By selling his share of the Homestead lease, Sanchez would maintain a perfect record: In 15 years he's never operated a racetrack that made money. Oh, he made plenty—but not the races, and not the municipalities that subsidized them.

After skipping out of downtown Miami, Sanchez found fresh suckers in hurricane-battered Homestead. True to form, he miscalculated the cost of the new speedway by about 500 percent, and his lofty promise of reviving South Dade's economy turned out to be hot air.

Even the track itself has been a headache, beset with costly design flaws that cast large doubts upon Sanchez's touted racing expertise. Huizenga came in as a partner by loaning $20 million for new construction.

Now Sanchez says the racetrack is "overbuilt." Seriously, that's what he says. He told New Times: "If I didn't have to sell I wouldn't sell, but this is the reality of the situation."

Here's the reality: He and Huizenga are making out like bandits, while taxpayers are once again eating dust.

Of all Sanchez's failures, Homestead will be his most lucrative. In a meeting with South Dade business leaders on April 3, he admitted that he and Huizenga each will receive about $ 10 million if France buys them out.

Which seems likely, since the track's new tenant is no longer required to share race profits with the city—one of several outlandish concessions approved by council members.

The hosing was orchestrated by none other than Alex Muxo, who did plenty of damage as Homestead's city manager. Now conveniently employed by Huizenga, Muxo met individually with council members at the racetrack.

His message: This thing won't ever fly without a Winston Cup weekend.

In other words, forget the Indy cars. Forget the Jiffy Lube. Forget everything Sanchez promised four years ago.

Many folks in Homestead won't forget. Neither will some of the politicians who gave him that first $31 million. As former Metro Commissioner Maurice Ferre lamented: "I still wonder how we could have allowed this to happen."

Join the club.

Choked on Growth

If three's a crowd, what is 5 million?

September 13, 1985

Something dismal to contemplate next time you're stuck in highway traffic:

This week the National Planning Association predicted that Florida will have 5.7 million more residents by the year 2000 than it had in 1980.The Census Bureau forecasts 7.7 million, though this is considered high. And the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research conservatively puts the growth at 5 million.

Which is still equivalent to absorbing the entire population of Missouri. Or, put another way, if the number of new people invading Florida during the next 15 years formed their own state, it would be more populous than 38 other states.

Incredibly, there are those walking among us who think this is wonderful news, and who are busily restructuring their banks, mapping new condominium clusters and dreaming up bigger and better trailer parks.

Meanwhile, growing numbers of dispirited Floridians wonder where it will all end, and worry about already-frayed quality of life.

"You're talking about a 50 percent increase in a 20-year period. In terms of numbers of bodies, it's a tremendous increase," says Stanley K. Smith of the University of Florida.

Among the fastest growing counties are Palm Beach, Lee, Collier, St. Lucie and Martin. Broward is still growing, though not nearly as fast as before, while Dade County is stagnant, its new arrivals nearly matched by those packing up and heading north.

As expected, most newcomers hail from places that are either cold, crowded, dirty or economically depressed. By the turn of the century, they will have enlarged our numbers to 14.7 million.

As John D. MacDonald has observed, almost everyone who moves down here wants to slam the door behind him. This might be selfish, but it's also understandable: It doesn't take a disciple of Thoreau to notice the loveliness of Florida wane in direct proportion to humanity.

"At some point," Smith says, "it's possible that the quality of life will become so unattractive that no one will want to move here. That'll solve your growth problems. But that's like cutting off your arm to save the whole body."

This year the Legislature passed a "growth management" law, supposedly to impose order on the state's tumultuous development.

Frankly, the notion of "orderly growth" is about as tangible as the tooth fairy. Growth that is orderly would break a century-old tradition of lust, greed and wantonness. Already three Florida counties (Palm Beach, Broward and Dade) hold more human beings (3.5 million) than the states of Mississippi or Colorado or Oregon or Oklahoma, to name a few.

No governor in our history has voiced as much concern for the trampling of Florida as Bob Graham, but I doubt that even he has the clout to put on the brakes. He is considered bold for endorsing "growth management," but he'd be laughed off his lectern for suggesting a growth cap.

So we're stuck with this stampede.

Developers along the Palm Beach and Treasure Coasts can salivate at the good fortune coming their way, but those living there might ponder the lesson of boomed-out Dade County.

Dade has stopped growing because it is perceived as crowded, volatile, crime-ridden and racially tense. It is seen less as a community than a newly urbanized war zone; a place with too many people, too many problems and too few opportunities.

Broward, fast bloating, will be the next to bottom out. In a few years Palm Beach County will probably follow.

By the time it all goes sour, when even Disney and sunny beaches can't trick people into coming, the big-money boys will have made their killing and hustled elsewhere along the Sun Belt.

Leaving everyone else to stew in traffic, and try to remember why they moved here in the first place.

Highway opens one of last frontiers to overgrowth

July 16, 1986

The Romans managed to build 53,000 miles of road without once celebrating the achievement by dressing up in frog costumes.

Things have changed since 312 B.C. The roads are better, but the PR is worse.

Thursday brings another official opening of the Sawgrass Expressway in West Broward County. This opening—marked by the imposition of a $1.50 toll—should not be confused with two previous official openings, at which great political merriment and self-congratulation occurred.

The highlight of these seemingly endless festivities has been the introduction of Cecil B. Sawgrass, a grown man dressed like a frog. Cecil B. Sawgrass is the expressway's official mascot. If you live in Broward, you got postcards in the mail with Cecil's green likeness inviting you to try the new expressway. "Hop to it!" Cecil implored. And, sure enough, if you drive the Sawgrass you'll see dozens of Cecil's little frog cousins squashed dead on the fresh asphalt.

The Romans had too much class to invent animal mascots for their roads. Of course, they never had to sell a $200 million bond issue either. These days, we are told, highways must be promoted like breakfast cereal, imprinted on the public consciousness. This is especially true when the highway doesn't really go anywhere that the public wants to go.

The Sawgrass Expressway is a 23-mile incision that runs near the Broward-Palm Beach boundary, then jogs south along the westernmost fringe of civilization. It runs parallel to the dikes that contain the submerged Everglades conservation areas, vital South Florida watersheds. Someday the Sawgrass will link with I-595.

There's not much to see on the highway now, and that's the beauty of it. There are cattle grazing in open fields, hawks circling in the sky, and bass hitting in the canals (at least the canals that weren't grossly over-dredged by road contractors). Across the dike are breathtaking waves of sawgrass and virgin wetlands.