For the first time in years, the South Florida Water Management District has a chance to get a grip on reality, and what does it do? Whine like a spoiled brat.

Instead of cheering Gov. Rick Scott's involvement in trying to turn around the District’s failed management strategies – especially knowing they need help to fight strangulating federal regulations – board members last week resorted to attempts of scaring the pants off the 16 counties they serve and every Floridian seeking to save the Everglades.

Some of the most outlandish oh-my-the-sky-is-falling silliness came from the board chairman, Eric Buermann. If the governor curtails the water management districts’ ability to tax property owners by 25 percent – as he has proposed to do – that isn’t a break for taxpayers, says Buermann.

Why not?

Because, apparently, the $180 million it will cost the District over the next two years could create the need for unthinkable sacrifice. The chairman sat by quietly at last week's board meeting -- offered not one comforting word -- while Vice Chairman Jerry Montgomery frightened the wits out of District employees with talk of layoffs.

Buermann’s hand-wringing despair ended with the biggest absurdity of all: “We are getting down to the point where we might just as well close the agency.”

Close the agency? Wholesale layoffs? This man, the ultimate Zero, is leaving the District just in time.

The governor is not the bad guy in this bureaucratic version of a B-grade spaghetti western. When he rode into town, he didn’t rob the bank and shoot up the town, he gave the townsfolk a tax break.

When you’ve got a budget of $1.1 billion and more than 1,930 employees as the District has, you don’t get to blame the governor.

When you’re responsible for the largest budget of the state’s five water management agencies – with more than $650 million allocated to Everglades restoration – you don’t get to say that Everglades restoration is in danger because of the governor. At least, not this governor.

Buermann has my friends in Martin County all tied up in knots, and I can understand why. They’re fed up to the teeth at having helped Martin pour $43 million into Everglades restoration over the last decade but seeing nothing come of it. In the absence of the promised, completed reservoir, landowners north of Lake Okeechobee are being paid to store water, which is still getting dirtier, which is reaching the lake, which is pumped out into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers and their estuaries.

These Martin folks – certainly fiscal conservatives and most of them supporters of Scott’s policies – want the governor and the Legislature not to cut the District’s property tax ability. That’s because they believe Buermann. They fear they will never see significant restoration for their ailing St. Lucie estuary. They’re even urging a letter-writing campaign to the governor and their legislative delegation.

Said Tom Kenny, a lifelong Martin County resident, former Martin County commissioner and member of the Water Resources Advisory Commission, "Everglades, northern and southern, restoration is critical to the health of our rivers and our economy. If District funding is cut they will have no choice but to withdraw as the local partner to restoration efforts."