Kick Ass: Selected Columns

by Carl Hiaasen

  In dishing out such punishment, the Dade judicial system sent a message loud and strong: Payoffs are no big deal. Don't sweat it.

  A welcome sentiment—and just in time for the holidays!

  Believe it or not, the custom of secretly purchasing the cooperation of public servants is still regarded as controversial. In some parts of the country it is referred to as "bribery"—and judges actually put people in jail for it.

  Fortunately, many of the indicted Dade contractors were able to convince our courts that the cash wasn't a bribe in the naughty sense—but rather a "tip," or lunch money, or just an innocuous gesture of friendship. Some opted for the business-as-usual defense, with uncanny results.

  An attorney for Hector Brito Jr., who had paid $50 to detective Ramirez, insisted that it wasn't really a bribe because Brito didn't specifically ask for something in return.

  "It was more of a thank-you, which is very common in the business," the lawyer explained. (Circuit Judge David Gersten threw out the case.)

  Similarly, a jury acquitted carpenter Jorge Gonzalez of bribery after he admitted giving Ramirez $20 "for lunch" on three occasions. Gonzalez's attorney said his client was not seeking special favors, but gave the cash merely because Ramirez "arrived promptly and had been a gentleman."

  Untouched by the police sting were those few inspectors who make a practice of shaking down Dade builders and contractors. Since these greedy little suckers are still on the loose, they'll probably be expecting stocking-stuffers for the Yule season.

  A word of caution: If you're giving cash, don't go over $100 per bribe. In fact, the less you give, the more innocent it looks.

  Whenever possible, avoid cramming the money directly into the inspector's palms. Instead, place it in an unmarked envelope and leave it in a clever place where he's sure to find it—taped to the hood ornament of his El Dorado, for example.

  When paying off an inspector, don't ever demand something in return. Even though both of you know perfectly well what the money is for, don't come right out and say it. Not only is it rude, it's risky.

  You never can tell when some run-amok jury might misconstrue the meaning of: "Hey, Mac, here's the 50 smackers for the plumbing inspection."

  Should you have the misfortune of bribing an undercover cop, don't panic. Just tell the judge you thought the guy was collecting for United Way. Tell him the cash had nothing to do with the fact that the guy inspected your entire 6oo-unit apartment building without ever leaving his car.

  The court will understand. Some old scrooges might call it corruption, but down here we call it the spirit of giving.

  Shhhhhh! Let the inspector get his sleep

  June 4, 1990

  When investigators tailed Dade building inspectors on daily rounds, they saw: a roofing inspector who never climbed a ladder the whole time; an electrical inspector who goofed off at a bowling alley; an elevator inspector who spent county time napping at the library.

  Construction was certified on some projects using the convenient drive-by method, so the inspector never had to leave the comfort of his car. Other work was approved, site unseen.

  The Dade grand jury says the Building and Zoning Department is often more devoted to helping the construction industry than protecting the public from sleazy contractors. It's virtually the same conclusion that another grand jury reached in 1976.

  Nothing ever changes. Only four years ago, an undercover cop posing as a building inspector collected thousands of dollars in "gifts" from local contractors. Detectives said it was business as usual.

  Efforts to weed out the crooks and deadbeats have been stymied. Just last week, prosecutors mysteriously declined to provide the names of those few inspectors whose antics were exposed in the most recent probe. This means they're still on the job—or at least pretending to be.

  If only they kept a journal ...

  8 A.M. Drove out to Old Cutler Shady-Lakes-On-the-Bay Estates for a thorough inspection. The cement is still slightly mushy, but what can you expect after only six weeks? When I got back to the car, I discovered someone had dropped an envelope with $500 on the front seat. Must be my lucky day!

  8:07 A.M. Drove out to New Cutler Meadows-Near-the-Bay to check on complaints of substandard work. Everything looked jim-dandy to me. I leaned my golf bag against several walls, and not one fell down. While I was checking the place over, someone put two first-class plane tickets to Bermuda on the windshield of my car. Some sort of sweepstakes, I guess. Talk about luck!

  9-10 A.M. Stopped by library to check the stocks in the Wall Street Journal. Blue chips look strong, but I'm thinking about dumping IBM while it's riding high. Also, I wonder if I went too heavy into tax-free munis.

  10:15 A.M. Drove out to Green Cutler Gardens Somewhat-Near-the-Bay to check on reports of inferior drywall. Another false alarm: Every wall I inspected was dry as a bone. When I got back to the car, I found a new gold Rolex Submariner on the front seat. Too bad I've already got one.

  10:30-Noon. Stopped at the bowling alley to see how the ceiling struts were holding up after 23 years. Just by coincidence, the All-Dade Hooters Waitress League was having a tournament, so I stayed to watch—just to make sure they weren't injured by any falling beams.

  12:15 P.M. Ran into the new guy, Mario, on a site for that new nursing home. Get this—he was actually up on a ladder, checking out some piddly leak in the roof. A ladder! I nearly busted a gut laughing. Told him he should've been a fireman.

  12:30 P.M. Tried to inspect the New World Old Cutler Financial Plaza-In-the-Bay but traffic was lousy and it started to drizzle. Just so happened I could see the structure perfectly from Hooters, where I'd stopped for a late lunch. So I used my binoculars to count the floors: forty-two, right on the button! As I was phoning in my inspection, somebody broke into my car and left a deed to a three-bedroom condo in Cozumel. Not only that, they were considerate enough to put it in a third-party offshore trust!

  1:55 P.M. Went out to Rolling Cutler Hills Nowhere-Near-the-Bay Estates for a final inspection, and all 1,344 units checked out fine—at least they looked pretty darn nice from the car. As I drove past, someone lobbed a tooled-leather valise in the front seat. Just a guess, but it looks like it might contain $25,000 in nonsequential unmarked bills. What a day I'm having!

  2:11 P.M. Holy cow, where did the time go? The wife is probably worried sick. Still, I ought to swing by the bowling alley once more to double check those struts.

  Now, perhaps, we'll develop with more care

  August 27, 1992

  OK, God, you got our attention.

  Heck, you've eighty-sixed an entire U.S. Air Force base. Who wouldn't be impressed?

  And about that South Florida Building Code—well, maybe it's not as tough as they promised us. Or maybe it's not being enforced with what you'd call unflagging diligence. Sure seems peculiar that so many older homes survived your Hurricane Andrew with little or no damage, while newer subdivisions exploded into match sticks.

  God, was this hurricane a pop quiz on survival?

  Because if you were testing courage and compassion, you won't find more of it anywhere. Heroes walk every street, or what's left of the streets. The valor on display in South Dade makes Desert Storm look like a Tupperware party.

  But, God, if you were testing us on how wisely we've cared for this astonishingly fragile peninsula, then we failed. We've done some dumb things, starting with reckless planning and manic overdevelopment.

  In our lust to carve up this place and hawk it as a waterfront paradise, we crammed four million people along a flat and vulnerable coast. It's complete lunacy, of course. We haven't been able to employ them all, protect them from crime, properly educate their children or even guarantee the most basic of human needs—drinking water.

  And, as we've seen this week, we certainly haven't provided safe housing. Thousands and thousands of families are homeless and heartbroken this morning. The rest of us, blessed by capricious luck, finally have time to reflect.

>   We thought we were ready. Honest, we knew the drill. Who hadn't seen the harrowing footage from Donna, Camille and Hugo? By the time the TV weather people told us to worry, we were worried. We collected our D-cell batteries and our Sterno, our duct tape and our plywood, and then we watched Andrew march due west. We waited hopefully for the Big Swerve, but it never came.

  Six hundred thousand souls who had never been through one of your hurricanes actually evacuated when they were told to do so. Elsewhere that might be routine behavior, God, but down here it's close to a miracle. Moses himself would have a hard time rousting the roller-bladers from South Beach.

  All that valiant preparation—and still the community lies devastated. What did we expect? Aim a hurricane's fury at four million people and the only possible outcome is a horror.

  We had been warned, again and again. The people who should've been listening were too busy counting their campaign contributions from big developers. Now, as always, the suffering is heaped on the most helpless—those whose only sin was buying into the Florida dream.

  The only good to come from Andrew would be a resolve not to let it happen again. We can't change the course of hurricanes, but we can damn sure build houses with walls that don't disintegrate and roofs that don't peel like rotted bananas.

  It's been about 30 years since South Florida got nailed by a big storm. You probably figured we needed a reminder. Next time, don't wait so long. Send us a modest, midsize hurricane every couple of years, and soon Florida will have some of the world's sturdiest and most sensible housing developments.

  Thirty years was plenty of time for us to screw up. We got lax, we got greedy. We quintupled the population and idiotically called it progress. Now it's a disaster area.

  God, please don't say you told us so. We got the message.

  And thanks for not making it worse.

  Blustery talk about Andrew is all hot air

  October 18, 1992

  Don't buy the breathless hype that Hurricane Andrew was "The Big One." It wasn't, not by a long shot.

  The Big One won't strike the most thinly populated stretch of South Florida, the way Andrew did. The Big One scores a dead hit on downtown Miami, Hialeah or Fort Lauderdale.

  Unlike Andrew, the Big One won't blow through in a few frantic hours. It parks on top of us for two or three horrifying days, dumping enough rain to flood most neighborhoods to ruin.

  And the Big One won't be a tightly packed storm, the way Andrew was. It'll be huge and rambling, like Camille, and its path of total destruction will breach three counties.

  Not that Andrew was a pussy cat; it was a swift, powerful hurricane. Those who've had their lives shattered cannot imagine anything worse, and there isn't.

  But to propagate the melodramatic notion that Andrew was a once-in-a-century catastrophe is not only scientifically wrong, it's morally reckless.

  Understand that certain folks—politicians, developers and the building lobby—have a vested interest in promoting the myth of the Big One.

  They want you to believe that Andrew was a freak storm with satanic powers, and that nothing could have prevented the mass destruction.

  Rubbish. The only freakish thing about Andrew was that it hit us, for a change. It did what all Category Four storms do—tore the hell out of everything in its way. Another one equally fierce could hit next week, next month or next year.

  The other day, the Latin Builders Association took out a full-page ad to whine about all the bad press that the construction industry is getting. The LBA implied that shoddy workmanship wasn't widespread, that Andrew's supernatural gusts were humanly unstoppable.

  Especially if your contractor didn't bother to fasten your roof to your house.

  Lennar, Arvida and other developers also are pitching the myth of the Big One: Hey, we sell sturdy homes. Nothing could have survived Andrew. (Except the low-cost houses built by Habitat for Humanity.)

  While the companies try to cover their butts, homeowners are filing richly deserved lawsuits. A grand jury is convening (yes, again). Even the State Attorney's Office is on the prowl for indictments. More shocking revelations are sure to come.

  Andrew exposed, at a terrible human cost, what happens when a system meant to protect citizens is poisoned by greed, politics, corruption and ineptitude.

  Failure occurred at every step. The vaunted South Florida Building Code deliberately was weakened to allow faster, cheaper work. Staples instead of nails? Great idea! Wafer board instead of plywood? Hey, give it a try. What next—Lego blocks?

  What were these idiots thinking? Clearly no one—from the builders to the inspectors to the buyers—had ever experienced a major hurricane. Responsible tradesmen warned of disaster, but nobody listened. Politicians such as Mayor Steve Clark sat zombielike while the regulations were neutered. Why bite the hand that bankrolls your re-election?

  County Manager Joaquin Avino was in charge of building and zoning when some of the crummiest developments were approved. When an NBC reporter recently asked about those projects, Avino experienced a bout of prime-time amnesia. It was truly pathetic.

  Andrew revealed the system for the incestuous charade that it is, and now the guilty parties are scrambling for cover. It's not our fault, they cry, it's Nature! Two hundred mile-per-hour winds! The Big One!

  The Big Lie is what it is. So much preventable damage, so much unnecessary misery—it's not the storm of the century, it's the crime of the century.

  Happy ending slow to come at country walk

  May 6, 1993

  Hi-ho, hi-ho.

  It's off your roof did go.

  We don't care if your house ain't there.

  Hi-ho, hi-ho.

  Once upon a time, there were 70 or 80 dwarfs who built a place called the Village Homes of Country Walk.

  Some of the dwarfs were good workers, but others weren't. The bad dwarfs had names like Lazy, Dizzy, Drowsy, Greedy, Clumsy, Careless and Sleazy. They worked for a company called Walt Disney, which had a snow-white reputation.

  One summer night, a fierce hurricane came from the sea. It huffed and it puffed and blew lots of houses down. The people of Country Walk were very surprised, for the dwarfs had promised that the condominiums were built solidly and would not fall apart in a strong wind.

  After the storm, the residents went through the rubble of Country Walk and discovered many bad things about the way the dwarfs had built the homes. There were masonry walls with no steel bars for reinforcement, and sometimes no cement! There were wooden posts that hadn't been anchored to the foundations. There were roof trusses that weren't properly attached.

  Country Walk was a disaster area, but it wasn't the only one. Across the land, people who lost everything in the hurricane were learning terrible facts about how poorly their houses had been constructed. Soon those people hired lawyers, who began to sue.

  At first, the home-building companies said they didn't do anything wrong. They blamed all the damage on the hurricane, which they said was the most powerful storm in the history of the planet! But scientists who studied the hurricane, and engineers who studied the wrecked homes, disputed the builders. They said most damage resulted from cheesy construction.

  Facing expensive and embarrassing trials, two companies did something very smart: They caved in, agreeing to give money to those who'd lost their homes in the storm.

  A company called Lennar gave $2.4 million to customers in several neighborhoods where houses had disintegrated like match sticks. After deducting legal fees, each owner got about $3,800 from the settlement—a bargain for Lennar, which was one of the most profitable developers in the whole United States.

  In the place known as Country Walk, a company called Arvida/JMB Partners agreed to give $2.74 million to the owners of 135 condos that were damaged or destroyed by the hurricane. In exchange, the customers promised not to sue Arvida, and thus spared the company months of humiliating public disclosures about the shabby quality of its Country Walk homes.

  But on
e company that didn't make peace with its customers was Walt Disney, which was more famous for entertaining children than for building condos. Disney had put up 209 units at Country Walk. Many were ruined by the storm that blew in from the sea.

  The people in the condos wanted Disney to pay $5.9 million, to make up for the many mistakes made by the bad dwarfs. But the company offered only $2 million, insisting that its homes were nailed together just fine.

  So the owners went to court. Suddenly Disney found its snow-white reputation in jeopardy. Several of the bad dwarfs got subpoenaed to testify. Lazy, Clumsy and Careless were the first to snitch.

  When Disney's lawyers read the dwarfs' depositions, they became very, very worried. They faxed the Country Walk homeowners and offered lots more money to forget the whole thing. The homeowners accepted the deal, put new roofs on their condos and lived nervously ever after.

  Especially during hurricane season.

  Slow to act? No, state was setting trap for builders

  July 29, 1993

  This week, the Dade State Attorney's Office and the lieutenant governor announced an ambitious plan to crack down on crooked builders.

  Gee, what's the big hurry? It's been only 11 months since the hurricane. South Dade residents have only lost millions of dollars to swindlers, licensed and unlicensed, who have taken the money and left the houses in shambles.

  But authorities aren't waiting for something really serious to happen. They're leaping into the fray now, four whole weeks before the first anniversary of the storm.

  A press conference put out the word. The state attorney is hiring three new prosecutors, an investigator and two secretaries.The state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation is adding a dozen investigators, plus five persons to help take complaints from the public.