Carl Hiaasen - Kick Ass - Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

Bet on the usual long delays and huge overruns. Then, when the monstrosity finally is finished, the state will be stuck with what's essentially a multibillion-dollar ghost train.

Because it'll still be cheaper, faster and more convenient for passengers to catch a nonstop jetliner from Miami to Orlando.

A caboose full of drunken monkeys couldn't have devised a more foolproof formula for failure than the bullet train. Yet it got a warm reception by members of the House Transportation Committee, who apparently are bored spending tax dollars fixing roads and bridges.

To their credit, other legislators refused to be dazzled by the high-tech imagery, or suckered by DOT's groundless optimism.

What if the ridership falls short? State Sen. John Ostalkiewicz of Orlando asked Watts. "Who will repay the debt? The public is going to be on the hook for over $6 billion?"

Replied the DOT secretary: "Yessir."

See, it's not just a train ride. It's a stickup.

The bad news: Vanquished Port of Miami chief Carmen Lunetta will receive a golden parachute of $328,501 cash, in addition to his $113,000-a-year pension.

The good news: Some lawyer will probably get most of it.

Lunetta leaves the busy cruise port awash in a $22 million red tide and a stinking scandal.

His hefty cash severance includes unused sick pay, vacation and holidays accrued over Lunetta's 38 years with the county. If he'd spent less time at the office, perhaps the port wouldn't be in so much trouble.

Lunetta hastily resigned Friday after the Herald obtained records detailing one of the artifices through which Dade taxpayers were robbed.

For years, a stream of public funds was routed through a company called Fiscal Operations, which controls the port's gantry cranes. The firm was headed by Calvin Grigsby, a rich San Francisco political wheeler-dealer.

It turns out that Miami's port paid for Calvin's California yacht, and maid service to keep it spiffy. The port also paid for Calvin's Super Bowl seats, country club membership and symphony subscription.

It even paid a parking ticket.

The port not only gave Calvin a $75,000 salary as president of Fiscal Operations, it paid him $300 an hour to give legal advice to his own company. Then it paid the company a $150,000 "management fee."

Meanwhile, Fiscal Operations secretly funneled thousands in campaign funds to Democratic candidates and local commissioners.

Along the way, the crane-operating firm fell behind on $24 million in payments and interest to the port—money that will never be collected. This sheds fresh light on the agency's embarrassing debt.

All these Grigsby boondoggles had to be approved by port boss Lunetta. The mystery is: Why was he so generous to Calvin, and what did he get in return?

Some inquiring soul ought to pose those questions today, if Lunetta appears as scheduled before the Metro Commission.

Lots of cash went streaking through Fiscal Operations, and investigators might never be able to track it all. The probe is another unhappy tiding for Grigsby, already implicated in the Operation Greenpalm corruption investigation.

The FBI has videotape of Grigsby and Metro Commissioner James Burke, allegedly chatting about a $300,000 kickback. Agents believe the payment was to be made in exchange for Burke steering a piece of Dade's municipal bond business to Grigsby's investment firm.

As expected, both fellows heartily deny any wrongdoing. Grigsby has retained the services of O. J. Simpson defense ace Johnnie Cochran. Lunetta ought to take a cue.

Lots of big-name lawyers would be be eager to offer counsel, especially after ogling that humongous severance package. When $328,000 is on the other end of the line, even F. Lee Bailey picks up the phone.

The size of Lunetta's golden parachute shows he was assiduous about logging his own attendance at work. If only he'd been half as careful with the port's budget, the place might actually be turning a profit.

Lunetta had help with the ransacking. Dade commissioners regularly dipped into port funds to pay for pet projects.

Still, it isn't easy losing money on the world's busiest commercial sea harbor. You've really got to work at it.

Records show that Lunetta put in for 301 accumulated sick days, 500 hours of unused vacation and salary for showing up on 68 1/2 county holidays.

Who knows how much of that time was spent serving the port, and how much of it was spent disbursing the public's money to Calvin Grigsby and other secret pals.

With so many corruption scandals breaking out, Florida will soon need a special pension formula for crooks in public office.

In some cases, it might be cheaper to offer them a cushy, corporate-style retirement than to keep them hanging around, so they can continue pilfering from government coffers.

Cesar Odio, the former city manager of Miami, is the most recent example. Although he pleaded guilty last week in an illegal kickback scheme, he now seeks his pension, sick leave and unused vacation pay.

State law requires officials convicted of corruption to forfeit their retirement benefits. However, the crime to which Odio copped out—obstruction of justice—isn't specifically mentioned in the statute.

Odio's supporters claim he therefore should be entitled to a full pension, because of his years of unselfish service. Others say he shouldn't get a dime, because he betrayed those he'd sworn to serve. The dispute appears headed to court.

If Odio's lawyers are crafty, they'll point out how much dough taxpayers will ultimately save by getting rid of him now.

His controversial pension package begins to look like a pretty good deal when compared to how much of the city's money he already squandered, and how much more he was planning to steal.

For example, the bribery plot for which Odio was indicted would have paid him a $5,000-a-month kickback from a municipal health insurance contract. That's $60,000 a year in purloined public funds.

Do the math: Odio's annual pension computes to only $58,166—a net saving to taxpayers of $1,834 yearly against his future bribes. (And those are just the future bribes we know about.)

Now, factor in the thousands upon thousands of dollars in city funds that Odio gave to cronies, pet causes, political supporters, even sympathetic "journalists." The man was a human ATM.

Small wonder that Miami's budget was such a mess—a fact that raises even a more dramatic, though no less cunning, argument in favor of giving Odio a pension:

By leaving when he did, he likely spared the city from certain bankruptcy.

It's not a fanciful hypothesis. After 11 years with Odio and his cohorts at the helm, Miami was a boggling $68 million in the hole.

A smart lawyer could contend that, indicted or not, the ex-city manager should be rewarded for quitting—and thus "saving" Miamians the $6.2 million a year in deficits that was averaged during his tenure.

Stacked against those kinds of figures, a $58,166 send-off seems almost stingy.

On the other hand, if taxpayers had known City Hall was being run like a traveling flea market, they wouldn't have waited for Odio to be busted for corruption. They would've demanded he be canned for incompetence.

That fear is perhaps what Odio had in his mind when, in 1994, he persuaded commissioners to give him a "phantom" salary increase that existed only on paper. The sole purpose of the bogus raise was to inflate his future pension benefits to $76,635 a year.

The tricky ploy was later scuttled, but in retrospect it might have been worth a shot. Maybe it would have inspired Odio to retire a bit sooner.