Surfside condo catastrophe deserves more action, less politics from Florida governor | Opinion

If there’s anything that brings some comfort to families and victims of tragedies like the catastrophic Surfside condo building collapse, it’s to see that at least the suffering and the lives lost serve as a catalyst for change.

The moment calls for urgent action — and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has stepped up, calling for a countywide audit of buildings 40 years and older and pledging her support for a grand jury investigation into what led to the collapse, among other measures.

But what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will do — or won’t do — statewide to prevent another deadly building failure, particularly in coastal cities, is another story.

He seems to be in no rush to take up a review of old condominium buildings in Florida.

“Not now,” DeSantis said on June 24, the day of the tragedy, and that still seems to be where he remains: unwilling to take up the tough but necessary work of looking at what Florida laws may need revision or beefing up.

Given what he has now said in Tallahassee — and what he wouldn’t commit to doing as rescuers pulled bodies out of the rubble in Surfside, the death toll climbing to 78 Friday — preventive efforts and action will only take place at the local level.

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Only in South Florida

Old condo buildings in dangerous shape are only a South Florida problem, he seemed to say from the capital.

Calling condominiums in South Florida “kind of a dime a dozen,” DeSantis wouldn’t commit to taking any state action to address the concerns, not only of condo dwellers but of structural engineering experts as well, about aging buildings in a state vulnerable to climate change.

Probed by journalists, DeSantis wouldn’t say if he would support statewide measures such as those being taken in Miami-Dade County and other municipalities to ensure the structural integrity of older buildings.

Champlain Towers South, he said, “had problems from the start, let’s just put it that way.” The building had “unique” issues, he cast it.

But he didn’t sound like this speaking on Fox News on the eve of President Joe Biden’s arrival in Surfside to meet with grieving families, reassure people of his support, and thank search and rescue units.

“We want the truth about what happened so that we know if it has implications for other properties in Florida and if there needs to be anything to remedy it on the state or local level,” DeSantis said then.

The only thing he wouldn’t discuss was the possibility raised by some experts, including Biden’s secretary of energy, Jennifer Granholm, that climate change and the rising seas also had an impact on the collapse.

“I don’t think there’s any evidence of that,” DeSantis said, calling Granholm’s true comments about sea levels rising and Florida and other locations losing inches and inches of beaches “a preexisting agenda.”

“There is no agenda here,” DeSantis said. “We want the facts and we want the truth and what needs to be done to protect other folks who may be living in other types of buildings.”

Agreed. That’s what all of Florida needs. So why not say so in Tallahassee?

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Florida condo laws

The cause of the collapse is unknown.

But, even if there were flaws in the 1981 design and construction and questionable practices by the builder, there are other issues that may have played a role, including the delay in making $16 million worth of necessary repairs.

One of the reasons: The condo association only had $777,000 in reserves to cover costs.

This is where the effect of legislation — or the lack of it — comes in.

If a 2008 Florida law requiring condo associations to conduct reserve studies to determine how much it would cost to keep up with repairs hadn’t been repealed two years later, perhaps those running the building would have felt more pressured to act sooner.

But this is what happens when the legislator sponsoring the repeal bill is a real estate broker and builder responding to the pressures of condo industry lobbyists, as was former Rep. Gary Aubuchon. He’s a prominent Cape Coral Republican still active in politics.

Yes, there’s plenty for state government to do that transcends the borders of Miami Beach.

Condo collapse is an urgent alert that old Florida structures need auditing | Opinion

DeSantis’ political calculus

But DeSantis has done the political calculus and he doesn’t want to address shortcomings the collapse has brought and will continue to bring to the surface. These will have an impact on the state’s construction industry, a source of generous and politically engaged campaign donors.

He also knows he would be opening a Pandora’s Box upstate, where building codes are nowhere near as stringent as Miami-Dade County’s, post-Hurricane Andrew.

The Surfside condo collapse is one of the worst building disasters in American history.

The victims and their families deserve more action from Florida’s governor than taking up all the camera space at press briefings.

But this is vintage Ron DeSantis: Political agenda first — and always.