Carol Wehle: Water District Chief gone ... by gimleteye

The director of the water management district serves at the pleasure of the governor and the state legislature; in other words, enough masters for a politically talented manager to get lost in the crowd. Along this line, it helps that the crowd marches to the same beat of the Growth Machine. More water for growth, development, agriculture when and wherever it is needed. That's the simple equation that also orders local politics; utilities get what they want, to serve the customers they need.

In recent decades, problems with water supply have piled up in Florida incurring tens of billions in infrastructure deficits. These are costs that past and present politicians decided to shift to future generations. We have been living on borrowed time, for a long time, and then the real estate crash. I can't tell you why Carol Wehle resigned from the water management district this week. But I can guess.

Top managers like Wehle thrive in the balancing act: managing public responsibilities, political overlords, industries that are likely future sources of personal income, and manoevering around federal judges who do not take lightly the slights and evasions that have kept state waters highly polluted. Recently, Wehle drew strange attention to herself, through the appearance of inappropriate dealings between her partner, an engineering consultant, and the district's partner in the operation of South Florida canals and planning of Everglades restoration: the US Army Corps of Engineers (some recent press, attached). It wasn't the first scrutiny Wehle had drawn to the intersection of professional relationships and private life. Although the media has jumped on the issue of failed water pumps costing taxpayer millions, these are really a drop in the bucket; even a diversion. A few million in failed pumps is a rounding error. In the rarified atmosphere of the state's most powerful water agency, prerogatives of power slip on quite easily. In Palm Beach County, where the district headquarters is located, powerful officials regularly slip off to jail. In Wehle's case-- as in her predecessors'-- it is more likely that she will slip into a high paid consulting job for one of the industries she regulated.

Everglades restoration has been a top priority of the water management district for decades. Its role was forged in the crucible of federal litigation in the early 1990's that established pollution standards in the Everglades Protection Area. Meeting those standards will cost more than $20 billion. Although the state is charged with paying for at least half of the restoration (actually the polluters are supposed to pay the state share), the culprits include Big Sugar that controls the state legislature, the enlist the same lobbyists as developers. Their jihad against "gummint regulations" gets buried in marketing budgets. It all worked fine until it didn't. In a personal letter to a federal judge, Alan Gold, Wehle recently made extraordinary statements that, in effect, sought to warn off the the caretakers of federal law; we are doing the best we can do, we can't afford any more, and you will just have to trust us when we (the state) say the Everglades are being protected. Wehle's Sept 30, 2010 letter was on the point of remedies sought by the US EPA after a blistering 2008 decision in favor of environmental plaintiffs (including Friends of the Everglades, where I serve as a volunteer board member). When I read it, I thought Wehle had decided to resign: the letter seemed a declaration of intent.

On the other hand, why not? The public wrongly imagines the worst is over from the housing bust. People would just as soon forget -- and perhaps, have already forgotten-- that the worst economic crisis since the Depression was preceded by a decade of foolishness in high places. In Florida, that foolishness was on blatant display during the Jeb Bush regnum in Tallahassee. The robbery happening in Tallahassee today under Gov. Scott would make even Jeb! blush. Judge Gold struck down the revision to Everglades law triggered by the state legislature in 2003. It was massively promoted by Bush and Big Sugar. The same furious competition to control how pollution is defined in order to protect polluters is what recently set Gov. Scott and Florida businesses against the US EPA to stop the imposition of pollution standards for Florida waters by the federal government. (The action of EPA was also as a result of federal suit decided in favor of environmentalists. If you want to bless President Obama for anything, please do it for his determination to let science guide environmental policy and not pure greed.)

Although there is not much traffic with the ordinary taxpayer on these details, they are the true grit of government. When Florida's Growth Machine hummed along, dragging suburbs and rock mines into wetlands all over the state-- generating great wealth for developers and land speculators--, the conflict between institutions and citizens was business as usual. (Search our archive, "Wade Hopping" or "Associated Industries".) These days, though, the economic crisis has busted budgets everywhere. It is not going to be fun, or even possible, to orderly manage through contractions while a rabid, reactionary right is determined to starve government out of business. There will be a backlash from the public at some point. But by the time it happens, the damage being inflicted on Florida by the GOP will be done. "Florida is for sale, everything must go!" Whether Wehle surfaces again in government or private industry, for the time being it is not her problem. Not her problem at all. (Click, 'read more')


South Florida water district chief's boyfriend hired for 6-figure job
Carol Wehle didn’t disclose the relationship. Now, he is in a position to scrutinize her work.

By JOEL ENGELHARDT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The South Florida Water Management District has hired its executive director’s boyfriend for a $120,000-a-year job with her administration’s watchdog.

Executive Director Carol Wehle told The Palm Beach Post she did not publicly disclose the relationship because she had no role in last June’s hiring of Bob Howard, whose job falls under the agency’s inspector general, a watchdog who reports to the governing board.

But initially, one of Wehle’s top deputies suggested to the Army Corps of Engineers that it — not the inspector general — hire Howard. The deputy, Ken Ammon, suggested three candidates, including Howard, to act as a liaison between the district and its federal partner in the billion-dollar business of building and managing South Florida’s water system.

After the corps refused, the district’s inspector general established the position of engineering auditor and hired Howard from a pool of five.

While interviewing for the job, Howard, an engineer with no auditing experience, did not disclose his personal relationship with Wehle, Inspector General John Williams said. But before Howard began work on June 21, word of the relationship leaked. An anonymous letter tipped off then-district board Chairman Eric Buermann. “I can’t tell you that I was happy about it,” Buermann said, “but again, I learned very late in the game after it was a fait accompli.”

Williams, who said he still doesn’t know the exact nature of the relationship, told board members that Howard and Wehle had a relationship and assured them that Howard would not be involved in district operations.

“He was eminently qualified,” Miami-area board member Sandy Batchelor said. “He had been vetted. And was a friend of Carol’s. Why should I have a problem with that? What potential conflict could there be?”

Buermann, whose term expired this month and who remains on the board until Gov. Rick Scott names his replacement, said he was told that Howard “was never going to be in West Palm Beach auditing and dealing with executive management.” Inspector General Williams told The Post that Howard would spend at least 75 percent of his time in Jacksonville.

District records, however, show that Howard spent just nine nights in Jacksonville in December, January and February, 14 percent of his time. A district spokesman explained that the corps has offices in West Palm Beach and Clewiston, as well as Jacksonville, and “the need for travel will vary according to the project.”

‘A glaring conflict’

Buermann said Howard’s time in West Palm Beach poses a problem. “I don’t need to explain it,” he said. “It’s obvious to anyone off the street. He’s either posted in Jacksonville, as was represented to me, or, if he’s not, that’s a glaring conflict of interest.”

Howard’s hiring came as Wehle built a lakefront home with a construction value of $528,000 in the Central Florida resort town of Lake Placid. When Wehle bought the vacant land in 2009 for $250,000, she listed Howard’s Lake Clarke Shores home as her official address on the deed.

She began construction of the five-bedroom, six-bath home in March 2010, still using Howard’s address on the Notice of Commencement document. One month later, the district posted the job opening.

Wehle, Howard and their families are weekend fixtures at the home, a neighbor told The Post. The home recently has been listed for sale at $1.2 million.

Wehle said that she and Howard do not live together. She said she used his address “for a few months when Mr. Howard was living in LaBelle,” his hometown. Public records, however, reveal that she listed his address on several documents between July 2009 and June 2010.

In a written response, Howard said that he and Wehle “are mature adults who have a close, personal friendship.” He said they always have maintained separate residences.

Howard, 57, an engineer since 1976, worked for the district from 2000 to 2006, leaving as operations director. He went to a Naples engineering firm but left that job two years later, he said, after the firm closed its Bonita Springs office. He landed the district job seven months later.

Wehle, 56, came to the district in 2001 under her predecessor, Henry Dean, after eight years at the St. Johns River Water Management District and four years as a Brevard County commissioner. She became executive director in 2005.

Her ability to remain in the $202,000-a-year job depends on a new governing board to be appointed by Scott, who wants the district to cut its property tax collections by 25 percent. Scott has five openings to fill on the nine-member board.

Responding to questions in writing, Wehle said she has no oversight role over the agency’s inspector general. The inspector general’s office, however, is charged with identifying waste, fraud and abuse in Wehle’s administration.

Not in chain of command

“Since the position of engineering auditor was not in my chain of command,” she wrote in an e-mail, “whether the individual hired was my friend, sister or husband was of no consequence in the hiring process.”

It’s a stance similar to the one Wehle took in 2007, when The Post reported that she and her husband, John Wehle, shared a home with a 74-year-old district consultant, Jack Maloy. After the publicity, Maloy, a former district executive director, resigned from his $66,000-a-year job. John Wehle died in 2008.

While Wehle had no formal role in Howard’s hiring, it’s difficult to remove the executive director entirely from any hire. Two administrators who had ties to Howard and who work under Wehle served on the three-member panel that selected Howard.

Panelist Tommy Strowd, deputy executive director for operations and maintenance, had known Howard since they worked together in 1981 at an engineering firm. Panelist Larry Carter, an assistant deputy executive director, supervised Howard when Howard worked for the district in 2006. They helped with the selection, the inspector general said, because the job involved engineering, an area in which the inspector general lacked expertise.

The third panel member, the inspector general, Williams, came to the agency two years after Wehle and from the same agency, St. Johns River Water Management District.

Among those Howard beat out for the job was Joe Schweigart, an engineer with 38 years with the district overseeing major departments and working closely with the corps.

In the highly technical world of corps-district relations, with the restoration of the Everglades and drinking water for South Florida hanging in the balance, the idea of a district liaison embedded with the corps in Jacksonville so thrilled the corps commander, Col. Al Pantano, that he promised to give the liaison an office next to his own, said Ammon, the district deputy director.

Wehle denied that the liaison position morphed into an auditing role. The corps refuses to answer questions about Howard’s assignment. Howard, however, is not seated near the colonel.

Relations between the district and the corps, strained by the demands posed by recent rulings in two federal lawsuits, remain troubled, with the district threatening to sue over one disagreement and the corps embarking on a redesign of the $1 billion Lake Okeechobee dike after a dispute about the district’s role.

As an example of “progress in relations,” the district offered a recent e-mail from Pantano thanking the district for an aerial tour for three corps employees. “I certainly believe that this experience was very helpful in enhancing the relationships between our respective key leaders as well as improving our understanding of the system and challenges we face,” Pantano wrote, closing with “HOOAH!” and a typographical smiley face.

On the district website, Williams urges employees to report suspicious activities and wrongdoing, with assurances of confidentiality under the state whistle-blower act. Hiring the executive director’s boyfriend would not, he insisted, have a chilling effect on potential whistle-blowers.

However, appearances make a difference, said longtime Miami-Dade County Inspector General Christopher Mazzella. “The perception of utter and total independence from the entity you’re inspecting is essential,” he said.

Clearly, the situation creates a perception problem, Palm Beach County Inspector General Sheryl Steckler said. “If the inspector general claims he did not know, it’s not a questionable hire, but now that you know, what do you do about it? It’s not an easy answer.”

Williams said he initiated the position to fill a need in his seven-person office. “The purpose of the position is to provide highly advanced engineering expertise and knowledge,” he said. That means spending time working with district employees in West Palm Beach, Williams said.

Calling Howard a “great fit for the job,” board member Joe Collins, who was elected chairman in March, described the role as being more than an auditor but also someone who would help the district and the corps “get on the same page.”

“I’m going to say acting as a liaison,” said Collins, an executive with grower Lykes Bros. “That may not be exactly the right word. He would express the district’s position on some of these things.”

Howard ‘most qualified’

Added board member Kevin Powers of Martin County: “Bob Howard is one of the most qualified people in the state, if not the country, to serve that function.”

Buermann remains uneasy.

“It’s not that Bob is not a fine fellow,” Buermann said. “Auditors have to be independent from management. That’s why the inspector general reports to the governing board. To have somebody like Bob Howard there who is romantically involved with the executive director, even if things are fine, to the public the perception is not there.”

Staff researchers Niels Heimeriks and Michelle Quigley contributed to this story.

The timeline

May 26, 2005

Carol Wehle becomes executive director of the South Florida Water Management District.

Sept. 25, 2006

Bob Howard resigns as the district’s operations director and takes job with Naples-based Agnoli, Barber & Brundage engineering firm.

Nov. 4, 2008

Wehle’s husband, engineer John Wehle, dies.

July 7, 2009

Wehle pays $250,000 for a vacant home site on Lake June in Lake Placid. She lists her address as 8153 A Chelsea Court, a Lake Clarke Shores home belonging to Bob Howard. She said she used his home for several months, while he was living in LaBelle, because she did not want to be in her West Palm Beach home after her husband’s death.

Aug. 28, 2009

Wehle sells a home in Placida, on Florida’s gulf coast near Port Charlotte, for $645,000, again listing Howard’s Lake Clarke Shores address.

Dec. 1, 2009

Bob Howard leaves Agnoli and starts his own engineering firm, WR Howard Jr. PE.

March 2, 2010

Wehle begins construction on her home in Lake Placid, which is northwest of Lake Okeechobee in Highlands County.

April 20, 2010

District advertises to hire engineering auditor.

June 2, 2010

After interviews with five finalists, inspector general offers Howard job of engineering auditor at $120,016 per year.

June 21, 2010

Howard starts work at the district, listing the Lake Clarke Shores home as his address. Board Chairman Eric Buermann receives an anonymous tip that Howard and Wehle have a personal relationship. Inspector General John Williams persuades Buermann and the rest of the board that no conflict exists.

June 23, 2010

Wehle lists the Lake Clarke Shores home as her address on a financial disclosure form.

July 29, 2010

Construction completed on Lake Placid home. Home is now listed for sale at $1.2 million.

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/south-florida-water-district-chiefs-boyfriend-hired-for-1352154.html