Sun, Aug. 12, 2007
Crist
blows it on his FWC appointments
By CARL HIAASEN
http://www.miamiherald.com/540/story/199339.html
From its title, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sounds like an agency dedicated to, well, the conservation of fish and wildlife.
Names, however, can be deceiving.
In recent times, the seven-member panel has been stacked with pro-development types, including: a shopping mall builder from Tampa, a construction executive from Delray Beach, a bigshot with a huge Panhandle development firm and a politically connected Miami lobbyist.
Not surprisingly, the conservation commission has compiled a record of environmental stewardship that cannot be called distinguished. Its most notorious sellout was continuing the barbaric ''pay-to-pave'' policy that allowed developers to bury gopher tortoises alive.
Over the past 16 years, the state has issued permits for the ''entombment'' of 94,000 tortoises whose burrows stood in the way of highways, subdivisions and shopping centers. In exchange, developers paid into a special fund for the purchase of habitat elsewhere, a gesture of negligible benefit to the many tortoises they were mashing with their bulldozers.
After a public outcry, the tortoise policy was terminated in July, although numerous unused permits remain valid.
Gov. Charlie Crist had an opportunity to restore some balance and credibility to the FWCC by appointing three new members last week. He blew it, big-time.
The governor reappointed Kathy Barco, a Jacksonville construction company executive and chairwoman of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a group that aggressively opposes land-use restrictions and environmental regulations.
For new faces, Crist turned to Ron Bergeron, a wealthy Broward builder who also owns a mining operation, and Kenneth Wright, an Orlando land-use attorney whose firm, Shutts and Bowen, represents many of Central Florida's biggest developers.
Wright's selection is especially suspicious, given his clouded credentials.
Eight years ago, as chairman of the Orlando-Sanford Airport Authority, he steered an airport contract to a company that hired two of his buddies as salesmen. Afterward, he went to work for the same firm.
`Straight guy'
More recently, he's been up to his suspenders in an ongoing scandal involving the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority.
Wright is the lead attorney for the agency and a close friend of the former chairman, Alan Keen. Keen was replaced after allegations that he abused his position to get $2,600 worth of free theme-park tickets, and that he hired a politically influential consultant who did little work yet pocketed a $107,500 fee.
Another PR consultant, indicted on bribery charges, says that Wright told him to lie about the amount of work done by the other firm, and that he was fired when he refused.
Wright says he's done nothing wrong in any of his dealings. ''I'm a straight guy,'' he told The St. Petersburg Times.
The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office, which is investigating the expressway authority, has testimony that Wright's pal, Keen, pressured consultants at the toll-road agency to raise money for GOP candidates.
Therein lies a possible clue to the reason for Wright's appointment by the governor to the FWCC. Like Keen, Wright is a player in Central Florida Republican fundraising circles.
And since he brings no particular expertise to conservation issues, it's only natural to wonder if Crist gave him the FWCC job as some sort of political payback.
This is not an inconsequential position, an empty title. There is real power attached, and real damage to be done.
It was none other than the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority -- Wright's own client -- that earlier this year requested and received FWCC permission to kill about 500 gopher tortoises unlucky enough to live in the path of the future John Land Apopka Expressway.
Many of the animals were already dead by the time the road agency decided to back off and consider relocating the tortoises instead of smothering them.
Where will Wright's loyalties lie when he takes his seat on the board of the wildlife commission? If protecting an imperiled species means going against the developers and highway builders who've been paying his fees, how is he likely to vote?
Take a wild guess.
Manatees will be on the agenda when the new FWCC board meets next month. Commissioners will decide whether the slow-swimming mammals should be removed from the state's endangered list -- a move instigated by marine-industry lobbyists and coastal developers, who want to shrink the special marine protection zones.
Those special interests couldn't have handpicked a more receptive group to hear their case. As usual, it will be left to the public to speak up for the manatees.
The governor, who has committed to building a strong environmental record, caved on his choices for the FWCC. He could have filled those key slots with anyone -- scientists, educators or even ordinary citizens who happen to care foremost about Florida's wildlife and wild places.
Instead he picked three people who are inextricably tangled in the business of paving the state, not preserving it.