US Century Bank, the Everglades and Biscayne Bay: Another maddening day with The Miami Herald ... by gimleteye

Today's Miami Herald editorial, "Protect Biscayne Bay", boldly asserts: "Clear rules need to be hashed out on Port of Miami dredge project, tunnel -- pronto!" Pardon my skepticism at the belated attempt by Herald writers to act though they care long after the multi-million dollar boring equipment is all in place. In the early 1960's Juanita Greene-- now a retired Herald reporter-- confronted Herald publisher James Knight in the newsroom, soon to be a casino floor, and on the spot asked for time and space in the paper to detail the threats to Biscayne Bay from proposed industrial developments. Knight, who was one of Miami's finest growth-at-any cost'ers, nevertheless understood the principle of protecting the goose that lays the golden egg. He gave Ms. Greene the space and time and as a result, Biscayne National Park emerged to protect our natural heritage.

Boy, do goalposts change in Miami. To call the Herald editorial today a year too late is to understate the case. Ever since Martha Musgrove left the newspaper, almost a decade ago, the editorial board has had no compass when it comes to the Everglades and local environmental issues. The problem is not an absence of talent. The problem are Herald executives who fancy rubbing shoulders with the downtown elite; an elite that is driven by personal wealth with the same single-minded determination as the Wall Street bankers at the center of the film, "Margin Call".

That's why the US Century Bank story and its tendrils has never been covered by the Herald. The corruption story broke first in a national online journal, ProPublica, written by Jake Bernstein, a former Miami New Times reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for reporting on the origins of the financial crisis. Regrettably, the ProPublica version of the US Century story (reprinted by the Herald in both the Spanish and English versions of the paper) only scratched the surface. Although it asked the right questions, it did not pierce the veil of money intertwined with Florida politics. A wall of silence surrounds the questions how a failing bank with deep political connections to both Democrats and Republicans obtained $50 million in taxpayer money. As a commenter on our blog recently noted, this year alone the bank lost more than $50 million already. A courageous newspaper supporting determined investigative journalists would have done more. Much more. It would have pulled off the veil and shown very clearly how Miami-Dade politics connects up to the banking and finance world that Occupy Miami and elsewhere are protesting, without really knowing.

There is, for example, the matter of lands at the edge of the Everglades purchased at speculative prices in the early 2000s by US Century Bank directors including the bank founder and originator of the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco, Ramon Rasco. (Who remembers that Port of Miami director Bill Johnson was in the middle of the fight to give Rasco and directors of the Latin Builders Association a 99 year no-bid lease for the air base, before it was even relinquished by the US Department of Defense?) Right now, the Herald should be looking at the issue of extending the major arterial highway, SR 836. The plan is to put it right alongside Krome Avenue in far west Dade, only a few miles from Everglades National Park. It doesn't take much looking to see who would become rich from the urbanization of Krome Avenue and whose political interests they represent.

The battles for Biscayne Bay and the Everglades have unfolded over decades. We can't be surprised at the results. Nor can we be surprised by the failure of Miami's main news sources to inform. It is baked into our culture.