. The developer skipped town and is somewhere in Texas. Good old Texas, the gift that keeps giving.

Florida City Mayor Wallace tells The Herald that he was confounded by the letter written by the city employee, Michael Price II, "If for whatever reason A&T Development defaults or the project never commences, the city of Florida City will purchase the land from the lender, satisfy all pending liens and complete the project, said one letter dated April 2, 2002."

I doubt that the depositions or court testimony itself get to what I suspect to be the heart of the matter: what was the general atmosphere in local government that would lead to such blatantly illegal conduct by a low level city employee?

Well, for one, former Homestead Mayor Steve Shiver--who once controlled Homestead like a prodigy pol, wrapping Florida City in his embrace--had been promoted to county manager for Miami-Dade by Alex Penelas; a step up widely viewed as a reward for doing the bidding of production home builders, and especially those connected with the failed effort to convert the Homestead Air Force Base into a privatized commercial airport.

And there was something else going on. Although the previous slate of applications to move the Urban Development Boundary were finally voted by the county commission in 2005, the battle really began a few years earlier and was joined by the interests of Miami's largest homegrown developer, Lennar, in the process of developing its own plans to put a small city in Everglades wetlands just off Card Sound Road.

It was called Florida City Common. Lennar spent millions trying to ram the project through, before it caved under the pressure of the housing bust.

On behalf of her brother, Otis Wallace who was and remains Florida City Mayor, county commissioner Barbara Jordan (whose district is nowhere near her brother's fiefdom) waged a bare-knuckle political campaign to allow Florida City to annex the Lennar property, owned by a rock miner, despite a clamor of objections from the county's own staff.

The deal, with large land aggregators like Wayne Rosen and Michael Latterner circling at the edges, cast light on the manifold ways that Everglades restoration is mainly in the eye of the beholder: lobbyists, traffic engineers, "environmental" land use lawyers and certainly not compromised permitting agencies like the US Army Corps of Engineers or the US Fish and Wildlife Service who nervously batted their eyes at endangered species in the area.

To this story, restoration of the Everglades may seem a peripheral concern. Here is why it is not.

When environmental permitting agencies so clearly avoid their mission and the fulfillment of major public responsibilities (like Mod Waters and the 8.5 Square Mile Area), it sends shock waves straight through to the lowest level of government agencies who come to feel, as they do, that if special interests can break the law, or twist and deform it, why can't we do the same?

I can guarantee you that, at the time, the water-cooler talk at Florida City or Homestead City Hall was not about protecting Florida panthers No. Insider deals by "high" public officials give "low" agency staffers the idea, "I got to get mine".

When a major corporation, like Lennar, and a county commissioner contrive to a transaction for property at a deeply discounted price in 2003, which is the 2006 story of county commissioner Joe Martinez (see Jim Defede's amazing segment on Martinez, "I am not a crook") -why wouldn't Florida City's former housing director Price try to reward a developer who had given him the down payment on a house?

"Price, said Mayor Otis Wallace, was someone who had the propensity to do things that were unauthorized on his own--and that's a fact." And by the way, Joe Martinez bought his lot "legally" and was vetted by a county ethics review that makes for interesting reading of itself.

Ah the facts. Poor Mr. Price who wasn't buttressed with the fact of support, as in the case of Joe Martinez, of a former president of the Latin Builders Association.

Mr. Price, for whom the price wasn't right, is going to jail for 30 months for the discount version of the wealth-creator: "Thirty six homes were built and sold, for prices ranging from $140,000 to $320,000. Under the plan worked out with Riley (developer)... the houses were to be built in blocks of 12. As each house was sold, the loans were paid off. The investors then "rolled over" the money to build the houses on the next block."

As for the land speculators who, today, are under water until the markets reverse, I'm sure the chatter is much more subdued than the applause that greeted Joe Martinez' "I am not a crook" speech. County Commission Pepe Diaz told Time Magazine that he and the rest of the unreformable majority are not in bed with developers. No, now they want to be rock miners. But more of that, later.