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Backroom Deal Between Friends Taints Worth Of CSX Rail Deal

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 12, 2007

In a deal to bring commuter rail to central Florida and take hundreds of cars off the road in congested Orlando, Gov. Jeb Bush and CSX railroad last year announced the sale of tracks for $491 million in taxpayer money.

Bush touted the deal as a strong public-private partnership, though he brokered the plan in secret with no public discussion of the downside.

It's time to have that discussion.

To make the deal work, CSX must move its Orlando operations to a new hub in Winter Haven, a move the company claims would benefit the state's ports and bring skilled and well-paying jobs to the region.

But the new hub also would put more freight trains on tracks through downtown Lakeland and Plant City, which could severely disrupt neighborhoods, traffic and redevelopment efforts. It also would add more than 1,000 trucks a day to Polk County's roads.

Perhaps it's to the state's advantage to allow the hub. Winter Haven city leaders surely want it. But it looks like this deal was put together primarily to benefit CSX, a major political contributor to Bush, his family and friends.

Hatched in the executive branch, the deal is being managed by bureaucrats. One would think such a significant project would have the ear of the Legislature, but lawmakers have been largely silent. State Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, whose husband led the high-speed bullet train initiative that Bush helped defeat, has expressed some objections over land use at the proposed hub site, but that's about it.

Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, has said it's a done deal. And former Sen. Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg, once the dean of transportation, said nothing when word leaked out last year that a deal was in the offing.

This is not how a deal with so much tax money involved should be done. This is the Sunshine State and by law, citizens expect a more open process.

Caught off-guard, Lakeland and Ocala officials now are fighting mad. State Rep. Seth McKeel, R-Lakeland, is hearing from constituents who fear their neighborhoods will be overrun by rail and truck traffic.

It's telling that while Gov. Charlie Crist has sat down with CSX chairman Michael Ward, he has yet to meet with opponents of the railroad's proposal. The governor should listen to them, too.

This deal has the potential of splitting Polk in two, with communities east of Winter Haven favoring the hub and those in the west opposed. Such a split is not healthy for a part of Florida where three distinct regions - Orlando, Tampa and the Heartland - converge.

The backroom deal began in December 2004, a month after voters defeated the bullet train. As reporters Lindsay Peterson and Billy Townsend tell it, CSX visited the Department of Transportation and unveiled a new business strategy for Florida. The state adopted the railroad's plan: Taxpayers would pay for road access to the Winter Haven hub and help CSX upgrade its Polk freight line to handle more traffic. And we also would pay for 61 miles of track around Orlando.

Meanwhile, Florida East Coast Industries, which owns a north-south rail corridor on Florida's east coast and had previously rebuffed state attempts to buy its corridors, also began talking to the state.

As talks ensued, a group of private equity investors offered $3.5 billion for FEC. It appears the negotiations raised the value of the railroad and its real estate holdings. Bush supporter and former employer Armando Codina made $250 million in the deal.

What to make of all this?

Neither Bush nor CSX executives are talking. Given the deal's enormous impact on our region and state, both owe Floridians more than silence.

If people better understood the value of the deal, it might draw more support. Instead, it's being framed as benefiting Winter Haven at the expense of Lakeland and Plant City.

Fortunately, the Department of Transportation must analyze the deal. The department should make its judgment only after significant public input - including answers from the railroad and the former governor.

CSX should serve its home state - and ultimately its customers - by better working with its neighbors, participating in public reviews and taking the time to get this project done right.

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