Miami corruption by gimleteye

Scott Hiaasen, writing on the front page of the Sunday Miami Herald above the fold, exposes layers of MIami Dade politics like a weepy onion. We would like to read the investigative series.

But "Masvidal puts own fortune on line in deal" makes the story sound like a case of bad luck.

In fact, it is a story how Miami leadership, insulated from criticism and tending to listen only to its own voices, cultivates weeds in its own garden.

It is also a story that allows a reader to reflect on the pitfalls of the executive mayor structure of government which Miami Dade voters will pass. Early voting starts today.

Hiaasen notes that Masvidal was a close ally of Alex Penelas, who preceded our current mayor Carlos Alvarez.

Penelas' inconsequential term was marked by the kinds of cronyism and abuse by lobbyists that opponents of the strong mayor structure fear could be institutionalized with passage of the referendum now before voters.

And the Miami Herald, itself, is not exempt from the Masvidal fall from grace.

In the 1970's, Masvidal was one of only two Cuban American members of the Non Group. Hiaasen only touches briefly on the role of the Non Group, which formed a wise man's council for Miami--made up nearly exclusively of white men--to address the challenges to local government by shifting demographics.

Miami Herald executives were key players in the Non Group. They considered themselves to be kingmakers. Alex Penelas was one of their fair-haired boys: a "new" generation of Cuban American leadership in whom trust and hope was placed by city fathers.

In Hiaasen's article, former Miami mayor and county commissioner Maurice Ferre gets the last word on Masvidal's story, "It's a tragedy, because the man really was an All-American success... but you know, these things happen."

Jared Diamond, in his book "Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed", identifies several common threads that run through societies and account for failure: one we remember, is the presence of a political elite that is insulated and self-perpetuating and incapable of responding to criticism.

That describes the majority of the Miami Dade county commission, today, under 13 single member districts where what counts is not minority representation but campaign fundraising by an elite group of wealthy special interests.

The ones who have gotten caught lately, in the web of corruption scandals that have rocked Miami Dade county--and particularly tied to the county housing agency--were poor gamblers or took bad risks and couldn't bet the house's money, like the more politically powerful do with impunity (Church and Tower contracts come to mind. The Hialeah movement of the Urban Development Boundary.)

They wanted to be the cream of the crop: Oscar Rivero, Otis Pitts, Antonio Junior. All were aspirants in a way that is definitely All-American.

Now that the Miami Herald is out from the shadow of Knight Ridder, it may be also possible for our only daily newspaper to be the independent eye on our community.

While Penelas' term does read like a cautionary tale, we are optimistic that Miami will mature, and at some point the political donor class will demand better governance because what we have now is not good for business.

In this process, the Miami Herald can play a far more important role than it has in the past, letting reporters do their jobs instead of imagining that they can steer from behind, in Spanish language version of the paper, differently from the English version.

So the most important piece of the Hiaasen story relates to the Miami Herald, itself.