A reader comment on The Miami Herald website in favor of building casinos got me thinking, then G.O.D.'s post this morning about a developer who succeeded in moving the Urban Development Boundary--after extensive litigation-- and now wants to change the terms.
The reader comment was along the following line: that we should be grateful for any construction activity (ie. casinos), because where he lives is nothing but a ghost suburb. Tug on that string and you pull back to the origins of the Growth Machine in Florida: the state needs ever expanding concrete, rock mines, suburbs and condo canyons to increase the tax base to pay for services and amenities that make our state livable.
Today's ghost suburbs are yesterday's "what the market wants". The market doesn't "want" a change in the status of the Urban Development Boundary for particular parcels of (connected) developers' speculative land buys.
What developers know, is that changing the terms of their agreement to move the UDB is going to test both the county commission and the state of Florida. These regular tests used to come under the lazy eye of the Florida Department of Community Affairs. Now the test is at the local level of government; the holy grail of the speculators who know that buying elections is easiest at the bottom rungs of the legislative ladder.
Gov. Rick Scott allowed the gutting of growth management in the last session of the legislature. He will never outrun the legacy of that horrendous mistake, opening the spigots to the further corruption of due process in Florida. The effort by the Miami-Dade developer to change the terms of his UDB agreement will chase civic groups down a rabbit hole they can scarcely afford. The speculators know full well how exhausting and costly it is for citizens to object.
The same is going on in the state legislature with casino gambling. GOP legislators-- in the face of a stiffening opposition from conservative groups, churches, and some business entities-- have a new plan: let local voters decide on whether to adopt casinos in their communities. Talk about rabbit holes.
The casino money that would flood into Miami-Dade County for a local referendum? It would fill the new Marlins Stadium. Miami-- that allowed so much costly, fraudulent, and inappropriate development-- cannot be counted on, to stand up against casino schemes. Some days it seems we are made dumb by design. Maybe that is what all the mercury flowing out of the Everglades is for: cripple our judgment so that even the worst ideas are better than any idea at all.
Here's what state representative and GOP chair for Miami-Dade Erik Fresen told the Miami Herald this weekend, "Our goal is a significant reduction in gaming. That's the only shot this bill has." No doubt. Poisoned by mercury.
3 comments:
Gaming did polling and decided the dumb voters were the best bet for getting it passed.
Sounds like a great plan. And if the voters aren't dumb enough, there's always that opportunity to manipulate the absentee ballot vote.
It's cute how they are calling gambling "gaming." As if it were just some innocent Angry Birds or Parcheesi with an alluring hint of gangsters, whores, and destroyed lives.
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