The GOoPers' "Air Everglades"

Frequent fliers? Oh, it has some of those, too. Usually, they are politically connected folks with no ties to the agency and high-ranking district officials whose "fares" — $445 an hour for a helicopter and $765 an hour for the airplane, by the district's own estimates — are paid for by taxpayers.

Welcome to "Air Everglades," the South Florida Water Management District's fleet....

[A]mong the hundreds of flights reviewed, some stand out:

• On Jan. 11, 2003, a Saturday, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, took a water district Bell helicopter at PBIA for, according to the flight request, a "flyover of projects." Three hours later and after a stopover in Tampa, Voinovich was dropped off at Charlotte County Airport near Punta Gorda, on Florida's west coast, and the chopper returned to PBIA.

Why Punta Gorda? Property records show that Voinovich's wife, Janet, owns a beachfront condo there....

• On the same Saturday, another chopper picked up Kathleen Shanahan, then the governor's chief of staff, near a state office at Florida International University in Miami. [District Executive Director Henry] Dean accompanied her to Key West, where Shanahan was dropped off for the weekend....

Shanahan, who now works for the consulting group Public Strategies Inc., said she took the tour to learn about Everglades restoration. And she spent the weekend in Key West, she said, for work. "I wasn't in Key West for a vacation," she said. "I was there to prepare a meeting between the governor and Navy commanders."

• On Feb. 3, 2003, Dean, Governing Board Vice Chairwoman Pamela Brooks-Thomas and six district staffers took the eight-seat Beechcraft King Air plane to Tallahassee to attend the governor's Black History Month reception. Two hours later, they headed home. Cost of that flight: $2,486.

• On June 14, 2003, a helicopter picked up newly appointed Governing Board member Kevin McCarty, husband of Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty, at Boca Raton Airport. The flight was to familiarize bonds-trader McCarty with the district and included three agency officials.

But listed on the flight manifest with McCarty was Jackie Dheere. McCarty did not return calls to explain why he took Dheere along. Dheere described herself as a 20-year-old student who, at the time, was working on "a science or English" term paper for a class at Palm Beach Community College.

"I just asked Kevin if I could come because I thought the flight could help me write the paper," Dheere said. She did not remember anything about that paper.

As it happens, Dheere worked on Mary McCarty's 2002 campaign for commissioner, herself ran unsuccessfully for another commission seat and was the local college coordinator for this fall's Bush-Cheney campaign. Cost of the flight: $1,335.

• This past April 15, a chopper flew out of West Palm Beach to pick up Miami-Dade County Commissioner Jose "Pepe" Diaz for a "flyover of Dade/Broward counties," according to the flight request. Diaz boarded at the Watson Island helipad in downtown Miami and was dropped off at Fort Lauderdale International Airport 15 minutes later, according to the manifest.

District officials explained the trip was not just to give Diaz a ride to the airport, where he had a plane to catch, but to allow the newly appointed district operations chief, Bob Howard, to meet Diaz, the commission's de facto liaison with the district. "Everybody met during the flight," said Diaz's spokeswoman, Jeanette Rodriguez. Diaz did not return calls for comment.

Diaz hasn't been shy about using the aircraft. On Oct. 6, 2003, he and three district officials took the mayor and the port director of the tiny Colombia city of Buenaventura on a three-hour aerial tour of Miami.

The flight request read: "To give a special environmental tour to educate our Hispanic brothers by touring the Everglades." The chopper took off from Watson, dropped off the Colombians at Fort Lauderdale International, returned to Miami to drop off Diaz, then returned to West Palm Beach. Total cost: $1,335.

• Others not affiliated with the water district who recently have flown include: state Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, who took a special flight solo from PBIA to Key Largo for a presentation to the water district board; former state Rep. Joe Spratt, R-LaBelle, who hitched a ride on the King Air for a funeral; and Steve Hart, aide to U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, who traveled on the state agency's plane to Tallahassee on federal business. Hart is the husband of WMD deputy executive director Pam Mac'Kie. "Water district flights strain tax dime for some brass, bigwigs".