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.
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/r3MUHpMTAaoCissi'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.
Look what I found? More photographic proof of Hallandale Beach's "business as usual" attitude. Special rules for special people named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders -once again they break the rules everyone else HAS to follow; Ethics @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy
Look what I found? More photographic proof of Hallandale Beach's "business as usual" attitude. Special rules for special people named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders -once again they break the rules everyone else HAS to follow; Ethics @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy
No, there's nothing the least bit vague, accidental, oblique or circumstantial about these photos, is there?
What you see are three political campaign yard signs for Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders on City of Hallandale Beach property -taxpayer property- at 501 N.W. First Avenue, yesterday afternoon, Wednesday the 3rd.
This from the very same three folks at Hallandale Beach City Hall who for years have employed cover-up, finger-pointing and obfuscation more than they've employed common sense and honesty. Yes, and the thing is, I've already spoken to multiple sources who've told me that they saw those same three signs standing there last Saturday morning, before the ribbon-cutting ceremony at nearby Foster Park.
Which is to say that the three of them are and have been in clear violation of Hallandale Beach's own rules governing the placement of campaign signs, as well as basic common sense and standards of campaign integrity -you don't put your campaign signs on government property!
It doesn't just look bad, it STINKS!
Between the three of them, Cooper, Julian and Sanders have been in office in Hallandale Beach for roughly 26 years, so they are NOT unfamiliar with the rules on this subject. In fact, they were given the most-updated copy of the rules that exist when they filed for office and paid their qualifying fees - it was in the packet of documents.
For the very same reason that these three people ALSO place the same campaign yard signs at the dilapidated old HB City Hall that I've written about and photographed so many times over the years that is both an eyesore and a firetrap, to say nothing about it being a dumping ground for junk that neighbors on the south side of it, on S.W. 4th Street, have to look at for months or years at a time, because no responsible parties at HB City Hall are consistently doing their job, paying attention or being pro-active in looking-out for them.
And we all know from experience that this is certainly NOT the sort of behavior that would be tolerated across the street from Joy Cooper's house on Holiday Drive, garbage and junk sitting there for months at a time, rotting away.
But that's what the residents on S.W. 4th Street have had to put up with for years!
But then they don't stop there.
The three of them also have their yard signs on city property next to the city's DPW/Water Treatment Center on N.W. 2nd Street, on the N.W. 8th Avenue corner.
Where they've been for a while, as obvious as obvious could be.
As we have all learned to our collective regret over the years from first-hand observation and experience, there's what the State, County and City laws, ordinances and rules say, and then there's what Cooper, Julian and Sanders think they can successfully get away with.
They have repeatedly shown, over-and-over, that they DON'T care about those things.
They really don't.
They have the mindset that their sense of entitlement allows them to do whatever they want.
Rules? Rules are for other people -like you and me and their political opponents.
They don't sweat the small stuff because they actually dare anyone to actually try to stop them when they break the rules, written or otherwise.
After all, in the three of them, we're talking about some pretty shady and pernicious characters who have revealed their own lack of character and integrity, over-and-over.
Mayor Cooper had no qualms in telling another commissioner (Julian) that a HB resident sitting by himself (me) at a HB City Commission meeting -before it started- was "a Nazi," before then quickly following-up by calling another commissioner who wasn't there (Keith London) "a Hitler."
In former Commissioner and 2012 Comm. candidate Bill Julian we have someone who thought to use the fact that there were no cameras around in City Hall Room 257 at a City Commission meeting to record him to make a motion to triple the commissioner's salary, and then had the audacity afterwards to publicly say that he deserved to be paid like a corporate executive for all of his work.
Yes, paid like a corporate executive for his job as a part-time commissioner.
And all the while, for years Julian has routinely parked his vehicle in "Handicapped Parking" and "No Parking" spaces at locations all over town, including what used to be the ONLY street-level "Handicapped" and "Handicapped Access" parking spaces at the city's public beach at North Beach.
In Anthony A. Sanders we have someone who for years has refused to return phone calls and emails from residents who wanted to communicate with him.
Refused to come to their neighborhood to hear their side in a policy issue, and who has refused for over three-and-a-half years to meet with the public he works for to tell the truth -and his side- about the city's controversial purchase of his property for $85,000 more than it was worth by any reasonable standard.
And in Sanders, we have a person who has been not the least bit shy -or even clever- in his use of race-baiting in this small city in order to try to hang onto power, the most recent proof of which is that he consciously uses two entirely different-looking "2' X 8" campaign signs in NW and SW, but something entirely different east of U.S.-1.
Can you see what the difference is?
He does something that no other candidate does on their 2" x 8" campaign signs.
He's two-faced with just one face.
Did you figure it out yet?
Correct, in NW and SW Hallandale Beach, Sanders has a photo of himself along with the symbol of his Eagles Wings Development Center to remind residents there who he is and what he looks like.
But on the other side of town, there's no photo of him and no physical reminder of a group that the city under Mayor Cooper and Bill Julian has been giving dollars to for years, with little oversight or accountability. An organization which, after all these years and all those dollars, STILL doesn't have a website that would in some way explain what they really do -and really do with the city dollars they are given.
No, on the signs you see as you get closer to the center of this city's population, and get closer to the beach, Anthony A. Sanders not only doesn't show his face, which is ironic, but doesn't even so much as have a slogan on his signs.
The position of the four commissioner and one mayor in this city is At-Large, which means that Sanders is supposed to represent ALL residents from this city, but he doesn't. No, it's been made rather clear to everyone for years that in his mind, Sanders only needs to represent NW Hallandale Beach, even though it only represents 13% of the city's overall population, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
Barely one-eighth of the city!
Why do you think Comm. Alexander Lewy is pushing that absurd charter amendment that changes the city's current horse-race system that, simply put, ensures that if eight candidates are running for two seats, the two candidates who get the most votes get elected. Lewy wants to change that. He wants a lesser standard to ensure that Sanders gets to stay on the City Commission as long as incompetent Sanders likes, not as long as the concerned citizens of this community like.
It's hardly surprising that all three of them voted FOR Mayor Cooper's unpopular red-light cameras. The ones that aren't doing what Cooper said they'd do -decrease traffic accidents
See my August 25, 2012 blog post titled, City of Hallandale Beach prints analysis that refutes Mayor Joy Cooper's mendacious efforts on red-light cameras - "In summary, there is no safety benefit to the citizens, and there is no financial benefit to the taxpayer due to automated for-profit; @MayorCooper
Perhaps City Manager Renee Crichton and City Attorney Lynn Whitfield should stage a surprise visit over at 501 N.W. First Avenue this afternoon and ask the person in charge (LOL!) if there are ANY political campaign signs of any kind located in the building.
Ask if the location is being used for any political purpose.
And then, regardless of what they are told, look around themselves.
Perhaps with some Code Compliance enforcement officers and some Hallandale Beach Police.
I mention that last part since I saw campaign signs coming and going from that city-owned building into a vehicle on the east side of it, just steps from the front door, as I watched Wednesday afternoon after 5 p.m., on my way back from an errand in western Hollywood
It was very obvious, and I actually noticed the signs in the vehicle before I noticed the three signs in the ground just a few feet away, because I was going east on Foster Road towards Dixie Highway.
But when I came to the stop signs and saw what was going on, I made a left, pulled over and stopped my car, got out and started taking photos.
Within a few minutes, a series of vehicles came by and stopped, lingered for a few minutes as they saw me taking more and more photos of the outside of the building, and then took off.
Some of them actually came back around a second time while I was on the phone calling some of you, but when they saw that I was still there, and still had the camera in my hand, rather than linger, they stopped at the stop sign, then sped off, seemingly disappointed that they couldn't go inside and get what they'd come by for in the first place as long as I stood outside snapping photos.
Hmm-m... I wonder what that was?
I highly doubt that it was musical instruments.
By the way, some of you may recall that I recently mentioned in an email that some of the largest land owners in Hallandale Beach were more than willing to put their name behind these same three unethical individuals, these "Special Rules for Special People."
RK Centers, The Mardi Gras and The Related Group have all helped these three people who have helped them so many times in the past with YES votes, even when it was contrary to the best long-term interests of the residents and business owners of this community.
Just something to keep in mind as Election Day gets closer...
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.
A problematic model: Hallandale Beach CRA under city manager’s thumb j.mp/13xk92t
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 Auditor looks at Hallandale Beach CRA with eye toward recovering misspent funds j.mp/11ysUve
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
____________________________________________ 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 ofPUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITYhere among Florida's state, regional and local govt./agency officials.Hallandale Beach Blogaims 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'sHoosiershttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091217/
_____________________________________ The South Florida I Grew Up In
Excerpted from Joan Didion'sMiami, 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... _____________________________________________
A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Hallandale Beach, FL
"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"
_____________________________________________ "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!
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 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
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." -South Beach Hoosier, 2007.
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
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
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
Stockholm i MittHjärta (Stockholm in My Heart) from SVT's "Allsång på Skansen"
Måns Zelmerlöw, Björn Skifs, Loa Falkman and Peter Jöback sing "Stockholm i MittHjärta" (Stockholm in My Heart) from the intro of a 2011 episode of SVT's "Allsång på Skansen" in Stockholm, Sweden.http://youtu.be/JEPvZBDOjdc
Justin Bieber Grand Hotel prank - Sweden (Original Video)
Justin Bieber Grand Hotel prank - Sweden (Original Video), RandomMakingMovies YouTube Channel video:, Uploaded on April 24, 2013. More info at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRozxWEZDUw
Secretary Kerry Delivers Remarks With Swedish Prime Minister Reinfeldt in Stockholm
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