Showing posts with label Jim DeFede. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim DeFede. Show all posts

Monday, July 16, 2012

Last year was the sweeping Miami-Dade Mayoral recall, in 17 weeks comes the house-cleaning at County Hall, but first, here comes the reform cavalry! Change Miami-Dade Now! is now open for business

In case you didn't hear about it or see it...

Anyone who objects to giving Miami-Dade County voters a choice or spreads lies about Norman Braman must have a hidden agenda!It's time for a change!
Alison Austin, Shirley Gibson, Luis Garcia and Alice Pena believe in better oversight, honest government and fiscal accountability.  
Yes, the three basic aspects of local government that Bruno Barreiro, Audrey Edmondson, Barbara Jordan and Dennis Moss have consistently failed to do over the years.


Plus, as you recall from my previous blog posts here involving the M-D County Commission meetings on the involuntary public financing of the new Marlins Stadium and how that was handled, I still haven't forgotten Comm. Dennis Moss' over-the-top insulting attitude and treatment of the hundreds of citizens who turned-out and had to wait for hours and hours in the chambers before the meeting was eventually postponed, with Moss' spite in full-display.


Just one of the many things that happened that day at County Hall that I observed and mentioned here that South Florida's sleep-walking print and TV reporters consciously chose not to mention afterwards, because they like to play nice with the commissioners and their staffs.
Moss, well, I especially want to see him kicked the hell out!


CBS4-TV, Miami
Norman Braman Denies Bullying Voters, “Handpicking” County Commission
By Jim DeFede
May 23, 2012 7:16 PM

Sunday, June 24, 2012

More on the dueling Marco Rubio biographies: Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia, author of "The Rise Of Marco Rubio"; #MarcoRubio



WFOR-TV/Miami -Facing South Florida with Jim DeFede: Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia, author of "The Rise Of Marco Rubio," June 24, 2012.


Fox News Latino
FNL Exclusive: Rubio's Unauthorized Biography Mixes Questions and Praise for the GOP's Rising Star. Juan Williams interviews Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia, author of "The Rise Of Marco Rubio," June 23, 2012.

The Washington Post
Book review: ‘The Rise of Marco Rubio’ by Manuel Roig-Franzia
By Andrew Ferguson, Published: June 21
By the look of him, you’d never guess that Marco Rubio played defensive back on his college football team — even if the school was the now-defunct Tarkio College, folded deep into the remotest cornfields of northwest Missouri. But he did, and on the gridiron he showed the same gift that has guided his path from downy-cheeked member of the West Miami City Commission at age 26 to the highest reaches of American politics: an unerring ability to be in the right place at the right time. No matter the play, “he was never out of position,” one still-impressed teammate told Manuel Roig-Franzia for his new book, “The Rise of Marco Rubio.”
Read the rest of the review at:




© 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
Above, one of my Marco Rubio photos from his June 23, 2009 appearance in Hallandale Beach at the Southeast Broward Republican Club meeting, which you can see more of at
my February 26, 2011 blog post titled, The show is Jeopardy! and the question is: "Can I have 'Midterms' for $2,000"http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/show-is-jeopardy-and-question-is-can-i.html.

As most of you regular readers of the blog know, I've been a Marco Rubio supporter since before he ran for U.S. Senate in 2009, but I also don't think he's qualified to be president and say as much.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Besides a lack of scoring coming off the bench, the other reasons the Miami Heat have lost their way in their playoff series against the Indiana Pacers -palm tree karma, simple math and lack of attention to detail

Above, the electronic mesh advertising billboard sign on the facade above the entrance gates to the AmericanAirlines Arena in downtown Miami around 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon before that night's Pacers-Heat playoff game. All photos on this post were taken Tuesday May 15, 2012, all  by South Beach Hoosier.


Besides a lack of scoring coming off the bench, the other reasons the Miami Heat lost at home Tuesday night to the Pacers in Game 2 -palm tree karma and simple math


The number of playoff games left for the Miami Heat to win the 2012 NBA title going into the best-of-seven series against the Indiana Pacers was 12, but on Tuesday afternoon, with under 4 hours to go before Game 2, already up one game to none, the total was 11, not the 12 that was indicated on the (illegal) signs placed on the palm trees in front of the arena on Biscayne Blvd., opposite The Freedom Tower.
There should've already been an "X" marked thru this number.






Above, looking west towards Biscayne Blvd. from in front of the AAA, and at bottom, looking south from there towards The Freedom Tower and downtown Miami.







Looking east and upwards towards the AAA from the sidewalk along Biscayne Blvd. 
I was in downtown Miami on Tuesday, a warm, muggy and overcast day that looked to be uncomfortable from the get-go when I left Hallandale Beach that morning.
It had glare written all over it, and the closer I got to downtown, the more it was obvious to me that it was one of those days that make sunglasses a must, even for kids.
And yet I saw plenty of tourists walking around near Bayside and the Port of Miami without them, squinting like crazy, which I'm sure will show up in many of the photos they shot that day, once they got home.

On a personal level, I knew the overcast skies and glare would play havoc with any outdoor photos or video I shot as I made my way from the Miami-Dade County Govt, HQ bldg, the Stephen Clark Building I hadn't been at since the Marlins Stadium controversy a few years. 


Having already read the illegal signage story in the Miami Herald the previous week about the Heat, largely owned by the state's wealthiest person, Micky Arison, once again throwing their weight around and acting like they were above local laws, as I went past the area in the morning, I knew I'd have to swing by later to take another first-hand look at what was what.


The Kumho Tires ad image above shows the numbers being crossed-out correctly, showing 11, but the actual sign in front of the arena was not touched, and thus, sports superstition raises its head, as does the palm tree karma for being f-ed with in the first place.
-----


http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/09/2791625/city-tells-miami-heat-to-remove.html
Miami Herald
City tells Miami Heat to remove tire ads wrapped on palm trees at arena
By Andres Viglucci
May 10, 2012

The Miami Heat must have missed the news: The Miami Commission killed a measure two weeks ago that could have allowed advertising banners to be placed on trees.
That didn’t stop the team from wrapping the trunks of 16 royal palms in front of the publicly owned American Airlines Arena on Biscayne Boulevard with ads for Kumho tires. City officials say the ads are illegal.

On Wednesday, just before game five of the Heat’s first-round playoff series with the New York Knicks, code enforcement officers ordered the team to take down the white banners, which carry the slogan “DRIVE to the CHAMPIONSHIP’’ printed sideways above the image of a car tire and a Heat flaming-basketball logo.

“Not very catchy,’’ opined assistant city manager Alice Bravo.

And not very legal, either, she said. The team, which manages the arena, didn’t apply for permits, Bravo said.

Even if it had, Miami-Dade County’s sign ordinance, which applies inside the city as well as in unincorporated areas, frowns upon signs of any kind on trees. Under a section entitled “Prohibited signs,’’ the code reads: “No sign shall be attached to trees.’’

The county owns the arena, but the city is supposed to enforce the Miami-Dade sign ordinance inside its own borders.

The team could be fined if the banners aren’t gone by Thursday, Bravo said, though the city prefers to achieve compliance first. She did not know how long the signs have been up.

The Heat, however, refused to take the signs down. In a statement Wednesday, spokeswoman Lorrie-Ann Diaz said the team would remove the “sponsorship message’’ from the banners but leave them up “until the end of the playoff run’’ while applying for a permit.

Bravo said she was uncertain whether the tree banners without an advertising component would be permissible on the arena property itself, but added that she believes draping banners on palms on the public sidewalk is not. The festooned trees are on both the arena steps and the sidewalk out front.

The Kumho tire ads, in any case, remained up as crowds of fans arrived for the game Wednesday night.

The ads-on-palms flap comes amid growing controversy over the proliferation and legality of LED billboards and other outdoor ads locally, especially in and around downtown Miami. Billboard opponents, county planning administrators and county attorney Robert Cuevas say the county ordinance bars electronic ad billboards, which the city has approved.

More recently, the city commission gave preliminary approval to LED billboards on the Gusman theater downtown, the Miami Children’s Hospital and the Knight Center, as well as in city parks. But on April 26, facing public criticism, the board killed a measure intended to allow ads on parking pay stations and bicycle-rental kiosks that was so broadly worded that it could have permitted them as well on fire hydrants, public buildings, bridges and even shade trees.

Also in violation of the rules, the critics say: The Heat’s digital mesh on the arena facade. The electronic sign, also permitted by the city, shows ads for Goya products, Kia cars, Office Depot and Kumho. But the county’s sign code explicitly disallows ads for goods and services unavailable at the site, Cuevas said in a recent legal opinion.

Cuevas’ memo said enforcement is up to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and the county commission.

The elected officials, however, have not taken action.

On Wednesday, an anti-billboard group, Scenic Miami-Dade, filed a complaint with Gimenez’s office over the Heat’s palm-tree ads. The letter opened with a single word: “Disgusting.’’

-----
As we all know, this is NOT the first time the Heat acted like they owned the property and built everything themselves, when that is not the case. It's a county-subsidized building. 





WFOR-TV
I Team: County Receives Nothing From Heat, Arena Revenue
Reporting Jim DeFede
May 5, 2011 10:52 PM




Biscayne Times
A Waterfront Park for All to Enjoy
REMEMBER “PARCEL B,” THE LAND BEHIND THE MIAMI HEAT’S ARENA? YOU OWN IT BUT CAN’T USE IT -- YET
Written By Erik Bojnansky   
AUGUST 2011

Miami NewTimes
Banana Republican blog
Micky Arison and Miami Heat Get Audited by Miami-Dade Inspector General
By Francisco Alvarado 
January 13 2012 at 2:02 PM


Sunday, May 8, 2011

Miami Heat owner, one of U.S.'s richest citizens, continues to stiff Miami-Dade County taxpayers for tens of millions of dollars for YEARS!



It's NOT exactly Breaking News that Miami Heat majority owner Mickey Arison, one of the U.S.'s richest citizens,
chairman and CEO of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise line operator, and THE wealthiest person in the state of Florida according to Forbes magazine, continues to stiff Miami-Dade County taxpayers for tens of millions of dollars and promised improvements for YEARS.
http://blogs.forbes.com/joselambiet/2010/09/23/florida-boasts-third-highest-number-of-billionaires-in-2010-forbes-400/

But Channel 4 I-Team reporter Jim DeFede, in his impressive spot-on marshaling of facts will no doubt open the eyes of many South Florida residents who were previously in the dark, and show the true character of the influential individual that the Miami Herald regularly lionizes, with little criticism of him ever making it into print.
The most fascinating aspect of that answer is the willingness of the county to simply abdicate any responsibility they might have in making sure they are not losing a possible source of money.

The new Miami-Dade County mayor, to be elected in two weeks, on May 24th, needs to use the bully-pulpit and let everyone who is anyone know that taxpayers down here won't be played for suckers in the future.

The last time I saw a good fact-filled report on this topic, which emphasized the missing bayfront public park that Arison was required to construct as part of his agreement, was probably 4-6 years ago by WPLG-TV/Channel 10's Glenna Milberg.

Related article is at:
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/05/05/i-team-county-receives-nothing-from-heat-arena-revenue/

Friday, October 30, 2009

Sunday's CBS4 I-Team Special at 6:30 p.m.

Sunday's CBS4 I-Team Special at 6:30 p.m.,
right before CBS News 60 Minutes.

On Sunday's show, c
orrespondent Scott Pelley
tours the Sanofi Pasteur plant in Swiftwater, Pa.,
the only one in America making the H1N1
flu vaccine.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/60_minutes/video/?pid=NFDTH07Oqk2qQkXtPVFH7EJ3FM4AMxtZ

Reminder: Dolphins at Jets kick-off on Channel 4
Sunday is 1 p.m.


CBS4 & My33
News from CBS4 & My33
Quick Links


CBS4 SPOTLIGHTS I-TEAM INVESTIGATIONS;
Half Hour Special Includes Three New Stories


Miami, Florida... The CBS4 I-Team has been responsible for bringing South Florida viewers ground-breaking investigations that have uncovered a number of frauds, scandals, scams and hidden dangers that were adverse to the public interest. On November 1 at 6:30 PM, CBS4 will present a half-hour special, ""The I-Team Investigates: A CBS4 News Special," featuring four new I-Team investigations. The program will be anchored by CBS4's Antonio Mora and feature I-Team reporters Michele Gillen, Jim DeFede and Stephen Stock.

The segments:

Michele GillenTrucking danger investigation - Michele Gillen takes viewers into the world of 18 wheelers where an I-Team investigation finds drivers are driving with little sleep, broken brakes, and while talking on cell phones... and killing alarming numbers of Floridians in the process. Gillen shows how fines for violating the sleep policy have not changed since the Eisenhower administration. Given today's difficult economy, insiders tell us that companies are pushing their drivers to work illegal hours, carry illegal loads, and drive broken trucks... and they are doing it because they need the money.


Defede

Marlins construction - From the moment construction began on the new Florida Marlins Stadium, nearby canals, water pumps and even the Miami River became contaminated with a milky substance that engineers have traced back to the dewatering operation at the old Orange Bowl site. For weeks city engineers blasted Hunt-Moss, the main contractor for the stadium, with emails demanding they take steps to control the contamination. Jim DeFede reports.


Stephen Stock

Medicare Fraud - Medicare Fraud results in $60 billion that's stolen from the pockets of tax payers every year nationwide. And South Florida is at the center of it all. The government reports that more than $4 billion dollars in Medicare Fraud has been scammed by South Florida companies in the last four years... and that roughly $2 Billion in false claims have been stolen by a group of companies established in about a ten block area in Miami alone... what federal investigators call the epicenter of Medicare fraud in the United States. Working in conjunction with CBS' 60 Minutes, the CBS4 I-Team spent the last six months penetrating the underworld of this Medicare fraud problem. Stephen Stock talks to those who actually committed the fraud and see how it works firsthand.

WFOR and WBFS/My 33 are part of CBS Television Stations, a division of CBS Corporation.

CBS4 is "always on." For local news, sports scores, weather updates, traffic reports, entertainment news and the best video experience available on the web 24 hours a day, go to CBS4.com.

-----------------------------
http://cbs4.com/iteam


Saturday, May 23, 2009

Latest Poll Info from Rasmussen Reports on Govt. Spending Echoes South Florida Voters' Sentiment

Excerpts from an email that I sent out Friday to some of the
concerned citizens and elected officials of this city and region,
and the South Florida press.
-------------------------------------------
April 28, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Just received some very interesting info this morning
from Rasmussen Reports via their free daily updates,
something you might want to consider getting as well.

The article, below, on voter sentiment regarding govt.
spending was just released at 10:30 a.m. this morning,
and is exactly in line with everything I hear from public
policy types and politically-involved citizens at events
I attend throughout South Florida, yet other than with
the recent case with BSO, the Broward Sheriff's Office,
which has gotten a lot of media attention, where exactly
are the meaningful yet intelligent cuts in govt. spending
that you can point to that ought to have been forthcoming?

77% See Politicians Unwillingness to Cut Government
Spending as Bigger Problem Than Voter Resistance to
Tax Hikes


Where are the media reports showing examples of local govt.
getting smarter and slimmer thru technology, that were all
the rage just a few years ago?
The manana bureaucracy I encounter in South Florida on a
daily basis seems as dysfunctional and non-responsive as ever,
with our own city of Hallandale Beach being Ground Zero
for dysfunctional govt. for reasons that we all can recite.


April 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier


April 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Perfect example of govt. dysfunction: Last August
at the city's public budget meeting at HB City Hall, I specifically
challenged HB City Manager Mike Good and his staff to explain
the logic of the city persisting for years in using garbage cans
without lids at THE windiest place in the whole city
-the public beach.
(It's not like that last fact is 'Breaking News'.)

His response: lots of talk. no action, just like his
promise moments later to place blue recycling
bins on the beach itself.

The logical results are self-evident to anyone, above,
a photo from a Saturday last month around 3 p.m. or so.
Nine long months later, the city still uses the same exact
garbage receptacles, sans lids, which is part of why the
beach is SO dumpy and unattractive, and there are
still no blue recycling bins on the public beach,
where beach-goers actually are, to make encourage it,
not make it impossible.


Here in Hallandale Beach, fellow citizens and residents
appealing improperly-cited code violations from the
city still get a very rude, lethargic and combative response
from City Hall when availing themselves of their rights
under the state's Sunshine Laws to get public records
they need to successfully appeal.

Hallandale Beach police officers get approval to drive their
police cars even farther into the far western Broward suburbs
to get home -at Hallandale Beach taxpayer's expense.

Yet the public beach here that is so terribly maintained is
NEVER patrolled by these same HB police officers in ways
that are even remotely comparable to our neighbors,
especially on three-day holiday weekends like this one.

Everyone who ever goes to the beach knows this is true,
it's "common knowledge," but HB City Manager Mike
Good and Mayor Joy Cooper and their Rubber Stamp
Crew just shrug their shoulders, like they have no real power
to change that policy, or create a new positive dynamic.
That's just another reason why they are each so personally
contemptible -their sheer laziness and apathy.

April 28, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Above, hen coming home to roost in Hallandale Beach
about wasteful govt. spending and utter lack of competency?

The contractor lifeguards are literally overwhelmed on
these sorts of weekends, yet the HB Police will NEVER
be seen on or near the beach except in the case of an
actual emergency, despite how large the crowds will get,
the amount of illegal/underage drinking taking place
in public, etc.

I'll be there late Sunday morning before returning home
for the Indy 500 telecast and will record the scene with
some photos before I leave, which you'll see soon.
Prediction: it will be just like last year's Memorial Day
Weekend... and the year before that and the year before....

To me, it'll be very interesting to see whether or not
-or to what extent- South Florida pols and those
in Tallahassee are able to resist this popular citizen
sentiment that this Rasmussen Report pinpoints,
the one that for some citizens, found catharsis thru
the recent Tea Party movement that the Miami
Herald and Beth Reinhard ignored for months
while other media round the country covered it
like a real story.
And what effect, if any, that sentiment will have on
South Florida pols in the next 16 months before the
Nov. 2010 election.

Will they accept the new economic/spending paradigm,
or will some, like the tone-deaf Broward School Board
and its administrators, with their fatal obsession with
large pots of construction money and lobbyists' money
and largesse, for a dysfunctional system that is actually
losing students and their tax-paying parents in droves,
persist in their old parochial views, and keep calling this
a temporary hiccup, eager to go back to their prior
ruinous spending behavior?

Channel 4's Jim DeFede has some thoughts on
South Florida's bureaucracy and fixes his gaze south on
Miami-Dade County and the very unhelpful 311 "Help Line"
that M-D taxpayers are paying for, but being poorly-served
by:
DeFede: Why I Hate Miami-Dade 311

Have a safe Memorial Day holiday and remember what
and whom we honor this weekend!

Just as an FYI, my earliest ancestor who fought for this
country once marched from Alexandria, VA with
Capt. George Washington and other colonists as part
of General Braddock's long march to the French-controlled
Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh.

Years later, under very different circumstances,
he served as a Revolutionary War spy for General
George Washington against the British Army
he'd once fought alongside.

After the war, for his brave efforts, he received
a large parcel of land north of Steubenville, Ohio
-where the first Federal Land Grant office
was later located- which is why my ancestors
were among the very first citizens of Ohio,
having crossed the Ohio River and relocated from Washington Township, PA, south of Pittsburgh, even before Ohio became a state in 1803.
-----------------------

For more info on recent developments with BSO
and their budget battles with the County Commission,
please see WFOR's Ted Scouten's report from Monday
Details Emerge About BSO Layoffs


and some other recent BSO stories at

Also take a look at these two Scott Wyman blog posts from
Friday's Sun-Sentinel Broward Politics blog:
County savings targeted in fight over budget deficit