Miami Herald is channeling Pony Express in its reporting on Broward School Board elections from four days ago. But it's the year 2010!

My comments below the article.

re http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/27/1794357/broward-school-board-election.html

Posted on Friday, 08.27.10

Broward School Board election results still in doubt

Late Thursday, the Broward County elections canvassing board was still counting provisional ballots to determine the outcome of a School Board election.

School Board Chairwoman Jennifer Gottlieb, in the race to retain her countywide seat, received 50.01 percent of the vote in Tuesday's primary.

To avoid a runoff, Gottlieb had to win 50 percent plus 1 vote.

Because of the closeness, the elections department opted to meet to determine if Gottlieb had met the threshold.

Gottlieb would face political newcomer Susan Madori in November if there is a runoff.

For updates, visit www.MiamiHerald.com.

-- CARLI TEPROFF

-----

It's now 4:55 p.m. on Saturday the 28th as I write this and there is STILL no updated information since Thursday on an election that took place on Tuesday.
In two hours, the polls will have been closed for four days, 96 hours.

Perhaps this should be the signal to the Herald that it's time -FINALLY- for them to bite the bullet and actually have an Education blog that covers both Miami-Dade and Broward, because the manner in which these Broward School Board elections have been reported in the Herald is completely unsatisfactory.

There's no doubt that the Broward Supervisor of Elections is driving this effort but four days later, isn't there already sufficient evidence for some public criticism of the snail's pace?

And, as I wrote in an email to folks I know the other day, where were the updates on the Herald website between late Tuesday night and Wednesday night?
There weren't any.

Not a single one.

I know that because I was actively looking for them.
Along with some actual fact-based reporting in stories on why things went the way they did in the various School Board districts plus the At-Large race.

And so here we are, frozen in place in the fourth-largest county in the fourth-largest state in the U.S.A., still waiting for some smoke signals from Andrews Avenue.
That's where we live.

Is this because we have a primary election in late August instead of the last week of September, so everyone is moving in slow-motion?

Poor Maurice Ferre - He never imagined his political career would end with him losing to the likes of a no-talent like Kendrick Meek; The lasting ethical lessons of the late Bill Sadowski, the FL pol who might've fundamentally changed FL for the better if he'd ever been elected Governor

Above, August 24, 2010 photo of Maurice Ferre for U.S. Senate poster on A1A in Hollywood, FL by South Beach Hoosier.At some point over the past three days, Maurice Ferre must've surely wondered to himself: "How did it happen that my political career ended losing to the likes of a no-talent like Kendrick Meek?"

How could he not?

Once upon a time, if you has asked "the experts" around the Sunshine State which Hispanic-surnamed Florida politician was most-likely to get elected to the U.S. Senate first, the vast majority of them would have said Maurice Ferre, hands down, even if they didn't like that prospect personally.

Mel Martinez?
Who the hell is that?

But fate, circumstances and reality intervene and... well, things don't always work out the way you thought they would, and many people who thought it would happen for Ferre at least twenty-five years ago now see it will never happen.

I got to wondering about that not long after I'd voted on Tuesday in the Florida Democratic primary over at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center, and was on my way up to Hollywood to see what was going on up at Hollywood Beach, since it was so dead outside the polls in HB.

In a just a few minutes I was up at the Hollywood Cultural and Community Center on State RoadA1A/South Ocean Drive and Azalea Terrace, which is connected to a Broward County Library Reading Room, un mignon of a library.
(Extra credit if you're reading this now and recall that "Mignon" was the name of Lisa Douglas's dog the first year she and Oliver lived in Hooterville in the fabulous "Green Acres," one of my all-time favorite TV shows.)

It was while walking around the center and looking for something interesting to shoot besides the sweating campaign workers milling around that I first spotted the Maurice Ferre campaign sign taped to a post, the first time I'd seen one anywhere in Southeast Broward County.
Which is telling of how things have gone.

And it was then and there that it hit me how Ferre must feel after all his years in politics and that famous line of T.S. Elliot finally crashing down upon him: Not with a bang but a whimper.


All August 24th, 2010 photos below by South Beach Hoosier.









Sometimes, when I see how clueless everyone in Tallahassee seems to be to the reality of the bleak economic circumstances of this state and the lack of strong articulate leadership, some of it a direct result of their ill-informed and backwards policies, I think about what if... Bill Sadowski hadn't died in that plane crash in 1992, and was governor now?

Instead, we have in Gov. Charlie Crist, the most self-involved and selfish governor since my family moved to this state in 1968, a person for whom ambition is, for now, a substitute for a well-developed personality, though in that regard, as we all know to our regret, he has much in common with far too many elected officials in South Florida, who long ago gave up the ghost for serving others before themselves, as well as many who now seek to gain office locally.

The myopic political hacks with their palms out-stretched who are like kudzu to our civic dreams and responsibilities, forever getting themselves entwined in places they don't belong.
In my mind, none of Crist's wannabe replacements are half the caliber of a Bill Sadowski.
Instead, we have myopic, self-involved, genuflecting, flawed mental midgets as far as the eye can see.
Quel dommage!

St. Petersburg Times
The legacy of Bill Sadowski
By Martin Dyckman
March 21, 2004

TALLAHASSEE - Whenever someone writes about how much lobbyists spend to influence the Legislature - as my colleague Lucy Morgan did this month - the winers and diners plaintively insist that they don't discuss actual legislation over good food and drink. It's only about getting to know one another, they say.

That's probably true. But it misses the point.

As the lobbyist and legislator perfect their friendship, it's awfully easy for both of them to forget who's not at the table. You have to suspend belief in human nature to accept the notion that this doesn't matter when the time comes to vote.

Not a workday goes by during a session without at least one major lobby hosting a luncheon, cocktail reception or dinner. The biggest by far is the grand garden party Associated Industries stages at its palace just a few doors from the governor's mansion on the evening before the Legislature convenes. Thousands of people go to see and be seen, and to take note of which lobbies are paying for it.

The late Frank Trippett, this newspaper's first bureau chief in Tallahassee, captured the significance in his 1967 book, The States: United They Fell:

"By providing and financing lavish entertainment (liquor, women, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, banquets, balls) the true constituency establishes itself as the host at the state Capitol. It dramatizes its position as the well-spring of bounty and power and affluence, and by casting the Legislature in the role of guest it dramatizes through the social charade the command which it exercises over the Legislature in other substantial ways . . . By accepting the role of guest the Legislature similarly dramatizes its actual role as an intimate and affectionately subservient adjunct of the true constituency."

Once in a while there are legislators who don't play the role. One of the best of them was Bill Sadowski of Miami, who served in the House from 1976 to 1982, when he chose to leave so that he could watch his children grow up, and who died in a plane crash in 1992 while serving as Gov. Lawton Chiles' secretary of community affairs. He was only 48.

He had never allowed the lobbyists to buy him meals or drinks, but that didn't mean he disrespected them. To the contrary, he wrote a 16-point creed for legislative service in which respect for the right to lobby was high on the list.

Lobbyists were perfectly welcome in his office but he thought it was better for everyone if they kept the relationship at arm's length. He brought his family to Tallahassee every session and went home to them instead of to the party circuit. Invited to the home of an old friend who had become a lobbyist, he refused to go until his wife, Jean, persuaded him that taking a bottle of Grand Marnier would set it right.

"He felt like there's a place for lobbyists, but you don't have to do wining and dining," she explained the other day.

If you were to ask the veteran lobbyists, I think they'd tell you they never met a legislator they respected more than Bill Sadowski.

And here's an encouraging sign about the future of your Florida House of Representatives. On the second day of the session, Majority Leader Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, put on every member's desk a copy of the 16 principles that Bill wrote in 1982 for freshman members of the Miami-Dade delegation.

These are some of them: "Always respect another person's right to hold their own views . . . Avoid taking a position on an issue until you have talked to persons on both sides of the issue . . . Do not rely on others to adequately educate you on an issue. They will frequently have a bias . . . Public office is a public trust, both legally and conceptually. Never violate that trust . . . Your family is a source of strength and a point of real world contact. Preserve and protect that strength at all costs . . . You have two constituencies: one that elects you and one that you serve. The one that you serve consists of all the citizens of Florida . . . You are a politician in a democracy. Take pride in that. Use your office to generate public debate on important issues of the day."

Rubio, who never met Sadowski, said he was impressed by the creed because "They're great ideas." This matters because Rubio, 34, is in line to be House speaker for the two years beginning November 2007. He couldn't find better advice on how to use that power.

Though he supports term limits, he acknowledges that "one of the things you lose is access to mentors . . . to individuals who are grounded in the system." He particularly regrets that few legislators seem to take the time to know each other as people before they find themselves doing battle across a committee table. Sadowski's creed speaks to all that.

Because of term limits, there are no House members and only four senators who were here when Florida's affordable housing act was named for him, posthumously, in honor of his efforts to enact it. Let's hope his creed guides them as they vote on whether to let the governor kill the trust fund and siphon off the money.

In Hallandale Beach: Common sense campaign laws and rules we ALL have to abide by, if, by ALL, you mean 99.99% of us -but NOT the Usual Suspects!

Above, the city complex monument sign on the S.E. 3rd Street (north) entrance to the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center. August 24, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Above, campaign signs near the Old Dixie Highway (west) entrance to the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center. August 24, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Speaking of common sense rules of society we are ALL supposed to abide by, if by ALL, you mean 99.99% of us -but NOT the Usual Suspects!- did anyone else with a pulse happen to notice the strange goings-on taking place on Tuesday, Election Day afternoon, within spitting distance of Hallandale Beach City Hall?

There, some folks that are well-known to this blogger and many of you faithful readers, were bending the rules about NOT placing physical impediments in the public right-of-way, by clearly confiscating/obstructing part of the public sidewalk between Hallandale Beach City Hall and the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center, where the county's polling booths/tables were located.
The THREE of them, Mayor Joy Cooper and Commissioners William "Bill" Julian and Dotty Ross erected -or, more likely, had erected for them- a LARGE tent over the public sidewalk -on the City Hall side of the road- with numerous chairs beneath it, so they could sit in the shade, catch-up on some light reading and occasionally stop, if not exactly waylay, any prospective voters on their way to casting a ballot.
No standing in the sun with campaign signs for them!
Fortunately, I didn't see any prospective voters in a wheelchair trying to negotiate the public sidewalk coming from HB City Hall and having to attack their redan, but then I didn't hang around for hours after I voted to wait-and-see because I had things to do.

So I voted and watched intently for about 15 minutes and that was long enough to see for myself that they were, indeed, blase about doing whatever they wanted, rules be damned.
The three of them just sat there, practically daring someone to say something to them about their incredible gall and clear lack of good judgement.

Rules?
What rules?
If I didn't know any better, I'd have sworn that they were channeling Brits in India during the Raj, forever complaining about the hot weather and their homesickness, but positively swooning about the quality of the tea!

I'll run the typically dumb-founding HB photos I snapped on my blog Sunday, but in the interim, if you want, you can email me your educated guesses and I'll tell you whether or not you're correct.
And as always, please, no wagering.

FL-17 candidate and 'Poverty Peddler' Rudy Moise: An expert at finessing the system to get taxpayer money for himself and cronies

I originally wrote this in late June and saved it in Draft and almost forgot about it.
If I don't post it today, I might as well just delete it, so...

------------
Since I've been waiting for a few months to mention all the things I've seen, heard, observed and written on the subject of the FL-17 congressional race, let's start off with some very simple questions first.

Given that reporter Scott Hiaasen still works at the Miami Herald, why is it that the Herald's current reporters and editors have never mentioned in any article about Moise's candidacy for FL-17 the salient fact that, as Hiaasen wrote in 2007, the company he was president of received a half-million dollar loan despite NOT being located within the targeted "empowerment zone"?
Hmm-m-m...

What are the names of the people at Miami-Dade Govt. HQ/Steve Clark Building who helped him navigate that particular manuever?
What commissioners carried the ball for him?
All this time later, we still don't know.
But we have our hunches, don't we?

And if it's not too much trouble, could some South Florida print or TV reporters finally end their summer snooze and actually start doing some bonafide investigatory reporting on the people who are running for Congress from the FL-17 instead of the measly handful of sentences that get dropped into generic stories about fund-raising amounts?

If there is a major newspaper in the country that has written less and written worse than the Miami Herald has about a congressional seat that we've known since last year would get a new member come November, I'd like to know what newspaper that is, because I don't think there is.

The Herald has won that dubious honor with no serious competition.

Below, from Part 5 of the Miami Herald's 2007 Poverty Peddlers series
http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/povped/

-------

http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/povped/part5/zones.html

Empowerment zones

Funds used outside the poverty zones

The anti-poverty trust went beyond the nine neighborhoods it was supposed to serve and loaned money to a variety of outside businesses.
By Scott Hiaasen

The Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust was founded to target nine specific neighborhoods with millions of dollars in federal and local anti-poverty money.

But over the years, the trust routinely bankrolled projects outside the empowerment zone boundaries, often at the urging of County Hall.

About $3.6‚million has gone from the trust to nearly a dozen businesses or agencies outside the empowerment neighborhoods, records show.

These deals include $200,000 to the Hialeah Chamber of Commerce, a $150,000 loan to a North Miami television production company, and a $150,000 loan to an acupuncture clinic in North Miami Beach - more than seven miles from the nearest empowerment boundary.

The publisher of Image, a Christian youth magazine, was expected to move from South Miami-Dade to the Overtown empowerment area after receiving $25,000 in grants, records show. Instead, the company moved to Georgia. Owner Fatima Hall declined to comment.

An international free-trade foundation in the ritzy Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables received $300,000 - but it never did anything for the empowerment zones.

FEW RESTRICTIONS

Instead of using federal dollars - which must primarily benefit the empowerment zones - the trust financed many of these deals with county money, records show. While some county grants to the trust were for specific projects, millions of dollars have flowed to the agency with few restrictions since 2000.

County Manager George Burgess said he didn't know why county tax dollars were leaving the confines of the empowerment zones, or whether the county imposed restrictions on all grants to the trust.

Steering money outside the empowerment zones runs counter to the intent of the program, said Bruce Nissen, a professor with Florida International University's Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy.

"The purpose of an empowerment zone is to empower a certain community," Nissen said. "How could that possibly empower the community?"

Trust officials refused to comment.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development selected Miami-Dade for the empowerment zone program based largely on the high levels of poverty in nine Miami-Dade neighborhoods: Allapattah, East Little Havana, Liberty City, Melrose, Overtown, Wynwood, Florida City, Homestead and Miami's Central Business District.

HUD allows the trust to finance projects outside the empowerment zones, but federal rules say that any projects receiving HUD money must primarily benefit the zones - with jobs set aside for zone residents, for example.

COMMISSIONERS' ROLE

County commissioners, however, imposed no such restrictions when they approved $770,000 from a county-backed Empowerment Trust fund for three companies outside the zones: $500,000 to the Haitian Broadcasting Network, a Miami radio broadcaster; $170,000 to a Carol City diaper store; and $100,000 to the North Miami Beach acupuncture clinic. All three ventures failed.

County officials also steered $300,000 through the trust to the Florida FTAA Foundation in the Biltmore Hotel between 2003 and 2006, records show. The foundation's director, Brian Dean, said he was unsure why the county money came through the trust. His agency has no programs that specifically target empowerment zone neighborhoods.

The FTAA Foundation is aimed at promoting Miami as the headquarters for the Free Trade Area of the Americas pact. Much of the nonprofit's spending has gone toward trade missions or other travel, including a trip to President Bush's second inauguration, records show.

"I cannot speak to the rationale" of the trust funding, said Dean, who joined the foundation last year. "I presume there is one."

County officials believed the FTAA headquarters would help bring jobs to the empowerment zones, said Victoria Mallette, spokeswoman for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez. But today there is no headquarters - the FTAA talks have been stalled since 2005.

DATA ON JOBS LACKING

The trust's files often don't show whether its projects have created any jobs, let alone whether the jobs went to empowerment zone residents.

A $150,000 loan was awarded to Bato Productions, a television production company, to create eight new jobs. The company had an office in the Wynwood empowerment zone when the loan was approved in 2004, but the office moved to North Miami the next year, said co-owner Tamara Philippeaux.

Philippeaux said she has hired two new staffers and four part-timers with the loan - not the eight first promised. She doesn't recall ever being asked whether her employees lived in an empowerment zone.

"I don't think that ever came up,'' she said.

Philippeaux said she provided the trust with receipts for cameras and other equipment she bought with the loan - although the trust could not produce any receipts when asked for all paperwork on the deal.

NO EMPLOYEES

Records show that Hidden Curriculum Education, a company offering college prep classes, was supposed to hire new workers as part of a $100,000 business loan in 2004. The company opened an office in Brownsville, but owner Rozalia Williams moved out because she didn't feel safe there at night, records show.

Williams now runs the company from her condo on South Ocean Drive in Hollywood. Last year, Williams reported to the trust that her company had no employees, records show. She did not return phone calls seeking comment.

DEFAULT ON A LOAN

The trust's loans to the HealingEdge Wellness Center in 2003 were designed to help start up the "alternative healing'' and accupuncture clinic in North Miami Beach. The business closed, defaulting on a $100,000 trust loan, records show.

The trust loaned the company $50,000 more, but the agency could not explain what happened to that loan, or provide evidence that it was repaid.

The owner of HealingEdge, Josette Zamor, has not returned phone calls.

The trust told HUD that it provided job training for 100 people and placed 25 in jobs with a $200,000 loan to the Hialeah Chamber of Commerce - also outside the empowerment zones. But the trust has no records to show that any jobs were created.

------

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
HAITIANS BUYING CARIBBEAN RADIO STATION IN DAVIE - $2 MILLION SALE RAISES CONCERN THAT PROGRAMMING WILL CHANGE.

By Alva James-Johnson Staff Writer

June 23, 2004

Seventeen years ago, WAVS Radio launched the first 24-hour, daily, English-speaking Caribbean radio station in the country.

Now, for the first time in its history, the Davie-based operation at 1170 AM will have Caribbean owners to match its format.

The radio station, owned by Radio WAVS Inc., a company composed of non-Caribbean shareholders, has been sold for $2 million to a Haitian-owned company called Alliance Broadcasting Network Inc., pending FCC approval.

The sale comes as South Florida's non-Spanish-speaking Caribbean community is exploding. The 2000 census puts the size of the population at nearly 400,000, but most experts believe it's much higher. The group is developing economic and political clout, which has helped make WAVS Radio a hot commodity.

Radio WAVS President Roy Bresky said shareholders sold the station because the right buyer just came at the right time.

"This was the aim of the shareholders, to sell it to a Caribbean company or individuals ... to maintain what we worked hard to develop over the past 17 years," said the retired ophthalmologist.

But the Caribbean community is not a monolithic group, owners of the station have discovered. News of the sale angered some entrepreneurs who purchase time on the station and fanned rumors throughout the English-speaking community that the format might change to Haitian Creole.

Winsome Charlton, president of Hi-Class Promotions, which leases the largest amount of time on the station, said it was her idea to adopt the Caribbean format, and she had offered Bresky up to $6 million to purchase it.

She said she was hurt when she found out that it had been sold to Alliance Broadcasting, and she doesn't believe the new owners will keep the current format.

"I just don't see Haitians buying a station and keeping it Jamaican," she said.

But Alliance Broadcasting met recently with staff and brokers to assure them that programming would remain the same.

"It would be a grave mistake to change the format," said Emmanuel "Mani" Cherubin, who is principal owner of Alliance with his brother, Jean. "It's doing well. If something is not broken, why fix it?"

Bresky said Charlton expressed interest in purchasing the station, but never followed up with a formal request in writing. He said he's received calls from many people who said they wanted to purchase the station over the years.

Rudy Moise , owner of Haitian Broadcasting Network (HBN), which runs Radio Carnivale (WRHB 1020-AM in Little Haiti), said he offered $5.5 million for the station four months ago, but the owners wouldn't sell.

Bresky said Moise also never put it in writing.

"It's a business approach that's required when you make a major investment," he said. "And just to say in passing, `I'll give you such and such' just doesn't cut it."

Radio WAVS Inc. has owned the station since 1971. In the mid-1980s, it began the transition from an urban contemporary/Hispanic format to a Caribbean one at the suggestion of Charlton, Bresky said.

With permission from the owners, she began playing Caribbean music in 1985. Two years later, the owners decided to switch to the Caribbean format, and sell broadcast time to businesses and individuals that wanted to target the Caribbean community.

Charlton said she borrowed $60,000 from investors and launched her company to purchase most of the time on the station.

Today the station, which broadcasts in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties as "The Heartbeat of the Caribbean," has 38 brokers.

Hi-Class Promotions leases about 50 hours week, and produces programs like Taking Care of Business (TCB), a morning show that features infomercials from professionals who provide listeners with advice on a variety of issues; and an open-line talk show hosted by Miramar Commissioner Winston Barnes, who's also the station's news director.

"This station has been a profitable business venture," said Bresky. "The Caribbean community is strong and growing exponentially and it's made up of people of entrepreneurial interests who are out there trying to develop businesses, make money and spend money."

The station "pretty much has been the main voice of the community," said Jamaican-born Eddy Edwards, who hosts a show called Caribbean Riddims on WVCG (1080-AM). "It's a great medium to get information out."

Cherubin, 47, said Alliance Broadcasting is a new company, with plans to purchase other radio stations. He and his brother already own Choice One Telecom, a Miami telephone and Internet service provider, with 40 employees.

They also host programs on WLQY (1320-AM), a Haitian Creole station; and WJCC (1700-AM), a Haitian Creole/Hispanic station, both in Miami. He said his programs are in French, English and Creole.

Moise, of the Haitian Broadcast Network, said he might be soon partnering with the Cherubins to purchase the Radio Carnivale frequency, which his company has been leasing with an option to buy.

He plans to expand the station to a radio network with programs in New York, Boston and other cities.

Alliance made an official offer for WAVS in April, Bresky said. The application for transfer of the station was filed June 16.

Cherubin said he and his brother had been eyeing the station for some time.

"It's a station that most people in the English-speaking Caribbean are listening to, and provides a lot of leadership and togetherness," he said. "We've been talking to the [owners] for years and finally it was the right time for them to sell."

Scott Galvin's myopic FL-17 campaign never did the things it needed most to win: a persuasive/strategic outreach to Broward voters early this year

The Scott Galvin direct mail campaign literature in question.



Though it may look like it's rural Alabama or Georgia as you zoom past it on AMTRAK, that sign actually says "Welcome to Broward County." Above, August 20, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier of northbound W. Dixie Highway as it approaches the Broward and Miami-Dade county line, with unincorporated M-D to the south and Hallandale Beach to the north. This is part of the Florida 17th congressional district that has its primary on Tuesday.

"Know your universe" is the number-one rule of politics that I learned over many years of working on and being a high-ranking official of a successful national political campaign, after years of working on state and local campaigns and seeing what works and what doesn't work -and why- including in Dade County, as I've previously written here.

Trust me, all the hard work and faith of your volunteers and friends is completely wasted if you as a candidate don't have the heart to stick to a demanding strategy that puts real expectations on you to get out of your 'comfort zone,' and thereby force your opponent(s) to have to work much harder than they ever imagined.

Going the unconventional route, which, counter-intuitively in South Florida, means a campaign plan that emphasizes you projecting internal logic and common sense reasoning in your answers to questions, while you draw a contrast with your opponents continuing to make expensive empty promises, is one way to break out of the pack and draw attention.

When I first heard that North Miami city council member Scott Galvin was planning on running for the FL-17 congressional seat being vacated by Kendrick Meek due to what I saw as Meek's nonsensical long-shot effort to be elected to the U.S. Senate, I must admit that I was intrigued.

More accurately, I was intrigued at the prospect that someone whom I'd generally heard pretty good things about when I asked some usually well-informed people, might actually be that rare South Florida candidate with the smarts to know that in order to win in a congressional district of its peculiar shape and all-over-the-map voter demographics, with him very much in the middle of a pack of nearly a dozen candidates, he'd have to throw the traditional cookie-cutter political campaign out and go unconventional.

Not Robert Redford's Bill McKay unconventional in Michael Ritchie's 1972 The Candidate, obviously, but whatever it's 21st-Century South Florida lower-key congressional equivalent might be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K78U6XsHsg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkGhplApYt4



Especially when running against so many candidates of middling-to-little accomplishment or talent, none of whom physically looked like him, as he has been constantly been reminded of, over-and-over again by the South Florida news media, on those rare occasions this summer when they deigned to leave the cocoon of their air-conditioned offices and mix it up with the vox populi in the sweltering heat.

(Was there ever a summer in South Florida where so many political stories were written while never leaving an air-conditioned office, and done almost entirely by telephone? Discuss.)

No, in order to win in this environment, Galvin would have to run a campaign that was by turns compelling to voters and the news media, based on his unconventional campaign that took more than the average number of calculated chances, since the alternative was to simply play-by-the-book and lose.

He would also have to be entirely comfortable taking the attack to them, which in this race, would mean telling the entire truth about his opponents while waging an offensive campaign as the only White candidate in a majority minority CD, spelling out the specifics of what would make him the best representative of this crazy-quilt district, which will hopefully be changed a lot after re-districting so that NE Miami-Dade is part of it and Broward is not.

How many times have we heard that the best defense is a good offense?

But it's true for a reason and if you can recognize the organizational and structural weaknesses of your opponents -i.e. they're being completely unknowns in Broward County- and carve-out spheres of influence for yourself in Broward, bulwarks if you will, that force the other candidates to expend a disproportionate amount of time and resources battling for those areas, your initial investment of time and energy can pay dividends later in the race while you work on the undecideds.

After all, it's not a two-way race, it's a ten-way race, and you aren't going to go from unknown to 50.1% overnight.
Know your universe.

One of the ways you do that now, of course, is to take the initiative and try to find out what non-elected officials are looked upon by the community as straight-shooters whose advice people generally listen to.

What you don't do is talk to the area's sorry collection of poverty pimps and the usual suspects with connection to the Steve Clark M-D Building in downtown Miami or at Dinner Key Auditorium, but real civic activists who don't personally profit financially from their work in the community. (The better to insulate yourself from future revelations.)

Frankly, the sort of serious high-minded people whom you don't have to waste time and resources on later reminding them to vote because they are, in fact, so busy being your shock troops at getting their own large circle of friends and acquaintances to the polls, you can instead concentrate on whether you need to devote time and energy on some areas that are under-performing or simply cut the cord and write-off some neighborhoods as un-winnable when you are running against so many opponents.

But in order to get those trusted community people on your side, you have to reach out to them.

Back in early January, I sent out an email to a few dozen friends and acquaintances throughout the Broward portion of FL-17 asking them to let me know if they ever heard about any
appearances by Galvin or any of the other FL-17 candidates, so I could arrange to be there and see them in action for myself.

Then I decided to set up separate Google Alerts for Galvin and certain of the other FL-17 candidates, so that I would have a good working intelligence base for following the various words and moves of the candidates, whether in print on TV or in blog posts.

I still have all of them in my computer, accessible in just seconds, and it has proven invaluable, but not for the reasons that I'd have originally imagined.

Now given how things have gone the last few months, where Galvin has seemingly done none of the things I think he ought to have done, has a website that is average at best, etc., I suppose I could mention some of the names of the dozens of such community people in the Broward portion of FL-17 whom I respect in Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and over in Pembroke Pines.

Folks that clearly should've been contacted by Scott Galvin and his team back in January and February if they wanted to be taken seriously NOW.

People who are persuasive as a result of their own hard work and ethics, dedication to their community's betterment and genuine honesty, even if you disagree with them on individual issues from time-to-time.

But they never received a phone call to arrange a personal meeting, never received an email saying that Galvin would be at so-and-so's and would like to speak with them alone after wards.

That's how you do it, especially when you don't have a lot of money to invest in sizable TV ad buys to keep your name recognition high in areas where you are otherwise a complete unknown, despite only living a few miles away.

So what was the Scott Galvin campaign strategy, exactly?

Nobody I sent that head's-up email to all those months ago ever heard from him, and they remain as flummoxed as I am now knowing that he had to run an upbeat, issues-oriented campaign that was decidedly different than his blah opponents, and has instead run a poor mishmash of a campaign that continually emphasized issues that have nothing to do with the job he is seeking: U.S. Representative.

That's why I titled my post about him on Friday the way that I did, FL-17's Scott Galvin isn't running for Class President, he's running for Congress. Different rules and standards apply.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/fl-17s-scott-galvin-isnt-running-for.html
after having previously taken him to task here on May 20th,
The FL-17 race that Scott Galvin ought to be hitting his stride in, is actually showing his immaturity. Has Galvin ALREADY blown it? http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/fl-17-race-that-scott-galvin-ought-to.html


"I'll do things differently."
Actually, that's what you needed to do in order to get the nomination.
News flash: You didn't do it.

That Galvin is so much more liberal than me I understood, this area being what it is, but just because you are liberal doesn't mean that you don't have to make any effort to reach moderate Dems like myself. And what did you talk about in your campaign literature?

Beach renourishment, traffic congestion, libraries, parks...?

Those are not issues to get you elected to Congress, they're issues to get you in line to replace Sally Heyman on the Miami-Dade County Commission, which perhaps would be best for all concerned.
What's his opinion of ending the tyranny of congressional earmarks?

It's my educated guess that his calendar since January 1st is littered with lots of wasted opportunities that he can likely not recover from, which is why perhaps what this race really proved about Galvin was that he's not ready to be a national prime-time player.

Maybe setting his sights on the Miami-Dade County Board is the thing for him to do.

But if he wants to do that, he and his supporters need to learn a few lessons.

First, don't put campaign signs on school property.


Above and below, July 31, 2010 photos by South Beach Hoosier of Scott Galvin campaign posters on school property in Hallandale Beach. They were there for weeks. Learn the rules of where you can place campaign signs.


And that goes for supporters of FL-17 candidate Phillip Brutus and U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, who for months have had their signs in all sorts of places that are forbidden.
Is that on church property or the public right-of-way?
You decide.
In any case, it's been there for a while.

July 21, 2010 photos by South Beach Hoosier.


Yes, that's definitely a cross on the top of that building.


Second, don't approve photos or material for your campaign literature without knowing that you came by them honestly and legally.

In the case of the photos of Hallandale Beach City Hall and Hollywood City Hall on the cover of the material I received in my mailbox last week, I know that's not the case because they are MY photos, ones I took and have used on this blog.






When you do a Google search for Hollywood City Hall and then click Images, what is the first photo that comes up of all the possible photos in the world?
Let's see...


August 20, 2010 screen shot by South Beach Hoosier


Yes, it's MY photo, as the URL is listed on the description.
In fact, the shape of the clouds in the sky and the composition of the parked bicycles prove it.

It's less than a 20-minute drive from North Miami City Hall to Hallandale Beach City Hall, and another 15 minutes up to Hollywood if you don't catch red lights all the way up.

If you and your campaign saw the photos on my blog and liked the idea of using photos of the city halls in the 17th district in your campaign ads, since I can't patent an idea, per se, you and your campaign could've sent someone to take shots for your ads and that would be that.

Instead, though, in the laziest and most egregiously obvious way possible, you took something that didn't belong to you, did so without asking me or notifying me, without any credit on the material itself and on and on.
And now everyone knows it.
Congratulations!

But your campaign made damn sure that your mailer had a little Union Bug on it for the benefit of those who find that important?
So, I give up, which is it, attention to detail or no attention at all?

That sort of oblivious, half-assed behavior with respect to the use of my photos in these campaign ads is symptomatic of the larger problems of the 2010 Galvin campaign that looks likely to come to an end on Tuesday night -bad communications.

My vote against Galvin on Tuesday will be with that in mind.

Above, August 20, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier in Hollywood, FL for early voting.

------

FYI: Due to a problem with the scanner, I decided to take shots of the Scott Galvin campaign literature while I was at the Panera Bread, below, located on East Hallandale Beach Blvd., which is why the photos aren't as good as they'd ordinarily be, and why you can see part of the table in the shots or ceiling lights reflecting on the material.

Above, the Panera Bread in Hallandale Beach with The Duo condominium towers overlooking it on the south side and the Diplomat Golf Course on the north side.

My coffee of choice there is hazelnut with a bit of honey and cinnamon.

FL-17's Scott Galvin isn't running for Class President, he's running for Congress. Different rules and standards apply.

Per my email earlier post today, Coming Sunday: Scott Galvin's FL-17 congressional campaign is using MY blog photos on his direct mail campaign ads without my permission,
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/coming-sunday-scott-galvins-fl-17.html a Scott Galvin supporter from North Miami can't quite 'hold-his-horses.'

He couldn't simply wait patiently until Sunday for the photographic proof I will be posting here that was, after all, literally, mailed to me by Galvin's campaign, that among the many other things that have been said and written about FL-17 congressional candidate Scott Galvin of North Miami over the past few months, that he is impatient, lacks gravitas and perhaps a little too thin-skinned to be an elected official beyond the parochial city limits of North Miami, Galvin seems to lack the ability to effectively manage and delegate to subordinates. You know, his own campaign workers and contractors?
That's not a good sign for him now or for his political future.

This swiping of my photos without my permission is but the latest example I've seen that he is not quite ready for prime time.

On Sunday, I'll have YET another example altogether, complete with photos -ones that I've been sitting on for weeks- showing that serious citizens concerned about the innate character and common sense of their representation in Washington, D.C. would be wise to look elsewhere.

Scott Galvin isn't running for Class President, he's running for Congress, and we don't have to pretend to like him if we find him lacking in character or don't believe he will be a genuine common sense independent voice for positive change instead of an ideologue.
Different rules and standards apply, but he and his supporters seem not to have gotten that memo.
But he's hardly alone in that respect.

For this congressional election, this year, in my opinion, Galvin simply isn't the caliber of person I want representing me and my part of this country in D.C.
I want a unique voice who will challenge the conventional wisdom and negative reputation of South Florida congressmen, NOT another member for the echo chamber.
You have to represent citizens who disagree with you, too.

Below is the email exactly as it was sent to me this morning for inclusion in reader comments. While clearly well-intentioned, it only serves to confirm my suspicions that Scott Galvin & Company are NOT ready for prime time right now.
Maybe in the future after he's really really done something, but definitely NOT now.
Maybe others are willing to waste their vote, but I'm not.

We surely don't need more show horses like Alan Grayson in Congress, we need more work horses.
I spent over 15 years in Washington, much of it on Capitol Hill, and know the difference between the two from seeing examples of both nearly everyday.
I suspect most of you have the good sense to appreciate the distinction as well.

------
With all the problems that our country, state and local community faces, does this really matter? Galvin has been an exemplary public servant. He has run a classy, clean and progressive campaign.
If some graphic designer searched the web for an image, and used it for one of his mailers, is it really reflective on him in any way? I can guarantee you that Galvin does not design his own mail pieces. Nor does any other candidate.
Of all the things to talk about in this election, this is the one that I have seen that matters the least. Galvin is a terrific candidate.

Watch this space on Sunday and judge for yourself whether you want someone representing you in Washington who doesn't pay attention to what he says and does.
I do.

Coming Sunday: Scott Galvin's FL-17 congressional campaign is using MY blog photos on his direct mail campaign ads without my permission

Coming Sunday: Scott Galvin's FL-17 congressional campaign is using MY blog photos on his direct mail campaign ads without my permission.
CLUMSILY!

Pure and simple, on Thursday I caught Galvin engaging in unethical behavior even BEFORE he ever got anywhere near Washington, which is certainly an Early Bird approach, I'll grant you, but frankly, I don't think even using MY photos will help him emerge on top on Tuesday, despite his appropriating something that's NOT his to use.

Just because a photo is on the Internet doesn't mean that you and your campaign staff get to use it for whatever purpose you want.
It doesn't belong to YOU!

Do I really need to explain this concept to someone who is running for U.S. Congress?
Apparently, in the South Florida of the year 2010, I do.

I'll connect-the-dots on this subject and show you the campaign piece he's so clumsily using and show you the photos as I originally used them here on my blog.

And if you happen to have any Scott Galvin campaign mail anywhere in your house, don't throw it out -yet.
It'll come in handy on Sunday when you play a game of compare-and-contrast at home, though you won't have to put on your detective hat.

If this had been a tougher call and not such a slam dunk for my own brand of sleuthing, I might have needed to enlist the help of a top-shelf detective to handle the investigation.

There's a detective I've been hearing really great things about from friends out in Cali who might be of some help to us in the future here in Hallandale Beach and Broward County, what with all the political miscreants and their lawyer/lobbyist acolytes hereabouts, though I should mention that he isn't cheap.

This cat goes by the name of Mannix.
Joe Mannix.
Perhaps you've heard of him?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyZL_3bxD68



Now HE will get us the answers we want!

Plus, I'll also be analyzing campaign direct mail in Broward County for some salient signs the MSM has completely missed, and since South Florida's MSM has been particularly lazy and fact-challenged this particular summer of swelter, there's an awful lot to mull over.
All of that to come on Sunday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF_49tWPNWA



I loved this TV show as a kid growing-up down here, as did all my friends!

Miami Herald rediscovers FL-17 race it's largely ignored; FL-17 candidate forum at FIU's Biscayne Bay campus Thurday at 5 p.m.

Not that they bear ALL the responsibility for this, per se, but why is the Miami Herald once again doing something that's so counter-intuitive by posting this story about a congressional race that they have largely ignored the past year, FL-17, that includes info about a Thursday afternoon candidate's forum, at 11:22 p.m. Wednesday night, instead of showing some sense and doing so Tuesday night for Wednesday's print edition, so more readers and voters would have a chance to attend?

Isn't the candidate forum information time-sensitive?
Seems like it to me!

The Herald's longstanding and almost spiteful refusal over the years to run items like that early when they can actually be of practical use to readers, the final consumers of their product, is really something that gives frequent critics of the newspaper like me, even more ammunition than we need.

Frankly, it makes the reporters and editors seem EVEN MORE distant and removed from the concerns of readers.

In most major newspapers, that particular info would've run in the paper on Sunday, so that concerned readers could make plans to attend.

Yet curiously, events that the Herald or owner McClatchy or previously, Knight-Ridder, was sponsors or co-sponsors of, no matter how parochial or picayune, were/are always given lots of play in advance. We all know that to be true, so why the disparity?

By the way, I'm NOT a big fan of FIU Prof. Dario Moreno, who is quoted below in the story, as I've almost always found his appearances on local TV newscasts or public policy shows -usually Michael Putney's excellent This Week in South Florida (TWISF)- to be the worst kind of sycophantic conventional wisdom, with him offering no original take on anything.

Almost as if he was at pains to criticize anyone, which, perhaps he is.
When I see Prof. Moreno on the tube, I tune-out and change the channel.

There are a number of holes in this story but it's so damn blah, why shoot a fish in a barrel?
Well, because I can.

U.S.-1/Biscayne Blvd./Federal Highway is the dividing line between Kendrick Meek's current 17th CD and the dreaded Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's 20th CD. (DWS)

It might interest the reporters -and those of you living far from here- to know that contrary to what they wrote, ALL of Aventura is in DWS territory.

Is it really too much trouble to expect news reporters to actually know what is and is NOT in the 17th CD when they write about it?
I mean there are maps of it after all, right?

Yes, I even posted one here for you to examine, and there's one anchored on the blog.
Here's the link:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL

The east side of West Dixie Highway is the dividing line for the City of Aventura, so the people who live in Miami-Dade County north of North Miami Beach -where I grew-up- and west of Aventura, are, technically in unincorporated M-D County, NOT Aventura, despite what the businesses there may call themselves or what they put on their signs or business cards.
Just ask the Post Office or any Aventura cop -they know.

See this handy map: http://skyhighhomes.com/picture/northeastdademac.pdf

And as discussed here previously, it's why the well-regarded Aventura Waterways Charter K-8 school, which I'd love to see replicated in Hallandale Beach, is NOT really in Aventura proper.

Not that the residents living on the other side of Dixie Highway don't want to be in it, but the City of Aventura powers-that-be don't want 'em because in their minds, pure and simple, the area isn't affluent enough.

I know all about this border not just from living so close to it, but because every time I see my barber in the M-D neighborhood of Ojus, which is in that no-man's land, we discuss it, just like we did yesterday for the umpteenth time.

See the Skylake-Highland Lakes Homeowners Assocation website for backstory at
http://skyhighhomes.com/outside_home.asp, in particular, here:
http://skyhighhomes.com/item_list.asp?subcat=44&subtitle=Annexation%2FIncorporation

As has been previously mentioned here in previous discussions of Meek, DWS and the South Florida CDs, the grand bargain the FL legislature made many years in carving-out the CDs, knowing that Carrie Meek was going to run, was to put as many African-Americans as possible in 17 and as many Jewish voters as possible in the 20th.

That's why the 20th CD has the strange shape it does and why Hallandale Beach, where I live, and not listed in the story, a city that's only 4.2 square miles, is actually divided in two, when its small size ought to make it even more important for the it to entirely be in the same district.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=17
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=FL&district=20

The Broward County Commission districts also divide the city, albeit on a much smaller scale, since a sliver of NW HB is in District 8, formerly repped by the indicted Diana Wasserman-Rubin, and currently unrepresented at the Commission until November, while 95% of the city is currently repped by Sue Gunzburger in District 6.

http://gis.broward.org/maps/webPDFs/CommissionDistricts/comdist8.pdf

http://gis.broward.org/maps/webPDFs/CommissionDistricts/comdist6.pdf

And you thought that electoral districts were actually supposed to be "compact" for the benefit of residents like the law says?
Nope!

As for the dopey comments of self-serving Broward Democratic Party poobah Mitch Ceasar about possible low-turnout in the Broward part of the district, well, they're typical.

Explain how on the one hand that you'd imagine that people will turn out to vote in the Sue Gunzburger vs. Steve Geller fight for Broward County Commission District 6, but counter-intuitively, not cast a ballot in a primary for Congress?

If anything, it's very likely that the Broward part of FL-17 will have a higher voting-rate than the part located in Miami-Dade County.

I believe I wrote that many months ago in a few posts criticizing the FL-17 candidates who were refusing to come to Broward and campaign in cities like, yes, home sweet Hallandale Beach.
Now THERE'S your real story!

------

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/11/1772338/1-open-seat-10-candidates-an-unpredictable.html

Florida International University and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce will host

a candidate forum for Congressional District 17 at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Wolfe University

Center Theater, FIU Biscayne Bay Campus, 3000 NE 151st St. in North Miami.

The forum, co-sponsored by The Miami Herald and Univisión/Channel 23, will be moderated

by WPLG-ABC 10 political reporter Michael Putney.

Marleine Bastien, Phillip Brutus, Scott Galvin, Shirley Gibson, Rudy Moise, André Williams

and Frederica Wilson have confirmed their attendance.

1 open seat + 10 candidates = an unpredictable election

By Patricia Mazzei and Carrie Wells

August 12, 2010

For nearly two decades, nobody has had to figure out how to win Florida's 17th Congressional District.

Neither U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek nor his mother, Carrie -- the first person elected to the seat when it was redrawn in 1992 -- faced more than token opposition, if any.

But now Meek is running for U.S. Senate, and the nine other Democrats vying for his seat are working without a road map to model their races. Forced to devise their own strategies, the campaigns have not focused on capturing votes in the entire district, a safe Democratic seat that stretches from Overtown to Pembroke Pines.

Instead, they are carving out niches, trying to muster just enough votes to eke out a victory in the Aug. 24 primary. The winner will face attorney Roderick Vereen, running without party affiliation, in November.

With so many candidates splintering the vote, one candidate would win the primary with as little as 15 percent of the ballots cast, said Kevin A. Hill, an associate professor of political science at Florida International University.

"Anything could happen in that election,'' he said. "It's a total crapshoot.''

The race is also unpredictable because the district's more than 600,000 residents are as diverse as they come. A majority of voters are black -- mostly African American, though the district has the largest concentration of Haitian Americans in the country -- and there are pockets of whites and Hispanics.

"This election may answer whether it's an African-American seat, a Haitian seat or probably a bit of everything,'' said Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the Broward Democratic Party.

With Meek opting not to endorse anyone in the primary, the candidates have worked to shore up their natural bases as they crunch numbers to determine which is the district's biggest voting bloc.

Frederica Wilson has relied on an existing network in her Florida Senate district, which overlaps with much of the congressional district. The same is true for state Reps. James Bush III and Yolly Roberson and former state Rep. Phillip Brutus. To complicate allegiances further: Brutus and Roberson used to be married to each other.

None of those districts encompass all of Miami Gardens, home to two other candidates: Mayor Shirley Gibson and Councilman André Williams. As the third-largest city in Miami-Dade and the state's largest predominantly African-American city, a well-known official could amass enough votes to win with little need of support from elsewhere.

The same is not true for smaller cities like North Miami, where candidate Scott Galvin is a councilman. As the only white candidate in the race, he could collect votes in Miami Shores, North Miami Beach and Aventura.

Haitian Americans -- who depending on varying estimates make up between an eighth and a quarter of the vote in the district -- could swing the election.

Yet it is unlikely for Haitian Americans to vote as a unified bloc, with four Haitian-born candidates in the running: Brutus, Roberson, activist Marleine Bastien and entrepreneur Rudolph "Rudy'' Moise.

Looking elsewhere for support, Bastien, founder of Haitian Women of Miami, has tried to rally like-minded activists and the female vote. Moise, running with deep pockets after putting more than $1 million of his own money into the race, has gone on TV and sent campaign mailers to become better known.

His media campaign could reach some voters in Miramar, Pembroke Pines and Hollywood, which together comprise about a third of the district. Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober recently endorsed Moise, citing his "real-world experience.''

"The key for the candidates is to somehow make sure Broward does not believe itself to be a stepchild of the district,'' Ceasar said. "If that occurs, then the risk becomes greater that the turnout in the Broward portion is exceedingly low.''

Turnout is expected to be low everywhere. In 2006, the last time Meek drew a primary opponent, about 36,000 people -- or 16 percent -- of the district's 220,000 registered Democrats voted.

This time around the seat is more competitive, but some campaigns and political observers say a candidate could still win with as few as 10,000 votes.

That makes relying on one group for support particularly risky.

And, of course, whoever is elected will have to represent everyone in the diverse district. That tall order could mean a streak of competitive elections among Democrats battling for the seat in the future.

"It is difficult,'' said Dario Moreno, an associate professor of political science at FIU. "That's why the Meeks were so successful.''