If You Like Your Trash, You Can Keep It
In Washington, they had Obamacare.
In Broward, we've got TrashCare.
It's the same script: Big promises. Bigger bureaucracy. Vote first. Bill you out the nose later.
In May, I warned that Broward's garbage monopoly wanted a comeback.
This week, Broward's 40-year trash plan secured the municipal support it needed to move forward. That sent me digging through the old votes.
Caryl Shuham's Nancy Pelosi moment.
Pelosi famously declared, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Whatever Pelosi meant, that line became shorthand for everything people hate about government. Pass something enormous. Hand power to a bureaucracy and let the public discover the details later.
Four months ago, Shuham tried the same play.
Broward County lawyers warned the Solid Waste Authority that its plan might not comply with the agreement that created it.
The financial model had problems too. The consultants couldn't support how much trash would be subject to the surcharge or how much money that surcharge would produce.
The financial assessment — what you will be taking out of your pockets — depended on those numbers.
Shuham tried to pass it anyway.
According to the official minutes, Shuham moved to approve the plan “with an asterisk” and let staff make the corrections later.
The asterisk was a blank check.
Approve the plan before the lawyers finished reviewing it.
Approve the surcharge before the consultants knew how much trash would pay it.
Approve future property assessments before the financial model could be trusted.
Staff fills in the blanks later and taxpayers cover the difference.
Other board members who understood their responsibilities stopped Shuham and forced a delay. When the consultants returned, the proposed surcharge was increased from $2 to $2.22 per ton. That additional 22 cent assessment would collect about $902,000 a year from the remaining 4.1 million tons.
Nearly $1 million here. Nearly $1 million there. Who's counting?
Apparently, not Shuham.
She tried to approve the plan before anyone knew that additional $902,000 existed.
That's the danger of approving government plans “with an asterisk.” Shuham's job was to check the work of the consultants, staff and lobbying operation selling this plan. Instead, she was giving it permission to oversee itself.
Unfortunately, that tells us exactly what kind of county commissioner Shuham would be.
Broward already has a problem with elected officials acting like county staff outrank them.
I recently watched Commissioners Nan Rich and Mark Bogen ask County Administrator Monica Cepero to reconsider how uncommitted opioid settlement money could support organizations working directly with people in recovery.
Earlier this year, Rick Riccardi of Fellowship Recovery Community Organization spoke at a commission meeting to complain that Broward had received $46 million in opioid settlement money, but only $6 million had been used.
Commissioner Nan Rich tried to keep the conversation open.
County Administrator Monica Cepero shut the door. She said the money had already been “spent or allocated.”
Mayor Mark Bogen tried again, asking whether services like Fellowship's might be worth funding. Cepero brushed that aside too. The money was spoken for.
Conversation over. The commissioners praised Riccardi's work, but staff had already made the decision.
That's not how representative government is supposed to work.
But this is Broward, where the bureaucratic tail wags the elected dog.
It's how taxpayers end up buying county bureaucrats a Ford Mustang and nobody on the dais seems interested in finding out who handed over the keys.
Now, Shuham wants a seat on that dais.
Broward doesn't need another commissioner who trusts the consultants, follows staff and asks the administrator for permission.
It needs someone willing to say no.
President Barack Obama promised Americans that if they liked their doctor, they could keep their doctor.
Here's the Broward version.
If you like your trash, you can keep it.
It'll still be burned. It'll still be buried. But now it comes with another bureaucracy, another army of consultants, another surcharge and an eventual charge on your property tax bill.
Shuham was willing to approve all of it with an asterisk. Staff fills in the blanks later and taxpayers like you and me cover the difference.
Broward doesn't need another rubber stamp.
Voters shouldn't hand Caryl Shuham the inkpad.