Response to reader comment on Public Defenders

Looks like some folks in the Jacksonville Public Defender’s Office are rallying around their new boss. One comment on my post about the issue calls the fired attorney Pat McGuinness a “disingenuous prick.”

It rambles a bit about the methods of McGuiness and his colleague Ann Finnell. I only want to address one point:

These two lawyers also made perfectly clear they were leaving the office if Shirk won.

Of course they did. Matt Shirk ideologically opposed to the effective functioning of the office they work for.

It’s no secret that he views the office as a platform for future political ambitions. He wants to turn it into a laboratory for cost-cutting measures that jeopardize the mission of public defenders at a time when PD offices nationwide face a mounting budget crisis.

And Shirk fired them via e-mail, without even spelling McGuinness’s name right. Some boss.

The Perfect Crime, ctd.

Seems like conservation has become the new refuge of scoundrels. Green is now the color of theft. Yep, by a 4-3 vote, a board of unelected officials approved the Everglades deal.

Elementary schools are closing around the state. Florida’s universities are aggressively cutting budgets. Public defenders and state attorneys can afford little more for our justice system than a plea-bargain assembly line. The state can’t even afford to hire someone to answer the phone for its public-assistance hotline.

But apparently we can afford to pay $1.34 billion for worthless cropland. 

Fortunately:

The board made one change that could potentially put the deal in doubt, adding an “out” clause intended to protect the agency from bankrupting its budget if state revenues plummet.

Of course state revenues are plummeting…

And don’t even get me started on the fallacy that this will somehow “reinvigorate” the Everglades restoration. The South Florida Water Management district is diverting $1.34 billion that could be spent on actual restoration to buy land that will require a $4 billion investment in marshes, lagoons and other earth-moving before it does any good. How does that reinvigorate anything?

The Future of Newspapers – Privatization in Reverse?

From the Economist of all places:

Good, thorough investigative reporting is a non-excludable public good. If a good reporter digs up a major corruption scandal at City Hall, everyone under the purview of the city government benefits, even though far fewer will actually shell out to read the coverage. There’s good reason to think, then, that investigative reporting is undersupplied, particularly in small markets.

I’m content to let many of the nation’s newspapers go belly up, but I’m nervous about a world where many cities are entirely without a few seasoned reporters, who make it their business to ask hard questions and keep an eye on those in need of accountability. Some public support for investigative journalism is likely warranted.

Let’s hope that becomes the consensus.

The Perfect Crime

Gov. Charlie Crist’s highly-touted everglades restoration plan has finally gotten some long-awaited scrutiny.

At best, the deal is idealistic, according to the Palm Beach Post:

One scenario would use 45,000 acres of U.S. Sugar land and 65,000 acres that now belong to Florida Crystals and smaller growers. That assumes total cooperation from Crystals and the other owners in making land swaps.

The other scenario, which assumes no swaps are possible, would use up to 105,000 acres of U.S. Sugar land in scattered reservoirs and cleanup marshes.

Neither possibility would create anything resembling a natural “flow way.” Under either scenario, unused land would be swapped, sold as surplus or conveyed to counties, cities and towns for economic development.

As for the terms?

Under the contract, U.S. Sugar could continue to farm for seven years, leasing the land back for a total of $54 million, a quarter of typical market value. U.S. Sugar would pay taxes on the land and maintain it, saving the district an estimated $40 million.

Considering the favorable lease, the state’s appraisers recently valued the deal at between $1 billion and $1.1 billion. Even that is more generous than another state-commissioned report that said the price could be $400 million too high.

“The so-called restoration plan is 10 to 15 years away and could cost $4 billion more,” said Dexter Lehtinen, attorney for the Miccosukee Indian tribe, citing his own estimates based on other district projects. “The governor, 10 years from now, will be stuck with no financial capability to build anything.”

The deal has created some bizarre political coalitions, pitting Republican congressmen and labor unions against environmentalists, U.S. Sugar, and the Crist himself.

Rep. Juan C. Zapata gave  the South Florida Water Management district a piece of his mind in a letter on behalf of the 25 state house and seante members of Miami-Dade County, quoted in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal:

Your agency,through an un-elected board, is preparing to spend $1.34 billion on land for what appears to be nothing more than a corporate bailout.

Looks to me like all the anti-Crist is interested in preserving are the profits of a sugar company that faces declining crop yields on its overfarmed, depleted soil.

What Happens In Florida….

In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, an editorial calls on the State of New York to lower property taxes to help stimulate the flagging upstate economy. Sound Familiar? 

Higher property taxes will also ease the pressure on falling home prices and encourage the construction of new ones, because “Builders won’t build where property taxes drive homeowners away.”

That’s how you design a Mickey Mouse tax revenue system (Hat Tip: Brandon Sack) and promote a Florida-style economy that depends on new development rather than stimulating long-term economic activity. Every new home built is a one-shot deal; once the construction is done, the economic benefits of that construction subside unless the new home is built somewhere where there are lasting jobs.

Florida’s economy relies too heavily on new development, and the Crist-endorsed tax cuts didn’t change that. Like Florida, upstate New York, with it’s shrinking population, has a glut of homes without buyers. Stimulating new home construction will only make matters worse over time.

But the WSJ demonizes New York State United Teachers for opposing the plan. Based on the effects property tax cuts have had on Florida’s education system (schools are closing all over the state – Palm Beach, Orange and Pinellas  are among the counties looking to close multiple k-12 schools) – the teacher’s union has reason to be worried. The current economic downturn is a product of the misguided belief that cutting government spending – which means reducing public services – is somehow good for the economy.

A stable infrastructure – which ought to include education, healthcare, and a social safety net – is the key to meaningful job creation and lasting economic growth.

Who needs school reform?

Privatizers like to exaggerate problems, then offer bogus solutions that they say are urgently needed to avoid some kind of crisis

One common argument for charter schools is that schools are failing our children, so we must do something - anything – to try to improve the system, whether or not it stands any chance of actually improving the lot of Florida students.

Case in point: Mavericks in Education D. Wade’s Schools aims to relieve the state’s high school dropout problem.

But according to statistics just released by the Florida Department of Education, the state’s graduation rate is at an all-time high, and the dropout rate an all-time low. So much for a crisis.

Don’t get me wrong. Each year, the system fails countless Florida high school students, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, whose graduation rates are as much as 25 percentage points lower than those of other racial groups.

But diverting funding from public schools that are available to all students is not going to change that. In the past decade, according to the statistics, the graduation rates for minorities have improved dramatically. African-Americans improved from 48.7 percent in 1999 to 62.5 percent in 2008. Hispanics improved even faster – from 52.8 percent in 1999 to 69.1 percent in 2008.

More Problems In Pinellas

Pinellas County, which includes Clearwater and St. Petersburg, has announced plans to close as many as five elementary schools.

One reason they cite is declining enrollment – the district has lost 7,000 K-12 students since 2005. But Pinellas county is huge. Its schools serve a total of 104,717 students. St. Pete Times online reader Kim complained:

Our schools are already over crowded. My children can’t even get into a school close to home. Maybe the school board members should take pay cuts.

And why are only elementary schools getting cut? One reason is that grades K-5 are disproportionately represented in the county’s budding charter school system.

PTA moms haven’t taken this lying down. At Gulf Beaches elementary they recently helped raise $19,000 to save their school. If the Pinellas Education Foundation actually cared about improving local schools (as opposed to pushing a charter school agenda), it would be supporting efforts like this, or perhaps matching contributions.

Instead, I’m ready for a statement from the group declaring that the current $21 million budget shortfall (with another $40 million in cuts slated for next year) is an opportunity for further “school reform.”

Privatizing Public Defenders

Florida’s lack of commitment to the welfare of its citizens has once again gotten national attention.

This time, budget cuts are forcing overworked public defender’s offices to sue for the right to refuse cases. PD offices around the state are already spread so thin they can’t properly defend their poor clients. Now they say any additional cases will make their workload so overwhelming as to violate their clients’ constitutional right to an attorney.

Either way, thousands of poor people accused of minor felonies – mostly nonviolent offenses like robberies and cocaine possession – will be left without real legal defense, forced to turn to private attorneys or charitable legal aid groups.

Under Bill White, the 4th Circuit PD office  built a staff that pushed each other put in 60 and 70-hour workweeks for less pay than they would have made in private practice, out of a commitment to the integrity of our judicial system.

But this was a “change” election, according to a Florida Times-Union puff piece on Matt Shirk, the Republican who ousted White from office this election. Shirk plans on saving taxpayers money by requiring his office to charge fees. Most of White’s dedicated staff will be resigning in January.

Public defenders are often called liberty’s last champion. In Florida, Bill White’s office in Jacksonville was one of the few public defender’s offices in the state that hadn’t completely crumbled under budget  cuts and rising caseloads. Liberty’s last-last champion – low-cost private attorneys and charitable legal groups – will have to step into the void.

The Perils of Privatized Elections

Change has come to America – sketchy computer glitches no longer decide our presidential elections, perhaps because the McCain campaigned lost the services of Karl Rove’s vote-flipping wizard Mike Connell.

Connell’s role in stealing the 2004 election, namely in Ohio, remains under investigation. A Republican computer expert has explained the problem. You don’t need  a paper trail to audit a computer voting system, but Diebold will not release its computer architecture, which appears designed to steal votes, because it does not want to reveal “trade secrets.”

Problems with Florida voting machines are coming to light – which will usually doesn’t happen right away. Signs of trouble tend to emerge during the month following an election, as results are analyzed. Just because the Democrats won where they were supposed to does not mean votes were counted properly.

Private companies that provide equipment for the fundamental public process in a democracy shouldn’t have trade secrets. I’m not saying the government should nationalize voting-machine factories, but the mechanisms of the vote-counting machines that failed to count 50,000 votes in Manatee County this election, and the computer architecture that appears designed to change vote totals in Ohio should be opened to public scrutiny.

The Charter School Revolving Door

So yesterday an employee of Mavericks in Education D. Wade’s Schools – my favorite name for a charter school company – was appointed to Florida’s Charter School Review Board. As a former vice president for PR and marketing, will it be her job to help sell charter schools to the public?