The process seemed purposefully obtuse.

Construction bids were bundled and submitted as imprecise estimates, based on obscure criteria, to be negotiated (and massaged and inflated) long after contracts were let.

``It left a lot of room for shenanigans,'' said Nick Sakhnovsky, who served as one of the outnumbered citizen participants on the selection committee reviewing bids for a Fort Lauderdale elementary school renovation.

``I'm no bumpkin,'' insisted Sakhnovsky, chairman of the Broward school's Facilities Task Force. But school district bidding seemed designed to defy outside oversight, even by a lawyer with a couple of graduate degrees.

What he could see, clearly, was that school district employees on the committee and ``guys in the dark suits,'' the lobbyists, manipulated a system virtually designed to be manipulated.

His questions only spawned irritation.

And when the committee decided who to recommended for the $60 million contract, ``I couldn't understand how the results ended up that way. Based on the presentations and the methodology -- it didn't connect,'' he said. ``It was bizarre. Radically different than what I expected. It just didn't make sense.''

Suddenly, perversely, it all makes sense.

BUST SHEDS LIGHT

Broward School Board Member Beverly Gallagher was busted in an undercover FBI sting Wednesday, accused of taking bribes to influence the bid selection on a $71 million school construction project.

Sakhnovsky was hardly shocked. The corruption charges against Gallagher only confirmed his long held suspicions.

Nor did the corruption charges shock Pat Santeramo, despite his affection for Gallagher. He knew the system invited exploitation. As president of the Broward Teachers Union, he was there when another selection committee sorted through bids for the district's health insurance contract.

Santeramo, worried about insurance for 22,000 union members, felt an obligation to be there. But it was not exactly scintillating work, slogging through stacks of competing insurance bids.

Santeramo wondered why the same three school board members, year after year, ``would fall all over themselves'' to get on the selection committee.

ABSOLUTE POWER

Santeramo suspects the attraction was a process so full of complexities and subjective criteria that school board members on the committee could finagle any outcome they wished. Santeramo came away convinced that the final decision in the $200 million deal came down to the influence of a certain lobbyist. ``It always comes down to the lobbyists,'' he said.

Gallagher's arrest brings so many old suspicions into sharper focus.

Suddenly, there's renewed interest in an inexplicable $4.3 million school board deal for swampland in Southwest Ranches. And the mysterious $765,000 overpayment collected by two contractors hired to repair damage after Hurricane Wilma.

The FBI investigation dredged up memories of old grand jury reports and audits warning about a process suborned by big money. Such suspicions have been dogging the Broward school district for years.

``The only thing new was Gallagher's perp walk,'' Sakhnovsky said. ``She turned it into a perp run.''

Otherwise, he said, ``Nothing about this surprised me.''

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