By FRED GRIMM, The Miami Herald
Posted on Tuesday, 09.29.09
The inference hung over the public hearing like a banner. The banner said ``Pay To Play.'' The presumption that the Broward County Commission was kowtowing to a favorite lobbyist and campaign-money monger clearly rankled Josephus Eggelletion. The county commissioner had heard the acerbic accusations from the Broward Public Defender.
Howard Finkelstein had asked why the commission would risk a constitutional challenge and curtail a money-saving pretrial release program that not only supervised defendants awaiting trial but alleviated the jail-crowding crisis.``And the answer, quite frankly, is ugly,'' Finkelstein said at the Jan. 27 commission hearing.``The answer is follow the money,'' he said. ``Everybody but apparently the people in this room know that's what's going on is simply pay to play.''
And Eggelletion, Broward County's living monument to political integrity, responded sharply, without a hint of irony. ``I felt those comments were personal, particularly when they said that this was pay to play. And that following the money leads you to the source.''
As it turned out, the FBI had been following the money all through Broward County. Last week Eggelletion, Broward County School Board member Beverly Gallagher and former Miramar City Commissioner Fitzroy Salesman were busted on corruption charges. Gallagher and Salesman are accused of taking money to fix construction bids. And Eggelletion, according to the FBI, lent an undercover agent the expertise needed to secret dirty money in the Bahamas. But the federal rap only got at a few instances of alleged illegality. The larger problem in South Florida government remains the pervasive, corrupting but utterly legal influence that money buys.
Getting the right lobbyist remains the paramount concern for government vendors, contractors, developers and interest groups. Long before the FBI sting nabbed Eggelletion, he was doubling down in an ethically bankrupt system, serving as a county commissioner while hiring himself out as a lobbyist. The Jan. 27 vote by the county commission may have been tortured public policy, but it wasn't pay to play in the illicit Chicago fashion. It was pay to play in the lamentably legal South Florida sense.
The Broward County Bail Bondsmen Association, for obvious economic reasons, hated a pretrial release program that allowed too many potential clients out of jail without posting a cash bond. So they hired Ron Book. Smart move. Book doubles as the county's own paid ($50,000 a year) lobbyist in the capital. In return, The Miami Herald reported last December that Book, his family and business associate contribute about $13,000 back into county commissioner campaign funds.
No other county agency wanted the commission to tinker with a pretrial release program that saves the county jail millions. But Book's ordinance passed because that's how money and influence circulate through South Florida. ``There are other forces at work here that are of a different motivation than public service or public protection,'' protested Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, who with Lois Wexler voted against Book's deal. That ``different motivation'' infests school boards and city and county commissions throughout South Florida. Last week's FBI sting didn't do a thing to thwart those ``other forces.''
