Showing posts with label Elaine Schwartz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elaine Schwartz. Show all posts

Friday, October 7, 2011

Video of the 2009 Hollywood City Commission voting on $30k deal with State Sen. Eleanor Sobel; Sara Case was talking about budget problems even then!

September 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Later than I had originally planned, I now finally have the link to the video from April 1st, 2009 at Hollywood City Hall that was the heart of the $30K deal for State Senator Eleanor Sobel that I have referenced twice within the past week, via a post of my own and one yesterday by Hollywood civic activist Sara Case at The Balance Sheet Blog, in light of her formal request to have the State of Florida perform an audit of the City of Hollywood.



Me, I find her timing and rationale very, very curious, and that would be true even if I hadn't voted in the 2008 primary for Tim Ryan for State Senate, despite the nasty and untrue TV ads paid for by her shadowy supporters at 527s, and electioneering communication groups
A survey done by VancoreJones Communications in June 2008 described Democratic voters in District 31 as "the most angry, despondent and suspicious group we've ever polled.'' But on the plus side: "Despite being very opinionated they can be easily persuaded.''

Just like other 527's did the bidding of Alexander Lewy last year in Hallandale Beach against Comm. Keith London in Lewy's bid to get elected on his second try for office, where I wrote: "Not out of any great magnanimous desire to help the citizens of this city, mind you, but rather to help himself and take his first step in becoming a career politician."
History has proven me prescient.

You may find it worthwhile to know that using Internet Explorer, you can't find the link on the city's website marked "Archived City Commission" meetings, but the video itself seems to ONLY play using Internet Explorer, since it will NOT work using Google Chrome.

I know that because I have tried and tried over the past few months to see several old Commission meetings that I wanted to reference in blog posts but was unable to.

Above, the webpage using Internet Explorer -list of files is invisible!

Below, the webpage using Google Chrome, a list of files.
Once you get to the blue-highlighted agenda item on the particular Hollywood City Commission meeting you want to view -or even the entire meeting if you choose- the link doesn't work using Google Chrome.
Consider yourself warned!
It's SNAFU!

And there is nothing on the city's website page that tell you that you have to use Internet Explorer to see video of selected agenda items.
A real conundrum that!

I'll be talking to the City Clerk's office about that next week.


April 1, 2009
6. R-2009-072 - Resolution - A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Authorizing The Appropriate City Officials To Execute The Attached Agreement Between State Senator Eleanor Sobel, State Representative Elaine Schwartz And The City Of Hollywood For Lease Of City Office Space And To Reallocate Funds For The Renovations For New Offices For Senator Sobel In The Old Library Building.
PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

September 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
State Senator Eleanor Sobel receives 5,000 sq. feet of improved office space, inc. electricity and water, for only $750 a month for a period of 40 months -the remaining period of her term at the time in 2009- paying no interest.
State Representative Elaine Schwartz is paying $500 a month in rent, which includes the costs incurred by Hollywood for past improvements from 2006.

Florida House and Senate legal counsel contacted City Attorney Jeffrey Sheffel and said that rules on limitations on member's office account expenditures are such that this matter needed to be done in the form of rent rather than checks for improvements.

Video is 23:47 minutes long


Monday, October 3, 2011

Eleanor Sobel, Broward pol who wanted -and got- Hollywood taxpayers to pay $30k for her new FL State Senate office in 2009 now asks FL legislature for audit of Hollywood!



Pol who wanted -and got- City of Hollywood taxpayers to pay $30k for her new FL State Senate office in 2009 now asks FL legislature for audit of Hollywood!


Oh, "that's Rich."

No, that's just Eleanor Sobel being Eleanor Sobel!

What brings this to mind is this blog post today by Steve Bousquet of the St. Petersburg Times:

Legislature OKs audit of city of Hollywood


TALLAHASSEE -- The Legislature on Monday approved a request by Sen. Eleanor Sobel to step in and audit the city of Hollywood's shaky finances. Sobel appeared at a meeting of the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee in the Capitol to ask for the audit, citing the city's declaration of a state of "financial urgency," a recent 11 percent property tax increase, lucrative pension and health benefits for city employees and overly optimistic revenue projections.

Read the rest of the post at
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2011/10/state-approves-audit-of-city-of-hollywood-.html


Plus, at the time, April of 2009, Sobel's name was already STILL on the same building across from Hollywood City Hall -where Rep. Elaine Schwartz's office was/is also located- from when Sobel had used it as her temporary pit-stop of a Broward School Board office when she pretended to care about kids for a few months while waiting for Steve Geller to be term-limited out of the state senate.

I was at the Hollywood City Commission meeting when this self-serving effort got pushed thru -even updating my photos before going inside- and Balance Sheet Blog co-editor Sara Case was the only member of the public with the integrity to publicly say that Hollywood taxpayer funds should NOT be used in this manner, esp. for a woman who could well afford to pay for it herself, or, even rent one of the dozens of empty storefronts in Downtown Hollywood.


I thought Sara was particularly good in zeroing-in on the problems in her comments that day before the City Commission.
I have to admit, though, I was somewhat confounded that Mayor Peter Bober, having brought up some spot-on reasons that I hadn't even thought of to justify voting against it straightaway, or, continue it to the near future, along with some modifications to it and some added clarity on the ethical and financial issues, then voted FOR it.
I found that confusing on his part and some arguments by Comm. Richard Blattner, and I don't think I was alone in the Chambers in that sentiment.

Until it was mentioned at that meeting, in passing, I didn't know anything about Hollywood taxpayers also having spent $20,000 in 2006 on improvements to Rep. Schwartz's office.

Sara's point in her then-editorial about the real answer to the problem being that they leave their government cocoon and rent a downtown storefront is, of course, something that was completely lost on the woman from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
Instead, this was a done-deal from the word "go," and it passed despite the gaping holes in logic and questions about propriety and extraneous spending.


R-2009-072 - Resolution - A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Authorizing The Appropriate City Officials To Execute The Attached Agreement Between State Senator Eleanor Sobel, State Representative Elaine Schwartz And The City Of Hollywood For Lease Of City Office Space And To Reallocate Funds For The Renovations For New Offices For Senator Sobel In The Old Library Building. PASSED




Good to know that Sen. Sobel is trying to re-pay the PBA members' past help by expressing her new-found concern with extraneous government costs.
But where were those concerns of hers before when it involved her? MIA.

The photos above, all taken by me on September 20th, with the first showing the offices of Rep. Schwartz and Sen. Sobel and the second showing part of the view when you walk out of their office, looking west, at Hollywood City Hall.

In the next few days, once I find those old photos, I'll add them here for an Eleanor Sobel office compare-and-contrast.

Some contemporaneous articles about this story are:

a.)
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog

Sen. Sobel to taxpayers: Spend $30k cleaning rat-infested space for my office
Posted by Brittany Wallman at 10:57 AM

By Ihosvani Rodriguez, Staff Writer
State Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, wants new office digs in Hollywood, and it will cost city taxpayers about $30,000 for starters.

b.)
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Hollywood to rent office to state Sen. Sobel
By Ihosvani Rodriguez
6:12 PM EDT, April 1, 2009

Read the rest of the post at:

Reader comments at:

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Balance Sheet Blog is at http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Jan. 14th Broward Legislative Delegation Public Meeting in Hollywood - be sure to ask about their "beauty contest" that will backfire on them

State Senator Steven Geller, the Broward County Legislative Delegation, along with State Representatives Joseph Gibbons, Evan Jenne and Elaine Schwartz will hold a joint Town Hall meeting with their constituents.
That's y-o-u.

Bring your wit and wisdom, loaded or rhetorical questions, and any post-holiday venomous feelings you've got left over.

Perhaps you can even get some face time on local Miami TV news that night by asking, early on in the proceedings, why they allowed their visceral hatred for touch-screen voting booths to be tied into a clunker of a bill moving the Democratic & GOP Presidential Primaries to January 29th. 
That would be a nice start.

The primary where your Democratic vote is pure "beauty contest," with zero practical effect on delegate status.

I'll be posting some interesting talking points and prospective questions here as the meeting draws close, and they will be the that'll leave little wiggle room for evading.
My favorite kind!


Where: City Of Hollywood Commission Chamber, Room 219,
Date: Monday, January 14, 2008
Time: 7:00 PM To 9:00 P.M.