The highs and lows of a storied, sad political career | Steve Bousquet – Sun Sentinel

He was one of the most influential people in Broward County for nearly two decades.

But Scott Cowan was largely forgotten by the time he died last week at age 79 in a fast-changing county that reinvents itself every generation or so.

He was a county commissioner in the 1980s and 1990s, a time of unparalleled growth, progress and upheaval when “the county” was a greater political presence than it is now.

He helped oversee a major airport expansion, the building of two giant waste-to-energy incinerators, a convention center, performing arts center and Tri-Rail.

He was a shrewd backstage player who was a lot more passionate about politics — and the role of money in it — than policy.

He alone decided the awarding of lucrative bond deals, so it naturally followed that he aggressively solic