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Sun-Sentinel: Something smells bad in Broward, and it’s not the water

By Florida Trident staff

South Florida Sun-Sentinel by Steve Bousquet

It’s an old joke among Florida legislators: Make an enemy in leadership, and you’ll find yourself sitting on the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee.

The obscure panel with the thankless job and impossible-to-remember name gets together to discuss “operational audits” after other lawmakers have gone home or headed for a local watering hole. But all that changed Thursday because of a growing controversy in Broward (where else?) that demands serious attention.

Reporter Bob Norman, who writes for the watchdog website Florida Center for Government Accountability, has documented that Colon formed a private company from his Plantation living room, Intersol LLC, that has received $16 million in contracts from the district he runs. Colon also pocketed a $240,000 real estate commission on the sale of some of the district’s land. 

Norman’ s deeply reported stories are a roadmap for auditors to follow, including such malodorous transactions as a $4 million contract for a pumping station awarded to Colon’s business, Intersol. More lucrative contracts followed, for pipelines, wells and aquifers. 
This independent special district, one of 21 similar shadow governments across the county, is a microcosm of much that’s wrong with how modern Broward evolved.

Read more. (This article is behind a paywall.)