Above, February 16, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier of participants at Hallandale beach City Comm. Keith London's monthly Resident Forum meetings, which mayor Joy Cooper has frequently crashed in the past, even though she herself refuses to have anything resembling it. Just like the rest of her Rubber Stamp Crew of Julian, Ross & Sanders, her puppets on a string.So who's the shy person holding paper in front of his own face?
Why it's none other than Alexander Lewy who has fairly regularly attended London's meetings since the unpopular Diplomat LAC issue late last year, despite the fact he's running against London.
I have dozens of such photos from this particular meeting, as well as his appearances at several other London meetings before and since, this was just the most absurd one of several.
After this particular meeting over eight months ago, several 'regulars' commented to me -without any prompting on my part- that they couldn't help but notice Lewy's odd paper-holding behavior, as I shot photos of the entire room every so often during the two hours it lasted, dividing the room into into thirds from where I was sitting in the front, near the door, to be sure to get everyone in it.
Though I had noticed it, too, while shooting, I thought perhaps they were exaggerating, and it was just a sign of his boredom, perhaps, but once I got home, I resolved to make a point of really looking closely at the photos.
What I noticed was that despite the fact that Lewy was in less than 20% of all the photos I shot that night, every photo taken of his part of the room shows him holding that paper in front of his face, like it was some sort of mask.
But it wasn't a costume party and we already knew who he was.
As to the comments about it being odd behavior, I agree.
Who am I to argue with self-evident logic like that?
Lewy attends the meetings despite having previously told me that he thought that the HB residents who attend were... well, that's what this post is about: what Alexander Lewy really thinks about Hallandale Beach's most civic-minded residents.
It probably won't surprise you to learn that that condescending Lewy disparages them behind their backs.
Yes, yes, now you have it!
Correct, that's where Lewy the Liar becomes Lewy the Backstabber.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVC2j_Kdw8c
It's a seamless transition.
Below is a letter I wrote a year ago to a couple of dozen people throughout South Florida who pay close attention to what happens in local govt., including some print and TV reporters whom I trust, but mostly, the recipients were Hallandale Beach's most civic-minded residents.
It appears below exactly as I wrote it a year ago.
This should answer any lingering questions you may have about Alexander Lewy.
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November 5th, 2009
3:30 p.m.
Last year, I wrote an email to some folks, possibly including yourself, where I mentioned in passing a few things going on around HB that I wanted to draw your attention to because -shocker- they seemed typically screwed-up examples of HB City Hall chronic neglect.
I concluded like so many of my emails with the comment that later in the day, I'd be over at Panera's or Starbucks later at a particular time in case anyone was free and would like to talk about the subjects in more depth or any other issue pertaining to what was going on hereabouts.
Admittedly, pretty tame stuff.
But somebody in Hallandale Beach, typically, thought this was pure revolutionary talk, and an opportunity to endear himself with someone named Joy Cooper.
After weeks of asking around and trying to look at this logically, i.e. who stands to profit, Alex Lewy emerged as the person whom every other recipient of that particular email I've spoken to believes is the party who shared it with Mayor Joy Cooper.
If you didn't already know, Lewy often met her and talked to her at length at various restaurants around town when he was running for City Commission, according to people I trust who were eyewitnesses, esp. the now-defunct Frankie's.
Many well-informed people in the city believe that Lewy was the second candidate that the Cooper Crew supported last Fall, just in case Dotty Ross got the well-deserved heave-ho she was due because of her chronic lack of attention to details, literally, blind to what's going on in front of her.
To repeat what I said on October 22nd:
At the Sunrise Park opening ceremony yesterday afternoon, if you can believe this, Comm. Ross invited him to address the small crowd after she was finished by referring to him as "John Sanders" instead of Anthony.
Fourteen months after she approved him as interim commissioner and actually voted for him, after admitting on the dais that she didn't know who he was or anything about him, this is the logical consequence.
Trust me, I was there and her puppet-masters in the crowd were clearly squirming in their seats as she flubbbed the simple hand-off.
Yes, Dotty Ross: The Girl in the Bubble.
So perhaps you're asking yourself, what's the big deal if the email I wrote was so tame, if not lame, right?
Well, what was completely different from any previous or subsequent emails was that later, Cooper wrote a very weird rambling email referencing that specific email of mine, full of what could only be called childish gibberish, full of syntax and spelling errors, that she sent to both Michael Butler and myself -after midnight.
But then she's sent emails to some people in this community before that said or implied "Drop dead."
I know those people, and they've told me about it, and in some cases, even saved the email.
Tell me, which email address of hers do you think she used?
Before the final few people I sent my email to told me individually who they thought had shared that letter with Cooper -each naming Lewy, just as previous recipients had- I had a few encounters with Lewy that left me cold and speaks volumes about him and his overweening
ambition.
It also left me convinced that he should be kept away from any and all power and responsibility as long as possible, and not just because of his age, his inexperience or lack of tangible accomplishment of note -on his own.
Because of his character, or, rather the lack of any character.
For many of us who want genuine reform, government transparency and accountability in this city, so it will be more pro-active and attractive to residents, newcomers and businesses, we know that will require a 180 degree change in the anti-democratic culture of corruption and deceit that currently pervades HB City Hall -so much so that HB residents and business owners are actually repelled by it- we've not been afraid to say as much in public.
(A friend of mine even had a conversation with Mayor Cooper within the past two weeks and brought this matter of public participation up. Well, if you can believe it, Cooper responded that she actually sees the lack of people attending City Commission meetings as a positive sign, an indication that residents are happy with the way things are, ending with the typical Cooper dig, "unlike Hollywood.")
But not everybody is comfortable speaking their mind in public, even if they desire it, which is something I understand, even if it makes things more difficult than I wish it were.
After all, Caesar Rodney's vote in Philadelphia was as important as the ones cast by Adams, Jefferson or Hancock, but outside the Mid-Atlantic states, few people know of his important role in creating the Declaration of Independence, since he wasn't known as an orator.
But guess who's on the U.S. quarter representing the State of Delaware?
And in Statuary Hall inside the U.S. Capitol building?
Caesar Rodney.
The reverse was designed and engraved by William Cousins.
Caesar Rodney was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He rode 80 miles on horseback to cast the deciding vote in favor of independence. In his lifetime, he held more public offices than any other Delaware citizen.
One or the other, not both.
It's typical of his huge ego that Alex Lewy somehow convinced himself that, having never done anything, he'd wage a campaign that allowed him to tap the labor resources and contacts he had thru dint of his ethnic handholding job working for Kendrick Meek, and finesse this important last point by continually saying one thing to one group and another to still another group.
This hardly makes him unique in politics, of course, but in a small town like this, when it's fairly well-known who's for reform and who's a bosom buddy of the Cooper & Good Crew at City Hall, even profiting from sweetheart deals, that forked tongue approach is not really a smart
tactic, since eventually, you're self-serving nature will emerge and be exposed.
This crack in the armor showed itself to me shortly after I had endorsed Arturo O'Neill and Carlos Simmons for City Commission, not that it was worth much as we all saw, otherwise we'd ALL be living in a much more NORMAL, less combative and infinitely better-managed city, with MUCH MORE transparency and accountability for citizens.
Early voting had already started over at the HB Cultural Center and late one Tuesday afternoon, as I had been doing for days, I swung by the area in front to see what sort of crowds were outside and to talk to Arturo and Carlos and their family and friends who were working the crowds in the parking lots.
Plus I took a few minutes top explain to reporter Mark Joyella from Channel 10, who was doing some LIVE stand-up reports, why he'd have nothing behind him to frame the shot at 11 p.m., on account of all the parking lot and auxiliary lights there being out, just like the ones in front of City Hall and the Police Dept.
Well, while walking on the sidewalk about 5:45 p.m. from the Cultural Center, where I'd just bought a Coke from their vending machine, to City Hall for Comm. London's 6 p.m. Resident Forum, where I suspected some local candidates would appear, who do I run into but the aforementioned Alex Lewy.
Naturally, I mentioned where I was headed and asked if he'd be coming by for a bit, since it only seemed natural, since I'd heard that Ken Gottlieb, Rick Saltrick and some other candidates would attend. (They did.)
Well, in retrospect, I only wish I'd had my video camera with me, because Lewy proceeded to whiff on my innocuous comment and reveal himself for the sort of prick I'd long since suspected he was.
He said that not only would he NOT be swinging-by Comm. London's meeting of concerned HB citizens, he scoffed at the very idea that HB citizens would attend those meetings in the first place, and at Comm. London in particular for holding them, saying that they were pointless.
So ask yourself, what sort of person runs for office despite being openly dismissive of not just the people in that town in general, but the most concerned and well-informed people in the city?
Alex Lewy.
So, guess who comes into the room a few minutes later, when it's FULL, to make an election pitch for themself?Alex Lewy
I resisted the urge to grill Levy and expose him as the worst sort of condescending, know-it-all hypocrite when Comm. London asked if anyone had any questions, but I was biting my tongue the whole time.
Once the final votes came in from the only precincts I really cared about, i.e. who was the guilty party who forwarded my email to Joy Cooper, and every single vote was for Lewy, that was that.
Now everyone knows.
I mean what are the odds that everyone thinks it's Lewy and everyone is also wrong?
A LOT of people detest Alex Lewy, sure, but some are merely ambivalent, from not really knowing him and yet they all named him.
The very people who are paying the most attention to what's going on in this city.
When you think about it, because of his reflexive self-serving nature, trying to please someone in power like Cooper completely fits Lewy's pathology.
In discussing the Ben Gamla Charter Hebrew School matter in mid-October with some other HB residents, after mentioning some other matters of concern, I wrote the following:
Of course, if Alex Lewy had won and edged Dotty Ross out last November, the basic problem would still remain, since he is someone who is very clearly confused about personal ambition being a substitute for a personality, or even a political framework for understanding how
the world works, or ought to. This gets to the fundamental problem of his consistently self-serving personality and poor judgment.
In my opinion, much like Mayor Cooper now, Lewy would positively do somersaults or jump off a roof in order to get into the good graces of someone with influence like Peter Deutsch, his friends and political and financial campaign supporters in order to advance his own aims.
That's why Lewy is someone who needs to be rejected at every single opportunity,since he is exactly the sort of person who gets into politics for all the wrong reasons.
Well, two weeks later, I still stand by what I wrote then, and if anything, think I was tame.
I strongly suggest that any of you who ever think about dealing with him, think twice.
Since last Fall's election, I've kept my distance from him and suggest you do the same.
He's slimy and NOT to be trusted.
By the way, since I've been doing more video shoots of HB at night for reasons that you'll soon be able to see for yourself, I'm in a position to mention here, yet again, that 3 of the 4 public parking lot lights closest to the East-side entrance to HB City Hall are STILL out, including the one just a few feet from the only police-controlled surveillance camera on that side of the building.
Just like last week.
And last month.
And last year.
Hallandale Beach City Hall, including the City Manager and the Police Chief know all about it, they just consciously choose to do NOTHING about it.
Just a reminder, that's the city where YOU live.
So in that regard, what's the difference between the dismissive and apathetic -not to mention negligent- attitudes of City Manager Mike Good and corrupt Police Chief Thomas Magill and Alex Lewy?
There is none.
Keeping with that theme of the city's incompetency and neglect, yesterday morning I heard the the new Hallandale Beach City Hall tactic re the public ever seeing the docs re city's $50,000 CRA grant to the faux newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Times.Mayor Joy Cooper said the docs are "proprietary" and can't be shared with public!
And seemed very pleased with herself!
Twenty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hallandale Beach still needs glasnost!
Plan on posting a lot of info on my blog over the weekend and finally start posting video I keep talking about.
Seeing is believing.
Will be at Panera's today from 4-6 p.m.
Adios!
Dave
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