Mr. Scott, have you seen the city's most recent evaluation report on the Palms Community Action Coalition's request for funding?
That's a rhetorical question.
Taxpayers haven't, unlike the past two years when it at least appeared on the city's website..
I ask because the many deficiencies of the Palms Community Action Coalition, Inc.'s request cited by the city in their 2011 analysis of their request for CRA funding, and the needs of the public for honesty, have NOT been resolved to taxpayers' satisfaction in their 2012 request in the most fundamental way -transparency.
A reasonable person can see that it was NOT because it is readily-apparent by the utter lack of transparency with the community on their own website.
The website advertises itself as the best way fro the community to keep informed about their activities, but they have no activities listed since June of 2011, a fact I have known for well over a year and which I told then-CRA Executive Director Dr. Jackson, Jr. about in a September 2012 email, which was also bcc'd to your office. (See bottom.)
And what has happened in the intervening five months, Mr. Scott, since I showed Dr. Jackson the true facts using the city's own documents?
Nothing.
Nothing has happened.
You and your team can see that for themselves.
Yes, despite there having been being two management people in the city's CRA office and three in the City Manager's office making over $100,000 a year, presumably a sign that they are in some way competent, NONE OF THEM seems to have had any ability or willingness to insist to Murvin Wright and Jessica Sanders that in exchange for the tens of thousands of CRA dollars they and their group have received in the past, to say nothing of getting their very own office on city property at the Hepburn Center -used by Comm. Anthony A. Sanders wife, Jessica- and the use of city personnel and resources, the only group in the city with that "right," the city's taxpayers and residents are entitled to at least some semblance of transparency from this group that explains what they actually do, see a measure of progress, and see just who the Directors and key personnel are, their qualifications, and the salary/fees they receive, if any, for their involvement.
Which is to say, the bare minimum.
But they and the City Commission can't manage that, Mr. Scott, despite my having mentioned it numerous times at City Commission meetings.
The folks at Palms Community Action Coalition, Inc., led by Murvin Wright, don't care about what the public thinks or wants or expects, they just want their money.
"Their money" not really being their money, of course, but they do act 100% entitled to it, and woe to anyone in this city who asks reasonable questions about their activities -or lack of them- at public meetings.
Then, the City commission sycophants jump into action to defend this!
Could you explain how the city's CRA Board of Directors, in the form of the City Commission, would STILL vote to give them funds last year despite the fact that this and other problems were still readily-apparent, and had this very obvious problem that has NEVER BEEN RESOLVED?
THAT should give you some sort of idea of the kind of non-existent oversight the CRA Board of Directors has provided on behalf of taxpayers for many years.
As long as their friends and political supporters received their funds, what the public thought didn't matter.
Can anyone -you perhaps- please explain to me how the person in charge of such a disorganized and unprofessional (so-called non-profit) group, Murvin Wright, a person who is also connected to other groups requesting money from the CRA/city, and with connections to CRA contractors, is able to remain in charge, given such obvious and grievous management and PR mistakes?
But then if you or anyone else could explain THAT, literally, the un-explainable, what would you then be forced to conclude by the preponderance of evidence when you discover that this very same person, Mr. Wright, was also appointed to the city's CRA Advisory Board, the very group that casts a preliminary vote in determining what community groups, if any, receive CRA funds?
Really.
And then, on top of that, you discover who the person is who appointed him in the first place, knowing full-well what his personal and business connections are to the groups, and knows that Mr. Wright is eager to be paid by contractors working for the CRA in at least one respect, with the park in NW Hallandale Beach?
Yes, as if the other already-known conflict-of-interest isn't bad enough and a bitter pill to swallow for the ethical and concerned citizens and residents of this city?
Well, the answer to that question, the very person in this city who is supposed to set the example here for upholding ethical standards, following the law, ensuring public accountability for taxpayers, residents and small business owners, and making sure nothing nefarious is taking place is the mayor, Joy Cooper.
Mayor Cooper is the person who already fully knew Murvin Wright's status as a walking/talking poster boy for conflict-of-interest, and yet went ahead and appointed him to the CRA Advisory Board anyway.
That simple fact should stop you cold, Mr. Scott, and give you and your investigators pause and make very clear how very different from you, me and most people in this city Mayor Cooper's understanding and notions of ethics and proper management is.
She doesn't want to have the highest ethical standards, she merely wants what she wants.
Period
Even if Mr. Wright recuses himself on votes regarding the Palms Community Action Coalition, logically, he still gets to vote AGAINST their competitors for CRA funds.
That is a self-evident conflict of interest that the City Manager, the City Attorney, the City Commission and the CRA employees have allowed to exist despite the fact that it is NOT in the best financial interests of this city's taxpayers and business owners.
(But then it was me, not them with all their resources, who first discovered the fact that the City of Hallandale Beach has for years been routinely awarding tens of thousands of dollars a year in CRA funds to so-called non-profit groups anyone from the city actually verifying the accuracy of the submitted documents.
For instance, a group that was no longer legally considered by the IRS to be a non-profit, yet they kept taking the city's money for years, anyhow, and had even submitted another for this year. The city acted on the honor system instead of providing the sort of oversight the public expected, with the result that lots of money that could have been better spent flowed-out for years with little to show or it, and with no plans by the groups for their own long-term sustainability.)
And again, it's not like that is the only group seeking CRA funds that Murvin Wright is associated with.
Do you even have a list of the other groups seeking HB CRA funds that Mr. Wright is connected to?
I can tell you that the public doesn't.
Good luck trying to anyone trying to get that information pried-out of the hands of City Hall!
And just so there's no confusion on this point, Mr. Scott, that would be the Murvin Wright who on one city document after another lists his address as the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church.
A person who is not only supposed to know the difference between right and wrong but to live it, ends up being the mascot for so many things that are ethically and legally nefarious and which have been allowed to exist for many, many years.
I formally invite you and your staff to come to Hallandale Beach tonight and watch as Murvin Wright of the CRA Advisory Board waits to see if his so-called non-profit yet again is foolishly rewarded with tens of thousands of dollars from, yes, the CRA.
Agenda for Tuesday night's CRA meeting starting at 6:30 -lots of VERY questionable items!
Mr. Scott, the proper and state-mandated public noticing of city meetings continues to be a a very serious problem at HB City Hall, despite many years of public complaints.
To cite but two examples from January, the CRA Advsiory Board and Visioning meeting.
The CRA Advisory Board meeting, one that was actually required by a vote of the City Commission at their last meeting in December was not listed on the city's own Meeting Board in the lobby of City Hall moments before the meeting started.
I know because I was going to the meeting and took a photo of the board and the missing notice.
And while many cities seem to be able to reliably get their own meeting notices on their own website without any problem, Hallandale Beach seems to have a major learning curve, as neither meetings were on the city's website, again, even moments before they started.
Even more troublesome ethically is the City Manager and City Commission's shrugged shoulders at being told about it and their cavalier attitude about complying with state law.
You and your staff can see that for yourself if you watch the video of that Visioning meeting, the same one where citizens were NOT allowed to speak for the duration of the eight hours or so it took place.
That is, IF there were any video of the elected City Commission talking about city policies and spending money for so very long.
But there isn't.
Instead, there's just the memory in everyone heads who attended of the City Manager indignantly insisting that the information was there and twice, the City Clerk checking the city's website on her computer at the dais and saying that it wasn't, and the elected City Commission -save one member, Comm. Michele Lazarow, who who brought the matter up- acting like it didn't matter at all to them, and that they almost resented it even being brought up.
That's the reality of living in this city, Mr. Scott, not at all like the lofty ideas on public participation and outreach in a book on public administration.
Another completely unacceptable situation is that the city's "Current List of Registered Lobbyists" is 48 weeks old, and has not been updated since March 16th of LAST YEAR, which is to say many months prior to the very controversial Beachwalk tower development project/city-giveaway was voted upon and approved while the majority of the residents in the neighborhood most directly-affected by it were out-of-town in August.
Yes, that's how they do things here, Mr. Scott
Tell me, does 48-week old information sound like the City of Hallandale Beach and its elected leaders and high-priced staff is following the letter and spirit of the law to you, Mr. Scott?
It doesn't to me and many people I know in this city.
Additionally, the Lobbyist/Visitor contact list on the city's website
http://www.cohb.org/index.aspx?NID=835 that is supposed to give Hallandale Beach citizens a reasonable degree of transparency regarding who is visiting whom at City Hall, does NOT currently work.
How many months has it not been there as legally required?
Elected Official Requirements
Section 3(c), to further promote full and complete transparency, Elected Officials must disclose any and all lobbying activity that knowingly occurs between themselves and individual lobbyits or their rprincipals or employers outside their governments offices/premises. This shall include communicating by any form of telephonic or electronic media.
- The disclosure shall include the lobbyist's name; the name of the entity by which the lobbyist is employed; the name of the person or entity for whom or which he or she is lobbying; the date, time and location of the meeting; and the specific purpose and subject matter of the meeting.
- The disclosure shall be made within ten (10) business days of the lobbying activity, but must, in any event, be made prior to
any vote on a matter that was the subject of the lobbying activity.
- The dislclosue shall be filed for public inspection.
We're sorry, but there is not a web page matching your entry.
You entered: www.cohb.org/DocumentCenter/View/2253
Click here to go to the home page
It is possible that you typed the address incorrectly, or that the page no longer exists.
How many months has this been the case?
I can tell you that it has been several months, but it could even be MUCH further back than that.
Mr. Scott, does that sound anything at all like a city that is actively trying to do what is both legally required and what is in the best interests of its citizens to you?
It doesn't to me.
Not by a long shot.
The three key transparency tools that the public counts on to be able to have any degree of trust in the city, ones that are mandated by law, and yet all three are effectively broken in this city where citizens constantly take it on the chin when trying to simply get what they are legally entitled to: access to relevant public information in a timely fashion.
It looks to me like you and your investigators have a LOT more work ahead of you in Hallandale Beach, and that's just part of the iceberg.
There's a lot more...
At the Broward League of Women Voters luncheon meeting in Coconut Creek that you spoke at last month, which I and four very concerned friends and civic activists from Hallandale Beach attended, I was going to suggest to you in the strongest possible terms that for all your talk about public outreach at various places around the county, anything less than a public appearance by you, very soon, in this corrupt and poorly-managed city, to answer the reasonable questions of the people who are most effected by the dysfunctional culture of corruption here, is wholly unsatisfactory.
A field hearing.
Your talks to the LWV and other high-minded civic groups are fine, there's obviously a place for that, but you and your staff need to fully understand and appreciate that the beleaguered citizens of this community actually need to see you walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
And to do it here in-person in Hallandale Beach.
FYI: I filmed your remarks at the meeting and the subsequent Q&A and plan on uploading some of it to my YouTube Channel this weekend.
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