Hallandale Beach Blog: It took long enough, but The European Club officially goes down the drain

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Hallandale Beach Blog

Entering Broward County, Florida.

Trust me when I tell you, this is NOT the Land of Lincoln. Above, sign on north-bound U.S.-1/South Federal Highway, at the Broward County-Miami-Dade County line, with, left-to-right, Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino in center, Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, and The Beach Club.

Hallandale Beach, FL; January 2007 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

A common-sense public policy overview offering a critical perspective on current events, economics, government, politics & culture of South Florida, in particular, the cities of
Hallandale Beach and Hollywood, and sometimes Aventura.

The antics and activities of the rest of the Sunshine State are also covered at my other blog, South Beach Hoosier, www.SouthBeachHoosier.blogspot.com, where I also ruminate on national and international subjects, the interplay of politics and media, and public policy, as well as the past and current South Florida sports scene with the Dolphins, the Marlins, the Baltimore Orioles, the University of Miami Hurricanes, and the Indiana University Hoosiers.
But if it's particularly germane or amusing, I post it here, too.
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Two years later...in January, 2009 the view has changed.

Entering Broward County, 2009. Due to road and sidewalk construction on U.S.-1 for future Village at Gulfstream retail project, FDOT moved sign one block north, hence different angle. Looking northeast from north-bound U.S.-1/South Federal Highway towards Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino, and the construction zone for Village of Gulfstream, with the Diplomat Residences, the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa and The Beach Club condo towers in the distance on State Road A1A. January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

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Hallandale Beach Blog is where I try to inject or superimpose a degree of accountability, transparency and insight onto local Broward County government and public policy issues, which I feel is sorely lacking in local media now. On this blog, I concentrate my energy, enthusiasm, anger and laser-like attention on the coastal cities of Aventura, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.

If you lived in this part of South Florida, you'd ALREADY be stuck in stultifying traffic, paying higher-than-necessary taxes and continually musing about the chronic lack of accountability among not only elected govt. officials, but also of city, county and state employees as well. Collectively, with a few rare exceptions, they couldn't be farther from the sort of strong results-oriented, eager work-ethic mentality that local residents deserve and expect.

This is particularly true in the town I live in, the City of Hallandale Beach, just north of Aventura and south of Hollywood. There, the "Perfect Storm" of years of apathy, incompetency and cronyism are all too readily apparent.
Sadly for its residents, HB is where even easily-solved, quality-of-life problems are left to fester for YEARS on end, because of myopia, lack of common sense and ineffective supervisory management. It's a city with lots of potential because of its terrific location, yet its citizens have become numb to its outrages and screw-ups after years of the worst kind of mismanagement and lack of foresight. On a daily basis, they wake up and see the same old problems that have never being adequately resolved by the city in a logical and responsible fashion, merely kicked -once again- further down the road.

I used to ask myself, not always rhetorically, "Where are all the enterprising young reporters who want to show that through their own hard work and enterprise, what REAL investigative reporting can produce?" Hearing no response, I decided to start a blog that could do some of these things, taking the p.o.v. of a reasonable but skeptical person seeing the situation for the first time, and wanting questions answered in a honest and logical way that citizens have the right to expect.

Hallandale Beach Blog intends to be a catalyst for positive change.

If there's one constant gripe in South Florida, regardless of your age, race, nationality or political persuasion, it's about the fundamental lack of PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY here among Florida's state, regional and local govt./agency officials. Hallandale Beach Blog aims to be a small step towards regaining some of that needed accountability, whether it's thru simple public scrutiny, or requires a degree of follow-up investigation and public exposure of incompetency, cronyism or simple negligence -South Florida's usual governing style.

"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen."- Preacher Purl encouraging the underdog Hickory High basketball team before the state title game against heavily-favored South Bend Central in 1986's Hoosiers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091217/

Audio of pregame speech:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechhoosiersfinal.html

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"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"

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"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."
-New York Times, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"
-Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 HB City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission, on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission had yet to live up to its legal

responsibility. That's why!
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Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is

Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is

"[Chicago Mayor] William Hale Thompson was defeated Tuesday after a campaign which he alone made disgraceful. The election was an ejection, a dirty job, but Chicago has washed itself and put on clean clothes. Thompson recognized the [Chicago] Tribune as his chief enemy. The Tribune was glad to earn that opinion. It certainly tried to do so. It has taken the fight to him on every occasion during the long and depraved course of his administration. It is unpleasant business to eject a skunk, but someone has to do it.
For Chicago, Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy. He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character. He’s out.
He is not only out, but dishonored. He is deserted by his friends. He is permanently marked by the evidences of his character and conduct. His health is impaired by his ways of life and he leaves office and goes from the city the most discredited man who ever held place in it."

-Excerpts from April 1931 Chicago Tribune editorial following Republican "Big Bill" Thompson's loss to his Democratic rival Anton Cermak. A friend of organized crime during the Al Capone era, Thompson was the last Republican elected mayor of Chicago. But less than two years later, Mayor Cermak was shot while shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Miami's Bayfront Park. He died from gunshot wounds to his lungs three weeks later.

See http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3686.html

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good

March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier, just days before the Air Supply concert on the beach, as Hallandale Beach DPW employees try to make the area "appear" to be well-maintained -when in reality, it's not- and thus fool HB taxpayers and visitors alike. This building underneath the city's iconic Water Tower, just steps from both the Atlantic Ocean and State Road A1A, was turned over to the City of Hallandale Beach on August 3rd, 2007, and yet STILL remains OFF-LIMITS to everyday HB citizens, taxpayers and residents, the true "owners" of the building, TWO YEARS later. There has STILL not been a single public open forum held by the city to gauge how citizens want to utilize it best. Instead, the building remains a veritable clubhouse for the cronies and pals of HB City Hall's elected officials and employees. And need I ask YET again, where's the American flag on the city flagpole next to the fountain? Once again, HB City Hall shows their gross incompetency by being unable to manage something as simple as keeping a flag flying. Pathetic!!!

The City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes one-sided propaganda thru $50k grant to FAUX newspaper

Above, the document that memorializes the fact that the City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes one-sided propaganda thru $50k grant to FAUX newspaper. Click on photo above to see my post about that. And yes, that is the same FREE fake newspaper that gives Mayor Joy Cooper a "column" to extoll her particular brand of ill-informed nonsense and half-truths without fear that a Letter to the Editor will EVER appear that directly refutes and corrects her serial mis-statements. The Sun-Times not only DOESN'T run them, they DON'T print ANYTHING the slightest bit critical of Hallandale Beach City Hall, Mayor Cooper or City Manager Mike Good and his high-paid staff. Just so you know, as of just a few months ago, HB's city manager and staff made more in salaries than the Hollywood City Manager's Office, despite the City of Hollywood being well over THREE TIMES larger in both size and population. Guess who'd never ever mention that salient fact?

The faux newspaper that serves as propaganda arm to Hallandale Beach City Hall

The faux newspaper that serves as the propaganda arm to Hallandale Beach City Hall and the Joy Cooper & Mike Good Regime, the South Florida Sun-Times. This particular vending machine is located but two feet away from one of the emergency fire exits of The Flashback Diner on U.S.-1/South Federal Highway, across from Gulfstream Park. In a normal, well-run city, they'd be removed to another place on the property. But in Hallandale Beach, a trio of vending machines can be placed right next to an emergency exit in a building one block from HB City Hall, and nobody there EVER notices the self-evident violation! They are deaf, dumb and blind to everything around them. November 8, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Twenty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hallandale Beach, Florida still needs glasnost!

November 5th, 2009 Update re South Florida Sun-Times, above.

At yesterday morning's Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting, I heard the new official Hallandale Beach City Hall stalling tactic regarding the actual citizens and taxpayers of this city being able to see the documents regarding City Manager Mike Good's decision to give $50,000 in city CRA money as a grant to the faux newspaper called the South Florida Sun-Times, above.

Mayor Joy Cooper was practically gloating Wednesday when she foolishly said that she thinks that the particular documents are "proprietary" and can't be shared with public!

Can she really be that arrogant and anti-democratic in public, he said rhetorically.
Can she really think that she can trump the State of Florida Constitution and the protected rights that Florida citizens enjoy under our Sunshine Laws, forever, and that there won't be legal and political consequences for her personally and the city?

To answer my own question, yes, Joy Cooper is indeed that arrogant, that anti-democratic and that egotistical.

Proprietary?
Sure, because in the current economy of the year 2009, actual for-profit companies want to model their own behavior on an inferior product like the faux newspaper, the Sun-Times, that doesn't actually generate a profit, has a very poor reputation and that rather than accurately reflect the news of the community in its pages, exists as a propaganda arm of Hallandale Beach City Hall and the mayor and city manager who give it money, just like the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Twenty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hallandale Beach, Florida still needs glasnost!

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Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald over 25 years ago
"For years people living in and out of its condo-walled sector east of U.S. 1 have wondered what to do about the city of Hallandale. In the 19th Century the condo giants would have served as ideal fortresses. From top floors of the towers, enemy ships could be readily spotted and blown out of the Atlantic. Oceanfront dwellers could have been protected from the west by the Hallandale Beach Boulevard drawbridge and moat called the Intracoastal Waterway. But this is the 20th Century..."

-Miami Herald Broward Columnist Bill Braucher's first paragraph from July 24, 1983.
To which Hallandale Beach Blog can only say, Bulls-eye!

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The South Florida I Grew Up In
Excerpted from Joan Didion's Miami, 1987, Simon & Schuster: In the continuing opera still called, even by Cubans who have now lived the largest part of their lives in this country, el exilo, the exile, meetings at private homes in Miami Beach are seen to have consequences. The actions of individuals are seen to affect events directly. Revolutions and counter-revolutions are framed in the private sector, and the state security apparatus exists exclusively to be enlisted by one or another private player. That this particular political style, indigenous to the Caribbean and to Central America, has now been naturalized in the United States is one reason why, on the flat coastal swamps of South Florida, where the palmettos once blew over the detritus of a dozen failed booms and the hotels were boarded up six months a year, there has evolved since the early New Year's morning in 1959 when Fulgencio Batista flew for the last time out of Havana a settlement of considerable interest, not exactly an American city as American cities have until recently been understood but a tropical capital: long on rumor, short on memory, overbuilt on the chimera of runaway money and referring not to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Atlanta but to Caracas and Mexico, to Havana and to Bogota and to Paris and Madrid. Of American cities Miami has since 1959 connected only to Washington, which is the peculiarity of both places, and increasingly the warp...

"The general wildness, the eternal labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked and apparently neverending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps... Here I am then in the Floridas, thought I," John James Audobon wrote to the editor of The Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science during the course of an 1831 foray in the territory then still called the Floridas. The place came first, and to touch down there is to begin to understand why at least six administrations now have found South Florida so fecund a colony. I never passed through security for a flight to Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness of having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere, one in which the native distrust of extreme possibilities that tended to ground the temperate United States in an obeisance to democratic institutions seemed rooted, if at all, only shallowly. At the gate for such flights the preferred language was already Spanish. Delays were explained by weather in Panama. The very names of the scheduled destinations suggested a world in which many evangelical inclinations had historically been accommodated, many yearnings toward empire indulged...

In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accomodated...
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A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL

This sign on U.S.-1 and S.E. 5th Street, across from Gulfstream Park Racing and Casino, lets you know that you're just feet away from the HB City Hall and Police Department. It's a government that gives every impression of holding itself apart and above from the citizens it's supposed to serve. The crazy thing is, they really don't think they have to follow the laws that govern everyone else in the state of Florida and the U.S., whether of logic and reason, contracts, or, more to the point for this blog, the Florida Statutes on Sunshine Laws and Public Records. City employees in Hallandale Beach routinely refuse to answer reasonable questions posed to them by residents, and often berate you for even having the nerve to ask! One of the other things that's quite shocking is the blatant disregard by the HB Police Dept. and Fire Dept. for basic safety rules. Common sense rules of behavior that are in place in every other American town, no matter how small or obscure. City employees -and friends of theirs- routinely park "their cars" directly in front of the building's east entrance, often for hours at a time. That's right, I said for HOURS at a time. While in every other town you'd find a clearly posted sign saying simply: "No Parking, Fire Zone, Cars Will be Towed," in HB, there are NO signs at all. I have personally observed parked HB city vehicles there that have prevented the HB Fire & Rescue vehicles from getting as close as necessary to the building. I've personally spoken to the individual members of Fire & Rescue after such incidents, and they were positively indignant that they are forced to put up with this sort of thing in the Year 2008. Oh, and one last thing. The lights that are supposed to illuminate this sign in front of HB City Hall HAVEN'T worked in over FOUR YEARS, either. Just like their cousin down the block on U.S.-1 at the city border with Aventura. I've told this to dozens of HB city officials, including the Mayor, City Manager, his staff, the Police Chief, a Police Captain, et al. None of them have done a thing, which is why as late as October 24. 2008, the sign was STILL dark at night! Four-and-a-half-years of nothing but darkness! Sundown, March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Change Hallandale Beach

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Change Hallandale Beach

New fact-based, constantly-updated website by Hallandale Beach activist Michael Butler that goes directly after the longtime cronyism and incompetency at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold hard facts, figures, graphs, charts and videos.

The kind of evidence that Mayor Joy Cooper, City Manager Mike Good and the Rubber Stamp Crew -i.e. City Commissioners William Julian, Dotty Ross and Anthony A. Sanders- can't refute with any of their serial mis-statements, exaggerations or half-truths from the dais.

The very ones which are never acknowledged by their paid flacks over at the South Florida Sun-Times, whom the city gave $50,000 to last year for what many HB citizens believe was a thinly-disguised effort to keep the REAL news about their continual screw-ups and ethical mis-adventures out.

See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on here. http://www.changehallandale.com

Broken Latin in Hallandale Beach, FL -Seaoats

This descriptive nature sign on Hallandale Beach's North Beach, regarding a supposedly protected environment, complete with Latin genus, is a particularly telling example of the kind of terribly myopic and non-existent mgmt. the beach has received for years from the City of Hallandale Beach, Broward County and the State of Florida. This sign for seaoats has been broken since at least October of 2003. Even more galling, the area immediately around the seaoats has pile after pile of hundreds of old cigarettes dumped willy-nilly around it. The day this photo was taken, the garbage below the sign and in adjoining areas had been there for WEEKS! Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 11, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Close-up of Broken Latin

The Seaoats sign that's been broken since at least Oct. 2003 at Hallandale Beach's north beach, not far from the lone lifeguard stand. In late June of 2008, due to years of neglect and apathy by the State of Florida, Broward County and the City of Hallandale Beach, the sign was blown off and landed fifty feet away, where yours truly noticed it under a beer can. Now there are ZERO signs like this on Hallandale Beach's North Beach. Your government in action! May 16, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Hallandale Beach, City of Choice

The sign that greets northbound drivers on U.S.-1/South Federal Hwy. as they leave the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County in the rear window. Unfortunately, it's the perfect metaphor for the City of Hallandale Beach and its elected officials and employees: short-sighted and lacking in common sense. This sign is placed so far west on the median strip -and practically BEHIND a palm tree- that drivers can't actually read it even if they wanted to. In any case, because of the longtime gross incompetency and negligence of the city, the spotlights that are supposed to illuminate the sign at night HAVEN'T worked since about mid-January of 2004. Which is to say, yes, LONGER than the U.S.'s involvement in WW II. Welcome to the City of Hallandale Beach! Begin heavy traffic, chronic red tape and mis-adventures in government! Hallandale Beach, FL; Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 8, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier. Rather incredibly, it's still this way as of January 28th, 2009. January 2009 Postscript: the three palm trees that had been in front of it on the median are gone, so now you can REALLY notice that it DOESN'T work! February 2009 Postscript: In order to make room for a left-turning lane at S.E. 5th Street into The Village of Gulfstream, the invisible sign has finally been removed. Buh-bye!!!

Welcome to City of Aventura, FL

Meanwhile, less than one block south of the HB sign on U.S.-1, and six blocks south of the Hallandale Beach City Hall, lies this internally-illuminated City of Aventura sign that greets south-bound travellers every night on U.S.-1/Biscayne Blvd., leaving Hallandale Beach. In over five years, I have NEVER seen this sign not working properly. That's how you help to create a positive first impression for visitors. Compare and contrast that approach to the VERY NEGATIVE one conveyed by the north-bound HB sign! May 11, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Old Gulfstream Park Race Track directional sign in the Ojus neighborhood of NMB.

This old weather-beaten and fading Gulfstream Park sign is located on W. Dixie Highway & N.E. 186th Street in North Miami Beach -next to Via Brasil and its life-size window display of Ronaldo- over three miles south of the race track. (It's also across the street from where I get my hair cut.) This one sign has steered lots of visitors towards Gulfstream Park over the years, but my question today isn't why it hasn't it been replaced by a new sign by the geniuses at MAGNA, but rather, why is it that in the year 2009, there is NOT a single directional sign anywhere in the entire city of Hallandale Beach indicating where HB's own City Hall is located -across the street from Gulfstream? Or any sign for the HB Police Dept. HQ? Or the HB Fire/Rescue HQ? Or the HB Cultural Center? If that simple example doesn't tell you how backward, incompetent and poorly-managed the City of Hallandale Beach is, I really don't know what will. So this old sign soldiers on while the City of HB snoozes and reminds everyone why it's such a laughing-stock. September 24, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The Lawton Chiles Trail

Sign on south-bound U.S.-1 at Broward County/Miami-Dade countyline. Lawton Chiles was a great and humble man, blessed with an optimistic spirit, a tireless work-ethic and unquestioned integrity, whom I first met and campaigned with in 1976 during his first Senate re-election battle. We talked as we walked up to one NMB house after another -not too far from the county Carter-Mondale HQ in NMB I worked at- greeting lots of surprised voters, as we took turns ringing doorbells, all under the watchful eye of a film crew from Channel 7/WSVN. Over the years, before and after I moved to the D.C. area from South Florida, I was fortunate enough to talk to him from time to time and get the benefit of his advice and wisdom, as well as enjoy the warm hospitality of The Florida House, across from The Supreme Court, the brilliant idea of his wonderful wife, Rhea, with whom he worked to make it a reality. For more info, see http://floridaembassy.com/ June 22, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, a.k.a. Yohanna. Her talent is transcendent!

Per my very enthusiastic and positive May 22nd blog post about singer Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, a.k.a. Yohanna. Since first hearing her sing Is It True back on February 15th, at Söngvakeppni sjónvarpsins 2009, earning the right to represent Iceland at the 2009 Eurovison Song Contest in Moscow in May -where she placed 2nd- I've listened to every one of her songs, all genres, watched all of her videos. She's never less than flat-out amazing! Her enormous talent could hardly be more obvious!