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Wednesday, February 7, 2018

#schadenfreude - Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's long-overdue public comeuppance and takedown for her despotic, authoritarian and corrupt reign at HB City Hall finally comes via an arrest by the FBI. Cooper's arrest suddenly awakens the long-slumbering South Florida news media to the high level of corruption and incompetency taking place there that I told you about at the time. So where were they? #ethics

#schadenfreude - Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's long-overdue public comeuppance and takedown for her despotic, authoritarian and corrupt reign at HB City Hall finally comes via an arrest by the FBI. Cooper's arrest suddenly awakens the long-slumbering South Florida news media to the high level of corruption and incompetency taking place there that I told you about at the time. So where were they? #ethics



This is my first public post on what's happened in Hallandale Beach the past two weeks and my -your/our- giant sense of #schadenfreude at Mayor Joy Cooper being arrested by the FBI, just as I had always dreamt it would happen in my writer's mind, even while I've written dozens of emails to friends and news media in Broward and South Florida and state officials in Tallahassee, and a like number of phone calls.

Just days before she had to turn herself into law enforcement authorities to avoid a perp walk arrest in public, while walking from the Winn-Dixie to Panera Bread on Hallandale Beach Blvd., I nearly ran head-on into the despotic Joy Cooper as she and her paranoid and combative tag-team partner 
husband walked into one of my favorites, Piola. 
Cooper saw me on the sidewalk about 12 yards away and did a quick double-take.
Perhaps she didn't recognize me dressed-up with a suit and tie! :-)

It may have been her last meal in public before reporting to jail Thursday morning, after clearing-out most of her official office at HB City Hall earlier!

For you newcomers, Cooper is the same creepy, feckless, liberal, anti-democratic misanthrope who, among other depredations, at a Hallandale Beach City Comm. meeting many years ago, while talking to then-Comm. Bill Julian of her "Rubber Stamp Crew" as they walked into the room, called me 
"a Nazi" and then called Comm. Keith London "a Hitler."

And she did all of this on the second floor of HB City Hall when I was the only member of the public -actually, the only other only person there!- in the room, going over some careful notes I'd taken earlier, before the meeting was adjourned.
A meeting where she gave off her usual vibes that she wishes it weren't open to the public.
I hadn't said anything all day, just sat in the chair, taking notes when something seemed esp. ill-considered or preposterous. Which was every few minutes.

But that was enough to raise Joy Cooper's ire and make her say what she really thought.
As I've long said, Cooper (and her insufferable ego) is her own worst enemy! 
She's done it again!
Same Doral-based newspaper & Editorial Board that's ignored Hallandale Beach for years now suddenly imagines itself an expert. #arrogance #chutzpah LOL!

Fear and Loathing in Hallandale Beach: City rife with feuds, conspiracies and a call for state takeover.

Monday morning's Miami Herald article on Hallandale Beach is the worst kind of after-the-fact journalism, sort of what you might've seen at a crummy state college newspaper in the mid-1980's before the Internet existed, since the twonreporters don't talk to even one HB citizen who is actually well-informed and knows the real facts. 
Despite how easy it is in 2018 because of technology to find one or two or five well-informed persons.
That's not journalism, that's just plain old apathy, nothing less.

Seriously, would you take restaurant recommendations from someone who doesn't ever eat out?
Of course not, so why would you listen to people in HB who really don't know what's going on ramble about things they don't understand?
And why would newspaper reporters post their comments when that's apparent.
It's mind-numbing -and pretty insulting!

This article is so feeble that it is unable to even convey a reasonable sense of context for recent past history in HB, beyond simply regurgitating some news headlines, most of which never appeared in the Herald itself because they stopped sending a reporter to cover the city many years ago.
Plus, it fails to give people in HB credit who actually deserve credit for attempting to reform things and bring genuine transparency and accountability.
Instead, it treats everyone as being on one side or another.

Or In Anabelle Taub's case, alone on an island, becoming increasingly irrelevant to the process and ultimately, engendering LOTS and LOTS of anger among former supporters.  

Where's the Herald story on Comm. Sanders resigning after funneling $800,000 to people and groups DIRECTLY connected to him? And his family?
Oh, that's right. They NEVER ran one.
That gives you an idea of how myopic, patronizing and out-of-the-loop the Herald is in 2018.

Bythe way, I read this article by 10 AM and yet nobodycalled me or texted me or emailed me their thoughts about it before 6 PM Monday night when I left my office for the day.
That's how few people read the Herald.
That is a portrait of irrelevancy.








@FLGovScott - What's Past is Prologue: Freud & Jung together could NOT possibly plumb the depths of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged mayor & town bully 's super-size ego and sense of entitlement. 🌴🏖️🌊http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/whats-past-is-prologue-thin-skinned_18.html …


Damn, I'm prescient! 😊 "An open door policy for developers is Mayor 's credo. Always has been, always will be," sayeth me in 2012. "mayor who just can't say NO" to real estate developers. http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/video-channel-10-investigative-reporter.html …


Memories! " Mayor defending her freelancing, breaking of city's rules in order to help her friends." "Special Rules for Special People" form of advocacy = rogue activities of mayor in city that has seen plenty of thosehttp://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/on-wednesday-night-hallandale-beach.html …


"Observations on the Dysfunction Junction in : Thin-skinned Mayor ": "Look honestly upon the uniformily unsatisfactory results that years of this myopic and self-destructive behavior has wrought for everyone involved in the city"




@richardcorcoran @JeffreyBrandes @CGreenbarg @SueGunzburger @Florida_Bulldog In short, exactly like I've been saying for over 10 years, complete w/ , photos & video. But now, AFTER an arrest, media is interested - NOT when it was happening! 😏http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/hallandale-beachs-bright-future-depends.html …



In 2010 was w/ in his car waiting to film GUILTY Cooper, Julian & Ross arrive @ HB PostOffice w/ "outhouse" festooned w/racist fliers, i.e. London = Mexican, one re & . Took photos of 'em! Media yawned!





@GlennaOn10 1/ Sorry, but @RosemaryOHara14 is NOT a credible person to speak on or anywhere else re what's taken place in past 12 years under Mayor 's unethical reign of ruin/incompetency. 😏😠@RedBroward @BillyCorben @crespogram @dwightyoakamfan



2/ Over 5 months since Comm. Anthony Sanders🤥 resigned in disgrace, @RosemaryOHara14's @SoFlaOpinion STILL hasn't posted 1 Op-Ed re him steering nearly $1M in city/CRA funds to groups/church he controlled + family. The same Sanders THEY always endorsed. Why?🤔😠




Mayor 's allies -esp. at faux newspaper she poured LOTS of CRA 💰 into- rush into the breach w/ bec they don't like . Facts have NEVER been her friend during her ruinous reign, so won't become friends now.



2013: Two Democratic state senators short-circuit Florida Legislature’s plan to audit troubled Hallandale Beach CRA: Eleanor Sobel and Oscar Braynon II. 



When will media cover mayor 's pals & trying to help her stay out of prison, just like they helped her prevent and legislature fm performing audit on HB CRA -that wld have revealed MILLIONS 💰mis-spent?🤔 😠



Where were Oscar Braynon II, Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones & Barbara Sharief when CRA was wasting MILLIONS 💰 -in THEIR district- under , which @BrowardIG's Final Report called "gross mismanagement" re YEARS w/lack of accountability? Missing in action! 😠



Archives: 's non-compliance w/'s to cover up messages to/from Mayor , HB CityMgr., &nd to prevent fm doing independent audit of HB CRA so public wld FINALLY know where all the MILLIONS 💰 went.



Archives: Primer on how an apathetic news media/Editorial Boards and legislature largely ignored the CRA scandal under Mayor that wasted MILLION$ 💰via crony capitalism, to help supporters of her "Rubber Stamp Crew." 😠 http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/per-tonights-crucial-hallandale-beach.html …

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
OPINION
Hallandale - needs a new - way of doing - business
January 30, 2018
Michele Lazarow

Michele Lazarow is a Hallandale Beach city commissioner.
Hallandale Beach is an easy punching bag for the editorial board. Corruption has dominated the headlines in our city for years. Along with it has come a series of ugly encounters involving elected officials. What I believe was missing from the Jan. 28 editorial was an understanding of the political and ethical divide in our city.

Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony Sanders have been political allies who have voted together, campaigned together, raised funds together and been part of the problem that has driven the negative headlines about Hallandale Beach. Cooper is under felony indictment. Julian escaped criminal charges but admitted on camera to soliciting and agreeing to accept gifts from a developer while negotiating his vote for their project. Sanders resigned last year after the Inspector General's investigation revealed that he and his family pocketed tens of thousands of dollars as he voted on millions in contracts at the taxpayer's expense.

Fighting their corruption has never been easy and has at times created an ugly spectacle. Recently, Commissioner Anabelle Taub enlisted people to take video of Vice Mayor Keith London and me in an attempt to intimidate and harass us as she uses it to spin an inaccurate depiction of our actions on social media. While it may not have been the ideal way to handle the situation, Vice Mayor London responded by approaching them as they sat in commission chambers. He took video of them so that they would know that they were not going to harass us while maintaining their anonymity.

Following Mayor Cooper's recent indictment, our city has an opportunity to move forward without the kind of political division and infighting that have plagued Hallandale Beach for so long. Most of all, we have an opportunity to move past the corruption that has permeated city hall and return power to the residents of Hallandale Beach.

As elected officials, we won't agree about every issue. However, we can move from an era of fighting over each disagreement to one where debate is robust, decorum is routine and policy, rather than politics drive decisions. The residents of Hallandale Beach deserve nothing less.

Rather than lumping all of Hallandale Beach's leaders together, give those of us who have fought against the corruption an opportunity to usher in a new era in the city.

We have a special election on March 13. The Sun Sentinel's Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O'Hara will moderate a debate between the candidates, scheduled on Feb. 27 at 6:30 p.m., at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center. If you live in Hallandale Beach, please make a point of being there so that you can get to know the candidates and their qualifications. It is critical that we elect someone who can help usher in a new way of doing business and running government in our city.

Rather than reviving the mistakes of the past, we must take the opportunity to choose our best and most qualified to help lead us into a brighter future.

Michele Lazarow is a Hallandale Beach city commissioner.


And to conclude, something having not much to do with Joy Cooper personally, except for the fact that it involves Hallandale Beach City Hall and a lack of moral scruples.



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