Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

And everybody knew he was facing 23 heavy-duty charges involving bogus sales of condominiums and houses.

But Humberto easily got reelected anyway. So who could be shocked when it came to light that he was mixed up in vote fraud? What'd you expect from a crook?

And a cocky crook he was, grinning in handcuffs during his arrest. Later, hidden microphones in the paddy wagon recorded Bert and his pals joking and discussing how to manipulate talk-radio to rally support.

As for the bank-fraud charges, Hernandez vowed to win at trial. That would come after his quick acquittal in the ballot-fraud case, he predicted confidently.

Bert planned to play the "race card," to claim he was being persecuted because he's Hispanic. This despicable scheme came back to haunt him before Judge Pineiro, a former prosecutor and, like Hernandez, a Cuban American.

"Sadly, you were willing to polarize our community in order to save your political power," Pineiro said as he passed sentence. "This is unconscionable."

I don't know if the judge's stern sermon sent a message to other corrupt politicians, but clearly it sent one to Smirking Bert: Your luck's run out.

Thanks to another tough judge, Joan Lenard, Hernandez has been sitting behind bars while awaiting his federal trial. It's been lonely, demoralizing and brutally hard on his family. To risk 13 years would have been the ultimate cockiness.

Copping a plea is the first decent thing Hernandez has done in a while, but decency never comes easy to crooks. First they need to get their socks scared off.

Thank you again, Roberto Pineiro.

Glades buyout has to happen November 15, 1998

The uprooting of 350 families in the boggy East Everglades is no cause for joy, but it's necessary, overdue and inevitable.

Last week, the South Florida Water Management District decided to buy out landowners in a sodden patch of southwest Miami-Dade known as the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area.

Planners say the purchase is essential to restore the flow of clean, fresh water to Everglades National Park. Residents are in a furious uproar. They want to stay in the Glades, and they want government to provide new roads, sewers and drainage ditches to help keep them dry.

It's the classic Florida yarn, with villains and victims but no tidy ending.

Want to blame somebody? Start with the clowns on the old Metro Commission who allowed folks to sell "property" on the wrong side of the Everglades dike.

That's right, the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area is west of the flood-control levee. That means—surprise!—no flood control. It's a wetland, as in: wet land.

That self-evident fact didn't discourage people from hawking lots, and nobody stopped them. This is Florida, after all, with a proud tradition of submersible real estate.

But here's the problem with living in a swamp: You live in a swamp.

Water managers have been diverting some flow from the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area, parching the national park to benefit the homeowners. Yet every rainy season the ritual repeats: TV crews slosh out to the East Everglades to interview folks who are ankle-deep and miserable. Of course they want flood protection—who wouldn't?

It's impossible not to feel heartache for those who will be forced to give up a home, a neighborhood, a way of life. But it's ludicrous to liken—as some have—the Everglades acquisition to Fidel Castro's property confiscations.

The comparison should insult anyone who lost land in Cuba—Fidel didn't pay a dime, he just took it. Landowners in the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area cumulatively will collect as much as $113 million, according to officials.

However, the longer the buyout takes, the more it will cost. That's a serious concern for both conservationists and budget watchers. Litigation could prolong the haggling for precious years.

Meanwhile, the park gasps for more water, and speculators snap up border tracts in hopes of gouging the government—meaning you and me—when the buyout finally begins.

But the alternative could be even more expensive. Engineers say the cost of letting people remain in the S1/2 Square Mile Area and making it flood-free could reach $180 million.

Behind the scenes are a few landowners who deserve scorn, not sympathy. They want flood control not just to dry out the families, but to enable further development.

Astoundingly, these operators want more houses, more ranchettes, more farms … in a swamp. Swell idea: Don't fix a dumb mistake. Subdivide it.

Without a healthy Everglades, all South Floridians will face dire water shortages. The 8 1/2 Square Mile Area is needed for re-creating an unbroken flow. It's a patch that needs to be wet. It's supposed to be wet.

If officials guarantee drainage for homeowners there, a long line of swamp peddlers would form at the water management district. Everybody who owned any wetland would demand publicly funded dikes, ditches and sewers.

The cost would be outrageous and, more importantly, the Everglades restoration project would fall apart.