Showing posts with label Eye on Miami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eye on Miami. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Recent news about South Florida super-lobbyist Ron Book you may not have heard about yet

Late Tuesday night while checking the Dashboard function of my Blogger.com blog, a place where all the other blogs I follow have their most recent posts sequenced for me to read in chronological order, I spotted a particularly interesting one about South Florda super-lobbyist Ron Book -father of Broward School Board candidate Lauren Book-Lim- over at Eye on Miami.

Titled Who is Ron Book Lobbying for in 2010? By geniusofdespair, it raised many questions that have often come up about in any discussion about him, a man that a lot of people swear by and many others swear about.
(You can find my previous posts on Ron Book by doing a search for him on the blog.)

Though I was pretty tired, I manged to stay awake long enough to share a thought or two that you might find of interest.
Or maybe not.
In any case, if you care to see what sort of anecdotal insight I added to one of Florida's most popular blogs, as well as a current list of whom he represents, here it is:

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2010/05/who-is-ron-book-lobbying-for-in-2010-by.html

I hope to see many of you in person on Wednesday at 3 p.m. and later at 7:30 p.m. at
Hallandale Beach City Hall re agenda item #12-C:, the motion to terminate City Manager Mike Good
.
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2010-05-19/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202010-05-19.htm

It should prove to be quite an interesting day, filled with lots of fireworks and histrionics, and perhaps, dare I say it, maybe even some long-overdue public accountability.

Below are my words of wisdom, such as they are.

----------


Dear Genius:

A correction to your list.


A few weeks ago, Ron Book's contract was NOT renewed by the City of Hallandale Beach -during the Florida Legislature's annual session no less!


That it was done in a very unprofessional way is par for the course in this very poorly-managed ocean-side city, but to do so during the Legislature's session only proves how truly myopic HB City Hall is.


I was already planning on writing about this subject later this week, but since you have sort of pre-empted me a bit, I will give you a few details.


Book's firm was hired by the city to replace former city lobbyist Larry Smith, the former South Broward congressman, a man I came to loathe after watching him in action up close for years while I lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and was spending LOTS of quality time on Capitol Hill.

(I was even there in the Rayburn Building on a fateful day during the reign of
Bush 41, where during a long and torturous Foreign Affairs mark-up, Larry Smith voted against the State Dept.'s plan to sell certain missiles to Kuwait, because State and the Pentagon were afraid that Iraq would invade.
Well, we all know how that ended up, but what you and most South Floridians don't know -because nobody in South Florida's news media ever reported it- was that Larry Smith said that he was against the plan it because he knew the missiles would be used against -wait for it- Israel. Really.

So Smith and a couple of other super pro-Israel members of the Foreign Affairs Comm. -back when Dante Fascell was Chairman- voted it down.


FYI: The photo of Fascell at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Fascell is the very painting that hangs in the House Foreign Affairs Comm. Chambers.

I used to think about Larry Smith's foolish vote every time I heard about an American casualty during the First Gulf War, which since I lived in Arlington County, meant that I knew lots of people affected by that war.)

A few months ago, Book's firm was planning on sending some pertinent docs down to the city, but when they called, the person on the other end of the phone at HB City Hall said something along the lines of, "Uhh... don't you guys already know?"

Book's firm found out after the fact that
WEEKS earlier, the city had decided they were history. Why?
That's a very good question.

Perhaps someone in South Florida's professional news media might some day think to ask Mayor Joy Cooper that question, especially now that they know.

I'll have more details on my blog soon, including the name of the person who had to tell Ron Book that he and his firm had been canned during THE most important time of the year in Tallahassee, but had never even been given the courtesy of a personal phone call to get the news.


That's just a snapshot of everyday life in Hallandale Beach under the Joy Cooper and Mike Good regime.

Know anyone who'd make a good City Manager?
I ask because well be looking for one very, very soon.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Upcoming 2010 Spring Cleaning Media & Blog Purge: Sleepwalking South Florida news media and lemming blogs to be tossed overboard!

There is just a tremendous amount of news and information that will be coming to this space over the next few weeks, much of it about political ideas and strategy and upcoming elections that will have the possibility of seriously shaking up the deplorable status quo hereabouts.

Things both long in the planning as well as items that I've, admittedly, sort of lucked-into by paying close attention while most of South Florida's news media continues their 2010 spring slumber, preparing for their 2010 summer-long siesta.

But that's how it goes when you try to keep your eyes and ears open, return emails and phone calls from others promptly, and try to remain on good terms with people in a position to either make news -or cover it- all over the county, state and country.

In fact, I suppose you might even call what I have in mind -and in many cases, already have written- a torrent, though given the Broward School Board's continuing sub-par performance, if there are any Broward high school grads reading this, that's your cue to right-click 'torrent' and see what Google says it means.

I've got some big changes in store for my humble little blog, as this weekend I'll begin my 2010 Spring Cleaning Media and Blog Purge, wherein I make some long overdue changes that I had originally planned on making after Christmas, but couldn't due to time constraints
and some family obligations.

It's my hope that these particular changes will improve the blog's functionality and topicality, though perhaps not to everyone's satisfaction.
C'est la vie.

Frankly, I don't spend any time worrying about what people I've NEVER met, actually spoken to or received an email from, think about the blog, whereas those who have taken the time to actually contact me with their thoughts know that I generally take their constructive criticism pretty well, and only wish that I could change it the way I want to.

In the case of the former, people who have never contacted me but who have heaping helpings of criticism, I refer to people who never seem to actually manage to attend South Florida govt. or public policy meetings in person, what most people in the country might call no-shows, and who seem to "cover" things almost entirely second-hand from their living room or dens.

As anyone paying attention knows, that's the exact OPPOSITE approach of Genius of Despair and Gimleteye at Eye on Miami, http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/;
Daniel A. Ricker
at Watchdog Report, http://www.watchdogreport.net/;
Chaz Stevens
at My Acts of Sedition, http://www.myactsofsedition.com/;
Michael Butler at Change Hallandale Beach, http://www.changehallandale.com/;
Sara Case at Balance Sheet Online, http://www.balancesheetonline.com/;
Bett Willett at Blog by Bett, http://blogbybett.blogspot.com/ and myself.

(In case you're unfamiliar with the situation involving my friend Michael being sued by Joy Cooper, the thin-skinned, anti-democratic mayor of our fair city -who calls her political opponents "Nazis" while at Hallandale Beach City Hall- for simply attempting to get some public records, YET ANOTHER story that the Miami Herald and all of the local Miami TV stations have completely ignored, please see the following:
1.) http://openrecords.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/michael-butler-sunshine-troublemaker-of-the-week/

2.)
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/10/mayo_why_are_taxpayers_footing.html
)
3.)
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/10/judge_patti_henning_and_mayor_joy_cooper.php )

While I obviously don't agree with them on everything they might say about a particular subject,
I ALWAYS know that they are actually spending their time and energy to be physically present and accounted for when news could be made that's of interest to the discerning and concerned citizens of South Florida.
And they don't lie or intentionally misrepresent the facts.

Both are more than can be said for the large majority of South Florida's sad sack excuse of a press corps, who would be greatly improved if 75% of them were fired toute-de-suite, and simply replaced by some of the plucky and curious kids on the journalism farm at Ernie Pyle, Medill and some other places I could name, where curiosity is a prerequisite.
See http://journalism.indiana.edu/ and http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/


Then we'd see some serious Who, What, Why, When Where and How action in our local media diet, and improved verb subject agreement and proper verb tense, to boot, and less fluff TV stories on liposuction, women's clothes, Rapping Grandmothers, and Grade D celebs and celebutantes making paid appearances at South Beach clubs.

It's exactly like the sad and feeble approach employed over at WTVJ-6 -the News Nobody Watches- "who don't know what's going on, and send a cameraman (without a reporter) to an event at the last minute just so they can maintain the illusion they're a real news operation."

That particular tart quote
comes from one of their most industrious TV news competitors, who told me that exact thing two years ago while we were both sitting in the Broward County Chambers for a Broward County Charter Review Commission meeting.

This comment about Channel 6 only served to confirm what I'd long felt since returning to the area from D.C., and when I shared this comment with other industrious reporters and bloggers I know, who have often shared their take on what ails South Florida and its incurious news media, they all seconded that emotion.

It goes without saying that if I knew then what I know now, I'd have perhaps made some different choices when starting the blog, perhaps going with TypePad instead of Blogger, or perhaps some other blogging platform, as many newspaper and TV friends of mine in D.C. had originally suggested. http://www.typepad.com/

Since many of you readers probably don't know this, with Blogger's software structure, unless I remove all the 'anchors' on it at the beginning, the photos and thoughts about the area, I can't physically move my most recent comments up to the top of the blog.
If I could, I'd have done that years ago.
But I can't, hence the upcoming changes.

But even with the changes I hope to make over the next few weeks, I know that I won't be matching the prodigious blog posting and video output of South Florida's number one Watchdog, Chaz Stevens, who surely must get less sleep than anyone in the 954 area code.

FYI, last night and early this morning, I downloaded all the video I shot from Tuesday afternoon's historic Broward County Commission meeting, where the plucky underdog activists from Hallandale Beach brought the Broward County development/lobbying machine to heel, 6-3, and hope to have at least some of it on my YouTube page on Thursday.

My personal take on what transpired yesterday will soon be here, along with photos, now that I'm finally starting to get caught up on all the sleep I've been missing the past few weeks.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A must-read at Eye on Miami blog: Trouble growing at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

So, should I be surprised that this particular affair
hasn't been mentioned anywhere in South Florida
media circles?

Gimleteye's
piece at Eye on Miami below is the
only
public account I've seen or heard about.

Whatever the true facts are here, and I have no idea

what they are, they deserve a full public airing,
especially if someone is being made a scapegoat by
one of the few genuine institutions in South Florida.

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden was one of
my
mother's favorite places in all of South Florida
when
I was growing-up in South Florida in the late
'60's
thru the '70's, despite the fact that my family
lived-up in
North Miami Beach. I'd guess that
she visited there, as well as Matheson Hammock,
almost as often as I
was down at the Orange Bowl
for
Dolphin, Hurricane and Toros (soccer)
ballgames, which was well over
150 before I left
for
IU in August of '79.

Me, not so much into the whole Botany thing!


-----
Eye on Miami blog
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/

Trouble growing at Fairchild Tropical
Botanic
Garden ... by gimleteye
January 4, 2010
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2010/01/trouble-growing-at-fairchild-tropical.html

-----------
Miami Herald
Making nature fashionable and chic
November 26, 2009
By Paradise Afshar

When student Krystal Gonzalez creates her own clothes, the closest she gets to nature is using fabric made of cotton. But for the past two weeks she has been working with leaves, seeds and flowers to create eco-friendly designs.

Making outfits out of plants was all part of the Fairchild Challenge Botanical Fashion Show. The Fairchild Challenge is a program that allows students to explore nature by doing research and working on projects.

Students strive to earn points toward the Fairchild Challenge award with top schools earning an additional $250-$1,000 for environmental programs at their schools.

"It was very difficult. The flowers would wilt up in two days," said Krystal, 18, of Pinecrest, who calls designing clothes a hobby. "I just do it for fun."

The theme of Saturday's fashion show was Miami Chic. Students from 48 middle and high schools in Miami-Dade and Broward counties participated.

Some of the criteria that judges used to rate the outfits included knowing the scientific and common name of the plants, having less than half the outfit consist of flowers and making sure all the visible parts were made from plants.

Krystal, a senior at Our Lady of Lourdes in Kendall, designed more formal clothes.

She made an off-the-shoulder dress and tuxedo from the leaves of croton, various palm trees, roses, daisies and other materials.

"I had to find the leaves randomly," said Krystal, who found most of what she used in her backyard.

She relied a lot on the colorful croton, a popular plant used in the competition, with its green, red, yellow and orange leaves.

"I am extremely proud of everyone -- the designers and the models who put it all together this past week," said Marguerite Graham, a biology teacher at Gulliver Preparatory School in Pinecrest. "They put a lot of work in."

A panel of 16 judges will vote on the entries, with scores being announced next week via e-mail to the schools.

"They don't know what everyone else is getting, we send scores to teachers at the school and they are tabulated and the winner is announced at the award ceremony in May," said Scott Sasich, communications manager for the Fairchild Challenge.

Lauren Elliott and Carly Bruening, seniors at South Plantation High who are botany students in the school's environmental science magnet program, focused on a laid-back South Florida style. They designed a sundress for girls and board shorts and a T-shirt for guys.

"I think we could win," said Carly, 17, of Sunrise. "We kept it simple."

They used leaves from the elephant ear tree for the T-shirt plus leaves from the croton plant and autograph tree (it gets its name because people can write messages on the leaves) for the dress, among other materials.

"I think it's fun," said Emily, 17, of Sunrise, who modeled the clothes. She said that she can now name the proper and common names of the plants that were used.

"It enriches their curriculum," said Pamela Krauss, a botany teacher at South Plantation. "We totally enjoyed it."

While Emily had a team of people working on her dress, David Dugard, a junior at Christopher Columbus High School, designed his short and T-shirt combination on his own.

"It took two days, I was just surprised about how fast [the leaves] die," said David, 16 of Homestead. "It was an experience."

Spectators like Trish Baron who were watching the event, were impressed by the students' creativity.

"It was really interesting," Baron, a Weston resident, said. "They all did a wonderful job."

-----
Miami Herald
FAIRCHILD CHALLENGE
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
By Christina Mayo, Special to The Miami Herald
November 12, 2009

With arms waving to mimic the grasses of the Everglades, almost 250 middle-school students and their teachers across the county began the Fairchild Challenge at Palmetto High School in Pinecrest.

Many came dressed for the challenge -- as turtles, egrets, tourists, panthers and alligators.

After all, it was The Everglades: River of Grass contest hosted by Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables.

Participants from 33 schools vied to perform the best original skits of rap, spoken word and music.

This year more points were given for audience participation, so there was an enthusiastic entourage of teachers, families and friends.

Students from Arvida Middle School in Kendall were the first to go on stage.

They quickly had the audience moving to this chant: "The Everglades suffers and you still don't care? Wave your hands in the air."

"This is our third year in the Challenge," said Arvida's drama teacher, Lesley HoSang. "It's the first year we've seen this much excitement, and I think it's because of the audience participation addition."

"It took us a month to prepare," added Arvida's creative writing and journalism teacher Ishani Persaud. "Even though there were only eight students and two teachers on stage, there were 60 students working behind the scenes."

"All the costumes and materials were reusable items," HoSang said. "We tried to keep everything recyclable from start to finish."

Jesse Martin, a seventh-grader from The 500 Role Models Academy of Excellence in Liberty City, said the event was the first time he played drums on a stage. He has been drumming since he was 5.

"My favorite part is getting to play music in school," Jesse said.

Designed in 2002 for high schools, with middle schools added in 2003, the Fairchild Challenge has encouraged more than 57,000 South Florida students to do the right things to help the environment.

Everglades National Park Superintendent Dan Kimble thanked the middle students for their enthusiasm at the Oct. 29 competition.

"We have a biological marvel. There are no other Everglades," he said. "We have the largest eco-restoration system ever attempted on the planet right here in South Florida. Thank you, students."

They roared with applause.

Throughout the program, they were equally enthusiastic about their ecological mission.

Students from Frank C. Martin K-8 Center in Richmond Heights dressed in plastic bags and sang to Michael Jackson's Beat It.

Only they improvised with "Save It. Just save it."

Many students said they couldn't wait to continue the Challenge, which has 11 options for middle-school students. Points are accumulated through May, and then awards are given to the winning schools.

"This is really fun," said Georliam Rodriguez, an eighth-grader at South Miami K-8 Center.

"I learned a lot," said eighth-grader Sigure Williams of 500 Role Models Academy.

"The most fun I had was when I was speaking," fellow performer Rose Tillett said.

The 500 Role Models Academy Science's Coach Judy Rosenblum said the students brainstormed and wrote everything. They found an Everglades-related word for every letter in the alphabet, such as M for Marjory Stoneman Douglas and N for night blooming epidendrum, an Everglades wildflower.

Students at David Lawrence Jr. K-8 Center in North Miami made their skit into a land over the rainbow.

"Just follow the river of grass," they sang to the Wizard of Oz song Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

The students dressed as Dorothy, Munchkins, a tin man, lion, scarecrow, witch and wizard for their two-minute skit.

"Boas, parrots and mahoe, oh my!" they chanted. The mahoe is a type of plant, and all three are considered alien invaders in the Everglades.

Students from Coral Way K-8 Center in Little Havana dressed in green and covered themselves with cutout leaves. Then they rocked the house with music by Queen played on saxophones and garbage cans and lids. "We will, we will, rock you," they sang.

Students in the audience held up their illuminated cellphones with approval.

Judges for the event included Kimball and Everglades National Park rangers Larry Perez, Christina Admiral and Maria Thomson. Also appraising the students were Kirk Fordham, CEO of Everglades Foundation; Richard Gibbs Sr., director of communications of Everglades Foundation; Art Herriot, retired Florida International University scientist; Barbara Hobbs, writer and Fairchild Challenge supporter; Alex Suarez, South Florida Water Management District media specialist; Robyn Wolf, donor, graphic designer and Fairchild Challenge supporter; and Jonathan Walton, New York poet and writer.

"It was inspiring to see kids more passionate about the Everglades than even their parents and some of our lawmakers," said Fordham, of the Everglades Foundation.

Eighth-grade journalism students Michael Diaz-Silveira, Carlos Cabrales, Joseph Cacioppo and Anthony DeFurio of Epiphany Catholic School in High Pines all agreed the Challenge was fun.

"I'm also a Boy Scout, and it is great to help the environment," Michael said.

The night ended with a poetry performance by Walton, who encouraged the students to "turn down Beyoncé and Lil Wayne and take a trip to the Everglades. It is the living picture of mucky perfection."

Caroline Lewis, Fairchild's director of education, celebrated the students' art and told them to honor the teachers who helped them prepare.

"Teachers are golden," she said. "Here's to every teacher out there."

-----

Miami Herald

FAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN: South Florida students get creative at Fairchild showcase
-
ABOUT 200 SOUTH FLORIDA STUDENTS PARTICIPATED LAST WEEKEND IN THE FAIRCHILD CHALLENGE RESEARCH PROJECT, A CULMINATION OF WORK SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR ON PROJECTS IN FOUR CATEGORIES

By Erika Capek
April 23, 2009

Senior Michelle Loret de Mola of Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart stood to the side of her home-cooked Peruvian Quinoa dish. She spent her Saturday explaining to judges why the dish she made was not only healthy but also environmentally friendly.

"This type of food is replacing rice, or risotto, because unlike those grains, quinoa is easily digested and has high mineral and protein content," Michelle said. "It's an excellent meal for vegetarians and every ingredient is organic or locally grown and has a low impact on the environment."

Michelle, along with 200 other high school students, came together at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden on Saturday afternoon for one of the Fairchild Challenge events.

The challenge, started and directed by Caroline Lewis, is in its seventh year and holds a variety of challenge options including performances, design challenges, papers, debates and research projects. For each option students throughout South Florida's private and public schools participate in, the more points they earn. The goal is to reach 900 points to receive a Fairchild Challenge Award and the school with the highest number of points receives $1,000 to support their environmental program. Then the next five top-scoring schools will receive $500 and the following 10 $250.

On Saturday, students from Dade, Monroe and Broward counties participated in the Fairchild Challenge Research Project. Students from 33 participating schools could take part in four categories including inner-city sanctuary, green cuisine, solar inventions and field phenology study. But no more than one group of students or an individual from each school could participate in each of the categories.

Two students from South Plantation -- Shawn Abrahams, a junior, and Vanessa Thisler, a sophomore -- took part in the field phenology study.

"We chose the bald Cyprus tree because of its drastic changes," Shawn said. "We found it in a park across from our school and we measured the tree for two months during the wet season and then another two months during the dry season."

They started the project in September by conducting research and figuring out what needed to be recorded. Then they began measuring in October and ended in January.

"We found out that during the dry season, the plants lost most of their leaves and their cones, and during the wet season, the plants retained everything," Shawn said. "I loved doing this project not only because of the learning experience, but because this is the field I'm hoping to go into after high school."

About 60 judges including architects, lawyers, professors, chefs and other community leaders listened to the students' results, scoring them on a judging rubric.

"We decided to make a vegan pizza," said Keith Williams, a senior from Central High School.

'We used fresh-grown tomatoes from our school and made our cheese from ground-up cashews and yeast flakes. Then for the 'pepperonis,' we used sweet tomatoes mixed with pecans and garlic powder, paprika and chili pepper."

Keith presented the dish with his two friends, Hector Duran, a junior, and Greg Pierre, a sophomore.

"I love cooking," Keith said. "This is such a hobby for me and I've learned so much by participating in this challenge and cooking green."

Four friends and classmates in Advanced Placement Environmental Science -- sophomores Hector Schmidt and Jamin Alfonso and juniors Lisbet Castillo and Nancy Narvaez-Garcia from Westland Hialeah High School -- participated in the inner-city sanctuary category. They designed a "pocket park" with areas for play, rest and other uses that students can enjoy at their school. They are in the process of talking with the school administration to make their design a reality at Westland High.

"We want to make the area at our school more green because right now there's only grass," Jamin said. "We incorporated native plants like the blue iris and milkweed plants to attract butterflies. We also have a rock waterfall in the middle of our design."

And another group of students from Palmetto Senior High got together to design their own solar invention. The three freshmen, Lee Seifer, Jason Schmidt and Eddie Santos, made a solar-powered aerator filter for aquaculture by using a fish tank powered , connecting old phone cords together and activating charcoal for the filter.

"By using something like this, it would provide a food source for people in Third World countries," Jason said. "This would also help species from going extinct because those people wouldn't have to kill endangered species."

The boys also went on to say that their device harvests biofuels by growing algae.

"Algae produces 15 times the amount of fuel as other biofuels," Lee said.

Lewis, Fairchild's director of education, stressed the importance of embracing not only the challenge, but the green movement that she has been working toward.

The Fairchild Challenge is getting recognition and is being replicated inplaces like Costa Rica, Venezuela, Chicago and Orlando, yet Lewis hopes more city officials will come out to the events and support this movement.

"These students and teachers take great pride in these events and we invite city officials and the school board to come and celebrate with us," Lewis said.

"It's their role and obligation to come out and see what these kids are doing. It's amazing."

On May 2, Fairchild is hosting its annual teacher celebration luncheon and Lewis is hopeful many invited officials will attend. Then on May 9 at 1 p.m., the challenge results will be announced for the high schools and 5:30 for the middle schools.

-----
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden
10901 Old Cutler Road, Coral Gables, FL
(305) 667-1651
http://www.fairchildgarden.org/

http://www.fairchildgarden.org/education/fairchildchallenge/


http://www.fairchildgarden.org/uploads/docs/Education/Challenge/2009/Media_and_PR/Fairchild_Challenge_Conservation_Fund_FINAL_for_distribution.pdf

Friday, October 9, 2009

Broward LWV's upcoming forum on Amendment 4, i.e. Hometown Democracy; Herald-Tribune: Managing growth a hot button topic

Yesterday, I wrote to the very-friendly
Carol S, Smith of the Broward League
of Women Voters
, whom I first met at
the Broward Charter Review Commission
meetings early last year, about this item
that intrepid Genius of Despair ran at
Eye on Miami yesterday morning.

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/
Thursday, October 08, 2009

Amendment 4: Panel Discussion in Broward 10/26. By Geniusofdespair

Carol's quick response to my query is below.

After reading today's Herald-Tribune article
below about Amendment 4, I'm even more
inclined to attend, but...

The political culture down here being what it is,
where elected officials and pols think nothing
of regularly raiding taxpayers funds to engage
in what they jokingly call "awareness" campaigns,
but which you and I might more accurately call
one-sided campaign electioneering, I can't help
but wonder to what lengths they and their pals
at the Broward League of Cities and the
Broward School Board will go over the
next year to defeat Amendment 4.

No doubt they'll once again use public schools
at night for their one-sided pep rallies that they
euphemistically call "forums," where as I wrote
here last year, they intentionally don't invite
opposing points-of-views, which, in this case,
will be anyone from Hometown Democracy.

In advance of this coming issue campaign war,
it'd sure be nice to see some stories in the press
about what Florida cities spend on these sorts
of poorly-supervised activities, from a
historical perspective -and whom they hire-
since it's clear that whatever those numbers
were in the past, they'll likely be surpassed
over the next 13 months, as folks like
Mayor Cooper and Co. rally their cronies
by making sure their lobbyist/campaign friends
get involved to keep citizens at bay,
just like they did last year with certain proposed
Constitutional Amendments.


What's a little 'walking around money'
from taxpayers for pols' pals to engage
in one-sided campaign tactics?

Obviously, given who Hallandale Beach's
mayor is and her frequent use of City
Commission meetings to run pointless
resolutions past about internal
League of Cities and Mayors Conference
matters that actual Hallandale Beach
citizens and residents could care less about,
forcing city staff to waste their time
-and hence our money- on matters
designed solely for Cooper's personal
and professional benefit, to curry favor
and earn brownie points from her
fellow elected pals, this small city of ours
will likely be one of the first to cough-up
taxpayer funds to defeat Hometown
Democracy
.

If you doubt what I say here, consider
this fairly recent example of Cooper's
use of HB City Commission meetings
for butt-kissing.

Ask yourself why it was so important that
it HAD to come before the HB City
Commission, but the actual re-hiring of
the HB City Manager, the HB Police Chief
and the HB Fire Chief, DIDN'T come
before them in front of the public.

As you all know by now, THAT actually
happened up on the 2nd floor of HB City
Hall, away from TV cameras, without
ANY legal formal notice.

That's no coincidence, it was done
that way intentionally by the mayor
and the city manger so that HB citizens
like you and I COULDN'T speak
about their very unsatisfactory
performance the past few years.



A Resolution of the City of Hallandale Beach, Florida, in Support of Frank Ortiz's
Nomination for Second Vice President of the National League of Cities
(Staff: Acting City Clerk)(See Backup)CAD #008/09 (Staff Report, Supporting Docs)

What's that?

You say that the mayor of Pembroke Pines
is really named
Frank Ortis, not
Frank Ortiz, as he is constantly
referred to in these official HB city docs?
Yes, I know.


After all, Ortis' name
is constantly
in the newspaper or mentioned on TV,
given that Pembroke Pines is the second
largest city in Broward County.
My sister even lives there, so I know its
good points and bad.

You'd think that
Mayor Cooper would've
noticed something like that, wouldn't you,
since it was entirely her idea for this
parochial
matter to come up before the
City Commission
in the first place.

I
mean it's a known fact that Ortis succeeded
her as head of the Broward League of Cities,
which makes her failure to even notice this
all the more curious
.

But just as she does far too often with
genuinely important matters in which
she does have a say, she's barely paying
attention to what's right in front of her,
which explains the piss-poor state of
the city we see every day,
where the
same simple problems fester
for weeks,
months and years.


But she doesn't see it and neither does

the Rubber Stamp Gang.

The city commission does such a poor
job as it is in actually doing their own
homework, and taking their duties seriously,
since 4/5ths of the Commission seems
barely aware of self-evident problems
and unresolved issues in our own city,
much less, ones located elsewhere in the
county or state.

Their lack of curiosity and unwillingness
to actually exhibit
any initiative or oversight,
independent of City Manager Mike Good
and his staff, makes me think of baby chicks
in a nest waiting to be fed.

It's hard to go to lots of city meetings
in South Florida like I do and not come
away with the vivid impression that many
city officials who are deeply involved with
the
League continually manage to direct
their own city's attorney and staff to do
the
League's bidding, since you rarely
-if ever- will find an amicus brief filed
by a city that is not 100% aligned with
whatever the League espouses,
either locally or statewide.
Coincidence?
I don't think so.

For instance, why did HB file an amicus
brief here?

Just to grab power?


http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupct/sc04-990/04-990ans-amicus.pdf
http://www.4dca.org/opinions/Jan%202009/01-28-09/4D02-3636.reh.pdf

It's typical of the anti-democratic
mindset at Hallandale Beach City
Hall and the League of Cities.

Mulligan v. City of Hollywood
it reads
The "FCFA" provides that "[i]t is the policy of this state that law enforcement agencies shall utilize the provisions of the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act to deter and prevent the continued use of contraband articles for criminal purposes while protecting the proprietary interests of innocent owners and lienholders.." (Emphasis supplied.) Such is an express preemption by general law of municipal criminal contraband forfeiture (impoundment) laws.

Later, it picks up this point:
Inasmuch as the "FCFA" requires a felony to forfeit a vehicle, any ordinance that purports to authorize the forfeiture of vehicles used in connection with a misdemeanor is in direct conflict with
the Act's limitation to felonies.

What do you suppose the people of this
city or Hollywood would think if they
knew that their City Commissions and
City Attorneys/outside counsel were
urging such a thing, i.e the city trying
to pre-empt state laws in favor of their
own self-serving ordinances,
which would make it easier for cities
to seize personal vehicles and be left
unable to exercise their legal rights,
but instead be forced to deal with the
city's own
regulations?

Well, as it turned out, the professionals
behind this particular municipal power
grab LOST!

Judges ruled Hollywood's ordinance was
constitutionally deficient, as among other
things, it violated both the separation of
powers and due process clause.

But sadly as we've seen time and again,
those particular concepts mean little to
the folks who run things at Hallandale
Beach City Hall.


When you read the proceedings, you can't
help but wonder how in the world they ever
thought they'd pull that off.

By the way, there's one other thing that's
particularly noteworthy about this case of
Colon Mulligan v. City of Hollywood,
and
I know that this will not surprise the
majority of you reading this one bit.

Having checked their archives today,
I can tell you that neither the Miami
Herald
or the South Florida
Sun-Sentinel have ever written a
single updated story on this case since
July 7, 2006, by Marc Caputo.

Which is to say that they have NONE
of the important questions about how
the case was finally decided against
the City of Hollywood has ever appeared
in either newspaper.

Which also explains why there is so
much bad information about this case
all over the Internet.

If everything goes as planned,

I'll have a blog post this weekend

about Attorney General candidate
Dan Gelber getting a Rogue's
Gallery
of anti-democratic Broward
pols to endorse him, per this

Broward Politics blog post from
Wednesday by the
Sun-Sentinel's
Anthony Man.
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/10/gelber_rolls_out_more_broward.html

My comments will highlight this common
anti-democratic element shared by these
other folks, as well as Mayor Cooper's
well-known aversion to public transparency
and accountability.

For example, her galling chutzpah in suing
a HB citizen for trying to access public
records he's legally entitled to examine
by virtue of the Florida Constitution,
which Cooper knows full-well will
reveal her personal carelessness,
a
nd her very troubling behavior with
regard to ethics,is a gross insult to all
Hallandale Beach citizens and taxpayers.

Mayor Cooper has quite a lot to
worry about, as you will soon be
hearing and reading about.

I'm also planning to finally post
that much-delayed post that really
hammers the seemingly clueless
and oblivious Gulfstream Park,
which, to be charitable,
seems to
be a serial sleep-walker.

----------
Carol: Can you please fill me in on the Amendment 4 meeting you all are hosting on the 26th?


Dave,
This is a public information forum on Amendment 4, Hometown Democracy, which will be on the ballot in Nov. 2010. This will be a pro/con panel discussion. To my knowledge, League has not yet taken a position on the Amendment but we provide these forums to bring out all the issues. Hope you can come. It will be in Ballroom C of the Wynmoor Clubhouse.

Carol
---------------
Broward County League of Women Voters:
www.lwvbcfl.org
---------------------------------
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Managing growth a hot button topic
By Dale White
October 9, 2009

The vote on a ballot measure giving residents more say in how their local governments manage growth is still a year away. Yet it is already shaping up to be one of the most contentious issues ever placed before Florida voters.

That volatility was evident Thursday as nearly 300 people watched the battle lines being drawn during a fiery debate at the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20091009/ARTICLE/910091040/2055/NEWS?Title=Managing-growth-a-hot-button-topic

Reader comments at:
http://forums.heraldtribune.com/eve/forums?a=dl&f=3941081465&s=3341001365&x_id=910091040&x_subject=Managing+growth+a+hot+button+topic&x_link=http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20091009/ARTICLE/910091040

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Wednesday's Hollywood City Commission meeting on pensions/benefits promises to be one to remember

August 30th, 2009

In case you haven't seen this morning's Miami
Herald editorial yet, there's a lot to ponder...

As it happens, I happen to receive the City of
Hollywood email agenda notification for city
commission meetings, which I got on Friday,
complete with working links to staff reports
and comments.

That's unlike the situation in Hallandale Beach,
whose City Clerk's office doesn't post this
information onto their awful website until Monday
morning, often less than 48 hours before the
HB city commission meeting is slated to start.
HB City Hall does the same for the agendas for
Planning & Zoning meetings.

The developers and their lobbyists and attorneys,
like Steve Geller or Debbie Orshefsky know
full-well what's coming-up before you citizens,
whom the City of HB thinks aren't important
enough to get that information until just two
days beforehand.

That's not by accident, it's intentional.
That's the way Mayor Cooper and City
Manager Mike Good want it.

The better to keep you in the dark for
as long as possible!


The
Police contract is before the Hollywood
commission on Wednesday afternoon and
I'll be there for what promises to be quite a
heated and maybe even philosophical meeting.

According to the info I received, the meeting
starts at 1 p.m. and the union pension matters
get going about 3 p.m..
http://www.hollywoodfl.org/docdepotcache/00000/903/09-02-09%20Agenda.pdf

Also, just for disclosure purposes, so you know,
my father was a Miami-Dade County police
officer for over 25 years, and was on the
Board of Directors of the Dade County PBA
for over 20 years.

(The first night of the McDuffie Riots, when he
was told to report immediately,
I had to drive
him from North Miami Beach where we lived
then, down to the downtown
Police Dept. HQ
at the Civic Center, not far from the Orange
Bowl
-around midnight.

On the drive there and back on I-95 and the
826, I saw parts of Miami on fire, and heard
gunshots ringing
everywhere while also listening
to the radio broadcasts of what was going on.
Just in case I was pulled over on the expressway
by some cops,
since everyone was ordered to
stay off the roads, I was given the
business card
of a police commander or lieutenant for them
to contact
to prove I had a legit reason to be
driving.)


Not that this experience prevents me from fully
realizing how drastically things need to change
with regard to the conduct and attitudes of the
HB Police, starting from the top with Police Chief
Thomas Magill, who needs to be fired for reasons
I've already enumerated on the blog and in past
emails, but also including getting rid of some HB
cops who, quite simply, have no business being
let loose in the community with a gun and a shield
and their perpetual bad judgment.

My blog post on the HB Police situation, complete
with photos, which I've been working on for awhile,
will take place soon, hopefully, later this week.
Trust me, there's an awful lot you don't know about,
which is why photos are so very helpful.

Also wanted to share this very interesting tidbit that
I first read about at Eye on Miami yesterday/early
this morning
.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Miami-Dade County: There Could be Trouble Brewing. By Geniusofdespair

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2009/08/miami-dade-county-there-could-be.html

We need to be vigilant to make sure that similar
efforts to weaken the checks and balances and
existing threshold of public accountability for
passage, isn't tried at the Broward County
Commission, to benefit their developer pals
at the public's expense.

As one of the commentators responding to this
post presciently remarked, this seems nothing
less than a clear shot to pre-empt FL Hometown
Democracy
before next November's election.
The other comments are quite on target as well.

I recently spied a copy of a similar fishy-smelling
paid county advert in the Herald re some other
upcoming M-D County hearings, which might be
the source of an upcoming blog post of mine.

http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2009/08/miami-dade-county-there-could-be.html

Miami-Dade County: There Could be Trouble Brewing. By Geniusofdespair


So, what about the myriad low-lights, lies and
half-truths that took place at HB City Hall this
past week at the HB budget workshop, huh?

I'll have that here on Wednesday morning.
-----------
Miami Herald
Editorial http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/1207387.html#nonePosted on Sunday,

Unsustainable pension pandering

OUR OPINION: Cities and police and firefighter unions must renegotiate budget-busting pensions

August 30, 2009

Warnings not heeded about pension burden

It's as if we're living through a remake of The Blob .

In our real-life version of the 1958 horror classic, the pink undulating clump has morphed into a fearsome mass of 25-years-and-out cop and firefighter pensions.

The sheriff, like the knucklehead cop in the original movie, refuses to heed warnings that this oozing insatiable blob threatens to devour the county budget.

Hollywood commissioners likely to approve firefighters' pay contract

As Hollywood commissioners weigh shutting parks, delivering pink slips and hiking the tax rate to close a $22 million budget gap, they are poised to approve a union contract ensuring steady pay raises and solid pension benefits to city firefighters.

The proposed contract, set for a vote Wednesday, would give firefighters a 2.5 percent cost of living adjustment each year for the next three years -- on top of raises they already received for promotions and long-term service. A separate pension agreement guarantees a minimum rate of return to employees, regardless of how well the market does.

Critics say the contract, even with its generally modest increases, comes at a time the city cannot afford it and puts a spotlight on escalating government pension costs.

Miami politics, pensions a tricky balance

It's a political plum any politician would savor: endorsements from the four major public employee unions in South Florida's biggest city, Miami.

Yet for Miami mayoral candidate Tomás Regalado, the support carries with it a tough question: To what extent, if any, will Regalado crack down on union pension benefits that threaten the city's bottom line?

And will mayoral opponent Joe Sanchez -- trailing Regalado in some polls -- use his foe's union support to his own advantage?

Miami faces worst financial crunch in more than a decade

Despite an unprecedented high-rise building boom that broadened the tax base for most of the decade, Miami is sliding toward the brink of its worst financial crunch since 1996, when the city flirted with bankruptcy and ceded daily control to the state.

The city has depleted its reserves by more than $50 million to plug operating deficits in four of the last five years, a downturn that began well before the nation's economic meltdown.

To make ends meet, Miami has been moving money from its capital improvement funds to the general city budget -- a practice akin to a homeowner repeatedly taking money set aside for a home improvement project to pay the grocery bills. These moves were not easily accessible to the public.

We ask our police officers and firefighters to do things we won't do because of the risks involved.

In exchange we pay them more, make sure they are well compensated for any harm received on the job and allow them to retire at an earlier age than other government workers because of the stress and risks they face. All of this is fair.

What isn't fair is how much political clout the first responders' unions wield in local governments and in Tallahassee to the detriment of taxpayers.

That clout gets commissioners elected with low turnouts and generates favorable laws in the Legislature.

But when city commissioners agree to hefty raises and more benefits for police and firefighters the pandering creates problems for taxpayers -- as has the Legislature when dumping unfunded mandates on local governments to curry favor with police and firefighters unions.

That's what happened in 1999 when the Legislature approved and then-Gov. Jeb Bush signed a change into law that limits how cities can use a long-standing state fund that helps pay for local police and firefighter pensions. The fund is financed by an excise tax on property insurance premiums -- after all, what do first responders protect, if not property and lives? The Legislature told cities that they could no longer use the fund for basic pension costs -- only to tap into it for extended benefits for police and firefighters.

A double whammy

Lawmakers passed the bill to cities and mandated better benefits. This double whammy, plus a series of later legislative-inspired local tax cuts, has put big burdens on cities even without the recession.

Government pensions are funded by contributions from workers, their employers and the return on investments. With the stock market in free fall in the past year, cities find themselves having to pony up far more than usual for pension funds to make up for investment losses.

And while the stock market shows hopeful signs of recovery, South Florida's housing slump and the recession it fueled are taking big chunks out of municipal budgets.

It's unsustainable.

The city of Miami will pay an extra $32 million into its pension funds in 2009-10. Consider that since 2001, Miami's pension bill has risen from $13.9 million to $60.8 million this year. Pension costs are projected to rise to almost $100 million by 2010.

That will consume almost one-fifth of the city's operating budget -- a Herculean challenge for a city that has a high poverty rate and dwindling property tax revenue because of empty condos and foreclosed homes.

Unrealistically generous

Many Broward cities also are scrambling to close pension holes created by unrealistically generous pension promises. For its firefighter fund alone Hollywood will pay an additional $9.2 million next year, more than double what the city contributed five years ago -- a portent of future pension demands.

Many cities are planning layoffs and cutting back services to balance budgets. Pension costs are just one contributing factor. But in Miami, which misused firefighter pension funds in the 1980s to pay for other city obligations, pensions based on out-of-control salary bumps threaten to bankrupt the city.

Under the so-called Gates settlement, Miami must use general-revenue money to keep the pension plan whole if stock market returns plummet, as they did last year.

Renegotiate contracts

Eventually the stock market will stabilize, and South Florida pension funds will see higher returns again, providing some relief. But cities will still be on the hook for ever higher police and fire pension costs.

The benefits are now so out of whack that taxpayers simply can't sustain them.

Yet city officials keep pandering. Hollywood is renegotiating its police, firefighter and general employee contracts as it faces a $22 million budget gap.

Incredibly, commissioners and Mayor Peter Bober agreed to give firefighters a 2.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment each year for the next three years, on top of raises they already received for promotions and long-term service. This salary-and-pensions contract will set the precedent for the others still in negotiation.

The firefighters union made some concessions: New hires' starting pay will drop 14 percent, and they will be guaranteed a smaller return on their pension investments (now at 8 percent; the state's is at 6.5 percent) if they enter the Deferred Retirement Option Program, which is another disaster in the making.

To their credit, union officials in several cities have also said they'll work with their city leaders to find ways to reduce costs.

Clearly, pension-plan concessions are going to have to be part of the solution. Taxpayers are at a breaking point.

Reader comments at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/1207387.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1#none
---------------
See also: Hollywood Budget: A Stone Unturned
at http://www.balancesheetonline.com/money.htm

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

When Your Blog Roll and Media List Has a Life of Its Own...

Because of some recurring problems I've been having
with Blogger.com the past week Hallandale Beach
Blog's Indispensible Blog Roll and Media List has,
of its own volition, decided to migrate towards the
middle of the front page from its side-pocket position.

Of hiding in plain sight, so to speak, perhaps to tempt
you to click some blog or website you've heard of
before but never seen for yourself, like the fabulous
WireImage.com, where I have both the main website,
webpage that directly connects you to all the
WireImage photos with a connection to Miami
and South Florida, usually but not always, at
-shocker!-South Beach.


Then there's IU grad Mark Cuban's always
fascinating Blog Maverick site.
(I highly recommend his recent post,
FireTrucks, the Internet and Life and Death

The great photos and topics at David Patrick
Columbia's New York Social Diary never
fail to satisfy -especially his insanely great photos
of New York after a big snow storm!-
always something worthwhile that strikes my
fancy and makes me think deeply at the blog
of defense and international
security author Thomas P.M. Barnett,
whom I first discovered years ago on C-SPAN,
and whose books are both prescient and amazing!

And you really can't consider yourself
well-informed about what's going on in
South Florida if you haven't read Miam's
own Eye on Miami before you leave
the house in the morning,
as it justly earned its rep as the most
consistently prescient and spot-on
blog in all of South Florida, even when
you disagree with them about a particular
issue.

There's something for everyone.

I'm trying to fix that logistics problem
but it may take a few days to unscramble,
so the blog may appear a little more
unwieldy in the interim.

Until then, to better read my daily posts
more clearly and without any bleeding
from other fields and graphics,
I suggest clicking the category header
marked Blog Archive, the third text
field down from the top.

Sorry about the confusion!

-Dave
-----------------------

HALLANDALE BEACH BLOG'S INDISPENSIBLE BLOG ROLL & MEDIA LIST