The rot begins with a hinky little passage deep in the Broward County Code.

The language, however bureaucratic, makes interesting reading for anyone wondering how local government came to be a subsidiary of political bag men.

The section governs the make-up of committees that cull through procurement bids. ``Each selection committee'' the code states, ``shall be recommended by the director of purchasing and appointed by the board of county commissioners, with the board having the option to name at least one member of the board to serve on the committee as a voting member, if a board member expresses an interest in serving.''

Are you kidding? If the board member expresses an interest? That's like offering a teenager a new car if he ``expresses an interest.''

The phrase lies at the heart of Broward County's corrupted procurement process.

`JUST BAD PRACTICE'

Broward commissioners, milking that passage for all its worth, regularly insert themselves into a bid selection process where vendors and contractors, the savvy ones, have made campaign contributions to those same commissioners.

The companies hire the requisite lobbyists to work the process -- the same lobbyists who not only make campaign contributions but magically convince wives, parents, adult children and office employees to also write checks.

These happen to be the same lobbyists who organize the campaign fundraisers that render incumbent commissioners virtually invulnerable to upstart challengers.

As Broward Commissioner Lois Wexler told the county ethics commission in May: ``One only needs to follow the money in an organization and the money in this organization is in procurement.''

A lobbyist in Miami-Dade County -- Miami-Dade, for heaven's sake -- told me he was shocked by the wanton influence lobbyists hold over Broward's procurement process. Miami-Dade commissioners, for good reason, are barred from sitting on selection committees.

``It's a formula for disaster,'' said Chris Mazzella, Miami-Dade's Inspector General. ``It's just bad practice.''

Wouldn't it be nice if Broward County had its own inspector general to keep county commissioners and school board members from such nefarious inclinations? Broward had its chances. Mazzella, a retired FBI corruption buster who was hired in 1998 after a series of bribery and kick-back scandals in Miami-Dade, told the Broward County Charter Review Commission back in 2001 how an IG could clean up the mess in Fort Lauderdale.

GOING WILD

Broward apparently preferred the let-'em-run-amuck form of government oversight. So did Palm Beach County -- until corruption scandals took down three commissioners. Suddenly, the surviving commissioners, as their fellows languish in prison, have embraced the concept of an inspector general.

With scandal now infesting Broward County, bringing down, so far, a county commissioner, school board member and a former Miramar city commissioner, and with the FBI looking hard at past lobbyist-engineered deals, Broward's commissioners might finally see the need for their own Mazzella.

``We keep people out of trouble,'' Mazzella said.

It beats prison.

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