Force secret attackeres to reveal themselves

Eight days before the March 8 municipal elections, a group called Residents for Truth collected $25,000 from a group called Americans for Free Speech and began spewing venom to influence races in Palm Beach Gardens and Vero Beach. The money came from home builders, sugar growers and others, but it had been laundered to render its source unknown. Federal laws governing these 527 groups, named for a section of the tax code, did nothing to stop this abuse.

Congress is interested in 527s because of the role they played in undermining federal election reform that blocked money from being shipped to candidates through political parties. The 527s allow unlimited contributions, easily hidden from scrutiny. Though 527s cannot advocate for a specific candidate, they can make ruthless and often innacurate attacks against one candidate for the benefit of another.

In 2004, 527s raised $434 million, according to The Center for Public Integrity. One group alone, the pro-Democrat America Coming Together, raised $78 million. The 10 biggest individual contributors, led by financier George Soros' $23 million, gave more than $100 million. The Federal Elections Commission refused to regulate 527s though they clearly influenced elections. Two House members, a Republican and a Democrat, sued, as did the Bush-Cheney campaign. A Senate bill would force 527s influencing federal campaigns to follow FEC rules that apply to other campaign advocacy groups. Legislatures have to regulate 527s influencing state and local campaigns.

Residents for Truth formed on Feb. 25, 12 days before the vote. Federal laws require disclosures to be filed 20 days before an election. In its sole filing, as The Post reported, the group listed just that $25,000 contribution from Americans for Free Speech. That group, however, reported contributions from Families for Conservative Values, Americans for Jobs, Taxpayers for Conservative Government and People for Integrity in Government, all 527s taking money from diverse sources, including hundreds of thousands of dollars from home builders and sugar growers.

Residents for Truth paid for a failed campaign in Palm Beach Gardens to defeat Eric Jablin and Jody Barnett, who opposed western sprawl from building The Scripps Research Institute at Mecca Farms. Sugar growers want to encourage far-western development, which could transform their vast land holdings into suburbs. Home builders advocate building at Mecca and the neighboring Vavrus Ranch, both critical steps to moving even farther west into the cane fields.

When opponents can attack anonymously, candidates don't know whom to respond to or how to respond, and voters are deceived. In Palm Beach Gardens, deviousness didn't work. Without regulation, that may come to be the exception.

Storm clouds over access

So far, Florida legislators have filed more than three dozen new bills aimed at reducing the public's constitutional right of access to public records and meetings. That isn't at the usual early record levels for bills that would further erode the state's open-meetings and records laws, and for that the Legislature's new leadership, Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Pensacola, deserve some credit. The Terri Schiavo case also kept legislators busy.

But the number of exemptions passed by the Legislature has increased fourfold during the past 20 years, from 250 in 1985 to the current 1,030. Which is why defenders of the public's access are correct to be in "Let me explain the Constitution to you" mode.

Already, a handful of "shell" bills have been filed, placeholders awaiting end-of-session exemptions to be penciled in. Meanwhile, one proposed bill to prevent the public from reviewing absentee-ballot requests, supposedly to protect the integrity of the process, would protect only "the supervisor of elections who screwed up," said Barbara Petersen, president of the not-for-profit First Amendment Foundation. Another bill, to automatically expunge the arrest records of people who are "mistakenly arrested," simply would mask law-enforcement agencies' mistakes, abuses or worse.

Most of the bogus exemptions are cloaked in reasonable language. Guardians ad litem, for example, want an exemption for their home address and phone information. But the guardians Ms. Petersen checked all are listed in the phone book. There's no constitutional justification for an exemption if that information is available in 30 private sources. Instead, there should be a trigger that allows an exemption for someone who has a reasonable belief that he or she might be threatened, and it should include closing off all access elsewhere.

Ms. Petersen is correct that even the electronic records issues that the Supreme Court Privacy Committee is wrestling with are practical problems with practical solutions. For example, rather than having Social Security numbers placed on every page, she says, switch to a court case number. And have the Social Security number on a separate page filed with the court but not online. Rather than create more and more clouds over the nation's best government-in-the-sunshine laws, legislators need only do a better job of protecting the public's truly sensitive information.

Make farm vans safer

The most dangerous part of a farmworker's day doesn't come on the job but in trying to get to it.

Dozens of farmworkers have lost their lives on Florida's roads in van rollover accidents. Inadequate state regulation has allowed subcontractors to pack vehicles with people and not install even basic safety equipment, such as seats and seat belts. Last year, an Interstate 95 van crash near Fort Pierce killed nine Mexican migrants; another rollover in St. Lucie County killed two more farmworkers.

Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach, is sponsoring legislation (House Bill 1059) that could have saved many of those lives. The bill would require owners or operators of vans and other vehicles under 10,000 pounds used for agricultural transportation to be properly equipped with seat belts and registered with the state. Operators would have to display signs in Spanish and English telling passengers to buckle up, and require display of a sticker to alert law enforcement that the vehicle carries farmworkers. New restrictions on driver licenses for foreigners are forcing more workers to rely on vans. The proposal is modeled on a law that California passed six years ago after 13 farmworkers died when their van crashed into a tractor-trailer.

But in Florida, modest and reasonable reforms still meet inexplicable resistance. Though the House Agriculture Committee approved the bill, Rep. Ralph Poppell, R-Titusville, amended it to make workers responsible for using seat belts, a provision that opens legal loopholes for operators and vehicle makers to avoid accountability in lawsuits. It is another attempt to hold farmworkers to a different standard. Rep. Poppell, a past president of the St. Lucie County Farm Bureau, also voted against posting the safety information in Creole, another reasonable idea that is meeting unreasonable opposition.

Legislators have before them a bill that would save lives. Passing it should be quick work -- and a clear matter of conscience.

Keep consumers' shield against business abuses

On Tuesday, the House Transportation Committee debated but took no action on House Bill 1341, which would give consumers less protection against fraud committed by the state's auto dealers. In Tallahassee this year, it is far from the only bill -- and far from the only industry -- seeking more protection from lawsuits.

According to the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, legislators are pushing roughly three dozen tort-reform issues. It's a regular thing for business groups to go after more liability protection, but the agenda this year is the most ambitious since the late 1990s. With lawmakers back from Easter recess and presumably past the Terri Schiavo case that all but locked down the Legislature for the first two weeks of March, some of the bills are starting to move.

As happened in 1998 and 1999, any chance of sensible compromise to eliminate "frivolous" lawsuits and make limited reforms -- yet retain proper consumer protection -- has been steamrolled in the rush to place government and as many business groups as possible beyond the courts' reach. One proposal would widen protection when street lights fail and are blamed for accidents. Another would make it harder to collect damages when people slip and fall in stores and claim poor maintenance. Another would give more protection to sheriff's deputies and police officers when they cause injuries during chases.

Then there's Senate Bill 2005, sponsored by Judicial Chairman Daniel Webster, R-Orlando. It would restrict Floridians' ability to file class-action lawsuits. Think of it as an all-purpose anti-consumer bill. First, anyone contemplating such a lawsuit would have to give the potential defendant at least 60 days' notice. And the details of the complaint. And the amount of damages that might be sought. The aim is to give "a reasonable opportunity to cure the alleged violation."

In theory, that sounds good, sort of like mediation. In practice, it would pit a company and its considerable resources against a handful of plaintiffs, not a lawyer. The company could settle a handful of claims without having to worry about what could be many other possible plaintiffs who don't know they have been harmed. One example is the class-action lawsuit against the makers of defective pipe that was installed in thousands of Florida homes. A settlement paid for installation of new pipe.

Gov. Bush says he supports all the tort-reform bills because lawsuits are hurting the state's business climate. He also boasts about Florida's high employment and job creation and attributes it to the business climate he has created. If things are that good, Florida can afford to retain a fair amount of protection for the consumer.

Free inquest of conflict

Controversies that involve race also come down to matters of fact. Just as important -- sometimes more important -- controversies that involve race also come down to matters of perception.

Palm Beach County Judge Donald Hafele seems capable of fairly assessing the facts surrounding Jerrod Miller's death. But he should not preside at next week's inquest because Judge Hafele cannot overcome the perception that he must be biased in favor of the Delray Beach police officer who shot Mr. Miller on Feb. 26. The inquest will determine whether there is evidence to charge Darren Cogoni with a crime. The possible conflict is straightforward. Scott Richardson is a lawyer for officer Cogoni; in 2000, Mr. Richardson was Judge Hafele's campaign treasurer.

Judge Hafele plans to meet today with prosecutors, defense lawyers and NAACP representatives. Shahid Freeman, an NAACP member, has said that Judge Hafele and Mr. Richardson "are in each other's pockets." There's no evidence of that. But Judge Hafele must keep in mind the reason for this inquest. A white police officer shot a 16-year-old African-American as the teen was driving away from him, across a school campus. To answer all the questions about what happened as openly as possible, State Attorney Barry Krischer took the unusual step of requesting a public inquest, as he did in 2003 to answer those who doubted that a Belle Glade man really hanged himself. Questions about Judge Hafele's possible conflict would defeat the purpose, which is to foster confidence no matter what the ruling is. If Judge Hafele were to advise against filing charges, the finding could be dismissed as biased.

There are complicating factors. If Judge Hafele were to step aside, the judge who likely would replace him, Debra Moses Stephens, is black. If she were to recommend charges, could officer Cogoni claim bias against him? Not credibly, and not in the same way. And a jury would make the final decision.

The Belle Glade inquest didn't satisfy everyone. But no one could legitimately deny that Judge Harold Cohen based his finding -- suicide, not murder -- on the facts as he saw them. In the standard criminal case, Judge Hafele might not have to recuse himself. For the Jerrod Miller inquest, he should.

Reject school crowding

Who knew that new schools would be such a problem?

Just a few years ago, school crowding was the pressing issue in Palm Beach County, particularly in fast-growing Royal Palm Beach, Wellington and The Acreage. Parents were sick of portables and begged for new schools. Now that those schools are coming, some parents are upset that new schools mean new boundaries. Sympathy for those parents is understandable. But when it makes final decisions today, the board must take the long view and vote against crowding.

Seminole Ridge High School, to open in August on Seminole Pratt Whitney Road, presents the toughest choice. The board should reverse its February decision caving in to parents who want their children to attend Seminole Ridge instead of Royal Palm Beach High School -- a controversy made worse by Gov. Bush's FCAT-based school grading scheme, which gives Royal Palm a C. Unless the board reverses itself, Seminole Ridge soon will be 17 percent over capacity and need $2 million in portable classrooms. That would violate the district's concurrency agreement with Palm Beach County and cities that is supposed to coordinate school construction and residential development.

The concurrency agreement needs some revisions. Expectations that expensive homes would generate few public school students no longer are valid and have thrown planning off. And, as Seminole Ridge shows, "career academies" that accept students from outside the boundaries can create conflicts if closer students are bumped from the regular curriculum to prevent crowding. A solution is to exempt a portion of academy students from concurrency calculations.

The board did better on boundaries for the new Atlantic High in Delray Beach. Instead of being bused to Boca Raton schools, students from African-American Delray Beach neighborhoods will go to Atlantic. The trade-off is that about 100 Boynton Beach students will be shifted to Boynton Beach High. Again, the state grade stirs the controversy. Atlantic has a B; Boynton Beach is graded D.

Voters just approved a $560 million sales-tax increase for school construction, so more of these boundary decisions are on the way. As a rule, the board should vote to limit crowding to the extent possible -- and be thankful for the "problem" of so many new schools.

Iraq held the elections; where's the government

Iraqi elections were so dramatic and successful that many Americans have taken Iraq off their mental crisis list. But what is happening in Iraq now will directly affect when U.S. troops can come home.

The newly elected National Assembly, which is scheduled to meet today, has fallen behind in its first essential function -- to select top officials including a prime minister, the most powerful post. Until that is done, the assembly can't officially begin the more important task of drafting a new Iraqi constitution. Two U.S. military commanders, Army Gen. George Casey and Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, said on Sunday that they think many of the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq can come home within a year. "Provided," Gen. Abizaid said, "the political process continues to be successful."

Problems forming an interim government show that smooth progress isn't a given. The leading candidates are known. The likely prime minister is Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a conservative Shiite leader of the United Iraqi Alliance, which won the most seats in the elections. In a nod to the political power of the Kurdish minority living in northern Iraq, a Kurd named Jalal Talabani is likely to be named president of the interim government. Political and ethnic divisions that will make Iraq difficult to govern have kept a deal from being finalized.

Secular Shiites, such as Ayad Allawi, who was the U.S.-backed interim prime minister prior to elections, have warned that Mr. Jaafari will give clerics too much influence. U.S. officials also have worried that Iraq might become an Islamic theocracy like Iran. Meanwhile, Kurds have been withholding their full support until the main Shiite parties agree to give them substantial autonomy and political control over the oil-rich, three-province area around Kirkuk. Even as that jockeying goes on, Shiites are looking for ways to include minority Sunni Muslims in the government.

Temporary delay in forming a government might not create permanent problems if the difficult negotiations settle disputes that otherwise would emerge while the assembly writes the constitution, which is supposed to be completed by summer and voted on in the fall. But continued delays could cost the new government popular support. There are signs of stress. On Sunday, Iraqi guards outside a government ministry fired on workers protesting a cut in pay.

American military casualties are down significantly, as commanders try to shift more insurgency-fighting to Iraqis. For U.S. troops to be streaming home a year from now, however, Iraq must have a functioning government that has controlled the insurgency. Security will enable Iraq to stabilize oil production, which not only would help Iraq's economy, but would ease world prices and give American consumers a break. The political groundwork for that progress has to be laid soon.

Acute Inconsistency

In June 2003, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration gave the owners of Bethesda Memorial Hospital permission to build a $74 million, 80-bed hospital west of Boynton Beach. Opening Palm Beach County's first new hospital in 20 years in the fast-growing, predominantly middle-class suburb, AHCA said, could improve Bethesda's financial ability to serve the area's poor from its existing 362-bed facility in the city.

It was a long-sought victory for three homeowner associations representing more than 280,000 suburban residents. But the triumph of the "safety net provider" for poor patients in southern Palm Beach County was short-lived. This month, AHCA took it all back. "Bethesda failed to demonstrate the need for the health care facility being proposed," AHCA Secretary Alan Levine wrote, after an administrative law judge recommended denial of the hospital.

What changed? Residents who have attested to crowded emergency rooms at Bethesda, JFK Medical Center in Atlantis and Delray Medical Center in Delray Beach, and traffic-stalled trips to those nearby hospitals, deserve a better answer than because a judge said so.

In September, Judge T. Kent Wetherell II recommended that a new hospital near Florida's Turnpike and Boynton Beach Boulevard was unnecessary. He pointed out that "there are as many as 12 tertiary-level (critical care) hospitals within a 30-minute drive of the West Boynton area," and said "Convenience alone is not valid basis for the approval of a new hospital...." But he also said that if AHCA approved a hospital, he favored Bethesda's plan over one from JFK.

AHCA also was inconsistent in its latest ruling. In 2003, AHCA determined that Bethesda "reasonably demonstrates its ability to provide quality of care." But in his March 7 ruling, Mr. Levine wrote that "Bethesda failed to demonstrate... the ability of Bethesda to provide quality of care at the proposed facility."

Bethesda has appealed the decision and, in anticipation of another denial, has applied again for permission to build a new hospital. The hospital, spokeswoman Lisa Kronhaus said, is committed to building west of Boynton Beach. "We own the land," Ms. Kronhaus said. "We fully believe there's a need for a hospital." If the state didn't share that belief, why did the state approve the hospital in the first place?

DeLay, before Schiavo

The Los Angeles Times has outed Tom DeLay's hypocrisy in the Terri Schiavo case.

Last weekend, the House majority leader led the charge for a bill intended to give Ms. Schiavo's parents a hearing in federal court. Rep. DeLay, R-Texas, opposed the decision by Florida courts to let Michael Schiavo end his brain-damaged wife's life. He called the withdrawal of her feeding tube "an act of barbarism." He claimed that Congress had to "save" Ms. Schiavo.

In 1988, however, Rep. DeLay allowed the life of his brain-damaged father to end one month after an accident in Texas left him sustained by a ventilator. The Times, which broke the story Sunday, reported how doctors told the family that Charles DeLay would not recover. Like Terri Schiavo, he had left no living will, but his widow and members of the family -- including the young congressman -- agreed that Mr. DeLay would not have wanted to be sustained artificially.

Rep. DeLay's spokesman tripped over himself trying to distinguish between the two cases. He claimed that they are different because food and water, not a machine, have kept Ms. Schiavo alive. In fact, the only difference is that there is family disagreement over Terri Schiavo where there was not over Charles DeLay. Oh, and in 1988 there was no House majority leader -- a professed believer in states' rights and limited government -- hoping to distract attention from his own ethics problems.

These days, that same House majority leader wants to ban or limit punitive damages in liability lawsuits. But as the Times reported, after the accident that injured his father, Rep. DeLay and his family asked for punitive damages from the maker of a tram coupling that the DeLays said malfunctioned, causing the accident. The family wanted compensation for Charles DeLay's "physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and trauma."

Rep. DeLay's mother says her husband's case was different because there was no hope for recovery. In fact, that's the prognosis for Terri Schiavo. The difference is politicians like her son.

Despite the tough talk, vouchers not above law

Things have gotten so bad in Tallahassee that lawmakers are plotting how to launder tax receipts so they can give the money to their supporters.

Florida's Constitution says the state can't give public money to any church or religious group. The Legislature and Gov. Bush have been doing it anyway, handing out vouchers to schools that teach a religious curriculum. The practice has continued while the state appeals multiple court rulings that the practice is unconstitutional. But as The Post reported last week, voucher fans expect the state Supreme Court to agree with the lower courts. So as Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, puts it, they're looking for ways to "circumvent" the constitution.

One plan is to create a quasi-governmental, nonreligious entity that would get money from the state and then dole it out to private schools in the form of vouchers. "We're thinking it might withstand an additional constitutional challenge because it isn't directly from a state account," Sen. King said. Which means they think they can circumvent the constitution by laundering the money.

In fact, the state already is doing something like that to provide the so-called corporate tax vouchers. With those, the corporations donate up to $5 million to private scholarship funds, and the state gives them a dollar-for-dollar break on income taxes. Those vouchers haven't been tested in court. But they should be. The constitution says the state can't support religion directly or indirectly. It isn't hard to figure out. Under corporate vouchers and under any scheme that launders money through a third party, tax money that otherwise would be in the state treasury is in the bank accounts of private religious schools instead because of a law the Legislature passed. Call it direct or indirect; that's state aid to religion.

Give Sen. King credit for one thing. At least he wants to tie state support for vouchers to increased oversight. Until now, Gov. Bush, the Legislature and GOP donors who concocted corporate vouchers have not embraced reforms despite a series of scandals. One school collected vouchers for students who apparently don't exist. Vouchers went to another school with a founder suspected of terrorist ties. Vouchers also have gone to ineligible home-schooled kids, with "consultants" skimming off substantial fees in the process. While laundering tax money fits right in with those practices, it really isn't the kind of example the Legislature should set.

If the Legislature is determined to have vouchers, it can do so legally by giving them only to secular schools. If the Legislature is determined to support religious schools, it should try to do so honestly by changing the constitution -- which would require the public's approval. Laundering tax money to circumvent the constitution won't wash

Port of entry for logic

For South Florida boaters, going to the Bahamas used to be all fun and no hassle. In the aftermath of 9/11, the trip has meant either a hassle or a flouting of the law. U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, thinks there might be a better way.

Since 2003, recreational boaters coming back from the islands have had to clear customs at Palm Beach International Airport or the Port of Palm Beach, even if they live as far north as Stuart. Previously, they could phone in. Given the hassle, many obviously don't. How does that help security? Today in Jupiter, Rep. Foley will discuss his bill that would allow boaters to use videophones to show agents themselves, their passengers and their documents. It is modeled after a system used in Great Lakes states for boaters returning from Canada.

The change would cover 13 ports of entry from Sebastian Inlet, north of Vero Beach, to Key West. Others would include Fort Pierce Inlet, St. Lucie Inlet, Jupiter Inlet, Lake Worth Inlet, Boynton Inlet, Boca Raton Inlet and Hillsboro Inlet. A spokesman said Rep. Foley hoped that because a similar program is in place along the northern border -- with ports of entry that spread across several states -- Congress would allow it for this area. Almost anything would be better than the current system, which could cause boaters who help others in distress to be picked up for an immigration violation. It's an absurd, unworkable policy that only a mindless bureaucrat could love.

Open 'closed primaries'

There's little chance that the Legislature will change the state constitution to stop the practice of politicians picking their voters when drawing political districts, but the Legislature can make it harder for parties to disenfranchise voters.

In 2001, when Florida rewrote election laws, the Legislature opened partisan primaries to all voters if all candidates for the office are from one party. If only two Democrats file for a state House seat, Republicans, Independents and everyone else in the district can vote in the primary because there will be no general election. The Legislature, however, added a loophole. If a write-in candidate files, the primary is closed.

As you might expect, both parties have abused that loophole by recruiting write-ins. It has happened in elections for the Legislature, county commission and port commission. Today, the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee will debate a proposed constitutional amendment to close the loophole. Senate Joint Resolution 286, sponsored by Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, would go on the 2006 ballot. It seems to have GOP support, since Sen. Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg, has filed an identical bill. But Sen. Aronberg says the House hasn't scheduled even the first committee vote on the companion bill.

Not many issues in the Legislature are pure good government. This one is, and it deserves a shove through the House by Gov. Bush.

Give cities wi-fi option

Ten cities in Florida, including Tallahassee and Gainesville, offer wireless fidelity services that let laptop computer users in the designated area log on to the Internet. Officials in cities such as Boynton Beach who think their residents also deserve "wi-fi" must be careful of spending on technology that could become outdated in the proverbial Internet minute, but they should not have to worry about the Legislature forcing them to give private companies preference.

Yet bills backed by Gov. Bush would let cities and municipal-owned utilities provide wireless service, broadband over power lines or other technologies only if cable and telephone companies don't offer it first. Even if cable and telephone operators didn't offer a proposal, the cities could proceed only after doing a feasibility study and then asking residents to vote on the project at least once -- twice if bonds would be used to finance it. That could take up to four years. The bills also would bar cities that are offering the service as of May 1 from adding customers.

"No one was coming to Boynton and falling all over themselves to make presentations to do this for the community," said Doug Hutchinson, Boynton's Community Redevelopment Agency director. Suddenly, "everybody and their brother is telling us how we should do it, or that we shouldn't do it." Perhaps private wi-fi is the way cities should go, but the Legislature should not make the decision for them.

Go ahead; pass this bill.

It doesn't take a lot of thinking to predict problems with Florida's fast-tracked Make My Day Law. The Legislature didn't notice potential problems because, as usual when the National Rifle Association wants something, the Legislature didn't do a lot of thinking.

Because "a person's home is his or her castle," the bill (HB 249, SB 436) says, people need enhanced rights to protect themselves at home or in a vehicle. It removes any obligation to try to avoid a confrontation, by running away or calling police. The law assumes that anybody who gets in your home or car illegally is a violent threat. In short, you can shoot him. That's assuming you aren't shot first after you are emboldened to exercise your new rights under the law.

Recently in Lake Worth, a woman told police how scared she was when Hispanic men jumped into her car. Because the men entered her car illegally, it would be reasonable under Make My Day for her to shoot them. What she didn't know is that she had stopped in an area where people pick up day laborers. By the way, Make My Day also would forbid anyone she shot from suing her.

Aside from home and vehicle, the law extends to "any place" where the person "has a right to be." Any attack can be met with deadly force. What if the shooter says he was attacked but police aren't sure? A law-enforcement agency "may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful." Call it the right-to-escape clause.

The law has overwhelming support in both the House and Senate. Never mind that this, like other NRA schemes -- such as ending the assault-weapons ban and preventing police from keeping lists of pawned guns -- will give the judicial system fits. When Make My Day is in force, individuals will practice the racial profiling police forces have tried to eliminate. More innocent people will get shot. Prosecutors and courts are going to have their hands tied. All of which, apparently, will make the NRA's day.

Avoid Schiavo's situation

If the tragedy of Terri Schiavo's 15-year, brain-damaged existence has forced people to confront their own mortality as never before, the political exploitation of her tragedy should force people to make individual preparations as never before.

The experts are right. Put in writing your wishes about medical care -- before it's too late. Make and share with family or close friends, and doctors, such decisions: How much is enough? When is treatment merely prolonging dying instead of advancing living? When is it safe for loved ones to let go -- guilt-free?

Who among the young, the old, the healthy or the sick wouldn't prefer to postpone a talk about death? But the matter-of-fact does not have to be macabre. Several organizations provide free planning help to individuals. Living Will and Designation of Health Care Surrogate forms are available free on the Florida Senate's Web site (www.flsenate.gov). A health-care surrogate is someone appointed to carry out a patient's wishes.

Living Will forms also are on The Palm Beach Post's Web site (www.palmbeachpost.com). A 71-page "Making Choices" booklet is on the Department of Elder Affairs' site (http://elderaffairs.state.fl.us). The American Bar Association offers a free, downloadable list of "tools" for health-care advance planning (www.abanet.org/aging/toolkit/). Hospice of Palm Beach County (www.hpbc.com) will mail copies of forms upon request; call (561) 848-5200.

Despite tremendous medical advances, pharmaceutical treatments and life-enhancing equipment, the age-old biblical admonition about death still applies: No one knows the day nor the hour. Survivors who have watched their loved ones succumb to illness and pain can attest to the value of clear instructions, of knowing with certainty how a loved one would want to be treated. Providing written direction is a merciful and compassionate act that can ease the decision-making for a loved one and preserve a patient's dignity even as the patient loses control of his of her destiny.

Death is inevitable, but a political and litigious end is avoidable.

Make affordable housing Florida's newest priority

Affordable housing isn't a problem just in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. Throughout Florida and the nation, communities are seeking creative ways to provide low- and middle-income people places to live. Rapidly rising real-estate prices, coupled with the hurricanes, have put home ownership out of reach for many South Floridians, as a three-part Palm Beach Post series reported last week. In February, the median price for homes hit $222,800 in Martin and St. Lucie counties and $352,900 in Palm Beach County.

"Wages aren't high enough for people to pay the rents and mortgages the markets command in Florida," said Jaimie Ross, affordable housing director at 1000 Friends of Florida, a statewide growth-management organization. Florida has done better than many states, she said, because it has a tax on real-estate transactions that goes into an affordable housing trust fund. But Gov. Bush has raided the fund over the past two years and now seeks to cap it at $193 million, which 1000 Friends and many home builders and Realtors oppose. "As real-estate prices rise," she said, "we need that money to fill the gap between housing and income."

Several communities in Florida and nationwide are trying ways to meet the need for affordable homes:

• Not-for-profit community land trusts. The trust owns the land but sells the houses, which appreciate slightly though not at market value. The trust sells and resells the houses. Two such trusts operate in the Keys and another in Winter Park. Delray Beach has bought 50 acres west of the city where a developer is building 268 affordable homes. The city also is working on a plan for a trust that could include lots scattered throughout the city. The 1000 Friends group is conducting workshops with officials in other counties, including Martin, interested in the idea.

• Requiring a percentage of affordable homes in new developments, a plan known as "inclusionary zoning" that many developers oppose. Requiring builders to construct one affordable house for every market-price house has worked in New Mexico and Colorado. California and New England states have used other formulas.

• Density bonuses. These have been more popular with developers, Ms. Ross said. For example, a developer allowed to build 25 units could be allowed to build 30, provided that the additional five include one at market price and four affordable homes.

While affordable housing was a problem on the Treasure Coast before last summer's hurricanes, the storms made it a crisis. With many mobile homes and other low-cost housing damaged or destroyed, the area's poorest residents are hoping that the Legislature approves the $354.5 million for hurricane housing aid that Gov. Bush has requested. About $31 million is earmarked for the Treasure Coast, where members of 1,800 households still are in government trailers.

Local governments recognize the problem and are trying to take action. Now the state must help -- starting with a promise to let the affordable housing trust fund continue its record of good work.

South Florida losing out on federal transit money

Without an improved regional transportation system, South Florida is fast headed toward becoming one big parking lot. Even as gridlock approaches, some Republicans in the Legislature are throwing up roadblocks that would keep Florida from getting its share of federal money for mass transit.

Their claim to be saving Floridians from taxes doesn't make sense. Florida is a net donor of state gas taxes to the feds. And Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade are donor counties. Yet "anti-tax" Republicans in the Legislature still oppose the license tag fee that would provide the dedicated source of matching money that would allow the tri-county area to get back some of those federal dollars. Unless the legislators budge, the region's taxpayers will lose millions they sent to Washington for lack of that match.

The tri-county business alliance and the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which runs Tri-Rail and was formed to avert regional gridlock, pushed for the fee last year. In Palm Beach County, the fee would provide money for expanded rail and bus service, including east-west connections, the $160 million, 16-mile Jupiter extension, future passenger service along the Florida East Coast line and other needed projects. A $2 fee would translate into $8 million that the RTA could use to win $56 million a year in federal matching money. A $5 fee would raise about $22 million and cover the $4.2 million each county contributes annually to the RTA's operating costs.

In last year's compromise concerning the operating budget, the Legislature again picked the counties' pockets. Fare boxes contribute 25 percent of operating costs, and the three counties split the rest with the state. But the counties' costs will only grow with the increased frequency of trains and the need for more connectors as a result of Tri-Rail's double-tracking. The Legislature also allowed the three counties to go to their voters for the money, which may be what it takes.

The whole idea of the RTA was for South Florida to be designated a region in order to compete with others nationwide for federal matching money. On Monday in Tallahassee, the tri-county legislative delegation and RTA staff will discuss how to meet the area's capital needs. If the tag fee isn't the answer, together with the business alliance they must endorse a local vote or some other plan as an alternative to choked traffic and the spread of choking auto fumes in the subtropical heat.

Doctored intel, Part II

The Bush administration denies that it distorted intelligence and misled Asian nations about North Korean sales of nuclear technology. Given the misuse of intelligence prior to invading Iraq and a lack of interest in finding out what went wrong, the administration hardly deserves the benefit of the doubt.

According to The Washington Post, administration representatives told South Korea, Japan and China -- our partners in talks to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear programs -- that U.S. intelligence agencies had discovered that Pyongyang sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya. That gas is required to manufacture weapons-grade uranium. Selling to a nonnuclear country would cement North Korea's status as a pariah state.

In fact, according to the Post, North Korea sold the gas to Pakistan, which already had a nuclear weapons program, and Pakistan then sold the material to Libya without North Korea's knowledge. The doctored intelligence was intended to get China, South Korea and Japan to increase pressure on North Korea. Instead, those partners are upset.

The administration also wanted to avoid embarrassing Pakistan, a prime ally in the effort to root out Al-Qaeda. There is increasing evidence, however, that coddling Pakistan hurts U.S. interests. While the Bush administration frets about North Korean damage to nonproliferation, Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan is now thought to have offered or sold dangerous nuclear technology to more dangerous countries than anyone in history.

Dr. Khan ran an underground network whose customers included Iran, Libya and North Korea. He is further suspected of dealing with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Moreover, there is evidence that Dr. Khan tried to sell nuclear technology to Saddam Hussein, who only turned him down out of fear that he was being set up by the United States. Out of deference to Pakistan, the Bush administration has accepted President Pervez Musharraf's decision to pardon Dr. Khan and let him retire in luxury. Worse, the United States has not been allowed to interrogate Dr. Khan to verify what his network sold and to whom -- information that could be crucial to preventing terrorists from setting off a dirty bomb.

The United States spreads bad intelligence on one hand and fails to collect good intelligence on the other. That combination won't stop terrorists or nuclear proliferation.

Baseball's steroid crutch

Despite giving it his best shot, Barry Bonds has a hard time wearing martyrdom well.

This week, he hobbled in front of the television cameras on crutches. He brought his 15-year-old son along so members of the press could see "the pain you're causing my whole family." He complained about his injured knee and how allegations of steroid use had damaged his reputation. Baseball's reigning slugger announced Tuesday that he was pulling out of the San Francisco Giants' spring training camp and thinking about not playing this season. "You wanted me to jump off the bridge; I finally have jumped. You wanted to bring me down; you've finally brought me and my family down -- finally done it."

But, time out, please. There really should be no crying in baseball. Exactly who did what to whom? Blaming reporters and fans for his troubles is way off base. It was Mr. Bonds' former mistress of a decade, Kimberly Bell, who recently told a grand jury that he admitted steroid use to her. Ms. Bell has a tell-all book in the works -- tentatively titled Bonds' Girl -- and the Internal Revenue Service is interested in what she promises to disclose about Mr. Bonds' finances. It was his own grand-jury testimony that stretched plausibility when he claimed that steroid suppliers gave him only flaxseed oil and arthritic balm. Neither fans nor members of the media created any of this mess.

Mr. Bonds is an accurate reflection of the hubris and denial that has marked the game's response to scandal. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig told Congress that the game doesn't have a major steroid problem, as if to justify a new drug testing program that is the weakest in professional sports. Commissioner Selig should consider it a huge problem when potential Hall of Famers such as Mr. Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa can't make a convincing case that their home-run muscles came solely from work in the gym. But again, it's easier to blame the fans and press for not believing hard enough than to accept accountability.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says that if baseball doesn't get serious about testing, Congress should call in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees Olympic athletes. Congress always can threaten to repeal baseball's antitrust exemption to get Commissioner Selig's attention. Lawmakers will have no sympathy if he, too, threatens to jump off a bridge.

To update growth rules, begin with the money

In his State of the State address, Gov. Bush made growth-management reform a priority for this year: "These are complex issues with competing interests and no easy solutions. But I ask you to look over the horizon, and envision the future of your hometown if we do nothing. Can you honestly say we have it right? That our communities are organized effectively for growth?"

The Legislature, however, still is waiting for the governor to show it what he means by doing it right. Missing from the governor's rhetoric are the specifics. While he called for "true concurrency" -- a law that would prohibit development unless roads, utilities and other public services are in place -- he hasn't said where the money for those services would come from. If he wants a link between development and services, he has to provide the link: money.

Gov. Bush has tried before and failed to meaningfully reform the state's 20-year-old Growth Management Act. Ironically, his failure has unified longtime antagonists 1000 Friends of Florida -- the state's leading growth-management advocacy group -- and the Florida Home Builders Association on at least one important point: the need for a dedicated source of money to at the very least make up the backlog of construction projects that rapid growth has brought to Florida.

Two vastly different bills, however, have gone nowhere. Senate Bill 1886 would make it easier for counties to levy a gas tax and would allow a half-percent tax on real-estate transactions, and both would require local approval. House Bill 1453 would offer no new way to pay for growth.

While some parts of the state need new sources of money to pay for desirable growth, other parts are playing catch-up. Growth-management rules that recognize the differences within the nation's fourth-largest state are worth considering. Legislators also must assure that new money doesn't just finance an extension of growth into the hinterlands. By requiring services to be extended first, before growth reaches an area, the Growth Management Act did just that. Additionally, local officials are right to view skeptically efforts by Tallahassee to pass the blame for new taxes onto them.

There's still the possibility of a bill emerging. In his opening day address, Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, a home builder himself, also made growth-management reform a priority. "When our classrooms are too packed, our roads too congested, and our remaining lands too easily auctioned to development, how can we -- in good conscience -- just look the other way and hope someone else will take care of the problem?" he asked. So far, though, the Legislature and the governor are looking the other way.

An excuse comes up dry

Bad enough that Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., cast a deciding vote in favor of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Worse, the so-called "deal" he claims to have made with the Bush administration in exchange for his vote was no deal at all.

Sen. Martinez tried to justify his vote last week by saying that, in exchange, he had received a promise from the Bush administration to delay drilling off Florida's coast. The worry is that once drilling begins in the Alaska refuge, the Gulf of Mexico near Florida will be the next target. But that delay had been approved years ago, a fact that the National Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club quickly pointed out. In fact, Sen. Martinez's "deal," according to a letter from Interior Secretary Gale Norton, could allow drilling 100 miles closer to Florida's shores than before.

An aide explained a day after the critical vote that Sen. Martinez was busy engineering the Senate's attempt to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case and had no time to talk about whether he knew what he was doing on oil drilling. In her letter to Sen. Martinez, however, Ms. Norton repeated the Bush administration's pledge not to allow drilling in Florida waters within 100 miles of the coast through 2012. But the letter left open the question of whether drilling will be allowed beyond 100 miles, particularly in a section 215 to 285 miles off Tampa Bay that had been removed from consideration in 2001. That would mean drilling is allowed much closer.

This attention to minute technical detail has become a Bush administration trademark, helping the White House to get its way by changing rules or by adding or subtracting minuscule bits of information. Unorthodox procedures, such as attaching the Alaska drilling provision to a budget bill, also are the administration's strong suit, in this case effectively limiting debate. With Alaska oil drilling, the only recourse was the attempt to remove it from the budget bill, which failed by two votes with Sen. Martinez in the majority.

Sen. Martinez's action could affect more than just Florida. Residents of California, the Great Lakes states and the Atlantic coast are worried that the Senate has opened the door for greater concessions to oil companies nationwide. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has held up an appointment in Ms. Norton's office, hoping to extract a promise of no drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the area he's worried about after her letter to Sen. Martinez.

If Sen. Martinez misunderstood that the administration's "concessions" on Florida drilling already were in effect, he made a mistake that could hurt this state. If he knew and lied about it, that's terrible. Either way, he blew it.

Wrong, but not criminal?

A dead month-old boy. Parents who said they could not remember details because they had smoked crack cocaine. No charges. Huh?

It happened Thanksgiving weekend. Neal Bryan and Sonia Thomas called Boca Raton Fire-Rescue to their home that Saturday afternoon when the undiapered baby was not breathing. About 30 minutes later, the baby was pronounced dead. According to Boca Raton police, Mr. Bryan and Ms. Thomas said they had been smoking $500 worth of crack for three days. Police charged them with neglect. In December, Palm Beach County prosecutors said they could not press charges but would wait for a toxicology report on the baby.

That report came back last week, and it showed that the baby was cocaine-free and well-fed. Medicine that he had been prescribed was in his system at the proper level. So prosecutors dropped the charges. Boca Raton Police Chief Andrew Scott told the Boca Raton News that the judicial system is "broken." Mayor Steve Abrams called the decision an "outrage."

They're wrong, frustrating as that is. Police took no blood samples from the parents, leaving no way to independently verify their statements, which they recanted. Chief Scott says it "was not protocol" to take blood. Nothing in the medical examiner's report gave prosecutors evidence because the autopsy could not determine cause of death. There were no other witnesses.

This case illustrates the constant tension between police, who can arrest on "probable" cause, and prosecutors, who must charge on "beyond reasonable doubt." Chief Scott, who griped this week about "idiotic interpretations" of the law by judges, Mayor Abrams and State Attorney Barry Krischer are going to meet and discuss the case. Perhaps they can agree on this key point: When a child seems to die needlessly, outrage is fine, but evidence is better.

Bush still overstepping in case of Terri Schiavo

Gov. Bush continues to embarrass his office and the state with his attempts to prolong the non-life of Terri Schiavo.

For most of Wednesday, developments suggested that a sad but legal and merciful ending to this story might be at hand. First, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta denied 2-1 the request by Ms. Schiavo's parents to intervene and order the reinsertion of their daughter's feeding tube, which doctors removed on Friday. Later, the full appeals court also refused, by a vote of 10-2, to step in. Then, the Florida Senate voted 21-18 against a bill designed to have the tube reinserted. Supporters had said it would be the last attempt to pass it.

But also in the afternoon came Gov. Bush and the Department of Children and Families serving up another petition for the agency to intervene. Last month, DCF tried to block removal of the tube by claiming that the agency needed to investigate claims that Ms. Schiavo had been abused. Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer correctly rejected the attempt, noting that allegations of abuse by Michael Schiavo had been investigated and dismissed many times during the 12-year battle between him and his in-laws. This time, DCF claims that there are new allegations -- anonymous calls to the state hot line -- that demand the agency's attention.

DCF also presented an affidavit from a Jacksonville neurologist who asserts that Ms. Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state. Apparently, William Polk Cheshire took some classes at the Bill Frist School of Medicine. The Senate majority leader, a physician, watched the edited videotape that Mary and Robert Schindler claim shows their daughter responding to them and drew the same conclusion. Dr. Cheshire admits to making his own diagnosis in part because of the videotape. "As I looked at Terri and she gazed directly back at me," wrote Dr. Cheshire, who DCF says spent an hour in her room, "I asked myself whether, if I were her attending physician, I could in good conscience withdraw her feeding and hydration. No, I could not."

Of course, Dr. Cheshire cautions that neurologists in such cases must "educate family members so that they will not develop a false hope of recovery." In fact, he is doing just the opposite. So are Gov. Bush and too many members of Congress. There even was talk Wednesday that DCF might remove Ms. Schiavo from the hospice by force. Any such action would be the most irresponsible in a series of irresponsible actions that began in October 2003 with "Terri's Law."

Tragically, Ms. Schiavo is beyond earthly help. The courts have acted capably in determining what her wishes would have been. Gov. Bush continues to act recklessly.

No room for this raise

County commissioners will be asked during this year's budget review to put aside tourist tax money to increase the pay of the president and CEO of the county's Convention and Visitors Bureau, Warren E. "Mac" McLaughlin. The raise is portrayed as an incentive to be reached only if Mr. McLaughlin meets criteria established by the bureau. Since the board has been little more than a rubber stamp, it makes sense for county commissioners to first decide whether Mr. McLaughlin deserves the opportunity for such a steep raise.

The proposal crafted for Mr. McLaughlin, who receives $156,901 in base pay, would increase his incentive pay from $12,454 to $31,203 and more in succeeding years. It is spurred by a national wage study that failed to take into account pay for like-sized Florida convention bureaus. The Tourist Development Council, which advises the county commission, stopped an even larger raise and then blocked any change during the current budget year. Now, the raise could slip past commissioners as they prepare budgets for next year.

The CVB also has proposed a $150,000-a-year staff position for its outside counsel, Jim Stuber. Aside from the legal duties he now handles, at an estimated $100,000 cost, Mr. Stuber would be asked to oversee the compensation plan and a program of "continuing and never-ending improvement." As tall as that task may sound, it's hard to believe that it's beyond the scope of Mr. McLaughlin's current duties.

Downtown: Too big a bite

Port St. Lucie has piled one financial obligation after another onto the city's plate, so taking on a big bill and the hassle of planning the downtown is one portion too many.

The city soon will ask voters to approve a $165 million bond issue using existing tax money to build West Virginia Drive, a six-lane, east-west expressway from U.S. 1 to Interstate 95. The city already had to pay $14.4 million to lot owners overcharged for stormwater fees in a case that could have been settled for as little as $439,000. The city also voted this month to take the first steps toward starting its own charter school system -- at costs as yet unknown but likely to be high.

Now, the council is considering buying 45 acres for $20 million to create a downtown. But investors paid just $5.8 million for the old Village Green Shopping Center land in 2001. Councilman Jack Kelly, who was disgusted by the inflated price, has a sensible suggestion: Find another developer to take over the project. Investors Wiley Reynolds and Jeff Lee wanted to turn the acreage east of U.S. 1 into a project resembling West Palm Beach's CityPlace, but their deal to sell to a developer fell through. Some council members want to take over because they fear that area will be overrun with big-box stores.

Port St. Lucie wants -- and deserves -- a downtown. But the council could save time and money and get a better result by finding another developer who agrees to its "no superstores" condition.

Fill KidCare openings

This one should be easy. An estimated 533,000 children in Florida do not have health insurance. The state and federally subsidized health insurance program has the money to cover 389,515 children who do not qualify for Medicaid. So why is the Legislature debating whether to fill those slots?

Last year, state lawmakers decided to dump from the KidCare program thousands of children whose parents work but cannot afford private health insurance. So many children were in need that the Republican-led Legislature capped enrollment for the subsidy that primarily targets uninsured children under age 19 whose family-of-four income is $38,700 or less. As the waiting list grew by 2,000 a week, the Legislature eliminated the list and limited parents to at most two enrollment periods per year. Parents also had to produce excessive paperwork, and the state cut its marketing of the program, lest parents actually use it.

The result of those unnecessary and punitive efforts? Seventy-eight percent of the applications submitted during the "one month, one chance" sign-up in January were incomplete. At least 143,074 slots are not filled, so the state expects to have to return to the federal government more than $100 million.

Proposed legislation -- Senate Bill 1324 and House Bill 569 -- would reopen KidCare enrollment year-round. Florida has the money. Uninsured children have the need. The solution should be obvious.

A principal's ineptitude

The attempt to suppress a student-written article in the Wellington High School newspaper has been bungled about as badly as it could be.

The first error by Principal Cheryl Alligood was her decision -- after The Wave had been printed -- to keep students from reading Amanda Escamilla's article about attitudes toward virginity. The principal's unconvincing excuse was that the essay could distract students before taking the FCAT. Not likely, given that the article was more insightful than inciting. If avoiding confrontation with easily offended parents was the intention, Ms. Alligood only needed to point out that the author argued against taking a casual attitude toward sex.

In any case, the attempted censorship predictably backfired. Students at Wellington High, throughout the district and even beyond heard about the article and read it online. Despite widespread publication, Ms. Alligood ordered that a replacement sheet with an ad in place of the article be inserted into the papers. That plan went awry when some papers didn't get the insert. Ultimately, school officials last week simply trashed 3,000 copies of The Wave.

Ms. Alligood, as publisher, had the authority to act as she did, even if the results were wasteful, callous toward other students' work and accomplished exactly the opposite of what she intended. The students didn't completely lose out. Learning from a bad example still is learning.

Let universities decide their own tuition costs

The Legislature is rushing to assert its control over Florida's 11 public universities, including authority over tuition and fees. But House Bill 1001, which the Fiscal Council passed Friday, is a slap at voters who passed a constitutional amendment two years ago granting oversight of the university system and independence to a new Board of Governors. While the board is equivocating about its voter-authorized control, the Legislature is determined to usurp that authority. That's why a citizens group wants the courts to ensure that the board exercises its power and that the Legislature doesn't interfere.

The citizen-initiated amendment established that the Board of Governors' role is to manage the university system and that the Legislature has authority only to appropriate money to run the system. But House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, and other legislators say it's necessary to define roles given previous constitutional language requiring the Legislature to establish, maintain and operate institutes of higher learning. The legislators' attempt to limit the board's authority to such items as approving degree programs is the kind of ruse they used in abolishing the regents who formerly ran the system.

Florida supposedly aspires to a system of higher education that rivals California's, North Carolina's and Michigan's. If so, the Legislature should be generating the money to accomplish that. Instead, legislators continue to shortchange the university system by hundreds of millions while hundreds of antiquated sales-tax exemptions that could help finance education remain in place year after year.

HB 1001, which could go before the full House this week, is an effort to preempt not only the courts but the Board of Governors, which flexed its muscles recently in nixing a chiropractic school that influential legislators wanted to establish at Florida State University. The legislators' integrity is shown in the fact that there is no matching bill in the Senate, raising the specter of a "shell bill" to be written late and passed with little debate.

"They can pass all the bills they want, but the courts will make the decision here," said Dexter Douglass, an attorney representing Floridians for Constitutional Integrity. He is correct that the legislation is an attempt by legislators to say that they are above the court in interpreting the Constitution. It's also another round of subterfuge by legislators rather than the heavy lifting Florida education needs.

Development by force

The Legislature wants to meddle in the powers of local governments by dictating which farms get converted into subdivisions. Rather than let counties make the call, as they have for years, the "ag enclave" bill moving quickly through the Legislature would make development nearly automatic. Since the House appears incapable of stopping the bill, the Senate must.

Last year, Gov. Bush vetoed a similar bill, but there's no guarantee that he would do so again. The bill would be especially troublesome for Palm Beach County because it would help the 4,000-acre Callery-Judge Grove get around local control for its conversion from agriculture to a commercial and residential center. Why could that be bad? Imagine a 10,000-home city in the middle of The Acreage.

Callery bases the argument on its surroundings. While it has been an active citrus grove since the 1960s, the land around it has become packed with people living on 1.25-acre lots. House Bill 561 would apply to any farm of 2,560 acres or less bordered on three-fourths of its sides by development. It would increase the size to 5,120 acres -- thus covering Callery-Judge -- for farms hit by disaster, such as hurricanes, or disease, such as citrus canker. Meeting the criteria would entitle a farm to do what its neighbors do, which in Callery's case could mean copying the example set by the county at Mecca Farms, where a biotech city is planned for The Scripps Research Institute.

The bill sets a trap for the county, which champions itself as a protector of rural areas such as Callery but, under pressure to approve Scripps, has proposed massive development of another grove. The bill has passed three committees in the House and two in the Senate.

Another bill would remove the county's power to pick a water and sewer provider for Scripps. Sponsored by Rep. Richard Machek, D-Delray Beach, House Bill 675 would give the authority to the Scripps Florida Funding Corp., which oversees state spending on Scripps but has no utilities expertise. Callery-Judge is a competing utility provider miffed at the county for undermining its water and sewer deals near the grove. The county is racing to install water and sewer lines to Scripps -- at a cost of $15 million -- before the bill becomes law. If it happens at all, development such as that proposed for Mecca should be the exception in rural areas. These bills would make it the rule.

Too easy in West Palm

In 1995, West Palm Beach approved a downtown master plan that quickly drew praise as one of the nation's best urban blueprints because of the balance it struck between growth and preservation.

Developers wanted to build large projects, and residents wanted a pedestrian-friendly downtown. The city's goal was to have both. A key provision was capping the height of most new buildings at 15 stories. In some cases, developers can buy from the city the right to go five stories higher. Besides making a statement about what kind of city West Palm Beach wanted to be, the master plan let developers know what the ground rules were, helping to ensure fair treatment.

Yet the city is gradually abandoning that approach and improvising its way to the haphazard outcome nobody wanted. Last week, the planning board gave CityPlace developers, The Related Group of Florida, approval for a 20-story condo tower on Okeechobee Boulevard, five stories more than the original cap. The city commission, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency, set the stage for the increase weeks ago when it agreed to change the lease and allow 20 stories. In October, the city also gave the go-ahead to Opera Place, a 26-story condo project. Though its site east of CityPlace was not bound by the master plan, Mayor Lois Frankel and commissioners could have pressed for limits, but didn't. A 20-story CityPlace office tower and a 20-story convention hotel also are in the works along Okeechobee.

Mayor Frankel believes that the master plan is outdated and that the city has to rethink its approach to height. But the city hasn't put any thought into it at all. A comprehensive plan has been replaced with piecemeal decision-making. The resignations last fall of several senior planners -- all advocates of height limits -- have cast the mayor as de facto head planner, and commissioners have done little to question her plans. The commission at least has to start asking what developers are willing to give to build higher. Related made design concessions and added public space in exchange for the five stories. What the city really needs is affordable housing. Commissioners have to start pressing developers to set aside units at lower prices or pay for affordable housing elsewhere.

The commission shouldn't give height away. Above all, West Palm Beach should not give away the clear vision of itself without considering what will replace it.

New Schiavo law leaves no family out of reach

By resorting to demagoguery and falsehood to "save" Terri Schiavo, Congress and President Bush are doing her, the Constitution and the nation no favors.

Some lawmakers may have voted to send Ms. Schiavo's case to federal court out of a sincere if unrealistic belief that she can get better. For most of those -- notably Florida Sen. Mel Martinez -- who spearheaded the frantic negotiations over the weekend, however, the motivation was political. The Washington Post reported that the Republican Party had circulated a memo calling the Schiavo controversy "a great political issue." The vitriolic e-mailers who browbeat Washington into Sunday's unconstitutional action do not represent the majority of Americans who believe that end-of-life decisions are for families, not politicians. But they are the religious fundamentalists who make up so much of the GOP base, and prolonging Ms. Schiavo's non-life is their issue of the moment.

The pandering to that base was shameful, and it started at the top in both chambers. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who graduated from Harvard Medical School, claimed that he could diagnose Ms. Schiavo from a brief video clip that had been edited from a four-hour-plus session. He also claimed that Ms. Schiavo hasn't had a CAT scan; in fact, she has, and it showed that her brain stem has been replaced with spinal fluid. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said Congress had to "investigate every avenue," as if the state of Florida somehow hasn't. By leading the charge, though, Rep. DeLay was able for a while to avoid talking about the multiple accusations of ethics violations he faces.

Behind the argument for the law that President Bush made an exploitative show of flying back from Texas to sign is the false premise that Florida has denied Ms. Schiavo her day in court and that "one judge" has determined her fate. Nearly 20 judges have reviewed the work of Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer, who first ruled in 2000 that Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube could be removed. The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland has had the case five times. In October 2001, the 2nd DCA sent the case back to Judge Greer for a new hearing on whether therapy or treatment might help Ms. Schiavo. Five experts -- two picked by Michael Schiavo, two picked by Ms. Schiavo's parents and one picked by the court -- testified. The overwhelming conclusion from that testimony was that Ms. Schiavo will not recover from the persistent vegetative state she has been in since suffering heart failure 15 years ago that cut off oxygen to her brain.

With each ruling, the appeals court has noted the emotion of the case and acknowledged the parental anguish of Mary and Robert Schindler. With each ruling, however, the court has noted that Michael Schiavo -- not on his word alone -- demonstrated "clear and convincing evidence" that his wife would not have wanted her life prolonged. The Supreme Court set the "clear and convincing" standard in 1990, when it ruled that the family of Nancy Cruzan could not end her life because the state of Missouri was opposed to it. Like Ms. Schiavo, Ms. Cruzan had no living will. As for the comment heard often over the weekend that the nation could not stand by while someone was starved to death, families make decisions to disconnect feeding tubes all the time, but most of those decisions don't become the target of Internet and talk-radio campaigns. And it is untrue that Ms. Schiavo never received treatment. She underwent extensive therapy for almost four years after collapsing, until the permanence of her condition became clear.

Much as they try to cloak their intent, Congress and the president created a law because they didn't like a court decision. By acting out of arrogance and ignorance, they told all Americans that no family decision is beyond Washington's reach if enough of the right people scream long enough. Congress and Mr. Bush have blundered into a 12-year legal battle between Ms. Schiavo's husband and his in-laws, a fight that began over a dispute about money from the November 1992 medical malpractice settlement. The state courts exist to resolve such individual cases, and Florida's have done admirably, protecting Ms. Schiavo's rights -- including the right to be left alone. Congress and President Bush claim to be looking out for Terri Schiavo. The accurate description is that they are abusing their power.

'Transit hub' can work

It is generally agreed that the proposed 36-acre transit village around the West Palm Beach Tri-Rail station is a fantastic opportunity. "It meets the county's goals of redevelopment along the transportation corridor and prioritizing attainable housing," said Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons. The project also is extremely complex, given that its five Tamarind Avenue-area blocks are 97 percent owned by various city, county, state and federal government agencies, some of which have not yet determined their own priorities.

The concept is to develop land that is generating little tax revenue and leverage it to support a mass-transit hub for Tri-Rail, Amtrak, PalmTran, West Palm Beach's downtown trolley and Greyhound. Rather than use multiple developers, the aim is to make the project less expensive by coordinating development of services for the entire site, from water and sewer to fountains and other utilities. The savings would go to maximize needed workforce housing, which is planned for at least 20 percent of the project. Supporters want to convert current surface parking lots to shared parking and include "neighborhood" rather than CityPlace-type retail, and plenty of open space.

Commissioner Koons says the federal government portion is a done deal -- which would be amazing, given the post-9/11 security requirements for its 250,000-square-foot courthouse with up to 15 courtrooms. Two or three county pieces are needed to complete the puzzle, he said, but staff have been overworked with Scripps and convention center hotel deals. Likewise, West Palm Beach is focused on key city projects. But since the hub is within the city's master plan guidelines, Commissioner Koons said, "the fastest thing that can come out of the ground is the transit-oriented development."

Michael Masanoff was Tri-Rail's chairman when it became the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority in 2003. He recently resigned as RTA chairman, but he is correct that what's needed is to "get everybody in one room and get it done." Also needed is one agency to take the lead by reducing the politics and concentrating on the key element: transportation. That would be his former employer. The RTA already has invested more than $1 billion in Tri-Rail's double-tracking and local station improvements. Transit-oriented development at stations along the 71-mile corridor is part of the agency's mission. It's not the current mind-set to see the agency as a developer, but that should change.

Send windfall to Lake O

State legislators concerned about Lake Okeechobee are collaborating on some measures to help the lake and, ultimately, the coastal rivers that often are forced to accept its polluted waters.

The lake, according to fishermen and scientists who monitor it, is in terrible shape. Last season's hurricanes stirred up tons of phosphorus-polluted silt, which has built up over decades of dumping runoff from dairy farms north of the lake. The water is so dirty that aquatic marsh plants, where fish breed and hide, can't get enough light to survive. The South Florida Water Management District finally began lowering the lake this week, which should help.

Reducing the amount of phosphorus-laden water that enters the lake via canals that drain farmlands to the north could help more. The lake receives 500 tons of phosphorus a year from farmlands; the goal is to cut that amount to 100 tons. The water district has suggested buying land north of the lake to store and clean water. Executive Director Henry Dean said the plan would require about 250,000 acres and cost an estimated $1.2 billion.

Cleaning the lake also would have huge benefits for the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon on the east coast and the Caloosahatchee River on the west coast. These estuaries are the dumping grounds for Lake Okeechobee's overflow. Audubon of Florida is encouraging Treasure Coast legislators who attended a recent rally for the lake to get started. Rep. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, could add $25 million to next year's budget bill to buy land for water storage and cleanup. While that sum is very small compared with what is needed, it is what Mr. Dean calls "a minimal start." The budget has an extra $1 billion in non-recurring revenue; the lake deserves a share of the windfall.

Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, and Rep. Richard Machek, D-Delray Beach, back Rep. Negron's effort. Audubon also is pushing to increase Everglades money by $100 million a year, in addition to the $125 million in Gov. Bush's budget, and also is asking for special appropriations to buy more restoration lands. If $1.2 billion seems like a lot, the lake would need much less if the Legislature had made the proper commitment years ago. With more legislators realizing that cleanup benefits not only the lake and businesses around it but rivers on both coasts, begin that commitment now.

Bad call on a bailout

When Florida Atlantic University decided to start playing football eight years ago, no one said anything about paying for it with academic scholarships. Nor was there mention of higher tuition and fees for students. There was no talk of a $6.25 million debt.

Yet all this has come to pass since FAU caught the football bug. Last week, President Frank Brogan announced a deal to wipe out most of that debt run up by the athletic department. The school's foundation, which has given the department no-interest loans to cover its mounting losses, will forgive about $4.25 million as part of bailout plan to deal with the high cost of playing Division I football. Money the foundation could have been using for academic scholarships will go to keep the team in helmets and shoulder pads. The returns on this investment have been dubious. In January, the athletic department told trustees that ticket sales were poor, student fees were inadequate and a fund-raising effort that was supposed to bring in $2.1 million in private donations had generated only $179,085. The foundation still has to pay off $4.8 million on the Oxley Athletic Center.

When football zealots made their pitch to the trustees, they claimed that the sport would be a fund-raising asset, enhancing the school's image and inspiring alumni to reach deep into their pockets. Instead, football has become the money pit into which the school's image is sinking. Mr. Brogan inherited the mess that he attributes to the failure of previous administrators to have a realistic business plan or money in the bank to launch football successfully. Too many people around campus bought into the fantasy that FAU needed football and that it was easy to pull off. The same kind of fanciful thinking permeated Florida A&M University, until sweeping financial problems made moving the program to Division I unthinkable.

Donors and fee-paying students have to worry that their money might not even leave a mark at FAU. Mr. Brogan complained that tracking the debt was difficult because of bad records and a poor paper trail. Another worry is that even if the bailout fixes the old problems, football still doesn't look capable of paying for itself going forward. Attendance has averaged well below the minimum for acceptance into Division I. FAU ought to call an audible and refocus on its intended mission of providing accessible, high-quality education.

Bush's Medicaid plan: too much uncertainty

Details of Gov. Bush's plan to privatize Medicaid trickled out last week, leaving questions unanswered. The key question remains: How much will the state spend per Medicaid recipient? Because that figure has not been decided, it is unknown whether Medicaid costs will be lowered by putting more private health insurers in charge of the state's neediest residents.

The success of the proposal is as unpredictable as a person's health-care needs, which is why the state needs to be more forthcoming with details and more willing to consider alternatives. Rep. Holly Benson, R-Pensacola, chairwoman of the House Health and Families Council, inspired little confidence last week when she said: "We have to trust AHCA." The Agency for Health Care Administration, which drafted a concept paper on the governor's Medicaid plan and would have to establish regulations for private insurers that participate in the new Medicaid, has been a poor patient advocate. AHCA routinely inspects and fines hospitals for safety violations but refuses to publicly announce the violations and often reduces -- and thereby diminishes the deterrent effect of -- the fines.

Especially troubling is that the state would allot each beneficiary a set premium amount, instead of set services (the current way). "Plans will be given a new and really unprecedented flexibility," said Joan Alker, a senior researcher at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, "to change the amount, duration and scope of services" provided. The private insurer, for example, would decide how many in-patient days or whether prescription drugs, physical therapy, eye doctor and dentist visits are covered. Would AHCA make sure that incentives for preventive medicine do not end up preventing patients from receiving needed medical help? Which mandatory benefits would become optional? What would happen when a Medicaid recipient reached the premium cap?

Gov. Bush's plan to phase in the Medicaid changes would be smart -- if doing so wouldn't disrupt about 60 percent of the poor and disabled recipients next year. Instead, the "review and refine" phase-in is supposed to begin in 2006 in eight counties, including Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, which are home to most of Florida's Medicaid recipients. "I don't think that there's such a fire," Rep. Susan Bucher, D-Royal Palm Beach, said, "that we can't slow down and take a look at all this properly." That's one unquestionable certainty about the governor's questionable plan.

What happened to Rilya?

Years ago, one part of Florida's government badly failed Rilya Wilson. How badly isn't yet known, but another part of Florida's government thinks the failure was fatal.

Last week, the state charged Geralyn Graham with first-degree murder in Rilya's death. Miami-Dade County Prosecutors believe that Graham -- often referred to as Rilya's "caregiver" -- killed the girl in December 2000. At the time, Rilya was 4 years old. The Department of Children and Families, which placed Rilya in the foster home, didn't notice that she was missing until April 2002. During the time DCF was supposed to be verifying her well-being, according to a housemate, Graham tied Rilya to the bed and kept the child in a dog cage.

Rilya never has been found. The state's chief witness against Graham has a long criminal history and says Graham confessed to her last year while both were in a South Florida detention center. With such a witness and without a body, the state's case will be hard to prove.

Yet it's good to know that someone in state government still is thinking about Rilya's case. In the flurry of criticism and revelations after her disappearance became known, DCF admitted that it had lost track of hundreds of children, and workers were fired or resigned. After the usual attempts to put all the blame on underlings, DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney quit in August 2002. DCF hardly has become a healthy agency. Judge Kearney's replacement, Jerry Regier -- who also tried the blame-the-underlings route -- resigned in August 2004 amid revelations that DCF regularly handed out contracts to insiders' friends.

It is sad enough that the state may have enabled Rilya's death by losing track of her. It is sadder still that the state hasn't done more to fix the system that lost track of her.

Slow voucher expansion

On school vouchers, the Legislature seems determined to do too little too late AND too much too soon.

Almost two years after The Post began publishing abundant examples of how existing voucher programs suffer from inadequate oversight and outright thievery, the House has proposed only a token set of reforms. The Senate is trying a bit harder to make real improvements. But even there, those who favor lax voucher rules have sought to substitute the wimpy House version. Even this faint interest is an improvement over last year, when no reforms passed.

Private school "entrepreneurs" have taken vouchers for students who don't exist. "Consultants" have taken fees to funnel voucher money to home-schoolers who aren't entitled to it. Voucher schools don't have to provide any proof that their students are making academic progress. Unlike Florida's public schools, voucher schools can hire teachers with no credentials or experience, and don't have to do background checks on employees. Private schools can discriminate on the basis of religion when admitting voucher students.

Against that backdrop and before passing any meaningful reforms, the House wants to increase the number of students in the corporate voucher program by 5 percent a year, up from the current cap of $88 million. Worse, legislative committees have advanced and expanded Gov. Bush's plan to provide another new voucher program. Under the House bill, which would give vouchers to students who fail the reading FCAT any two out of three years, 350,000 students would be eligible. Making the rush to balloon the voucher programs even more irresponsible, the new vouchers would divert state money to religious schools. That flaw has led Florida courts to declare that similar vouchers violate the state constitution. The issue is on appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, which has yet to schedule oral arguments.

Voucher reforms are too little too late. Voucher expansion is too much too soon. All of it is a distraction and an excuse not to give public schools the support they need. With that anti-school attitude firmly in place, real improvements will come later rather than sooner.

Toughen the protection for Florida farmworkers

Florida's record on farmworker safety is so deplorable that even legislation which reflects only common decency can get hailed as landmark reform.

Such was the case in 1994, when the Legislature passed the Florida Agricultural Safety Act and lawmakers proclaimed it a milestone because it required growers to tell field workers when pesticides were used. But the law required no precautions, restrictions or safety information about the risks. Farmers had only to post notice. As feeble as the law was, the Legislature refused to renew it for six years after it expired in 1998. Last year, lawmakers finally relented and passed the Migrant and Season Farm Workers Protection Bill that resurrected the pesticide disclosure provision and added other protections among modest yet welcome reforms.

The changes, however, probably have come too late for farmworkers and their families who have suffered the consequences of pesticide poisoning. The Palm Beach Post last week broke the news of three severe birth-defect cases involving children of migrant workers in Immokalee, northeast of Naples. One baby was born without arms and legs, another with a deformed jaw, and a third lived only briefly after being born without a nose or visible genitalia.

The children's Mexican mothers gave birth within the past four months and lived within 200 feet of one another at the same labor camp during their pregnancies. More than three dozen pesticides and herbicides were used in nearby fields where the women worked. While more investigation is needed to rule out other factors, the defects are consistent with those caused by the chemicals, and the proximity of the women to each other suggests a cluster of exposure.

All six parents worked in fields operated by Ag-Mart Produce Inc., based in Plant City, which markets Santa Sweets brand produce. Between 1999 and 2003, state inspectors cited Ag-Mart three times for violations of pesticide regulations. While more pesticides are used per acre in Florida than anywhere else in the nation, the state remains indifferent to regulation and enforcement. Neither growers nor doctors take the law seriously. State inspectors found 4,609 violations of pesticide regulations in 2003, but only 7.6 percent resulted in fines. Doctors who suspect pesticide illness must report it to authorities. Yet last year, only four cases were reported. In California, more than 1,000 cases are reported and investigated each year.

Part of the problem is that Florida entrusts its enforcement to the Department of Agriculture, which has an obvious conflict of interest. In California, a separate Department of Pesticide Regulation is removed from agricultural influences. Until Florida gets serious about enforcement and creates a regulatory entity capable of delivering it, hardworking people who are vulnerable because of immigration status and itinerant lifestyles will continue to face life-threatening risks.

Catholic Rural Services has started a "Three Kids Fund" to solicit donations and help the Immokalee families deal with their deformed children. Only when government acknowledges the moral imperative and makes real reforms, however, will there be any change in Florida's shameful record of abuse in the fields.

Send windfall to Lake O

State legislators concerned about Lake Okeechobee are collaborating on some measures to help the lake and, ultimately, the coastal rivers that often are forced to accept its polluted waters.

The lake, according to fishermen and scientists who monitor it, is in terrible shape. Last season's hurricanes stirred up tons of phosphorus-polluted silt, which has built up over decades of dumping runoff from dairy farms north of the lake. The water is so dirty that aquatic marsh plants, where fish breed and hide, can't get enough light to survive. The South Florida Water Management District finally began lowering the lake this week, which should help.

Reducing the amount of phosphorus-laden water that enters the lake via canals that drain farmlands to the north could help more. The lake receives 500 tons of phosphorus a year from farmlands; the goal is to cut that amount to 100 tons. The water district has suggested buying land north of the lake to store and clean water. Executive Director Henry Dean said the plan would require about 250,000 acres and cost an estimated $1.2 billion.

Cleaning the lake also would have huge benefits for the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon on the east coast and the Caloosahatchee River on the west coast. These estuaries are the dumping grounds for Lake Okeechobee's overflow. Audubon of Florida is encouraging Treasure Coast legislators who attended a recent rally for the lake to get started. Rep. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, could add $25 million to next year's budget bill to buy land for water storage and cleanup. While that sum is very small compared with what is needed, it is what Mr. Dean calls "a minimal start." The budget has an extra $1 billion in non-recurring revenue; the lake deserves a share of the windfall.

Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, and Rep. Richard Machek, D-Delray Beach, back Rep. Negron's effort. Audubon also is pushing to increase Everglades money by $100 million a year, in addition to the $125 million in Gov. Bush's budget, and also is asking for special appropriations to buy more restoration lands. If $1.2 billion seems like a lot, the lake would need much less if the Legislature had made the proper commitment years ago. With more legislators realizing that cleanup benefits not only the lake and businesses around it but rivers on both coasts, begin that commitment now.

Political exploitation worsens Schiavo tragedy

In a disgraceful display of affection for mob rule, congressional Republicans on Friday turned the tragedy of Terri Schiavo into exploitative political farce.

With the judicial order to remove Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube set to take effect at 1 p.m., and with neither Congress nor the Florida Legislature having passed what would be an unconstitutional bill to intervene, Republicans under the whip hand of ethically challenged House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, issued subpoenas for Ms. Schiavo, her caregivers and Michael Schiavo. With straight faces, Republicans said they expect them to appear before the House Government Reform Committee on March 25 at the Pinellas County hospice center that is Ms. Schiavo's home and before the Senate Health Committee on March 28 in Washington.

Where to start sorting out all the hypocrisy? Republican leaders in Congress are all for states' rights -- except when they're not. (See also Presidential Election, 2000.) Republican leaders in Congress are all for the rule of law -- except when they're not. Republican leaders in Congress are all for limited government -- except when they're not. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is a physician by training but a presidential candidate by aspiration. So he will disregard the overwhelming credible medical opinion that Ms. Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state with no chance of recovery and babble about the need for Congress to examine how the country treats "non-ambulatory" people.

Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer correctly saw no "cogent reason" why Congress should intervene and allowed the tube to be removed. In fact, Republicans are butting in for political reasons. Since every court at every level has ruled over and over that Mr. Schiavo presented "clear and convincing evidence" that his wife would not have wanted to be kept alive, Republicans know there is little chance that they can win in court. But they can please the abortion-rights opponents who want Ms. Schiavo's non-life sustained.

Reckless would be a kind description of the GOP behavior that rose last week and probably hasn't crested. A few responsible lawmakers in Washington and Tallahassee understood the danger of creating a precedent that would smash the separation of powers and allow politicians to make family decisions. The rest played to the mob.

Keep Iles, Lee for Riviera council balance

The strong-mayor issue so overshadows Tuesday's runoff election for two city council seats that Riviera Beach voters may be hard-pressed to consider the candidates on their own merits.

If elected, the "home-grown team" of Renard Matthews in District 1 and Shannell Grimes in District 5, with current council Chairman David Schnyer, would support the proposed charter amendment that Mayor Brown says he needs to increase his power and ramp up accountability in city hall.

The Post, however, recommends District 1 newcomer Vanessa Lee and District 5 incumbent Ann Iles, who are stronger candidates.

Ms. Lee, who works with children with behavioral problems in the public schools, has demonstrated at least as much promise as an advocate for the city's youth as Mr. Matthews, who heads a nonprofit that serves troubled children. A concern is that Ms. Lee plays drums at the church of Bishop Thomas Masters, who lost to Mayor Brown March 8. But Mr. Matthews' allegiance is spoken for; Ms. Lee is more likely to be influenced by facts. Though he isn't endorsing her, that makes Ms. Lee a better choice to replace Donald Wilson, who is not running.

Ms. Iles' challenger, Ms. Grimes, is an economist who would be an asset on the council. While Ms. Grimes should run again, Ms. Iles is up-to-date on the issues and deserves another term. Like Ms. Lee, who also finished second in a three-person race, Ms. Iles says the mayor has overstepped his authority. His answer is his new "team."

Voters responded correctly by not letting an obvious opportunist replace him, but Mayor Brown has not established that Riviera needs more than the ceremonial mayor the city charter dictates. A change to a five-member council, with members rotating as mayor, would provide the vote Mayor Brown currently does not have, and the opportunity to develop his skills of persuasion rather than alienation. He is correct about the danger of the city's redevelopment being hamstrung by the new council. There's also danger in handing power to someone who wants it so badly for himself.

Congress takes plastic

As always, Congress could have found a compromise to reform bankruptcy laws. As usual, money spoke louder than compromise.

Just as phone companies got the Florida Legislature to vote in 2003 against consumers under the guise of helping them -- higher local rates but more competition -- credit-card companies got Congress to do the same. The story line is that by making it harder for Americans to declare bankruptcy under Chapter 7, which limits the amount of repayments, Americans will have more access to cheaper credit because companies will get more in repayments from bankruptcies that will have to be declared under Chapter 13. Of course, this theory presumes that most of the people who declare bankruptcy are abusing the system.

In fact, recent objective studies have concluded that the majority of families that declare bankruptcy do so because of emergencies, usually illness or the loss of a job or both. Credit-card companies point out that bankruptcy filings increased by 800 percent between 1978 and 2003, to 1.6 million. But consider what has happened during that time.

The number of uninsured Americans has risen, as more and more companies find it hard to provide health-care coverage for their employees; unexpected serious illnesses thus drain more families' savings. Congress has reduced access to Pell Grants, which has made college costs more of a strain on more families. And credit-card companies have stepped up their marketing, especially to "subprime" customers, notably teenagers and adults who make less money and previously weren't targets of easy-credit campaigns. Eighty-three percent of college undergrads have credit cards, and the average student has four cards. In 2003, more than 5 million Americans received credit counseling.

Reasonable reform would have included restrictions on marketing. It didn't happen. Any reasonable reform would have created an exemption for illness. It didn't happen. Why? Between 1999 and 2004, credit-card companies donated $5.9 million to current House members' campaigns. MBNA, the industry's biggest firm, gave five times as much to senators who voted for the bill as to those who didn't.

President Bush will sign this Republican-driven bill, which will fall most heavily on GOP-heavy states such as Utah, Indiana, Oklahoma, Idaho and Tennessee, where bankruptcy rates are highest. Money matters more than votes.

Ignoring the uninsured won't make them well

Of the more than 150 programs that President Bush's proposed budget would gut or eliminate, it's not yet known which will hurt most. It is already clear, however, who will be hurt most -- the poor.

If Mr. Bush's proposed cuts to education and housing and community development programs are counterproductive, his elimination of health-care programs for the uninsured is particularly shortsighted and ill-timed when Medicaid "reform" already will punish the poor and the disabled. The Bush administration says that the $84 million Healthy Communities Access Project, which pairs the uninsured with medical services, and $10.9 million in state planning grants that identify the growth of the uninsured no longer are needed. Both programs, however, have been effective in helping the uninsured -- and exposing the lack of affordable health insurance throughout the country. One planning grant that last year showed a dramatic increase in the number of uninsured Floridians since 1999 prompted the Health Care District of Palm Beach County to seek to expand its services for the working poor.

While the president plans to increase to $2 billion nationwide the amount spent on community health centers, that expansion should not come at the expense of Healthy Communities. Those programs help the poor and uninsured get services, so they don't have to visit emergency rooms for routine care or go without care for so long that a costly emergency results.

In Palm Beach County, the need for alternatives to keep non-emergencies out of emergency rooms is especially acute. A recent study commissioned by the Palm Beach County Medical Society showed a dangerous shortage of neurosurgeons, cardiologists, orthopedists and other specialists willing to work in the county's emergency rooms. Some cite the cost of medical malpractice insurance, including coverage for treating uninsured patients.

Refusing to track the number of uninsured residents and seek ways to help them won't make their medical needs go away. Nor does denying federal responsibility remove it. Eliminating programs that help the growing number of poor and uninsured Americans will create, rather than prevent, more financial and medical emergencies.

Stick with Romano in Lake Worth

Two people are running against Lake Worth Mayor Rodney Romano in Tuesday's runoff. One is Marc Drautz, a kindergarten teacher. The other is Rodney Romano.

Mayor Romano, a lawyer, championed land deals that angered lots of residents. Selling Old Bridge Park to a condo developer was the most controversial. Any doubt that many voters are ticked off vanished March 8, when Mayor Romano was forced into a runoff with Mr. Drautz. More indicative, voters passed a charter change that forbids most city land deals unless voters give the OK in a referendum.

Mr. Drautz is, from all appearances, a good candidate. He opposes selling public land for development -- a position that will win him votes even if it's less important after the charter change. Though he wouldn't have sold Old Bridge Park, he says the city should have driven a harder bargain on the deals it approved. He proposes finding an alternative pick-up site for day laborers to get people looking for work safely out of downtown traffic. He says the west side "hasn't been touched," and needs more city investment. To combat gangs, he would hire speakers of Spanish, Kanjobal and Creole to communicate with youth.

But during his seven years in Lake Worth, Mr. Drautz has not served on any official boards or committees. That lack of a track record leads The Post to recommend that voters choose Mr. Romano, whose track record includes things other than ill-advised land deals. Most notably, upgrades are under way on the city's electric and water utilities. Reflecting on the March 8 vote, Mayor Romano told Post political columnist George Bennett that it was fair to say that voters "were trying to send me a message, which I have received and I understand." As he should be, Mr. Romano obviously is worried that his critics will be more motivated than his supporters in a low-turnout runoff.

If Mr. Drautz doesn't win, he should get experience and try again. If Mayor Romano doesn't win, he will have defeated himself.

Return Castro as mayor in Lake Park

During his many years of service on the Lake Park Town Council, Mayor Paul Castro usually has been on the side of progress. The Post recommends that in Tuesday's runoff election, voters give him three more years in office.

Two of the best decisions Lake Park has made in recent years were to shift police and fire-rescue services to Palm Beach County. The town simply couldn't afford to maintain its own departments, and public-safety employees sometimes got too involved in town politics. Mayor Castro, a zoning administrator for the town of Palm Beach, supported both moves. An early problem cropped up in August 2003, when staffing shortages caused a 10-minute delay in putting water on a house that had been struck by lightning. But the town got added staff at no extra cost last summer.

These days, Mayor Castro wants to finish the marina project and hire a town manager. Lake Park went through serious financial problems, but he notes that the town now has $2.1 million in reserves and will benefit from the opening of some big-box stores.

Opposing Mayor Castro is William Otterson. A retired contractor and an ex-councilman, Mr. Otterson is campaigning as usual on behalf of local business owners. Obviously, Lake Park needs to keep its merchants happy, but Mayor Castro also believes that, and he stresses a much wider range of issues than does Mr. Otterson.

Pick Corbett for Juno Beach council

Both candidates in Tuesday's Juno Beach runoff are qualified. Because of his experience, The Post recommends Daniel K. Corbett for town council.

Mr. Corbett, a lawyer, was on the council for 10 years before leaving voluntarily in 1997. He was on the council that supported county acquisition of 42 acres of oceanfront land, one of the town's best decisions. His opponent is John Callaghan, a civil engineer who served on Juno's "overlay district" committee, which is working on a development plan for the area at U.S. 1 and Donald Ross Road.

That district is the main issue. Both want to see a mix of commercial and residential. Under some circumstances, both would allow six stories instead of the currently allowed four. In general, Mr. Corbett is more open to allowing the extra two stories to entice developers to improve their projects.

The next council will have to replace longtime Town Manager Gail Nelson. Mr. Corbett hopes to promote from within; Mr. Callaghan suggests that they "ask Gail to draw us out a map of how to do it.... She has the good of the town at heart." So do both candidates.

Slow voucher expansion

On school vouchers, the Legislature seems determined to do too little too late AND too much too soon.

Almost two years after The Post began publishing abundant examples of how existing voucher programs suffer from inadequate oversight and outright thievery, the House has proposed only a token set of reforms. The Senate is trying a bit harder to make real improvements. But even there, those who favor lax voucher rules have sought to substitute the wimpy House version. Even this faint interest is an improvement over last year, when no reforms passed.

Private school "entrepreneurs" have taken vouchers for students who don't exist. "Consultants" have taken fees to funnel voucher money to home-schoolers who aren't entitled to it. Voucher schools don't have to provide any proof that their students are making academic progress. Unlike Florida's public schools, voucher schools can hire teachers with no credentials or experience, and don't have to do background checks on employees. Private schools can discriminate on the basis of religion when admitting voucher students.

Against that backdrop and before passing any meaningful reforms, the House wants to increase the number of students in the corporate voucher program by 5 percent a year, up from the current cap of $88 million. Worse, legislative committees have advanced and expanded Gov. Bush's plan to provide another new voucher program. Under the House bill, which would give vouchers to students who fail the reading FCAT any two out of three years, 350,000 students would be eligible. Making the rush to balloon the voucher programs even more irresponsible, the new vouchers would divert state money to religious schools. That flaw has led Florida courts to declare that similar vouchers violate the state constitution. The issue is on appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, which has yet to schedule oral arguments.

Voucher reforms are too little too late. Voucher expansion is too much too soon. All of it is a distraction and an excuse not to give public schools the support they need. With that anti-school attitude firmly in place, real improvements will come later rather than sooner.

Make Florida a leader in fight against ID theft

State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, says he was told that his was "a solution searching for a problem" during last year's legislative session, when data collection companies still were under the radar. He couldn't get even a hearing for his proposal to require immediate disclosure whenever an individual's private financial information is stolen from such an agency.

Enter problem: Another 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft last year. One of the world's leading private collectors of information on individuals, Choice Point, recently revealed that it sold the personal and financial records on at least 145,000 Americans, including 10,216 Floridians, to criminals posing as operators of legitimate companies. Bank of America has lost the electronic records of more than a million federal employees, including elected officials. In another security breach, the LexisNexis Group last week said it has had 30,000 records stolen from its electronic files.

Partly because of the identity verification and screening procedures geared to help business, 600 hours are spent restoring the average identity-theft victim's financial life. The collectors offer counseling and help to repair credit. But as Sen. Aronberg said, the fact that someone could steal your data from Choice Point and you were not notified, and that "the strongest law in the nation (California's) is merely requiring disclosure, shows how far we have to go."

The similar consumer protection bill that he again is refiling, with Rep. Shelley Vana, D-West Palm Beach, would make Florida a trendsetter but is a nod to the prevailing political reality in Tallahassee. The data collectors should pay for their security breaches. Responsibility for fixing identity theft should not be left with consumers, but that will require federal action. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has filed a bill that finally would force the companies to protect information that they collect. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wants federal penalties for the companies' security breaches. Other legislators want to reserve for consumers the right to give away or sell their personal information unless they approve it.

It should not take more controversy and public demand for such changes. "This doesn't happen" is what Sen. Aronberg says he heard last year when asking about the inevitable breaches. Lawmakers should not let the same be said of protections consumers deserve.

Pelton gone, not problem

Palm Beach County's review of the Business Development Board formally ended last month with a five-page task force report. More accurately, the county's scrutiny ended in December, with the resignation of the business board's longtime director, Larry Pelton.

Mr. Pelton had played a lead role in the business board's recruitment of The Scripps Research Institute. He and insiders on the business board helped pre-select the Mecca Farms site without public input. In a deal that still justifiably rankles county commissioners, Mr. Pelton and the board led the push for development of the neighboring Vavrus Ranch -- complete with a $51 million windfall for a business board spinoff. The business board chairman who negotiated the deals, Greg Fagan, now works as a paid lobbyist for Lennar Homes, which, with Centex, the business board picked to develop Vavrus and deliver the $51 million payment.

Such issues, however, were beyond the county-dictated scope of the task force. Even so, the group urged that someone determine whether "additional requirements" should be placed on the business board to avoid conflicts "as a result of profiting from confidential information." The task force also suggested that one county appointee serve on the board's too-powerful executive committee, a minimal step to rein in the board-within-a-board. It suggested that commissioners appoint seven members to the full 32-member board but failed to dictate cuts in the bloated board's size that would allow county appointees to retain influence.

The task force further suggested that the county have less say in how the business board operates by dedicating a recurring source of money to the board, which gets half of its annual budget from the public. Though that might remove politics, the move also would remove county control -- the absence of which cut off public debate over Scripps. The county showed some willingness to take a business leadership role with its plans for an economic summit in October. Commissioner Mary McCarty wanted to water down that action as well, by making the business board a co-sponsor. Commissioners correctly refused.

Since Mr. Pelton left, the county seems to have lost interest in reform. But the systemic weaknesses that resulted in the private Scripps deliberations remain. Mr. Pelton's departure is not a solution to the business board's problems. It is a symptom of those problems.

Keep marinas near boats

Going by numbers alone, the Martin County Commission's proposed "no net loss" policy almost makes sense. But more than numbers are involved in saving marinas where boaters want to use them. The proposals could replace a marina in a popular area with condominiums and relegate boaters to some back-of-the-moon location far from popular waterways.

Say a developer buys a marina in Jensen Beach and wants to maximize profits by replacing boat slips with waterfront condos. He could create a new marina to replace the old, with exactly the same number of slips, somewhere else -- for example, on the St. Lucie Canal, miles from the coast. Boaters with small engines who enjoy exploring the St. Lucie River and the Indian River lagoon in the mix of salt and fresh water closest to the ocean could be stuck in the lackluster canal area or spend half the day in trips back and forth to the coast.

Or, for another example of what the proposed changes would allow, say a developer buys one marina south of Hobe Sound and another, more than 20 miles away, in Jensen Beach. He would be able to turn the Jensen Beach marina into waterfront condos if he adds to the Hobe Sound marina the number of slips lost in Jensen Beach. That could leave boaters without the facilities that have evolved to serve the needs of each community.

There's plenty wrong with this picture, despite the approval of the Marine Industry Association, as the commission ponders changes to county development rules. Numbers are not enough to assure that converting waterfront to condos won't shortchange boaters accustomed to waterfront facilities in each community.

If the commission adopts them, these new rules would apply only to portions of waterfront land now occupied by boatyards or working marinas, not to vacant land. Residents of Jensen Beach, where Wayne Huizenga has been buying up waterfront land, should be particularly alert to the county's proposed changes, which could alter the quirky character of the area from arty and colorful to conventional. The new rules also could affect the character of the entire county, changing the waterfronts and sending boaters to far-off, inconvenient marinas.

The idea of "no net loss" in boat slips is appealing, but the rules could reserve Martin's waterfronts as havens for those who can afford condos overlooking them.

New drilling in Alaska could open up this state

By attaching to a budget resolution a measure that ultimately would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Bush administration is making a back-door attempt to avoid open debate on drilling in the refuge.

The Senate could vote on the budget resolution as early as today. At stake may be more than Alaska's wildlife and any hope for an effective energy policy. If Congress and the White House can open up ANWR, the result could be offshore oil drilling in Florida. Florida's senior senator, Bill Nelson, has consistently opposed ANWR drilling. Newly elected Mel Martinez is under pressure from the White House to approve it and from environmental lobbyists to vote against it. During his campaign, Sen. Martinez supported Arctic drilling but opposed drilling off Florida's coasts.

Opening ANWR would make neither environmental nor practical sense. Interior Secretary Gale Norton wrote in a New York Times essay Monday that new drilling technology would save the refuge from significant damage, but scientific studies have concluded that oil exploration would harm birds, polar bears, grizzlies, caribou, wolves and musk oxen. As gas prices have risen again -- wasn't invading Iraq supposed to fix that, too? -- President Bush has touted drilling in ANWR as a way to provide cheaper energy. In fact, experts estimate that the wildlife refuge holds barely a six-month supply of recoverable oil, and getting it to market could take more than 10 years.

A better approach would be conservation. Based on U.S. Geological Survey estimates, the National Resources Defense Council calculates that requiring passenger cars and trucks to get an average of 40 miles per gallon could save, over the next 50 years, 11 times the likely yield from the Arctic refuge. And if oil companies succeed in their bid to drill at the refuge, they could try to lift the ban on oil exploration off Florida and California. In 2002, Ms. Norton promised no changes to a five-year moratorium. In 2007, though, Jeb Bush no longer would be governor and George W. Bush would be near the end of his term, so the ban would be of no political benefit to them in this state.

In 2003, a bipartisan coalition removed a refuge-drilling provision from a budget resolution by a vote of 52-48. If Sen. Martinez can resist White House lobbying, Florida's coast will be safe from drilling, and the nation will be safe from a shortsighted energy policy.

Political 'roid rage

Major League Baseball officials are complaining that Congress is grandstanding by scheduling a hearing Thursday on the game's steroid scandal and demanding that seven players disclose what they know about it.

Subpoenas aren't as reliable an indicator of grandstanding, however, as comparisons to Enron. When Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, charged that an MLB attorney was sounding like Ken Lay and that baseball's internal investigation was like Enron policing Enron, it was clear that lawmakers were playing for the cameras. The list of players the committee wants to testify is puzzling for who's on it and who's not. Boston pitcher Curt Shilling was subpoenaed, though his name has not come up as a steroid user. San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds, who is closing in on the game's home-run record, was not called, and his name always comes up. He might have been spared for now because his testimony could jeopardize the steroid criminal case in California.

The star witness is former power hitter Jose Canseco, whose memoir got Congress interested in steroid abuse. Mr. Canseco wants immunity in exchange for his testimony. There's no point in having him show up and take an intentional pass by invoking the Fifth Amendment. The House Energy and Commerce Committee also is holding hearings and may subpoena heads of the major sports leagues instead of players.

Baseball brought all this unwanted attention on itself by implementing an inadequate drug-testing program after years of ignoring obvious abuse. As long as balls were flying out of parks and turnstiles were spinning, there was no inclination to find out why so many players had grown so big so fast. That's why even Congress can make the sport look small.

Dreyfoos not only need

Dreyfoos School of the Arts easily makes the case that it needs more money. It isn't so easy to show that of all the schools that need more money, Dreyfoos' request for an extra $600,000 deserves priority.

Dreyfoos is one of Palm Beach County's richest high schools. It is rich in student talent, as would be expected. The families of its students are, as a group, better off financially than most in the district. That also is to be expected, since families that can afford private lessons can give their children an edge in the competition for admission. Dreyfoos plugs into those resources and the area's interest in the arts to raise a significant amount of money for its private foundation. And Dreyfoos gets a yearly allocation of about $1 million because it is a magnet school.

It adds up. In the 2003-2004 school year, Dreyfoos got $5,309 per student. Wellington High got $4,000 per student. The few high schools that got more than Dreyfoos generally received supplements because of high poverty and academic needs, such as the greater proportion of students for whom English is a second language.

Dreyfoos is caught between a stingy Legislature and the class-size amendment. Gov. Bush and lawmakers have forced schools to give up or crowd elective classes, such as arts, to pay for "core" teachers in math, English and science. Dreyfoos should focus its efforts on the Legislature and seek flexibility for magnets and career academies to substitute their specialty courses for the state's list of core subjects. Dreyfoos' most extensive effort, however, has been to press the school board for more money. At a recent meeting, some members hinted that Dreyfoos might get it.

Given the prospect that Tallahassee will drain more education money from South Florida and President Bush's wish to cut $1.5 million from local vocational education, the district is likely to face a long line of needs. Students at all schools have lost arts teachers. Students learning air-conditioning repair at one of the 90 career academies are not as high-profile as the students studying dance at the only arts high school -- and they have not had advocates as vocal or able to make donations -- but their educational needs are no less important.

Perhaps the Legislature and Congress will do more than pay the usual lip service to education, and Dreyfoos and the rest can get what they need. But if the district has to go on more of a diet, Dreyfoos does not belong at the front of the line.

Make impact fees fairer

Fast-growing Port St. Lucie is rebelling at being what Mayor Bob Minsky calls "the cash cow" for St. Lucie County and is threatening to withhold millions in development fees that the county uses to build roads, jails and courthouses. Mayor Minsky makes some good points.

Council members last week said they may not want to extend a city-county agreement that expires Sept. 30. It requires the city to collect impact fees on new construction and give most of the money to the county. City officials aren't enthusiastic about the agreement. They're unhappy that the county has made little use of the south county courthouse in Port St. Lucie and say impact fees could be better used for roads, other public buildings and parks in the city. The city council has ordered a $90,000 study to research and implement new city impact fees, and may ask for a share of school impact fees if the council moves forward with plans for a city charter school system. City Manager Don Cooper has recommended that the city renew only impact fees for libraries and fire protection until the study is finished.

The south-county courthouse houses traffic and small-claims courts. But as Mayor Minsky noted, an attempt to move some court functions, even temporarily, to Port St. Lucie drew criticism from circuit court personnel based in Fort Pierce. New demographics, however, suggest that the courts need to consider moving some or all civil court operations to Port St. Lucie. While convenience is a factor for judges and lawyers who want to keep all court activities in Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie is the county's dominant population center, and that dominance will increase.

St. Lucie County, however, also has valid points. The county needs a new building for the clerk of circuit court, whose quarters suffered severe damage in last September's hurricanes. Loss of up to $3 million in impact fees each year also could hurt the county's plans to expand the jail. While Port St. Lucie may see little direct benefit in either, its citizens use the clerk's office and the jail provides a countywide service, so the city should pay a fair share.

Port St. Lucie's problem, once again, seems to be its approach. The city doesn't try to work out problems with the county. Instead, it abruptly announces a new plan and Mayor Minsky hurls a few insults. Better communications with the county could help Port St. Lucie get what city officials want and residents deserve -- more county services within the city, for a fair price.

If Scripps wants a fight, Scripps can pay for it

The Scripps Research Institute incurs no cost by continuing to reject diligent efforts by the Palm Beach County Commission to move Scripps from its lawsuit-delayed Mecca Farms site. After Scripps' latest rejection, maybe that should change. If Scripps were paying half the legal bill for defending Mecca, the institute would have a harder time rejecting the county's entreaties to move to a better location.

By insisting on Mecca, Scripps is acting in its own worst interests. The institute is rejecting the best alternative to a protracted legal fight while setting itself up to take the blame for opening up intense development at Mecca and the neighboring Vavrus Ranch. The California academics who made the decision Wednesday apparently can't tell the difference between a rural orange grove and an industrial park. The Florida Research Park, offered as an alternative to Mecca by a 4-3 county commission vote, already can accommodate 75 percent of the best-case biotech development rush predicted by Gov. Bush -- no more permits needed. The potential for lawsuits to challenge the minimal remaining changes needed is low, not high as Scripps suggested in a letter to the county.

Even if lawsuits were not stalling Mecca, only about 25 percent of the anticipated development could go forward on the former grove for at least another year because the county has not sought U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits for building on three-fourths of the 1,920-acre site and for extending PGA Boulevard west. If the county dropped all caution and began building on Mecca despite the lawsuits, Scripps could be alone on the remote property for years without a front entrance. Yet the Scripps executive committee questions the marketability not of Mecca Farms but of the Florida Research Park, already open for business on the Beeline Highway.

County commissioners are not blind to the political realities of trying to build a downtown in a rural area. They got an additional reminder with the results of Tuesday's election in Palm Beach Gardens. Voters fearing Scripps-spurred development of the Vavrus Ranch overwhelmingly reelected Mayor Eric Jablin, who opposed such development, and defeated Councilwoman Annie Delgado, who favored it. County commissioners are contractually obligated to deliver Mecca Farms to Scripps, but they've been savvy enough to suggest an alternative. With its action Wednesday, Scripps showed that it doesn't care.

That's where Scripps helping to pay the legal bills makes sense. If Scripps had to pay, perhaps it would be less smug about insisting on Mecca and only Mecca. It doesn't end there. Scripps tells the county: "We urge you to focus on building trust and consensus in the community for the vision you offered Scripps and Florida at Mecca." How about Scripps fostering a sense of trust? How do the researchers contribute by rejecting the community's hard-fought solution?

Scripps' tardy call for mediation indicates an awareness of its desperate position. Scripps' insistence on sticking with Mecca Farms indicates a failure to understand what's going on in Palm Beach County.

Jeb wants Toni award

If Gov. Bush really wanted to reduce the number of abortions in Florida, his proposal to spend $4 million promoting alternatives would target women and girls before they got pregnant.

Gov. Bush and Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings, who both favor abortion restrictions, want the money for a toll-free hot line, which would refer women to counselors who would try to persuade them to complete their pregnancies. "It's all about making sure that there are services there in the community," Lt. Gov. Jennings said, "to help women who feel they don't have a choice." If that were true, the state would be supporting proven and comprehensive programs such as those sponsored by Planned Parenthood -- programs that help to prevent unwanted pregnancies by discussing abstinence and contraception.

In fact, the $4 million proposal is designed to boost Lt. Gov. Jennings' run for governor in 2006. Gov. Bush's former campaign aides are working for her, and the so-called "pregnancy support services program" appeals directly to opponents of abortion rights. Especially disturbing is Gov. Bush's plan to model Florida's counseling efforts after a biased, abstinence-only-until-marriage program in Pennsylvania. That state's program, known as Project Women In Need, is run by an organization called Real Alternatives. By minimizing the effectiveness of condoms and other birth-control methods, the program offers few alternatives to sexually active women -- hence the leap from abstinence to adoption.

Numerous organizations -- secular and religious -- already provide counseling services and pregnancy support. The state could help by expanding prenatal services for the poor and encouraging honest, comprehensive sex education. "The abortion issue," Gov. Bush said, "does not have to be a political one." Yet politics is driving his anti-abortion plan.

Maintain public access as documents go online

A distinguished group of Florida judges, court administrators, law professors, legal technology experts and court clerks is trying to decide rules regarding access to court records and other public records in the electronic age. That makes the Committee on Privacy and Court Records the latest traffic cop at the intersection of technology and one of the most open governments in the country.

A distinguished group of Florida judges, court administrators, law professors, legal technology experts and court clerks is trying to decide rules regarding access to court records and other public records in the electronic age. That makes the Committee on Privacy and Court Records the latest traffic cop at the intersection of technology and one of the most open governments in the country.

"Nobody in the U.S. has got this nailed down," said Judge Edward Fine, chief of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County and a member of the panel established by the Florida Supreme Court in November 2003. Palm Beach County Clerk of Court Sharon Bock said that the decisions "are going to make a difference in... how we get information in the future and where we go with technology."

In fact, with the inevitable increase in electronic record-keeping, the documents that you easily can access could become a lesser concern than the ease with which others may be able to get information about you. But a primary objective of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors' fourth annual Sunshine Sunday campaign, being conducted by news organizations statewide today, is to raise public awareness that secrecy-addicted government easily could exploit the Internet as an excuse to expand the assault on Florida's Government-in-the-Sunshine on paper by shutting citizens out of the sunshine online.

The panel's recommendations will be part of the state's effort to balance individuals' right to privacy with the public's right to know. The Florida Constitution provides every person the right to inspect or copy any public record, including court records, made or received in connection with the official business of any public body. By the late 1990s, it only made sense to offer even greater public access to those records via the Internet, and the Florida Supreme Court and Legislature soon were directing clerks of the court to provide it.

But there were even bigger problems than the end of "practical obscurity" -- the fact that more records can be seen by more people when it doesn't require a trip to the courthouse. The lack of definitions and procedures for protecting sensitive personal information led to the current limited moratorium, until electronic dissemination of court records in particular can be regulated properly. The committee, chaired by University of Florida law professor and former state House speaker Jon Mills, is taking the lead. It is a reflection of the complexity of the issues that last week, at its next-to-last scheduled meeting, the committee was still uncertain what recommendations to make by its July 1 deadline. The members have agreed, for example, that if a record exists in electronic form, it should be available in electronic form. But they are divided on exactly what is a record -- or, more precisely, whether paper and electronic versions really are copies of the same thing. The panel seemingly has reached a consensus that bulk users should pay more for online access, but not whether the seeker of a single record should pay at all.

The public is well aware of concerns regarding online availability of Social Security numbers, medical or military records, etc., given the growth industry that is identity-theft protection. But judges, clerks and lawyers also have valid objections to full public access to court records of family law cases. Those routinely require extensive disclosure of financial data, and contain even more sensitive personal information such as the names of minors.

"Fifty percent of our cases are divorces, probate, juvenile, dependency adoptions, post-judgment and child support," said Judge Fine, adding that what is proven and appears in the final judgment is one thing but that it would be "reckless" to put family law filings on the Internet. Those contain allegations of rape or sexual abuse that frequently are found to be unsubstantiated, he said, not to mention slanderous material that also could be pulled up by strangers, or children and their friends.

As the gateway to the court system and an arm of the judicial branch, the clerks are the custodians of court records. But the clerks have little control over the content of the records, Ms. Bock said, and have found that scanned images of documents are likely to contain sensitive information. "We would like to see access to the records stay free," she said, and not a cumbersome and expensive system that puts the onus on the clerks for redacting sensitive information.

The Florida Association of Court Clerks is supporting legislation that would shift to preparers and filers of documents -- including electronic filers -- the responsibility for eliminating any confidential material. "The biggest issue in the country is the pro se litigant," Ms. Bock said. Her office wants to refer even more people who represent themselves to the self-service center, "but we've got to be very careful. The clerk can never, ever get in the position of giving legal advice." Judge Fine, however, considers it "unrealistic to expect people representing themselves to keep improper stuff out of the files." But he agrees that "it's financially unrealistic to expect the clerks to handle all this."

Technology may be driving this debate, but a question the committee has yet to address, said Judge Fine, "is 'Who benefits?' There is an assumption, and that's all it is, that the guy on the street benefits from this. Maybe it is commercial, and not the guy on the street. Then you tend to look at it differently."

The issues come down to what should be on the Internet, what happens when the wrong information gets broadcast, who should police the documents, and who should pay for that. For now, Judge Fine supports a small test program -- though not in family court -- and a delay in posting online. "There is such a thing as letting the technology catch up," the judge said. "But you gotta start someplace, so this is the committee that's starting." If the spirit that made Florida the most open state prevails, the state will come out all right.

Political 'roid rage

Major League Baseball officials are complaining that Congress is grandstanding by scheduling a hearing Thursday on the game's steroid scandal and demanding that seven players disclose what they know about it.

Subpoenas aren't as reliable an indicator of grandstanding, however, as comparisons to Enron. When Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, charged that an MLB attorney was sounding like Ken Lay and that baseball's internal investigation was like Enron policing Enron, it was clear that lawmakers were playing for the cameras. The list of players the committee wants to testify is puzzling for who's on it and who's not. Boston pitcher Curt Shilling was subpoenaed, though his name has not come up as a steroid user. San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds, who is closing in on the game's home-run record, was not called, and his name always comes up. He might have been spared for now because his testimony could jeopardize the steroid criminal case in California.

The star witness is former power hitter Jose Canseco, whose memoir got Congress interested in steroid abuse. Mr. Canseco wants immunity in exchange for his testimony. There's no point in having him show up and take an intentional pass by invoking the Fifth Amendment. The House Energy and Commerce Committee also is holding hearings and may subpoena heads of the major sports leagues instead of players.

Baseball brought all this unwanted attention on itself by implementing an inadequate drug-testing program after years of ignoring obvious abuse. As long as balls were flying out of parks and turnstiles were spinning, there was no inclination to find out why so many players had grown so big so fast. That's why even Congress can make the sport look small.

The power in west Boca

Fran Reich didn't turn the suburbs into a city, but she turned the suburbs into a political force.

n the mid-1970s, growth began to push north from Broward into southwestern Palm Beach County. There were lots of people who had little identity except the generic "West Boca." So Ms. Reich, who moved to the area in 1978, built from there. She founded the West Boca Community Council, the county's first coalition of subdivisions.

Ms. Reich died last month at 91, and she accomplished more in "retirement" than many people do during professional careers. It's hard to overestimate the political impact the council has had. Its most notable battle was over Site 1, about 1,700 acres on the southeast edge of the Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge. The Solid Waste Authority wanted to build a landfill there. The site made sense, but residents disagreed. Not only did the West Boca council stop the landfill, the county commission sold off the site for almost a $30 million loss -- and claimed victory. Controversy over the site was one reason that the county commission abolished the independent Solid Waste Authority.

The council had other victories that had a wider public good. It blocked University Parkway, the planned extension of the Sawgrass Expressway from Broward. The council demanded the widening of Glades Road that eased traffic congestion to and from the suburbs.

In addition, Ms. Reich inspired others. The West Boca council was formed in 1980, and a year later came the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations, which today has 79 members representing about 100,000 people. In 1994, the areas west of Delray Beach organized into The Alliance of Delray Residential Associations, which represents communities that are home to 70,000 people. In essence, Ms. Reich's idea led to the creation of quasi-cities west of Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach. For a time in the early '90s, there even was talk of incorporating West Boca into the city of West Boca.

Fortunately for the county, Ms. Reich wasn't parochial. As late as 2003, she was asked to campaign for the $500 million school construction program. The sales-tax increase did well in that part of the county.

The West Boca Community Council now has 115 members, and sometimes it seems that the issues haven't changed. Now, the state wants to build a far-west road called University Drive. The council is opposed. Bet on the council.

Revive Harbourside talks

Developer Willy Bermello wants Jupiter Town Council members to let him please them. The town should give him the chance.

Mr. Bermello, a principal in BAP Development, has drawn up a series of options for Harbourside, his 8-acre project along the town's Riverwalk north of the Indiantown Road bridge at U.S. 1. It's a highly visible corner at the center of the town's ambitious effort to connect a series of isolated waterfront parcels by a public walkway. The town wants restaurants and stores to draw crowds to Mr. Bermello's property. The town also offered specific bonuses to a developer meeting specific criteria.

Using that grading system, Mr. Bermello wants three points for a public plaza, 14 for public restrooms, three for outdoor dining and five for sculptures and fountains, to name a few. He calculates the cost of the restrooms alone at $457,000 and the sculptures and fountains at $700,000. He wants to cash in those points for height -- from 35 feet to 75 -- and density -- from six units per acre to 15. Those are the town's own rules. Yet when the council saw his plans in a brief presentation, it balked. The project didn't fit Jupiter's scale.

Mr. Bermello, a Miami architect, has gone back to the drawing board. To break a perceived impasse, he has proposed a slightly scaled-back development or, alternatively, a significantly reduced plan that drops the bonuses. Instead of 109 apartments plus nearly 100 time-share units, the scaled-back plan offers 36 apartments, no time-shares and far less room for restaurants. The town can choose either direction or none at all, but it can't expect to resolve the issues if it doesn't meet with the developer.

Riverwalk represents a significant step for Jupiter, and it requires developer cooperation. If the town offers bonuses for developers, it has to expect developers to take advantage of them. If the result is too massive, the problem could lie in the rules. The site is next to a four-story bridge along the busy U.S. 1 corridor across the street from a shopping center and 18-screen movie theater.

The town is right to make sure that the project is inviting to people who don't live there -- surely a concern shared by Mr. Bermello's potential shopkeepers. If council members don't think Mr. Bermello's project can meet public needs, they should say so. A workshop is the appropriate place to have that discussion.

Schiavo grandstanding

The things that were wrong with the Legislature's first attempt to dictate Terri Schiavo's fate are still wrong in Tallahassee's new attempt to interfere. The proposed legislation is even worse because it would stick the Legislature's nose into the personal life-and-death decisions of even more patients.

Like the 2003 law, which Gov. Bush promoted and the Florida Supreme Court unanimously agreed was an unconstitutional power grab, House Bill 701, the law introduced this week by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, would let the Legislature set aside court decisions. That's not how separation of powers works. The law also would presume that any patient who did not give specific, written permission for removal of a feeding tube or hydration would want to be kept alive. How many Floridians want the Legislature to substitute its judgment for decisions that now are made by family members, friends, clergy and doctors who know the patient? That's what Rep. Baxley's bill would do.

On Thursday, Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer rejected another rehash of settled issues when he ruled that there are no credible allegations of abuse against Ms. Schiavo to warrant a review by the Department of Children and Families. The grandstanding doesn't stop with the state. Mel Martinez, Florida's newly elected U.S. senator, made his first bill one to give Terri Schiavo's parents access to federal courts.

Sen. Martinez said, ridiculously, that Ms. Schiavo should have the same protections as condemned killers. Florida courts have spent years hearing testimony and concluded that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and had indicated that she would not want to be kept alive in that condition. Ms. Schiavo is not in the state's care. She is a private citizen, and her fate is a private matter, no matter how public the case has become.

Look at Avonlea traffic

A Stuart commissioner who runs across the Roosevelt Bridge for early morning exercise has an insight on traffic problems. "I see the flow," Commissioner Mary Hutchinson said. "I see what's going on out there. All the traffic's heading south, and it's got to go somewhere."

Commissioner Hutchinson's observations made her cast the only dissenting vote against Avonlea, Frank Wacha Jr.'s proposed "compact urban village" planned on 50 acres north of the bridge. She called for a comprehensive study of north county traffic. She's right.

The commission should postpone a final vote scheduled on Avonlea Monday night until it has a clear picture of the development's impact on traffic. At least the commission should wait until city and county officials convene to talk about traffic and discuss strategies for dealing with it.

The Avonlea village is the largest project ever considered in Stuart's 700-acre redevelopment area. It could include up to 411 single- and multi-family homes, 377,000 square feet of commercial development and 180 units of combined commercial and residential space. Mr. Wacha has been working with the city for years to prepare the Avonlea development. After the commission approves it, he will have to return to the commission for approval of each project within the development.

Mr. Wacha told commissioners that Avonlea's design will keep people within the development, reducing outside car trips. He said his two traffic studies showed that Avonlea would have little impact on surrounding roads. That may turn out to be true. But until the city and county together take a good look at the developments and roads planned for the affected area, no one can know if even a "little impact" will be more than existing roads can handle.

It isn't a good sign that the city and county even have had difficulty agreeing on how to discuss the issues. Some want both commissions to meet together and talk, and County Commissioner Doug Smith proposed a workshop moderated by the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, with the two governments sharing costs. At Monday's meeting, the city will consider a form and date for the joint session. However the two governments pool information and tackle traffic problems, Stuart should put Avonlea on hold until the commission has a better picture of traffic problems it could create.

Question FEMA about the other $29,850,000

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami announced indictments two weeks ago against 14 Miami-Dade County residents who are accused of making false claims last year for hurricane damage.

The arrests were part of a government investigation that is trying to expose fraud and maybe explain how the Federal Emergency Management Agency paid more than 12,000 claims totaling $30 million in Miami-Dade, when no hurricane came close to making landfall there. In all, the 14 defendants received about $150,000. So, what about the other $29,850,000? As usual, FEMA has nothing to say.

Michael Brown, the agency's executive director, admits there were some computer glitches involving Miami-Dade but insists that most of the money went to people who deserved it. Taxpayers are to take this on faith. Mr. Brown offers no names, numbers or details to substantiate his claim. In his op-ed article that appeared in last Sunday's Post, he says he is bound by the Privacy Act of 1974 to protect personal information collected from disaster assistance applicants. Privacy is a consideration. But Mr. Brown broadens the interpretation of privacy statutes to unreasonable and self-serving lengths.

FEMA refuses to release information about private contractors who do damage assessments. Mr. Brown says they are exempted from Freedom of Information Act disclosures and that "releasing inspectors' names also could cause commercial harm to these private contractors who remain competitive due to the unique work experience that their employees can provide over their competitors." How does identifying contractors compromise their competitiveness? The exemption was to protect privileged or confidential information essential to doing business, not the identities of people the government has hired with taxpayers' money. Knowing who did the inspections in Miami-Dade could go a long way toward figuring out how so much money found its way there.

Even basic information is impossible to get from FEMA. It has ignored requests to break down disaster expenditures by ZIP code, which should be an easy computer task. Those numbers would help quantify the relief effort in hard-hit neighborhoods such as Pineapple Park in West Palm Beach, where some residents say they've been neglected. But FEMA has refused to disclose figures more geographically precise than the totals for each county. Two weeks ago, a congressional delegation touring the Panhandle was surprised to see how slowly recovery has progressed since Hurricane Ivan struck in September. County officials complained that FEMA won't release millions of dollars for debris cleanup because of nagging disputes over who should pay for clearing private roads. Where was this fiscal nit-picking when the $30 million poured into Miami-Dade?

Florida lawmakers have called for a congressional hearing into how FEMA has dealt with damage claims. Mr. Brown should come prepared to give Congress the information his agency has denied everybody else.

Give slots, but not payoff

Since the gambling industry wanted slot machines in the worst way, that's how the industry should get them.

For years, casino backers tried to crack Florida's constitutional ban. This time, they succeeded by breaking off a small enough piece for the public to swallow. In November, an amendment allowing residents to approve slot machines at pari-mutuel venues in Miami-Dade and Broward counties passed, 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent. In the required follow-up votes this week, Miami-Dade rejected slots, but Broward bit. Two horse tracks, one dog track and a jai-alai fronton now have visions of Las Vegas.

But Gov. Bush, Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, have the hole card. The state must decide how many slots, what type, days of operation and how much the machines' owners will pay in tax. So they, correctly, will resist the gambling industry's push for Class III games, which include high-stakes slots, roulette and craps. The half-dozen Indian casinos operate only lower-stakes Class II video slots, which is all Broward should get. If Broward gets Class III gambling, federal law dictates that the tribes can have it, too.

Lawmakers also should tax the casinos much higher than the 30 percent that gambling establishments have suggested. Start at 70 percent, and go up. Since gambling interests claimed that all this was for education, they surely won't object. Finally, lawmakers can limit the damage by limiting the number of days casinos can be open and their hours of operation, as well as the number of slot machines. Gambling interests, of course, want to operate all day, every day and with as many slots as possible. That attitude exposes the real motivation: It's greed, it always has been, and it never will be good for Florida.

What FAMU needs

Interim President Castell Bryant appropriately has labeled Florida A&M University's financial health "grim." Her determination that Florida's only historically black public university "must end the year in the black" is encouraging. So is her commitment to deliver, in the next month, a plan to make the school solvent. That plan is a prerequisite for the state assistance FAMU must have, but it also is encouraging that state legislators and Gov. Bush recognize that FAMU needs more than a bailout.

FAMU's ongoing budget crisis should have been headed off two presidents ago, during the 1990s administration of Frederick Humphries. In asking an outside accounting firm for a better picture of the university's finances as soon as she took charge in January, Dr. Bryant avoided a key mistake made by former President Fred Gainous, who was always behind the curve in addressing the problems that overwhelmed his own administration. Yet the latest audit's report that FAMU spent at least $51 million more than was budgeted last year confirmed the "worst fears" of new trustees Chairwoman Challis Lowe. While no one is suggesting that FAMU might go under, the university's situation demands the state-level intervention being proposed by Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, and Rep. Curtis Richardson, D-Tallahassee, both FAMU graduates. "We have proposed an extra appropriation for FAMU," said Rep. Richardson, "and we have gotten indications from the governor, the Senate president and House speaker that they are amenable to that."

While the amount will depend on FAMU's plan and need, Rep. Richardson correctly is recommending more state monitoring and oversight. "We are not proposing to throw good money after bad. We also are not asking anything more for FAMU than the Legislature has done for any other university in the system," he said, citing the "$9 million spent on the ill-fated chiropractic school, and $25 million for the duplicative biomedical program" at nearby Florida State University.

There is precedent for state intervention. Two years ago, the state's chief financial officer held up the paychecks of Dr. Gainous and 18 other FAMU administrators to get the school to turn over required financial data. In this case, the Legislature, Gov. Bush and the Board of Governors, which supervises the university system, should be proactive, with a high-level, rapid response on behalf of the university's 13,000 students.

FAMU needs to avoid having it said that Dr. Bryant didn't solve the problem, either. So the plan she presents to trustees should include the forensic review of FAMU's accounting procedures that the auditors suggested. But she also should be able to rely on the state's financial assistance -- and oversight.

Send phone-rate hike back on down the line

As phone companies might say in commercials, you can say a lot in 20 minutes. But will 20 minutes of talk today be enough to persuade the Florida Supreme Court to deny phone companies a $355 million increase in local rates?

The ever-helpful Legislature gave Sprint-Florida, BellSouth and Verizon this windfall in 2003, by approving a bill that the companies' lobbyists had written. Then the "Public" Service Commission blessed the gouging twice. Supporters say consumers will benefit from 1) increased local competition as the carriers reduce fees for using their lines and 2) savings on long-distance calls within Florida. But while the bill specifies residential rate increases -- $6.68 per month over four years for Verizon, $4.73 per month over four years for Sprint-Florida, and $3.14 per month over three years for BellSouth -- it is vague on where the savings would come from.

Mike Twomey, who will speak to the court on behalf of AARP, bursts the false assumptions that the Legislature and the companies used to justify the Tele-Competition Innovation and Infrastructure Enhancement Act. Ninety percent of the new costs would go to residential customers, and most of the rest to small businesses. Roughly half of the projected savings, however, would go to large businesses. Older Floridians on fixed incomes tend to call out of state or use calling cards, so they won't see any benefit. Finally, a federal appeals court ruling in March 2004 prevents states from making phone companies offer the cuts in access fees that supposedly would mean savings for Floridians.

In defending its decision, the Public Service Commission argues that potential savings couldn't be specified in the legislation because the "full benefits of a competitive market simply cannot be realized until after proper price signals are in place... " In other words, take it on faith that the consumer will come out ahead, with more choice and overall lower bills. The commission's lawyer will tell the seven justices that economic theory supports the law. Mr. Twomey and the Florida Attorney General's Office will say, correctly, that the law is a fraud.

Since voting for the 45-page bill, some legislators have acknowledged that they didn't read it. But during debate in the House, Mr. Twomey points out, supporters reassured their colleagues that there were safeguards to make sure that consumers were "completely satisfied." At every public hearing, however, legislators heard consumers say they didn't believe that. Their skepticism was justified. Now, all that stands between the phone companies and the $355 million return on their $5 million in campaign contributions during the 2001-2002 election cycle is the Supreme Court. Will someone on the public payroll finally stand up for the public?

Review board in Delray? First, look at the options

Delray Beach's leaders want residents to avoid rushing to judgment in the Feb. 26 fatal shooting by a white police officer of a 16-year-old African-American boy. There should be similar caution about rushing to a solution.

Today, some city officials will meet with the NAACP. Also today, the city commission holds a meeting that was scheduled before the death of Jerrod Miller, with a short agenda that includes certifying Tuesday's election results. At both, the subject of a citizen review board for the police department probably will come up. The NAACP wants Delray Beach to create a review board. The killing of Mr. Miller was the third fatal confrontation involving the police and a suspect in six months. In October, an officer shot a man who was driving a car at him. An investigation cleared the officer. In December, a man with a history of drug use died after police subdued him with a Taser. The cause of death has not been determined.

If a police review board is the idea of the moment, it may not be the best idea. Among other things, the city would have to decide among the many variations. Some review boards hear and investigate complaints against police officers. Others review departmental investigations of complaints. Some hear appeals of complaints that the department has ruled to be without merit. Some have subpoena power. Some don't. Some have been successful. Some have turned into forums for people to harass the department.

Mayor Jeff Perlman favors a review board but acknowledges that "it depends on how you set it up." He says city staff have begun to gather information. Rita Ellis, who will be new to the commission, is less certain. "I don't at this point understand the purpose," she says, "but we're going to have to develop understanding." Jon Levinson says he is "willing to listen." Alberta McCarthy, the only African-American commissioner, doesn't want it "to be just another layer of stuff. But we are looking for some change. That's what our citizens are crying out for."

Review boards, however, don't always bring such change. There is no link, experts note, between review boards and decreases in police-civilian incidents. As for policy changes, it depends on the city. In San Jose, Calif., the board produced a guide for students about how to react around police. What does seem clear is that if Delray Beach wants to consider a review board, two models are more promising. Under one, the board is independent and looks into complaints. As Minneapolis did, Delray Beach could require officers to cooperate as a condition of employment. Under the other, the board contains both civilians and non-sworn members of the police department, attempting to create a more cooperative arrangement.

Ultimately, though, it comes back to the commission and the police. Review boards can't substitute for day-to-day leadership.

$30 million well-spent

In 2003, when the health care district was negotiating with a Tennessee-based company to buy back Glades General Hospital, district CEO Dwight Chenette assured the 31,000 residents of Belle Glade, South Bay and Pahokee: "There isn't a plan to just flip it, if you will, or just turn around and sell it." Proof of that commitment came last week, when the district board committed $30 million to replace or refurbish the six-decade-old facility.

The amount is not enough to rebuild the hospital. A consultant has estimated that a new building would cost between $60 million and $65 million. But the $30 million, Mr. Chenette said, is the largest amount the district could pledge without diminishing the reserves below recommended levels or increasing the tax rate, which is $1.10 for every $1,000 of assessed property value and is capped at $2. To understand why all county taxpayers should finance a hospital for the Glades region, the district, by law, must ensure the availability of health care throughout the county. With $86 million in undesignated reserves, the district has enough money to jump-start the hospital's fund-raising efforts. The reserves have been building since the early 1990s, when the district neared bankruptcy, and the district's board is deciding how to spend the money.

Glades General should remain a priority. With newer equipment and better accommodations, Glades General can relieve the burden on Palms West and Wellington Regional medical centers. Those facilities are nearly 30 miles away from Belle Glade, and Glades patients have been forced to try to reach them in emergencies. A new facility also would aid hospital administrators' efforts to recruit physicians.

The designation also reflects understanding of a blunt reality: "Unless the health care district is committing a substantial amount to a replacement facility," Mr. Chenette said, "it will not happen." Under private, for-profit Province Healthcare Corp., the hospital ran up debt and lost doctors, services and patient confidence. It is no surprise that private companies aren't clamoring to buy Glades General. Thirty-six percent of Belle Glade's residents live at the poverty level, and the city has one of the highest HIV rates in the state. Pahokee's per-capita income is about $10,000.

Improving the quality of health care in the region is crucial to improving the quality of life. Several signs confirm that the latter is occurring. Belle Glade's Gove Elementary School -- where about 83 percent of students are poor, 31 percent don't speak English fluently and 27 percent travel with their migrant parents depending on the agricultural season -- is an A-rated school. Construction is scheduled to begin in June on the new Lake Region Water Treatment Plant. And new housing has been proposed in the city. Replacing Glades General Hospital will bring benefits beyond city boundaries.
File: w12a_gladesgeneraledit_0310 Section: opinion Status: Ready

Bring facts, not attitude, to charter school talks

Now that Port St. Lucie has decided to get into the charter school business, the city council must seek the information it should have had before making the decision.

Council members also would be smart to show a more cooperative attitude if they hope to work with Schools Superintendent Mike Lannon and the St. Lucie County School Board. The board, after all, will grant or reject the council's charter application. Meeting with the board and Mr. Lannon on Monday, however, some council members coupled requests for cooperation with insults. Michelle Berger, who home-schools her children, accused the board of incompetence for failing to duplicate the success of Fort Pierce magnet schools throughout the district. Others suggested that the district "get rid of" its controlled-choice enrollment plan that federal courts approved.

The council will search for a consultant to complete a charter application by Sept. 1, with the hope that the city can open its first kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school for 600 to 800 students on East Torino Parkway by 2006 or 2007. Port St. Lucie hopes to pattern its system after one in Pembroke Pines that has 5,200 students in seven schools. But as recently as last month, The Miami Herald reported, Pembroke Pines schools were having a tough time balancing their budgets. As a result, the city manager, who also serves as superintendent, wants a share of the Broward County School District's tax money, which has been an issue with individual charter schoools. Pembroke Pines borrowed money to build its schools and receives no state money to help repay the debt.

Port St. Lucie plans to use its own tax revenue for the schools and would make the buildings dual-purpose, for use as hurricane shelters and recreation centers. But the city still hasn't provided a clear picture of what a school system will cost city taxpayers now and in the future. Mr. Lannon raised other issues. Today's council is committed to charter schools, he said, but future councils may not be. When charter schools fail, as many do, the school district must get students back on track. The council must be prepared for intense state and federal scrutiny. "Some things we don't have control over," Mr. Lannon said, "and neither will you."

City Attorney Roger Orr raised the issue of impact fees, which developers pay to help build schools, and how the city and the district might divide them. "Cutting into their (the school district's) pot could make their plight worse," he said, alluding to the district's need for $1 billion worth of new schools and staff to meet demands of future growth. "Controversy needs to be anticipated." While the city council wants its own new school system yesterday, the process has just begun. An honest examination of costs is the first issue the consultant must address. It won't be the last.

The pickers finally win

Farmworkers usually don't get to celebrate victory, so it will take a while for them to realize the magnitude of Tuesday's landmark wage agreement with Taco Bell. The improvement in their standard of living, however, will be apparent soon.

Backed by human rights groups, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers closed a deal with Yum! Brands Inc., corporate parent of Taco Bell, in which the company will pay 1 cent more for each pound of tomatoes it buys in Florida, stipulating that the penny goes directly to the pickers. Taco Bell bought about 10 million pounds of tomatoes last year, with pickers making 40 to 45 cents for each 32-pound bucket. The change will raise their earnings to at least 72 cents per bucket, an increase of about 80 percent that will help lift out of poverty some of the nation's lowest-paid workers.

Yum!, which also operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's and A&W restaurants, gets something, too. The company can tell consumers that it has set a standard for reform and has chosen fairness over exploitation. People won't notice the penny-a-pound increase when they eat at Taco Bell, but many of the company's 35 million diners each week will notice what the company has done. A social conscience is still a marketable commodity.

It took more than three years of boycotts and crusading for the Immokalee workers to convince Yum!. The National Council of Churches, the Presbyterian Church and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights became allies, and in the final days, representatives of the Carter Center in Atlanta helped negotiate the agreement. "I now call on others in the industry," former President Jimmy Carter said, "to follow Taco Bell's lead." Farmworkers also can celebrate the model for corporate responsibility that their movement has created.

Approve hotel deal

Construction on a Palm Beach County convention center hotel in West Palm Beach has languished since 1996, so taking just a year to settle the most recent dispute over ownership of the land seems like fast-tracking.

Last week, city commissioners approved a deal with the county and CityPlace Partners that should end legal conflicts and finally clear the way for breaking ground. The deal calls for the county to pay CityPlace $10 million for the Okeechobee Boulevard site and Ocean Properties -- the Delray Beach company the county selected to build the hotel -- to pay another $750,000. West Palm Beach will receive $700,000 from both CityPlace and Ocean but, more important, the city gets a concession from the county to build 104 condominiums with a taxable value of at least $32 million. It appears to be a reasonable compromise that balances the needs of the three parties -- West Palm Beach needs to protect payments on city-backed CityPlace bonds -- and ends the dueling lawsuits that arose from CityPlace's assertion that the land was worth $5.5 million more than the county believed.

With the deal, the county would be closer to getting the full return on the $84 million investment in the convention center. Without an on-site hotel capable of accommodating 400 conventioneers, the center cannot reach its potential as an economic asset. CityPlace developers blamed years of unfulfilled promises and delays in starting the project on recession, market changes and 9/11 -- excuses county commissioners did not buy. The deal removes CityPlace from the picture and turns control over to Ocean, a company with a record of building many large hotels despite the sometimes unfavorable conditions of the past decade.

Even with the settlement, there is no guarantee that construction will begin soon, or at all. Certainly, however, the prospects for cooperation between governments never has looked better, and neither have the incentives for getting the hotel built. The public can be grateful for that much, at least.

Home movies from Iraq show nation the real war

Soldiers who have served in Iraq don't need to see Ramadi Madness and The Haj Files. Iraqis don't need to see the video, either. Like the soldiers, they've lived it.

But Americans -- including members of Congress -- who have only a vague idea of the situation in Iraq or are unwilling to acknowledge it can benefit from seeing or reading about the incidents depicted in what essentially is a home movie from the front lines of the Iraqi insurgency. The American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the Defense Department to obtain paperwork from the investigation into digital recordings from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment of the Florida National Guard. The unit is based in West Palm Beach.

On Saturday, The Post obtained a copy of the video. In one incident, soldiers are shown propping up the body of a dead truck driver and pretending to make him wave. The driver was killed attempting to escape from a checkpoint. His vehicle, as the soldiers later discovered, was booby-trapped. In another incident, a soldier kicks a wounded Iraqi. A burned corpse is referred to as a "crispy critter."

The Pentagon says this isn't abuse of the Abu Ghraib variety, and the Pentagon is right. This is a record of the day-to-day encounters between American troops and Iraqis who might be friendly or might be hostile. Grisly humor is one way for the soldiers to cope. It happens in every war. It's still happening in Ramadi, near Baghdad, where on Tuesday, U.S. troops were fighting with insurgents.

Blunt humor and brutal conditions are the reality, even if the Pentagon termed some of the behavior "inappropriate." If the reality is far different from the Bush administration's promise of an ecstatic Iraqi public showering their liberators with flowers, it isn't the fault of the young guardsmen serving in Iraq -- part-time soldiers taking front-line risks. It also is a fact, however, that when U.S. soldiers regularly use force and joke about the violence, segments of Iraqi society will respond angrily to what they perceive as disrespect by an occupying power. Both points of view have some validity.

The nerve-racking confusion depicted in Ramadi Madness helps to explain how U.S. troops from a different unit fired last week on a vehicle carrying a just-released Italian hostage and killed one of the agents who helped free her. Italians who believe that the attack was planned -- like Americans who might think there's no excuse for the behavior in the film -- forget about the chaos and stress of war.

In the midst of that chaos, soldiers like those seen in Ramadi Madness are trying to inject enough stability for politicians and diplomats to invent a functioning government. The elected interim parliament probably will have its first meeting March 16, with a Kurdish president and a Shiite backed by Iraq's major religious figure in the top post of prime minister. The assembly still is trying to decide what role the Sunni minority will have. Politics has to overcome religious and ethnic differences as well as the impulse to seek revenge. The less chaotic the evolution of Iraq's government is, the sooner guardsmen and other soldiers will be able to shoot their home movies at home.

A brush with boldness

Anthony Schembri, secretary of Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice, says, "I want us to be bold."

Being bold might mean reversing the ideological lurch toward privatization because too many offenders are badly served and even abused in poorly staffed facilities run by companies scrounging for profits. Being bold might mean increasing salaries of underpaid DJJ workers by more than the minimum Gov. Bush has proposed. Being bold might mean eliminating hiring practices that shuffle violent, incompetent guards from one DJJ facility to another.

Those would be "bold" juvenile justice actions. Mr. Schembri, however, is talking about something else. DJJ is going to paint several holding cells pink because experts think such a color scheme might calm down youthful offenders. So he's being bold in an interior decorator sort of way.

DJJ must know that just switching to a pastel palette won't solve all disciplinary problems. Sometimes, guards and administrators still will have to get tough. Offenders who act out even after being subjected to the Pink Hole of Calcutta might have to suffer the loss of feng shui privileges.

Narrow session's agenda to emphasize insurance

The Legislature begins its annual session with an especially important to-do list. Legislators, who gather today in Tallahassee, will do better at it if they also keep in mind the not-to-do list. Among the items:

• Do not waste time by trying again to interfere in the Terri Schiavo case.

• Do not cause needless trouble by trying to interfere in the selection of a site for The Scripps Research Institute.

There are plenty of other do-nots when it comes to the major statewide issues. Do not change growth management laws in a way that will have the public subsidizing the sprawl that eats up water storage areas and strains services. Do not increase the amount of money that charter schools receive, especially while refusing to adequately finance traditional public schools. Do not expand the school voucher program, especially without adding some accountability. Do not propose a constitutional amendment to repeal the school class-size amendment, even though Gov. Bush bills the plan as a boost for teachers. Do not shift more control over elections from the counties to the secretary of state. Do not make it unduly hard for voters to amend the constitution, even if legislators don't like some of the recent amendments.

It's no fun to start out with the negative, but most Floridians would have benefited more recently from Tallahassee's inaction. In 2003, for example, the Legislature approved the largest phone-rate increase in the state's history, just after the companies had spent $5 million on election campaigns. Also that year, the Legislature delayed cleanup of Everglades pollution for 10 years. But even after 60 days, lawmakers did not pass a budget, the one issue where inaction is illegal. It took special sessions to work that out.

So this year, with property insurance the big consumer issue after last year's hurricanes, helping Floridians is atop the to-do list. We don't define "help" as merely making sure that if coverage is available, the only option will be the state-run insurer of last resort at exorbitant rates. We define "help" as changing the current market, in which the insurers basically choose their customers, to one in which the consumers choose their insurer.

Will that be hard? Yes. Will that be even harder if the Legislature gets sidetracked? Yes, again. So the fewer unnecessary issues the Legislature deals with, the better the chance of making a good deal for consumers. To do that would be terrific.

New rules force Fago out

Months ago, Elizabeth Fago could have been removed for cause from the state's Scripps Research Institute oversight board. Last week, she was removed for politics.

Ms. Fago is a Palm Beach Gardens businesswoman who became a Scripps ally when the institute announced plans in October 2003 to expand in Florida. She befriended Scripps President Richard Lerner, pledged $1 million and helped to get the institute hooked into Palm Beach County's philanthropic network. Gov. Bush appointed her to the Scripps Florida Funding Corp., the nine-member group that is monitoring the state's $310 million investment in the institute.

In June 2004, however, The Post reported that Ms. Fago had failed to pay the federal government $1.3 million in payroll taxes and had a history of slow payment of bills. She spent years contesting small expenses. At that point, she wasn't just on the Scripps oversight board; she was on the audit committee. Her background should have disqualified her from serving on the board. She also had a conflict in being Dr. Lerner's friend and being one of the people watching the state's money. Yet the only consequence was that she left the audit committee.

On Friday, though, Ms. Fago resigned from the board, shoved off by Gov. Bush. Her firing offense was lobbying for a Scripps site other than Mecca Farms. This conflict angered those who want to profit from a real-estate deal next to Mecca Farms and their political allies. As usual, Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty sounded the most hypocritical when she blamed Ms. Fago for turning Dr. Lerner away from Mecca and called Ms. Fago's relationship with Scripps "inappropriate" because of her presence on the state board. Commissioner McCarty sits on the Business Development Board, which stands to get $51 million from that real-estate deal, and she has lobbied to build Scripps at Mecca.

The politics that worked for Ms. Fago a year ago don't work now. Building Scripps at Mecca has become bigger than Scripps.

'The Aviator' for real

The airline industry is enduring tough times, but aviation is having a great year. In June, pilot Michael Melvill and SpaceShipOne pioneered privately financed human spaceflight. Last week, Steve Fossett, aboard GlobalFlyer, became the first person to fly solo and nonstop around the globe.

There's technological potential in these endeavors. With government having lost interest, private enterprise could push valuable exploration. Innovations that boost distance and fuel efficiency might help airlines make a steady profit.

A lot of it, admittedly, is the old-fashioned romance that made Charles Lindbergh's flight so thrilling. Who'd have thought that a flight from Salina to Salina would be mentioned in the same breath as Lindy's hop from New York to Paris? Don't knock the romance of flight. The modern world has gotten a lot of mileage out of that fuel.

Choice for water board creates serious conflict

For years, people in South Florida have complained that the sugar industry runs the South Florida Water Management District. Given what happened last week, they may be closer to right than they thought.

With one of his three appointments to the district board, Gov. Bush chose Malcolm "Bubba" Wade, senior vice-president of Clewiston-based United States Sugar Corp. President Bush has put former lobbyists in charge of regulating key industries, such as mining, for which they once worked. The governor, however, went one better in picking a current executive.

As one of the two companies, with Florida Crystals, that dominate the industry in the Everglades Agricultural Area, U.S. Sugar is directly affected by many decisions the governing board makes as it sets policy for the district. Notably, the district, and thus the board, is in charge of cleaning up the Everglades from the pollution that the sugar industry has caused. The district, and thus the board, helps to decide how much sugar growers will pay for that cleanup and how tightly it will be enforced.

Two years ago, sugar industry lobbyists wrote a bill that delays Everglades cleanup for 10 years. The water board rose up during the middle of the legislative session to support the idea. Now, the industry will have its own seat on the board.

It is true that one of the nine board seats traditionally and correctly has been reserved for someone to represent the rural/agricultural areas of the 16 southern Florida counties that make up the district. The board is supposed to balance all the competing interests -- farming, development, water utilities and conservation. It also is true that under Gov. Bush, there is no balance. There is no credible representation from conservation and the environment. Advertising, bond underwriting and public relations are represented.

No one questions Mr. Wade's technical expertise. The problem is the obvious conflict because of whom he works for. To his credit, Mr. Wade already has asked the district's legal staff about when he will have to abstain from voting. As he said Friday, the obvious times are when U.S. Sugar is seeking a water permit or contract.

As Mr. Wade acknowledged, however, the "systemwide" issues are "more unclear." When the district has kept Lake Okeechobee levels at heights that harm the lake, critics have charged that the sugar industry wants it that way to have a backup water supply. So does Mr. Wade vote on lake levels? Back-pumping from cane fields worsens pollution and harms drinking water for Glades towns. Does he vote on back-pumping? Longer-term, what happens when the water board considers whether to permit development on sugar cane land?

Sugar never has had a problem getting its voice heard at the water district. Gov. Bush did the district no favors with an appointment that will make it seem as though sugar's voice is even louder and some voices aren't even allowed.

Start the vets' cemetery

The Department of Veterans Affairs proposed a cemetery for South Florida about seven years ago, but the first bulldozer has yet to move earth.

Delays were inevitable, given the choice of a 313-acre site west of Boynton Beach that contains 73 acres of sensitive wetlands. The VA and Army Corps of Engineers have spent months haggling over how to protect the Eastern indigo snake, wood stork and gopher tortoise and how to offset the loss of habitat through environmental mitigation, the often prickly process of trading credits for buying preservation in one place to offset damage in another. The gopher tortoise has its problems but always can outpace government bureaucracy. The corps reviewer in charge of the cemetery case has at least 300 other cases to monitor. The VA has to wait its turn like everyone else and also has to satisfy the South Florida Water Management District, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several other regulatory agencies.

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, who has spearheaded the project, criticizes the VA for not uncovering the environmental complications before buying the property for $11.2 million. Two other prospective locations were rejected in 2001 because officials believed that the environmental problems were worse. The VA and the corps both agreed on the Boynton Beach property back then but didn't do much to work out the details, which have turned out to be substantial.

Apart from the wetlands concerns, the choice of the site makes good sense for other reasons. Close to a half-million veterans live within 80 miles of the property, and the cemetery will be busy when it finally opens as the final resting place for about 110,000 vets and their spouses. Passive-use cemeteries are far from the worst fate for sensitive lands. This one will include a wetlands marsh, a cypress dome and a preserve for those gopher tortoises on its perimeters. The VA's donations to the Loxahatchee Mitigation Bank will add to the natural buffer zone between the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and developments in western Palm Beach County.

Last year, VA officials thought that burials could begin this summer, but the target has been pushed back to January. With dozens of Florida vets dying each day, government agencies have an obligation to resolve their technical differences and address the needs of people who served the nation.

Help growers who stay

Treasure Coast citrus growers, faced with more than 400,000 canker-infected trees that must be bulldozed and burned, went to Washington last week to ask for $117 million in federal money to fight back. A citrus industry spokesman said Florida lawmakers promised to try to help them, despite a tight federal budget, the financial drain of the Iraq War and a sluggish economy.

About $75 million would compensate farmers whose trees canker has destroyed, and an additional $42 million would help to eradicate the disease, a bacterial infection that weakens trees and makes fruit too ugly to sell. Doug Bournique, executive vice-president of the Indian River Citrus League, said the state delegation promised "to go to war to get this funding. They know we can't live without it. Canker could eliminate our industry. Markets will collapse. Tree production will die."

The $42 million would pay to burn the infected groves and disc the land four times. The $75 million would help growers bridge the gap in the eight years before those groves can produce again. A grapefruit crop, for example, can't be planted for two years after canker eradication, with no fruit harvest for another five or six years. The money would offer growers a chance to get back into production. "It doesn't make you whole," Mr. Bournique said, "but you can go buy some trees and try to get back in the game -- if there are no more disasters."

Lawmakers should stipulate, however, that relief money go to working groves that intend to stay in business, rather than subsidize growers while they wait to sell for development. Mr. Bournique said all the canker has been found in major producing groves west of Interstate 95, where established growers want to continue farming.

Since canker first appeared in Miami-Dade 10 years ago, it has been found in 20 Florida counties. The Indian River belt escaped the plague until last year's hurricanes. St. Lucie County found canker in December, Indian River in January.

Keeping the citrus industry viable matters to the Treasure Coast. With 200,000 acres in citrus, 40 packing houses, 20 sales agencies and other related businesses, citrus is a vital part of the economy. Losing that acreage also could affect attempts to manage growth. Federal money can help stop the canker problem from becoming a tragedy for individuals and their families and from forever altering the character of the region.

No choice in Belle Glade

Belle Glade voters face the regrettable reality that neither of the two candidates running Tuesday for the open position of Seat A commissioner is acceptable.

Ray Torres Sanchez, a funeral home owner, has been unable to clear up questions about his residency and refuses to clarify apparent discrepancies in his academic record. Richard Harris, a minister and ex-felon who is waging his fifth campaign for public office in the past three years, has a strident and divisive approach to racial issues at a time when the town needs all the thoughtful, unifying leadership it can get. The Post can make no recommendation in this race.

Mr. Sanchez says he received a doctoral degree from the World School of Religious Education in New Mexico, but the Post has been unable to find evidence that the school exists. Mr. Sanchez, 48, says he can't remember when he graduated and won't comment further.

Perhaps more disturbing, Mr. Sanchez also has been unable to answer satisfactorily questions about his residency. Rev. Harris has filed a complaint with the state elections commission that charges Mr. Sanchez with using the address of his Belle Glade funeral home to run for office. Mr. Sanchez says he has "dual residency" and that it is his wife, Kristina, who owns the $335,000 home in Royal Palm Beach for which they sought a homestead exemption. Mr. Sanchez says he shares a house behind the funeral home with a local police officer and that his wife and two children live in the Royal Palm Beach house. "I have the right to vote and sleep where I want," Mr. Sanchez says -- a response that clears up nothing.

Rev. Harris, 56, first ran for office in 2002 against County Commissioner Tony Masilotti. He ran unsuccessfully last year for the state House District 84 seat and failed in two earlier attempts for the city commission. He was convicted of a felony fraud charge in 1977 and has been arrested at least 30 times since 1967, according to police records.

In Highland Beach, pick Scala-Pistone, Newill

Most of the big decisions in Highland Beach have been made. The town has hired a manager and a police chief. There are no police union problems. The big issue of the moment is nearly $4 million in excess cost for the new reverse-osmosis water plant.

Residents want to know why the town spent so much, and the spending isn't done. It will cost a little more to reduce noise from the plant. With this in mind, The Post recommends that voters choose two-term incumbent Rachael Scala-Pistone and first-time candidate Jim Newill for two at-large town commission seats in Tuesday's election.

Commissioner Scala-Pistone became known for her disputes with outgoing Mayor Thomas Reid. But she was asking questions about the water plant, and those questions should have been answered. A priority for her if reelected is the beach vegetation project. Mr. Newill, a "mostly retired" accountant who also is a company director, also wants to find out about the plant overpayments. Before adding a second floor, he says, the town should have gone back to the voters. The third candidate, jewelry store owner Roberta Kruta, touts her energy and ideas. But Highland Beach does not need the marine patrol she suggests that the town start.

Also on Tuesday's ballot is the mayor's race between Harold Hagelmann and Michael Hill, but Mr. Hill has withdrawn.

Keep Abrams, Whelchel; add newcomer Baronoff

Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams says of challenger Mark Boykin, "I don't know what is motivating him" to run. And Rev. Boykin, pastor of First Assembly of God church, doesn't do much to clear up the mystery.

Though he has been preparing this run for a year, Rev. Boykin knows little about city issues and offers odd ideas. Just as Boca Raton is completing construction from the fire-rescue bond, he would switch to the county for services. He bases the idea on comparisons with a central Florida town, but he doesn't provide the numbers. He is suspicious of plans for a new main library, even though the plans are well-known. Rather than negotiate for the Causeway Lumber site just to the north, he would move the library to the old cartoon museum at Mizner Park, space that is spoken for. He wants a building moratorium downtown and on North Federal Highway, where the city has a good plan to encourage needed development.

Against that nonsensical platform is Mayor Abrams' good record after 10 years on the council and four years as mayor. He has supported reasonable development and made himself available to hear about neighborhood concerns. When the two hurricanes hit last year, he joined city employees in round-the-clock emergency relief efforts. Even if his opponent were more qualified, Mayor Abrams would deserve another two years before being term-limited out.

In the Seat A council race, incumbent Susan Whelchel faces Gary Smolinski. Like Rev. Boykin, Mr. Smolinski blames the council for overdevelopment and traffic problems. In fact, downtown development has gone according to a 1993 voter-approved plan, Ordinance 4035, that allowed building to proceed without roads keeping up. And the city has reduced zoning as far as property rights allow.

Ms. Whelchel supports the redevelopment plan for North Federal and an Interstate 95 interchange at Spanish River Boulevard. Mr. Smolinski seems to be running on a personal grudge. He is suing the city over his arrest in 2000. On permanent disability and a fixed income, he says he got no help when asking about affordable housing.

To replace term-limited Dave Freudenberg in Seat B, The Post recommends Peter Baronoff, whose company owns long-term health care facilities. He and opponent Spencer Siegel, a lawyer, have exchanged accusations about dirty campaigning. At times, both have fought for space on the low road. But Mr. Baronoff has a good record of community service in Boca Raton and better ideas. One is to see if a developer would provide not just land but money for a small fire station on North Federal as redevelopment proceeds, since Florida East Coast Railway trains can slow response from the Yamato Road station.

Marlins' latest error

Spring training games began this week. The Legislature opens its annual session Tuesday. Naturally, the Florida Marlins are back with another request for state money to help the team build a stadium.

A mere $60 million sales tax rebate, the team says, will complete financing for a $420 million, retractable-roof stadium in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. The city would contribute $28 million and the land, Miami-Dade County would throw in $138 million, and the team would pay $192 million. Parking would bring in $32 million. At least, those are the numbers at this point.

Team, city and county representatives say they are confident that this time, the state will come through. The deal, though, has one catch. If the stadium goes up, the team must change its name to the Miami Marlins. If that's the case, there seems no reason why the state of Florida needs to get involved. Let those who want the name pay for it.

Switch to Trueblood

Mark K. Trueblood grew up in Mangonia Park. The former town police officer and sheriff's deputy returned from St. Louis in 2003 to find the town drastically changed -- which is why he is running for Seat 4 on the Town Council.

"The jai alai arena has become just a large parking lot for Tri-Rail," he says. "We need to get that property developed to move the town forward." The water department "is a financial albatross, plus the water's bad." He would seek a company or city to take it over. The 1-square-mile, 1,400-resident town that is a geographical bridge between West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach "needs to be spruced up to make it more attractive." He sees "a lot of apathy" and a need "to get more people involved," and "would work with whoever is on the council" to offer solutions.

Incumbent Lorraine Y. Griffin has been so busy attending conferences on the town's dime that she missed the town's purchase of the water department, which she says she would have voted against. Like Seat 2 incumbent Thomas Kelly, Ms. Griffin has not been part of the solution to the infighting between critics of the town manager and his wife, the town clerk, that has hamstrung the town.

Mr. Kelly, fortunately, has dropped out, giving RosieLee Brown, a home health aide, a chance to do better.

Romano, Lowe, Burns deserve another term

Water and electricity once were big issues in Lake Worth. Now, failure-plagued power lines are being rebuilt, and a reverse-osmosis plant soon will improve quality and head off water shortages. Such improvements normally would be enough to ensure reelection for incumbents. But one incumbent in particular -- Mayor Rodney Romano -- could make a close race out of a walkover.

Previously, the flash point was the mayor's plan to redevelop the beach and casino. This time, it's his drive to improve Lake Worth's tax base by approving large projects and -- the hottest issue -- by selling city-owned property. The Post has disagreed with Mayor Romano's actions in selling Old Bridge Park to a developer, specifically his push to clinch the sale before voters could approve a charter change to require a public vote on such deals.

Old Bridge Park could cost Mayor Romano the election, but The Post doesn't think it should. He defends the deal because it includes a parking deck and cash to improve the beach. Quibble about the details, but inertia that lets the beach area decline is a worse option. Of Mayor Romano's three opponents, only Marc Drautz merits serious consideration. He's a kindergarten teacher who says the commission's approval of the Lucerne Arms project sent him "over the top." The city hands out approvals and variances, he says, but demands nothing from developers.

Mr. Drautz also says Mayor Romano has not effectively handled issues involving Lake Worth's immigrant population, including housing and where to stage day-labor pickups. It's true that the city and police have at times been clumsy. But immigration is a federal issue dumped onto Lake Worth, and Mayor Romano has coped well enough. Because Mr. Drautz has not served on city boards and is largely an unknown, it's impossible to say that he could have done better. If Mr. Drautz is not elected, he should get involved and try again.

The other mayoral candidates are John "Jump" Jordan, who was a state representative 35 years ago, and Panagioti "Peter" Tsolkas, who professes to be an anarchist but is running for elective office. Whatever happened to principle?

The Post also endorses city commission incumbents Retha Lowe in District 1 and Nadine Burns in District 3. Both have been neighborhood activists and have constructive instincts that help Lake Worth confront its problems.

Commissioner Lowe wants more consistent code enforcement, better police visibility, a summit of concerned parties to find a safe day-labor solution. She says the recreation department is poor and promises to get more children into programs. Her opponent, Ron Exline, is a former mayor. Commissioner Burns agrees that recreation must be improved. She's proud of the utilities progress and is working toward a day-labor solution. Unlike Commissioner Lowe, she voted against selling Old Bridge Park. Her opponents are anti-Romano candidates Harold A. Levin and Drew Martin.

Smear tactics in Gardens

In the final days of an ugly city council campaign, Palm Beach Gardens residents have been inundated by irresponsible attacks from campaigns and groups with misleading names such as Residents for Truth. When voters go to the polls Tuesday, they deserve facts.

Here's the short version: Mayor Eric Jablin in Group 3 and Group 5 candidate Jody Barnett are being lied about by: Group 5 incumbent Annie Marie Delgado; Mayor Jablin's opponent, Rick Sartory; and supporters who don't want to be identified before the election.

Perhaps the most misleading mailer, the first in a series from Residents for Truth, attacked Mayor Jablin for a secret "$200 million dirty land deal." In fact, Mayor Jablin did the council's bidding in trying to attract The Scripps Research Institute as an economic draw to the city. He met with a landowner to negotiate a lower price -- for the county, which would make all decisions about buying the land.

Another "Truth" mailer faults Mayor Jablin for increasing city taxes. In fact, the city millage rate actually has gone down to $6.02 per $1,000 of property value from $6.25 three years ago. Mayor Jablin is trashed for doubling his salary to a reasonable $24,000 in a campaign piece that fails to point out that Ms. Delgado voted to increase her own council salary to $22,000.

The same group slammed Ms. Barnett in a vicious mailer falsely accusing her of business problems that caused a bankruptcy. Ms. Barnett admits to filing for personal bankruptcy, after cancer and divorce decimated her finances. The mailer attacks her work as a prosecutor, saying she put dangerous felons on the street. Ms. Barnett does not handle felony cases.

Ms. Delgado's campaign literature complements the undocumented attacks. While Mayor Jablin is blamed for tax boosts, Ms. Delgado takes credit for tax cuts -- during the same period. Furthermore, Ms. Delgado can't help being divisive. She told a Palm Beach Post reporter that Ms. Barnett was playing "the Jew card" by putting pictures of her children with a Menorah in a campaign flier. Ms. Barnett is Jewish.

Behind this relentless direct-mail campaign are people who want to profit from intense development on the Vavrus Ranch, something most Gardens residents oppose. The tactics are despicable, but voters can send the candidates who embrace such tactics a sharp rebuke on Tuesday by voting to elect Mayor Jablin and Ms. Barnett.

Pick Kolbowski, Millar

The most pressing problems in South Palm Beach, the coastal condo community of about 1,500 people, are eroding beaches and eroding bus service. The top two vote-getters in a field of four candidates will win town council seats on Tuesday. The Post recommends incumbent Joseph Kolbowski, 81, a retired jeweler, and Martin Millar, 58, a retired firefighter.

Mr. Kolbowski proposes an alliance with neighboring towns to lobby for state and/or federal help to repair the beaches. He and Mr. Millar might have better luck lobbying the county to restore recently curtailed bus service. The elderly population has a good case, or the town might consider paying to supplement transportation.

Mr. Millar's career experience puts him in a good position to keep tabs on the town's new fire-rescue contract with Palm Beach County. His relative youth is a plus in a town that needs increased participation from younger residents.

The other candidates, semiretired businessmen Murray Fox, 66, and Robert Gottlieb, 64, also are good candidates who should try to serve South Palm Beach if they are not elected.

Pick Kolbowski, Millar

The most pressing problems in South Palm Beach, the coastal condo community of about 1,500 people, are eroding beaches and eroding bus service. The top two vote-getters in a field of four candidates will win town council seats on Tuesday. The Post recommends incumbent Joseph Kolbowski, 81, a retired jeweler, and Martin Millar, 58, a retired firefighter.

Mr. Kolbowski proposes an alliance with neighboring towns to lobby for state and/or federal help to repair the beaches. He and Mr. Millar might have better luck lobbying the county to restore recently curtailed bus service. The elderly population has a good case, or the town might consider paying to supplement transportation.

Mr. Millar's career experience puts him in a good position to keep tabs on the town's new fire-rescue contract with Palm Beach County. His relative youth is a plus in a town that needs increased participation from younger residents.

The other candidates, semiretired businessmen Murray Fox, 66, and Robert Gottlieb, 64, also are good candidates who should try to serve South Palm Beach if they are not elected.

Endorsement: In this fight, Friedman

By electing Robert M. Friedman on Tuesday, Jupiter voters can give the town council a solid majority whose controlled-growth policies will reflect those of most residents.

Mr. Friedman, a Florida Atlantic University vice president, faces North District incumbent Kathleen G. Kozinski. At one point, Councilwoman Kozinski wasn't going to seek reelection. Mr. Friedman said she
told him that he had her endorsement. "Then," he said, "she changed her mind. Now, I'm in the fight of my life."

It's one he deserves to win. Mr. Friedman is one of those rare candidates who combine knowledge of the issues with reasonable, thought-out positions that are clearly expressed. That will be especially
important in Jupiter as the council balances growth and quality of life and deals with the emotional issue of migrant workers gathering around town in the morning awaiting pickup for day labor jobs.

Mr. Friedman's six-year record on the planning and zoning board is one of support for controlled growth. "One reason I'm running," he said, "is to prevent the shift to uncontrolled growth." Notably, in 2003
he opposed the Jupiter Falls shopping center, one of the most controversial projects in the town's history. Councilwoman Kozinski claims that she also opposed the project, but she voted for the land-use change
from industrial to commercial that would have allowed the center. After two state planning agencies criticized the project, Councilwoman Kozinski, a lawyer, said she would have demanded that the center be
made smaller. Mr. Friedman had the growth-control position from the start.

Mr. Friedman breaks down the migrant labor issue into three parts. First, Jupiter must better enforce ordinances that limit the number of people per house. Second, assume that while 150 to 200 people may be
gathering at Center Street and Pennock Lane, "maybe 1,500 are getting picked up each day." Third, treat the migrants as "citizens of Jupiter. They are not violating any ordinance by looking for work, and I am
not opposed to helping them." But he would not use $1 million in city money. He would have the town work with a private agency. Councilwoman Kozinski has a similar position, but Mr. Friedman seems
more like the candidate who would follow through.

Also on the ballot is a South District race between incumbent Donald D. Daniels and David Harris. But Mr. Harris has withdrawn. If Mr. Friedman wins, only Councilman Daniels will remain from the three
who voted for Jupiter Falls. For that and other reasons, Jupiter will benefit if voters put Mr. Friedman on the council.

Jupiter Island's beaches not storm-relief priority

Given the fuzzy rules of the hurricane-damage game, it isn't surprising that Jupiter Island wants $9.1 million in public money to pump sand onto beaches in front of 140 private homes and two slivers of public
beach.

After all, Miami-Dade County, at least 100 miles south of where any of last year's four storms hit, has received more than $30 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency claims. FEMA Director Michael
Brown has maintained, successfully, that who got this money must remain secret because of privacy issues. Some people received money for ice and snow damage and for television sets, new clothes and even
funeral expenses -- in an area where no one died from the storms. Two weeks ago, state Sen. Ron Klein, D-Delray Beach, called for a full inquiry of how Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Florida's home
insurer of last resort, paid its hurricane claims. Sen. Klein particularly questioned Miami-Dade, where Citizens paid $22 million to 6,229 people who filed claims.

In this kind of climate, Jupiter Island's request that FEMA pay that $9.1 million for beach renourishment may not be shocking. But the town's own consultant in late October noted that island beaches grew
wider in some areas after the hurricanes and credited previous town-financed renourishment projects for the gains. A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, said the island has received FEMA money
to replenish sand removed in Northeaster storms.

The exclusive town pays to replace sand washed away by natural erosion. It can't receive federal money for that because Jupiter Island doesn't provide public beach access every half-mile, as federal rules
require. But FEMA rules allow beach renourishment after a disaster without regard to access, Rep. Foley's spokesman said. Access now is available only at a Martin County beach at the east end of Bridge Road
and, for a fee, at the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge on the island's north end. Parking is limited. Rep. Foley won't comment on the request, his aide said, because he believes the matter is between
Jupiter Island and FEMA.

In fact, $9.1 million to beef up beaches in front of private homes should be at the bottom of FEMA's priority list. Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties suffered severe, widespread damage. Many
neighborhoods still have homes with blue-tarp roofs. Many families still are living in FEMA trailers. St. Lucie County needs money to refurbish its civic center for use as a shelter. Governments in all three
counties are short money spent for debris removal. Rebuilding of roads washed out by the storms in Martin and St. Lucie is not complete. Beaches other than Jupiter Island's suffered blows as bad or worse.

The game has gone on long enough. This one time, Jupiter Island should have to stand in line.

Endorsement: Reelect Delray's Levinson

Delray Beach Commissioner Jon Levinson uses a personal anecdote to illustrate how far the city has come in 16 years. Attracted by Delray's renaissance, his daughter has returned home to teach at Banyan Creek Elementary School, and she is living in some of the new downtown housing designed to attract young professionals.

Before taking office in 2001, Commissioner Levinson served on the usual mix of committees -- among them Visions 2010 and the Downtown Business Area Plan -- for which Delray Beach has become known. His opponent in Tuesday's District 3 election, Jayne King, has a similarly long résumé, notably as president of Progressive Residents of Delray. Like others who have served in advisory roles, she wants to set policy. But her record and her wish to continue being "an agent for change" aren't reason enough for voters to turn out Commissioner Levinson.

One of Commissioner Levinson's best actions was his support for moving Atlantic High School from Seacrest Boulevard to Congress and Atlantic avenues. The move was controversial, and it involved the city rejecting a first site for the new school. When it was over, however, Delray Beach had land for a new Atlantic High -- intended to keep all the city's students at home -- the promise of a middle school at the old site, a new housing development and added recreation facilities. Commissioner Levinson also believes that traffic will not pose a safety issue when the school opens this fall. One of Commissioner Levinson's weak moments was his support for what the city called a consensus committee to study bike lanes on A1A. In fact, the committee was unbalanced in favor of not building 5-foot lanes.

If reelected, Commissioner Levinson wants to "focus on getting more Class A office space" to go with new downtown residential units, to resolve the Carver Square and Carver Estates issues and to increase work force housing. He knows in a personal way how such things benefit Delray Beach.

Endorsement: Back Belle Glade bonds

The rats were bad enough -- 11 trapped one day last year... in just one hour. But it was mold, mildew and structural flaws that a year ago forced Belle Glade firefighters out of the station city commissioners declared a "serious health threat."

Then Hurricane Jeanne pushed the city's police department into its own temporary quarters -- an old rec center without a holding cell, private space for detective interviews or adequate radio transmission for dispatchers. The police and fire departments need the better buildings that the $10 million bond issue on Tuesday's ballot would provide. The Post recommends a vote FOR BONDS.

Issuing the general obligation bonds -- believed to be a first for Belle Glade -- would allow the city to build a municipal complex in three phases, starting with a $2 million renovation and expansion of the fire department. A more spacious city hall would follow, with room for the police department while the current city hall is gutted and renovated for the final phase -- the new police headquarters. The city is seeking federal and state grants and has requested money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for hurricane damage. "We're all hoping," city attorney Glen Torcivia said, "FEMA will allow the money that would be used for repairs at the old station to go instead toward the new station."

City officials estimate the first phase would cost the owner of a home valued at $75,000 about $30 a year. "I realize," City Manager Houston Tate said, "that my employees are at risk when they go to work because the facilities are not designed to protect them." Police suspects are handcuffed to chairs.

Replacing the three buildings -- each at least 30 years old -- would help plans to attract residents and jobs. Crucial to that long-term effort is the $35 million Lake Region Water Treatment Plant, with construction scheduled to start in June. As long as emergency employees remain in the temporary buildings, "the risk," Mr. Tate said, "is optimal." The bond offers optimal opportunity for improvement.

Endorsement: Keep Castro as mayor

As a town commissioner and now mayor, Paul Castro has helped lead Lake Park's long climb out of near-bankruptcy. The town's tax rate has dropped for four straight years, while its reserves have increased from barely $300,000 to nearly $3 million. New projects such as Lowe's, Target, Wal-Mart Supercenter and One Park Place promise more revenue. Better staffed county police and fire-rescue service bode well for negotiations on also outsourcing public works.

Retiree Bill Otterson, a former town commissioner who is challenging Mayor Castro in Tuesday's election, cannot match Mr. Castro's energy, and Mayor Castro is just as knowledgeable. Phillip Yeager, a roofing contractor and the third candidate, has not served on town boards, hasn't sufficiently studied the issues and has just one issue.

During tense union negotiations with the firefighters last year, Mayor Castro received harassing phone calls and an epithet was spray-painted across his property with weed killer. When the mayor asked for help, the then-town manager offered to install a $1,100 surveillance system in Mayor Castro's home. Mayor Castro accepted, but the manager failed to inform the commissioners. Even Mr. Yeager, however, says he would have supported having the system installed. Other residents say they see the system as one the town owns, and have accepted Mayor Castro's offer to pay for it if the town can't use it after he leaves office.

More typical of Mayor Castro, zoning administrator for Palm Beach, was his presence on the streets with several commissioners after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, assisting emergency workers, ensuring services to residents and even helping with applications for the Blue Roof program. He wants the town to finish work on the nearly completed marina, the Twin City Mall and the Park Avenue westward extension. The commission also must hire a manager. Mayor Castro's record indicates that he should be in on the decision.

Cool off in Lake Worth

The sale of Old Bridge Park has brought Lake Worth a mess the city didn't need. A charter amendment to limit future land sales probably wouldn't clean up the mess and might make it worse. So The Post suggests that Lake Worth residents who are right to be mad contain their anger on Tuesday and vote down the proposed charter change.

Mayor Rodney Romano and commissioners who sold Old Bridge Park deserve the political headaches their methods have caused them. If the charter change passes, the city will have to get voter approval to sell any of its parkland, downtown land or land between Lake Worth Lagoon and A1A. The petition drive intended to prevent the commission from selling Old Bridge Park -- and to register displeasure at other sales -- but the city rushed to unload the park, at a price that was too low, just weeks before voters could stop them.

If voters approve the change -- and there's a good chance they will -- opponents of the sale to developer Leslie Evans might use it as a weapon in court. There could be lawsuits anyway, but the charter change would be one more expensive complication. As emotional as the issue is, it's better to let it go than empty the city treasury on legal bills. The park was just a place for fishermen to stand, and the county has insisted that the public retain access. Palm Beach also might stop Mr. Evans from building the condos he envisions there.

As an emergency measure, the charter proposal had some appeal. On its own merits, it's lacking. Critics say the measure is so broad that it would keep the city from conveying easements for roads and utilities. Maybe. But the biggest flaw is that the issue is too complex for a referendum. If residents don't like political decisions, vote out the politicians who made them. If limiting land sales is the goal, it would be better to require a commission supermajority of four votes.

The Post understands the impulse to vote for the charter change. The mayor and some commissioners deserve it, but Lake Worth itself deserves better.

Hold off rush to begin Scripps work at Mecca

Palm Beach County's decision to begin site work for The Scripps Research Institute at Mecca Farms is based on a shaky U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit granted last week. The permit is not an excuse for the county to ignore lawsuits and begin erecting buildings.

The corps permit is shaky because it covers just 25 percent of the 1,920-acre site, doesn't allow the construction of Scripps' front-door road -- PGA Boulevard -- and doesn't guarantee that the bulk of the "biotech village" promised for the site, including a significant portion of the space promised for biotech spinoff companies, also will be permitted. It took nine months to get just this permit, and the county has not even asked the corps to grant a permit for the remaining roughly 1,500 acres and the extension of PGA Boulevard, which would disturb wetlands at the neighboring Vavrus Ranch.

The full permit will draw more scrutiny, not less. The county initially sought a partial permit to speed up Scripps construction at Mecca, but the lack of a full permit undermines arguments for the site. If Gov. Bush could not support the Briger/Abacoa site until the county had permits for 8 million square feet of biotech development, how can he or the county move forward on Mecca without the same certainty? Absent the full permit, Scripps could end up nearly alone at Mecca because building could take place only on one-fourth of the land.

Yet some county commissioners are so eager to make sure that Mecca is home to Scripps that they want construction to begin now, despite the partial permit and litigation. To meet a contractual promise, the county is filling canals, forging internal roads and establishing building pads. But Mecca may never be built upon. It took the corps nearly a year to permit the safest 535 acres. Environmentalists are preparing federal lawsuits to challenge the partial permit. More lawsuits await the full permit.

But the bellicose calls for the county to just get Scripps up and running at any cost continue. State Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, wants to give to the state's Medically Needy program the $310 million pledged to Scripps. Sen. Bennett ignores the obvious: Scripps has met its benchmarks for hiring and has started to draw down the money, most recently $55 million approved Monday. Rep. Stan Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, offers to tailor Scripps a special taxing district, like the one that created a Disney World with its own government. His "backup plan" is silly since the Mecca site already has been zoned for Scripps and lawsuits that can't be stopped by legislative meddling are well under way. The efforts to pressure Palm Beach County into making mistakes the public doesn't deserve are sadly summed up by House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City: "A bad decision beats no decision." No, it doesn't.

County commissioners aren't idling. They approved a backup site, the Florida Research Park, and are waiting to hear whether it's acceptable to Scripps. The sooner commissioners jettison Mecca, the sooner work can begin at the research park, and the more taxpayers will save on legal bills from legitimate lawsuits.

A shooting in Delray

The shooting death of a teenager by police can cause serious trouble if information is too scarce and rumors fill the void, which is why Delray Beach needs to be careful about releasing sensitive details but prompt about releasing the basics.

Saturday evening, Delray Beach police officer Darren Cogoni shot and killed Jerrod Miller, a 16-year-old sophomore at Olympic Heights High School, on the campus of the Delray Full Service Center. That much is known. Still unresolved is what happened at the school gate between Jerrod Miller and police who were providing security for a dance, why Mr. Miller apparently drove his car into the courtyard area between buildings on the campus, and just what happened when the car turned a corner and police fired.

Because the dead student is African-American and the officer in question is white, suspicion may be a predictable first response. So the city made a mistake by not releasing the officer's name until Monday. It's one of the basics, and the more that authorities seem to be forthcoming at the start when possible, the more credibility authorities will have as the investigation proceeds.

In other cases, the name has been released quickly. In 1994, when a West Palm Beach officer killed a man during a drug stakeout, the officer's name was released in time for the next day's newspaper, though the shooting occurred after 10 p.m. In 2001, a Stuart officer killed a man after a late-Saturday night traffic stop that led to the victim driving off with the officer hanging from the car. The name was in Monday's paper. And in 1993, when a Delray Beach police sergeant, while off-duty, shot and killed an unarmed man following an encounter that prompted a long chase, the sergeant's name was in the news story.

Given the potential for a rush to judgment, the city can be glad for the response of Bernard Quince, president of MAD DADS of Greater Delray Beach. He acknowledged that some residents are claiming that race explains the shooting. Said Mr. Quince, "We want to say, 'Let's receive the correct information first.' " Investigators can help by releasing it promptly.

Endorsement: Liberti over Thompson

West Palm Beach city commissioners have major decisions to make about downtown redevelopment, but one decision they supposedly had made was where to put a new city hall.

The commission voted unanimously 18 months ago to build city hall with a new library on the long-dormant D&D Centre site at the corner of Dixie Highway and Clematis Street. So it was particularly surprising to hear Commissioner Ray Liberti say he was thinking about breaking up the D&D plan and moving city hall west to a site near the police department.

Commissioner Liberti is running against Curt Thompson, a planner for the South Florida Water Management District, for the District 4 Seat in the March 8 election. Despite his vacillation, The Post recommends Commissioner Liberti for a second term over Mr. Thompson, an amiable candidate with a spotty understanding of city problems. In District 2, Commissioner Ike Robinson is unopposed.

The day after telling The Post that he was investigating the move from D&D because of concerns about parking and other problems, Commissioner Liberti changed his mind. He said he reviewed plans for the site; his concerns were satisfied. The city should build city hall and the library together as planned. But why was the former state legislator and planner with a doctorate in public administration floating such a radical change to the city's most critical project so long after it was supposedly decided? Did he make the wrong vote then? If not, why is he wavering now?

Commissioner Liberti says he is unhappy with the city's planning department -- "as planners, they make good plumbers" -- and claims to have difficulty getting complete answers. Perhaps his most effective work came last year in helping Baywinds residents stop Lennar Homes from building mid-rise condos alongside single-family homes. He also has worked to resolve conflicts over city services to gated communities, most of which are in his district. Commissioner Liberti says he wants to be "part and parcel" of downtown development ideas. Consistency would help.

Give students more help than cosmetic voucher

One flaw in Gov. Bush's latest school voucher proposal overshadows the others: It abandons the children whom the governor says that he wants to help.

The plan, which Gov. Bush wants the Legislature to adopt, would offer a private school voucher to any student who failed the FCAT reading test three years in a row. Private schools, in the governor's fantasy, then would succeed where public schools have failed. As with already enacted voucher programs, his scheme would remain a fantasy because Gov. Bush has no intention of gathering or offering proof.

Not that it would be hard to test Gov. Bush's theory. Just require that the 10,000 students who might use public money to jump to private schools continue to take the FCAT. But Gov. Bush, like too many other voucher proponents, is not willing to check his fantasy against the reality of head-to-head competition. Private schools won't have to give the FCAT. Parents can decide if the school is working. If that's the standard, let public school parents into the same club.

In fact, Gov. Bush's new vouchers would let public schools and the state off the hook. Many of the worst readers would vanish from the public school system. Public school FCAT scores, as a consequence, would increase. For Gov. Bush, it would be a double political victory. He would have expanded vouchers and improved FCAT results. If schools tried to jack up their FCAT results by excluding the worst readers, the state would accuse them of cheating. But that is exactly what Gov. Bush's voucher proposal would do. And no one ever would know if vouchers actually helped those vanished students to read.

Another slight problem is that the courts have ruled unconstitutional the governor's original voucher plan, which allows students at underperforming schools to get vouchers. Gov. Bush brushes that off with typical disrespect for the judiciary, which, he says, "has a role to determine the constitutionality of laws. In the interim, we have a duty to reform our system."

Other parts of Gov. Bush's education package are welcome, if belated. He wants to move FCAT testing, which now comes in February and early March, to later in the school year. He wants a pay increase for teachers at poor and failing schools. He also wants pay increases for teachers in shortage areas such as math and science. Now, high school students who flunk the FCAT can't graduate, even if their grades are good enough. Gov. Bush -- who is responsible for that rule -- proposes to mitigate that unfairness by letting affected students substitute equivalent scores on college entrance exams.

Gov. Bush is right that students who fail the reading FCAT three times in a row urgently need help. But they need real, verifiable help -- and a lot sooner than three years. Gov. Bush does not intend to demand proof that voucher students learn to read. That's not reform; it's abandonment.