Kick Ass (43 page)

Maybe first Thanksgiving soured early

November 24, 1989

A University of Florida historian reports that, contrary to American folklore, the first Thanksgiving did not take place in 1621 after the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock.

Rather, the original feast supposedly was held 56 years earlier at St. Augustine when Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles invited the Timucua Indians to dinner. The prayerful gathering was called to celebrate the Spaniards’ safe landing on the Florida coast.

If true, this revisionist account of the holiday raises important historical questions. Why did tradition embrace the New England Thanksgiving instead of the original Florida Thanksgiving? What really happened on that autumn evening in 1565 when the Spaniards and the Timucua broke bread? Did something go terribly wrong to spoil the occasion? Perhaps it all went sour on the day after the big cookout, when …

“Chief, you look awfulwhat’s the matter?”

“It’s those damn garbanzo beans. I should never have let Pedro talk me into a second helping.”

“Speaking of Pedro, he and his men were up at the crack of dawn this morning. They chopped down many of our finest trees, and now they seem to be building something on our beach.”

“I wondered who was causing all that racket. What are they making, another one of those ugly forts?”

“Not exactly, Chief. Pedro calls it a high-rise.”

“I don’t understandwhat is that word, ‘high-rise’? How would we say it in Timucuan?”

“Literally, it means Tall Box Full of Noisy Strangers.”

“But why would Pedro put such an unnatural thing on such a beautiful shore!”

“He says he had a spiritual vision, Chief. He says that thousands upon thousands more settlers will soon be coming to Florida, and they will all need a place to sleep and eat and give thanks.”

“What’s he got against good old-fashioned thatched huts?”

“Pedro says the new settlers will want something fancier than palmetto. He says they’ll be willing to pay major trinkets and beads to live in a high place with a good view of the ocean.”

“This high-riseexactly how high will it be?”

“Higher than the tallest pines, Chief. Higher than the eagles soar.”

“Ha! I think our friend Pedro had a little too much grape last night.”

“He seems quite sober, Chief. And his men are swift carpenters. I don’t mind telling you, the rest of the tribe is very concerned.”

“I, too, am worriedand surprised. They seemed like such nice fellows, these explorers. Much friendlier than the French. I can’t believe they’d want to build a giant box on our beach and fill it with noisy strangers. What’re we going to do?”

“Well, Chief, we could always eat them. Like we did with those Huguenots.”

“Yeah, and we all had the trots for a month afterward, remember? Let’s try to think of a different way to discourage Pedro.”

“We could pass some tough coastal zoning ordinances.”

“Naw, that’ll never work. Pedro’s lawyers would find a loophole somewhere.”

“Chief, wait, I’ve got an idea! You know those funny little mushrooms that grow down by the creek? The ones that make the armadillos bark like coyotes?”

“Yes, the magic mushrooms.”

“Well, suppose we invited Pedro and his crew back to dinner tonight. This time it would be our treat, a second thanksgiving.”

“Hmmmm. A garden salad would be lovely for starters. Coonti roots, garnished with mushrooms.”

“Yes, a bounty of mushrooms, Chief. And, later, cream of mushroom soup. Then, for the main course, wild buzzard stuffed with mushrooms.”

“That should do the trick.”

“After such a meal, Pedro and his men will totally forget about building anything on our peaceful beach. No more conquering, no more pillaging. All they’ll want to do is run with the rabbits and fly with the hawks.”

“Which reminds me, you’d better lock up the livestock.”

“Good thinking, Chief. These men have been at sea for a long, long time.”

Retail flops fail to stop mall frenzy

February 8, 1989

This is a terrible time for mall freaks.

First, Branden’s announced it was closing. Not only was this bad news for Branden’s employees, but also for several South Florida malls which had counted on the big department store as their “anchor” to bring in customers.

FourThe Promenade, Town & Country, Colonial Palms and The Fountains in Browardare suddenly stuck with about a jillion square feet of retail space, of which there is already a gross surplus.

In South Miami, the long-troubled Bakery Centre was clobbered by the abrupt closing of the Bodyworks spa and adjoining Sports Rock Cafe. Certainly it was an interesting idea while it lasted: Presumably you were supposed to pig out on the cafe side, then burn off the fat at the gym. Only in America, and only in a mall, could such a concept be born.

The shutdown of Bodyworks was the final blow to the Bakery Centre, which has announced that it’s converting from retail to office space. Meanwhile developer owner Martin Margulies and the bank that loaned him the dough are suing and countersuing each other over why the loans aren’t being repaid.

A new fire station that Margulies had promised to build in exchange for the mall approval is still just a sketch on paper. Gee, what a surprise.

The Bakery Centre fiasco is not a unique story. All over South Florida, shopping malls are in trouble for the simple reason that there are too many of them. A recent study showed a glut of 2Ł million square feet of shopping space in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Vacancy is high, tenant turnover is high, foreclosure is high.

Still they build more and more of these megaturkeysa mystery, unless you understand the symbiosis of greed. Developers usually don’t lose a dime on dead mallsthey get their money from the banks. The ones who really take it on the chin are the small, independent shop owners trying to make the rent in an air-conditioned ghost town.

Yet zoning boards lustily endorse mall after mall, seemingly oblivious of the fact that many of these projects have no prayer of financial success.

A perfect example: A few years ago, an economic study done in Broward reported that there was so much empty retail space that it couldn’t all be filled until well into the 21st century.

Officials conveniently chose to ignore the experts, and continued to rubber-stamp every shopping mall that came up on the drawing board. Their groveling allegiance to developers is best manifested along a two-mile segment of University Drive in Plantation, where there are now no less than five malls and shopping centers.

If the Russians ever decide to bomb us, this particular stretch of suburban claptrap is where they’ll start. The aerial resemblance to a munitions dump is uncanny.

Any idiot could have predicted that not all these malls could make moneyany idiot except the ones who approved them; the elected ones.

Here’s one idea you won’t hear from government planners: Don’t build any more shopping malls until the ones we’ve got are at least 90 percent occupiedand the stores are actually making a profit.

There’s a radical notion. No one suggests such a thing because it means saying no to fat-cat developers and their lawyers. Saying no to a mall is like saying no to growth, and saying no to growth is like spitting on the flag.

Why, what would we do without another multiplex cinemaa dozen theaters, each no bigger than a tollbooth! Where else but a mall could we buy our apricot bagels? Where else could our daughters get their ears pierced?

And, most of all, what would we do with all that open space if there were no more shopping malls? Oh, I suppose you could plant some trees, put in a playground or maybe a ballpark for the kids.

But what neighborhood would ever go for something so dull when it could have its very own J. C. Penney and Wicker World and Orange Julius and parking lots as far as the eye can see.

We’re talking quality of life.

A message to outsiders: Florida’s full

January 5, 1990

The latest census figures show that the 1980s was a decade of astounding migration to the South and the West. Florida continues to draw new residents like a dead marlin draws flies. Between the 1980 census and July 1, 1989, the state’s population grew from 9.7 million people to an estimated 12.7 million peoplean increase of 31 percent.

Anyone who says this is good news needs to have his head examined. It’s a disaster in the making, an avalanche of humanity with which our state has no prayer of coping. As it is, we don’t have enough roads, schools, police, water, affordable housing or health care. We apparently don’t even have enough electricity to operate our toasters during a cold snap.

Yet still they come to Florida, in hopeful hordes, at a rate of about 900 a day. What accounts for this lemming-like behavior? More to the point, what accounts for our welcoming them so cheerily?

To hear some civic boosters talk, we should all be proud that so many folks are dying to be our new neighbors. It’s as if we’ve all pitched in to make this a little slice of paradise, with lots to offer.

Hogwash. We had nothing to do with it. People move to Florida for the same reasons they’ve always moved to Florida: to get warm and stay warm. No matter how crowded or crime-ridden this state becomes, it’ll always look better than a dying factory town on the shore of Lake Erie in the dead of winter.

Florida is where folks come when things get unbearable back home. It’s been that way ever since they invented air-conditioning and bug spray.

Only three states grew faster in the 1980s: Arizona, Alaska and Nevada. None is in any immediate danger of becoming urbanized; Arizona’s entire population is no more than that of Dade, Broward and Monroe counties together.

It’s more reasonable to compare what’s happening in Florida with the trend in other populous states. In the 19805 we absorbed more new residents than New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio or Texas. Only California (which has considerably more space) took in more people than we did.

Every year Florida’s population grows by about 320,000that’s an entire city larger than Tampa. Every single year.

This must stop if the place is to be saved. Stanching the flood will require higher taxes, tougher laws and a few courageous politicians who aren’t afraid to say enough is enough. Try to find just one.

Not that the cataclysm has been ignored. The 1980s was the decade in which state legislators embraced the term “growth management” and passed important laws to try to improve local planning. Not a week goes by that some university scholars or blue-ribbon panel aren’t conducting a symposium on growth and all its implicationssocial, economic and environmental.

Some of the brightest people in Florida are hot on the case. The problem is, the faucet is still running.

And too many people are getting rich off the migration to admit that it’s a peril. The money that fuels political campaigns tends to come from people who prosper from rampant growth and development. They cannot conceive of a place where these things would be controlled or, God forbid, halted.

Ironically, many who are suggesting such remedies were once migrants themselves. They see Florida becoming a place very much like the one they fled, and they’d like to prevent that from happening.

So now you want to slam the door? reply the guys in the suits; now that you’ve got your piece of paradise, you want to lock out the others, is that it?

Exactly. Because the alternative is to be overrun, choked and bankrupted; to destroy the very natural beauty that attracted all these people in the first place; to let the hordes keep coming until there’s nowhere to put themand then let our children and grandchildren worry about what to do next.

Damn right we should slam the door, or at least put a shoulder to it.

Gas-tax veto wisely brakes development

May 9, 1990

Lots of people are lambasting Gov. Martinez for vetoing the proposed four-cent gasoline tax, which would have provided several hundred million dollars for road projects.

The critics say the governor’s veto was irresponsible. They say it will hurt the economy by obstructing “growth management.”

Translation: Without new roads, it’s harder for developers to get new projects approved. It’s no mystery why the most vocal supporters of the gas tax were road contractors, builders and chambers of commerce.

Maybe the governor didn’t believe Floridians wanted the tax, or maybe he truly felt the money would be spent “unwisely and inappropriately.” Either way, the veto was the right thing to do.

In what dream world do the gas-tax proponents dwell? It must be a fairy-tale place, where all construction contracts are awarded wisely, where the work is completed within budget, without scandal and always on time.

Where is this magical land? It’s not Florida, that’s for sure.

The Department of Transportation has suffered through some inglorious budget screwups. In 1988, $700 million in projects had to be canceled or scaled down. Last year the department came up $116 million short for purchasing rights-of-way. The Martinez administration deserves blame for chaotic mismanagement, but at least the governor this year had the sense not to give DOT more money to lose.

It’s bad enough that most projects cost millions over budget, and drag months and even years past deadline. The worst part is: By the time these roads get finished, they are already obsolete.

For example, we’ve been dourly forewarned that the interminable widening of I-95 will be hopelessly inadequate, and that shortly after the highway’s completion motorists will again find themselves mired in truck traffic. Wonderful.

Sure, many roads already are perilously congested. And yes, some of the bridges are falling down. Is more money the answer? Not if it goes for highway projects designed to fuel more growthbecause growth is the root of the problem.

Florida has too many people in too many cars, and the numbers swell by nearly 900 a day. Until we do something drastic to reverse this trend, there’s no hope of having a modern, efficient road system. Government is incapable of keeping pace with such an insane migration.