Hallandale Beach City Commission terminates contract of embattled City Manager Daniel Rosemond on a 3-2 vote

Wednesday night the Hallandale Beach City Commission terminated the contract of embattled City Manager Daniel Rosemond on a 3-2 vote, with Vice Mayor Keith London, Comm. Michele Lazarow and Comm. Anabelle Taub voting for, and Mayor Joy Cooper -speaking via telephone from her home- and Comm. Anthony A. Sanders voting no on the motion authored by Vice Mayor London.

I'll have more to say Thursday afternoon on the very angry, heated meeting that went nearly four hours and that was forced to take a recess several times when shouting matches between Commissioners grew too heated for the proceedings to continue. 

The last recess came about when apparently self-evident but-heretofore-unreported facts were made public by Comm. Anabelle Taub about just who in the community had been heavily involved in engaging in what were by any reasonable standards, some vicious and unethical perhaps behavior during the recent election campaign.

Not surprisingly, it involved Joy Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew and its well-financed backers and acolytes in the area that had caused the South Florida Sun-Sentinel to label Hallandale Beach as the site of "the dirtiest" election in all of South Florida in its editorial endorsing newcomer Anabelle Taub and incumbent Michele Lazarow.

For those of you reading this blog post far from this ocean-side city in southeast Broward County where the temperature reached 84 degrees today, that's really saying something considering how low things have been in South Florida for many decades. 
Among those involved: Commissioner Sanders' very own adult son.

The meeting was full of both dry, stone-cold, documented facts about Rosemond's persistent failings and lapses in ethical judgment and, being Hallandale Beach, some quite "imaginary" views voiced by several of Mayor Cooper's typically thin-skinned friends and cronies -as well as some out-of-town friends of Rosemond- that described Hallandale Beach as a very well-run city and Rosemond as about the nicest, most capable guy you could know. 
Yes, IF only it was actually true...

But the problem for the people who believe in the alternative universe version of HB is that the mountain of inconvenient facts about the reality there the past dozen years under Mayor Cooper are known by far too many people in the area -including reporters- and belie that naive, preposterous fiction and attempt to spin and misrepresent the truth. Considering that he was the person who had formally requested the meeting under the city's charter rules to try to stave off being fired, it was typical HB melodrama that Rosemond was... NOT present.

I think you know where I come out on this: Daniel Rosemond should have been fired for cause years ago when he was only damaging the HB CRA, not the whole city thru his consistently arrogant and condescending attitude towards the public and Small Business community, as well as his bosses, the City Commission, plus his inability to take constructive criticism or actually resolve self-evident problems.

Here's link to the agenda from tonigt's meeting, with Supporting Documents

https://hallandalebeach.granicusideas.com/meetings/238-december-28-2016-city-commission/agenda_items

I've updated and expanded my last blog post since it was originally posted:
#ethics & threats: The reasons ex-Hallandale Beach Comm. Alex Lewy was booted from City of Hallandale Beach Police & Fire Pension Board. Threatened Broward County PBA members if they didn't support him in his election bid 

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2016/12/ethics-threats-reasons-ex-hallandale.html

Dave 

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies

https://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

#ethics & threats: The reasons ex-Hallandale Beach Comm. Alex Lewy was booted from City of Hallandale Beach Police & Fire Pension Board. Threatened Broward County PBA members if they didn't support him in his election bid vs vs. Michele Lazarow

#ethics & threats: The reasons ex-Hallandale Beach Comm. Alex Lewy was booted from City of Hallandale Beach Police & Fire Pension Board. Threatened Broward County PBA members if they didn't support him in his election bid vs. Michele Lazarow

Updated: December 27, 2016

To me and many other observers of the South Florida political scene, especially those of us who've kept a particularly close eye on what Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper has really been up to the past dozen years, what's perhaps the single most disturbing aspect of daily life for most Hallandale Beach residents and Small Business owners -besides dealing with the daily gridlock in one of South Florida's most-congested areas- is the extent to which the South Florida news media continues to fail to report on matters of genuine public importance to them has been "normalized."

It's just taken for granted that things that happen in Hallandale Beach that would merit public attention if it took place in other cities, is... completely ignored.
As if it never happened.

For the past nine years, often in great depth, I've written about that uniquely Hallandale Beach phenomena wherein self-evident facts conclusively show for anyone who cares to look and pay attention, that there was more than a little proof that Hallandale Beach elected officials and high-ranking officials regularly engaged in public and private behavior and
actions that would simply NOT be tolerated in most Florida or American cities.

But for a variety of reasons, this was not only tolerated, but also never reported upon by the local South Florida news media, despite them being given all sorts of information about the matter. 
Often, literally served to them on a silver platter, complete with contemporaneous photos and links to govt. websites that connected the dots.
(I know this because many times, I was the person serving up the facts to the news media on a silver platter. Only to see it ignored. Over-and-over again.)

But despite this, the issues involved were never seriously discussed publicly or analyzed by "experts" or law enforcement officials in the local news media, though if it had taken place in certain other South Florida cities we could name, it not only would have been reported, but given great prominence. But because it happened in Hallandale Beach, it was ignored.

Yes, unfortunately, the standard of what's considered acceptable public behavior, to say nothing of public expectations, has been reduced to such a shockingly low standard in this area of South Florida under Mayor Joy Cooper's long reign, that the South Florida news media, collectively, simply shakes their head and tells themselves, "It's just Hallandale Beach being Hallandale Beach. That's how they do things there." 

And with that rather smug pronouncement, the issue at hand was promptly ignored unless something unexpected happened later, like a shoe dropping that nobody in the news media had predicted.
But that shoe rarely drops.

So, the end result is that while some members of the South Florida press corps may come to learn certain key facts that most reasonable people would think are important enough to the local HB populace to be publicly reported, the public doesn't ever hear about it, even if it concerns someone who is running for elective office.

(I know how many of you longtime blog readers hate when I restate matters here which you regard as being perfectly self-evident to even the most hardened cynic, but I remind you there are always new readers to the blog who don't know that is the case.)

That said, what is most disturbing is the extent to which the worst and most egregious ethical violations have NOT been reported anywhere in the news media because of that "normalization" of highly-questionable if not downright unethical behavior.

I'm taking care of one such example myself today, personally.

And it's my pleasure.

At a recent Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting, several disturbing facts about what has been going on in the city this past year that hitherto not been known were publicly revealed. 

Perhaps the most egregious fact to emerge concerned the revelation that Alexander Lewy, a former City of Hallandale Beach Commissioner with what many consider a well-known history for NOT always following or staying within known ethical or social boundaries, had been involved in YET ANOTHER situation that reflected very poorly not only on him personally, but the city by extension.

I remind you newer readers to the blog that Alex Lewy is someone I quickly and famously nicknamed "Lewy The Liar" here on the blog before he was ever elected because... well, he kept proving it accurate, and earned the nickname.

Earlier this year, Lewy, who was siting at the time on the city's appointed Police & Fire Pension Board, as well as the city's important Planning & Zoning Advisory Board, all at the same time he was running for election to the City Commission in November against incumbent Commissioner Michele Lazarow, made a phone call or two to the head of the Broward County PBA, Jeff Marano.

I should mention here that despite the fact that my late father was a Miami-Dade Police Officer for over 25 years and served for many years on the Dade PBA's influential Board of Directors, it's an understatement to say that Jeff Marano is not someone I'm particularly crazy about.

Marano is a guy I have written about a lot in the past -often negatively- because of what I and many other local observers perceive to be the Broward PBA's unwholly neccessarily antagonistic, vituperative and unrealistic POV against Hollywood taxpayers and the City of Hollywood when it comes to the city's pensions and the city's budget.

In short, among many of the people who pay most attention to it, the Broward PBA is publicly perceived as being a thin-skinned group that has a sense of entitlement that does not at all equate with the financial reality of the city or the public's best long-term interests.
This attitude is particularly off-putting precisely because everyone is well aware of the Broward PBA's numbers and local political clout.

According to what was stated publicly by Hallandale Beach Commissioners on the record at the Commission meeting, in his conversation(s) with Jeff Marano, Lewy made threats about what would happen in the future to Broward PBA members in Hallandale Beach if he wasn't publicly endorsed by them and elected. 
Really.

But weeks after this "news" came out, what former Comm. Alex Lewy said and did has still never been reported upon anywhere, other than here at Hallandale Beach Blog.

Never been reported or commented on by the South Florida press corps, never discussed at all in places where you would think it mattered.

This ethical revelation about Lewy came up at a Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting when it came time to discuss Lewy's re-nomination to the Police & Fire pension Board via a motion by Mayor Cooper, after the election but prior to Anabelle Taub being sworn in and taking the seat formerly held by William "Bill" Julian.

(The Broward PBA eventually endorsed incumbent Michele Lazarow against Alex Lewy in that race and for realtor Anabelle Taub against incumbent William "Bill" Julian for the other seat on the ballot. The Broward PBA's financial, emotional, political and PR support were key factors in the resounding victories enjoyed by Lazarow and Taub, a fact that the two of them were quick to publicly acknowledge when they were sworn into office in late November.)

This revelation came out under a motion for reconsideration by Vice Mayor Keith London, who had made public his intention to make such a motion at the previous City Commission meeting.

At that prior meeting, Lewy was approved despite the matter NOT appearing at all on the city's printed public agenda.

Why do you suppose that was?

Perhaps it was for the most obvious reason off all.

If it was publicly known that Mayor Cooper planned on re-nominating Lewy, the PBA would have had time to, quite sensibly, mobilize its members and show up in large numbers at the public meeting to make known -and clear- their grave concerns about Lewy

As it happened, in the end, with Mayor Cooper having left the meeting before it was over, and Vice Mayor London then taking the gavel as presiding officer, with the previous motion to keep Lewy on the Board having been approved, it was then vacated, and Lewy was formally removed from the Hallandale Beach Police & Fire Pension Board.

I expect to have more details about this matter in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Dave

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

One year later, their power and brilliance remains undiminished: Old songs we loved are made new and great again, via the genius of TV4's "Så Mycket Bättre" re Ace of Base, Jenny Berggren, Lisa Nilsson, Kleerup. @aceofbase @jennyberggren @kwidewitt @kleerup #Sweden

One year later, their power and brilliance remains undiminished: Old songs we loved are made new and great again, via the genius of TV4's "Så Mycket Bättre" re Ace of Base, Jenny Berggren, Lisa Nilsson, Kleerup. @aceofbase @jennyberggren 
@kwidewitt @kleerup 


Ace of Base - The Sign (Official Music Video) https://youtu.be/iqu132vTl5Y

Lisa Nilsson - När kärleken Tar slut (The Sign) (Live on TV4's "Så Mycket Bättre") https://youtu.be/dV1QtwT5CwM

Great Lisa Nilsson -@kwidewitt- on 'När kärleken tar slut" on @TV4 #såmycketbättre causes Jenny Berggren to cry! :-) https://t.co/FqHZGDYkAm

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 5, 2016

Wow! :-) Lisa Nilsson -aka @kwidewitt- singing 'När kärleken tar slut," on @TV4's @nyhetsmorgon Dec. 21, 2015 https://t.co/SimRqJ3rwp

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 5, 2016

Kleerup - Longing For Lullabies (feat. Titiyo) - Official video https://youtu.be/Mu_dr9M2vjA

Kleerup & Lisa Nilsson - Longing For Lullabies (Live on TV4's "Så Mycket Bättre") https://youtu.be/EROHkyGeshU

I can't even begin to tell you how OFTEN I've found myself singing or humming this amazing song the past year, esp. the last few months in and around South Florida.

More recent segments and music videos from TV4's "Så Mycket Bättre" at its YouTube Channel that I subscribe to: https://www.youtube.com/user/samycketbattretv4

In my opinion, the past two season have been the best of the past ten years, offering so much more insight that U.S. TV programs into music artists' thinking, their feelings about their craft and the industry and how they have been treated in it.
Sometimes, you are even convinced that you have really seen a glimpse of their private side that few people see besides their family, friends and industry colleagues.
And that definitely lingers with you, too

@SaMycketBattre https://twitter.com/SaMycketBattre

What America and the world lost when we lost John Glenn: A genuinely heroic man of unquestioned bravery, character and integrity -who thought his wife was the real hero.

                                 
What America and the world lost when we lost John Glenn: A genuinely heroic man of unquestioned bravery, character and integrity -who thought his wife, Annie, was the real hero.

One of the highlights of my 15 years living and working in the Washington, D.C. area from 1988-2003 were those handful of opportunities, usually outside on Capitol Hill between the Supreme Court and the Senate Office buildings to the north, to speak one-on-one for a few minutes with one of the bravest and most-famous Americans then-alive, Senator John Glenn of Ohio.

@AmyKinLA John Glenn: Genuinely heroic man of unquestioned character/integrity -who thought his wife was real hero! https://t.co/em7p0bBcw3

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) December 12, 2016

“We tend to think of heroes as being those who are well known,” he wrote, “but America is made up of a whole nation of heroes who face problems that are very difficult, and their courage remains largely unsung. Millions of individuals are heroes in their own right.”

http://myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=Annie_Glenn_bk06

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/12/09/to-john-glenn-the-real-hero-was-his-wife-annie-conqueror-of-disability/

Today, @Astro_Kimbrough and @AstroPeggy from space paid tribute to John Glenn, fellow astronaut and American legend: https://t.co/S56vgeBFnz pic.twitter.com/4Kj9KPRfjA

— NASA (@NASA) December 9, 2016

But anyone who lives to be 95 years old doesn't do so without some mis-steps along the way, and certainly John Glenn wasn't immune to this fact, since he was not without his ideological blind spots.

As best-selling historian Victor Davis Hanson noted in a 2005 column on the then-current parlor game in Washington and other urban areas of the U.S. among many prominent members of the Democratic Party and its friends in the news media of comparing President George W. Bush to Hitler because of his administration's policy of keeping Guantanamo open  -instead of closing it and moving the prisoners to the U.S., which would have been against the POV of the majority of the American people- Glenn claimed "It's the old Hitler business"

Jewish World Review 

Hitler, Hitler, everywhere 

By Victor Davis Hanson

June 23, 2005

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0605/hanson062305.php3

Then again, even at age 89, he still had the power to speak for many Americans upset at a diminished space exploration program when he openly criticized President George W. Bush's policy of ending the U.S. shuttle program, and instead, paying Russia to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station. 

"Operating Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour until successors are ready might end up being cheaper than buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the retired senator said. Flying the shuttles beyond their planned retirement may also be the best way to maximize return on taxpayer investment."

This is but the tip of the iceberg in a fact-filled defense of keeping faith with the origins of the U.S. space program.

Statement of Senator John Glenn (ret.) Regarding NASA Manned Space Flight

• Posted Monday, June 21, 2010

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1406

I wrote an oped about John Glenn for the @washingtonpost https://t.co/gbYPmgsii2

— Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) December 15, 2016

See photos from the early days of @NASA's Project Mercury: http://t.co/SQSj2D31dj pic.twitter.com/0V41o9oyFV

— LIFE (@LIFE) October 7, 2015

Surprise! Peter Deutsch and his Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School in Hollywood STILL think they can do whatever they want to do, regardless of what the city and its citizens think

Lawsuit: Rescind variance for ex-U.S. Rep.’s Hollywood charter school  https://t.co/XEPdf77lyc

— Florida Bulldog (@Florida_Bulldog) December 8, 2016

Surprise! Peter Deutsch and his Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School in Hollywood STILL think they can do whatever they want to do, regardless of what the city and its citizens think

Per this unsettling but-hardly-surprising news being reported today by William Gjebre in the Florida Bulldog, above, in case any of you forgot or were unaware of my negative feelings about former Congressman Peter Deutsch and his constant litany of bullying insults and threats directed over several years at Hallandale Beach and Hollywood residents, officials and even neighborhoods, in his desire to build or expand his Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School empire in both cities, I remind you that his words were almost always delivered in public with grating contempt for others in the community, and with what I and many others perceived to be a VERY LARGE (misplaced) sense of entitlement on his part.

Yet despite Peter Deutsch's ease of access to powerful people and resources throughout Florida, he constantly tried to paint a narrative for himself and his development efforts as being one akin to a victim -the proverbial "little guy." 
But those roles were more accurately being played at the time by the neighborhoods and the concerned citizens of our area who believed that a powerful man like Deutsch used to getting his way all the time, should NOT be able to change their neighborhood and city in what they perceived to be negative ways just because he thinks it's a good idea that can make him and his partners more money.

I also remind you that both before and after I returned to South Florida in 2003 after living
and working in the Washington, D.C. area for 15 years, I've been a very strong and reliable supporter of Charter Schools and the variety of choices they afford students and parents.
But that support of mine doesn't mean that I think charter schools are the answer for every student or parent, or even necessarily think that most charter schools in South Florida are well-managed. 
Clearly they aren't, since the record shows that many are started by people and groups with more good intentions than common sense, good management or enough capital in the bank to do things the right way the first time for kids.

That said, Peter Deutsch's ability to successfully and continually "game" the system at so many different levels of govt. and official oversight, using a variety of legislatively-approved legal advantages that residents and neighborhood groups opposed to him didn't enjoy -or even knew existed- might NOT have stood for as long as it has if even a few more honest reporters and columnists among South Florida's press corps had ever done the right thing at the time and fully disclosed the exact nature of those curious advantages -and how they were obtained! 

But as we know now, at the time, my own blog, Hallandale Beach Blog, and the Florida Bulldog, were unique in South Florida in consistently trying to ferret-out useful, important
information for the public to know about what had been taking place below-the-radar with Ben Gamla. 
Unique in being places where honest people could come to learn and understand how the public policy playing field got so one-sided in the first place that local governments often didn't know until public meetings had started that their usual procedures and tactics 
regarding planning and approving land use were precluded, and that Deutsch would get the benefit of any doubt.

Just as happened in Hallandale Beach, when he and Ben Gamla got the last laugh on the city's bumbling, out-foxed staff. 
That's why this is the 23rd time I've written about Peter Deutsch and Ben Gamla on the blog.

My last blog post about Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School was on October 3, 2013, titled, What will Peter Deutsch do Thursday night to try to win over angry Hollywood neighbors/residents who want no part of any Doral Ben Gamla Preparatory Academy in their neighborhood -or the arrogant Ben Gamla parents and their galling sense of entitlement and antipathy towards others? My educated guess is that Deutsch doubles down and is as arrogant as ever

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-will-peter-deutsch-do-thursday-to.html

Florida Bulldog
Lawsuit: Rescind variance for ex-U.S. Rep.’s Hollywood charter schoolBy William Gjebre, FloridaBulldog.org
December 8, 2016

The city of Hollywood violated municipal law when it approved a request by the controversial Ben Gamla middle-high school to stop maintaining a rooftop vegetation area that was a key consideration for a zoning exception allowing the school in a residential neighborhood.

This and other allegations made in a lawsuit filed by the Citizens For Responsible Development Inc. ask the Broward Circuit Court to rescind a Hollywood Planning and Development Board-approved variance for the school to operate without the rooftop green space at the facility headed by former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-FL).

The school, which has drawn neighborhood opposition since it was proposed and opened during the past three years, was able to build a larger complex on its property at 2648 Van Buren St. by pledging to provide green area on the school’s roof rather than creating an open space recreational area elsewhere on its property, according to the complaint.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2016/12/lawsuit-rescind-variance-for-ex-us-reps-hollywood-charter-school/

Hollywood City Hall, photo by me, South Beach Hoosier.© 2016 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. 

Firing City of Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield was a good start, but the fact remains that there are several city employees and Dept. heads who need to go ASAP in order to have the city move forward. There's no point in pretending that's not the case.

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall, November 2016. "And the flag was still there..."
Photo by me, South Beach Hoosier. © 2016 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Local10 News, WPLG-TV, Miami

Secret audio implicates Hallandale Beach city attorney in alleged improper conduct
Commissioner Bill Julian can't seem to hang up his phone
By Bob Norman - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 11:58 PM, November 01, 2016

Read story at:

http://www.local10.com/news/bob-norman/secret-audio-implicates-hallandale-beach-city-attorney-in-alleged-improper-conduct

Local10 News, WPLG-TV, Miami

Hallandale Beach fires city attorney; mayor walks out of divided meeting

City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield gives emotional farewell
By Bob Norman - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 11:36 PM, November 29, 2016

Read story at
http://www.local10.com/news/bob-norman/hallandale-beach-mayor-walks-out-of-divided-citys-meeting-

Firing City of Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield was a good start, but the fact remains that there are several city employees and Dept. heads who need to go ASAP in order to have the city move forward. 

There's no point in pretending that's not the case.

On Monday I told many off you via a fact-filled email that was sent to concerned citizens 

throughout Hallandale Beach, Broward County and South Florida -and members of the news media- and then later, posted here at Hallandale Beach Blog, that on Tuesday, the first big step towards creating a new, positive and more-inclusive future for Hallandale Beach and its long-suffering residents and Small Business owners at Hallandale Beach City Hall would begin. And so it has....

Well, one down, but there are several more heads at Hallandale Beach City Hall that need to roll, including temperamentally-challenged City Manager Daniel Rosemond.

To be sure, it was a nice way to start, getting rid of City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield, a 

woman who for years has acted one way publicly, but acted quite another way behind-the-scenes, as I know from first-hand experience.

Besides the dozens and dozens of times I saw Whitfield in action at public meetings over the years, where she often looked the other way at ethical situations involving elected officials and city employees that cried out for her to say or do something publicly, I got a chance to know the reality of her personality.

But before I mention that, consider this 2013 video I recorded with my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach and Broward County civic activist Csaba "Chuck" Kulin, who is a recent member of the city's Planning and Zoning Advisory Board, who has been a watchdog on finances, ethics and the appearance of impropriety in this area of Broward for many years.

The video speaks for itself regarding what seems to have been Whitfield's inexplicable willingness to look the other way on ethics and conflicts of interest in Hallandale Beach when it's right in front of her.

Csaba Kulin re Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield's comments re her role on ethics. Uploaded May 2, 2013 https://youtu.be/dtpFnVOFA-I

That came when I repeatedly tried to tell her about the City of Hallandale Beach having illegally stolen a Hallandale Beach citizen's property, and then used it later without this person's permision or consent, in what was a profit-making enterprise, for which the citizen whose property was used received NOTHING.

I know the facts better than anyone because I was that citizen whose property was stolen by the city and the city-funded Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce.

The facts and context involved being what they were, and which would clearly point to it being an embarrassing episode for the city if made public, I thought it would be best tp go thru the system and for the City Attorney to know all the facts, so she could urge the City Commission to do the right thing.

But City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield could hardly have cared less about knowning the facts involved when the city she represented had broken the law.

In fact, her own staff was witness to her yelling at me while I was outside of her office in January of 2014, when I stopped by the City Attorney's office one day while doing some errands in an attempt to schedule a meeting with me, a Hallandale Beach citizen, so that she would know what had taken place, since it had happened before she was hired by the city.

City Attorney Whitfield couldn't possibly have known all the germane facts, so, foolishly, I thought a calm and relaxed conversation of maybe 10-15 minutes with her in the near future, with supporting documents that would make clear the city's self-evident liability, would be a positive thing.

Instead, Whitfield kept insisting that I tell her then and show her my proof on her computer. Right then and there!

Well, as stated before, I was running errands that day and had only stopped by HB City Hall because my phone calls were not being returned. 

I am one among many other Hallandale Beach citizens who over the years have had bad and troubling experiences with city employees and elected officials lying about what they would do to address problems.

Given that fact, I was not about to fall for the trap.and do something stupid and allow her to buffalo me into having a meeting before it was appropriate.

More importantly, before I had time to make sure that I had someone with me who could witness anything that was done, said or agreed to.

Experience is the best predictor of behavior, no?

Someone on Whitfield's staff even told me that she had a history of refusing to meet with anyone from Hallandale Beach who had hired a lawyer, which is interesting in that she so often met and spoke with lawyers for people with interests before the city who were not even Hallandale Beach residents -like I was then. 

So again, firing City Attorney Whitfield was a good start, but the fact remains that there are several City of Hallandale Beach employees and Dept. heads who have a long and well-established history of showing a pronounced antagonism towards sharing facts and public documents with elected officials and citizens when they are supposed to.

There are lots of HB city employees who are clearly opposed to engaging in transparency and treating citizens with respect or civility, to say nothing of ones guilty of goofing around that is legendary in this small oceanside city, where it often seems like every other city employee has a city car of their own to drive around in, with taxpayers paying the tab.

It's long been known that there are certain locations in HB where for several hours a day, you can be sure of seeing a completely different city vehicle drive past nearly ever few minutes.

Question: Where are they all going if the problems in this city never actually get fixed, as is abundantly clear?

No, for years under imperious Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew of Julian, Sanders and Lewy, Hallandale Beach citizens and Small Business owners all had to glumly accept as "normal" conduct and behavior that was not only completely unsatisfactory, but often proof of the insidious culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetency that has long held sway here.

After all, and this may surprise some of you newcomers to the blog, Hallandale Beach is a city that, under Joy Cooper, once signed a secret deal with somone in the community to act as a paid spy and lobbyist at city meetings and community forums, both to voice enthusiasm for the city's position in public and to monitor who spoke out publicly against the city's position. Really.

I know because I'm the person in South Florida who first broke the news about it happening in 2010, a story that combined creepy elements of cronyism, corruption and breaking ethics and lobbying rules in one fell swoop.

I'm the person who made sure that the sordid story about elected officials betraying the pubic trust got reported publicly in the first place.

APRIL 5, 2010 

Joe Kessel is the spy/mole for Hallandale Beach City Hall's Ruinous Mike Good & Joy Cooper Regime

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/joe-kessel-is-spymole-for-hallandale.html

April 9, 2010 

The Kessel Chronicles, The Story Thus Far -Now with YouTube!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/kessel-chronicles-story-thus-far-now.html

That April 9, 2010 post of mine has this nugget that still shines today and gives anyone reading this blog now and in the future a real taste of how bad things have been done at Hallandale Beach City Hall in the past -and continue to be:

Never seem inclined to find out how an entrenched culture of corruption could develop here where HB city employees would think it's normal or appropriate to try to physically prevent citizens like me from attending a publicly-noticed meeting at City Hall for 15 minutes, until they canceled it right before yours truly finally got there -thanks to the assistance of Comm. London- as happened to me just last month?

Did Assistant City Manager Mark Antonio, he of the $150k-plus salary, and a member
of the Evaluation Committee that was meeting that day try to explain to me when he saw me there, why the meeting was suddenly canceled once they knew I was trying to get to the meeting? More to the point, did he even attempt to explain why I, the only citizen trying to attend the meeting, was physically prevented by city employees from getting to the meeting? No, he did not. 

Instead, Antonio just scurried back to his office like a petulant child, actually yelling at Comm. London, as he hurried to his bunker of an office, safe from the reasonable questions of a citizen taxpayer.
That my friends, is the low moral and professional caliber of people currently working at Hallandale Beach City Hall -and he's one of the persons in charge. Now multiply that unprofessional attitude dozens of times. It explains an awful lot here, doesn't it?

On Tuesday afternoon, the ship that is the new leadership at HB City Hall finally 

started changing directions.

Obviously, it won't all be smooth sailing in the future, and there will clearly be difficult times when some hard and unpopular decisions will have to be made or even agonized over.
Good thing, then, that there's so much "deadwood" at Hallandale Beach City Hall to be tossed overboard in the coming weeks and months to help lighten the load and help the ship pick up some much-needed speed to be where it ought to be.

Dave

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

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