If you are a Miami-Dade County official, with a mess of an affordable housing agency, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development swoops in to take control, do you:

A. Fight the feds in court, arguing that the action is improper because improvements are being made.

B. Let HUD take a crack at fixing the problem, assisting them all the while.

Instead of fighting HUD in court, Miami-Dade County leaders should have gone with option “B.” Yes, there have been some improvements made at the Miami-Dade Housing Agency. But so what? This is an agency that was giving public land away to individuals who, instead of delivering affordable housing as promised, flipped said parcels for a profit. This is an agency that gave away millions of dollars to various politically connected developers who never built any affordable housing. This is an agency that was run by county officials who later hired themselves out as lobbyists interested in getting a piece of the affordable housing pie. This is an agency that destroyed an affordable housing complex and never made good on promises to rebuild. In short, anything done at the department would be deemed an improvement.

Unfortunately, there is still quite a mess with the agency’s accounting books — enough to make HUD suspicious. Who knows? Someone else looking at the books might lead to still more arrests in this repulsive affordable housing mess.

And if nothing else, HUD’s involvement will bring about something else: humiliation. Miami-Dade’s elected officials and top administrators should feel ashamed of what was effectively a taxpayer-funded, anti-affordable-housing slush fund. If it weren’t for an investigative Miami Herald series, the slush fund for do-nothings might still be operating today.

With all the back and forth likely to take place between HUD and the county, it could be mid-September before HUD can grab hold of the housing agency’s reins, barring a county court victory, of course. Regardless, instead of battling HUD, county officials — particularly Mayor Carlos Alvarez and County Manager George Burgess — should cooperate and assist. Fighting will only prevent meaningful reforms from taking place. Assisting HUD may ensure that the federal takeover team really does put the county agency back on track.