Showing posts with label Fred Grimm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fred Grimm. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach finds out that elections DO have consequences -new pro-reform HB City Commission ends city's advertising deal with South Florida Sun-Times

So, that shoe finally dropped that everyone in Hallandale Beach and environs as well as the larger South Florida civic activist community had been hoping for and waiting for since... what seems like forever.
(Yes, election results have consequences. Even in Hallandale Beach. Perhaps you've heard.)

That would be the shoe literally dripping with ethical and journalism conflicts of interest, rife with egregious examples of crony capitalism, plus, one of the frequent secondary issues in South Florida,
the South Florida's news media's own longstanding disinterest (and condescension) in covering certain kinds of public policy/scandal stories unless they happened in cities or places that had more cachet and pop than Hallandale Beach does.

I was at the Hallandale Beach City Commission last month when this matter of keeping campaign promises came up,  and more than a few people in the crowd -including me- were quick to ask themselves, "So where's someone from the faux newspaper in the room to actually write this down?'

The irony of this thought course was that because they DON'T cover the city accurately or fairly, because that would upset the apple cart and their deal with Mayor Joy Cooper, there was no one there from the South Florida Sun-Times to hear the news in-person.

And now it's too late for them.
That city advertising money is gone for good! 
Gone With The Wind!

I "reported" on this within 90 minutes of it happening via an email to about 150 people in South Florida, including many of you readers of the blog, but haven't written about it since because I've been waiting to add some facts and photos to what I was going to post here.
Today's Florida Bulldog story, though very welcome, caught me by surprise, hence there's not as much original content for you here as I hoped to have the first time I mentioned it on the blog this year.
But trust me, more is coming!

People in the city who follow what goes on here are eager -even giddy- to talk about this matter, and what it represents in getting this city turned around and finally moving in the right direction -towards some semblance of normalcy and general competency and accountability.
Any journey begins with the first step.
And this is clearly a step in the right direction.




Florida Bulldog
Hallandale Beach halts advertising in local newspaper where mayor is a columnist
By William Gjebre, FloridaBulldog.org

JANUARY 25, 2017 AT 4:59 AM
Hallandale Beach city commissioners have pulled the plug on city advertising in the local Sun Times newspaper featuring articles by Mayor Joy Cooper that drew fire from commission colleagues as “propaganda” for the mayor.
Cooper used the platform regularly before and after the weekly newspaper received a favorable — and controversial — $50,000 loan from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). The Sun Times, according to city documents, has been paid nearly $400,000 in city advertising to publicize events since 2003, most of the money coming after the loan was made during the 2008-2009 budget year.
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2017/01/hallandale-beach-halts-advertising-local-newspaper-tied-mayor-cooper/

Having written about this subject dozens of times the past ten years, I will be updating this blog post throughout the day.














Below, a nugget reflecting the reality of life in Hallandale Beach in 2008, as reflected in one of my emails:

Do you recall what I wrote/joked about last year on my blog, after the city purchased space in the vanity sheet rag, the South Florida Sun-Times, and ran a completely preposterous ad masquerading as news about Pastor Anthony Sanders and the funny appraisal numbers for his property?

[001.JPG]

I joked that with a little more advanced warning and time, the city hall employee dispatched to write that condescending tripe on taxpayer time might've even written that Sanders was born in a log cabin -that he built himself(A la the jokes about Chuck Norris.)

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Miami Herald's Fred Grimm weighs in -again- on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach and its sweetheart CRA deal from HB City Hall to be a propaganda arm

Having known the ins-and-outs about this awful deal for years and writing about it here, and having attended the Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting last year where it finally came out how little the recipients of HB CRA loans were actually paying back, if anything, galling gallows humor to even the most jaded veteran observer of HB City Hall nonsense, it's been interesting to observe how now that the Broward Bulldog has reminded everyone in South Florida paying attention what a ridiculous deal Hallandale Beach taxpayers were stuck with, on behalf of the mayor and three of the four commissioners, everyone wants to get in their licks on the unethical low-hanging piñata...
------

Miami Herald
IN MY OPINION
Hallandale Beach paper shows way to make easy money  
BY FRED GRIMM  
FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM
February 14, 2012
Money problems have pretty much flummoxed the newspaper industry. Corporate executives spend a lot of time obsessing over various strategies to recapture lost revenues. I worry about Strategy Number 17, which entails columnists in sandwich boards.
Who would have guessed that the solution to the industry’s financial problems would come from a little weekly newspaper in Hallandale Beach? The South Florida Sun Times gets all the credit for the brilliant new business plan: free money. Much better than cranky old guys in sandwich boards.
The Sun Times cache of money comes from the city of Hallandale Beach. The BrowardBullDog.org, a regional non-profit dedicated to investigative journalism, reported last week that the weekly newspaper received $50,000 from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency back in 2009. The money was ostensibly a loan, but special terms excuse the newspaper from the burden of paying back more than half the money. The Sun Times gets away with repaying the other half at only 2 percent interest over 10 years.
This is what’s known in the financial sector as “one sweet deal.”
CRAs are special defined urban districts that levy taxes to fund infrastructure improvements. Stuff like slum clearance, water and sewer projects, street lights, sidewalks.
In Miami, CRA funds have occasionally been diverted toward the improvement of private property owned by the close relatives of unscrupulous politicians. We know this because newspapers like The Miami Herald dig into the CRA records and report the scandalous truth. Then the unscrupulous politician goes on radio and says unkind things about The Herald. This is the old, tried, true but not very profitable model of newspaper journalism.
In Hallandale Beach, a city conjured out of the Broward tomato fields by mob boss Meyer Lansky, the Sun Times has invented a better way. The newspaper doesn’t investigate the questionable distribution of CRA funds. The newspaper takes the funds.
The $50,000 was the first “loan” given out under a CRA program supposed to rescue struggling city businesses. BullDog.org reports that the Sun Times was the only business in the program allowed to shrug off half the loan.
BullDog.org, looking at the tax records filed with the CRA, noticed that the president of the “struggling” Sun Times was paid $259,193 in 2007 and $239,054 in 2008. The weekly’s vice president received $192,052 and $229,010 those same years.
Experts in employee compensation have a special term for this level of pay: “Wow!”
Under the old newspaper model, a courageous, slightly overweight, aging but still virile columnist would have gone berserk, suggesting that with that kind of executive pay, no wonder the Sun Times needed a bailout from the city. And why on earth, the columnist would ask, would the mayor of Hallandale Beach push such a dodgy deal through the city’s CRA?
Except that Mayor Joy Cooper, the potential object of the Sun Times columnist’s scorn, also happens to be the Sun Times columnist. Admittedly, her style does not recall Chicago’s Mike Royko (“The subject of criminal rehabilitation was debated recently in City Hall. It’s an appropriate place for this kind of discussion because the city has always employed so many ex-cons and future cons.”) or New York’s Jimmy Breslin (“Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.”)
But there she is, the mayor/columnist, with her regular space in the Sun Times, with an unfettered opportunity to enhance her public persona. Meanwhile, City Commissioner Keith London (or any other critic of municipal policy) is nowhere to be seen in the pages of the uncrusading newspaper. That may be because London has not only railed about the $50,000 loan, he has criticized the $105,000 the city has spent advertising in the Sun Times over the past two fiscal years. The Sun Times deals were never approved by the city commission, he complained.
(In 2009, a letter was mailed out to city businesses on official Hallandale Beach city stationery stating: “Just about everyone is feeling the effects of the economy and doing what we can to get through tough times. In an effort to promote and support local businesses, the city encourages all businesses to advertise in the city’s only local newspaper.” The love letter was signed by both Mayor Cooper and City Manager Mike Goode.)
A columnist under the old newspaper model would argue that the mayor has a very suspicious relationship with the recipient of so much city money. But the columnist under the much cozier Sun Times model, with the free money strategy, would write, “Hey, suckers. I’m the mayor. I do what the hell I want.”

Read the readers comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/13/2639870/hallandale-beach-paper-shows-way.html

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

More about Hallandale Beach's unscrupulo​us crony capitalism deal b/w the faux newspaper, the SFST, and Mayor Joy Cooper, Cub Reporter...

 Above, a photo I took back on October 8, 2010 of the never-ending embarrassment...  for us as Hallandale Beach taxpayers and the world of journalism.
Below, a copy of the email that I wrote and sent out last Friday to the Usual Suspects thoughout South Florida and journalism watering holes in the U.S. and elsewhere.


Sixteen months ago, I wrote the following on my blog, just one of many over the years on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach. My biggest problem wasn't writing it, of course, but rather trying to decide which was THE most outlandish and absurd front page of the dozens they've run that I've kept...

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2010
Csaba Kulin's common sense take on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach that gobbles up taxpayer funds, the South Florida Sun Times



It's hard to imagine a more ridiculous, self-serving and un-true headline than this one from August 13, 2009 in the faux community newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Times: AHEAD OF THE GAME: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper continues to do the job residents elected her to do -once again!

Read the rest of my post above at:http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/csaba-kulins-common-sense-take-on-faux.html

That followed by five months the effort to create...
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2009

Hallandale Beach insiders to offer goodies/new propaganda TV channel to HB City Hall for $200k CRA loan Wed. morning.

As you'll recall above, despite NOT meeting most of the very-low standards the city usually required for a loan, the loan was made... more money down the drain!
That eye-opening post of mine from almsot three years ago is at: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/hallandale-beach-insiders-to-offer.html

I'm planning on posting some more incriminating info about the SFST in a few days on my blog, possibly including some eye-opening video I still have from 2010 that makes clear how steadfast and stuuborn HB City Hall remains in trying to funnel money to people who, as I'll show, couldn't even do the one thing they needed to consistently do -reliably inform the people of this community.

That info will be news to most of you in Southeast broward and elsewhere I think, since what was in the Broward Bulldog and then the Miami Herald last Thursday is, as some of you already know, just the tip of the iceberg on this story about the mayor's ambition and desire to always get her way being subsidized by taxpayers dollars -yours.

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/02/sweet-deal-for-owners-of-hallandale-newspaper-that-features-mayor-as-columnist/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2633582/hallandale-beach-newspaper-gets.html Make sure you read the comments!

Below, more on Joy Cooper, Cub Reporter...
I was going to say Nancy Drew, but of course Nancy Drew in her stint as a reporter in the 1940's film series tried to bring facts to light, not to bury them; she cleared a girl of murder, after all.

http://www.archive.org/details/nancy_drew_reporter

Also, Nancy Drew never threatened a "publisher" before like the mayor and her husband did a few years ago when, out-of-the-blue, something true-but-unflattering about her somehow wound-up in the faux newspaper.

Again, I remind you, that something was true-but-unflattering, but as we all know, the mayor really hates hearing Inconvenient Facts, whether from me or any other citizen paying close attention to what's going on -or isn't- right in front of us, so, as you'd expect, she and her husband went to the "newspaper's" office and went ballistic.
They demanded that... well, that's the part of the story still to come.

-----

I also commend to you the following piece as well on the blatant disregard for fairness and journalism ethics.

South Florida Business Journal
Why fight City Hall when you get a h andout?
by Kevin Gale, Editor in Chief
Friday, February 10, 2012, 12:10pm
EST
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/2012/02/why-fight-city-hall-when-you-get-a.html

If you have a Facebook account, you can leave a comment... I don't, so can't.

See this mention of our mayor from last month...http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2012/01/occupy-protest-leads-arrest-assault-officer/165117

And in case you forgot one of the previous Joy Cooper crony capitalism deals with the faux
newspaper... I still have a copy of the letter and envelope that was sent out on HB City Hall
stationary to try to drum up business for a fake newspaper that nobody trusts or believes.


http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/850227.html
Miami Herald
Mayor, paper are very cozy in Hallandale
By Fred Grimm
January 13, 2009

It pays to be nice.
If only The Miami Herald had been a little nicer, a little more accommodating, a little less critical, some grateful mayor might be sending out swell letters to our potential advertisers.
Consider the South Florida Sun-Times in Hallandale Beach. A nice weekly paper. Very nice. Self-consciously nice. ''We do mostly positive stories. We don't do a lot of negative,'' Sun-Times President Craig Farquhar said.
No nasty (or otherwise) letters to the editor. (Too bad, given that Hallandale Beach residents are both literate and famously contentious. Their letters would liven up any newspaper.)
The Sun-Times (circulation about 55,000) especially eschews articles critical of the mayor of Hallandale Beach. Not exactly what you'd call a media watchdog when it comes to local government. More like a lapdog.
But niceness pays off. Last month, a surprising letter was mailed out to city businesses on official Hallandale Beach city stationery: ''Just about everyone is feeling the effects of the economy and doing what we can to get through tough times. In an effort to promote and support local businesses, the city encourages all businesses to advertise in the city's only local newspaper.'' The letter was signed by both Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Goode.



LETTER STARTLING
For an old newspaper guy, who harbors an almost religious reverence for the contentious relationship between journalism and government, it was a startling read.
For Jeanne Roonoe, a businesswoman who has owned Dixie Top Shop down on Dixie Highway for 28 years, it was startling for other reasons. ''For one thing, the city mailed out these letters using first-class mail instead of bulk mail.'' But mostly she wondered why, when so many businesses are hurting, ``the city singled out just one to help.''
Because it pays to be accommodating. The Sun-Times runs a weekly column by Mayor Cooper. City Commissioner Keith London, often at odds with the mayor, claims that the paper refuses to print contrary opinions from him.
In particular, last fall after the mayor ran a column critical of a lawsuit London had filed against the city, the newspaper refused to publish the city commissioner's response. ''We chose not to run his article. We choose not to run lots of stories from people,'' Farquhar said.



SWEET DEAL
London, using Freedom of Information requests to pry the information out of City Hall, found that Hallandale Beach city government spent $18,500 buying ads in the Sun-Times over the past two years. The commissioner suggests that the newspaper, at city expense, has become a kind of unfiltered house organ for the mayor's office.
(However, to be fair, Mayor Cooper's latest column is not exactly a scintillating read. Not a whiff of controversy. No political attacks. No mention of her blood enemy Keith London.)
Mayor Cooper told the Sun-Sentinel that in exchange for the letters to potential advertisers, she expected stories in the Sun-Times that would ``promote the city.''
That happened to be the same term employed by the very nice president of the Sun-Times. ''We all have to work together to promote the city and business,'' Farquhar told me Monday.
Not that I have anything against being nice, even to mayors. It's just a peculiar ethos for a newspaper.


-----

I only wish the South Florida news media had taken this whole embarrassing situation more seriously when I knew about it and was writing about it before they were.
I constantly contacted all four English-speaking TV stations and both the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel with the pertinent facts, delivering it on a silver platter with all dots already connected, but as you know if you read my posts at the time, the local news media just didn't care.
Not a whit.

All of which makes this sudden media interest in a longstanding situation that HB taxpayers have had to live with for years, now seem rather curious to lots of well-informed people I know and interact with regularly.
Adminstrators and elected officials from other cities and up at Broward County Govt. HQ and regular taxpayer citizens.
They all wonder why the concerns of HB residents didn't matter to the news media when it might've done some good.
It's a little after-the-fact, now.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Will Lady Dracula, Ilene Lieberman, successfully suck the life out of Broward County's ethics/IG proposal for the benefit of her family and cronies?

2008 Royal Mail stamp of Hammer Films' Dracula, 1958.

This is a follow-up to my post of last Thursday, August 5, 2010

Broward County Comm. Ilene Lieberman is the creepy anti-ethics monster that just won't die. She's the 'Mummy' of Broward County!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/broward-county-comm-ilene-lieberman-is.html

You know what they say, if a horror mask fits...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDTxHg7wyP0




After all the insider talk for a week about what's going to happen Tuesday afternoon on Andrews Avenue at the
Broward County Commission meeting at 2 p.m., it's finally time for everyone who's anyone to stand up and be counted and be held publicly accountable.

If it was up to me, of course, I'd love to see a few local high-profile folks in particular show up and say what they personally think about the proposals, so that it's all out there for voters to see, since South Florida pols are notorious for ducking high-profile showdowns on issues like this, even the reformist candidates.

I'll leave it to you readers to figure out why I'd like to see them, but if you are a fairly regular visitor to this space, you probably already have a pretty good hunch why:
Chris Smith, Steve Geller, Dan Gelber, Dave Aronberg, Kelly Skidmore, Ellyn Bogdanoff, Ari Porth.

Will any Hispanic or African-American Broward residents speak during public comments, whether high-profile or not? Hmm-m-m... that's a very good question.
Sadly, p
robably not.

Hey, isn't THAT a news story?

Yes, in other parts of the country, but here in polyglot South Florida, such politically and socially uncomfortable stories like THAT usually never see the light of day.

The afternoon agenda and back up documents are here:

http://205.166.161.204/agenda_publish.cfm?mt=ALL&get_month=8&get_year=2010&dsp=ag&seq=191#ReturnTo0

For those of you unable to get away to downtown Fort Lauderdale to watch the rhetoric and metaphors fly at the three-ring circus, you can watch it LIVE via the Internet but you must use Internet Explorer, as I learned the hard way last year, to my chagrin when using Firefox, with predictable results.
Why IE, I can't say, but that's the deal.
http://www.broward.org/video/

-----

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/07/1766485/villains-of-ethics-reform-in-broward.html

Miami Herald

Villains of ethics reform in Broward dream up new strategy
By Fred Grimm
August 8, 2010


Y
ou've got to appreciate the brazen hand behind this latest attempt to eviscerate ethics reform in Broward County. Same way you watch, with perverse fascination, horror movie villains creeping back from oblivion to wreak more mayhem.

In June, a mighty burst of public outrage cowed the sinister forces behind a contrivance to kill reform. Rather than vote an ethics package up or down, the novel strategy would have shipped the proposed ordinance off to the black hole of judicial review, leaving it to languish until after the fall elections.

The notion dripped with contempt for public sentiment. As if commissioners could ignore the county's spate of scandals and indictments and guilty pleas. Or the federal and state investigators bumping into one another around county hall.

Just a few days before County Attorney Jeff Newton (on behalf of ethically conflicted Commissioner Ilene Lieberman) offered up the subterfuge, ousted commissioner Josephus Eggelletion was in state court to face sentencing on a bribery conviction. (Added atop his federal prison term.)

Such a howl went up across the county that Newton's proposal quickly disappeared, leaving the commission with a deadline and -- everyone assumed -- only two options. Either adopt the ordinance created by the Broward County Reform Commission, word for word, or the measure automatically would be placed on the fall ballot.

Not in this movie. Newton and the unseen hand (AKA Lieberman) have dreamed up yet another strategy to undo reform. Newton would have commissioners adopt the reform ordinance at Tuesday's meeting, keeping it away from the angry voters. Then commissioners would adopt a series of amendments designed to exempt the commissioners and their family members and county staffers from most of the new reforms.

Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger characterized Newton's amendments as a "thinly veiled political attempt to kill ethics reform.''

Newton's so-called "glitch'' ordinance would allow commissioners to keep their seats on bid selection committees. They could still lobby other local governments. Their family members and staffers will not, after all, face strict limits on lobbying. The restrictions on lobbyists' gifts for family members would be gutted. And sitting commissioners would be exempt from certain ethical rules that would be applied to new, incoming commissioners.

"I was absolutely appalled, disgusted, fed up,'' said Broward Ethics Commissioner Robert Wolfe Jr, suffering from an unhappy sense of déjà vu. "We just went through this a couple months ago.''

The ethics commission had spent a year hammering out a package. Not as tough as some wanted. But adopted unanimously. All the while, Wolfe said, certain county politicians, some with profound conflicts of interest, worked behind the scenes to dilute the effort. Now comes this so-called glitch amendment. (Hardly more than a week after Broward Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin was formally charged with seven counts of unlawful compensation.) "There's a culture here that just doesn't get it,'' said the frustrated Wolfe.

It's the sequel to Nightmare on Andrews Avenue. The same scary, sneaky creatures back from the murk, still determined to kill reform.

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/07/1766485/villains-of-ethics-reform-in-broward.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1

-----

Robert Weschler picks up the ethics baton and carries it forward at his excellent blog at www.cityethics.org

Yet Another Underhanded Attempt to Water Down the Broward County Ethics Commission's New Ethics Code
Fri, 2010-08-06 14:36
http://www.cityethics.org/content/yet-another-underhanded-attempt-water-down-broward-county-ethics-commissions-new-ethics-code

-----

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Broward County Attorney Newton denies effort to thwart ethics reform
By Brittany Wallman August 9, 2010 09:34 PM

Broward County Attorney Jeff Newton wrote a letter Monday defending his latest proposed changes to the Code of Ethics county commissioners will vote on Tuesday.


Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/08/broward_county_attorney_newton.html

Broward County Attorney Jeffrey J. Newton's letter to Miami Herald re Fred Grimm column here:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/BdCCResponsetoFredGrimmColumn080910.pdf

-----

This was the 2009 Broward Politics video interview with Bill Scherer on ethics in Broward County that I had on the blog for quite some time.
His comments still ring true!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsXY8oaABoA





See also:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/stamps/content1?catId=32300674&mediaId=76000716
http://www.hammerfilms.com/news/uk-cult-classics-celebrated-on-royal-mail-stamps

To see the Royal Mail stamps commemorating the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games:
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/stamps/content1?catId=123500769&mediaId=126000848

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Broward Schools' incompetency: reductio ad absurdum. Writ large! Lack of Integrity!

On Monday, I will have for you here the official
answer
why this particular meeting will NOT
be televised on
the Broward School Board's
own channel, BECON-TV, Channel 63.

Just like the last meeting I wrote about before
and after
it took place.

Here's what's scheduled to run on
BECON instead:
http://www.becon.tv/becon-tv-schedules
6:00 pm Historic Hotels of America : Jefferson, The
6:30 pm Broward School Beat : Episode 45
7:00 pm Celebrate South Florida! : Farewell Show
7:30 pm Dateline Health Nsu : Dh#257 Emergency Medicine/M. Campbell & K. Nugent

At some point, you have to wonder why they

even bother with the pretense of caring.

No, not just the
BTU, James Notter, the
Broward School Board, their bureaucracy
and the Integrity Trio, but the local
reporters
in South Florida as well, especially
TV reporters,
who do stories on them that,
to varying degrees
of clarity and professionalism,
don't so much
illuminate as obfuscate the
larger issues here:
integrity, or rather the
lack thereof.


This is reflective of the great thinking that
led
to the 1977 AMC Pacer, below.


How many of those do you see on the road
these
days?
How many people rhapsodize about them?

Do you know of any museum that trumpets
their collection of Pacers?
No, instead, every time you see one featured
in a TV show
or film, it's designed to serve as
comic relief about that era.

There's a very good reason for that, isn't there?

In my opinion, the current education system

in Broward County is a 1977 Pacer.

Earlier this week I wrote about the paid ad

the BTU, Broward Teachers Union,
ran in the Miami Herald and, apparently,
since I didn't see it that day, the South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
as well.

An ad that was precipitated by a
Wall Street
Journal
article in early January about special
education funding and which specifically
mentioned what Broward Supt. James Notter
was doing with that money here.

The Wall Street Journal
EDUCATION
JANUARY 6, 2010

Special-Ed Funds Redirected
School Districts Shift Millions of Dollars to General Needs After Getting Stimulus Cash
By ANNE MARIE CHAKER

Florida's Broward County Public Schools saved as many as 900 jobs this school year. Nevada's Clark County School District just added more math and tutoring programs. And in Connecticut's Bloomfield Public Schools, eight elementary- and middle-school teachers were spared from layoffs.

These cash-strapped districts covered the costs using a boost in funding intended for special education, drawing an outcry from parents and advocates of special-needs children.
Read the rest of the column at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126274303415617219.html
Reader comments at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126274303415617219.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments

Let's be clear on one point: WSJ reporter
Anne Marie Chaker did a great job of bringing
this story to light.
She deserves to take a bow,

But nobody in South Florida's news media ever

bothered to pick up the ball and follow-up that
well-written and informative WSJ story with
the sort
of necessary connect-the-dots story,
column or TV investigative piece that should've
appeared shortly
afterwards
Nobody.

Surprise!
Except it is no surprise at all, is it?
Nope!
It's what we've come to expect from our local
media -nothing.

Since then, all manner of people have written

about the paid ad and some related matters,
but in my opinion, improbably, they have all
have managed to miss the forest for the trees.

They never wrote about
a.) special education and
b.) they never ask a very simple question:

Why is the BTU, having already repeatedly
failed
over two years to do their not-so-clever
mass email
as planned, continuing to repeat
their mistake,
over-and-over?
Plain and simple, it doesn't work.


What don't they understand about that?


At some point, as an organization, when you
continually fail, you have to admit that your
particular strategy
doesn't work and you
either need a new strategy
or a new general
Which one is it?

Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/18/1485927/btu-ads-blast-superintendent-notter.html
Broward teachers, superintendent escalate hostilities
By Hannah Sampson
February 17, 2010

Long-simmering tensions between the Broward Teachers Union and the school district's superintendent escalated publicly Wednesday in morning newspaper ads and an afternoon news conference.

The union bought half-page ads in local newspapers accusing Superintendent Jim Notter of misusing school district money.

The allegations touch on use of stimulus money intended for kids with disabilities; job perks for Notter; rehiring of retired administrators and unnecessary travel on the taxpayer's dime.

They're all accusations the union has made before, but for the first time, Notter responded. He was appaled, he said, about the photographs of children that were used in the ad.

''When in fact you look at a paid ad and what looks back at you are children who clearly do not know and understand the untruths that I just shared with you, I will tell you that is wrong,'' he said, calling the children ''exploited.'' The ad, which cost up to $1,000 to run in each paper, features a picture of seven angry-looking children posing with their hands on their hips. They are the children of union members, a BTU spokesman said.

If not for the picture of the children, Notter said he would have ''maintained what leaders maintain, and that's taking the high road.''

Later, union spokesman John Ristow countered: ''It's time for Superintendent Jim Notter to stop misleading taxpayers and playing the blame game or take the high road out of Broward County.''

Teachers are working without a contract this school year as the union and district continue negotiations. The union wants raises for teachers, while the district says it could only afford to cover increases in the cost of health insurance for members. Negotiations last school year hit an impasse.

BTU spokesman John Ristow said Wednesday's ad was unrelated to the ongoing talks, however.

''Some things rise above contract negotiations,'' he said.

Some of the claims in the ad allege that Notter:

• Wasted $32 million intended for special education students;

• Got free health insurance for his wife while dependent insurance for employees went up 45 percent;

• Receives gas money for his ''new Corvette;''

• Rehires ''administrator friends'' who earn large paychecks;

• Took a non-essential trip for himself and other officials to an award ceremony;

• Has expense accounts for top administrators that exceed the yearly take-home salaries of many support professionals.

In the news conference, Notter addressed each accusation.

• He said the $32 million in stimulus money was used to pay part of the cost for special education that the district had paid for from its general fund.

• As part of a $26,000 reduction in compensation, he pays for his wife's health insurance and for gas for his 2002 Corvette, which he bought used.

• Since he became superintendent, 10 previously retired administrators have been rehired, with five making less money than before and the largest increase being $4,000 a year.

(However as retirees they still collect a pension).

• He traveled at the expense of the Broad Foundation to accept a prize of scholarship money.

• No one but him has an expense account, which amounts to about $260 per pay period.

Wednesday's ad wasn't the first one taken out by the union. It was just the latest volley in a series that has included baseball-themed protests, press events featuring piglets and fax, phone and e-mail campaigns.

''The ad is only one method that employees are using to try and educate the public about what's happening in Broward schools,'' Ristow said. ''They want the public to know that while Superintendent Notter cries poverty every day, he is wasting tens of millions of their tax dollars.''


Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/18/1485927/btu-ads-blast-superintendent-notter.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1


Above, the Hot Wheels representation of the
1969 General Motors Corvette


South Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-btu-suit-20100218,0,7445770.story
Teachers union files suit against Broward School Board for blocking e-mails
By Akilah Johnson
February 18, 2010


The battle between the Broward Teachers Union and the Broward School District is heading to court for the fourth time in the last year. This latest round is focusing on Internet free speech and a mass email campaign.

The case involves an electronic campaign by teachers seeking a pay raise. The union urged teachers to email administrators and the School Board, but 1,860 messages sent via a union website in March 2009 were blocked.

District officials told the union it blocks "mass emails or volume spam…which flood or cripple the School District website or e-mail system."

According to the lawsuit filed in the Broward Circuit Court on Wednesday, that "violates the civil rights" of the teachers. The district has "intentionally engaged in a continuing pattern or practice that limits Plaintiff's speech on a matter of public concern," the suit says.

School District Spokesman Eddie Arnold declined to comment Thursday, saying "we don't discuss lawsuits at all."

The relationship between the district and union began to sour in 2008 during contract negotiations and have continued to deteriorate. The teachers are now working without a contract and demanding a 4 percent pay raise, which the district says it can't afford to pay.

The three other suits and injunctions involved rising insurance costs, access to public records and district layoffs. Two of those cases have been settled out of court while the other is still active, the union said.

Union President Pat Santeramo admits the frequent legal action "is rather extreme. We have not in the history of the BTU had to pursue any issue as vigorously as we've had to since Superintendent [ James] Notter is here."

The union says this latest court case has far-reaching implications that could affect the ability of the public-at-large to contact elected officials in this electronic age.

"If district officials within Broward schools can block e-mails of constituents to elected School Board members, what would prevent a staff member of a U.S. representative from doing the same thing or the staff of a governor from deciding ‘we don't want the governor reading this because they come in too quickly or there is too many of them,' "said union spokesman John Ristow.

Lawyers from the state and national union as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that defends digital rights, are helping with the latest lawsuit.

There's no dollar amount on how much this most recent legal battle will cost, but the tab is being paid by the dues of union members nationwide. If the union wins, it plans to ask the district to pay legal costs.

Reader comments at:
http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-btu-suit-20100218/10


Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/20/1491665_teachers-unions-smear-campaign.html
Teachers union's smear campaign misses target
By Fred Grimm
February 21, 2010

J
ust an ordinary news story: Young hackers penetrated Broward school district computers and altered grades. You've read so many variations of the Feb. 12 piece that such stories hardly register.

Until the sixth paragraph of the Sun Sentinel story. Up pops a startling bit of vitriol: ``Union officials said teachers and principals knew about the alleged grade tampering, but didn't report it for fear of retaliation by district officials.''

Apparently, educators privy to the computer-hacking scheme at the four affected Broward schools were so terrified of the potential wrath of Superintendent Jim Notter they shrank away from exposing a cheating conspiracy.

The statement, of course, carried as much credibility as a Scott Rothstein testimonial. But the Broward Teachers Union proudly posted the story on its website. No one at union headquarters seemed to notice the collateral damage caused by the union attack on Notter, smearing teachers and principals as cowards.

ANOTHER NOTTER ATTACK

Last week, the BTU went after Notter again. The union purchased half-page ads in The Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel charging Notter, among other sins, with ripping off special-education students and using school funds to gas up his ``new'' 2002 Corvette. The advertisement featured a goofy photo of Notter and the headline: ``Did Superintendent Jim Notter really take money from special education students?''

Well, not really. But Notter barely had time to respond to the accusations before the union slapped the district with a lawsuit in Broward District court. The union, citing criminal wiretap statutes, charged Notter and the district ``have intentionally engaged in a continuing pattern or practice that limits plaintiff's speech on a matter of public concern.''

The school district's server apparently intercepts mass e-mailings -- not an uncommon policy, designed to keep the e-mail system from crashing down. But last year, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday, the union's mass e-mails protesting the stalled salary negotiations failed to reach the School Board. As if board members, robbed of an e-mail basket stuffed with several thousand identical protestations, never knew teachers were upset.

The lawsuit claims a violation of free speech. (Leaving the door open, I suppose, for a spammer to claim a constitutional right to peddle natural Viagra across the district). But the suit is really about union frustration with contract negotiations that have been at an impasse since the fall of 2008.

LEGISLATURE TO BLAME

Teachers want a raise. Deserve a raise. But it was the budget-slashing Florida Legislature, falling property values and the state's erratic tax base that left per-pupil funding at less than $6,900 a year. With more cuts coming. The union, going after Notter, ignores the very politicians who have failed to sustain education funding. Instead of going after actual villains, the union suggests the superintendent wasted and misappropriated the mythical millions required to cover a four percent teacher raise.

This was the same union leadership that claimed racinos would save Florida schools. That hit the streets in 2006 to protest ``attacks on Sheriff Jenne'' a few months before Jenne was hauled off to federal prison.

The union that vouched for Jenne now attacks Notter with all the dignity of a middle school grudge. The super might find solace in the absurdity of his enemies. Reader comments at: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/20/1491665_teachers-unions-smear-campaign.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1


Above, taxpayers paying for the one on the left
and actually getting the one on the right instead.

The long and short of it is that Broward taxpayers

uniformly have buyer's remorse with education.
They know they've been had, but how badly have

they been conned, they're really not quite sure.
But they also know that a day of accounting is

approaching.

It's a similar strain to the infuriating anger
felt in
Hallandale Beach, where citizens feel
that the results of huge spending
and incompetent
policy by the geniuses at HB City Hall to help their
friends and developers are NOT what they
want.

That
point is driven home -I couldn't resist!-
most clearly by Assistant City
Manager
Mark Antonio, who actually tools around
town in a blue
Corvette.

Taxpayers feel like they have generally paid
enough over the years, and that the Broward
education bureaucracy is sufficiently large
enough,
that there ought to be Corvette
results more
than once in a while.

But instead, as far as their eyes can see,
the
results they see in exchange for their
taxes
are almost uniformly AMC Pacers.

Pacers that aren't safe, aren't reliable
and
which fare quite poorly when compared
to
results in other parts of the country,
regardless
of awards that the Broward
school system
establishment and their
educrat acolytes crow about,
even
throwing a party for themselves to celebrate.


And
Pacers which are always in need of
repairs or construction.
But it never seems quite enough, does it?

We need both a new model, a new strategy

and new generals, because the current
system
is broken with the current people
in charge.

That day of accounting is fast approaching...

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Come for the HB Pay Raise Grab, but Stay for the Fireworks!

Dave, your faithful correspondent, is somewhat embarrassed to admit that he has failed to come through for you readers on something of some importance.

Despite his carefully thought out and choreographed plans to have about 2-3 dozen photos here before tomorrow's city commission meeting, all neatly organized by topic in order to buttress and illuminate points of contention I've been hammering home here for a few months about the City of Hallandale Beach's pathetic and ineffective management style, as well as the laissez-faire work ethic among its bureaucracy, I've come up short due to some unexpected computer and photo problems. C'est la vie!

However, I can promise you with 100% certainty that they will be up for your perusal long before the September city commission meeting, which, if anything, I can promise will be even more eventful than the one scheduled for Wednesday, for reaons that I'll detail as that meeting approaches.
Until then, here's a hint of what's to come, though the specifics are quite well-known to me and many other people in the community, including other elected officials and media members, both print and TV:

At that meeting, Hallandale Beach's city clerk, E. Dent McGough, police chief Thomas Magill, and city attorney David Jove, will all see what happens when they violate both the spirit and letter of Florida's invaluable Sunshine laws.

The city attorney's office in particular has a lot to be worried about over the next few weeks, as Mr. Jove and his staff will see what happens when they ignore aspects of signed contracts for years, which have the very self-evident ripple effect of directly threatening the public safety and welfare of Hallandale Beach's residents and visitors.

Frankly, they seem to have taken it for granted that they could continue their chronic pattern of neglect indefinitely with respect to this particular matter, but they will have strongly underestimated someone with lots of knowledge and resolve: HallandaleBeachBlog.

The power of one person with a blog and plenty of readers who also know well the difference between right and wrong, and who know when something isn't, to use a cliche, kosher.
(What's particularly galling about this to HBB is that the evidence in this particular case is both overwhelming and all around you as you make your way around the City of Hallandale Beach, if you just know where to look -it's the classic tree-for-the-forest syndrome!

Yes, it's a classic case of HB bureaucratic myopia, wherein city employees don't see things that would call into question their fitness for their job, so they pretend not to see what's right in front of their face. Fortunately, HBB still retains his 20/15 vision.)

Yes, you can definitely count on being able to read here my very public indictment of their inexcusable behavior and shameful actions, with pointed and incident-specific copies of my letter to the appropriate state and legal authorities, as well as local and regional news media.
You will for yourself that there REALLY are still towns in the state of Florida that continually fail to live up to their legal and civic responsibilities under the state constitution, seemingly winking at existing laws and daring anyone to call their collective bluff.

Well, HallandaleBeachBlog and parent blog SouthBeachHoosier will be calling their bluff for all to see, and will force them to answer for their crimes of commission -and omission.

_________________________________
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-sjulian08may08,0,3993480.story?track=rss
Florida Sun-Sentinel
Hallandale official, rebuffed in bid for $55,000 raise, says he'll ask for smaller one By Thomas Monnay
May 8, 2007

HALLANDALE BEACH · Vice Mayor Bill Julian conceded Monday that the $55,000 pay raise the City Commission passed then quickly rescinded last week was "way too much money" but said he plans to bring up the matter again.

"I'm not going to back down, but [the proposed increase] wouldn't be nearly as much," said Julian, 54, who claims he can't make ends meet on his $20,500 annual salary.

Mayor Joy Cooper, who mobilized grass-roots opposition to the "outrageous" raise that was passed without public notice, was unsympathetic.

"I believe we have a reasonable salary for a part-time job," said Cooper, who is working on a proposal to ensure commissioners' raises are capped and approved only during public hearings.

Julian, a retired horse trainer and Hallandale Beach resident for 51 years, came under a barrage of criticism last week after he and Commissioners Dorothy Ross and Fran Schiller voted to more than triple their salaries to $75,000 a year. They voted while having lunch Wednesday during a planning meeting.

Cooper and Commissioner Keith London rejected the raise, which triggered a furor because it wasn't advertised and the public didn't get an opportunity to comment on it.

Some voiced concern that the vote came as state legislators were considering major property tax reductions, which could cut millions from city budgets.

At Julian's request, commissioners repealed the raise Friday during a special meeting on development issues in Hallandale Beach.

"We've all learned from this experience, and our residents should be assured this would never, ever happen again," said City Manager Mike Good.

Ross said of residents' opposition, "If there is something I've learned from this, it's the wakeup call."

Schiller declined to comment.

Commissioners are responsible for adopting city budgets, setting policies and ordinances and responding to residents' complaints, among other duties. They receive an annual cost-of-living increase, Good said.

In Oakland Park, a comparably sized city, the mayor earns $10,400 a year and commissioners $9,000. In Davie, a larger municipality, council members are paid $7,200 a year.

Julian said the demanding nature of the position makes it difficult to work at another job and therefore commissioners should get more pay.

"I know I cannot continue to live on this salary unless I get another job or some kind of raise. ... In a matter of time, my savings will be depleted," said Julian, who was first elected in 2001.

"The mistake I made was that I asked for way too much money," he added.

Julian said he knew the salary when he ran for office, but commissioners have more work to do because a lot has been happening recently in Hallandale Beach, including casinos at the racetracks and new development.

Julian said he would bring the pay issue back for discussion during a budget workshop in the next few months. He said the city, with about $40 million in reserves, wouldn't be affected by tax cuts as much as other cities. Still, he said, any decision would be made only after public input.

Good said Julian would agree that the large, unannounced raise was "poor judgment."

Thomas Monnay can be reached at tmonnay@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7924.
Copyright © 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
________________________________
http://origin.dfw.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/5min/17185416.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_5min
Miami Herald
Commissioners in throes of gambling fever
By FRED GRIMM fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
May 6, 2007

Experts warned that this could happen.
A quiet seaside town like Hallandale Beach becomes a gambling Mecca, with a casino om the north side of town, another on the south. Suddenly once solid, sober are driven crazy by the scent of easy money. Until even the folks down at City Hall catch the fever.
That's the only plausible explanation for what happened in Hallandale Beach last week. Three city commissioners were obviously consumed by a momentary gambling frenzy. They bet that no one would notice that they had voted themselves the kind of jackpot that would set off bells and sirens at the Mardi Gras's casino.
It is a notorious symptom of gambling fever that the infected no longer grasp the value of a paycheck. Little Vegas Vice Mayor William Julian and Commissioners Dorothy Ross and Francine Schiller voted to up their annual pay from $21,196 to $75,000 as if they were talkin' chump change.

WHEELING OVER LUNCH
They hedged their bets by putting the issue on their luncheon agenda, the only portion of the commission meeting not recorded. As if they hoped no one would notice. As if they assumed what happened in City Hall, stayed in City Hall.
Lunch was a little like an all-you-can-eat casino buffet. Salad, sandwiches, crab cakes, chicken wings, pasta and, for dessert, $53,804 drizzled in chocolate.
Another symptom of gambling fever renders addicts utterly impervious to the warnings of looming catastrophe from relatives, friends, associates. ''I begged them to reconsider,'' Mayor Joy Cooper told me. They dismissed her as Mayor Kill Joy.
Even modest raises have been bad bets in South Florida. Last year, voters in Parkland, where the mayor and commissioners make $2,400 annually, voted down raises. Same thing in Coral Springs. Voters in Miami-Dade County, where the $6,000-a-year county commissioners haven't had a raise since 1957, said no to pay increases.
Commissioners in Cooper City caught so much hell trying after voting to raise their piddling salaries from $6,000 to $15,000, they decided to use most of the extra money on a landscaping project.
The Hallandale Beach caper was even riskier. There was the usual voter reluctance to pad elected officials' salaries. And they voted to raise their salaries even as the state legislature, which will reconvene in June, threatens to whack away at the city's property tax base. ''We could lose 40 percent of our budget,'' Mayor Cooper said.

LIKE HIGH ROLLERS
But there's no reasoning with the fever. Mayor Cooper and Commissioner Keith London warned them, but those three commissioners thought they were on a roll. They were hot. They blew on the dice, tripled their salary and figured to walk out of city hall like a high roller after a good night at Gulfstream Park.
Oh my, what a bad bet. They voted for fat raises on Wednesday. Word got around town on Thursday. By Friday, their folly was splashed across the Miami Herald.
And all hell broke loose. Constituents went berserk. State legislators, after hearing so many complaints from city politicians that budgets were tight, wanted to know how it was that Hallandale Beach was tossing money around like a drunken tourist at the Hard Rock.
The fever subsided. On Friday the repentant gamblers slunk into a commission workshop meeting and voted to rescind their winnings.
They had learned a hard, humbling lesson: If you're going to gamble in Little Vegas, stick to the slots.
______________________________________
http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/95761.html
Miami Herald
Hallandale Beach commissioners triple pay
By Aliza Applebaum and Jennifer Lebovich
May 4, 2007

Over a taxpayer-funded lunch of steak and chicken sandwiches on Wednesday, Hallandale Beach commissioners raised their annual pay by nearly $55,000 and catapulted themselves into the salary stratosphere for part-time public servants.
Starting immediately, commissioners will earn $75,000 a year.
In a tight budget year when the Legislature nixed raises for state employees, commissioners in the city of 35,000 voted 3-2 to more than triple their current salary of $21,196.
Discussion of the raise, and the vote, came during the luncheon portion of the city's regular meeting -- the only part that is not recorded. It will be reflected generally in the city's minutes, which had not yet been prepared on Thursday.
''I thought it was outrageous and completely out of line for an elected public official whose work is part time,'' said Mayor Joy Cooper, who asked commissioners to defer voting on the raise until the city's next budget meeting.
The raise means commissioners will make substantially more than the elected leaders in some of Broward's biggest cities.
Commissioners in Pembroke Pines -- a city of nearly 150,000 residents -- make $23,708, and the mayor gets $46,485.
And commissioners in Fort Lauderdale earn $30,000 a year, while the mayor gets $35,000.

COUNTY SALARY
Broward County commissioners bring in $91,996 a year to oversee an airport, a seaport, parks and libraries for a county of about 1.8 million.
''I'd like to get that kind of pay raise,'' said Ben Wilcox, the executive director of Common Cause Florida, a government watchdog group. ``If they feel like they're worth that. I guess the final decision will be up to the voters the next time they come up for reelection, if they feel like that's too big a pay raise.''
Cooper pointed out that the city could face significant revenue cuts in the coming year, depending on what form of property tax relief is passed by the state Legislature, which plans a special session in June.
''This is the absolute worst commission decision ever made in this city's history,'' said Cooper, who said she won't accept the increase.
Vice Mayor William Julian proposed the raise during the lunch planning meeting in a conference room in City Hall. The issue was not on any publicized agenda.
''If I was in their shoes I would bend over backward to make sure there was full notice and an opportunity for public discussion,'' said Wilcox.

"After all, this is the public's money and they should have, I would think, the opportunity to weigh in on whether they feel the commissioners deserve that increase.''
Voting in favor were Julian and commissioners Dorothy Ross and Francine Schiller. Cooper and Commissioner Keith London voted against it.
Julian said he had planned to propose an even higher increase. He likened the city to a corporation, and said the pay should be commensurate. He also praised the commission for lowering the tax rate and maintaining a healthy reserve fund.
''Other people in this position in the corporate world would be making much more money than we are,'' Julian said. "It is a steep jump, but it just shows how little we received before. I don't think it's out of line at all.''
At the meeting, London suggested doing a comparison of salaries of elected officials in other cities before settling on a number.
''I wanted more information and the opportunity to do more research,'' he said in an interview. "We didn't have enough information at that time to make a decision.''

FULL-TIME HOURS
Ross -- who has been on the commission since 1995 -- defended the raise Thursday, saying it's a job that calls for full-time hours. ''I'm experienced, I'm qualified, I'm trained and I'm worth it,'' she said.
Schiller declined to comment.
''I think that's an insane amount of money for a commission in a city our size,'' said Julie Hamlin, a Hallandale Beach resident who lost a bid for a commission seat during the last election.
''It's not responsible at a time when we have a property tax and insurance crisis in the state that is bound to impact our city tax structure,'' she said. ``It's totally crazy.''

'BEYOND BELIEF'
When former Hallandale Beach Mayor Arthur ''Sonny'' Rosenberg got wind of the raise, he thought he had heard wrong.
''It's tough to comment on it because it's beyond belief,'' said Rosenberg, who served on the commission for more than two decades and said he made about $9,000 in 2000.
"I think they made a mockery out of public service, and I think Hallandale Beach is going to be the laughingstock of South Florida.''

Miami Herald staff writer Roberto Santiago contributed to this report.
_________________________________
Such a proud record of cutting edge legislation!
It's no wonder they (chiefly Bill Julian) think they're corporate executives due a pay raise!
Look below at just some of the things they've done over the past 18 months.

The fact that you can so easily find at least 15-20 shopping carts within a three-block area on Hallandale Beach Blvd. , the main east-west commercial drag, for days on end just hours after this was passed, shows how truly toothless the city government is and how poorly the city

govt. manages their workers, who shirk from responsibility the way a cat shirks from water: visibly!

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/cities_neighborhoods/hallandale/14173176.htm
Miami Herald
By Diana Moskovitz
March 26, 2006
HALLANDALE BEACH
Shopping cart theft crackdown
City officials have decided they need to crack down on shopping cart thefts

Shopping carts may be handy for more than just shopping, but Hallandale Beach commissioners don't want them littering the city anymore.
Commissioners said they are tired of seeing shopping carts strewn across the city, from the street curb to the interiors of towering condominiums.
The carts are used for everything from carrying groceries home to moving equipment around.
Removing carts from a store's property is illegal, according to state law, although the law is randomly enforced.
Commissioners took the first step toward beefing up their anti-shopping cart theft ordinance last week, approving a new version by a 4-0 vote. Commissioner Francine Schiller was absent.
A second vote, scheduled for April 3, would make the changes final.
The code would replace the laws commissioners adopted about six years ago that required businesses to come up with a ``cart retrieval plan.''
But not every business came up with its own proposal, Mayor Joy Cooper said. And some of the plans weren't working. Shopping carts could still be found across the city.
She called the displaced carts a ``blight on the community.''
''We've enabled everybody to ignore the situation and it's back again,'' Cooper said.
The old ordinance was little more than one page long. The new regulations take up nearly eight pages.
The new rules specify what the businesses' cart retrieval plans should include. They must outline how many employees are assigned to retrieve carts, how many hours a week are spent retrieving carts, and how much training employees receive in cart recovery.
Signs would be required on carts warning that taking a cart outside the business area is illegal.
Safeguards such as chains around business entrances or electronic devices that lock the wheels beyond a certain point in the parking lot also are part of the new rules, listed as acceptable theft preventers.
Representatives from nearby Publix, Winn-Dixie and Wal-Mart stores attended the meeting Tuesday to voice their support.
Shopping cart thieves or business owners who don't submit plans could face stiff penalties.
Businesses would have 60 days after the rules become final to submit their theft prevention plans.
Commissioner Joe Gibbons suggested a cart amnesty week where people who have taken shopping carts could turn them in without penalty before the new rules kick in.
But what about the elderly who use shopping carts to get their groceries home?
City Manager Mike Good said the new regulations are not meant to punish anyone's grandmother. ''I would never put a 70-year-old woman in jail for taking a shopping cart,'' Good said.
_________________________________________________
Here are some more snippets of the area...
Miami Herald
CODE ENFORCEMENT OVERHAULED
BY DIANA MOSKOVITZ
March 12, 2006

Instead of a board of seven, one person will now decide code enforcement issues in Hallandale Beach. City officials say the change will speed up the code enforcement process. Critics say the measure could result in other problems being overlooked in the system. Commissioners last week voted to hire a special magistrate to rule on code violation cases. The Code Enforcement Board will now become the Code Enforcement Advisory Committee and perform duties such as community outreach...
_______________________________
Miami Herald
OFFICIAL AWAITS ETHICS RULING
BY DIANA MOSKOVITZ
March 9, 2006

Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Bill Julian may not be able to vote on one of the city's largest development project in decades. The Village at Gulfstream Park is a plan for adding condos, stores and offices to 66 acres owned by the racetrack's parent company. Julian has been a backup steward for the racetrack, overseeing horses and races to make sure everything is fair... Julian doesn't have a contract but is paid for his work by the day, he said...
_____________________________________________
So why has the city allowed The Beachside Cafe to put garbage on the beach ever since they moved into their new location, not fix the huge dumpsters that don't have lids or fencing around them? Why do they allow The Beachside Cafe to maintain feral cats by providing water and food on the beach for them rather than call Animal Control?

Miami Herald
PLANTINGS AIM TO PROTECT BEACH
By DIANA MOSKOVITZ
February 12, 2006

Hoping to protect the beachfront it has left, the Hallandale Beach wants to replace the vegetation its shoreline lost decades ago to development. City commissioners agreed unanimously Tuesday to pay for a beach revegetation project. The program focuses on planting sea oats and sea grapes to provide an anchor for the sand and keep it from washing away. The project will cost $402,540. The city is paying for it with a combination of city dollars and money from developers...
__________________________________
Miami Herald
NEEDED; TOWN CRIER FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
BY DIANA MOSKOVITZ
February 8, 2006

Hallandale Beach leaders are looking for ways to provide residents with more notice about developments proposed near their homes. Last month, people near a planned 29-story tower complained they never heard about the project until before the City Commission's final vote. On Tuesday, commissioners voted 5-0 to have City Manager Mike Good look at ways to notify more residents. Good will bring the list back to commissioners in about a month. Suggestions included...