The purpose of the concealment was to make the region attractive to cheap development. A billion dollar infrastructure bill is the tip of the iceberg, and it is only emerging because a federal agency, the US EPA, had the guts to insist that Miami-Dade do something.
Maintaining the illusion that tax base increase covers infrastructure needs is institutionalized fraud.
The fraud is perpetrated under the guise of fiscal conservatism. Here is what the fraudsters say: private enterprise does a better job of protecting the public than government. What they do is different: they hobble, neuter and eviscerate government so that it cannot protect people, neighbors, or the environment.
Whatever you want to call the outcome, it involves partisan politics ripping apart government capacity to protect. Those claiming to be "fiscal conservatives" perpetrate massive fraud against the very principles of conservatism. They are liars, and the public is as susceptible to those lies as they are to mercury in the Florida environment that government agencies are too timid to regulate.
The real culprits are the builders and developers, their lobbyists and trade associations that staked the future of Florida on the growth-at-any-cost model that is dead and busted. They called their product, "what the market wants", and it couldn't exist but for fraud.
The growth model depended on burying billions of infrastructure deficits -- like sewerage plunged down "safe" holes thousands of feet underground. It never served to protect quality of life or neighborhoods or the environment: it was meant to chew up and spit them out. The St. Pete Times put a neat bow around this stinky business of crippling government capacity to protect people, through an editorial board statement on Saturday, summarizing a week of investigations:
"Even as Florida was leading the nation in mortgage fraud, Tom Grady thought it wise to close half the state's regional offices charged with investigating the mortgage business. As head of the Office of Financial Regulation, Grady, a millionaire securities lawyer, took a bulldozer to the place, slashing office resources and personnel, including fraud investigators, and ousting a veteran administrator to put a crony of the governor's in his place. He also spent lavishly on his own travel. Though he's out of office now, Grady's poor management affected the state's ability to police wrongdoing in the financial sector, which may have been the point all along. Grady was handpicked by Gov. Rick Scott, a neighbor in Naples, to takeover as commissioner of OFR, the state agency that oversees and investigates mortgage brokers, banks and securities firms. He shares Scott's government-cutting, anti regulation ethos, and during his short tenure moved aggressively to pare back the office's physical presence throughout the state. Florida is known as a hotbed of mortgage and financial fraud. Fort Lauderdale is home to so many scammers it's known as "Fraud Lauderdale." But Grady, a former conservative Republican legislator, led the effort to chop more $3.5 million from the agency by eliminating 81 positions including investigators and closing regional offices in Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Pensacola and Fort Lauderdale."
In Miami-Dade, a billion dollars is needed immediately to replace just the most deteriorated and vulnerable sections of the wastewater system, according to a five month internal study. Eye on Miami is not surprised.
Don't expect reality to intrude any time soon on the county commission mind-set (we call it, the unreformable majority).
Then there is the issue of water supply and the irrational willingness of Miami-Dade to commit to 300 million gallons per day of re-use water for the new nuclear plants planned at Turkey Point. What is the cost of supplying that water under conditions of sea level rise, through which most if not all of Miami-Dade's wastewater infrastructure will need to be replaced? You won't get an answer until you have to pay for it.
Fraud fits South Florida like a second skin.
18 comments:
I love "fraud fits Florida like a second skin" and it could also elect Mitt Romney.
Why didn't the Herald reprint the story of Grady or the St. Pete Times reports on the Jim Greer depo?
"Fraud fits South Florida like a second skin."
And we're number one in so much of it - Medicaide, PIP, Mortgage - you name it. This is not mentioning half of America's most wanted is somehow found in South Florida (this is a guess, but a good one)!
On a more serious note, I well remember probably five years ago or around that time, the Water issues coming up and Seijas's drivel. We all knew it was BS at the time and I can only assume the BCC blinders work wonders.
I'm not sure how Gimenez is going to keep the tax rate the same or decrease it knowing this problem. How many more times do we need to see flooded streets due to our deteriorated system.
Keeping the Sewage system needs secret is part of the shell game. All the while the city and county commission Was busy approving arenas (two), performing Art centers (various), new waterfront art and science museums, notorious baseball stadiums plus the unnecessary and environmentally destructive port tunnel and deep dredge ($2 billion), the county was already aware of the sewage infrastructure needs and under a 20 year federal court decree to fix it. Unless citizens sue again in federal court to get a court order , nothing will change in the next 20 years except we will see sewage spill into our streets, waterways, wash up onto beaches.
Meanwhile, locAl officials are salivating about new Mega developments like Genting
casinos and brickell citi centre.
Whose got our back? Not Our elected officials obviously. They are part of the fraud along with complicit mainstream press like the Miami herald which keeps printing drivel about Miami As the city of the future. Let the good times roll!
Gimenez held on to the sewage report for months without mAking it public until he could present his budget and get ready to sell county Bonds for other unnecessary mega projects. Now that the liability is known, why should bond market lend Miami Dade more money?
I heard that Gimenez held up the report's release as well and this disturbed me.
I had a public records request in for it. Barbara Jordan originally asked for the report.
Just to be clear, water and sewer infrastructure needs are paid for with proprietary funds (the money paid by customers) and NOT by any property taxes. Also, the Legislature imposed billions of sewer treatment costs on WASD that might otherwise have gone to replacing crumbling infrastructure. Still, the BCC hates to raise water and sewer rates on customers to pay for new infrastructure needs, even as the BCC knew of the risks.
Rick Scott is a nightmare.
This has been going on for years. I recall times when Bill Brand (sp?) asked for a rate increase and explained that our infrastructure was aging - he was blasted from the dias and ultimately left the county. The politicians capacity to blame staff for "not telling" them about serious problems is astonishing. The commissioners knew then and know now that they are going to have to raise rates, float bonds or do something other than blast staff.
Worse still, while the BCC and WASD officials knew that the infrastructure was deteriorating and were already under at least one consent agreement with the environmental agencies over treatment and disposal of sewage, the BCC continued, year after year, to take money from WASD's fee collections and reallocated it to the General Fund, thus leaving years worth of backlogs (now totalling Billions as well) in regularly scheduled maintenance unfunded and ignored.
You cannot have a growing population base to serve with a rising cost of services and not increase revenue. The residents of Miami-Dade County, indeed the State of Florida, have no one but themselves to blame for their stubbornness and refusal to pay even one more nickel in taxes. When the government doesn't have the money they have to find the money somehow. Why is everyone so surprised?
You have a system where taxes only pay salaries and no maintenance. When the public buildings, streets and pipes collapse this area will look to Wall Street to finance a large bond offering, increasing the debt load once again. Watch the accounting tricks cities play. On par with Enron I bet.
How can anyone trust Gimenez? Weird enough, it was Seijas who stopped the transfer of "profits" from WASD to downtown. Carol Wehlie, former SFWMD Executive Director, insisted the money be used to meet obligations of the District Consumption Permit - and Seijas agreed. The transfer stopped years ago.
Gimenez was fully briefed by his administrators about the extent of the problem after being sworn in as Mayor. His decision? Transfer $25 Million of "WASD profits" to downtown to balance his property tax cut budget. Shameless!
I will vote for Denny Wood, Helen Miller, or even Joe Martinez before Gimenez. His arrogance and reckless budget policies are unacceptable. And his bulls**t about transparency makes me sick. He knew about the details of this crisis a year ago and took $25 million from my department.
A little rasp of puke it catching in my throat.
It's embarrassing & ominous that we continually re-elect short-sighted "leaders".
The Miami heralds editorial calling for an increase in fees to solve this "economic" problem without holding elected officials - and themselves - accountable is shameless. Their complicity on the growth machine like port of miami expansion and highways to nowhere in the farm areas of Krome Ave. and tourism factory of mega civic projects like museums and performing arts center we can't afford is beyond ridiculous.
Is that brown stuff in the water poop?
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