Above, looking east at Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's large 2" X 8" campaign sign at the corner of Hallandale Beach Blvd. & S.E. 26th Avenue, at the foot of the west side of the State Road 858 Bridge over the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. October 19, 2012 photos by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
It's the sort of prime advertising location in the city that comes to you when you've been nothing but Bosom Buddies with The Related Group and their merry band of secondary players for years-and-years, like Greenberg Traurig attorney Debbie Orshefsky and Richard Cannone, a Planning Administrator and registered lobbyist for Calvin Giordano & Associates, and not incidentally, the city's former Director of Development Services, whom concerned and observant residents long thought consistently worked harder for big developers and their minion pals trying to get a deal at HB City Hall than he ever did in representing the best long-term interests of Hallandale Beach residents and taxpayers.
I know because I was one of those concerned and observant residents, which led me to write this about him on November 9, 2010 Addition by subtraction: Richard Cannone leaving City of Hallandale Beach for PA; let's hope his replacement is more forthcoming, honest than he was http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/addition-by-subtraction-richard-cannone.html
All of these players in the development game have been lavish in their praise for Mayor Cooper after her very hard push in mid-summer for the approval of The Related Group's 31-story project on the water, despite its unanimous rejection by the city's Planning & Zoning Board.
Mayor Cooper was especially eager to vote on this and get it done before most of the HB residents most directly affected by the project could return here in late August. How much praise?
Over $20,000 worth of praise.
WPLG-TV, Miami
Bob Norman's Blog
Should it be illegal?
By Bob Norman
Published On: Oct 18 2012 10:20:21 AM EDT
Updated On: Oct 18 2012 11:07:10 AM EDT
Video is at: http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/Should-it-be-illegal/-/3223354/17039128/-/v2xsce/-/index.html
As we have seen with specificity here on the blog the past two weeks, when you are Joy Cooper and you have lots of generous developer friends, plus their friends, you can afford to buy nice campaign re-election signs with $20,000, even if Team Cooper carelessly erects many of them in places that are illegal under the city's own rules, rules she knows well, having both voted for them and lived with them for the past ten years.
But what are simple rules to you when your real estate development pals are so damn generous with their campaign checks?
And let's not forget strip mall developer R.K. Centers of Sunny Isles, who not only writes incumbents like Joy Cooper big checks, but also allows her large campaign signs to be placed on their prominent properties along Hallandale Beach Blvd. For instance, near the city's one and only Publix.
R.K. Centers also fully supports Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and former Comm. William "Bill" Julian, whose signs appear in front of the Publix property, with Julian also on the opposite side of the street near two separate entrance to Winn-Dixie and to Panera's, Boston Market and Starbucks.
Together, these two unethical characters are three bricks shy of a load, but the fact that they're not bright or attentive very much appeals to R.K. because it makes it easier for them to get what they want around here, like the very large sign for Five Guys that on Wednesday they sought a variance for at their property at the Sage Bagel Plaza.
The proposed sign is far too large according to the city's own rules, and was rejected by the city's Planning & Zoning Board. You tell me, what do you think is going to happen in the end when Cooper and Sanders vote on it for a second and final time in a few weeks?Yes, real estate developers just love Joy Cooper, and it's easy to see why.
She's the mayor who just can't say NO.
And neither are Cooper's Rubber Stamps: Sanders and Julian.
Looking east towards the Intracoastal and The Related Group's three giant condo towers on State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive, The Beach Club, and to the north by a few hundred feet in Hollywood, Related's The Apogee , still under construction, where the construction crane is pictured. Here's what that is supposed to look like when finished: http://www.apogeebeachcondos.com/
Above, looking northeast from the site of the Beachwalk project towards the State Road 858/HBB bridge, with hotels and condos in Hollywood on State Road A1A in the distance.
All October 19, 2012 photos above by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
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Greenberg Traurig attorney Debbie Orshefsky at the lectern making the formal Power Point presentation to the Hallandale Beach City Commission for her client, The Related Group, on behalf of their Beachwalk development project on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, with their army of professional hired hands and lobbyists seated in the first thee rows. So why was HB Chamber of Commerce (and Lady-in-Pink) President Carole Pumpian sitting there if she wasn't being paid? Hmm-m... June 6, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. All Rights Reserved. |
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