According to The Miami Herald, the Miami-Dade Inspector General just released its final report on the plundering of the fund by police generated from penalties collected for environmental crimes (IG, update your website!). No one from county government was available to comment on the report (one of the best pieces of work from the Herald in 2010).
The question arises why anyone should care, or respect, government when such blatant abuse escaped the attention of anyone in a position of authority? Make no mistake: that the environment was the target of this theft by law enforcement is not the case of a few bad apples. It starts right at the top. The President of the United States will not put teeth to federal enforcement of environmental law. The Congress is in the business of creating loopholes for environmental protections that are wide enough to fly a 747 through. The State Legislature thumbs its nose at the environment (until disaster strikes) in order to promote economic development and reward the Engineering Cartel. No wonder, at the lowest level of government (revered by conservatives to be the most important) county commissioners are indifferent to the environment. What is the record of the Miami-Dade County Commission except to actively defeat environmental protections: UDB, watershed study, Homestead AFB, drinking water quality, rock mines, garbage dumps (insiders, feel free to add to the list). Doesn't matter if the thievery is to benefit miners, developers, bankers, or land speculators. (here's the really crummy thing: if you are a homeowner who wants to build a boat dock, expect regulatory hellfire to rain down on you, but if you are a large corporation and want to develop 35 acres of wetlands outside the UDB or keep rock mining and building housing into the wellfield protection zone and are willing to embrace the lobbyist culture including campaign contributions, you get the red carpet treatment at county hall.) If you want to steal money, go to the environment trust fund. No one is looking. Law enforcement wasn't looking because law enforcement was doing the stealing. Someone should get a medal.
9 comments:
Let's make the jump to a discussion of the sense of entitlement demonstrated by most elected officials. Jeff Kottkamp, for example. Here is a candidate who has never really held a real job for any length of time and now wants to be the chief law enforcement officer for Florida; yet he seems to think that it is OK for an elected official to utilize state resources for private trips and babysitting. He extended a conference by several days for private time with a contingent of security personnel. We paid for that. Note to Jeff and all others like you: we are watching and you will not get by with this any longer. While I admit it is extreme, this may be the time it is appropriate not to vote for any incumbent. Send them a strong message.
Reader above ????? As to the actual subject of the post: They all should be arrested.
Seven-hundred people a day are now dying in the smoke-filled inferno that is Moscow. Russia's wheat crop is destroyed and the question now is where the first "food riots" will erupt. Egypt? Haiti?
We will have our Moscow days soon enough too. The US is now a corporate-state. Did you hear, the oil well is plugged and all the crude and the corexit has just vanished! Don't believe me or BP, then just ask Carol Browner, the people's guardian of the environment. Gosh it was a close call too! That act of industrial homicide and the deadening of the Gulf of Mexico nearly brought down Britain's largest corporation and the Obama Administration. All's well now though, the corporate media will take the clean-up from here. Nothing here to see folks, just move along.
The banks now have grabbed almost all the wealth of this nation. Almost! But even gorged on the people's money, the banks are ironically walking dead, like Paul Krugman used to say, they're zombies. More like vampires to my mind. Because there are a few pockets of wealth and working class influence they simply must suck dry if they are to survive a little bit longer. There's the nation's public school system, there's public and private pension funds, there's the Social Security system, Medicare and Medicaid, there's all the public services delivered by state and local governments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/business/06denver.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07cutbacksWEB.html?hp
We are not the only ones with these problems. In Bolivia, it is against the law to collect rain water. If you can believe it -- they have nationalized the rain while they have privatized the water treatment services. So here is the questions: is it fascism or socialism that we are combatting here. I say it is a really toxic offspring that is the worst of both.
In Florida, developers create brown fields, tax payers pay to connect water to polluted wells, developers take state and federal funds to restore brown fields, tax payers pay for the restoration. The EPA blames the DEP. Both aren't doing their jobs because special interests are pulling the strings. And Jeb wants to run for President. Well, great.
Are thieves worse than those speak with a forked tongue? When did the county repeal the board adopted UDB policies? Is the county recycling program one of the best in the country? Did the watershed study include any information pertaining to surface and groudwater flows? Is rockmining regulated by the state? Is the sky falling, chicken little?
As a matter of fact, I think the sky is falling. Poisoned wells all over the place are the proof of it. How many people have sipped that poison water. If you were one of them, fighting cancer, your f'ing sky would be falling. You can't live without water.
Check out who is applying to the Florida Public Service Commission for new water and waste water facilities - Bluefield in St. Lucie and Martin Counties, Grove Land in Indian River St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties and Sky Land in Pasco and Hernando counties.
They want to take their consumptive water use permits on the thousands of acres they own around the state and create private utilitis to sell a public resourse and sell it back to us.
Keep in mind that Evans property has been contributing $40 thousand dollar chunks of cash to Floridians for Smarter Growth for years and now Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy to keep Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment 4 from passing in November.
Anybody think our PSC will say no?
Anonymous said...
Let's make the jump to a discussion of the sense of entitlement demonstrated by most elected officials. Jeff Kottkamp, for example. Here is a candidate who has never really held a real job for any length of time and now wants to be the chief law enforcement officer for Florida
UMMMMM CLEARLY YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THE TRUTH! YOU ARE LYING ABOUT A VERY GOOD MAN. HAVE YOU NO SHAME? FYI, KOTTKAMP WORKED AT HENDERSON, FRANKLIN, STARNES AND HOLT IN FT. MYERS FOR 16 YEARS.
They tried to push through a private RO plant in Dade. I am very uncomfortable with privatizing water. It does not seem right. That was the failed thing up in Hialeah.
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