Showing posts with label Marcum LLP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marcum LLP. Show all posts

Friday, March 6, 2015

ICYMI: the DOUBLE Hallandale Beach connection on the recent story about fired Miami Gardens police chief arrested after a prostitution arrest; Surprise! It's City Manager Renee Miller and the Hallandale Beach CRA

In case you forgot about this -or never knew it- the former Miami Gardens deputy Police Chief Paul Miller referred to in the Miami Herald article below about the just-resigned Stephen Johnsonwho resigned amid allegations of harassment and illegal stop-and-frisk tactics at the 207 Quikstop, is the husband of current Hallandale Beach City Manager Renee (Crichton) Miller.






Renee Miller, whom you will recall like it was yesterday, is the very same woman who so famously and frequently lectured us over recent years at HB City Commission and CRA meetings that one of the reasons that SHE was so well-qualified to undermine the valid and scathing criticisms that you and I have so frequently made public with self-evident evidence about the longtime incompetent and unsatisfactory doings of the HB CRA and the equally-curious, perplexing (and unsatisfactory) 

policies and practices of HBPD that routinely wastes personnel and resources like there's no tomorrow, was because... SHE helped create and manage them in Miami Gardens before she was (so foolishly) hired here.

Of course, when a certain charming, well-informed and well-known female HB civic activist of our acquaintance decided to contact the City of Miami Gardens last year to inquire about this boast of Renee Miller's and put it to the test, the folks in Miami Gardens more than scratched their heads.
Let's just say that THEY didn't quite remember recent history the way our current City Manager tells it. 
Not at all. 
Surprise!

In case you missed the amazing recent This American Life segment on the Miami Gardens Police Dept. and the 207 Quickstop while Paul Miller was Deputy Chief, it's here.
You might want to sit down before you listen to it!


The second HB angle on the story is that Police Chief Johnson was the pastor at HB-based Bethel House of God Church at 516 NW 4th Avenue, a past recipient of HB CRA largesse.

You might better remember Bethel from this doc written by Marcum LLP, a January 2012 draft for the City of Hallandale Beach in the form of an Agreed-Upon Procedures Draft in response to the HBCRA's years of completely inadequate and invisible financial control over millions of HBCRA dollars by City Managers Mike Good and Mark Antonio and their two -and current- Assistant City Managers, Nydia Rafols and
Jennifer Frastai, former City Attorney David Jove, Mayor Joy Cooper and the four other members of the HB City Commission acting as the CRA Board, where nobody drawing a HB paycheck ever bothered to verify whether CRA funds were being spent properly or prudently, to say nothing of being spent as outlined in their own formal requests for funding.
Or, whether it had simply been used for pocket money. 

Which as we know from the Broward State's Attorney's Office, happened in the case of one of Mayor Cooper's most-vocal political supporters, Dr. Deborah Brownthe little minnow that was arrested per Inspector General: Hallandale Beach ‘grossly mismanaged’ millions in public funds
while no HB elected officials or bureaucrats were arrested or fired.

Or perhaps you know Bethel House better from this doc from 2012;

Yes, THAT Dr. Deborah Brown.

From last Spring:

BROWN, DEBORAH R

INMATE INFORMATION

Arrest Number: 801400840 Arrest Date: 05/19/2014 
Race: B Sex: F DOB: 10/09/1961 
Height: 504  Weight: 179 Hair: BRO Eyes: BRO 
Arresting Agency: MAIN JAIL 
* Location: Main Jail 
* Visitation: 2B View Schedule
* Expected Release Date:  

click to enlarge  

CHARGE(S) INFORMATION

Charge Number:1
Case Number:14006686cf10a
Statute:812.014-2c1
Description:GRAND THEFT>$300<$5000
Charge Comment:NIC
Charge Status:PENDING TRIAL (Surety Bond is pending)
Bond Type:BD
Bond Amount:1,000.00
Disposition:
Projected Sent. End Date*:
* Subject to Change

The Deborah Brown the city gave its MLK Humanitarian of the Year award to, remember, even as I discovered on my own -long before the Broward IG- that she was routinely failing to file required non-profit financial documents for her group with the IRS.
Not that anyone at HB City Hall was checking that.

The very woman who annually leased property from the city/CRA in NW Hallandale Beach for years for peanuts -$10.
AFTER the city poured lots of taxpayer money into it.

Property that as you'll recall had previously belonged to Comm. Anthony Sanders and his wife, which was bought from them by the city for about $89,000 more than it was actually worth.
And when time came to vote on the purchase, not surprisingly, Comm. Sanders didn't
have the good sense to recuse himself on the vote, as HB's former City Attorney David 
Jove, the legal bump-on-the-log waiting to retire and collect his pension, simply let it all 
slide, as he had for so many years.

Trust me, the Local10 video with Glenna Milberg, as well as my own comments, speak volumes: 



The Hallandale Beach scandal that won't go away

Above,  501 N.W. 1st Avenue, which in Hallandale Beach polite society and public policy circles is considered THE most egregious example of dozens of exasperating and highly-questionable examples of dubious government spending and crony capitalism that've taken place on Mayor Joy Cooper's ten-year watch, and one of the most dubious of any in Broward County, which is REALLY saying something. 
It's the infamous former property owned by HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and his wife, Jessica, that has seen so many tens of thousands of Hallandale Beach taxpayer dollars and CRA dollars poured into it. 
For what, THIS?

A property which was bought by the city without ANY plan for its future use, and which is now rented to a non-profit for $10 a year, and which Sanders can still use for free? 
(Some of the above is from 2012 blog posts.) 
The same public property that Deborah Brown's brother, Josh, used for some very curious purposes, including, perhaps, at least temporarily for purposes of running for office.
But isn't using that a prohibited purpose on public property? 

Yes.

The same public property controlled by Deborah Brown that had partisan campaign signs for Mayor Cooper, Comm. Sanders and Comm. Julian on it for WEEKS in 2012 prior to the November election?
Campaign signs on taxpayer property? Yes.





From my October 15, 2012 blog post titled, 'Ethics? Not for us! Follow-up to my post re Hallandale Beach's unethical "business as usual" attitude, with "special rules for special people" if they are named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders; What ethics? What rules? @MayorCooper, @SandersHB"

Deborah Brown's attack on a Keith London for Mayor volunteer at a HB election site at Ingalls Park in SW HB on Election Day in 2012 precipitated HBPD being called in to bring order there.
And actually having to keep many police officers on hand to make sure that Brown and 
other Cooper for Mayor supporters didn't start physically attacking their opponents -again.

Or did you never read about that bit of news in the Herald and the Sun-Sentinel?
For obvious reasons, you also never saw that fact appear in the HB CRA-subsidized South Florida Sun-Times, HB City Hall's propaganda sheet.
HB citizens' reality in the current media age is as certain as death and taxes: being ignored ad infinitum and watching as far too many print and TV reporters accept pablum from HB City Hall as an explanation rather than concentrating on what is right in front of them and raining cold hard facts down upon officials and forcing them to account for what REALLY happens here.

But then the reality here is that two groups that ought to be looking out for HB citizens, the Broward IG office and the Broward States Attorney office are NOT fully doing their job with any sign of gusto, either, given how much entrenched incompetency and corruption has been going for years in this target-rich environment.

As it happens, since I was at Ingalls Park within minutes of HBPD being called, I took several photos of all the HBPD cops forced to stand around for hours and hours doing nothing but drinking Cokes and playing with their cell phones.
I never ran the photos on my blog because at a certain point, even after all these years, no matter how hard I try to stay vigilant, how do you (I) accurately describe the surreal dimensions of HB's everyday reality?

Trust me, people in the rest of Florida and around the country can't believe what we routinely are forced to bear and to accept as "normal" every day in Hallandale Beach.
Nobody is going to help us but ourselves.
More thoughts on that next week.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

City of Hallandale Beach thumbs its nose at the FL Joint Legislative Auditing Comm., even as the common sense rationale for JLAC to perform a thorough audit of the entire Hallandale Beach CRA has NEVER been more overwhelming -or more desperately needed by the citizens of this community -after hearing the continued obfuscation and spin of Messrs Cooper, Lewy & Sanders after years of their personal mischief & neglect that has gotten the city's CRA in this mess in the first place. THEIR personal lack of oversight and accountability for the crony capitalism merry-go-round that they were only too happy to feed with CRA dollars. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" they yelled like small children. Meanwhile, CRA Attorney Zelikow is oblivious to the numerous conflicts-of-interests right in front of him. Oblivious, myopic, it's all the same thing when poor oversight is apparent like it is here in Hallandale Beach

 
 July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. The photo of HB City Hall above was snapped on my way into Wednesday's meeting that proved to be such a truly embarrassing debacle for long-overdue accountability and transparency for the taxpayers of this city, who are perpetually run roughshod over by Mayor Joy Cooper and her current Rubber Stamp Crew of Alexander Lewy and Anthony A. Sanders. 
The City of Hallandale Beach thumbs its nose at the FL Joint Legislative Auditing Comm., even as the common sense rationale for JLAC to perform a thorough audit of the entire Hallandale Beach CRA has NEVER been more overwhelming -or more desperately needed by the citizens of this community -after hearing the continued obfuscation and spin of Messrs Cooper, Lewy & Sanders after years of their personal mischief & neglect that has gotten the city's CRA in this mess in the first place. THEIR personal lack of oversight and accountability for the crony capitalism merry-go-round that they were only too happy to feed with CRA dollars. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" they yelled like small children. Meanwhile, CRA Attorney Zelikow is oblivious to the numerous conflicts-of-interests right in front of him. Oblivious, myopic, it's all the same thing when poor oversight is apparent like it is here in Hallandale Beach
------


The tweet the next day in the Broward Bulldog, a genuine journalistic enterprise, unlike the faux newspaper that receives a sweetheart CRA loan and comes complete with a propaganda column by Mayor Joy Cooper.

Wednesday night the City of Hallandale Beach City Commission thumbed its nose at the bipartisan Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC), voting 3-2 to reject JLAC's formal request that the Hallandale Beach CRA Board of Directors -the five-member City Commission- get an Attorney General's Opinion from FL Attorney General Pam Bondi's office. 

Voting against the specific JLAC request: 
Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper -by phone on her vacation somewhere in the worldand HB Commissioners Alexander Lewy and Anthony A. Sanders.
Voting to comply with JLAC request: HB Commissioners Michele Lazarow and William Julian.

At one point in the frequently confounding and rambling discussion that so often willfully ignored common sense and the past ten years of history in thsi town, when HB CRA Attorney Steven W. Zelkowitz (of GrayRobinson PA) was saying why he believed the HB CRA Board should NOT accede to the JLAC's common sense request and instead listen to himself and Hallandale Beach City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield, Zelkowitz commented that FL Attorney General Pam Bondi -and presumably her office full of experienced litigatorshad no more expertise in CRA law and related matters than anyone else, and that she was just a member of the Florida Bar just like him.

Essentially, Zelkowitz was telling his bosses and the people of this city that AG Bondi's opinion was due no special deference, so why bother asking for it, even though it's free?
No, don't do that, instead, better to listen to the two attorneys on the dais.
Which is not too self-serving and parochial, now is it?


July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

More than is usually the case at a meeting at HB City Hall, it's really too bad you readers could not have been present as eyewitnesses in the Commission Chambers and heard the venom and self-justifying nonsense coming from Mayor Cooper over the the poor quality public loudspeaker when she was speaking and frequently interrupting others about about how neither the Broward Inspector General's Office or the JLAC had the authority to demand anything of them, much less, make them pay back funds to the city CRA that were used for things that are (clearly) inappropriate.
Like fireworks.

In her first few months on the job last Summer, HB City Manager Renee Miller made quite a concerted effort to be seen around town in public as a genuine reformer and genuine believer in and practitioner of meaningful transparency -perhaps to curry the acceptance of the reform element of this city with which I and my friends are associated with, even in her personal conversations with them and me.

Unfortunately, in the ensuing months, Miller has, thru her own actions and words, revealed herself to be anything but that much-needed reformer for this town's frustrated citizens taxpayers.

Instead of being that much-desired breath-of-fresh-air, Miller has been no change at all from her immediate predecessors, Mike Good and Mark A. Antonio, who realized that the secret to their keeping their job was being able to count to one -and keeping Mayor Cooper happy.

Even if that meant pretty much ignoring the desires, opinions and policy choices of the other four elected members of the HB City Commission, a fact that's been obvious to anyone paying attention.

On Wednesday night, HB City Manager Miller was particularly adamant about the city NOT paying back any funds to the CRA.
The CRA that -surprise- she is the Director of.

Wednesday night was classic cocksure and autocratic Joy Cooper, constantly maligning people and groups with a different perspective and impugning the true motives of others.

Even those that weren't there in the room to defend themselves, like the JLAC, who certainly never expected that anyone who had fallen into such a financial and ethical hole like the city's CRA has has fallen into under Cooper the past ten years, would have the gall to question the bona fides and motives of the very people trying to throw her and the CRA a rope to get out of the hole.
But question and malign them she did -it's who she is.

I taped the whole meeting and at times could barely control my frustration at what I was seeing and hearing, but then that's how every meeting with Mayor Cooper goes, since logic and reason never intersect, and her aggrieved sense of pettiness, the perpetual chip on her shoulder that she parades around with, is treated like it was the same thing as immutable facts.

If many of you readers far from these shores had been there, you'd have gotten an eagle's-eye view of what sort of seriously disconnected elected officials and city administrators HB citizens have been up against for years at HB City Hall in their efforts to get to the truth about where all the money went.

Their battles to get an honest audit of the whole CRA, not the mini-audit of selected area of the CRA that the city did a few years ago, which made Marcum LLP's report a must-read whodunit, full of anonymous or ghost-like employees who must've removed all those massive amounts of files and documents they couldn't ever find, and hundreds and hundreds of exceptions to the city's very own rules.

That. of course, is to say nothing of all of the city employees approving money going out without checking for appropriate forms or approval or was even being spent for the purposes for which it was intended...

(And that was just in the small portion of the CRA that the City Commission would allow to be examined, since as the folks from Marcum LLP were always at great pains to remind everyone, what they did was NOT, technically an audit.

MARCH 9, 2012
Wednesday night's HB City Comm. mtg. re the gory details of Marcum LLP's audit of the City of Hallandale Beach and its entrenched anti-Sunshine, anti-taxpayer culture
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/wednesday-nights-hb-city-comm-mtg-re.html

MARCH 7, 2012
Csaba Kulin continues connecting-the-dots on Marcum LLP's devastating audit of Hallandale Beach, revealing how city's own rules were routinely broken and leaving taxpayers on the hook

MARCH 6, 2012
More on the $20 Million of Hallandale Beach city contracts that went unchecked -Csaba Kulin re Marcum LLP's limited audit of "Exceptional" Hallandale Beach City Hall and its longstanding dysfunctional practices that insult HB taxpayers
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/more-on-20-million-of-hallandale-beach.html )

After the despicable performance by Cooper, Lewy & Sanders, the common sense rationale for JLAC performing a thorough audit of the entire HB CRA has never been more overwhelming -or more desperately needed by the citizens of this community.

And what can you say about Steven Zelkowitz, the HB CRA attorney, the hired-hand from GrayRobinson PA  who doesn't realize or doesn't care that Murvin Wright of the CRA Advisory Board -appointed by Mayor Cooper!- and whose meetings Zelkowitz is supposed to attend, is a walking/talking poster boy for conflict-of-interests. 
But Zekowitz is THE expert. LOL!

Don't know what's worse, that Zelkowitz really believes what he says or that he's dumb enough or naive enough to continue to believe what he hears from the very people at HB City Hall who've been guilty of trying so hard to hide the truth and evade responsibility for their own actions for so many years.


So, what do you residents, taxpayers and small business owners of Hallandale Beach say about the possibility of having a JLAC "field hearing" in Hallandale Beach in the coming months, so that members of the Committee can come into the belly of the beast and see for themselves how millions of CRA dollars have been squandered for one thing after another over the years with no tangible positive results that HB residents can see or feel or taste.

Come see the longstanding graffiti, still highly-visible in the same places year-after-year on the city's main roads, especially on U.S.-1/Federal Highway, directly in front of and in some places ON the new and old HB City Halls.


I don't know about you, but when I see lots of graffiti, I think "blight."
And when I live in a city that doesn't do anything about it for years...

Self-evident graffiti ignored for years by the powers-that-be at HB City Hall, the Police Dept. and the CRA staff that is supposed to actually help get rid of blight, not just ignore it, as I told then-City manager Mark A. Antonio and the City Commission in 2011 at a City Commission meeting, where I publicly chastised him and the city Commission for ignoring what was right in front of the very building we were all in.
Why did Antonio and Mayor Cooper and the hundreds of HB city employees do nothing about it I asked?

Despite coming into the same building for work every weekday for over ten years, City Manager Antonio said he'd never seen any of legions of graffiti-covered signs that were and are and have been up-and-down U.S.-1/Federal Highway for many years once you head north from the City of Aventura in Miami-Dade County, despite the signs hiding-in-plain-sight right in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall -and Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex directly
across the street- courtesy of, among others, "esc" and "HGS."



July 10, 2013 photos by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. Above, directly in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall on U.S.-1/South Federal Highway. Below, directly in front of the main Hallandale Beach Post Office directly south and across the street from HB City Hall. Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex are across the street.   



Yes, a lot of people in town are slowly coming around to the idea that only this sort of shock treatment, a visit, will cure the sick patient that is the HB CRA and the people who run it so badly.

(The longstanding eyesore and firetrap that is the old HB City Hall on West Dixie Highway & S.W. 3rd Street., less than a half-mile from the present City Hall, will get an update with photos soon on the blog, where the city's neglect of what it has been to its residential neighbors across the street has long been one of my pet projects.)

The JLAC can come and hear first-hand from HB residents about how they cringe at hearing the preposterous things said routinely in this city at CRA meetings by the Directors.
Or as was the case on Wednesday night, hearing how things like expending CRA funds for fireworks are really economic measures according to the mayor and city manager, which help people within the CRA.
Hmm-m... despite the fact that fireworks actually take place in an area that is NOT in the CRA -the beach?

That's an odd argument to make, but it's just part-and-parcel of the unreality that exists here.

To those of you who've asked me recently, even before Wednesday night's debacle, I agree with you: "What a friend we have in Jesus." 
Still, I don't want to leave things strictly up to fate or karma, so I'll happily sign your petition for Recall of Comm. Sanders in a heartbeat, just tell me when and where to go, and I'll sign and help you get even more signatures. 
The number of signatures needed to trigger a recall election of Comm. Sanders is actually much lower than you think.



July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Complex on S. Federal Highway/U.S.-1, as I left Wednesday night's meeting. To remind you again, this is where attention to details and appearances has never been their strong suit in the nine-plus years I've lived here, since returning to South Florida after 15 years in the Washington, D.C. area. Thanks to the city's incompetent, myopic and poorly-managed DPW, the spotlights on the city's monument sign above, at the corner of U.S.-1 & S.E. 5th St., have NOT worked since June of 2012. Which is to say that they have NEVER worked since City Manager Renee C. Miller has been City Manager. But attention to details and appearances really DO matter when you are a government, don't they? The situation with the lights not working on this sign is but the tip of the iceberg. Seeing this sort of thing all over the city, it's hard not to imagine how badly more-complicated things that are hidden away from the public are really botched, isn't it? Exactly.

This was the first news article posted online by the only visible reporter who showed-up, though it's clearly incomplete, as we've come to expect from that newspaper, given how short their editors like pieces to be, shorn of context that explains why things happened the way they did. 
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-cra-hallandale-response-20130710,0,505886.story


Of course, that doesn't prevent their reporters from actually trying to develop independent sources of information and actually going around the city herself to speak with people who know what's going on, instead of only dealing with people at HB City Hall.
But that's NOT what they do at that newspaper.
Not now, not ever, and that's why it's so terribly unsatisfying and frustrating to the people who live here.

They know implicitly that this lack of effort by TV and print reporters and columnists to really dig below the surface, is something that Mayor Cooper counts on and has been extremely appreciative of over the years-reporters who don't independently observe and only report, when they do show-up, on what's visible, only playing the role of court transcribers and re-writer of press releases.

And that's part of why it is that Mayor Cooper's reign of ruin and malicious and willful mischief with the CRA has been allowed to continue for so long, and why people like Alexander Lewy and Anthony A. Sanders can get away with their questionable antics because nobody in the news media is paying attention, lifting a finger and holding them to account.
A bad press corps is a license to steal.
A bad press corps that doesn't even bother to show-up is... our reality in Hallandale Beach

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Joy's World -the illogical and upside-down world of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper: City's lack of internal controls, common sense, and finesse harms innocent citizens who DIDN'T do anything wrong; city waited until they were owed for 21 months of water/sewage -$14,588.42- before doing something -the wrong thing!; @MayorCooper

View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.
NBC6/ WTVJ-TV Miami video: The city of Hallandale Beach is preparing to cut off water to residents of a building on NE 4th Court over a water bill dispute. Residents Kenny Johnson and Terri Mammarelli and city spokesman Peter Dobbens discuss the issue.

NBC6/WTVJ-TV News
Hallandale Beach To Cut Off Water to Apartment Residents Over Huge Bill
By Christina Hernandez
Tuesday, Aug 7, 2012
Updated 9:24 PM EDT
Article at:

CBS4/WFOR-TV News
Hallandale Beach Landlord Accused Of Not Paying Water Bill For Years 
By Carey Codd
August 7, 2012 11:20 PM
Article at:
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/08/07/hallandale-beach-landlord-accused-of-not-paying-water-bill-for-years/

The Upside-down World of Joy Cooper: City of Hallandale Beach's continuing lack of internal controls and common sense harms its citizens -city waited until they were owed for 21 months -$14,588.42- before doing something -the wrong thing!

When you haven't been paid in three months, that's a hint!

Now, having waited so long to actually find out what was going on, they've let the owners get them over a barrel and city mouthpiece Peter Dobens now gets to play the PR stooge role he plays so very well:
There is nobody I know in Hallandale Beach who is the least bit surprised that the city has so thoroughly botched this.
If these HB citizens are forced out of their homes by the city on Monday, thru no fault of their own, trust me, there will be a LOT of news media there to record the event for posterity.

And seriously, why is there SO much reluctance by reporters Hernandez and Codd to to publicly name the property owners who didn't pay the bills on time after having been given the appropriate payments by their tenants?
I'm dumb-founded.

Frankly, this whole thing sounds so much like the way the city tried to recoup money it was owed for CRA loans, where last year, before he dashed out the door with a huge pension, former City Attorney David Jove was forced to publicly admit how feeble and unsatisfactory to HB taxpayers his efforts were.

I only wish that I could find the video I shot of it at a City Commission meeting so that you could see the whole sad exercise for yourself -his reluctance to do anything was galling.
It was his job!


see March 8, 2012's 
Disorganized files likely to lead to annual financial audit of Hallandale's CRA
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-03-08/news/fl-hallandale-audit-meeting-20120308_1_files-city-commission-audit

As I've written here so many times in the past, the work ethic of most City of Hallandale Beach employees the public interacts with daily leaves so much to be desired, that the City of Weston's model is looking better and better to me and others everyday.

If you are not familiar with that particular model, I'll be posting something about that soon and it will definitely get and keep your attention if you're interested in keeping city taxes lower.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Csaba Kulin exposes the multi-million dollar bill to be borne by Hallandale Beach taxpayers for having a disconnected City Commission that was -and is- NOT interested in paying close attention to detail or in asking tough questions. That's how and why former City Managers Intindola and Good have made out like bank robbers

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Complex monument, Hallandale Beach, FL. May 15, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Csaba Kulin exposes the multi-million dollar bill to be borne by  Hallandale Beach taxpayers for having a disconnected City Commission that was -and is- NOT interested in paying close attention to detail or in asking tough questions. That's how and why former City Managers Intindola and Good have made out like bank robbers 


Most regular readers of this blog might recall that a few weeks ago I promised that I'd soon have some pretty jaw-dropping evidence to share about what's really been going on in this ocean-side city for years, thanks to consistently having the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time.


Now, thanks to the diligent hard work and research of my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist, Csaba Kulin, the taxpayers of this city and anyone else truly interested in good government -or the lack of it- can finally wrap their heads around these galling and unbelievable numbers.


Csaba details for you in very stark terms what the true cost has been the past ten years for having elected officials in Hallandale Beach who did NOT pay close attention to detail, and who did NOT demand a reasonable level of scrutiny of public policy proposals or changes in personnel policy. 


The true costs of having so many inattentive and easily-distracted City Commissioners who did NOT ask probing questions, or make the financial well-being of this city and its taxpayers their first priority.
Instead, we've had people who were just happy to sit on the dais and almost eager to act as mere Rubber Stamps, lest they be required to do any real thinking.




Csaba and I have been talking and meeting about this particular pension change matter for many, many months.


Which is to say that even as former HB City Manager R.J. Intindola, up in Georgia, and his one-man peanut gallery in HB, Andrew Markoff, have continually sought to publicly malign and attack, in both print and at HB City Commission meetings, myself, Comm. Keith London, 
Change Hallandale's Michael Butler and many other HB residents who desperately want genuine reform, transparency and accountability in this city, I've kept quiet.


Why?
Because I had the satisfaction of already knowing that the cold hard facts were going to come out eventually, and rain hard on the three of them and Dotty Ross, Joy Cooper and William "Bill" Julian.


The truth that would show that even while South Florida's incurious news media has largely snoozed the past ten years on what was happening in Hallandale Beach, with the Miami Herald not even regularly covering public meetings in-person, facts would come out that showed how self-righteous and self-serving former City Managers Intindola and Good were.



(My Sept. 28, 2011 post titled, Holding a mirror to R.J. Intindola - May be time soon to publicly open-up on know-it-all ex-HB CM, and reveal 'inconvenient' facts he avoids really raised the hackles of former City Manager Intindola, since he doesn't like public criticism of any kind, so he accused me in print of being a liar, and thought he would embarrass me. But as you read the facts stated by Csaba below, you'll see that I was right and also see why Intindola's so sensitive -he's got a lot to be defensive about. And a lot to be embarrassed about!  

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/holding-mirror-to-rj-intindola-may-be.html )


Facts that would also show what a complete dupe Markoff was for continually singing the praises of someone like Intindola, who aggressively pushed a pension change to the City Commission one year before he retired himself, a change that he stands to personally benefit from to the tune of an extra $2.1 Million from HB taxpayers.


To paraphrase what I wrote last month on April 11th about former HB Commissioner and 2012 candidate William "Bill" Julian, "Ten years of NOT just being being wrong on the issues and facts that were important for Hallandale Beach's beleaguered  taxpayers and residents who wanted to see their city improved, but ten years of being stubbornly foolish and myopic in their bad judgment."
30 Weeks until Election Day, and candidate William "Bill" Julian STILL shows no remorse over his years of myopia, incompetency, apathy and bad votes that hurt HB taxpayers and made the city a laughingstock. Just like Comm. Sanders!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/30-weeks-until-election-day-and.html



It's taken much longer to post here than I originally planned, but I believe the wait was worth it to get the true facts out to the public who'll actually be footing this bill for decades to come.
And who will be voting in November.


-----
May 18, 2012



Dear Friends:


For a number of years, I have been very critical of the management and administration of our city of Hallandale Beach.
The Mayor and the City Commission, prompted by the City Manager, have made many terrible policy decisions over the past ten years that have put this city's residents and businesses on edge -and on the hook.


Today, I'm going to share with you a little of what I've learned and expose one of worst decisions ever made at City Hall, a decision that will continue to negatively affect the City’s finances and policy choices for the next 8-10 years.


Prior to September 30, 2001, the City of Hallandale Beach employed a 401K type pension plan for its Professional/Management employees.
On August 8, 2001, encouraged by then-City Manager R. J. Intindola, the City Manager voted to freeze the 401K retirement plan and institute a new DEFINED BENEFIT (DB) plan for the Professional/Management employees.
This policy change was entirely OPPOSITE of the direction that most entities were moving towards ten years ago.


The most damaging part of this particular conversion, not easily found in the supporting documents that were provided to me, was in the “fine print” of these ten-year old records, and here's why it's so damaging to Hallandale Beach's taxpayers and why perhaps the city has NOT made these documents so easy to access.
As they entered the new DB plan, this class of city employees kept their accumulated 401K balances.
When you start a new DB pension plan, it's generally the case that every employee starts out like a “new” employee, with ZERO years of “PRIOR YEARS SERVICE.”
Plain and simple -a new plan, ZERO years of prior service.


But NOT in Hallandale Beach!


In Hallandale Beach, every one of these professional employee started out the new DB plan not with zero, but rather with the number of years of “PRIOR YEARS SERVICE” they'd worked for the City prior to the new plan.


This one item, as best I can determine, has cost the City about $3,602,389 at its start, and the costs have only escalated over the years.
Let me illustrate the unfair and devastating financial effects of this last point by using two well-known employees as examples -former City Managers R.J. Intindola, who was the mastermind behind the new DB plan, and Mike Good.
They were two of the approximately forty (40) employees who were the major beneficiaries of this conversion.


(As an interesting side-note, the incoming HB City Manager, Renee Crichton, served as R.J. Intindola’s Assistant City Manager during the conversion period. Given her position at the time, she clearly had some degree of involvement in the entire process, but nobody on the City Commission inquired into the exact details of her involvement prior to her selection as City Manager. It was yet another missed opportunity for the HB City Commission to get the facts out to the public about the true state of its finances.)


But despite the City Commission agreeing to the very unusual step of counting past service from the start, instead of starting off with ZERO, it was not quite enough of a “gift” to the Professional/Management Employees.


Soon after the new pension plan started, “to improve morale and help recruitment”, and with the full support of City Manager Intindola, the Professional/Management employees asked the HB City Commission to improve their own pension benefits so that they matched those of the Hallandale Beach Police/Firefighters, which would mean granting full retirement benefits at age 52 for all Professional and Management Employees at City Hall.


Despite the preposterous idea of comparing working indoors at HB City Hall with the myriad duties and often risky job responsibilities performed by Police Officers or Firefighters, the HB City Commission agreed to the proposal.


R.J. Intindola worked for the City of Hallandale Beach for 20.67 years, but only one (1) year and one (1) month was under the new DB plan.
When he retired on November 9, 2002, he retired with 20.67 years of service, plus 4 years of “service buy-back”, for a total of 24.67 years of service.


With his average salary of $9,990 per month, due to these changes that he supported and which the City Commission approved, R.J. Intindola now receives $8,107 per month or $97,284 per year that he would not have otherwise received.
That includes the $200 “additional benefit” and $400 “contractual increase” per month, for good measure, until the end of his life.


He retired at age 52 and his life expectancy is 30 more years, therefore Hallandale Beach taxpayers can expect to pay him $2,918,520 (30 times $97.284).


Not too shabby for 13 months of work under the new DB pension plan he managed to shepherd thru the 2001 City Commission, which then consisted of Mayor Dotty Ross and Commissioners Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Francine Schiller.


Now you may wonder, how much would R.J. Intindola have been entitled to if he did receive that 20 years of prior service years?
He would have been entitled to one (1) year of service plus 4 years of service buy-back equal to five years of service.


The 3.2% per year multiplier would have given him $1,598 per month, plus the $600 additional per month, which comes to $26,380 per year.
That total payout is $791,424 over his lifetime, but that is still $2,127,296 less than what Intindola is now scheduled to receive because the HB City Commission approved the changes without fully considering the long-term consequences of its vote in 2001.


Mike Good worked for the City for 20 years, but when he entered the DROP program on April 1, 2005, he had only 3.5 years under the new DB plan.
He purchased 5 years of service “buyback” to get to his 25 years maximum benefit of $8,672 a month.


Let me help you with the math: that's $104,064 per year, or $3,121,920 over the next 30 years.


Three Million, One Hundred and Twenty-One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Twenty Dollars.


Mike Good should have received 3.5 plus 5, for a total of 8.5 years of prior service.
His average salary was $10,840 a month, therefore he is entitled to $2,948 a month, $35,376 per year.
That is $1,061,280 over his lifetime but is actually $2,060,640 less than what Good is actually scheduled to receive now because of the City Commission votes.


So let's do the math.


These two city employees will cost the City of Hallandale Beach and its taxpayers $4,187,936 more than than they would have cost if our 2001 City Commission of Ross, Cooper, Julian and Schiller would have been smart enough to recognize the terrible misrepresentations of City Manager R.J. Intindola and his paid co-conspirator, consultant Rocky Joiner of The Segal Company, and voted NO.


(City taxpayers paid Mr. Joiner $15,000 for this marvelous retirement option for the very people who recommended him.)


If you were to analyze the rest of the employees covered by the same Defined Benefit pension plan, including our current City Manager Mark A. Antonio, you would be amazed to see the cost of that one obscure little clause in the pension documents.


The total unearned excess cost will be well over Ten Million Dollars.


As we have all watched with increasing dismay and genuine concern what has been taking place at HB City Hall over the past few years, we've all talked many times about the law of “unintended consequences” with respect to actions and votes by the City Commission.


But in my opinion, it was NOT simply an “unintended consequence,” rather it was the intention of the direct beneficiaries of the change -former City Manager R.J.Intindola and his then-assistants- to greatly benefit themselves at the expense of all the taxpayers of Hallandale Beach.


The recent special audit performed by Marcum LLP uncovered some 260 exceptions, mostly in the CRA, but as I have often stated publicly, in my opinion, we desperately need to have an “audit” done of the City Manager’s office.
In the past ten years alone, there have been so many “exceptions” made there that one could write a book about them.


My limited look at personnel decisions made by the City Manager's Office have raised a lot of troubling questions in my own mind, and I happen to be someone who firmly believes that HB taxpayers are entitled to have honest answers to those questions, since the HB City Commission, as presently constructed, is NOT interested in providing reasonable and logical answers to taxpayer's financial questions.


Whether answers to questions about why over-sized raises were given to “special” employees, or what precisely was behind a decision to make a $400,000 settlement with a former city employee to “make someone whole” at retirement time, or many others we still do not know the full answer to.


That's NOT by accident.


Many of us in Hallandale Beach know from personal experience that getting "public" information we're legally entitled to from HB city employees -and City Hall- is like pulling teeth. And it's equally true that unless you know ahead of time precisely what it is you want, very little information is voluntarily offered.
As if that weren't frustrating enough, it frequently seems as if the city intentionally misunderstands or misdirects your questions to further frustrate you.


Though I wish that it weren't true, because it's clearly contrary to this community's best interests, I am confident that the “word” comes down from the very “top” to keep information away from the public like it's a “nuclear secret.”


Csaba Kulin





Years of Service Prior to 10-1-2001
R.J. Intindola     19.67
Mike Good        16.50

Years of Service After 10-1-2001
R.J. Intindola     1.00
Mike Good        3.50

Years of Service Purchased
R.J. Intindola     4.00
Mike Good        5.00

Total Years of Service
R.J. Intindola     24.67
Mike Good        25.00

Average Monthly Compensation
R.J. Intindola     9,989.97
Mike Good        10,840.37

Monthly Benefit (years x average compensation)
R.J. Intindola     7,886.48
Mike Godd        8,672.30

Additional Benefit
R.J. Intindola     200.00

Sub Total
R.J. Intindola     8,086.48
Mike Good        8,672.30

Pre-retirement death benefit reduction
R.J. Intindola     7,965.18

Optional form of conversion rate
R.J. Intindola     7,706.93

Contractual Increase
R.J. Intindola     400.00

Current Total Monthly Benefits
R.J. Intindola     8,106.93
Mike Good        8,672.30

Current Total Annual Benefits
R.J. Intindola     97,283.16
Mike Good        104,067.55

Current Lifetime Benefits (30 year)
R.J. Intindola     2,918,494.80
Mike Good        3,122,026.56

Corrected Monthly Benefit Should Be
R.J. Intindola     1,598.40
Mike Good        2,948.58

Additional benefits
R.J. Intindola     600.00

Total Monthly Benefits
R.J. Intindola     2,198.40
Mike Good        2,948.58

Total Annual Benefits
R.J. Intindola     26,380.74
Mike Good        35,382.97

Lifetime Benefits Should Be
R.J. Intindola     791,422.27
Mike Good        1,061,489.03

TOTAL LIFETIME OVERPAYMENT
R.J. Intindola     2,127,072.53
Mike Good        2,060,537.53