D&D project threatens to consume West Palm

West Palm Beach residents who look at plans for a government complex on the D&D Centre block downtown see a very different project than the one the city proposed 20 months ago.

What began as a $50 million undertaking may cost $100 million. What began as a mixed-use project with as much as 45 percent of the site going to commercial developers, to cut the public's share, now has no commercial development at all. What began as an opportunity to boost downtown now runs the risk of becoming an economic drain. Mayor Lois Frankel justifies the changes by saying that the people deserve a prominent, enduring place to congregate and do their business -- a "public realm." But the public also deserves to know what it's getting into.

Start with the escalating costs. Why has the price tag increased so much? Some of the reasons are beyond the city's control. Demand for building supplies after the hurricanes has driven up the cost of materials -- steel and cement in particular -- by about 30 percent, or $15 million. But other increases are the result of concept changes or miscalculations. Floor space allocations for the city hall and library are up about 25 percent over first estimates. The decision to add a photography museum raised the cost. Difficulties in providing adequate parking have been a factor. Mayor Frankel admits that the project will cost more than $50 million but hasn't offered a revised estimate. She says that will come later. Taxpayers need to see it sooner.

Another unanswered question is how the city will pay for the project. The mayor says the many new downtown residences will create more tax revenue for the Community Redevelopment Agency. She says the CRA can put together a $90 million finance plan and that the city's bonding potential is "outstanding." But is this the best use of the public's money? West Palm Beach needs affordable housing and waterfront redevelopment. The CRA money could go toward those and other needs.

Taxpayers are right to question whether eliminating the commercial component is wise. The city bought the D&D for a hefty $17.7 million and planned to recoup some of that by selling space to private developers. Mayor Frankel says the city changed the approach because public sentiment was against it, but does the public understand the impact of dumping that sensible idea? Also, having no commercial use raises questions about the project's ability to help Clematis Street businesses. Without shops and restaurants in this prime location, at Clematis and Dixie Highway, the complex won't bring customers.

During a workshop last week, city commissioners found themselves in the strange, illogical position of making design and concept decisions without knowing either how much the city had to spend or how much each decision would cost. Why should a city act as if cost doesn't matter? Who gave West Palm Beach the blank check? After residents complained about the nonexistent budgeting during public comment, the mayor dismissed them as political enemies or malcontents. In fact, their questions are legitimate, and the commission should have been asking them long ago.

Put Martin sales tax on next year's ballot

Martin County commissioners -- minus dissenter Sarah Heard -- are considering a please-everybody sales tax plan that ought to please no one.

Operating on Commission Chairman Lee Weberman's suggestion, the commission voted last week to research a 1-cent increase, to 7 cents, which they may ask voters to approve in a special election by mail. The millions collected -- amounts range from $61 million over three years to $204 million over 10 years -- would be divided. Commissioner Weberman's formula suggests 60 percent for road improvements, 20 percent to buy conservation lands, 10 percent for parks and 10 percent for historic preservation and other projects. Commissioner Michael DiTerlizzi opposes any money for conservation lands and joins the rest of the majority in wanting to pair local sales taxes with state money to get the proposed Indian Street Bridge moving, since it is stalled because there is no federal money in sight.

The anti-growth management majority -- Commissioners DiTerlizzi, Weberman and Doug Smith -- laments the plight of Martin motorists stalled in traffic and blames gridlock on previous managed-growth commissions because they didn't approve more road work. But Commissioner Heard points out, correctly, that the fault lies with commissioners who allowed developers to double densities on some properties and lowered service levels on existing roads so they could approve more growth. "You've approved yourselves into an emergency," Commissioner Heard said, "and now you want to make taxpayers provide what should have been asked from developers." Until the commission has increased impact fees to cover more of the true costs of growth, it should not plan a sales tax to make up that shortage.

The other allocations in Commissioner Weberman's formula also could be a problem. While the last attempt to pass a sales tax for conservation lands failed by only 2,000 votes in November, in the aftermath of two hurricanes, some believe that adding other uses, such as park improvements, affected the outcome. The county should provide not only for roads but also for parks, historic preservation and other projects out of its general funds. But land for preservation is a separate activity that calls for extra money. Rapidly rising land costs underscore the need to buy conservation lands soon, before they are priced too high to save.

Commissioner Heard and Commissioner Susan Valliere want to put the tax proposal on next year's ballot rather than schedule a special vote. Commissioner Valliere asked how the commission could consider spending $186,200 on a special election when "you're telling people you don't have money to spend on roads and emergency equipment."

Several citizens at Tuesday's commission meeting opposed a long time period for any tax, saying voters aren't likely to approve increases over six years or a decade. Commissioners asked the county staff to poll residents before they decide how to proceed. A sales tax to buy preservation lands still makes sense, but the commission should not ask taxpayers to approve a long-term tax to build roads or pay for other projects that belong in the county budget.

Make Briger biotech lure

Gov. Bush and Palm Beach County want biotech to transform the economy. To that end, they have mangled growth rules to allow a massive development, surrounding the Scripps Research Institute, at a former citrus grove. But they have objected to lesser changes that would bring even more biotech to Palm Beach Gardens.

Why would the state and county work against biotech in any form? Jealousy, fear of competition and real-estate profiteering. Jealousy because Palm Beach Gardens pitched its Briger site as an alternative to Mecca Farms, angering the governor and some county commissioners. Competition because the county fears it will lose biotech business -- and resulting land sales -- to the better-located Briger tract. Profiteering because if homes go on Briger, there will be more demand for biotech at the undeveloped Vavrus Ranch next to Mecca Farms.

If biotech is a boon, however, the state and county benefit no matter where it goes. Blocking efforts to bring biotech to the Briger site next to Interstate 95 in Palm Beach Gardens reduces the county's overall attractiveness. Some hospitals already have said they would prefer to be near the highway. Is the county going to urge them to go away just because they don't want to be 10 miles west?

Like Mecca, Briger introduces significant traffic problems. They can be reduced by cutting the size of the project. Now that Briger no longer is vying for Scripps, it no longer needs to meet Gov. Bush's arbitrary 8-million-square-foot development standard. Gardens officials are thus likely to accept a more manageable level. Redoing the city's traffic studies after state and county objections will cost $20,000. A traffic study based on less development would add $10,000 to the bill, money the city is not prepared to spend to learn something so obvious: Less growth, less traffic.

As commissioners approved Scripps at Mecca last week, Commissioner Mary McCarty urged that work start now to bring biotech to existing sites, including the ready-to-build Florida Research Park west of Palm Beach Gardens. That's a smart move. Assuring that Briger also is available would be equally prescient. It makes more sense to draw biotech to the Florida Research Park, which was set aside for industrial uses decades ago, and the Briger site, which is near existing population centers, roads and utility lines, than to devour green space at Mecca and Vavrus.

As home prices soar, building consumes more and more land, leaving few places for research and development. If Scripps is as successful as promised, Mecca, Florida Research Park and Briger all can be assets. The county has a lot invested in bringing Scripps to Mecca, but it has more invested in assuring the success of biotech beyond Mecca.

Give up goods on Bolton

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and the White House portray last week's delay in voting on John Bolton's nomination as a betrayal of the truce in the filibuster fracas. That's just more spin.

For one thing, the filibuster fight was over judicial nominees. Mr. Bolton is nominated to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. While he is as rotten a choice as President Bush's judicial picks -- even some Republicans, such as Ohio Sen. George Voinovich, won't support him -- he's not up for a lifetime appointment. So while Democrats are concerned about the damage he can do, they wouldn't block an up-or-down vote if the administration would stop hiding information about Mr. Bolton's record in the State Department.

Given ample testimony that Mr. Bolton sought the firing of analysts who wouldn't twist evidence to suit his ideology on Cuba, it is not only reasonable but imperative that senators have access to documents that could clear up whether he did the same thing with intelligence on Syria and explain why he was using U.S. electronic eavesdropping capabilities to check up on U.S. officials. The Bush administration says the Senate has all it needs and that the sought-after material isn't relevant. But those aren't decisions the administration gets to make. Insisting on an up-or-down vote is one thing. Insisting on an uniformed vote is another.

Add no political spin after ultimate sacrifice

Whatever happens in any war, no family of any fallen soldier should go through the agony that Pat Tillman's parents had to endure.

They learned this month how much the Army lied to them and the nation about how their son died in April 2004 in Afghanistan. Cpl. Tillman had drawn the country's attention when he left a career as a professional football player after the 9/11 attacks to enlist. He said that fighting terrorism was more important than the millions he left on the table. To exploit Cpl. Tillman's image, the Army covered up the fact that he had been killed by friendly fire. Even his parents were deceived during a very public memorial service in May 2004. Last week, Cpl. Tillman's mother went public with the family's anger:

"Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," Mary Tillman told The Washington Post, which exposed the coverup. "The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

Whatever one thinks about the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, there seems to be a different feeling toward the troops than there was three decades ago. During the Vietnam War, some people seemed unable to distinguish between those who send people to wars and those who fight them. Some war protesters derided Vietnam vets, who did not start the 11-year conflict, as well as Lyndon Johnson, who did. Obviously, 9/11 may have made for a different national sentiment, but Americans seem to respect the service and sacrifice of those in Iraq, even if they don't agree with the mission.

Every person serving, especially in harm's way, deserves the nation's thanks. With American commanders more pessimistic about chances for a signficant troop drawdown next year, tens of thousands of soldiers will continue the hard, dangerous work of trying to control Iraq while trying to survive.

Some won't. Their families will get the dreaded visit, and parents will grieve, as Pat Tillman's did. They will deserve sympathy -- and the truth.

Make the Mintons pay

Home loan interest too high? Don't pay the mortgage. Rent too steep? Stiff the landlord. For ordinary people, failure to pay would leave them on the street.

But the Mintons of St. Lucie County, who have a sweetheart deal with the South Florida Water Management District, are not ordinary people. Michael Minton, a lawyer, is a former water district board member. His brother, Rick Minton, served in the Legislature. As The Post reported, the Mintons have a long list of excuses for not paying the water district more than $428,000 in rent, but lack of money can't be one of them. The district paid the family $6.3 million for 1,333 acres in St. Lucie County and leased it back, allowing them to keep growing citrus for up to three years. The district frequently leases land back to the previous owners, a practice that is supposed to bring in about $4.7 million annually -- minus what the Mintons and a few other tenants owe. In February, the Mintons' share of the $437,000 shortfall was $343,000.

The Mintons were angry that the district paid less for their land than the family thought it was worth, even though the price was 30 percent higher than the district's appraisals. Michael Minton said the $149-per-acre rent was too high -- particularly in light of more recent district deals that charge tenants rents ranging from nothing to as much as $163 an acre. Three agreements last year set rents at only $20 an acre. He claims that last season's hurricanes and citrus canker on the Treasure Coast make it harder to earn money off the land.

Still, his family signed the contract, he said, planning to change the agreement later. But Mr. Minton, who has represented several Treasure Coast landowners in deals with the district, never tried to renegotiate the rent. His family simply didn't pay the district. Now the family is negotiating to "work off" the money, perhaps by removing nonnative plants and trees from the land and extending the leases, which expire this summer, to 2009. The new deal also might let the Mintons switch their crop from citrus to sod.

Special favors long have marked the district's dealings with farmers, and politics frequently dictates decisions. Those things should change. Making the Mintons pay their rent before giving them a new deal would be a good place to start.

FAU moves wrong ball

Florida Atlantic University students were waiting to get stuck with the bill for bailing out the school's football program, but they weren't prepared for the end run trustees pulled on them.

Ignoring an advisory panel's recommendation to offset athletic fee increases with reductions elsewhere, trustees approved raising the sports charges $2 per credit hour -- from $11.75 to $13.75 -- without doing anything to ease the burden on students. President Frank Brogan said FAU couldn't afford to reduce other fees without hurting current services and threatening its bond rating.

Actually, a more precise analysis is that FAU can't afford the move to NCAA Division I football without hurting services and threatening its bond rating. Football has become a money pit lined with helmets, shoulder pads and delusions. The athletic department is $2 million in debt because of the program, and FAU apparently hopes to dig itself out in $2 increments.

Students would feel better about paying if there was a promising plan for making football viable. But with attendance coming up short and costs rising, the Division I move looks riskier and riskier, with students assuming the risk.

Jeb's usual lesson plan

Then-Gov. Bob Graham set up the Council for Education Policy in 1980 to provide an independent review of Florida education. Gov. Bush killed the Council for Education Policy in 2005 for doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

Failing to heed signs that objective thinking doesn't count for much in Gov. Bush's administration, the council criticized the cheap pre-kindergarten plan Gov. Bush signed into law and poured other rocks into the shoes of powerful people. For example, the council opposed letting status-hungry universities establish new medical schools when the number of doctors could be increased more quickly and frugally through other means.

This year, Gov. Bush recommended that the Legislature eliminate the council, which has 14 employees and a $1.4 million budget. When that didn't work, budget chairmen in the House and Senate simply left money for the council out of the new budget.

Gov. Bush appoints the Board of Education, almost every university trustee and top officials in the Education Department. If there still were an independent Council for Education Policy, it might note that runaway sycophancy will not improve public education.

Brazill: Still an enigma

Five years later, the mystery behind a public tragedy remains.

On May 26, 2000 -- the last day of class for the year -- Nathaniel Brazill returned to Lake Worth Middle School after being sent home for throwing water balloons and killed teacher Barry Grunow with a cheap handgun he had taken from a family friend's home. Water balloons was a kid thing, but prosecutors called the shooting a grown-up thing and charged him as an adult. Thirteen months later, a jury convicted Brazill of second-degree murder, and a judge sent him to prison for 28 years.

Last Sunday, The Post published an interview with Brazill, who is confined at Brevard Correctional Institution near Cape Canaveral. Now 18, the age when he would have graduated from high school, Brazill comes off as being detached from his crime. Mr. Grunow is "not a common thought" most days, though he says he is "heartbroken" that the popular teacher isn't there for his two children. He expresses sorrow only after prompting.

Throughout the investigation and trial, Brazill offered no clue as to why he got the gun, aimed it and shot. There is no excuse for what he did. It remains maddening that he still can't offer an explanation.

No appeal; pay Marissa

Although a Palm Beach County jury has awarded Marissa Amora $35 million in a 3-year-old negligence suit against the Florida Department of Children and Families, a money-wasting appeal could give lawmakers cover to ignore the 6-year-old severely brain-damaged girl for at least another year.

After three weeks of testimony, jurors concluded that DCF should pay 75 percent of the damages ($26 million) because the agency was negligent in its investigation. The Legislature must approve a claims bill for the state to pay any amount over $100,000. A claims bill can be filed only after any appeals have been forfeited or completed, and, with rare exception, they must be filed by Aug. 1 for consideration during the next spring's legislative session. DCF, which has 30 days after the May 17 verdict, has not decided whether to appeal.

In the past 10 years, the Legislature has not awarded more than $10 million in a claims bill. Will any local lawmaker have the political clout and moral purpose to protect Marissa's future financially because DCF failed to protect her physically?

With one year of his term left, House Appropriations Chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, probably won't be around to vote on Marissa's claim. But Rep. Negron, who is running for state attorney general, dismissed the jury's decision:

"DCF never hit this child once. DCF never abused this child. It is impossible for any agency of the government to predict the future or to prevent evil people from doing bad things. In a free society, no one can expect the government to be the guarantor of anyone's safety, including a child." This from the lawyer who sued the state in 1éé1, taking $40,000 for legal fees and expenses of the $150,000 award granted to his client, who had been wrongly jailed and convicted of attempting to murder a Port Salerno woman. Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, who is set to take over leadership of the Senate in 2007, did not return phone calls about the case.

In the past two years, DCF has paid more in legal fees and costs ($2.34 million) to defend tort/negligence claims involving child-care and/or abuse from clients than it has in settlements to the victims ($2.31 million). In that same period, DCF spent another $10.8 million -- one third on legal fees and costs, the rest on settlements -- on federal civil rights child-care and/or abuse claims. DCF is fighting 110 lawsuits involving child-care and/or abuse claims from clients and has paid more than $6 million to defense attorneys in those cases.

Although the jury foreman in the Marissa Amora case said the jurors were trying solely to address the needs of a girl whom DCF abandoned, not trying to send a message with the large damage award, the verdict speaks loudly. It would be wrong for the state to keep paying lawyers to defend what the state never should have allowed.

Enjoy the housing boom, and handle it with care

Amid the all-good-news-all-the-time stories about the regional housing boom's windfall profits and hot market comes the tiniest bit of bad news from the Treasure Coast.

The building inspection system, which allows developers to hire private inspectors rather than rely on local governments, failed -- not on run-of-the-boom homes, either, but in Tesoro, an enclave of multimillion dollar homes in Port St. Lucie. The private inspectors signed off on work at about 30 homes that never were inspected. In some cases, the private inspectors weren't licensed to approve mechanical, electrical and plumbing work but approved it anyway. Work on the luxury homes stopped for a month and hasn't resumed on all of them. Developers were reported to a state agency and hit with thousands in extra costs to make sure that work done without permits meets stricter building codes.

Port St. Lucie, the second fastest-growing city in the country, is adding four inspectors to its 26-person staff and tightening the city's oversight of private inspectors. Palm Beach County has avoided problems with private inspectors. The role of a private inspection firm in Martin County was questioned in July when two workers were killed after a building collapsed during construction of Tranquility, a Hobe Sound condo complex.

In this overheated real-estate climate, local governments face more demands to supervise growth. As exciting as the housing boom may be -- either for real-estate speculators or average citizens making a big profit selling the family home -- it has happened so fast that some problems were inevitable. Coupled with last summer's storms, which destroyed or severely damaged many mobile homes and older houses, the boom's rising prices mean that teachers, police officers and other workers have fewer places to rent and few homes they can afford to buy.

Last Sunday, The Post chronicled the boom's effects on neighborhoods in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, showing areas where home prices have doubled and still are rising, and marginal neighborhoods where homes under $100,000 are available to buyers willing to make repairs or put up with higher crime rates. An earlier story put Palm Beach County in a tie with Sarasota County on the state's west coast for the second-hottest real-estate market in the nation -- and the ninth-priciest. The median price for homes is up 36 percent over the first quarter of 2004, to $363,600 in Palm Beach County and $230,100 in Martin and St. Lucie counties.

Experts are calling it Florida's biggest property boom since the 1é20s. Low interest rates, an uncertain stock market and out-of-state and out-of-country buyers vying for vacation homes or investments continue to fuel the frenzy. Others say that since the tech bubble burst and the Federal Reserve Board drove down the price of money, housing has taken up the slack.

For all the benefit the boom has brought to individuals and cities, it carries a risk for homeowners -- getting in too deep without having a way out -- and a double risk for public officials: overwhelming government and creating the false security of endless growth revenue. Planning will be hard enough. Cities and counties that make too many expensive commitments could leave future residents with a big tax burden. It's called a "bubble" for a reason, and it was messy when the last one burst.

Water plant needs state

In the five years since The Post exposed the dangerously high levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the drinking water for Pahokee and South Bay, the Legislature repeatedly has backed away from its responsibility to help fix the problem. This year was no different.

Rather than allot the $2.5 million Palm Beach County had requested toward building a new Lake Region Water Treatment Plant for those towns and Belle Glade, the Legislature agreed to just $200,000. As a result, county officials -- who had planned to break ground next month -- are restarting the contract process, trying to cut costs, which will push back the opening of the plant another year, to 2008. The county, the South Florida Water Management District and the federal government have committed to financing about half the cost of the $37 million project. But without the state's support, "we're quite a few millions of dollars short," County Administrator Bob Weisman said.

Bids to build the plant also came in high, $25 million to $27 million, because of the ever-increasing costs of construction materials caused in part by the coastal building boom. The new bidding process will take into account that U.S. Sugar is allowing some of its land to be used. County Water Utilities Director Bevin Beaudet plans to look for ways to trim the building requirements and use less expensive materials. The county also will seek more grants.

The state has a source of money -- its new $1.1 billion growth management budget. Although $200 million of that budget is for water supply improvements, it is unclear whether or when Palm Beach County would be able to spend any of that money on the water plant.

In recent years, the smaller cities have been required to measure levels of chemicals in the water drawn from Lake Okeechobee, but health officials have been aware of the high levels of trihalomethanes in Belle Glade's water for at least two decades. Each delay in replacing the water plant increases health risks by prolonging exposure to hazardous water. The delays also fend off needed opportunities for economic development, discouraging new businesses and homeowners from investing in the cities around Lake Okeechobee.

The Legislature's inattention to unsafe drinking water in the Glades is inexcusable. The state has a practical and a moral obligation to the 30,000 residents dependent on the lake for water. County commissioners made the water plant a priority. Now, it's the state's turn.

... but here's a glitch

Out there in the federal bureaucracy is someone who can give Marie Hagan her life back. Someone in the Florida congressional delegation has to find that person.

The 62-year-old Ms. Hagan, who lives in Okeechobee, is an American citizen. Except, according to the government, she isn't. She was born in Toronto and came to this country in the 1940s as a 13-month-old with her American father, Walter Moen, and his Canadian wife. Mr. Moen had traveled across the border to train with a squadron of the Norwegian Air Force. Because he had lived in this country continuously for at least 10 years, he could confer his citizenship on his daughter.

As The Post reported last week, however, Mr. Moen didn't do the paperwork. So in 1998, when the recently widowed Ms. Hagan tried to change the name on her Social Security account, she learned that she doesn't have citizenship. Unless the government corrects it, she may have no means to support herself. She was laid off, and, among other things, she can't qualify for unemployment benefits.

Ms. Hagan has searched for the paperwork that could make her case, but what she's found hasn't been enough. To say that this seems silly, given all the more serious immigration problems, is obvious. But Sen. Bill Nelson's office hasn't been able to penetrate the post-9/11 immigration bureaucracy with the obvious. Other options, such as applying for a status that could lead to citizenship, would require several years that Ms. Hagan doesn't have.

Ms. Hagan's case is one of those that can get resolved if the right people pay enough attention. She's the right person to help.

New hope in Congress on immigration . . .

Until recently, Congress has been the wrong place to look for clear thinking in the strident national debate over immigration policy. A new bill introduced last week with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, however, may have changed that.

The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act proposes a reasonable approach to dealing with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country and would create a framework that allows the federal government more ability to control borders and improve homeland security. The bill is an expanded version of the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act (AgJOBS) that has been stalled despite the support of more than 60 senators. AgJOBS proposed a guest-worker program for farmworkers that allowed them incremental steps to legal status and residency. The Secure America bill expands most of the same principles to cover all undocumented workers.

Unlike President Bush's guest-worker proposal, which offered no specifics, Congress' plan comes with details and clear standards. The bill would offer temporary status to workers in this country and to migrating workers who can prove they have jobs waiting here. Employers would be required to hire Americans first if possible before turning to foreigners. An electronic registry would monitor compliance of employees and employers. Immigrants would be subject to background checks. The federal government would provide them with a six-year path to residency, but they would have to pay at least $2,000 in fines and back taxes and also demonstrate proficiency in English. With a system in place to track immigrant workers, the government could shift more resources to anti-terrorist efforts.

The bill also puts responsibility for immigration matters where it belongs: in Washington, not with state and municipal governments. Congress needs to act because indecision in Washington is leading to impulsive decisions in the states. This month, the police chief in New Ipswich, N.H. -- population 550 -- charged an illegal Mexican working construction with criminal trespass. "What I'm trying to do is find a manner in which we can get the federal government to step up to the plate and start helping out here," W. Garrett Chamberlain told The Boston Globe. "It's basically a situation here where right now if you make it past the border patrol, you're free and clear. There's no interior enforcement for illegal immigration in the United States. What I'm hoping to do is find a way that if the feds aren't going to help us out, then local enforcement can take care of it."

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., introduced the new legislation in the Senate, and Reps. Luis V. Gutierrez, D-Ill., Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., have sponsored it in the House. The interest of Arizona's delegation stems from the increasing flow of Mexicans across the state's border and the rise of the Minutemen and other citizen patrols since the government tightened enforcement in Texas and California. Last week, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a bill that would have given police the power to enforce federal immigration laws. That is the kind of misguided proposal that Secure America would help prevent.

Skip election politics; just run elections office

Arthur Anderson won election to the decidedly apolitical supervisor of elections job after one of the most politically charged campaigns in memory. Democrats who blamed former Supervisor Theresa LePore for Al Gore's defeat in 2000 energized Dr. Anderson's campaign. Now, Dr. Anderson is considering changes that could turn the office into a politically charged social-service agency. He -- and voters -- would be better off if he concentrated on elections.

Dr. Anderson has cut his budget request three times in a month but still is seeking a 30 percent increase that calls for too many new employees to take on tasks that don't fall under the office's purview. He told The Post that he saw the office as a "change agent" for society, educating voters on such issues as universal health care and the debate over The Scripps Research Institute. As supervisor of elections, however, he is not supposed to be the county's social-service czar. Nor is the office supposed to take sides on political issues. Is he planning, for example, to advocate a position on abortion? As Ms. LePore's tenure made clear, it's hard enough to teach poll workers, train voters on touch-screen systems and deliver noncontroversial elections results.

Dr. Anderson is not suggesting that he would take on social-service duties alone. He wants to add a $52,000-a-year marketing and public relations director to organize speeches and public education forums. In filling jobs, Dr. Anderson is picking people he knows, selecting a 70-year-old Florida Atlantic University adjunct professor for a special projects job at $10,000 more than the position had paid previously and a 24-year-old FAU graduate who had worked for Dr. Anderson's consulting business. Dr. Anderson left his position as an FAU professor for the elections job.

Dr. Anderson has been smart enough to retain employees who have been running elections for years. His aim to improve voter education, particularly for "under-represented constituent groups," is correct. But does he need two employees stationed in Belle Glade? Is he willing to antagonize office veterans by bringing in cronies at high salaries for cushy jobs? Former Broward Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant tried that approach, only to leave the office in shambles after her ineptitude forced Gov. Bush to employ a rarely used provision and remove her from office.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anderson's campaign promises are unfulfilled. He's been too busy to push for a paper trail, his central issue. He says he'll ask Secretary of State Glenda Hood to allow printers and establish rules without legislation -- but he hasn't. He hasn't even taken the first step of establishing a promised technical committee.

County commissioners, who must approve Dr. Anderson's budget, have been appropriately skeptical. They need to reject his attempts at social engineering and rein in his hiring. He shouldn't need commissioners to clarify the role of the supervisor of elections. It's right there, in the title.

Port St. Lucie wish list getting longer, costlier

Port St. Lucie City Council members, dazzled again by dreams of a downtown, are considering a public-private deal promoted by George de Guardiola, a developer of the Abacoa project in Jupiter. Since council members already have added a list of big-ticket items to future budgets, they should be cautious before committing to a project that could cost taxpayers another $50 million over six years.

Mr. de Guardiola has a track record of selling dreams, bankrolled by other peoples' money. His pitch, however, plays well in a city that for decades has hungered for an identity beyond that of the giant subdivision General Development Corp. created, with row after row of lookalike houses and strip malls lining main roads. Mr. de Guardiola would tear down the old Village Green shopping center and replace it with an outdoor esplanade, fountains, sidewalk cafes and a hotel. The public-private project -- including a civic center, four parking garages, police precinct, city hall annex and public plaza for festivals -- could generate an additional $61 million in taxes within 20 years.

Before the council agrees to pay for turning the ugly Village Green into a showplace attraction with Mediterranean-style buildings and tree-shaded sidewalks, it should remember that not all promises came true in Abacoa. Jupiter officials were promised architecturally interesting homes from a variety of builders, but got one company, DiVosta, and not a lot of variety. Mr. de Guardiola and partner Bruce Rendina sued a third partner for failing to put up enough money for the project, then dropped plans for a hotel and conference center and sold the Town Center. Businesses there still struggle.

The number and cost of other projects on Port St. Lucie's wish list offer more reasons for caution:

• West Virginia Drive, a new east-west road to ease traffic in a city expecting to grow from today's 130,000 residents to half a million by 2020. The city will spend $100,000 on a special election June 7 to ask voters to approve a $165 million bond issue to build the new road from U.S. 1 to Interstate 95. Property taxes would pay debt service on the bonds for the next 30 years.

• A charter school system. Figures aren't in yet, but Pembroke Pines elementary, middle and high schools -- which council members recently toured and liked -- cost that Broward County city more than $90 million. Residents would pay twice -- for both city and county schools. St. Lucie County schools, meantime, will seek a separate school bond issue to help pay the nearly $1 billion needed to build new schools for students the growth boom brings to the area.

• The Riverwalk entertainment district, expanding city hall and building a public works complex. Costs for all those are unknown.

Given Port St. Lucie's projected population, the city needs a downtown. But overreaching by the council could leave current residents with a crippling tax burden. Those dreams are financed with the public's money.

Strains in Afghanistan

Appearing in Washington this week with Hamid Karzai, President Bush noted that he was standing next to "the first democratically elected leader in the 5,000-year history of Afghanistan." He did not mention that he also was standing next to the president of the world's primary source of heroin.

Even as the United States tries to establish stability that can lead to a pullout from Iraq, problems in Afghanistan demonstrate the dangers of abandoning a fragile democracy too early. Any doubt that mistakes made in Afghanistan can be repeated in Iraq vanished last week when New York Times articles uncovered links between prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and the later Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq.

Although the Bush administration repeatedly has denied that it prematurely shifted resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, a State Department analysis concludes that President Karzai has been unable or unwilling to crack down on warlords who are behind his country's flourishing opium poppy cultivation. The drug money and the effective creation of provinces administered by drug lords threaten to destroy Afghanistan's attempts to spread democracy outside the capital, Kabul.

In the kind of trade-off that could doom the system he's trying to protect, President Karzai is said to worry that moving against drug traffickers now could spur protests that would ruin elections scheduled for next fall. A crackdown would be unpopular because so many Afghans rely on drug production for income. President Karzai blames the U.S. and Britain -- which also are the key players in Iraq -- for not providing promised economic aid and development.

Relations with Afghanistan became further strained by the revelation that in 2002, U.S. personnel beat to death two Afghan prisoners at the Bagram detention facility. On his visit, President Karzai demanded that the U.S. turn over remaining Afghan detainees but was rebuffed. The Army, the Times reported, tried to cover up the deaths, first reporting that they were from natural causes, even though a coroner testified that one victim's legs "had basically been beaten to a pulp" and that "I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus."

That detainee, identified as "Dilwar," turned out to have been an innocent taxi driver. The officers responsible for his fatal interrogation and that of another Afghan who died six days earlier -- after being repeatedly beaten and shackled to the ceiling of his cell -- were put in charge of interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison in July 2003.

Attempts to cover up such abuse and failure to reveal the role of Pentagon and presidential directives that such prisoners were not entitled to protections has created anger and distrust in Afghanistan and Iraq. More dangerous still is the Bush administration's inability to learn from policy mistakes. Afghanistan has its first elected leader in 5,000 years. Modern Iraq soon could have its first constitution. Unless the United States follows through, the first will be the last.

Bureaucratic dysfunction

Start with the issue on which there can be no disagreement: Taxpayers should not buy Viagra for sex offenders.

Over the past four years, Florida has spent $93,000 to supply 218 sex offenders with Viagra, courtesy of Medicaid. Other states have done the same embarrassing thing. A shocked Gov. Bush ordered it stopped, and federal officials emphasized that states, which share Medicaid costs with the federal government, always have had the power to block such prescriptions.

Gov. Bush, however, didn't stop there. He argued that Medicaid shouldn't pay for Viagra except in the rare cases when it's prescribed to treat conditions other than erectile dysfunction. Congress may ban Medicaid and Medicare from paying for Viagra.

Bring on the debate about whether that's fair. Drugmakers point out that cancer and other serious illnesses cause impotence and that victims should have that symptom treated. But this is a reminder that Medicaid is an imperfect system. States are throwing people off the rolls and reducing benefits. Medicare has its own budget-busting drug-benefit issues.

As long as public policies create a health-care shortage, it's difficult to justify paying for Viagra. It's an issue, despite the impulse to snicker. But fixating on Viagra while there are so many other health-care problems is like worrying about a wart while ignoring a tumor.

Give justice more time

This month, DNA testing enabled Palm Beach County sheriff's investigators to make an arrest in a 5-year-old murder case. If that evidence sends a killer to prison, it won't be the last time that this wondrous technology has closed a case. Unless someone acts, however, there won't be enough time for those whom DNA might clear to have their chance at justice.

Five years ago, DNA evidence exonerated a Broward County man who had been on Death Row. Unfortunately, it didn't clear him until after he had died of cancer. So one year after making an unconstitutional attempt to limit death-penalty appeals, the Legislature allowed inmates whose cases could turn on DNA results to petition for testing by October 2003. The Florida Supreme Court extended that deadline, and this year the Florida Innocence Project sought another extension. Few lawyers handle such post-conviction appeals, which take lots of time to review.

But the Legislature refused, and it wasn't just the first anti-justice blow. Lawmakers also refused to pass legislation that would compensate those who had been wrongly convicted. Evidence of the need came in the form of Wilton Dedge, who spent 22 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit before being freed last August -- because of DNA. His release came too late to file a claims bill for this year's session, but one of Mr. Dedge's lawyers urged the Legislature to pass a bill that would cover all such victims of injustice. The Senate set a limit of $5 million. Mr. Dedge is asking the state for $4.9 million to cover lost income, his parents' expenses and his lawyers who haven't been paid. The House, however, wouldn't agree to more than $200,000.

Despite the setback, Mr. Dedge at least can try again until the Legislature realizes that DNA cuts both ways. Any other Wilton Dedges, though, may be out of luck. After Oct. 1, evidence in their cases does not have to be preserved, and if the evidence in his case had been destroyed, Wilton Dedge would not be free. It may take a lawsuit to extend the deadline. Whatever the method, Wilton Dedge shows why more time is necessary.

Uniform thinking

Girls already couldn't expose their midriffs. Boys already had to tuck in their shirts. This fall, however, students at Palm Beach Lakes High School will go where none of their peers in Palm Beach County have gone. They will have to wear uniforms, and the dress code will extend all the way to their feet, which can't be in flip-flops.

It may not be a change that all schools need to make, but Principal Nate Collins and his staff deserve credit for making it the right way. It came up six years ago -- "a lot of parents had asked us to consider it," Mr. Collins said -- and serious discussion went on for two years before last week's announcement. Palm Beach Lakes formed a committee of 50 students with differing views, involved parents and studied Miami Senior High and Miami Springs High, which require uniforms. "How you do it can become a chore," Mr. Collins said, "but I think we got most people to buy in."

The aim is to make students focus not on who looks the hottest but who studies the hardest. At Palm Beach Lakes, the need is acute. This year, just 16 percent of ninth-graders and 14 percent of 10th-graders scored at grade level or above on the FCAT reading test. A dress code alone won't change those numbers. Mr. Collins, however, points to research showing that uniforms don't just ease pressure on parents to buy their children competitive clothes; uniforms can make it easier for students to concentrate on academics.

Not all Palm Beach Lakes students, Mr. Collins stresses, dressed inappropriately. "But," he said, "it was a constant battle. So then you have to suspend a kid or put him in detention, and now he's missing class. Then comes the FCAT. Now, it will be easier to enforce." He's realistic about what will happen in August. "We know some kids will test us from the start. But we have the teachers to help us because now it's part of the academic piece."

For those who argue that students need to express themselves, let them display creativity when writing. Spaghetti-strap tops and low-riding jeans won't mean much if they don't go to college or can't read a job application.

A confrontration ends, but will issue remain?

There would have been no looming confrontation in the Senate if President Bush had chosen better nominees for federal appeals court vacancies. There should be no illusion that, despite Monday night's truce, the confrontation is over.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the newly minted demagogue on this issue, clearly isn't agreeing that the so-called "nuclear option" -- ending judicial filibusters -- won't remain an option. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., clearly isn't agreeing that his party won't filibuster a nominee, though the compromise agreement allows filibusters only in "extraordinary" circumstances. And President Bush shows no sign of acknowledging that some of his nominees aren't worth risking all-out conflict in the Senate.

Unfortunately, the deal ends filibusters on two of the worst nominees among the seven in question. Janice Rogers Brown, a justice on the California Supreme Court, has dismissed age discrimination and otherwise indicated in her writings that the country would function best with a regulatory climate similar to 1937 -- when there was almost no government check on business. She probably will be confirmed for a seat on the appeals court for the District of Columbia that handles major challenges to federal laws. Priscilla Owen, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, once drew a rebuke for judicial activism -- something the president claims to dislike -- from a colleague named Alberto Gonzales, who is Mr. Bush's attorney general. In that case, though, it was anti-abortion judicial activism, for which the president will make an exception. Justice Owen soon will be confirmed for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Though Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said the seven Democrats and seven Republicans had "kept the Republic," the grip on welcome moderation is slippery. If the list of "moderates" really is no longer than 14, the country is in trouble. Republican partisanship created this showdown, and it became as serious as it did because Sen. Frist is using the issue to impress his party's most conservative voters. Nothing in the results of the 2004 election, however, indicates that most Americans want the judicial branch to become a place where narrow interests rule as firmly as they do in the legislative and executive branches.

Political tyranny suffered a small defeat Monday. President Bush and Sen. Frist will determine how long the majority really does rule.

Realistic about NCLB

Washington's flexibility on the federal No Child Left Behind law is a small improvement. But as mounting expenses to Palm Beach County show, the law risks hurting the students it is supposed to help.

The district has set aside $11 million to cope with NCLB sanctions on schools that fail the "adequate yearly progress" standard two years in a row. The money had been set aside for teachers and materials for poor schools. Much will be spent instead to bus students to "better" schools. The wasteful loophole is that even students making good grades have the right to transfer.

As demonstrated by the waivers granted this month by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at Gov. Bush's request, the standards that failed many schools were not realistic. Bad FCAT scores from a few students could fail an entire school. NCLB divides students into subgroups, such as by ethnicity, and requires that all subgroups pass.

Before, any subgroup with at least 30 students affected the entire school's grade. The new rules incorporate grades only for subgroups that make up at least 15 percent of the student body. The new standard helps bring the federal grade more in line with the state grade. Last year, 68 percent of Florida schools got an A or B from the state, but only 23 percent passed the NCLB. But many schools that get good state grades still will fail under NCLB.

The waiver, though, turns No Child Left Behind into an irony. Grades of many more students won't be counted. Those newly left out will tend to be minorities thatNCLB was supposed to focus on.

Another waiver reduces the percentage of students in each subgroup who must pass the FCAT. Florida's education secretary, John Winn, unconvincingly says that's not a lower standard because all students still have to be on grade level by 2014 -- when most of today's political players conveniently won't have to worry.

Since Mr. Winn brings it up, it never will be realistic or honest to claim that NCLB can live up to its name. The waivers for Florida will be the first of many as the system admits that some children never will make adequate yearly progress. The unanswered question is whether NCLB actually helps more students make better progress.

Medicare needed rewrite

Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in the prescription-drug program must pay a $250 deductible before Medicare starts paying 75 percent. Medicare will pay most of the next $2,000 spent on medicine. The burden is back on the beneficiary for the next $2,850. After that, Medicare will start paying again, for about 95 percent of the costs. Got it?

If that sounds confusing, you might understand why the proposed 2006 Medicare handbook describes it euphemistically: "After you meet the deductible, you pay part of the cost of covered prescription drugs, and the plan pays part." And why the Bush administration had to revise the 106-page draft to get closer to the whole truth.

Members of Congress, state insurance regulators, beneficiaries and their advocates all warned that the handbook was misleading, hard to follow and -- in some areas -- wrong. Medicare "will cover all the types of prescription drugs you may need," for example, would more accurately say, "You may have to appeal to get Medicare to cover all the types of prescription drugs you may need." That's what happens when you try to disguise a drug-industry benefit as a patient benefit.

Right veto on left lane

Thanks to Gov. Bush, Florida drivers will not have to worry about being charged with breaking the law when they are following the law.

Last week, the governor vetoed the misnamed Road Rage Reduction Act, which passed the Legislature with just four dissenting votes in the House. It would have required drivers in the left lane of any "limited-access" four-lane road to yield when a faster driver came up behind, even if the lead driver was at the speed limit. Any driver who didn't yield would get a ticket.

Supporters claimed that the bill would result in fewer drivers angered by left-lane slowpokes. Call us crazy, but aren't drivers supposed to take responsibility for controlling their emotions when they get behind the wheel? Wasn't it just in December that the Florida Highway Patrol cracked down on "aggressive" drivers because they, among other things, tailgate to intimidate slower, speed-limit-abiding motorists?

Some drivers do poke along in the left lane, but this was the wrong way to get at the problem. Next year, maybe the Legislature can think of legislation that would stop drivers from rubbernecking. That would cut road rage.

After seven-hour race, a little girl's life is saved

Lake Worth Mayor Marc Drautz called it "pretty much a miracle" Sunday when searchers found an abducted and sexually assaulted 8-year-old girl alive in a trash container at a secluded landfill. It was a miracle made of good police work and the cooperation of neighbors.

About 100 officers from city, county and state law-enforcement agencies mobilized quickly after getting the call from Lake Worth police, and within seven hours of the girl's disappearance, they had found her and arrested a suspect. Lake Worth Police Chief William Smith put out an Amber Alert and called on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Child Abduction Response Team to join in the search. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office put up a helicopter and sent out a marine unit. Lake Worth police Sgt. Mike Hall and Sheriff's Cpl. Bob Cresswell found the girl in a yellow recycling bin, covered with rocks and broken concrete.

Lake Worth detectives said they were suspicious from the start about the story Milagro Cunningham told. The 17-year-old who was staying in the home where the girl also was staying Saturday night claimed that unknown "white men" had entered the house and kidnapped her. Cunningham said the men had beaten him as he tried to run after their car. His account unraveled under interrogation led by Lake Worth Detective Lt. Dave Matthews, and police say Cunningham ultimately confessed. He faces charges of attempted murder, sexual battery and false imprisonment. The girl, according to her mother and godmother, told police that Cunningham had assaulted her in bed. Police believe that Cunningham took the girl to the landfill on foot in the middle of the night.

The child endured a nightmare, and the story could have been more tragic had police not found her as soon as they did. It is doubtful that she could have survived in the bin much longer. The weight of the rubble made it impossible for her to dig her way out, and the heat inside was suffocating. Sgt. Hall and Cpl. Cresswell saw only a small hand and foot sticking out from under the debris. She reportedly came out of the ordeal in good physical condition but will need more help from the community to overcome the psychological damage.

The unspeakable crime against the child dampens the celebration of her survival. But a little girl is alive today against all odds because law enforcement agencies set aside turf issues, took quick action and did their jobs well.

Defy Bush on stem cells

The announcement last week that South Korean scientists have extracted stem cells from human embryos they produced through cloning underscored the urgency behind a House bill that would expand American research of the potentially life-saving technique. In leading opposition, President Bush and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, are advancing ideology for political purposes. South Korean scientists and others in England are advancing science for disease-fighting purposes.

A bill proposed by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and nearing a vote would allow federal money to be spent researching embryonic stem-cell lines that were developed after August 2001. That year, Mr. Bush enacted a ban restricting federal money for research to just a few stem-cell lines from embryos donated by fertility clinics. They have been found to be contaminated, which makes Rep. Castle's legislation (House Resolution 810) and Senate Bill 471, sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., more timely. "The bottom line," Rep. Castle told The Associated Press, "is when a couple has decided to discard their excess embryos, they are either going to be discarded as medical waste or they can be donated for research."

Because HR 810 would not allow cloning of embryos, as South Korean scientists conducted, the legislation still would leave American scientists at a disadvantage. Scientists say that therapeutic cloning, which produces universal cells from embryos that are clones of individuals, would provide the best genetic match -- and, therefore, the best potential to produce cells that could replace those lost to spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or other degenerative brain or nerve diseases. The key is to limit research to finding cures for diseases, not to producing babies.

That HR 810 has 200 co-sponsors and support of more than 200 patient, scientist and medical-research groups bolsters the findings from a recent survey of Republican districts. It found that 66 percent of respondents supported embryonic stem cell research. An alternate proposal would boost research that uses blood from umbilical cords. But, scientists say, cord-blood stem cells do not grow into as many types of tissues as stem cells from days-old embryos.

President Bush threatened last week to use his first veto on HR 810. Doing so would put American scientists -- and hope for patients -- even further behind.

FEMA's funny money

The setting was a hearing last week before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The topic was $31 million in hurricane payments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to residents of Miami-Dade County, which suffered no serious damage from either Frances or Jeanne. The speakers were committee chairwoman Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Richard Skinner, inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security.

Sen. Collins: "FEMA paid about $9.3 million in rental assistance to more than 5,000 people in Miami-Dade County. Is that correct or in the neighborhood?"

Mr. Skinner: "That's correct."

Sen. Collins: "So that's almost a third of the money went for this rental assistance. In the sample of files that you and your auditors reviewed, was there any evidence at all that the recipients of rental assistance ever actually moved out of their homes?"

Mr. Skinner: "No, not at all. We didn't find any examples where anyone actually moved out of their homes."

Sen. Collins: "So people received rental assistance, and yet they did not leave their dwelling."

Mr. Skinner: "That's correct."

Sen. Collins: "And is it your understanding that when FEMA awards rental assistance, it actually has to be spent on rent?"

Mr. Skinner: "That's our interpretation. That's why it's called 'rental assistance.' If you..."

Sen. Collins: "That does seem fairly logical. Does FEMA ever attempt to determine how many people who received rental assistance actually used it for that purpose?"

Mr. Skinner: "As far as I know, no."

Homeowners and local governments still waiting for FEMA assistance or reimbursement know that in their cases the agency has demanded all sorts of paperwork. But if you lived in Miami-Dade County, a potentially key part of the country in a presidential election year, accountability was for losers.

The hearing left Floridians with two conclusions. One is that FEMA Director Michael Brown has no business continuing to defend the Miami-Dade payments. The other is that despite all the problems, Mr. Brown will keep his job, and the best the state can hope for is that FEMA has learned enough that, if there is a next time, the agency at least will pay for funerals only when a storm actually kills someone.

It's not about filibusters; it's about total control

Strom Thurmond holds the Senate filibuster record. In 1957, the late South Carolina Democrat/Dixiecrat/Republican talked for 24 hours and 18 minutes to kill proposed civil rights legislation.

So the filibuster can be used for despicable reasons. What the public ought to remember, if -- as expected -- the "nuclear option" comes to a vote this week, is that absolute power has a far more despicable record.

Absolute power is what Republicans will gain if Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., succeeds in nuking the filibuster. Republicans already control the White House and the House. In the Senate, the rule requiring 60 votes to cut off debate is all that keeps the 55-member Republican majority from rolling over Democrats, thereby gaining absolute power to infect the judiciary -- the Supreme Court in particular -- with the most extreme judges.

The filibuster itself is not an exercise of absolute power. Republicans can overcome it by persuading five Democrats to join them. In fact, for the most part, the filibuster isn't even an issue. The Senate has confirmed more than 200 of President Bush's judicial appointees and blocked only 10, showing that if President Bush nominates suitable candidates, Democrats will allow an up-or-down vote. But even that much compromise is too much for President Bush and Sen. Frist. who is exploiting this issue to help his bid to succeed Mr. Bush.

As in so many other GOP arenas, hypocrisy is at play. Republicans blocked 70 of President Clinton's judicial choices. For the most part, they used tactics other than the filibuster -- though Sen. Frist did vote in 2000 to filibuster a Clinton nominee -- but it is contradictory for them to claim that their procedural maneuvering was justified but the filibuster isn't.

An irony is that Sen. Frist and the Republicans intend to do away with the filibuster in order to seat judges whose judicial history indicates that they are hostile to gains made when the Senate and the country overcame the filibuster to enact civil rights legislation.

Republicans also are using the filibuster issue to launch dangerous attacks on the judiciary. On the very day that U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow testified on Capitol Hill about the murder of her mother and husband, Sen. Frist asserted that Democrats had used the filibuster to "kill, to defeat, to assassinate" President Bush's nominees. That came after Sen. Frist participated in "Justice Sunday," the theme of which was that Democrats who block Bush appointees are anti-religious.

As the Terry Schiavo case shows, extremist Republicans have the impulse to overreach. Judges -- fulfilling their duty -- stopped them. Moderate senators are seeking a compromise. They can't succeed if President Bush and Sen. Frist can't resist the lure of absolute power.

Better plan for Delray

Pedestrians, motorists and bicyclists will be safer in Delray Beach once the Florida Department of Transportation paves 3- to 5-foot shoulders and adds 6-foot sidewalks along State Road A1A. The plan, which the agency announced this month after two years of debate, is better than an agreement that city and Palm Beach County transportation planners had supported. But the state still failed to choose the safest option for the public: 5-foot bike lanes and full sidewalks all along the oceanfront highway.

Fortunately, most of A1A through Delray Beach will get lanes wide enough to protect bicyclists. DOT should go a step further and designate the widest pathways "bike lanes," instead of "paved shoulders." That would, by law, ensure that debris is cleared from the lanes. The state also should mark the lanes with bicycle icons that tell drivers, pedestrians and cyclists how the space should be used. That decision, a DOT project manager said, has not been made.

In the spirit of a true compromise, neither cyclists nor merchants nor beachfront homeowners got everything they wanted -- except, perhaps Rick Edick, whose Save Our Seacoast group of homeowners fought to preserve their practically private access to public land and wanted the state just to repave the road. In a show of favoritism for a man who lobbied Gov. Bush personally, the lanes narrow to 3-feet-wide in front of Mr. Edick's oceanfront home, even though the state has sufficient right-of-way to build a 5-foot-wide lane.

To the delight of merchants and restaurateurs south of Atlantic Avenue, DOT preserved angled parking along A1A, adding paved shoulders on the east and west sides of the road. The stretch from Casuarina Road to Atlantic Avenue likely will remain risky, however, as more patrons come and more restaurant tables are placed on sidewalks.

To make the area safer, everyone -- motorists, cyclists and pedestrians -- will have to respect the changes. Beach resident Jim Smith, whose Safety As Floridians Expect group collected more than 7,000 signatures seeking sidewalks and bike lanes, put it this way: "Motorists don't drive on the sidewalk, pedestrians don't walk down the middle of the street, and bicyclists should travel in their designated bicycle lane."

DOT's long-awaited decision could have been much worse, and relief along the congested scenic roadway will not come quickly. Construction could start in the summer of 2007. With a break for the winter tourist season, the lanes likely won't be completed until June 2008 or later. The result -- safer travel in the city, whether on wheels or on foot -- will be worth the wait.

Eight isn't enough

Thirteen years ago, Florida voters went for emotion over reason in limiting state legislators to eight years in office. Next year, they can start to undo some of the damage from that decision.

The Legislature has placed on the November 2006 ballot a constitutional amendment that would extend term limits to 12 years -- three terms for senators and six terms for representatives. As more legislators discover that it takes time just to understand the basics of running the fourth-largest state and of compiling a budget that has pushed above $65 billion, sentiment has built for allowing the Legislature to replace some institutional memory.

Term limits have especially hurt the House. Since term limits prevent anyone from sticking around long enough to become expert on a particular issue, members have to decide quickly whether they're going to run for speaker -- or line up behind a candidate -- seek a key chairmanship or just make friends with the right lobbyists and enjoy those perks of elected office. The Senate has suffered less because House members can shift chambers when their terms expire. Thirty-five of the 40 senators served in the House. It is not a coincidence that in recent years, the Senate has blocked some of the worst excesses that the House would have foisted on Florida. This year, for example, the Senate kept the House from gutting the system of getting constitutional amendments onto the ballot.

The less that legislators know, the more that unelected staff members and lobbyists run things. The irony of term limits is that they don't foster democracy; they hinder it.

Do small classes work? Check out these schools

When administrators and teachers in Martin County wanted to improve Warfield Elementary's D grade from the state, they resorted to innovation: They cut class size, recruited the best teachers and paid them more.

That's not "innovation" in the sense that no one had thought of that approach. But it's innovation because, in Florida, it hadn't been tried recently.

Warfield's students did not disappoint their teachers. As detailed last week in The Post, the school filled with immigrants, minorities and students living in poverty outperformed schools with more privileged students on the FCAT. From that D in 1999, Warfield went to an A last year. (Grades for 2005 haven't been released.) More impressive, Warfield was among the 11 percent of state schools to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards.

Palm Beach County, which also was determined to raise scores in low-performing schools, used the same formula. In particular, lower class sizes did the trick. Third-graders in many of those elementary schools -- Benoist Farms, Belle Glade, Lincoln, Pioneer Park, Pleasant City, West Riviera -- this year greatly improved their reading scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. For example, Glade View third-graders jumped from 27 percent on grade level or above to 56 percent.

Though Gov. Bush takes credit for the rising scores, the FCAT wasn't his idea. It was in the works for a decade before he became governor. Gov. Bush then imposed grades, shame and punishment. Those factors motivated districts to channel resources to needy schools. But there were less destructive ways to achieve the same result. Providing adequate budgets would have helped -- and still would. Even as districts sent more teachers to low-performing schools, they could not afford to reduce classes in other areas because Tallahassee hasn't paid for the class-size amendment.

Too many students still need more. Statewide, 33 percent of third-graders scored below grade level in 2005, down just 1 percentage point from last year. Also striking is that 60 percent of the 17,446 students who repeated the third grade after failing last year's FCAT still didn't score on grade level. That is disappointing evidence that Gov. Bush and the Education Department implemented a pass-or-repeat policy before developing an effective plan to teach students who didn't make it to fourth grade. Chronically low high-school scores reflect an inability to find solutions and indicate that the pass-or-don't-graduate policy should have been phased in over more time.

The state should wonder whether some of the 40 percent of third-graders who perform better the second time around might have scored well enough to pass the FCAT if they'd been allowed to take the test in May instead of March. The goal should be to test all students later -- it's supposed to measure a year's worth of teaching, after all -- but it could be particularly helpful in schools where students have struggled.

Gov. Bush's fixation on school grades and stingy budgets heightens the worst aspects of high-stakes tests, in that a well-rounded education goes by the wayside. But Gov. Bush is correct to praise students and educators like those at Warfield Elementary for higher FCAT scores. They are doing a terrific job under less-than-ideal conditions.

Stay on anthrax trail

Three and a half years after panic hit South Florida, cleanup from the nation's first anthrax attack has begun in Boca Raton. Yet the federal government has made no arrests in the case or indicated that it is close to solving the crime, which is why a judge was correct not to dismiss the lawsuit against the government by the victim's family.

In October 2001, Robert Stevens of Lantana worked as a photo editor at the American Media Inc. building in Arvida Park of Commerce. Less than a month after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he was exposed to anthrax that arrived in a letter to the tabloid publisher. On Oct. 5 of that year, he became the first of five people nationwide to die. The anthrax was disseminated in a series of letters. The attacks closed portions of Capitol Hill and several post offices.

In September 2003, Mr. Stevens' widow sued the government, claiming that the anthrax had come from Fort Detrick, Md., home of the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Maureen Stevens alleged that a security lapse had allowed the anthrax to be removed and thus caused her husband's death. Not surprisingly, the government first sought a postponement, then asked U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley to dismiss the case. Last month, as The Post reported, Judge Hurley rejected not just the motion but the idea that the government would be blameless.

"It is reasonable," Judge Hurley wrote, "for members of the general public to expect that security procedures and policies governing handling of lethal biohazards by medical research laboratories are designed not only for the protection of the employees and communities surrounding the laboratories, but for the public at large, which is realistically and forseeably at risk in the event that a deadly organism or contagion is released."

The government must respond by June 2. By then or soon after, cleanup of the old AMI building may be complete. If the government isn't going to produce a criminal, the lawsuit offers the best chance for now of the government at least having to produce some answers.

Vintage form of lobbying

Imagine a 17-year-old high-schooler in Florida who is determined to get drunk on wine. Does he: a) Use his fake ID -- or his friend's fake ID -- to score a cheap jug, retail price about $6, or b) browse the Web and order a case of the amusing 2003 Acacia Pinot Noir Carneros, retail price $360?

Of all the reactions since the Supreme Court made it harder for states to ban out-of-state wine shipments, the silliest is the idea that Florida should restrict such shipments because they would increase underage drinking. Since the 5-4 decision last week, form e-mails have been coming in to newspapers and legislators' offices demanding that the state ban online wine sales. Though the ruling applies only to New York and Michigan, Florida's law now is unconstitutional, since it discriminates by allowing shipments from in-state wineries -- there are 13 of them -- but prohibits out-of-state purchases, whether online or in person at a winery while traveling and shipped home.

The e-mailers want the Legislature to ban all wine shipping to individuals. Again, the cover story is to protect the children. In fact, the powers behind those e-mails are Southern Wine and Spirits, which is based in Miami and is the nation's largest wholesaler, and other distributors and retailers that might lose a sliver of business. They are members of the Florida Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking.

The better response would be for the Legislature that supports school choice to support Merlot choice. Gov. Bush would have signed a bill that Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, sponsored this year to allow out-of-state wine shipments, but the wholesalers kept the legislation bottled up, so to speak. Banning all shipments would hurt state businesses. Instead, the famously free-market Legislature should let the competition flow.

Problems with DUI tests a test of management

Bad management at the sheriff's office temporarily hurt Palm Beach County's effort to prosecute drunken drivers. Better management has that effort back on track.

In July, under Ed Bieluch, the sheriff's office changed the system for measuring breath tests. The department had been criticized last year because the one technician in charge of the unit kept missing court dates and claimed that she was overwhelmed. Attempting to keep up with demand, the department hired more technicians to calibrate the machines and calculate the results of each test. When making the change, however, administrators did not build in any accountability to match specific technicians with specific machines. So when they got to court, technicians could not swear that they had been responsible for the machine in question. Thus, they could not swear to the results.

The problem came to a head this month when a judge suppressed the results of a test. State Attorney Barry Krischer and Assistant State Attorney Ted Booras -- he supervises county court prosecutors who try misdemeanor DUI cases -- then met with Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, who took office in January. The sheriff immediately changed the system. Specific technicians have been assigned to specific machines. Backup technicians observe tests on the 12 machines.

Because of the previous problem, however, the state attorney's office has decided that prosecutors cannot use 1,100 test results obtained between July 2004 and April of this year. That doesn't mean dropping 1,100 drunken-driving cases. In some cases, prosecutors have other evidence, such as videotapes of alleged impaired behavior and statements to officers. Clearly, though, some offenders who would have been convicted got the break of their lives, at the expense of public safety.

This incident explains why Sheriff Bieluch did so much harm by refusing to cooperate with other parts of the criminal justice system. The sheriff's office is the largest law-enforcement agency in the county and carries out many important countywide crime-fighting tasks. Though some larger police departments conduct their own breath tests, the sheriff's office does most of the testing. "This was Evidence 101," Sheriff Bradshaw said, "and it wasn't being done properly."

Mr. Booras says his office had told Sheriff Bieluch about the problem for months. Fortunately, Sheriff Bradshaw fixed the problem. Hopefully, he's fixing what must be many others.

Write-ins write out voters

Republican lawmakers eliminated the primary runoff, so a candidate can win a party's nomination with less than half the vote. They kept a loophole that closes primaries to voters of the opposing party even if the opposing party has no candidates and the only other opponent on the ballot is a write-in.

That means a candidate can win a legislative seat or even a countywide office, such as sheriff, with less than half the votes from his or her own party -- a less-than-democratic way to pick elected officials. Worse, parties hoping to shut out voters easily can recruit write-ins.

A bill by Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, to call for a statewide referendum to eliminate the loophole made headway this year in the Senate but not in the House. The result is that Republicans, who already control the drawing of district maps every 10 years, have another tool to keep Democrats in the minority. Letting an independent commission draw districts would help, but don't expect to see that change soon, either. "It's hard to ask politicians who benefit from the system to change the system," Sen. Aronberg said. It's even harder when voters don't get to vote.

Got the picture now?

The spectrum of dumb things teenagers can do is broad. Yearbook pictures of Melissa Finley holding Robert Richards on a leash and Pernell Davis pretending that he's about to backhand Leona Sweeting definitely qualify, even if they're on the lower end of the spectrum.

Advisers, teachers and administrators at Boynton Beach High -- and every other high school -- try hard every day to keep teenagers from doing dumb things. When those pictures were allowed to slip into the yearbook, somebody was having a bad day. More disconcerting than the photos is some students' inability -- even after The Post wrote about them Wednesday -- to see anything wrong with them. Mr. Richards' mother, Jacqueline Nobles, correctly hears the echoes of slavery. Mr. Richards doesn't get it. Then there's Abu Ghraib, with its infamous leash shots.

Posed photos of "Most Whipped" and "Most Likely To Appear on Jerry Springer" weren't the giggle students thought they'd be. The Palm Beach County School District will paste stickers into the yearbooks it still has. More oversight next year would help. So would more discussion about why those photos were dumb.

No loophole for Posada

People who blow up airplanes, cars and hotels are terrorists, even if the attacks are meant to damage a government unfriendly to the United States. Politics and ideology never are an excuse to take innocent lives intentionally.

Luis Posada Carriles is accused of committing those crimes in a campaign against Cuba during many years of militant opposition to Fidel Castro's communist regime. The 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner on a flight from Venezuela killed 73, and a series of bombs detonated at six Havana hotels and tourist sites killed an Italian man and left 11 wounded.

Posada, 77, who once worked for the CIA, has denied involvement with the airplane bombing but is unapologetic about taking credit for the hotel attacks. That makes Posada a terrorist, and the Bush administration was right to arrest him in Miami on Tuesday. U.S. immigration officials have charged him with entering the United States illegally from Mexico this year and likely will ask a judge to hold him without bond.

Posada's attorney says he will ask the government to grant his client political asylum because of his anti-Castro views. Terrorists are hardly entitled to asylum. President Bush warned the world after 9/11 that those who harbor terrorists are themselves terrorists. If the United States is to win the global campaign against terrorism, it must lead by example, and the Posada case provides the ideal opportunity to demonstrate that there are no double standards.

Both Cuba and Venezuela want to try Posada, but neither Castro nor Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who have become close allies, can be trusted to deliver justice. The Bush administration has no choice but to jail Posada until it finds a fair court.

If a Muslim of Middle Eastern descent with Posada's record of indiscriminate violence had sneaked across the border, the government would have no qualms about holding him indefinitely. An anti-Castro terrorist deserves the same treatment.

Reject Scripps' demand to build now at Mecca

The Scripps Research Institute, having created a crisis by insisting that Mecca Farms be its home, has given the Palm Beach County Commission an ultimatum: Build now, or we're gone. The commission cannot comply.

Building now would put too much public money at risk. Building now would leave no good way out if a court orders the demolition of Scripps' $140 million campus, to be built at county expense. Building now could result in a campus consisting of Scripps and little else because a court could limit development on the rest of the 1,920-acre property. The result would be a biotechnology "cluster" far smaller than Gov. Bush says is needed to deliver an economic bonanza.

If Scripps were to leave, blame wrongly would fall on the county commission. Gov. Bush and real-estate profiteers masquerading as business leaders backed the remote Mecca Farms location, which was selected in secret. Mecca's greatest benefit isn't to the county, where it would overwhelm rural neighborhoods, but to the neighboring Vavrus Ranch, where home builders claiming to be biotech promoters would build subdivisions.

Time after time, the profiteers belittled county efforts to pick an alternative site -- despite clear warnings from the county that going forward at Mecca would result in long delays. The county's Business Development Board, made starry-eyed by a $51 million windfall from development there, refused to give up plans for developing Vavrus. Through it all, the county has lived up to its contract with Scripps, giving Scripps no legal basis for this week's ultimatum.

A solution is there, as it was in February when the county commission offered it: Build Scripps at Florida Research Park. But in March, Scripps trustees rejected that option, despite knowing last year that their insistence on Mecca Farms would produce lawsuits and delay. They were encouraged in their decision by Gov. Bush, who downplayed the risk of lawsuits and said Mecca was the only site that met all of the state's criteria, including space for 8 million square feet of development. Mecca, however, is limited to less than 2 million square feet by the county's partial wetlands permit. Florida Research Park, even without zoning changes, has the right to build 6 million square feet immediately.

Commissioner Mary McCarty, however, claims that the county can ignore all the negatives of building at Mecca, start construction and still protect taxpayers. How would she achieve this miracle? By offering an exit strategy that amounts to defeat: Build now; if court rulings go against the county, jettison Scripps and build subdivisions at Mecca Farms. By selling, she says, the county could recoup its $200 million-plus investment. But her plan would leave no money to put Scripps on another site.

There's a good chance commissioners will take that risk next week. If they make such a mistake, they should not pretend that they are protecting taxpayers. They would be protecting the Vavrus developers, who could use home-building at Mecca to justify development next door at Vavrus. Succumbing to an ultimatum also would relegate the county to a subordinate role in future relations with Scripps.

Commissioner McCarty tried to raise the threat level by claiming that there is competition for Scripps from Louisiana, where, she said, the governor is proposing a $700 million biotech campaign. On Thursday, however, the press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said there is no $700 million campaign, and the press secretary never had heard of Scripps.

Under Commissioner McCarty's proposal, the county would start construction in the hope that no court would stop it or undo it. She argues that the plaintiffs have "laid all their cards on the table," and the county is "winning at every turn." In fact, the county's most significant victory -- related to changing its comprehensive plan -- went before a judge who works for the governor. That lawsuit has not been heard in an independent court. Another problematic suit, over the federal wetlands permit, has yet to go before a judge.

In comparing the case against Mecca to a Martin County case in which a judge ordered apartments torn down, Assistant County Attorney Jim Mize advised caution: "There are enough similarities between the two cases that we have to give consideration on how the case is going to sort itself out." And if the county's case is so strong, why has no insurance company -- despite the county's solicitations -- offered to write a policy that would cover the loss of the buildings? Florida Research Park's owners can have all the permits Scripps demands by July. If Scripps is committed to science and not to a real-estate deal, it will stop issuing ultimatums and start planning a groundbreaking.

Uncle Sam coerces you

Faced with declining numbers of recruits and increasing numbers of recruiting abuses, the Army took the extraordinary step of halting all recruitment operations today so personnel can take a refresher course on the ethics of enlisting.

The call for a "values stand-down" shows how desperate work has become for military recruiters as the war in Iraq wears on with no troop drawdown in sight. Career soldiers shouldn't need to hear lectures or watch videos on proper behavior, but finding willing applicants for the all-volunteer forces is more difficult than ever. With the economy improving, young men and women have more incentive to start careers at home than to march into a combat zone for long tours of duty and pay that isn't competitive with civilian opportunities.

The Army is more than halfway through its fiscal year and, with only 36,000 soldiers signed up, is likely to miss its target of 80,000 for 2005. The Army's 7,500 recruiters have come up short for three consecutive months, including an alarming 42 percent shortfall in April. Early enlistment numbers for 2006 look worse. The Army tries to have 35 percent of its annual goal filled in advance of the next fiscal year but expects to have only 10 percent signed up by the fall. The Marines, traditionally able to attract a steady flow of recruits, have not met a monthly goal this year.

The mounting pressure on recruiters to meet quotas is evident in the widespread reports of unethical behavior. According to Army statistics, cases of improprieties are up more than 60 percent over the past five years, from 199 in 1999 to 320 last year. Recruiters have families to support; missed quotas can lead to demotions and lower pay. The Army says the pressure to deliver has led to depression and marital problems among recruiters, as well as the abuses in the field.

Reports of strong-arm tactics used to intimidate high school students and conspiracies to circumvent standards have become commonplace. In Houston, a recruiter threatened a teenager with arrest if he did not show up for an appointment. In Denver, a recruiter told a student how to forge a diploma. The Army is investigating cases in which recruiters have ignored police records or coerced the mentally ill into signing up. In Palm Beach County, students at Palm Beach Lakes and Dwyer high schools say recruiters have stopped them between classes and in shopping malls to make aggressive sales pitches.

Last month, the military began taking advantage of a provision in the No Child Left Behind law that makes students' addresses and phone numbers available to recruiters. The idea, however, was to offer students more career choices, not make them vulnerable to what can amount to harassment.

Today's streamlined Army was not designed for long combat deployments involving large numbers of troops. The Bush administration's poor judgments about Iraq created the stress that is showing up in the recruiting troubles. Casualties from Iraq include the dead, the wounded and signs of long-term damage to the U.S. military.

Jury cared for Marissa; now it's state's turn

An hour and a half into deliberations on a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Children and Families, a Palm Beach County jury asked for a break -- and a calculator. For the six jurors, it was not a question of whether DCF should have to pay for the medical expenses, pain and suffering of a 6-year-old who was abused after DCF ignored warning signs of mistreatment and did not complete its investigation; the only question was how much the state should pay.

Four years after Marissa Amora was beaten and left severely brain-damaged, DCF still denies that it was responsible for protecting the girl, who mentally remains about the age she was at the time of the abuse -- 2. According to DCF attorney Stephen Radford Jr., the agency relied on Miami Children's Hospital, which treated Marissa before the near-fatal abuse for what doctors thought was a spinal-cord tumor. "They're the ones," Mr. Radford said in closing arguments, "who put the blinders on." No, DCF did -- and continues to do so. The right response for the state is to pay its share of the $35 million verdict.

After more than three weeks of testimony, jurors determined Tuesday that DCF's negligence is 75 percent responsible for causing Marissa's abuse. The hospital, jurors determined, was 20 percent negligent, and Marissa's biological mother, Guerlande Pierre-Louis, 5 percent. No one has been charged, but everyone blames Pierre-Louis' boyfriend, Joubert Culseus, for shaking the little girl.

Since 2001, DCF's own investigators have acknowledged that they did not complete a home study or investigate through the Child Protection Team, even though investigators suspected abuse. The agency so failed to follow its own procedures that the case of Marissa, then named Moesha Sylencieux, was used to show new DCF investigators what not to do.

After Pierre-Louis tried to get her boyfriend out of jail rather than pick up Moesha from the hospital, the hospital called DCF's abuse hot line and refused to let the girl go home with Pierre-Louis the next day. Nurses and social workers told a DCF investigator that, during a monthlong hospital stay, Moesha cried when her mother appeared, the mother spanked Moesha in the hospital bed, the mother did not visit or call frequently and the mother did not appear interested in her daughter. When DCF planned to release Moesha anyway, a doctor stood up from the table during a meeting and insisted that the girl not be allowed to go home with her mother.

Mr. Radford claimed that DCF is not liable because hospital workers were fearful of negligence, not abuse. The argument ignores (1) that DCF is responsible for children at risk of being neglected, and (2) that DCF would not pay to keep Moesha in the hospital while it probed suspicions of abuse raised by one of its own investigators after Pierre-Louis could not explain Moesha's broken collarbone.

Without approval by the Legislature, the state can pay no more than $100,000 on a claim against DCF. By raising that amount another $26.15 million, the Legislature won't abandon Marissa as DCF did.

The Iraq lobster trap

Think of Iraq as a "how to get there from here" problem. "There" is an Iraq where the U.S. secretary of state can make a scheduled visit to Baghdad without the flak jacket and helmet Condoleezza Rice wore during last week's surprise visit. A recently uncovered British memo shows why the Bush administration is ill-prepared to get there.

Three years ago, President Bush also treated Iraq as a "how to get there" problem. But the focus was finding an excuse to get U.S. troops onto Iraqi soil. It was a problem because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The memo, which described the briefing that a British diplomat just back from Washington gave Prime Minister Tony Blair, said Mr. Bush was determined to invade Iraq, would cite terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction and that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'' That was eight months before the invasion and before the administration brought its case before the United Nations. The decision had been made.

Afterward, the goal no longer could be ridding a country of weapons it never had. The new goal became ridding Iraq of the insurgents and terrorists whom the invasion and occupation created. So now, for the United States, the sought-after "there" is an Iraq that can be stable without U.S. soldiers. The vehicle for getting there is an inclusive, democratic government. Dr. Rice focused on that, pressuring the Shiite majority and its Kurdish allies to find a prominent place in the government for Sunnis.

The biggest obstacle is that many Iraqis don't yet agree with the U.S. vision. It's encouraging that the most prominent Shiite leaders are committed to democracy, at least in the short term. As a practical matter, they know it's the quickest way to get U.S. troops out so Shiites can exercise the power Saddam Hussein denied them for decades.

It is no secret that, for Kurds, the ideal "there" isn't Iraq at all. Their goal is an independent Kurdistan. Their leaders, also being practical, have embraced the half-step of independence within a federal system in Iraq. If the new constitution doesn't reflect that, the Kurds won't approve it.

The Sunnis are least supportive of the U.S. goal. Fundamentalist Sunnis want an Islamic state. Others just want to prevent Shiites from taking control or see Iraq as the best opportunity to kill U.S. soldiers.

U.S. operations against insurgent strongholds haven't solved that problem. Neither have the admittedly early and tentative steps to draw prominent Sunnis into the government. Instead, the trend has been toward greater sectarian violence. This week, among dozens of other killings, Shiite and Sunni clerics were assassinated.

The Bush administration invaded Iraq unprepared to deal with such things. President Bush thought that just getting there would be enough. Now, the issue is getting out of there.

Get on track for 2006

Marie Horenburger, a Palm Beach County representative on the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, thinks that the South Florida lawmakers who just cost the area millions in federal mass-transit money just don't understand. She also thinks that the authority didn't do enough to sell the $100 fee on every new car sold in South Florida or the $5 vehicle-registration surcharge, either of which would have provided the dedicated source needed to draw down the federal money. Since she is correct on both counts, there's a good starting point.

"We just have to mount a better campaign," Ms. Horenburger said. "I think the failure belongs to us. We didn't build our advocacy for what we're asking for." While Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale, was an advocate, she said, Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, wasn't, despite how much his district stands to benefit from Tri-Rail's proposed northward expansion, "because I suspect he just doesn't know."

The authority's own legislative push also got sidetracked when the excellent long-term ideal of transit-oriented development became a major short-term objective. Without the local source, though, the federal money is out of reach. So for now, fast-growing Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, which are net donors of gas-tax money, must continue helping to finance the area's mass-transit expansion out of their general revenues. That's no way to run a railroad.

When the crime is sex, awareness is the policy

Residents of Palm Beach Gardens can look at their city's Web site to see the homes of sex offenders, clearly marked by red dots in several of the city's neighborhoods. For more details, residents can click on a link to the state's Web site and see pictures of the offenders and a description of their crimes.

The approach is part of a citywide effort based on the premise that knowing is better than not knowing. "Are they more likely to commit if they're anonymous and they go into a neighborhood and wander around?" Police Chief Stephen Stepp asks. "This puts them on notice to watch it. They're not anonymous."

The city is right to take every step it can to let residents know if sexual offenders or predators live among them. For too long, Chief Stepp said, the city met its obligations under state law to notify neighbors by placing fliers on doors. Most residents never got the message. Aside from the Web site, the city can make automated calls to every home in a neighborhood to let residents know when an offender is nearby. It can hang poster-size photographs of offenders at city hall and in community centers. And it can hold a public meeting like the one planned tonight at city hall to give residents details about their neighbors' criminal past.

Sexual offenses, many against children, warrant a greater level of scrutiny because of the nature of the crime and the likelihood that offenders will act again. Floridians have demanded more information after sex offenders in separate incidents abducted and murdered two girls, 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford and 13-year-old Sarah Lunde. The Legislature passed a bill toughening penalties and improving monitoring of predators. Miami-Dade County and other local governments want to make it harder for sex offenders to live near schools. In Sweetwater, a 2,500-foot ban would leave no place in the small town for sexual offenders to live. In Boca Raton, council members want to post names of offenders on the city's cable-access channel.

Critics of such policies claim that making life impossible for offenders could drive them to recommit. That's not a good enough reason to let them hide. Raising awareness is not meant to prompt neighborhood vigilantism. Police are watching for that, too. But the higher level of awareness is proper. Jessica Lunsford was killed within sight of her home. Sheriff's investigators failed to verify the confessed killer's location. Better scrutiny may have saved her.

Palm Beach Gardens police regularly contact each of the 12 sexual offenders living in the city -- two are classified under the more onerous "predator" label -- to check their location and verify details of their crimes. By raising awareness, the city is not only doing the right thing; it is assuring that it can't be blamed for not doing enough to save the next victim.

Program interrupted

It seems that no one wants to broadcast how and why language that could derail Barry University's sale of WXEL-TV Channel 42 and WXEL-FM 90.7 got into the state budget. But if the intent was to ensure that the deal gets a good look, the move was justified.

The directive to give "priority consideration to in-state public postsecondary institutions" may block Barry's agreement to sell the stations, at an undisclosed price, to the powerhouse parent of New York public broadcasting's WNET-TV and the recently formed Community Broadcast Foundation of Palm Beach and the Treasure Coast. Since Barry announced the sale in April, there have been questions of how much public money and other assets would go to the private deal being promoted as a public benefit.

The university, which bailed out the Boynton Beach-based public broadcasting outlet in 1997, says it isn't looking to profit from the sale. The fact that the state owns buildings WXEL uses, provides money for the stations and deserves input in, if not authority over, the transfer of the broadcast license help to explain the Legislature's directive to the state Board of Education.

"One interpretation is that the directive to (the board) was to carefully review the opportunities given to state university institutions for participation in the transfer of the license," said Richard Zaretsky. The West Palm Beach lawyer and WXEL board member, who organized and heads the Community Broadcast Foundation, added, "It's strange that nobody is 'fessing up to putting the language in."

Most likely, someone is trying to give Florida Atlantic University a chance. Barry could have crafted a fine marriage between FAU and Miami-based WLRN, rather than allow two public broadcasting operations to keep competing for donations. FAU President Frank Brogan was state education commissioner when Cabinet members who approved Barry's ownership had concerns that a private interest acquiring a public trust could become a conflict at some point.

That point has arrived, with Tallahassee apparently unhappy about being left out of the loop on the sale that, despite the local group's assurances, has a large out-of-state entity acquiring a local public trust. Mr. Zaretsky said specifics will be released soon. Meanwhile, the more delay, the better.

Whose faulty reporting?

Members of the Bush administration want Newsweek magazine to be accountable for unverified reporting that caused deaths abroad and damaged American credibility. In other words, they want Newsweek to do what the Bush administration has refused to do.

This week, the magazine retracted its May 9 report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flushed a Quran down a toilet to get the attention of Muslim detainees. Between then and now, however, anti-American protests in two countries over the supposed desecration of Islam's holy text led to deadly riots in Afghanistan. Though Newsweek showed the brief article to the Pentagon and did not get warned off, the source, the magazine said, "no longer can be sure" of the information.

Newsweek made a mistake, especially in not understanding the need to be certain, given the potential consequences. But if the magazine was at first equivocal in its response, the Bush administration has been hypocritical.

Start with State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. He found it "appalling" that something "unfounded" was allowed to cause "so much harm, including loss of life." But the whole premise for the war in Iraq was "unfounded," and to date President Bush's invasion has caused a bit more "harm, including loss of life" than the Newsweek story.

Press secretary Scott McClellan scolded the magazine and suggested that Newsweek make amends by "clearly explaining what happened and how they got it wrong..." Never, though, has the White House explained how the administration "got it wrong" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes that "everybody will step back and take a look at how they handled this -- everybody." We're still waiting for Dr. Rice to "step back and take a look" at how she invoked a nuclear threat that didn't exist as part of the administration's pre-invasion merchandising.

No one of any prominence has suffered for mistakes related to Iraq or abuses at Abu Ghraib. When someone does, the White House can criticize Newsweek.

Foster care goes private - so make it go better

Seven years ago, the Legislature decided to privatize and euphemize foster care. The new "community-based care" system would emphasize quality and care over cost and capacity. The transition to 23 community-based care agencies, completed with last month's signing of a $75 million contract for Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, has been difficult. But the Florida Department of Children and Families and the nonprofits providing the service can learn from the failure of a Pinellas County agency last year and the ongoing challenges of agencies on the Treasure Coast and in Palm Beach County.

Both agency caseworkers and foster families have been disappointed with the first year under private, nonprofit United for Families, which covers Martin, St. Lucie, Okeechobee and Indian River counties. As The Post reported, many caseworkers have resigned, and the number of foster families has dropped in each of the counties except Martin. The agency blames its troubles on the hurricanes. Foster parents blame lack of communication and respect, and cost-cutting on basic services. Caseworkers say the nonprofit has added bureaucracy that makes getting help for families -- such as substance-abuse treatment for a parent with problems -- incredibly difficult. The agency left no money for overtime. The high turnover of caseworkers has left foster families confused and communications tangled.

Palm Beach County's foster parents say in surveys that they are more pleased after two years with the nonprofit Child and Family Connections than they were with DCF in charge. Credit the new group with providing more support; in addition to the case manager, who works with foster children, foster parents can rely on a social worker who regularly provides training and help. Child and Family Connections has recruited more foster parents -- about 300 foster homes, compared with 190 under DCF -- and those homes are rarely over capacity any more.

Other areas, however, need work. Caseworker turnover spiked in March and April from a typical 25 percent annual rate. Group homes and shelters do not report missing children and "serious incidents," including fighting and injuries, quickly enough. CFC must submit a plan to the state by Friday. Executive Director Robert Barker has met with those running group homes and shelters, and has suspended admission to Safe Harbor Runaway Center, which was responsible for 40 percent of late reports in March and April. Some children were moved to other homes.

The case of "L.G.," the 13-year-old who ran away from a St. Petersburg group home and got pregnant while on the streets for a month, underscored the need for timely reporting of runaways. Child and Family Connection's review also showed another problem complicated by privatization: Too many chiefs. DCF licenses the shelters, CFC contracts with them and, in many cases, Medicaid pays them. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice may be involved. Because of mental-health services provided, there may be an additional state subsidy. "Not one single entity," Mr. Barker said, "has the ultimate responsibility over that provider."

Privatization was supposed to mean better care for thousands of foster children. In Palm Beach County, there seems to be not only progress but a desire to improve. On the Treasure Coast, however, com-

munity-based care has turned into outsourcing; the new agency does the same things DCF did, only worse. That's not the result anyone wants, and with United for Families getting $3 million more in state money than DCF got for providing the same services, there is no good excuse for not doing better.

New house, not court

If Florida does need a fourth federal court district, it isn't the one Rep. E. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, is proposing.

Last month, Rep. Shaw told members of Palm Beach County's Federal Bar that Congress should break up the Southern District of Florida, which stretches from Key West to Fort Pierce. Miami-Dade and Monroe counties would remain, but the rest would become part of a new Eastern District. Not coincidentally, in January Chief Judge William Zloch of the Southern District proposed closing the Fort Lauderdale courthouse and shifting more of the district's work to a new, larger courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach. (The current one, built in 1973, has been closed since November because of mold problems from the hurricanes.)

Judge Zloch favors consolidation because it has been hard to find a site for a new Fort Lauderdale courthouse. Building a larger one as part of redevelopment around the Tamarind Avenue transit hub in West Palm Beach could make it easier for those in Broward to reach the new facility. It also is very unlikely that Congress would approve the money for all the added expenses of a fourth district -- another United States attorney's office, another federal public defender's office, and administrative staff.

More important, it would be the wrong fourth district. The better case for breakup is the Middle District, which runs from Jacksonville along the Interstate 4 corridor through Orlando to Tampa, and takes in the area south to Naples. It covers more than half of Florida's counties; while the Southern District works out of five courthouses, the Middle District uses eight. The Northern District covers only the area around Tallahassee and west to the Alabama state line.

With West Palm Beach's courthouse outdated and no progress on a Fort Lauderdale site, Judge Zloch's alternative looks even better. It makes sense, and Congress might actually pay for it.

Next time, tell the prez

Since the president is the commander-in-chief, it's only reasonable to assume that he would be one of the first Americans to know if the nation's capital might be under attack. That assumption was proven wrong last week when a single-engine Cessna strayed into restricted airspace over Washington.

For 47 minutes Wednesday, President Bush knew nothing about the incident. More than 30,000 government employees evacuated the White House, Capitol and Supreme Court. The Secret Service also evacuated Vice President Dick Cheney and first lady Laura Bush. Fighter jets and helicopters were deployed. An international television audience watched the calamity. Yet all the while, the president rode his bicycle at a wildlife center in suburban Maryland, oblivious to the "red alert" that shut down the capital. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan defended the decision to let Mr. Bush pedal in peace by saying he "never was considered to be in any danger." But the commander-in-chief was elected and given the constitutional responsibility to make the ultimate calls on national security. President Bush wasn't the only one left out. D.C. police officials complained that they received no notification from the homeland security command center until the incident was nearly over. Three-and-a-half years after 9/11, communication between agencies is still bad, even when the agencies are only a few blocks apart.

Mr. McClellan kept repeating that "protocols" put in place after 9/11 "were followed." If one "protocol" is that the president isn't told about an incident that could cause the shooting down of a civilian plane, the assumption behind that protocol is wrong.

Write rules for the slots so state gets in the game

Gov. Bush doesn't like gambling. Neither does House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City. Sen. President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, isn't a fan. Neither, for that matter, is this newspaper. None of that negates the fact that Floridians voted last year to allow gambling in Broward County if Broward voters wanted it, which they said they do.

As disconcerting as it is, four pari-mutuel operations have a clear constitutional right to operate slot machines beginning July 1. The Legislature had a clear constitutional duty to approve rules to govern gambling at the Broward sites. The Legislature didn't, and if that isn't corrected, the result will be governmental and judicial headaches as well as possible loss of millions of dollars for state schools.

The governor and lawmakers could do nothing and dare casino operators to go to court. But it isn't much of a dare. They'll go, and they might win the right to install slots on their own terms. The amendment left gambling regulation to the Legislature, and casinos could argue persuasively that the Legislature, in effect, has decided that gambling should be unregulated.

In that world, casinos could decide how much they owe the state in taxes -- zero might sound good to them -- and what kind of machines to install. Surely they would choose Vegas-style slots rather than the low-stakes bingo-type machines in use at Indian casinos. Another option is that Broward County could try to write its own regulations, which could prompt both the state and casinos to sue Broward if, as would be inevitable, they weren't happy with the results.

There's yet another complication. The Seminole and Miccosukee tribes say that no matter what rules the Legislature sets for Broward, the amendment triggers a federal law that gives them the right to upgrade to the high-stakes Vegas slots. To do so, they'd have to negotiate an agreement with Florida -- which should involve the state getting a cut for the first time -- but federal law says the tribes can seek to bypass the state after six months if there's no bargaining.

Lawmakers argued over how much to tax the Broward casinos, hours of operation and type of slots. Some solutions would be worse than others -- taxing them a paltry 30 percent as the Senate wants, for example. But any solution is better than the chaos that would come from no solution. There should be a special session on slots. Anything else is too big a gamble.

Ousted administrator, unanswered questions

For taxpayers, the deal stinks.

Martin County is losing Administrator Russ Blackburn for reasons the public never may know. The county is paying him a resignation package of about $235,200, nearly twice his annual salary. That is either a tribute to his eight years of service or the price at least one commissioner was willing to make the public pay so he could settle an old grudge. State Attorney Bruce Colton should investigate whether any of three commissioners -- Lee Weberman, Susan Valliere and Doug Smith -- violated the Sunshine Law in their eagerness to oust Mr. Blackburn.

Commissioner Weberman is a likely suspect to have engineered the move that forced out Mr. Blackburn. In 1998, before his election, Commissioner Weberman was the county's interim engineering director. Mr. Blackburn was his boss. Mr. Blackburn replaced him by appointing Don Donaldson as engineering director. Commissioner Weberman consistently has questioned Mr. Blackburn's every move and has tried to fire him at his annual review, complaining about his management of the budget and his dealings with commissioners.

This year, Commissioner Weberman succeeded -- by enlisting two colleagues to oppose Mr. Blackburn, who resigned last week before they could fire him. Commissioner Valliere said she has been unhappy with Mr. Blackburn's handling of airport matters. She was particularly unhappy that he failed to fire Airport Director Mike Moon before the other four commissioners intervened and rehired Mr. Moon with an 18 percent raise. Commissioner Smith wouldn't say why he wanted to fire Mr. Blackburn. Commissioner Weberman, who often chatters about saving taxpayers' money, saw the severance package Mr. Blackburn crafted for himself before he announced his resignation at the end of Tuesday's commission meeting. Did we mention that there might be a case for the state attorney?

Mr. Blackburn served longer than any other recent administrator and deserves a fair separation package. He started innovative programs to help citizens learn about and get involved in county government. He did an excellent job shepherding the county through recovery from last summer's hurricanes. But he is leaving for reasons that seem more personal than professional, and the public is paying for it. The three commissioners owe the public an explanation.

Chipping away at schools

County school officials are working hard to be glass-half-full folks. So last week, they acted pleased that the Legislature allocated $10 million more than expected for next year's budget.

Getting more than expected, however, isn't that great when the district expected the worst -- with good reason, given recent history. The "good" news is that instead of being short $40 million, the deficit is just $30 million. Similar "good" news might be that you lost three limbs instead of four.

Superintendent Art Johnson noted, "We've cut $60 million and $30 million, respectively, in the past two years and continued to do business." While "still functioning" apparently may be the Legislature's standard of success for public schools, district educators remember that, before the recent cuts, students could choose from a rich selection of seventh-period electives, such as art, drama and music. Now, there are far fewer electives, and the classes are crowded. The district is functioning, but it's not functioning as well as it used to.

Legislators, of course, point out that the district has received more money each year. That's true, if not honest. It is expensive to lower class sizes in keeping with the amendment voters passed in 2002. Voters were aware of the expense and said the state should pay it. Instead, the Legislature has forced districts to take money from programs such as the seventh period. In effect, Tallahassee has turned class-size reduction into an unfinanced mandate that leaves the district scrounging for money to operate magnet schools as well as the career academies so important to an increasing number of students.

Meanwhile, in addition to the class-size obligation, districts face other rising expenses. So although the district will get a $94 million increase next year, $38.3 must go to class-size reduction, growth of 5,700 more students will cost nearly $30 million, teacher raises will cost $23.6 million and health insurance will jump $5.2 million. Other demands total millions, including the extra $600,000 FPL wants.

And, just for the record, although schools are happy for the money they'll get next year, most of it won't really come from the state. Instead, continuing a trend under Gov. Bush, a bigger and bigger bite comes from higher local property taxes. Dr. Johnson isn't saying what the district will have to cut to close the $30 million gap. As with the seventh period, too much of it is likely to be bone.

Expand this freedom

The prospect of a successful federal records request under the Freedom of Information Act has become as American as Russian roulette, a fact revealed during testimony last week before the House Government Reform Committee's panel on accountability.

In the new era of excessive government secrecy under the Bush administration, open-government advocates could find no record of a federal employee being disciplined for failing to obey the law, as if an informed citizenry and national security are mutually exclusive. Every administration has its political impulse to control information rather than share it. But the concept that information belongs to the government, not its citizens, has calcified in the current lack of tracking, lost requests and unwarranted denials of information sought under FOIA.

Such excuses as a lack of resources to handle increasing numbers of FOIA requests are consistent for an administration that invests poorly in such public services, then complains when agencies it starves function poorly. The most secretive administration in recent decades is crowned with far-reaching new policies such as the "sensitive but unclassified" catchall for withholding information. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft's 2001 memo gave federal agencies the freedom to simply not comply when in doubt.

Congress has done worse than acquiesce to the restriction of information to citizens, business, public interest groups and the press. Lawmakers haven't defended their requests for information about crucial issues on which their role requires them to provide informed checks, whether Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, implementation of the Patriot Act or treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The courts also have been unreliable advocates.

Despite years of helping to ensure transparency and credibility in government, the 1966 law clearly needs a major overhaul when the consequences for poor compliance with FOIA requests tend to be only for providing too much information. Bipartisan legislation in the Senate would require more accountability, including a hotline for tracking info requests and penalties for failing to adhere to FOIA. It needs supporters beyond open-government advocates who know that keeping the public's information from the public won't make the public safer.

Insurance reform covers industry, not consumers

Last week, Gov. Bush implored Floridians to prepare for hurricane season. The insurance bill headed for his desk leaves the industry more prepared than consumers.

Of all the issues before the Legislature, this one offered the best chance to defy the lobbyist culture that pervades Tallahassee. Even before last summer's storms, property owners were steaming about higher premiums and dropped policies. The Legislature had the issue teed up, having settled problems during a special session in December and formed a committee to recommend changes. Three Palm Beach County homeowner groups -- the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations, the Delray Alliance and the West Boca Community Council -- had offered ideas, and Sen. Ron Klein, D-Delray Beach, said that about 40 percent of them got into his original bill. In general, Senate legislation was friendlier to consumers than the House versions.

Then the Legislature wasted the first two weeks of the 60-day session on Terri Schiavo. Then the insurance lobbyists went to work. And in the final hours, the balance tipped toward the industry. Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher called it a "great bill." Sen. Klein was more accurate when he called it "a start."

One part of the "start" is that insurers must rewrite policies to make it clearer what is covered and for how much, but Florida Insurance Council Director Sam Miller says that change will take about a year. Another part of the "start" is that insurers must make available some of the computer models on which they base rates, but few people will see that information. Policyholders will get all repair money that is due them upfront, but companies will not have to settle claims within 30 days; the law says work on the claim must begin within 14 days. At least 90 days must pass after repairs are completed before a company can drop a policy.

As for the insurers, they fared much better. The bill overturns a court decision that required full payment of wind coverage even when there also was flood damage. The bill restricts claims on damage from sinkholes. That was a much bigger deal in the Tampa Bay area, but it was an industry priority.

If more than two storms hit Florida, companies can dip more easily into the hurricane catastrophe fund to help pay losses. There will be no public counsel for insurance, as there is for utilities. Only when a rate request is 15 percent or higher will there be a public hearing. When regulators challenge a rate increase, the matter still will go to arbitration, perpetuating the system that dates to 1996 and greatly favors the industry. Property owners will not be offered a 1 percent deductible; they will be able to choose a very unappealing 10 percent rather than the standard 2 percent or 5 percent. Only in Monroe County will rates for Citizens Property, the state-run insurer of last resort, not have to be higher than what the private market offers. There also will be no cap on annual premium increases for Citizens, which was supposed to be just for the highest-risk policies but has become the second-largest home insurer in Florida.

But, take heart. The legislation creates yet another special commission, this one to study Citizens and the catastrophe fund and to make recommendations for the 2006 session. In fact, there was lots of study before this session. The Legislature just wasn't prepared to confront the insurance industry.

No growth in cane fields

Gov. Bush claims that an area in Central Florida demonstrates a way to "foster economic growth" while protecting natural resources. What might have worked in the Wekiva River Basin, however, is not the right approach for sugar-cane fields of the Everglades Agricultural Area in Palm Beach County.

There is no reason to discuss ways of accommodating growth in the vast area that is larger than the county's developed half. That's because growth shouldn't happen there. Existing rules say that subdivisions are not allowed in the EAA, and there's no reason to change those rules. If there's a demand for new homes, existing plans correctly steer them toward the towns around Lake Okeechobee that are eager for development.

On Tuesday, county commissioners will consider whether to form a county study group for the EAA or participate with the state in a task force like the one that has produced a plan for the Wekiva Basin northwest of Orlando. A staff report says the fertile EAA "continues to be the premier agricultural production area in Florida and one of the most productive in the nation." It also says that multibillion-dollar Everglades restoration efforts "have been modeled, designed and budgeted based on the EAA remaining in ag production." No land in the EAA is needed, the report says, to accommodate anticipated population growth through 2025. And finally, the EAA "has never been given any residential development rights."

It never should. Why convene a task force to talk about something that is working so well? The report provides hints. Landowners are making noises about development. One wants to mine for rock even though county staff finds no need for a mine. While the EAA produces 22 percent of the nation's sugar, federal allotments are dropping and there's been a 14 percent decline in acreage devoted to cane since 2003. Processing facilities are closing. Sugar consumption is declining, sugar substitutes are thriving, and free-trade agreements threaten to draw foreign competition.

To the rescue, so they say, come the state departments of Environmental Protection and Community Affairs. They will bring the scientific approach applied to the Wekiva Basin. "Our goal is to develop a plan for growth that protects our natural resources and keeps our economy growing," Gov. Bush said of Wekiva. That would be a worthy goal in many places, but it would not work in the cane fields, where a population boom would overwhelm the county, doom agriculture and threaten Everglades restoration.

If the county commission agrees to the state task force, widespread development in the Everglades Agricultural Area will be inevitable. The only way to stop such harmful development is for the county to say at the start that it is unacceptable.

Martin schools face test

In the fairy tale that the Martin County School District has been living, think of the district as the lovely princess, snoozing through the past decades of stable growth, blissfully unaware of the problems a population explosion might bring. Alas, the princess doesn't even get a kiss from a handsome prince -- just a rude awakening.

It's 2005, and the slow growth that allowed the luxury of planning at leisure is only a pleasant memory. Suddenly, the district faces a multitude of issues. Where is growth occurring? Where is it planned? Where should the district buy land? Where should elementary, middle and high schools be placed? Where will the money come from, and how much is needed?

The growth boom that once seemed to apply only to other counties has brought its challenges to Martin County. Parents are unhappy as the district shifts students to different schools each year to accommodate newcomers. Board members are scrambling for money to fix up and build schools.

Postponing the inevitable isn't the answer, as Board Chairwoman Sue Hershey learned last week when she suggested delaying construction of a 12th elementary school by a year to start renovations at existing schools. As the district's facilities director, Rodger Osborne, pointed out, the delay could be costly, since the price of a new elementary school has tripled in the past five years to $23 million. Longtime board member David Anderson also is correct when he notes the need to rebuild and refurbish Martin County High School and Stuart and Murray middle schools. The $25 million that property taxes bring in each year is earmarked for a fifth middle school and that 12th elementary school. But the $60 million needed for renovations and $23 million for a 13th elementary won't be available until 2008 or 2009.

On some levels, the school district and Superintendent Sara Wilcox have matured. Continued high Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores and Newsweek's ranking of South Fork and Martin County high schools among the nation's top 500 show that some things are being done right.

But good FCAT scores can't solve growth problems. The need to plan for rapid growth they did not expect apparently has caught Martin school officials by surprise, forcing them to play catch-up. They are not alone; St. Lucie schools are scrambling to keep up with Port St. Lucie's runaway growth.

Unlike Martin, however, St. Lucie officials took a hard look at what they will need -- at least $1 billion for new schools. Dr. Wilcox, her staff and board members must meet with county planners, make a growth plan and figure out how to pay the bills. And parents who are unhappy might make managed growth a priority the next time they vote for county commissioners.

Winner, but still a loser

The public will not know who helped the Bush administration create its energy policy. That is one more reason for Congress not to approve the policy.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 8-0 that the White House does not have to reveal which energy, power and automobile executives in 2001 advised Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group. The court ruled that because only federal employees were members and had voting power, the group was not an advisory committee. As such, the Bush administration does not have to disclose the records.

The White House wanted to avoid public confirmation that the energy "policy" is a wish list of industries and individuals who financed President Bush's 2000 campaign and his reelection. Mr. Cheney's group had no balance, which is why the "policy" stresses production and ignores conservation. Meanwhile, the White House continues to maintain that "science" doesn't support the link between global warming and the industries that helped to shape the policy.

Fortunately, the Senate has refused to put this "policy" into practice. Americans aren't clamoring for it. What the administration won in court it can't sell to the public.

In this case, 'not guilty' far from 'not dangerous'

On April 10, 2001, Alberto Serrano killed four people at Savannas Hospital and Treatment Center in Port St. Lucie by snapping their necks and breaking their backs. He severely beat two others. Serrano, 37, has schizophrenia and has been mentally ill since he was 13. In 2003, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the Savannas killings and beatings. Now the state Department of Children and Families wants to move Serrano to the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, an action that means he eventually could be placed in a much less secure program.

Despite pleas from the victims' families and warnings from prosecutors, who want Serrano locked securely away from the public, a St. Lucie circuit court judge said Monday that he lacks the authority to stop DCF from transferring him. Serrano's doctors have decided that he meets the criteria for a civil hospital, which would be less secure than Miami's South Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center, where he has lived since 2001. The Chattahoochee hospital has the same maximum security as the Miami facility, but he could be moved to another unit if doctors decide that he is ready.

His doctors report that Serrano has been a model resident in the Miami unit, where he took part in anger management classes, "illness awareness" courses and a class to improve his English. But prosecutors remain concerned that he doesn't understand his illness and could stop taking his medication and become violent -- which is exactly how he wound up at Savannas Hospital on the day he committed the murders and beatings.

The state doesn't have a reasonable way to deal with people such as Alberto Serrano. The insanity defense is a way to protect the insane from undue punishment, but it should not drop all protections for society from the acts of the insane. There can be no guarantee that, without supervision in a secure facility, Serrano will continue to take the medications that make him a model resident. Doctors want to see their patients recover, but for some, such as Serrano, recovery cannot and should not equal eventual release back to a society where he already has proved he can't cope.

Unfortunately, the law gives DCF, not the courts, the power to decide Serrano's future. The law should change. Until it does, DCF should keep Serrano under the strictest security possible.

University power at issue

The Legislature's 2005 session ended without much harm done to higher education, especially as measured by self-serving legislators' recent standards.

Next year's 5 percent tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students, for example, is down from several years of balancing the budget out of their pockets. Last year's increase was 7.5 percent, while the previous year's tuition increases were between 8.5 percent and 15 percent, plus a combined $40 million in cuts and no money for 22,000 new students.

So, despite the Legislature getting more than $2 billion in unexpected revenue, Florida's 11 public universities were conditioned not to expect increased investment in higher education.

Some good things happened. The education of new doctors the state says it needs was expedited by the Board of Governors' approval of, and legislators' $2 million initial financing for, the expansion of Florida Atlantic University's medical-school partnership with the University of Miami at a new Boca Raton Community Hospital on FAU's Boca campus. But other legislation will charge students 75 percent more in tuition if they hang around after they have accumulated 24 credit hours above the average 120 needed to graduate.

Highlighting the misplaced priorities was the failed so-called "academic freedom" bill. Armed with a few anecdotes, Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, claimed professors are intimidating if not academically discriminating against conservative students. Expect fellow ideologues to support his effort again next year to pile on another layer of government while encouraging students to sue their universities and professors at taxpayer expense.

Then there's the matter of who runs the universities. The Legislature attempted to settle the question by passing "Hey, why not us?" legislation that allows lawmakers to usurp financial decisions, such as tuition rates, for themselves.

But voters created an independent Board of Governors specifically to operate the university system, in a 2002 constitutional amendment aimed at limiting the Legislature's power. So a pending lawsuit by the Floridians for Constitutional Integrity citizens group essentially asks what part of the amendment lawmakers don't understand. And the necessity of constitutional protection for the university system is only underscored by the Legislature's latest power play, which the courts should rule illegal.

A bad snub of Abbas

This time, the people trying to undercut President Bush's push for peace negotiations in the Middle East weren't terrorists or recalcitrant settlers. They were members of his own party.

During this year's State of the Union address, Mr. Bush pledged to send $350 million in aid to support Palestinian "reforms." The money was meant to acknowledge the importance of elections held after Yasser Arafat's death, elections that made Mahmoud Abbas the new Palestinian president. Since President Bush had refused to deal with Mr. Arafat, the aid would reinforce the idea that the Palestinians had reason to support Mr. Abbas.

When the spending bill went through Congress last week, however, Republican lawmakers placed so many restrictions on the money that it will amount to an embarrassment for Mr. Abbas, not a show of support. None of the money will go directly to the Palestinian Authority. Most of it will go through nongovernmental organizations. Roughly $5 million will pay for an audit of Palestinian finances. Another $2 million will go to Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America.

And just to drive home the point, $50 million will go to Israel for work at the checkpoints that divide Israel from the occupied territories. The cover story is that the money will benefit the Palestinians by making it easier to cross back and forth from Israel, but that explanation won't fool anyone. Palestinians loathe the checkpoints, where they often have to wait for hours.

Published reports attributed the restrictions to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. The House majority leader has cultivated support from Christian evangelical groups in this country who are at best skeptical and at worst opposed to any Palestinian state, which President Bush supports. The fact that the White House accepted the restrictions may indicate that Mr. Bush intends to try later for a separate allocation of unrestricted money.

For now, White House press secretary Scott McClellan praised Congress for sending any money at all. But even Israeli officials have said recently that Mr. Abbas has made good-faith efforts to improve security. With Hamas having made a strong showing in recent elections against Mr. Abbas' Fatah Party, this would have been a good time for the United States to show conclusively that Mr. Abbas represents the best future for the Palestinians. Instead, the American gesture will be, at best, inconclusive.

State assumes growth, offers little management

Just because the Legislature put up $1.5 billion for the coming year and pledged to spend $750 million a year for the next 10 years doesn't mean the state did anything to manage growth. In fact, the legislation weakens growth management. It lets builders write a check for roads or schools, then go ahead and build, even if the local community can't build the roads or schools fast enough. Making builders pay is good, but easing the standard for providing services won't manage growth; it will hasten it.

The Legislature operates from the hard-to-dispute mind-set that continued growth is inevitable. Thus, an infusion of money will help communities provide roads, schools and utilities. But the backlog of projects is estimated at $35 billion. Despite efforts by the Senate, the Legislature failed to give communities more power to meet that backlog by raising taxes without voter approval. The House's refusal forces local politicians to sell wise growth-management strategies to voters. Few will do so.

Another way to control growth would be to cut the need for roads by placing realistic boundaries on development. Residents stuck in traffic jams find no relief in growth-management policies that build new roads to allow more residents to jam in, especially when, under this bill, relief could be years away. Better to spend the money fixing problems in older, overwhelmed communities. The bill "encourages" but fails to require communities to create boundaries -- and if they do, they get a break from state review of changes to growth plans -- and to hold sessions to help residents picture the changes growth will bring.

The bill creates a permanent growth-management panel to manage the money. Called the Century Commission, it will have 15 members -- five each appointed by the governor, House speaker and Senate president. It is supposed to think 25 and 50 years ahead to anticipate and resolve issues that legislators consistently fail to address. Modeled on a Palm Beach County system, the bill adds schools to the public services that must be available before growth occurs. Although two-thirds of the new state money would go toward transportation projects, one-third will be for schools and water projects.

Though the bill boosts the efforts of Callery-Judge Groves to build on its 4,000 acres west of Royal Palm Beach, it doesn't assure approval, which county commissioners still must grant. A bad bill that would have allowed more development on the grove died, as did a bad idea to allow Palm Beach County to escape penalties if courts rule that The Scripps Research Institute at Mecca Farms was built in error.

More money for roads may sound good to voters, but under the Legislature's approach to growth management, the result is likely to be more jammed roads.

Voters weren't a priority

State legislators cared more about pumping money into campaigns than protecting the interests of voters during a session that will make a lasting impact on the way Florida runs its elections.

The Legislature did away with the state's second primary, or runoff election, and took from the county elections supervisors the discretion to determine early voting periods. Although those two moves will make it more difficult for Floridians' voices to be heard, people with fat checkbooks got loudspeakers. Legislators allowed candidates for governor and the Cabinet to raise up to three times as much money and still qualify for taxpayer financing. The measure accelerates the statewide trend that is making the search for contributions more important than the search for good ideas. The spending cap in the governor's race goes from $6.3 million to an obscene $20 million, and Cabinet candidates can spend up to $10 million each. With Republicans far ahead of Democrats in fund-raising, the political calculation behind the Legislature's changes is obvious.

Lawmakers could have returned runoffs for 2006 after a six-year hiatus but voted instead to eliminate them permanently. Arguments that runoffs are too costly, too difficult for counties to run and too often ignored by voters obscured the most compelling reason for keeping them: They are good for democracy. Runoffs prevented fringe candidates from having undeserved influence on races and made it impossible for candidates to reach the general election without winning a majority of the vote.

Second primaries also helped sharpen issues and differences between candidates. In eliminating runoffs, legislators yielded to county elections supervisors, who claimed that the extra voting would create undue hardship on them. Taxpayers who thought that the millions spent for new machines would make voting easier have reason to feel double-crossed. The best interest of voters should have been the priority, not the workloads of public servants.

Legislators limited early voting to eight hours a day on weekdays and an aggregate of eight hours on weekends for two weeks, ending the Sunday before Election Day. Floridians had a 15-day window for early voting before the primary and general election last year, and hundreds of thousands of them used it. Although supervisors lost the flexibility to make their own schedule, they could have lost much more. Attempts failed to consolidate broad powers to oversee elections in Tallahassee under the secretary of state, whom the governor appoints.

Nearly all of the county supervisors are elected officials, and the retention of local authority over elections is one victory for voters in a session of losses.

More wind from FEMA

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown got a standing ovation Wednesday at the state hurricane conference in Tampa. The audience in Martin and St. Lucie counties might not have been so receptive.

Take 82-year-old Joan Clay, who lost her trailer home in Ocean Breeze Park. As The Post reported last week, the Martin County woman is stuck in the FEMA bureaucracy that so hindered response to last summer's storms. Ms. Clay thought the $14,000 she got was to help cover the difference between her losses and what her insurer paid. She spent it on a new home. Now, FEMA wants the money back, saying it was paid by mistake.

So while Ms. Clay, who really was a storm victim, fights the system, Mr. Brown continues to defend the $30 million-plus in payments to Miami-Dade County, where there were no victims. "There was damage" in Miami-Dade, Mr. Brown insisted Wednesday, again citing supposed 90-mph winds there that no measuring system has verified. What about all those mistaken payments, including money for more funerals than there were deaths?

Hearing poll results showing that 30 percent of people in storm-prone areas aren't prepared, Mr. Brown demanded that they "take some individual responsibility." He might start by setting an example. Mr. Brown and his agency keep ducking questions about payment problems by hiding behind privacy laws. Nothing, though, prevents the release of payments by ZIP code or by contractor.

Gov. Bush put out his spin, saying, "As well as we did" in 2004, "we are going to do it better." Let's hope that chance doesn't come. As for the "we," he's right that lots of locals -- civil servants and civilians -- responded heroically. But many of those people didn't have kind words for FEMA and the state. The first person who needs to do better is Michael Brown.

Medicaid reform to start with less risk, more sense

Take 2.3 million poor or disabled residents, subtract Medicaid, add private health insurers, and what will you get? Less federal money and fewer services. Because Gov. Bush's plan to overhaul Medicaid threatened to cut patient care with no guarantee of cutting costs, the Legislature acted correctly in slowing down the privatization and requiring public review and legislative approval before such changes could become permanent.

The Senate was justifiably wary of the governor's plan, which would replace the 40-year-old federal/state medical program for the poor with a managed-care system. Rather than pay doctors and hospitals, the state would pay health maintenance organizations and other networks. Rather than decide which services to cover, the state would leave that up to insurers. The state would pay networks based on the health risks of the Medicaid patients. The insurers would profit if they spent less than the state reimbursed or lose money if they spent more.

When Gov. Bush opened the legislative session, Medicaid reform was one of the ideas that he said needed "bold" action. But there's bold and there's risky, and in this case, the guinea pigs were patients dependent on Medicaid. Although Gov. Bush could have pursued his risky experiment without legislative approval, lawmakers needed oversight -- and answers to such questions as: If an HMO refuses a service, will the state or hospital pay for it anyway? Which prescription drugs will be covered? How will the new groups save money when private health plan costs are rising faster than Medicaid's costs? If the state caps the amount to be spent per patient, what about those with catastrophic illnesses or injuries?

So rather than roll out Gov. Bush's plan in eight counties, the Legislature restricted it to Broward and Duval. After two years, these test programs can be expanded to other parts of the state, but only if lawmakers approve. While the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration is reviewing what works and what doesn't, the state has gained time to look at alternatives to Gov. Bush's plan. One idea: Should more incentives be offered to state hospitals and county health-care districts, including Palm Beach County's, to create health plans where private insurers might not want to offer coverage?

Like all state chief executives, Gov. Bush recognizes that Medicaid is unsustainable in its current form. This year, the state will spend about $15 billion on its share of covering the one of every seven Floridians enrolled in Medicaid. If history is a guide, that cost will grow by about 13 percent next year. But the governor proposed his usual ideological solution: Go private. In fact, managed care didn't work for Medicare in the late 1éé0s, and there's nothing to indicate that it would work for Medicaid.

Bad decisions on a program such as Medicaid can have drastic consequences, especially for hospitals. The Legislature prudently did not answer the drastic increase in Medicaid costs with Gov. Bush's "bold" but dangerous plan.

Wrong man, wrong place

Some testimony portrays John Bolton as thoroughly mean and vindictive, but an abrasive personality does not disqualify him from becoming America's ambassador to the United Nations. Neither does his low regard for the U.N. No, what should bar Mr. Bolton's Senate confirmation is his penchant for manipulating intelligence to support his ideology.

Disregard for the facts and impatience with the truth sent the United States into Iraq on a futile search for weapons of mass destruction. That mistake, and é/11 before it, produced several commissions, reams of recommendations and even some reforms, with all of the effort building to one conclusion: The United States needs as much unbiased intelligence as it can get. It makes no sense, in the face of all that, to send to the U.N. a man who tried to get analysts fired for telling the truth because the facts did not support the political point he wanted to sell.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to vote on Mr. Bolton's nomination today. Witnesses have provided ample evidence that in 2002, Mr. Bolton tried to have analysts fired for refusing to let him tell the conservative Heritage Foundation in a speech that Cuba had a bioweapons program that threatened the United States. The administration was trying to embarrass former President Jimmy Carter, who was about to visit Cuba.

Other witnesses have said that Mr. Bolton also sought to exaggerate threats posed by Syria and Iran. A 2003 speech on North Korea angered the ambassador to South Korea and State Department diplomats who thought it went too far, but that speech did receive clearance. More problematic, the State Department, where Mr. Bolton is under secretary for arms control, in particular has refused to give committee Democrats information about Mr. Bolton's attempts to hype the Syrian threat and reputed clashes with analysts who disagreed with him. It should worry even Republicans that the administration is defending a man accused of warping reality by withholding information necessary to learn what really happened.

The U.N. is guilty of enough scandals -- such as the oil-for-food program -- that it would be appropriate to send an ambassador who confronts its faults. But even with its faults, the U.N. has advanced U.S. foreign policy. It would be a mistake to approve an ambassador whose ideological fervor could undermine American influence. Mr. Bolton's problem isn't his temperament; it's his credibility, or lack of it.

Reid's multi-part mistake

When the Democratic leader of the Senate called President Bush "a loser," he made an error not just of style but of strategy.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who previously called Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan a "political hack," spoke Friday to students at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas. During an otherwise properly critical assessment of the president's policies, Sen. Reid responded to a student's question by saying: "The man's father is a wonderful human being. I think this guy is a loser."

That was a mistake on many levels. That sort of talk-radio belch is beneath Sen. Reid, as it was when then-Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney called Al Gore a "loser" as the former vice president conceded the 2000 election, which he knew he had lost because of voter error. Only after the Republican National Committee criticized Sen. Reid's remark did he call White House political adviser Karl Rove to apologize.

Moreover, that throwaway line allowed the RNC to divert attention from the content of Sen. Reid's message. GOP Communications Director Brian Jones referred to the "leader of a party devoid of optimism, ideas or solutions to the issues people care about most." In fact, anxiety over the president's "solutions" have his approval ratings at personal lows, and those "solutions" were the target of Sen. Reid's comments. "He's driving this country into bankruptcy," the Las Vegas Review Journal quoted Sen. Reid as saying. "He's got us in this intractable war in Iraq."

Right on both counts, and there is enough to debate about policy without getting personal, even if the president presumes that strong policy criticism amounts to personal attack. Final point: Mr. Bush is anything but a "loser" when it comes to politics. If he were, Sen. Reid would be the majority leader.

Schools get no new rules but still too little money

It would be nice to think that the Legislature let Gov. Bush's latest education proposals die because lawmakers finally have concluded that the "education governor" has done enough damage to education. But that isn't what happened.

The House, which at Gov. Bush's insistence has helped to burden public schools with ever-increasing state mandates while refusing to pay for voter-approved class-size reductions, sunk his A++ Plan because private voucher schools objected to a Senate proposal requiring them to conduct thorough background checks on employees. Some voucher schools think the state would be heavy-handed if it made them check national databases -- not just Florida records -- to see if teachers and other employees were convicted of sex offenses in other states.

The unwillingness to inconvenience voucher schools indirectly helped traditional public schools because the spat prevented some bad ideas -- such as directions for "teaching" history -- from advancing. Most significantly, the governor had wanted to give vouchers to tens of thousands of students who failed the reading FCAT. But existing voucher programs are scandal-ridden, and oversight has not improved -- and won't, given the attitudes. Expanding vouchers also would be irresponsible, because lower courts have ruled similar vouchers to religious schools unconstitutional, and the Florida Supreme Court will hear the case next month.

Gov. Bush's attempts to kill or escape the class-size amendment also failed. Voter repeal, his first choice, got hung up in a school-financing squabble that alienated South Florida lawmakers. His cowardly fallback, to delay smaller classes until after he leaves office in January 2007, died in the background-check fight.

The school-financing squabble is complicated, as is assessing whether the Legislature approved an adequate education budget. Statewide, lawmakers gave public schools an additional $1.3 billion, a 6.2 percent increase. In fact, $818 million of it comes not from the state but from increases in local property taxes. And $556 million of the increase goes to the required class-size reductions, leaving too little to pay for such things as higher salaries, insurance premiums and energy costs. Once again, lawmakers used sleight-of-hand instead of real increases to lower class sizes.

Moreover, because of last year's unfair change in the formula for allocating school money, South Florida fares badly. The average per-pupil increase statewide is $355, but in Palm Beach County it's $317, in Broward $334 and in Miami-Dade a paltry $268. At $380, Martin County does better than the average, but St. Lucie will receive $325. Gov. Bush's failure to lean on lawmakers enough to fix that formula cost him votes for his other education bills.

Adequacy of the budget for Florida's new pre-K program isn't complicated at all. The $2,500 per student is too little. At least lawmakers lifted a bureaucratic ban on letting many public school districts provide a pre-K program, though it isn't clear how many will take part and whether the state will have places for the estimated 154,597 4-year-olds who will try to enroll.

Not much got fixed -- voucher schools still lack accountability, the state isn't paying enough for smaller classes and South Florida districts could get robbed again next year. But public school educators are relieved because things might have been so much worse. Given recent

Last chance for Lake O

They got more than a little money for Lake Okeechobee, and Rep. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, deserve credit for that. So does Rep. Richard Machek, D-Delray Beach, who helped.

But even that money, totaling $30 million in separate 2005-2006 budget appropriations, will be inadequate unless it starts a serious, expensive campaign to clean up the ailing lake. This money will be used to buy land and build reservoirs and filter marshes north of the lake, to hold and clean water that otherwise would further pollute it. Some of the money also will go to farmers to encourage better management of phosphorus-polluted water on their property.

Lake Okeechobee has been in serious trouble for years, but last season's hurricanes stirred up nutrient-laced mud in its center, leaving the lake's condition grave. Levels of phosphorus, stirred up from the bottom and washed in with hurricane runoff, are far above normal. The nutrients feed algae that can suck oxygen from the water and kill fish and insects. The muddy water blocks light from reaching water plants in marshes that serve as fish habitat, so the plants die.

It is not alarmist to think that the lake could die. A lake dies when pollutants, such as manure and phosphorus from fertilizers, feed excessive growth of oxygen-consuming noxious aquatic plants and algae. The lake turns into a soup of murky water, slimy green algae and dying fish. Regulators watched it happen to Lake Apopka, northwest of Orlando.

Scientists have warned about Lake Okeechobee's coming crisis for decades. Now, that crisis is here. The cost to save the lake will be great. The cost of failure, however, would be much higher.

Next time, hold the call

In criticizing Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Ron Alvarez for not following the teachings of the Catholic Church, an employee of the Diocese of Palm Beach was criticizing the judge for following a law he had sworn before God to uphold.

So add irony to all the other elements of the case involving "L.G.," a 13-year-old foster child whom Judge Alvarez allowed to have an abortion. After last week's ruling, a telephone call came to the judge's office from Don Kazimir, who runs the diocese's Respect Life Office. Mr. Kazimir wanted to know where Judge Alvarez, who is Catholic, attends church. Mr. Kazimir indicated that he would speak to the parish priest about whether the judge should be able to receive communion. Because the Vatican opposes abortion, some bishops have refused the sacrament to politicians whose votes favor abortion rights.

The day after The Post broke the story of Mr. Kazimir's call, Bishop Gerald Barbarito issued a statement that the diocese had taken no position on the case. Mr. Kazimir, the bishop said, was speaking for himself. Bishop Barbarito discussed the call with Mr. Kazimir, but a spokesman said Tuesday that the diocese had no further comment.

As Judge Alvarez noted, the moral question in the case of "L.G." was complicated, but the legal question was easy. The girl understood that at her age, childbirth could have been riskier than abortion, understood that she wasn't prepared to raise a baby and was within her rights to end the pregnancy. Had Judge Alvarez ruled differently, he would have been following church law, not the law he has pledged to carry out.

Any judge, of course, has the option of quitting if he or she is unable to reconcile personal belief with occupational decisions. The same holds for pharmacists who oppose birth control but must fill a prescription for contraceptives. The irony in such anecdotes is that they represent efforts to substitute religious law for society's law just as the country is fighting a worldwide enemy that would substitute religious law for society's law. Mr. Kazimir was wrong to call. If Bishop Barbarito told him so, that would be the right response.

Legislature 2005: Citizens win most rounds in clash over constitution

Floridians will be glad to know that the Legislature wasn't able to "protect" the state constitution as much as some lawmakers wanted.

At this point, only one change will be on the 2006 ballot. Voters will decide whether to require that any proposed amendment get 60 percent of the vote to pass, rather than a majority. Given the intent behind this proposal, voters should reject it. But the outcome could have been much worse.

If the House had been in control, the Legislature essentially would have gutted the power of citizen groups to put amendments on the ballot. The House would have required that citizen initiatives be limited to matters that deal with constitutional issues or basic human rights. The House would have required that any citizen initiative estimated to cost the state at least 0.2 percent of general revenue -- about $52 million in the 2005-06 budget -- receive two-thirds approval. (The Legislature, of course, would calculate the cost.) The House would have placed crippling and probably unconstitutional limits on the petition drives by which citizen initiatives reach the ballot. That last one was misnamed the Voter Protection Act. Gov. Bush likely would have signed them all.

Supporters cited the "pregnant pigs" amendment of 2002 as reason to limit amendments, but there is much more behind this anti-democracy effort. Gov. Bush and many House members remain mad about the class-size amendment, which did not receive 60 percent. Other petition drives aiming for 2006 would shift authority for drawing political districts from the Legislature to an independent commission, order a review and possible elimination of sales-tax exemptions and establish universal health care.

In other words, these proposals target both the power of the Legislature and the lobbyists who control the Legislature. Hindering these efforts is designed to protect the special interests, not the voters.

As this newspaper has said for months, there is a compromise that could preserve citizen access and protect the integrity of the constitution. Allow the Florida Supreme Court to decide which proposals deal with constitutional questions and approve them as amendments. Those that meet all requirements but deal with other matters could go onto the ballot as proposed laws. Of the 24 states that allow citizen initiatives, only Florida and Illinois don't offer this statutory option.

It does the state no good when doctors and lawyers, as they did last year, spend $30 million on misleading campaigns to win through constitutional amendment the medical malpractice fight that the Legislature couldn't resolve in 2003. But the answer is not for the Legislature to cut the public out of the process. The answer is for the Legislature to start serving the public.

Keep precious parkland

In less than one year, offers to Wellington for parkland along State Road 7 have spiked from more than a quarter-million dollars per acre to more than a half-million. Selling even 6 acres at any of the "astronomical" rates that the village manager says have come unsolicited since Wellington bought 68 acres in September 2003 might seem like a good value. More valuable to residents, however, is filling the need that prompted the village to spend $8.5 million on the land in the first place -- recreation space.

Residents made it clear during last year's council election that increasing the number of ballfields is a priority. In March 2004, the winning candidates -- Carmine Priore, Bob Margolis and Laurie Cohen -- beat candidates who favored selling the Kahlert property for an assisted-living facility. The goal of preserving the land for a park has not changed, nor has the demand for vacant property diminished. In fact, the offers of such high purchase prices attest to even greater demand in the village. If private developers can't find open space, why should the village expect to?

Tentative plans for the property include six multipurpose fields, two baseball fields, a batting cage and lakes for storing reclaimed water from the waste-water plant. Even with those fields, however, the village at buildout still would be 28 acres short of reaching its parkland-to-people ratio. Residents long ago set that standard at 10 acres of developed parkland per 1,000 people, and the tax rate has reflected those plans.

Even Wellington's Web site boasts of ever-increasing property values -- from $2.5 billion assessed in 2001-02 to $3.6 billion in 2003-04 -- and affordable property tax rates, compared with comparably sized cities. "Including Wellington's drainage assessment of $120 per computed acre," the Web site says, "the total tax burden per capita of $154.34 continues to be among the lowest in the county..."

The village also expects its population to grow from about 50,000 now to 65,000 in 2016. So, if the village has the land, needs it and can afford to develop it as a park, why would council members even consider giving up any space? Worse would be offering the land without a competitive bid -- a decision the council also will consider tonight.

Selling all of the parkland more than a year ago would have worsened the village's need for more recreational space. Selling part of it now is a bad idea for the same reason.

Inspect private inspectors

Port St. Lucie ordered five luxury homebuilders to stop work on about 30 multimillion-dollar houses in the Tesoro development last week, pointing out the problems of state rules that allow builders to hire their own building inspectors. City inspectors discovered that two homes were being built without permits and that dozens more had possible building code violations. City officials complained to the state because at least one private inspector, hired by West Palm Beach's ONM&J structural engineers, was not certified to do inspections.

The city ordered builders with Casto Homes Inc., Lavelle Construction & Development Corp., Palm Coast Builders, Gulick Construction Co. Inc. and Purucker & Marrano Custom Homes to stop work after city inspectors found that Gulick partially had built two homes without building permits. Inspectors learned that all builders except Ecclestone Signature Homes were using ONM&J. The state allows private inspectors as long as they are properly licensed and notify the city of inspections. But in many cases in the Tesoro development, builders secured permits and then stopped notifying the city of ongoing work. Private inspectors are supposed to alert city inspectors, who have the option to reinspect all work.

In on-site inspections last week, Port St. Lucie Building Department Technical Services Chief Joel Dramis noticed improperly bundled cables and electrical wires and too few electrical outlets in some homes. The city won't let the five builders resume work until they hire a state-licensed architect or engineer to stress-test concrete slabs and do other tests to ensure that the buildings meet city codes. Because walls have been put up in some homes, inspectors will have to punch holes to inspect interior work. Mr. Dramis said that he has met with each of the builders, who have agreed to have the city do their inspections in the future.

Builders who choose to hire private inspectors still must pay normal inspection fees to the city. City employees still must review all paperwork that the private inspectors submit to the city. So the private inspection process costs builders extra money, doesn't save the city time, and could result in inferior buildings. In this case, the city was alert and caught the problems. But as development increases, so will the pressure. The city should hire more inspectors now, to be ready for the continuing growth boom.

Tax breaks, but no jobs

Two weeks before the election, President Bush signed the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, which doled out $137 billion in tax breaks to corporations, with the idea they would use the windfall to put more Americans to work.

It was the largest corporate tax overhaul in two decades and probably the most eclectic group of winners ever. Besides breaks for General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, oil companies and the other usual multinational suspects, there was also largess for bow-and-arrow firms, tobacco farmers, movie producers and NASCAR race promoters. But drug companies will reap some of the largest benefits, thanks to a provision that creates a one-year window to shift profits to the United States at a 5.25 percent tax rate, instead of the standard 35 percent. Drug makers can move profits overseas and back more easily than other businesses with less forgiving accounting practices. The ability to send money where the taxes aren't has allowed the six major drug companies -- Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Wyeth and Lilly -- to reduce their worldwide taxes to a fraction of the normal rate.

The big six are likely to return about $75 billion in profits to the United States during the grace period and save roughly $22 billion in taxes. These are the same companies that profess outrage when consumers try looking outside the U.S. to save a few dollars on drugs from Canada. These are also the same companies that flood prime-time television with commercials, while maintaining it is the high cost of research and development that makes prescriptions expensive. Industry analysts say the drug companies make most of their profits in the U.S. market, though they have claimed otherwise on the advice of their accountants.

The law set no specific requirements on how to spend the tax savings, and the drug makers aren't proposing any. The idea that the tax breaks will create new jobs seems a distant memory.

Girl's abortion was legal; the reason for it wasn't

Now that a judge has settled the question of whether a 13-year-old can consent to an abortion, the focus is shifting to another question: Can a 13-year-old consent to sex? Because Florida law says the answer is no, police correctly are trying to find the male who impregnated the teen identified as L.G.

It is unknown where L.G. got pregnant. In February, she ran away from a St. Petersburg group home, and later found out she was pregnant. She told her birth mother, who lost her parental rights in 2001, that she was living near the state home with a 28- or 30-year-old man.

The Florida Department of Children and Families went to court to block L.G. from having an abortion, but little attention was paid to the crime that had occurred. Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez ruled last week that the state could not prevent L.G. from ending her pregnancy. He also ensured that DNA from the aborted fetus would be preserved for use in a criminal investigation. Regardless of whether L.G. identifies the male who got her pregnant -- she told Judge Alvarez simply "a boy" -- police now have strong evidence to pursue sexual battery charges.

Although the legal age of consent is 18, prosecutors are less apt to charge teens who have sex with other teens of the same age or when the age difference is slight. But a law targets the underreported crime of grown men having sex with girls. The number of girls impregnated by adult men was so high in 1996 -- 77 percent of births among girls 16 to 18, and 51 percent of births to girls 15 or younger -- that the Legislature passed the "MAMA Bill," for Make Adult Males Accountable. The law requires prosecution of men 20 or older who impregnate girls younger than 16. It also requires anyone who knows that a child becsme pregnant by an adult to report it to law enforcement.

Although health departments regularly file reports of teen pregnancies to state attorney's offices -- 6,940 unwed teens 17 or younger gave birth in 2003 -- the law rarely results in a criminal charge, primarily because the victims are afraid or otherwise unwilling to identify the predator. At the very least, the evidence in L.G.'s case could be compared to samples in a database of criminals in jail or formerly jailed. The man more than twice L.G.'s age who reportedly sheltered her should be a primary suspect.

Police should do all they can to find the man who preyed upon L.G., and prosecutors should seek the strongest charge and penalty possible. Without the sex, there would have been no abortion debate.

Exploitation of a hero

Pat Tillman gave his life to the U.S. Army. The Army, in return, killed Pat Tillman and turned his death into the centerpiece of a lie.

First, officials lied to Cpl. Tillman's brother -- also an Army Ranger -- and then to the rest of Cpl. Tillman's family. Investigators knew that fellow Rangers, in an act of "gross negligence," fired on and killed Cpl. Tillman near the Afghan town of Manah on April 22, 2004.

Then, officials, including forces commander Gen. John P. Abizaid, lied to the nation, allowing Americans to believe that Taliban fighters killed Cpl. Tillman. It made a better story -- "an inspiration," the White House called it. Pat Tillman had given up his $1 million-a-year-plus National Football League salary to join the Army after the Sept. 11 attacks. He was the kind of hero whose sacrifice motivated others to join. The nation mourned Cpl. Tillman during a nationally televised memorial service, never suspecting that the event was propaganda.

But the Army knew. Is it possible that the commander in chief didn't? Could Army officials deceive him in such a high-profile case and escape punishment when the truth came out? The Army admitted in late May 2004 that friendly fire killed Cpl. Tillman. Just this week, The Washington Post revealed that officials knew the circumstances well before the memorial. As in all the other scandals, no one high in the chain of command has paid a price. Seven soldiers present at the attack were given administrative reprimands. A year before Cpl. Tillman died, the Army and administration had turned Jessica Lynch's capture and rescue into propaganda, but at least in that case they were not exploiting her death.

Confusion explains part of what happened in Afghanistan. Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, who conducted an investigation at the request of Cpl. Tillman's family and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., found that "some soldiers lost situational awareness to the point they had no idea where they were." They thought they were under attack when they fired on Cpl.. Tillman, who had set off a smoke grenade, was waving his arms and shouting, "Friendlies! Friendlies!" They also mistakenly killed an Afghan ally.

Confusion in battle is one thing. Something else led soldiers to burn Cpl. Tillman's bloody uniform and body armor the next day. Something else led the Army to exploit Cpl. Tillman's death and intensify his family's grief. It wasn't the heat of battle. It was cold calculation.

No backdoor ID policy

Americans deserve a thoughtful debate over whether national identification cards are a good idea, not Congress making the decision through the back door by taking over the states' driver licensing.

Last week, House Republicans approved a provision -- attached to a supplemental spending bill for Iraq -- that would put unreasonable requirements on how states issue licenses. The legislation, which the Senate will consider this week, requires each state to verify applicants' citizenship or immigration status. Also, states would have to make copies of immigration documents submitted and retain a digital photo of each applicant. Supporters, led by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., say their so-called Real ID provision will protect the country against terrorists and strike a blow against illegal immigration. In fact, the rules would threaten Americans' privacy and place a needless burden the states.

Standardized driver licenses held in a central database would amount to national ID cards. Rep. Sensenbrenner and his backers haven't disclosed how they would secure this database or manage access. With identity theft cases growing, it's hardly time to collect and store in one place so much vital information. Until now, the federal government has had the good sense to leave driver licenses to the states, which has worked well for nearly a century.

In effect, the proposed requirements would federalize state workers and cast them into roles for which they have no training. What does a motor vehicle office employee know about immigration law? How are state employees supposed to verify information that even federal employees would find hard to check? The consequence for the states would be finding a way to pay for all the new responsibility Congress intends to inflict on them. As usual, there's no plan to send federal money.

Rep. Sensenbrenner taps 9/11 fear to make his case, saying that driver licenses helped the terrorists carry out the attacks. In truth, while nine of the 19 hijackers had licenses, the real problem was fraudulent passports and visas the hijackers used to get into the country. Those are federal responsibilities. The federal government should fix itself and leave the states alone.

Decision was premature on Singer Island project

Reasonable people can disagree with the Marriott proposal for the beach on Singer Island that Riviera Beach approved in concept last week. The plan for the city-owned Ocean Mall, however, only is increasing the inclination in the city to be disagreeable.

Some residents have resurrected unhelpful talk of the island seceding from the city's less-well-to-do mainland. As with other aspects of Riviera's redevelopment effort, other residents have difficulty getting facts amid rumors, political infighting, developers jockeying for position and bureaucratic murk. Worse, the Marriott proposal is so disagreeable that residents reasonably perceive that the council members they elected in March are giving away their beach, after campaigning to protect the beach and the public's access to it.

The development is massive, but Marriott insists that it needs two 27-story time-share towers to finance a third tower -- the hotel the city asked for. To reach what is one of the most popular public beaches in Palm Beach County thus would mean negotiating a private development sprawling beyond the borders of the dilapidated mall the city is trying to replace.

Moreover, the meeting during which the proposal was approved probably was illegal. At the very least, it was sneaky for the council, acting as the community redevelopment agency board, to advertise an "update" on the Marriott proposal, then approve such an intimidating project for the 11 acres of pristine beachfront. Despite their defense that they approved only a concept -- not a letter of intent, much less a contract -- council members don't know such basic answers as the amount of parking.

The lone dissenter, David Schnyer, says he resigned from the council not just over Marriott's proposal and the "tainted" approval process but because of city leaders' "lack of integrity." His fellow Singer Island resident and replacement has some ideas to which his colleagues ought to listen.

Retired Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Edward Rodgers, a former councilman, says city leaders first need to redevelop the art of communication. Rather than continue haggling over developers' proposals, he would buy out the 20 remaining years of the sweetheart mall lease under which the Brock family pays the city $20,000 and collects $400,000 a year from tenants. "Then we would be in complete control," Mr. Rodgers says, "and able to see if there are any builders out there that want to come in and build what we want."

Right now, the developer is pleased and residents aren't. The answers become simple once council members make up their minds about whom they're going to please if they can't please both.

Urgent need in Martin for new land-buy plan

A grass-roots group considering another push for a 1-cent sales tax to buy sensitive lands in Martin County is on the right track. Even the cost of an off-year special election would be worth it because the need is clear and urgent.

The county depleted its land-buying budget last week by contributing $26.8 million toward the purchase of 12,700 acres for a reservoir and filter marsh near the St. Lucie Canal. Partnering with the state and the South Florida Water Management District on this Everglades restoration project also offers help for the St. Lucie and Indian rivers. The reservoir will store some of Lake Okeechobee's overflow and clean polluted water before it is released to Martin's rivers.

But much more land is needed. With development booming and land prices continuing to rise, buying now will be cheaper for taxpayers. The county is down to about $1.8 million in the land purchase fund the Healthy Rivers sales tax created. Approved in 1998, the tax helped Martin buy about 43,000 acres of land. The tax ended in 2002.

Last summer's storms foiled an attempt to win voter approval in November of the new "Lands For You II" measure, which 51.4 percent of voters rejected. The proposed penny sales tax would have generated more than $60 million over three years to buy and preserve environmental and park land. Proponents said the damage from the hurricanes, the short campaign period and the county's uncertain backing for the plan left voters unenthusiastic.

In January, former U.S. Interior Department Under Secretary and Jupiter Island resident Nathaniel Reed brought back the idea in a speech to the Martin County Conservation Alliance. With Congress on the brink of approving the Indian River Lagoon Restoration Plan, the Treasure Coast portion of Everglades restoration, Martin needs a lands fund. The county can team up with the federal government as it has with the state.

Greg Braun, president of Audubon of Martin County, has suggested copying the Florida Forever program, which uses part of a small tax on all property sales statewide to buy sensitive lands. But others like the idea of the sales tax because it is deductible and because tourists pay part of it. Some county commissioners also have suggested a separate sales tax to pay for road improvements, but too many taxes could turn off voters. The problem of getting voters' attention for an off-year election, and the cost, estimated at around $100,000, also must be considered. County staff also would like a share of a lands-fund tax for park improvements.

Land prices aren't dropping. Organizers must sort out the alternatives and choose one soon.

Solving wrong problem

Since the state opened the Florida Institute for Girls five years ago, its only maximum-security girls prison has been a predictable failure, the result of allowing profit-minded bidders to warehouse the most violent juveniles. Now, rather than make the necessary improvements, the state has chosen a solution based on public relations, not public safety: Close the prison.

What happens to the girls and the 100-bed facility the state built near the South Florida Fairgrounds? "It's too early to tell," said Tom Denham, spokesman for the Department of Juvenile Justice. By Aug. 1 or Oct. 1 -- DJJ officials are hoping for the latter -- most of the girls probably will be transferred to one of five other state programs. The most violent inmates will have to be evaluated, Mr. Denham said, "on a case-by-case basis."

Just two weeks before legislators agreed with Rep. Gustavo Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, that the prison "just didn't work," DJJ officials praised the private company hired to run FIG. Lighthouse Care Centers, DJJ Secretary Anthony Schembri wrote to The Post, "has done a remarkable job handling these girls, who frequently are sent there because our other facilities can't handle them." Well, he got the last part right. Of the 60 girls at FIG, nine are "Level 10," or "maximum risk." The others are "high" security risks. Most of the inmates have suffered sexual abuse and have mental-health problems.

By shutting down FIG, the Legislature relieves Mr. Schembri of a publicity nightmare. Lighthouse did better than Premier Behavioral Solutions, which was fired after guards broke two inmates' arms and sexually abused some. But under Lighthouse, high staff turnover and poor training remained. Mental-health services and classroom materials were inadequate, and the company did not hire enough therapists or case managers with state-required advanced degrees and experience. A former supervisor told The Post that she quit because Lighthouse was more concerned with profits than inmates.

That's the problem with the state's approach to juvenile justice. The philosophy that in 1994 drove the creation of "Level 10" designations, boot camps and juvenile academies did little to address treatment for young criminals. The private contractors running the programs paid their workers some of the lowest salaries in the nation and hired many who had been fired from similar jobs. The political focus on retribution did not give equal time to rehabilitation.

FIG became another facility that "can't handle" Florida's toughest juveniles. The state's challenge remains creating a program that can.

Correct call on Fed Cup

Delray Beach caught some criticism for spending money on a major tennis event that happened to take place just after the inquest into the death of Jerrod Miller. The first had nothing to do with the second.

The city spent $150,000 to attract the Fed Cup match between teams from the United States and Belgium. It is to women's tennis what the Davis Cup is to men's -- top-level international competition. The matches drew about 4,000 people both days to Delray's tennis center on West Atlantic Avenue, crowds as healthy as those that came last year to a quarterfinal match of the Davis Cup. Mayor Jeff Perlman estimated that the city's investment, offset by $40,000 from the county's Tourist Development Council and $20,000 from sponsorships, returned between $2 million and $3 million in business. Plus, ESPN2 broadcast the event worldwide, meaning that it also broadcast Delray Beach worldwide.

Whatever the actual numbers, spending the money paid off. With that success, the city hopes to persuade the United States Tennis Association to make Delray a regular stop in April for one or both tournaments, if schedules work out. The city has a strong case, and it has a terrific venue as a selling point.

Twelve years ago, Delray opened the $5.6 million tennis center as part of downtown renaissance. With 18 courts as well as the stadium, the complex remains the best in the area. Some in Delray have complained that the center hasn't turned a profit. Brahm Dubin, whose company manages the center, estimates that Delray's current annual subsidy is about $350,000. But while finances are important, the bottom line itself never was the main reason for building the center. Mr. Dubin is correct when he says the center is meant to be "affordable" for the public and to act as "a marketing arm" of Delray Beach, much like the popular Old School Square that is just across Swinton Boulevard from the center. That complex opened before the tennis center and received a subsidy of $210,000 in this year's budget.

When Delray Beach built the tennis center, the idea was to attract people from throughout the city. That sentiment continues. For the Fed Cup, 200 tickets were distributed each day to minority children. "And they were here," Mr. Dubin said. Free clinics were held for children. It helped that the American team captain, Zina Garrison, and the two best-known players, Serena and Venus Williams, are African-American.

With all the emotion that Jerrod Miller's death has generated, it was unrealistic to think that the subject wouldn't come up during such a large public event as the match. But the city's involvement showed the right priorities, not the wrong ones.

Still throwing softballs

When it comes to steroids, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is all windup and no pitch.

In March, Mr. Selig denied before Congress that baseball has a major steroid problem and defended a drug-testing program, begun last year, that is really a license to use. A first-time offender can expect only a 10-day suspension; only after four violations is a year's ban possible. For a fifth offense, the penalty is left to the commissioner's discretion, a scary prospect.

Mr. Selig also did not see a steroid problem during the 1990s, when baseball's attendance spiked as sinewy home-run hitters had record seasons. The commissioner personally benefited from this long-ball boom because he owned the Milwaukee Brewers. With balls flying out of the parks and the turnstiles spinning, no owner dared even to mention the word steroids.

Last week, Mr. Selig sent a letter to union leader Donald Fehr asking the players to agree to a 50-game suspension for a first-time offender and a lifetime ban for a third offense. He also asked the union to endorse a ban on amphetamines, more frequent random tests and the appointment of an independent administrator to oversee the program. The "three strikes and you're out" plan sounds good when compared with the current "five strikes and we'll see." But there's no better reason to take Mr. Selig seriously than there was two months ago.

The commissioner and baseball's hierarchy continue to act as if they are trying to invent something unprecedented. But the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the Olympics have run effective programs for years. The formula is simple: year-round random testing and penalties that inflict financial pain.

The ineffectiveness of last year's cosmetic changes is apparent. Five of the 750 players have tested positive this season. Like Congress and the fans, the players aren't taking Mr. Selig seriously, either.

White House unreality meets the Iraq reality

President Bush says America is winning the war on terror, but the numbers are so bad that his administration tried to hide them.

Last year, the State Department published bogus statistics in the congressionally required annual report on terror incidents. When caught, the administration admitted that terror attacks worldwide went up in 2003, not down as originally claimed. This year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a different brainstorm. Why not just leave out the statistics altogether? When the numbers leaked, her reason was obvious. Terror attacks increased to 655 in 2004, up from 175 in 2003, not including attacks on uniformed troops.

How much deception and coverup will the administration commit to protect its claim that invading Iraq has made Americans and the world safer? Add to the numbers game the whitewashing of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. It is clear that high officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, knew about and advocated interrogation measures equivalent to torture. Yet Army investigations cleared the command structure except for the scapegoat, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski -- now Col. Karpinski -- and put blame only on low-level soldiers such as Lynndie England.

The insistence that America is winning the war on terror even as attacks escalate has created a mixed message bordering on schizophrenia. This week, Iraq's newly formed Cabinet held its first meeting. But as of this week, insurgents in Iraq have killed 616 Iraqi police officers in 2005. Will the shaky, delayed government find its feet, or will the insurgency and ethnic feuds knock it down?

More mixed messages: On April 26, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers downplayed an increase in insurgent attacks in Iraq. "I think we're definitely winning," he said. Yet in a May 2 report to Congress, Gen. Myers said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have degraded U.S. ability to meet threats elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Army reported that recruiters have missed their target by 16 percent.

The most frustrating mixed message is that, although Al-Qaeda officials regularly are captured -- this week, it was Abu Faraj al-Libbi, caught in Pakistan -- Osama bin Laden remains at large, as does Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the mastermind behind much of Iraq's mayhem.

If terror attacks are up, the military's ability to fight is degraded and sufficient soldiers aren't signing up for future missions, "winning" isn't the appropriate description. The best case is that the Army is holding its own and, in time, will turn the corner. U.S. forces are tough. Why doesn't the White House think the public is tough enough to hear the truth?

Stuffing the budget box?

New Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson turned in his first budget proposal, and the 78 percent increase he wants demands a recount.

The $14.2 million request, up from last year's $8 million, includes $1.7 million to add 500 touch-screen voting machines to the 4,400 the county already has. Mr. Anderson says he needs them to keep pace with the growing population. He also wants $550,000 to add 15 positions, increasing personnel from 39 to 54. One new job would be in marketing and public relations; another would oversee quality improvement and community outreach. Mr. Anderson will have a hard time defending positions for public relations and outreach, especially since he can handle some of that work himself.

Two of the new staff members would run a new Belle Glade office. There's $400,000 to hire private attorneys and $200,000 for more warehouse space to store machinery. Mr. Anderson has included $1.5 million to cover the possibility of a special election. He budgeted $751,500 for runoff elections but won't need it because the Legislature eliminated them.

What Mr. Anderson didn't include is telling. There's no money for printers to create a ballot paper trail, something he supported during last year's campaign against Theresa LePore. He says he will go to the county commission for the money if the state Division of Elections approves the printers. They will be expensive -- probably more than $4 million -- and commissioners should keep that in mind while examining Mr. Anderson's hefty budget. One request that definitely would serve the public is $572,700 to improve the office's Internet site and create electronic access to candidate finance reports. The information currently is available only on paper, creating unreasonable delays in releasing it.

County taxpayers thought that the biggest hit was behind them when they paid $14.4 million for the new touch-screen system after the 2000 debacle. Now Mr. Anderson is asking nearly as much just to make it to next year. Ric Bradshaw, the new sheriff, faces many of the same growth issues as the election supervisor but turned in a budget request that's up only 13 percent from last year. County commissioners have to make Mr. Anderson justify numbers well beyond the high end of reality.

Pay 2004 storm bills first

New federal legislation would make the Federal Emergency Management Agency do things right -- next time. That's fine, but, with hurricane season three weeks away, it's small comfort to the 28,000 people still living in temporary trailers and the local governments struggling to pay last year's storm cleanup bills.

Twin bills sponsored by Rep. Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, and Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., would make FEMA pay local governments for debris removal on emergency access roads in gated communities and make debris removal from private property eligible for federal repayment. The bills also would make the feds pay in 60 days.

That's good for future hurricanes. But it doesn't help those local governments still struggling to pay cleanup bills because FEMA paid hurricane expenses too little too late. Sen. Martinez, who put more effort into politically motivated legislation in the Terri Schiavo case, finally is worried about "a tremendous strain and financial burden on local governments."

Palm Beach County has received $7.25 million but seeks $59 million for debris removal. Martin has appealed FEMA's refusal to pay $5.4 million for removing debris from gated communities and for fire and rescue workers' overtime. St. Lucie County has appealed the agency's refusal to pay $2.2 million for debris pickup from gated communities and private roads.

FEMA has been criticized for paying nearly $30 million in claims in Miami-Dade, which escaped a direct hit, and for paying for funerals in deaths unrelated to the hurricanes. Also, 30 of 133 FEMA inspectors checked reportedly have criminal records, with such offenses as drunken driving and drug possession. FEMA Director Michael Brown said criminal records don't automatically disqualify inspectors. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, wants Mr. Brown fired.

Rep. Foley plans hearings to deal with current complaints against FEMA, an aide said. Better rent a big hall -- and bring enough Meals Ready to Eat to last awhile.

Before trailer parks go, find place for residents

People who don't live in trailer parks may see them as places that get pummeled by hurricanes and fall into disrepair. Other people look at trailer parks as home, and those residents deserve some consideration from government.

As housing prices skyrocket, trailer parks remain the most affordable option for many Palm Beach County residents. That's why county commissioners are right to be skeptical of a proposal to level the 393-unit Meadowbrook Mobile Home Park on Drexel Road south of Okeechobee Boulevard to make way for 610 townhomes.

County scrutiny produced a better offer from developer Centex Homes, which on Thursday said it would contribute $1 million toward a county-run program to help residents move. The offer, however, came with a worse alternative. If the county still refuses to change the park's zoning, Meadowbrook's owners can evict the residents after giving six months' notice and reapply with an empty park.

State law requires that "adequate" alternative housing exist for residents before government can transform trailer parks. County staff deserves credit for questioning the developer's study. While Centex claimed that there are more than 1,100 vacant spots within area mobile home parks to accommodate those in Meadowbrook who would be displaced, staff filtered out trailer parks in Broward County and parks that won't accept older homes and came up with a total of just 88.

Commissioner Jeff Koons explains the need for such diligence. He correctly notes that the first step in assuring a supply of affordable housing is to keep what you have. Referring to Meadowbrook, he said: "I know that's not very nice housing. I know it's dangerous. But we have no place for those people to go."

Commissioner Koons can see a time when the county does have a place for displaced trailer-park residents, and the $1 million from Centex could help. Centex, which received a 90-day postponement to work out details, also is willing to cap the sale price of 150 townhomes on the Meadowbrook site at $200,000, the maximum to be eligible for a county-run, no-interest mortgage subsidy of $65,000.

Fueled by the hot market and high prices for homes -- the county's median price for resales in March was $371,500, an increase of 37 percent in one year -- trailer parks make prime targets for redevelopment. Homes in older parks often don't meet post-Andrew hurricane standards. Many parks occupy prime real estate and have a single owner, key considerations to land-starved developers. The market is so good that developers will pay extra to move residents. County officials intent on keeping the housing market open to all workers need to craft a program that will help Meadowbrook residents and those who come after them.

Public records go online

How does the state that has been the best in keeping public records available become the best at making public records available online? That's where you come in.

The draft report over which the Committee on Privacy and Court Records has labored today enters the public comment period. In the state whose constitution and Government-in-the-Sunshine Laws guarantee the right to inspect or copy any public record, including court records, the comments will help the panel further amend its recommendations to the Florida Supreme Court regarding the electronic release of records.

The techno-challenge is balancing the public's right to know with individuals' right to privacy. "The technology exists to make the same records that are available at the courthouse available via the Internet," the Florida Supreme Court and Legislature essentially said in the 1990s. "It makes sense. Let's do it." The current limited moratorium is in place because many of those records contain volumes of private information. Profiteers might have set up an offshore industry fishing through Social Security numbers, trade secrets and other private info that is confidential by law but buried in those public records. The end of "practical obscurity" also brought awareness of the need to redact much of the information available at the county courthouse.

Among the things to like is that the recommendations reaffirm public access at the courthouse as well as the commitment to electronic access. Another is that, "Instead of the technology driving the policies in this report, it's the policy, as it should be, trying to take advantage of the technology," said Judge Edward Fine, chief of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County and a member of the panel. "The report does it the right way. It looks at the policy first -- access to public records -- then says at this point it is not an appropriate use of the technology because we can't use it responsibly yet" for family law, juvenile and probate records.

There has been little input from the general public but plenty from insider constituencies such as lawyers, court clerks and commercial users who want access to this data -- often to sell it back to the public. During the public comment period that continues through June 3, the report will be on the Florida State Courts Web site, www.flcourts.org. Citizens can respond via e-mail to cpcr@flcourts.org, or to the Committee on Privacy and Court Records, Florida Supreme Court, 500 S. Duval St., Tallahassee, Fla., 32399-1900. Judge Fine is correct when he says, "We can't rely on private industry to protect us. We have to rely on our own rules." See what you think.

School-money shuffle

Though Tallahassee exerts more and more control over local school districts through FCAT grades and other ploys, Tallahassee has paid less and less of the costs since Gov. Bush hit town in 1999.

In the budget to be approved today, the state will pay 56.6 percent of school costs. In the last pre-Bush budget, the state paid 61.2 percent. Rather than hold off on more tax cuts, lawmakers decided that counties should impose higher taxes on homeowners to pay for schools.

Note that the state pays a smaller percentage even though voters in 2002 approved an amendment requiring Tallahassee to pay for smaller classes. Gov. Bush this year continued his assault on that measure, which he opposed and promised to thwart by "devious" means. The most basic ploy has been to "give" districts class-size money by robbing it from other necessities, such as paying for higher utility bills and keeping up with growth. Budget starvation is amplified in South Florida -- where voters put the amendment over the top -- because of unfair financing formulas designed to benefit the northern counties of GOP leaders.

Another of Gov. Bush's class-size attacks appears to have failed, with the Senate refusing to put repeal on the ballot. But in one of the most politically cowardly acts in recent history, the House and Senate have agreed to delay crucial steps in class-size reduction until after Gov. Bush leaves office in January 2007. That move would postpone the time when parents would see firsthand the full benefits, perhaps making it easier to make another run next year at repeal. The ultimate motive, however, is to make someone else clean up the financial mess Gov. Bush created by not paying for smaller classes year-to-year.

Is he running for the Senate or the White House? For sure, Gov. Bush is running away from a problem Florida voters told him to solve.

Drop plan for charters and work with county

A city council field trip this week to Pembroke Pines' charter schools didn't change any minds about starting a similar system in Port St. Lucie. Patricia Christensen and Michelle Berger, who have school-age children, want to copy Pembroke Pines' system, which has 5,200 students in seven schools. Jack Kelly and Chris Cooper question the high cost of a city school system and want St. Lucie County to change the controlled-choice plan and do more to solve discipline problems. Mayor Bob Minsky, who skipped the field trip, will be the swing vote when the council decides whether to go into the school business. He should vote "no."

The Pembroke Pines schools are no-frills buildings that can't be used as hurricane shelters. Students are chosen by lottery, and classes are small (22 students). A majority go on to college, and the high school offers no vocational programs. The city borrowed $90 million to build the schools, relying heavily on state grants that no longer are available. Pembroke Pines recruits teachers from Broward County, matching salaries for four years and then offering increases higher than the county scale. The city recreation department runs school sports programs. A separate city department deals with budget, food service, transportation and other issues, and reports to Charles F. Dodge, who is city manager and schools superintendent. State money doesn't cover operating costs, and Mr. Dodge now wants a share of the Broward County School District's tax money, a fact he barely mentions. Mr. Dodge manages Pembroke Pines under a contract and also works for the consulting firm preparing Port St. Lucie's charter application.

St. Lucie schools could consider some Pembroke Pines ideas, such as partnerships with other agencies for swimming pools and libraries or building schools next to parks. Parents must volunteer 30 hours each year, a requirement St. Lucie has only for parents of magnet students. Superintendent Mike Lannon is open to new ideas. A survey could change the unpopular controlled-choice system for assigning students to schools. The district has used the system since 1991 to meet a federal court desegregation order. Port St. Lucie parents want magnet programs in the city. They complain about busing children from the city's mostly white schools to Fort Pierce schools, which have many low-income African-Americans and Hispanic students.

City and school district officials are talking, which should lead to solutions that serve students and city taxpayers. Ms. Christensen wants to delay the first charter opening from 2006 to 2007. Even she sees the problem: Port St. Lucie has enough financial challenges. Adding schools to the list of debts for roads and utilities would be neither wise nor necessary.

Six decades after Nazis, Holocaust still teaches

You have read their stories in The Post for nearly a month, from Hyman Mendlowitz on April 12 to Helen and Philip Francus on Wednesday. Their stories always have mattered, but their stories matter more with each passing year.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, known as Yom Hashoah. It comes 60 years after liberation of the roughly 15,000 Nazi labor and death camps, the infrastructure of Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Mercifully, the Final Solution did not achieve its goal, but the system came close because of its horrifying efficiency. In Poland alone, 2.8 million Jews -- 85 percent of the total -- were killed. The camps killed 81 percent of the Jews in Germany, 90 percent of the Jews in Lithuania, 90 percent of the Jews in Latvia, 83 percent of the Jews in Czechoslovakia, 80 percent of the Jews in Greece, 71 percent of the Jews in the Soviet Union -- about 1.5 million in all -- and 73 percent of the Jews in Yugoslavia. Estimates are that before Allied forces had liberated the last camp, roughly 72 percent of all the Jews in Europe had perished.

Like the soldiers who defeated Nazi Germany, the Holocaust survivors are dying off. One can visit Yad Vashem in Jerusalem or the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., but nothing is as powerful as a story from those who were witness to the greatest evil the world has known. The survivors speak of a time when barbarism was routine, when some people abandoned their souls to follow the orders of a madman. Madeline Berman was at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest death-camp complex, near Krakow, Poland. "We were transporting corpses to be cremated," she told Post reporter Lona O'Connor. "Each one carried one at a time. We crossed their arms over our shoulders."

To their deaths with the Jews went another 5 million Soviet prisoners, Gypsies, homosexuals and others whom the Nazis considered expendable. Among that number were people who helped Jews, an offense that carried the death penalty in Poland. There are more Poles on the list of Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem than people from any other country. Holocaust Remembrance Day honors such heroes as it pays homage to victims.

Because of its large Jewish population, South Florida keeps memories of the Holocaust close. Students can hear the kinds of stories that The Post has published. According to the American Jewish Committee, however, that isn't the case nationwide. According to a poll taken for the group, Americans know far less about the Holocaust than do Europeans. As AJC Executive Director David Harris notes, however, "The good news is that significant majorities in the U.S. and Europe believe in keeping the memory of the Holocaust strong." As the world has seen in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Sudan, genocide has not gone out of fashion. It is vital that as the survivors leave us, the lessons of the Holocaust live on.

Shortsighted on Scripps

Gov. Bush claims that growth management is one of his priorities, but if he wants to gut growth management, he'll continue his push for a proposal aimed at speeding construction of The Scripps Research Institute in Palm Beach County.

The proposal circulating in Tallahassee would block any court from ordering demolition of buildings found to violate growth-management rules. That would encourage builders whose development orders are challenged in court to start work before a judge can act. For citizens, why bother suing if illegal buildings can remain?

Even if the governor tailors his proposal solely to the Scripps site at Mecca Farms, he would be revealing disdain for growth management. An administrative law judge ruled last week that the Scripps plan met growth-management rules, but the ruling faces years of appellate court review. In the interest of getting Scripps built sooner, the governor would void the appellate court's most powerful remedy.

The beneficiaries would be neighboring landowners, not Scripps. The biggest landowner is Charles Vavrus, whose lawyer, Ernie Cox, wrote the governor's proposal. Mr. Cox lost a Martin County case that resulted in the demolition of five apartment buildings after a builder began construction before appeals were exhausted. Mr. Vavrus stands to gain from the sale of 4,700 acres if Scripps is built next door at Mecca.

Mr. Vavrus' interests were championed by state Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, a regional president for Riverside National Bank. While Sen. Atwater refuses to confirm that Mr. Vavrus is a Riverside client, Mr. Vavrus attended the bank's annual Christmas party last year. To sell the proposal in Tallahassee, Sen. Atwater helped convince county commissioners Tuesday to pass an open-ended resolution expressing support for "all efforts to expedite" Scripps development. With the session due to end Friday, the resolution could not be mistaken for anything but the commission's willingness to set aside growth-management laws in its zeal to put Scripps at Mecca.

That may be counterproductive. Environmental groups are seeking an injunction in federal court to block construction, claiming that the county's Army Corps of Engineers permit divides the 1,920-acre Mecca site into unreasonably small slices. Even if the county survives that challenge, future phases are jeopardized by the potential for corps review. In its haste "to expedite" Scripps at Mecca, the county may end up with only Scripps.

FAU prescription filled

The Board of Governors was about to ignore the state's shortage of physicians when Florida Atlantic University wrote a prescription the board couldn't refuse: expansion of FAU's two-year medical-education program with the University of Miami to four years.

Boca Raton Community Hospital's commitment to build a teaching facility on FAU's Boca Raton campus is the key component of FAU's public-private partnership, which the board was correct to expedite and the Legislature correctly is supporting with $2 million in next year's budget to begin planning. The $5 million FAU-UM program eventually will cost $10 million more a year. In contrast, Florida International University and the University of Central Florida are seeking approval and financing for entirely new medical schools with estimated $100 million-plus price tags each. The board, which supervises the university system, should continue to examine those proposals. But with malpractice lawsuit fears driving doctors out of the state, one of the nation's fastest-growing and with the oldest physician population, FAU's cost-effective initiative clearly is consistent with the state's priorities.

Although the teaching hospital isn't expected to open for at least six years, one question is last month's resignations of Boca Community's board chairman and vice chairman. New board Chairman Richard L. Schmidt says the priorities will not change. The resignations, however, brought to light disagreements over the hospital's ability to manage its own expansion. The criticisms include what the departed board members saw as too few executives to complete all the projects to which the hospital has committed, including a cancer center and the teaching hospital. With the Legislature committed to the medical program, the hospital must continue to make the program its highest priority.

This time, public wins: More land, less money

Take a favorable deal for a friend of former President Bush. Add sunshine, provided by stories in The Post about the South Florida Water Management District agreeing to pay $117.6 million for 7,000 acres of citrus land east of Indiantown in Martin County. Throw in a hearty pinch of pepper, provided by Gov. Bush, who decided after the stories appeared that the price was too high and asked the water district to renegotiate. That's the recipe for a revised deal that gives taxpayers much more land for a reservoir and filter marsh much sooner -- and saves the public nearly $34 million.

The better deal calls for a company headed by Robert C. McNair, Houston energy and sports magnate and friend of the governor's father, to receive $168 million for 12,000 acres north of the St. Lucie Canal. The firm, Aquacalma LP, would have charged the water district $201.6 million for less land at the price per acre than district officials approved in February. The reservoir will store water that otherwise would be dumped into the St. Lucie River, and the extra 5,000 acres will clean and filter runoff before it reaches the river. The result will be a cleaner river and help for businesses that depend on the river.

Retiring water district Director Henry Dean had defended the original deal with Mr. McNair. But Gov. Bush, who frequently questions amounts budgeted for buying land, complained about the cost. Some details of the deal remain unsettled. The district wants Martin County to contribute $28 million, and in exchange would give the county about 100 acres for a park. Mr. Dean had asked John Wehle, who is married to new district Director Carol Wehle and had worked as a consultant with Mr. Dean at the St. Johns Water Management District, to handle negotiations under the earlier deal. The district considered letting Aquacalma build and operate the reservoir and marsh and gave the firm $2.4 million in no-bid contracts to study running the operation as a private venture. Since Ms. Wehle's appointment, Mr. Wehle no longer works on the Aquacalma deal or any other district projects.

The original deal was complicated from the start. Aquacalma first took over rights to buy the land from a subsidiary of the King Ranch, also headquartered in Texas. The water district was to pay the land's appraised value of $12,000 an acre, plus an extra 40 percent to postpone the closing until April 2007 -- in part because the district didn't have the money for an immediate closing. The price of $117.6 million still would be cheaper than the $169 million the land could be worth by 2007, district land aquisition director Ruth Clements said. The land's value has risen to $14,000 an acre, the new price for the larger, 12,000-acre parcel, since the last appraisal in November.

Because Gov. Bush demanded a lower price, the state will spend less money for more land. Sunshine made a better deal grow.

Drop Patriot Act secrecy

The Bush administration is acting as its own worst enemy with the Patriot Act. The 2001 law, which Congress enacted hastily in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, expires at the end of the year. Arguing against making all its provisions permanent is the administration's refusal to release details on its use even to lawmakers with clearance to review the sensitive information.

The law has allowed the federal government greater powers of surveillance, investigation and prosecution against suspected terrorists and their enablers. Critics note that it also has been used to bypass constitutional requirements in ordinary criminal investigations and other manners unrelated to terrorism. The excessive secrecy is consistent with administration practice in myriad areas, but it only feeds concerns about secret searches of homes, possessions, library records and other forms of spying on Americans who pose no threat.

It also helps explain why the coalition that wants changes in the law includes right-wing conservatives and left-wing liberals. Headed by former Congressman Bob Barr, the opposition includes Americans For Tax Reform on the right and the American Civil Liberties Union on the left. Recent resolutions in Alaska and Montana to rein in the Patriot Act are "what true Republicans in every 'red state' should be doing," said Rick Maedje, a GOP member of the Montana House of Representatives. Similar measures have passed in Vermont, Maine and Hawaii, which tend to vote Democratic in national elections.

Meanwhile, Congress cannot reassure the country for lack of details about the law's use. During last week's Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, for example, senators said the administration has yet to report on the FBI's expanded power to force businesses such as Internet service providers to provide information about their customers or subscribers. "We're to some extent doing oversight in the dark," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. As hearings continue, senators are correctly introducing legislation to restrict the law, for example by making it harder for agents to get secret warrants to examine records.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' argument that there "has not been one verified civil rights abuse" of the Patriot Act is a typical non-denial denial. A better argument for some of its provisions in the battle against terror would be some recognition that secrecy doesn't necessarily translate into security for Americans.

Limbaugh loss no threat

Declining to engage in judicial activism, the Florida Supreme Court refused last week to hear talk show host Rush Limbaugh's argument that prosecutors illegally seized his medical records. The decision was a ruling for law enforcement, not against privacy.

In October, the 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach ruled that the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office had used an "abundance of caution" in seizing Mr. Limbaugh's records as part of an investigation into illegal use of prescription drugs. The Palm Beach resident obtained roughly 2,000 pills over six months from four doctors. If Mr. Limbaugh had raised any new credible legal issue, there might have been reason for the Supreme Court to hear the case. But he argued, in essence, that he deserved a hearing because he didn't like the appeals court decision.

The case now comes back to Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Winikoff. Prosecutors will file a motion asking him to review the records, which are at the clerk of courts office, and determine which ones are relevant to the investigation. Possible charges against Mr. Limbaugh range from "doctor shopping" -- using overlapping prescriptions to get illegal numbers of pills -- to money laundering -- concealing cash withdrawals to purchase the pills. The attorney for Mr. Limbaugh, who underwent treatment for addiction to painkillers after The National Enquirer broke the story 18 months ago, maintained again last week that his client committed no crime.

Mr. Limbaugh said he was fighting to protect medical privacy rights, not himself, but this investigation presents no threat to the constitution. Prosecutors had to persuade two judges before getting the records. The Republican-led Legislature made doctor shopping a felony in response to repeated examples of abuse. Privacy rightly protects people from unwarranted, random searches. Privacy does not allow people to conceal possible evidence of a crime.

Call truce in water war

Once again West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County are acting like children fighting over a favorite toy.

For years, the county has refused to provide water service to the western communities, where homes rely on wells and water means growth. But the county couldn't stop others from filling the potentially lucrative void. To that end, West Palm Beach has spent a decade positioning itself to serve The Acreage and surrounding communities.

The county joined the competition last year, when it started to approve suburban-style developments in the semi-rural area. Its decision to control water put the county and the city on opposite sides of a court fight likely to cost millions. Negotiations went nowhere until recently, when the city threatened to block the county from delivering water to The Scripps Research Institute at Mecca Farms.

The county is spending $15 million to extend water lines from Okeechobee Boulevard through The Acreage and across Northlake Boulevard to serve Scripps. That means crossing the city's M Canal. To get the county's attention, the city won't allow the crossing. A legislative bill would block the county from taking the land by eminent domain.

County commissioners called city commissioners to a meeting last week to persuade them to let the Scripps pipelines proceed. Mayor Lois Frankel informed the county that the city didn't want to jeopardize Scripps, but it wouldn't give up its right to sell water out west. That made county commissioners angry. They listed a dozen items of importance to city taxpayers, but apparently expendable. The county would invoke its "nuclear option," Commissioner Mary McCarty said. "This board will get a list of every single thing we've got going with the city, and I bet you there are more things that you need from us than we need from you," Ms. McCarty said.

While that may work in the schoolyard, it's no way to treat taxpayers. No one doubts that the county can cause the city more pain than the city can cause the county. Strong-arming the city to give up its right to sell water is as senseless as the city using its control over a canal to block pipelines to Scripps. Negotiations would have a better chance of success if the people in charge would just grow up.

Cooper deserves a raise

It's a pretty straightforward situation. Port St. Lucie City Manager Don Cooper has done an excellent job and deserves a raise. The city council agrees he is top-notch and doesn't want to lose him. So what's the problem?

Mr. Cooper refused an offer to increase his $134,640 annual salary last week and wants to discuss his proposed raise in one-on-one meetings with individual council members instead. "I do not intend to be attacked in the press," he said, by accepting a pay raise at a public meeting. Council members gave him a $350 monthly increase in his car allowance and agreed to meet with him.

The city manager's odd request is a variation on a theme played whenever Mr. Cooper is due for a raise. In 1992, Port St. Lucie offered Mr. Cooper a 5 percent raise, an extra week's vacation, and better benefits to reject a job he'd applied for as city manager in neighboring Stuart. The council wanted to give him even more money, but he asked that he not receive more than the 5 percent increase other city workers got. In 1999, after 8 1/2 years as city manager, Mr. Cooper actually got as far as resigning "with great reluctance" to take a state transportation job in Denver. "He's done a helluva job and put this city on the map," then-Vice Mayor Jim Anderson said at the time. Less than a week later, he offered to stay after council members gave him a unanimous vote of confidence, ordered him to hire an assistant and made him take a two-week vacation.

In 2002, Mr. Cooper was a finalist for the city manager's job in Little Rock, Ark. He was unhappy over a smear campaign by union officials that called him a "bully" in salary negotiations and told a council member that he also was unhappy with his $101,234 salary. But, as Councilwoman Patricia Christensen said at the time, his salary was about $30,000 lower than the average for managers of comparable cities because he rejected several annual raises to avoid public criticism. Last week he sought to negotiate a raise out of the public eye. That circumvents Florida's Sunshine Law.

Council members praise Mr. Cooper's skills as a negotiator, his diligence and intelligence. Councilman Jack Kelly last week credited Mr. Cooper with saving the city's utility department millions by refinancing utility bonds. He deserves a raise, and the council should grant it -- in public.

Grading FCAT graders

For students and schools, the FCAT is a high-stakes test. For the state Department of Education, it's a low-bidder test.

The state just dumped Pearson Educational Measurement, the company that has been grading the FCAT, in favor of CTB/McGraw-Hill, which will take over next school year. The reason was price, not quality. And that continues a trend. In 2001, the state renewed its contract with Pearson even though the company had failed to grade tests on time. Why did Pearson get a second chance? Because it offered to do the job for $40 million less than the next-lowest bidder. This time, Pearson was undercut.

With CTB/McGraw-Hill, the state can't tell Floridians to expect a higher caliber of work. Instead, the big factor is, according to Education Commissioner John Winn, that "the CTB/McGraw-Hill proposal saves taxpayers $85 million over five years." The deal pays CTB/McGraw-Hill $82 million for three years, with the option to renew for two years at $58 million.

As The Post reported last week, CTB/McGraw-Hill has had some recent problems. Those included destroying ungraded tests in West Virginia and delivering some test results six months late in Connecticut. Commissioner Winn said that "all contractors have incidents of errors" but that Florida has a good system of oversight that should prevent problems.

Certainly if you are a high school student retaking the FCAT in order to graduate -- the first test to be administered by the new company -- you have to hope CTB/McGraw-Hill delivers quick, accurate results. The same hope applies to third-graders taking the FCAT early next year. If they don't pass the reading portion, they don't go to the fourth grade, and CTB/McGraw-Hill's problems in Connecticut came during the first year of its contract.

The pressure on all testing companies is only going to grow. No Child Left Behind is just the latest boom in the high-stakes testing business. More and more students are taking more and more tests. Whether testing companies can find and hire competent graders to keep up with demand is a crucial issue. And if the companies are competing and winning mainly on price, they will find it even harder to pay enough to hire qualified people in sufficient numbers.

The FCAT is a high-stakes test. Grading Florida's FCATs will be a high-stakes test of CTB/Mc-
Graw-Hill.

Watch for health-care, class-size shenanigans

In a session noted for its "deadly force" gun bill, Gov. Bush continues searching for a way to use deadly force against the class-size amendment. Meanwhile, Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, find themselves juggling a $62 billion budget with a wide array of other unfinished business. Here's a partial list of what to watch in the closing days.

CLASS SIZE: Gov. Bush wants lawmakers to propose a constitutional amendment to kill the class-size amendment -- and, just in case, he's trying to delay its implementation until after he leaves office. Proponents claim the delay is necessary because costs go way up for the next phase. But that's true only because the governor and lawmakers refused to pay for the incremental steps. The Senate might block the delay scheme, and should.

EDUCATION SPENDING: Lawmakers have promised millions to soothe South Florida districts hurt by an unfair budget formula. But the proposed fix isn't enough, it's only for one year, and geographical inequities in teacher pay remain. Education advocates should hold out for a fairer formula. Meanwhile, schools again won't have enough to cover increased costs of growth, insurance, utilities and teachers.

MEDICAID: Lawmakers correctly have slowed Gov. Bush's push to privatize Medicaid. Any reform approved this year should avoid replacing the state and federal health-care program for the poor with fewer choices and poorer quality. Because the Agency for Health Care Administration has yet to demonstrate how privatization would save money when costs for private health care also have been rising, the plan should be phased in and reviewed closely. Medicaid recipients will benefit most if "reform" efforts to save money do not, as Senate President Lee said, "result in a rationing of care and a limitation of eligibility."

INSURANCE: Lawmakers still haven't agreed how to make homeowners insurance more affordable without driving companies out of the market. The Senate bill remains more favorable to consumers by, among other things, eliminating a rate-setting system that favored premium increases.

ELECTION REFORM: Republican legislators who want to make voting harder for Democrats retained strict limits on where early-voting polls can be located rather than easing rules to allow early voting in more minority neighborhoods. The House voted to restrict early voting to eight hours a day. Legislators offer no guidance on adding printers to touch-screen ballots, even though Sequoia, the maker of Palm Beach's system, is seeking approval of a printer.

SLOT MACHINES: The House and Senate remain divided on what kind of slot machines to approve for Broward County and how much to tax them. The House tax rate of 55 percent is too low -- TaxWatch recommends 74 percent -- but the Senate's 30 percent is a giveaway to gambling interests. The state's share goes to education, the Legislature's priority, remember?

MARLINS STADIUM: The Florida Marlins' push for a $60 million subsidy toward a new Miami stadium cleared the House piled high with subsidies for four spring training stadiums, including the New York Mets' home in Port St. Lucie; a NASCAR museum in Daytona Beach; and the Orlando Magic basketball team. It faces welcome opposition in the Senate.

SCHOOL VOUCHERS: Last year, despite overwhelming evidence of voucher abuse, the Legislature passed no reforms. Some, such as basic background checks and minimal teacher qualifications, are on the table again. But so are proposals to expand the voucher programs. Lower courts have ruled vouchers for religious schools unconstitutional. The Legislature would be foolish to expand vouchers before the state Supreme Court hears the case in June.

PRE-K: To get the "high-quality" prekindergarten instruction voters demanded for Florida's 4-year-olds, the state must pay more than $4.62 an hour. Lawmakers have proposed an insufficient $2,500 per child for the 540-hour program, despite recommendations from experts of a $4,320-per-child expense and threats from providers of not participating.

KIDCARE: Gov. Bush should sign immediately legislation to reinstate year-round enrollment into the state's subsidized program for children whose parents work but cannot afford private insurance.

GROWTH MANAGEMENT: House and Senate leaders have agreed to spend $1.5 billion next year on roads, schools and water projects and borrow another $9 billion for future spending. A Senate proposal encourages growth boundaries and gives communities new powers to raise money locally to keep up with growth. But it limits citizens' ability to challenge local decisions. The House doesn't offer local tax options, limits city powers to restrict height and further erodes citizen rights. Throwing money at weakened growth standards is not growth management.

LOCAL WATERWAYS: The House and Senate have approved money for projects to improve the St. Lucie River ($3.1 million), Indian River Lagoon ($2.4 million) and Loxahatchee River ($3.5 million). There's also $5 million for Lake Okeechobee, but it needs at least another $25 million for lake cleanup. The lake has not recovered from last September's hurricanes, which stirred up pollutants from the bottom, blocking light from fish habitat and turning West Palm Beach's drinking water murky. The House and the Senate have approved a bill outlining a Lake Okeechobee protection program.

MASS TRANSIT: A dedicated source of financing is a must for mass transit projects in fast-growing Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. House committee legislation includes a $100 fee on every new car sold in South Florida. The Senate version calls for a $5 vehicle-registration surcharge. The anti-tax ideologues among South Florida legislators should lead in crafting a compromise. That would let the region stop being a net donor of gas-tax money while leaving millions in matching mass-transit money in Washington.

SCRIPPS CONSTRUCTION: If courts find a land-use amendment to be unlawful, a proposal contemplated by Gov. Bush would block a critical remedy: tearing down the building. The law is intended to speed the construction of The Scripps Research Institute in Palm Beach County. But it's a bad idea and could be unconstitutional, creating more uncertainty than it resolves.

AG ENCLAVES: Once again, the House and Senate appear ready to pass a bill that would give Callery-Judge Groves near The Acreage more rights to convert farmland to subdivisions, removing local control and creating sprawl. Gov. Bush's veto stopped it last year and will be needed again.

FAU MEDICAL SCHOOL: The expansion of Florida Atlantic University's two-year medical program to a four-year degree is a public-private partnership that legislators should love as much as taxpayers. The state Board of Governors wisely has given FAU's cost-effective program its approval. The school's $2 million request should be a no-brainer to help address the state's anticipated doctor shortage.

BOARD OF GOVERNORS: Despite a lawsuit that should settle the matter, lawmakers have attempted an end run around the constitutional amendment in which voters gave the Board of Governors control over higher education. The time spent on the legislation apportioning program roles to the board while trying to hold tuition and financial control for lawmakers would have been spent better elsewhere.

TASERS: Law-enforcement officials say stun guns save lives; critics call them deadly and want restrictions. Uniform guidelines are a must but, unlike those the Senate proposes, cannot be vague.

TORT REFORM: The injured would have less recourse in the courts under a House proposal that would make it harder to recover damages from negligent businesses. For instance, a jury could weigh the liability of a rapist against the liability of a business that kept its back door unlocked, allowing the rapist to enter. A Senate proposal would require businesses to take affirmative steps to avoid liability.

Abundance of poisons, shortage of monitoring

The biggest difference between California and Florida tomatoes isn't taste or price but the amount of pesticides used to grow them.

In California, farmers use an average of 51 pounds of pesticides to produce an acre of tomatoes, according to federal statistics. Florida growers use 196 pounds, almost four times as much. The state's sandy soil, tropical climate and large populations of pests make it necessary for farmers to rely on more chemicals to stay in business, agriculture officials say, and without the heavy use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, Florida could not compete in the global marketplace.

The biggest difference between California and Florida regulators is how well they protect farmworkers from chemical poisoning, especially from pesticides. California has an aggressive monitoring system, with laws that require growers to adhere to strict guidelines and report cases of chemical exposure. In Florida, regulation is lackadaisical and deplorably ineffective. One statistic captures the gap between the states: In 2003, California inspectors documented 614 cases of illnesses or injuries that were linked to pesticide use; Florida inspectors documented only three that year, and none of them was in agriculture. Even allowing for the difference in numbers of farmworkers -- California has more than twice as many -- the disparity in cases makes it clear that one state is serious about protecting people and the other is not.

Florida's failure grows from a fundamental flaw that leaves enforcement to the state Department of Agriculture, an obvious conflict of interest. California inspectors work out of a separate Department of Pesticide Regulation and have the autonomy to do their jobs. California also has many more state inspectors -- about 350 compared with about 45 in Florida -- and the counties assign hundreds more to work at least part-time in compliance and enforcement. When California inspectors find violations, they are much likelier to draw fines and penalties; Florida inspectors often give growers repeated warnings for the same violations. The state's doctors and health departments also have been indifferent when it comes to following a law requiring them to report pesticide poisonings. Only a few reports are made each year.

Last month, The Palm Beach Post broke the tragic news of severe birth-defect cases involving three children born within the past six months to migrant workers in Immokalee. The Mexican mothers lived close to each other at the same labor camp and worked in the same fields, operated by Ag-Mart Produce Inc. The company says it's too early to tell what caused the deformities and that investigators should be given the chance to find out what happened. But one conclusion already is apparent: The state is failing to ensure safe conditions for hundreds of thousands of farmworkers, whose labor is vital to the state's economy. All Floridians bear a share of the shame for that.

Driving? Get a license

Some things that shouldn't need to be said apparently need to be said. Here's one: Don't drive without a license. Here's another: Don't let kids drive without a license.

Jerrod Miller, the youth killed by a Delray Beach police officer in February, would not have been fleeing in a car if he hadn't been driving. He took off when the officer asked for the driver license he didn't have. Jerrod didn't deserve to die, and a jury will sort out whether the officer committed a crime. But it's certain that his uncle should not have let Jerrod borrow a car he was not licensed to drive, even for the short trip to a school dance.

In St. Lucie County, Laubens Devalon was arrested in last month's hit-and-run killing of 17-year-old Christopher Lupton, who was struck on his way to a school bus stop. Laubens, also 17, has a learner's permit but legally can't drive unsupervised. If he was the one behind the wheel, investigators need to find out how he got there. Could he have been driving without an adult's knowledge?

Although it doesn't involve an unlicensed youngster, the case of Sonia Ortiz -- who drove without a license and killed West Palm Beach police officer Thomas Morash in October 2003 -- is in the same vein. Given a chance to avoid prison, she chose to drive again, was recognized and rearrested.

There is, among some, an attitude that driving without a license is no big deal. Parents and other adults should know that it is a big deal. And, as too many recent cases show, it can have big consequences.