Hallandale Beach Blog -A common-sense public policy overview offering a critical perspective on the current events, politics, government, public policy, sports scene and pop culture of the U.S. & South Florida, in particular, Broward & Miami-Dade County, and the cities of Hallandale Beach and Hollywood.

Trust me when I tell you, this part of Florida is NOT the Land of Lincoln. Pictured in upper-left is Hallandale Beach's iconic beachball-colored Water Tower on State Road A1A; September 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
Cecilia Nilsson - In My Room (Complete Song) Cecilia Nilsson YouTube Channel: Cecilia Nilsson -In My Room. This is Cecilia's debut single. Uploaded May 13, 2013. http://youtu.be/r3MUHpMTAao Cissi's new single is available on both iTunes and Spotify. My May 14, 2013 blog post on her, titled, "On Wednesday you'll be thanking me for introducing you to ANOTHER amazing singer from Sweden: Cecilia Nilsson, a.k.a Cissi or "See See"; Cecilia will sing two songs LIVE on Radio P4 Gavleborg on Friday at 15:30; @CissiNilsson, @andreasjismark, #inmyroom" is here.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

As imperfect as they are, the NFL "replacement" officials are still performing their job much-better than the following people or groups in Florida are performing their's...


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As imperfect as they are, the NFL "replacement" officials are still performing their job much-better than the following people or groups in Florida are performing their's...
Broward County Legislative Delegation 
Time to end 'free ride' for the Broward Legislative Delegation on Broward taxpayers' back; they should pay ALL costs of an office few citizens know of

Broward County School Board, esp. ethically-challenged Chair Ann Murray, who legally represents Hallandale Beach on the Board, and yet has continually demonstrated that she's afraid of meeting with well-informed Hallandale Beach parents and taxpayers in public and the city. Murray also refuses to answer longstanding questions in public about her very questionable judgment and decisions.
Ann Murray -she's a phony, a bigot and a no-show. Consistently. That's what voters have seen of her tenure on Broward School Board so far -she needs to go!; update on projects at Hallandale High School
Video of Bob Norman's news report at Channel 10: School board: Bus drivers wanted
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/School-board-Bus-drivers-wanted/-/3223354/16502446/-/6i1o4q/-/index.html

Broward schools paid $800,000 for GPS, but rarely used it

Substitute teachers in Miami-Dade and Broward County -As true today as it was over thirty years ago... 

Florida Dept. of Transportation, District 4 
Inattention to detail costs lives, risks lives, and costs money, yet they are chronically tone-deaf to criticism that is not only self-evident to folks paying attention to longstanding problems. 

 When was the last time that District 4 Secretary James A. Wolfe subjected himself to intense questioning and follow-up about the dept.'s efforts and policies from the public -in public- instead of merely to industry professionals at closed and often paid events? Or even to reporters who cover transportation? 
Whose name, phone number and email address doesn't appear on District 4's webpage?
http://www.d4fdot.com/index.asp
Why it's the very person in charge -James A. Wolfe. 
It's also not searchable!

 Office of Broward State's Attorney Michael Satz
Not enough space on page to delineate the full scope of the problems, suffice to say that 36 years for one person to be in charge of such a responsible position is too much, esp. for someone who has produced such paltry results in the State of Florida's most corrupt county -the worst of 67!

Broward County Democratic Executive Committee and disconnected Chair Mitch Caeser. Lots of people are quoted as having said variations of that as long as nobody cares who gets the credit, a lot of positive things can be accomplished. The problem in Broward County is that Caesar and his cronies DO care who's in charge and who gets the credit. Desperately, desperately care! But what do they have to show for it? He and his pals are the head party boss and cabal of a one-party county that long been the most-corrupt in the state. Which means that he apparently writes a lot of letters requesting clemency for his friends, many of whom he also lobbied while they were elected municipal officials before they were arrested and frog-marched out in handcuffs. 

Florida Democratic Party Alex Sink, Nan Rich and Charlie Crist? The Three Stooges.


Miami Herald's management and editorial staff, esp. those responsible for local news and schools coverage. 

 Fact checking the Miami Herald's dubious claims on Education: Over the weekend, I unexpectedly found myself forced to 'school' the Herald's Executive Editor after she bragged about the Herald's coverage of Education. I had to bring up some inconvenient facts rebutting that claim
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/fact-checking-miami-heralds-dubious.html

So when are the Miami Herald and the South Sun-Sentinel going to note the elephant in the room in Hallandale Beach? The ethics of and the complete lack of candor from Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders & his wife Jessica; Mayor Cooper and Comm. Sanders screw with public's access to HB budget meetings; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/so-when-are-miami-herald-and-south-sun.html

Is there anyone in South Florida media with lower visibility than Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg? What are his specific plans for transforming the newspaper so it doesn't remain
irrelevant to what goes on in South Florida, seemingly always the last to know something or report something?

 What's going on at the Miami Herald? More than a year after the last one fled, the Herald still lacks an Ombudsman -and shows no sign of getting one- to represent readers deep concerns about bias, misrepresentation and flackery on behalf of South Florida's powerful & privileged at the Herald. And that's just one of many unresolved problems there...
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/whats-going-on-at-miami-herald-more.html

For another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County, more lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza -Part 1
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/for-another-consistently-lousy-year-of.html

South Florida Sun-Sentinel's management and editorial staff, particularly those directly responsible for unsatisfactory local news and school coverage, esp. the editors, reporters and columnists who have shown over the years that they are nothing more than lapdogs for Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
OMG! Really, another interview with predictable Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on Channel 10's TWISF tomorrow? Why? Will there be any mention of the Sun-Sentinel STILL ignoring the Glenn Thrush book's depiction of DWS's unpopularity at Obama HQ in Chicago?; Sun-Sentinel has completely morphed into the Snooze-Sentinel! It's now more of an idea of a newspaper, and a bad one at that, rather than a newspaper you actually look forward to reading
And did I mention that their Broward Politics blog hasn't added anything to their YouTube Channel in over 16 months? http://www.youtube.com/user/BrowardPolitics/
Way to stay current!

 Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, President Mike Dee and General Manager Jeff Ireland 
In other parts of the country, though not here, it's not unusual to hear people say "To whom much is given, much is expected."
With respect to the Dolphins, not so much. #EpicFail
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 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 that has seen so many tens of thousands of Hallandale Beach taxpayer dollars and CRA dollars poured into it. For what, THIS? photo by South Beach Hoosier © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Myopic and inattentive City of Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper and the three members of her Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew on the City Commission, who thru their continued negligence and actual unwillingness to perform basic oversight functions and be strictly accountable to, and honest with, taxpayers, have made what should be one of the nicest parts of Broward County into something that is NOT.
See numerous stories proving this at  http://www.browardbulldog.org/?s=hallandale

 The city's budget has nearly doubled the past 6 years and what is there to show for it? What is the tangible thing that taxpayers can look at or feel? And the same is true with the money that the city has wasted from the CRA thru grants and loans to their pals thru crony capitalism.
Karma has big plans for them!

Myopic City of Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Fluornoy and his top-heavy dept. with enough psychological and relationship problems to keep Freud and Jung busy for a year. That they also are guilty of speeding in inappropriate places around town and are routinely inattentive to basic self-evident safety problems all around the city, esp. on the city's main three roads, makes it all the worse. 
Some Cops Given A Pass If Caught By Red Light Cameras
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/04/22/some-cops-given-a-pass-if-caught-by-red-light-cameras/

 Their complete abdication to Mayor Cooper on the red-light camera issue was proof positive to many people who formerly gave them the benefit of the doubt that the Police Dept. is now hopelessly and morally compromised. The next police chief needs to come from outside of the Dept., preferably, from far away! 
There are still far too too many mediocre cops in this city with chippy attitudes.

Pampered City of Hallandale Beach Fire Dept. Daniel Sullivan and the dept. that regularly uses a fire truck to buy groceries at Publix and seems a little too chippy. 
Oh, and they also don't cite businesses for violations of fire safety regs that are pro-City Hall or give money to PAL.

City of Hallandale Beach DPW Director Hector Castro and his lazy and unprofessional staff, who for years have made this city a mess for the eye to behold and given new meaning to the word underwhelming, especially with their horrific care of the city's public beaches.
That's why, if you didn't already know, why embarrassed HB residents refuse to take visiting family and friends to HB's beach on holidays and go instead up to nearby Hollywood Beach,  which is why that beach is SO crowded then.
Hundreds and hundreds of embarrassed Hallandale Beach residents and their guests, spending money there instead of their own city.
Another Joy Cooper success story.
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FINAL REPORT RE: GROSS MISMANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS BY THE CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH AND THE HB CRA

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Complex on S. Federal Highway/U.S.-1, where attention to details and appearances has never been their strong suit in the nine 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 seen above in 2011 on the city's monument sign, 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 NOT worked since City Manager Renee C. Miller has been in place. But attention to details and appearances really DO matter when you are a government, and the situation with the lights is but the tip of the iceberg. The city's log of Visitors & Lobbyists, which is required by law to be up-to-date, was TWO MONTHS old as of last Friday. Really. August 7, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
BROWARD INSPECTOR GENERAL FINAL REPORT RE: GROSS MISMANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS BY THE CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH AND THE HALLANDALE BEACH COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY

Now we need to see some logical follow-up in the way of prosecution.

Please be advised that the report can take up to a minute to open due to the many exhibits. 
It took 55 seconds for me.

A problematic model: Hallandale Beach CRA under city manager’s thumb

A problematic model: Hallandale Beach CRA under city manager’s thumb By William Gjebre* BrowardBulldog.org After a brief period of independence, the Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) is once again under the thumb of the city manager. Broward Auditor looks at Hallandale Beach CRA with eye toward recovering misspent funds By William Gjebre* BrowardBulldog.org The Broward County Auditor’s Office has begun looking into whether Hallandale Beach should be required to repay some of the millions in tax dollars allegedly misspent due to “gross mismanagement” by city officials. Broward Inspector General: Hallandale leaders don’t know what they’re talking about, By William Gjebre* BrowardBulldog.org. The Broward Inspector General’s final report on the “gross mismanagement” of millions in tax dollars by Hallandale Beach is sharply critical of city leaders it says have shown a “basic misunderstanding” of what’s gone wrong.

Csaba Kulin re Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield's comments re ethics at City Hall

HallandaleBeachBlog YouTube Channel video: Csaba Kulin re Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield's comments re her role on ethics. Uploaded May 3, 2013. http://youtu.be/dtpFnVOFA-I From my May 3, 2013 blog post titled, "Csaba Kulin asks Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield THE question HB citizens have long wondered, esp. as the Broward IG's Office has been busy investigating the city and turning-up mountains of incriminating and jaw-dropping evidence: Who at HB City Hall is supposed to make sure that applicable laws, ordinances and rules, especially those regarding ethics and conflicts of interest, are followed and enforced fairly? Teaser Alert: You won't like her answer" at http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/csaba-kulin-asks-hallandale-beach-city.html
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Hallandale Beach Blog is where I try to inject or superimpose a degree of accountability, transparency and insight onto Florida and local Broward County government and public policy issues, which I feel is sorely lacking in local media now. On this blog, locally, I concentrate my energy, enthusiasm, anger and laser-like attention on the coastal cities of Hallandale Beach and Hollywood.

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:
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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 accommodated...
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A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Hallandale Beach, FL

A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Hallandale Beach, FL
City of Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex, 400 S. Federal Highway. The City of Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex: If it's true that a fish rots from the head down, so it does in local government in Broward County, FL. This monument sign on the west side of the intersection of U.S.-1 and S.E. 5th Street, across from Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex, alerts you to your proximity to HB City Hall and the HB Police Department HQ. It's a place and culture whose very own words and actions have made clear to taxpayers of this city -regardless of age, race or income- that it holds itself apart from and above from the very citizens it's supposed to serve, often acting like they don't have to follow the same laws that govern everyone else in the state of Florida and the U.S., whether of logic, reason or contracts. (More to the point of this blog, the Florida Statutes on Sunshine Laws and Public Records.) City employees in Hallandale Beach routinely refuse to answer perfectly reasonable questions posed to them by taxpayers, and as I have found out myself and witnessed, are not above berating you for even having the nerve to ask! As it happens, it's also not a very safe area, despite who operates here, and over the past nine years, the public parking lots have often been pitch-black for 6-9 months at a time, including in front of the HB Police Dept. HQ. Then-Police Chief Thomas Magill even shrugged his shoulders at City Comm. meetings when told about this a few times. As if they couldn't make a worse first impression, at one point, even the spotlights shining on this sign didn't work at night for over FOUR YEARS, either. October 13, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Nice from a distance, not so nice once you're there and see the years of City Hall's neglect

Nice from a distance, not so nice once you're there and see the years of City Hall's neglect
North Beach, Hallandale Beach, FL. June 19, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Just as true now as it was when it was written in June 2012!

Just as true now as it was when it was written in June 2012!
"So this is where our tax dollars go to die? My friend and fellow civic activist Csaba Kulin, perhaps wondering when we're FINALLY going to get the clean and inviting public beach that Hallandale Beach residents believe we're entitled to but have never received under Mayor Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew. Instead, we get rusty pipes in the middle of the beach and garbage cans on the beach -without lids- at the windiest place in the entire city. And a public building across the street from the beach that the public can't use for free but which city employees can -for their holiday parties." Click photo to see many more photos of the site and the original post. Or, go to http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/latest-info-photos-re-related-groups.html; 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The View from the Hallandale Beach/Hollywood city line

The View from the Hallandale Beach/Hollywood city line
Looking south towards The Beach Club and the Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A from the beach, near the Hollywood cityline, May 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

It's long past time to put the BEACH back in Hallandale Beach

It's long past time to put the BEACH back in Hallandale Beach
For there ever to be a successful balance between business, town, and nature in Hallandale Beach, big changes will be necessary. Late afternoon, North Beach, Hallandale Beach, FL, February 10, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. While it might look nice and inviting from afar, the sad and galling reality for far too many Hallandale Beach residents who want to enjoy their public beaches, is that in the ten years under Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew at City Hall, the city's highly-paid top bureaucrats and the city's ineffective Dept. of Public Works, the public beaches have been consistently neglected and poorly-maintained for MANY, MANY YEARS. In fact, there are several places at the beach where it's self-evident to even the casual observer that the city is NOT even in compliance with its own rules or ordinances -or even state laws- and hasn't been since I moved here in late 2003. To say nothing of showing initiative or common sense there. Yet despite the fact that the beach is an invaluable resource and the reason that many people have consciously chosen to live in Hallandale Beach instead of somewhere else in south Florida, Mayor Cooper and 3/4ths of the City Commission -and those bureaucrats- have chosen to squander time, energy and large sums of money on one terrible idea after another elsewhere in the city because of either personal connections or their push for the furtherance of crony capitalism, rather than in making the investment in making the public beaches cleaner, more attractive and more interesting for residents and guests alike. More recently, in her role as head of the Florida League of Cities, Mayor Cooper has neglected the city even more than usual, as she has flitted from one part of the state to another, acting like a Queen Bee. Believe me, the people she meets in other Florida cities in that FLC capacity have no earthly idea of what a poor job she has done for years by any sort of objective measure. In my opinion, in the year 2012, after all the dozens of fact-filled and photo-filled posts I've posted here documenting the deteriorating conditions of the city's public beaches, it's long past time to not only put the BEACH back in Hallandale, but to put genuine oversight and meaningful financial accountability to taxpayers in it as well. The citizens of this beach-side city deserve MUCH BETTER than they get with regard to beach maintenance and overall attractiveness. Ask yourself a question: If a well-managed but land-locked city like Coral Springs had a beach this size, what would it look like and how would it be managed? Now compare that image in your head with the current reality of ours under Mayor Joy Cooper. 'Nuff said!

"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 had 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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Palm tree obstructing the sun at Hallandale Beach City Hall, May 28, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Looking east from Hallandale Beach across the Intracoastal Waterway towards the Crowne Plaza Resort Hollywood Beach on the Intracoastal and the Sian condos in Hollywood, and the beachball-colored Hallandale Beach Water Tower to the south in HB, all on State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive. February 20, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

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

Hallandale Beach. Actually, it's a city of gross incompetency, red-tape & myopia

Hallandale Beach. Actually, it's a city of gross incompetency, red-tape & myopia
Hallandale Beach, City of Choice. The monument sign that greets northbound drivers on U.S.-1/South Federal Hwy. at the gateway into the city as they leave the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County in the rear window, on one of the three main streets into Hallandale Beach. Unfortunately, it's the perfect metaphor for the City of Hallandale Beach and its elected officials and employees the past 8 years: myopic and lacking in common sense. This sign, five blocks south of City Hall, was originally placed so far west on the median strip -and practically BEHIND a palm tree- that drivers actually COULDN'T actually read it even if they wanted to. In any case, because of the city's longtime gross incompetency, negligence and lack of appropriate oversight, the spotlights that were supposed to illuminate the sign at night HAVEN'T worked since about mid-January of 2004. Which is to say, yes, MUCH 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! My original photo here on the blog of this situation was taken January 2007; this one was taken May 8, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier. The three palm trees that had been in front of it on the median that obstructed it for so long have come and gone, with the result that for a few years you couldn't help but notice that it DIDN'T work! In February of 2009, in order to make room for a southbound left-turning lane at S.E. 5th Street into The Village of Gulfstream retail complex, the 'invisible' sign was removed and placed farther north on the media. For more than a year, despite a solar panel nearby, there were no actual light fixtures present! As of April 15, 2013, if you can believe this, with a new expensive street-lighting project along the median of U.S.-1 finally finished, where recently-planted trees now have lights shining on branches -as if that meant anything- guess what? Despite another nearby solar unit, there are STILL zero actual light fixtures pointed at the sign! ZERO! Correct, all these years and tax dollars later, the City of Hallandale Beach is STILL unable to figure out how to light this sign on the busiest street in the city at its southern gateway. Yet another sign of the ruinous reign of Mayor Joy Cooper. No attention to detail! © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Looking east on State Road 858/Hallandale Beach Blvd.

Looking east on State Road 858/Hallandale Beach Blvd.
Looking east on State Road 858/Hallandale Beach Blvd., over the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway bridge, toward the iconic Hallandale Beach Water Tower and the three condo towers comprising The Beach Club. September 8, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

City of Hollywood City Hall, 2600 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, FL

City of Hollywood City Hall, 2600 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, FL
City of Hollywood City Hall. An early morning shot of the east side of Hollywood City Hall the morning of the Johnson Street Redevelopment RFP Evaluation Committee meeting, where presentations were heard; October 14, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. For more info on what's going on with this important project, see http://www.hollywoodfl.org/html/JohnsonStBeachRFP.htm

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

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good
Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and former City Manager Mike Good. March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier, This photo was taken just days before the Air Supply fundraising/concert on the beach, as Hallandale Beach DPW employees try to make the area "appear" to be well-maintained -when in reality, it hadn't been properly maintained -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 given to the City of Hallandale Beach for free by The Related Group on August 3rd, 2007, and yet STILL remained OFF-LIMITS to everyday HB citizens, taxpayers and residents, the true "owners" of the building, until July of 2010, 35 MONTHS later. As of April 15, 2013, there hasn't been a single public forum held by the city dedicated to gauging how citizens want to utilize it best. That's because the community wants to actually be able to use THEIR OWN facility, while the city prefers keeping it locked-up, or as currently, rented out to The Realted Group to use as a model for their Beachwall development. Even worse, for years, the building remained a veritable clubhouse for the cronies and pals of HB City Hall's elected officials and city employees, who get to use it for free. And for many separate periods of time, often six months, the city couldn't even manage to keep an American flag on the city flagpole next to the fountain, even on Holiday. Like MLK day in 2012, among several others. Once again, HB City Hall & DPW shows their gross incompetency by being unable to manage something as simple as keeping a flag flying. Pathetic! © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Looking towards southern Hollywood Beach

Looking towards southern Hollywood Beach
Trump Hollywood, Diplomat Residences, Westin Diplomat, Crowne Resort. Looking NE towards Hollywood on State Road A1A from the 2500 block of East Hallandale Beach Blvd./State Road 858 just before crossing the Intracoastal Bridge: (l-r) Trump Hollywood, Diplomat Residences, the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, the Crowne Plaza Hollywood Beach. March 25, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald over 25 years ago

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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!

The Related Group's The Beach Club, consisting of three condo towers

The Related Group's The Beach Club, consisting of three condo towers
The Beach Club. Looking SE at The Beach Club from the Hollywood side of State Road A1A. May 12, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive

Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive
Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive. Located below the Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive, on the south side (right) is the "Community Center" that HB City Hall, thru their gross incompetency, has made impossible for HB citizen taxpayers to use now for 41 MONTHS as of January 2011. (And where's the American flag on the Fourth of July weekend? Missing in action as it had been for months!) July 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and Village at GP retail complex, Hallandale Beach, FL

Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and Village at GP retail complex, Hallandale Beach, FL
Entrance monument to Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and The Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex on U.S.-1 & SE 3rd St. Hallandale Beach, FL. October 5, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Gulfstream Way at Gulfstream Park Race Track in Hallandale Beach, FL

Gulfstream Way at Gulfstream Park Race Track in Hallandale Beach, FL
The north-south street sign in the middle of Gulfstream Park Race Track in Hallandale Beach, FL that leads to-and-from the track and the retail Village at Gulfstream Park to Hallandale Beach Blvd. north of the facilities. October 5, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

400 S Federal Highway, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009


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North Miami Beach Senior High School, the Home of the Chargers

North Miami Beach Senior High School, the Home of the Chargers
Before I was a Hoosier, I was an NMB Charger, Class of 1979

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation
"In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation." -South Beach Hoosier, 2007.

The NCAA Championship Banners

The NCAA Championship Banners
Assembly Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. I was there in 1981 for NCAA Title #4 vs. North Carolina. Click on photo to go to the IU Basketball homepage.

Evan Gordon - I have decided to become a Hoosier this coming season

Let's end the 27-year NCAA title drought!

Let's end the 27-year NCAA title drought!
IU All-American and U.S. Olympian Steve Alford on the cover of the 1987 Indiana University basketball media guide, months after IU won the NCAA basketball title.

Sebastian the Ibis, the U-M mascot

Sebastian the Ibis, the U-M mascot
Like longtime U-M fans everywhere, including me, Sebastian the Ibis, the U-M mascot, hasn't had very much to cheer about lately, given the general state of mediocrity and underwhelming performances coming from the Hurricanes. Isn't it about time for fans to finally see some tangible signs that the new AD is moving things in the right direction? Where are the signs? I'm NOT seeing them. The woeful U-M Women's program is largely composed of teams that are NOT even close to being competitive for NCAA titles like their ACC competition, and they don't even field Women's Lacrosse or Field Hockey teams. It's embarrassing! Click on Sebastian for retrospective photo gallery of The Orange Bowl

"Man of Steel" - Trailer 2

"Man of Steel" - Trailer 2