For Gov. Rick Scott, political protection beats flood protection

The setting was perfect Monday afternoon for Gov. Rick Scott’s latest political game with South Florida’s most important public agency. Though the South Florida Water Management District’s nine board members were scheduled to choose a new executive director, not one was present at district headquarters in West Palm Beach. All participated by phone. No matter.

Under Scott, the board doesn’t set policy. Scott sets policy, through directors he picks. The new one is Ernie Marks. The board took 20 minutes to hire the person who must protect the southern third of Florida from flooding, ensure an adequate water supply and oversee Everglades restoration.

Of course, the discussion didn’t need to take long. The governor had given the board one choice. Serving on the Water Management District board once was prestigious. These days, board members are just the governor’s political props.

In 2011, after winning his first term, the governor wanted to cut taxes. That’s hard to do in a state with no income tax. So Scott targeted the five water management districts. South Florida is the biggest. Scott brought in Melissa Meeker as director. There was no search.

Meeker dutifully cut the budget by 30 percent. Doing so cost the district expertise and institutional memory. But the governor got to cut taxes.

Two years later, Scott replaced Meeker with Blake Guillory, who had been running the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The governor offered no explanation. Two board members actually voted against Guillory because of the secrecy.

Still, Guillory earned respect from organizations that deal with the district. In 2015, however, Guillory did the unpardonable. He said the district needed to raise taxes. After four years under Scott, the district had lost more than 400 employees, down from 1,900. To avoid raising taxes, the district had needlessly drained reserves by $400 million. Guillory worried that the district wouldn’t have enough money even to maintain the canals and pumps that make up the flood control system.

When a vote neared on the 2015-16 budget, Guillory told the board that the district would “go off a cliff ” without more revenue. So the board actually voted down the governor’s proposed tax cut.

Two weeks later, after lobbying from the Scott administration, the board rescinded that vote. “The message,” said board chairman Dan O’Keefe, “was communicated.” Right. Forget the agency’s mission. Obey the governor.

After another five weeks, Guillory was out. The item was added to the board agenda at the last minute. No reason was given, but everyone knew. Guillory got the usual talking-points sendoff. In came Peter Antonacci, a lawyer who had no relevant experience. No matter. He had been Scott’s general counsel. As with Meeker and Guillory, board approval was a formality.

Now Scott has moved Antonacci to Enterprise Florida. As the governor prepares to run for the U.S. Senate next year, he wants maximum exposure at announcements of businesses moving here or expanding. Antonacci also has no relevant experience in that area, but he will make the agency work for Scott at least through the election.

Antonacci’s departure is no surprise. He never had any interest in running the water management district long-term. He also was unhappy commuting from Tallahassee, where his wife works as a partner in the Lewis Longman Walker law firm.

During his nearly two years, Antonacci picked fights with federal agencies — the Fish and Wildlife Service over the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine over climate change. Under Antonacci, the district allied itself with sugar cane farmers and opposed a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee that would reduce damaging discharges to coastal estuaries and help the Everglades. The Legislature approved the project anyway.

Will things change under Marks? Will Scott ask the Department of Justice to free Florida from federal court supervision of Everglades restoration? Does the water management district, which just boasted about seven straight no-new-taxes years — saving the average homeowner much less than the sneaky school property tax increases Scott has approved — have enough money? Who knows? What matters for now is that the news release announcing Marks’ hire praised the governor for his Everglades policy. Under Rick Scott, an agency that should be all about science is all about politics.

Email Randy Schultz: randy@bocamag.com.