TALLAHASSEE - Lose a slots election, redraw a map?
A creative mapmaking proposal being floated by state Rep. David Rivera would redraw the Broward County
line a smidgen south just to include Calder Race Course -- one of three Miami-Dade parimutuels that lost out
on slots when Miami-Dade voters rejected the machines last week.
But for a few hundred feet, Calder would be sitting pretty, said Rivera, a Republican lawmaker from Miami
whose semi-serious proposal gathered some steam this week. Why not just draw the track into Broward,
where voters approved adding slot machines to the county's four parimutuels?
Rivera, who represents parts of western Miami-Dade and Broward counties but not the racetrack, described
his idea as an ''extremely surgical deannexation.'' Calder sits just a few hundred feet south of the Broward
County line, in plain view of County Line Road.
''We'll just move it,'' Rivera said of the county line.
It's not entirely clear how or even if it could legally be done, Rivera said, but it's something he's researching,
along with other ideas that would benefit the three parimutuels that lost out on slots.
No one at the course, which is owned by Churchill Downs in Kentucky, has even considered the idea, said
Wilbur Brewton, Calder's Tallahassee lobbyist.
''It's interesting,'' Brewton said.
But is it realistic?
Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess was so stunned by the suggestion Friday that he was
momentarily speechless when a reporter called. Burgess' north-of-the-county-line counterpart, Broward
Administrator Roger Desjarlais, laughed out loud.
''Simply so they could have slot machines?'' Desjarlais asked. ``There's not a legislator in town who would do
that.''
Incredulity aside, the idea has come up before. Angry about the cost of fire service, town leaders in Golden
Beach threatened in 1998 to secede from Miami-Dade and bring the community's hefty beachfront tax base
to Broward County.
But realists point out that the legislative, logistical and legal reality of redrawing lines on a map could take as
long as persuading Miami-Dade voters to vote on and approve the issue again in two years.
And even pro-gambling lawmakers such as Sen. Steve Geller are a little, well, skeptical, even if they're
charmed by the audacity of the idea.
''I love it, but there's no chance of it happening,'' said Geller, D-Hallandale Beach. ``You can't have the same
county on both sides of County Line Road.''
Herald staff writer Noaki Schwartz contributed to this report.