My fact-filled email to a Sun-Sentinel reporter sheds long-overdue light on the behavior of both Florida state Sen. Eleanor Sobel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's sloppy and incurious brand of journalism, and how both negatively affect Broward residents; After today, I give up on the Sun-Sentinel until the Tribune Co. sell it off to someone savvy enough to give beleaguered Broward residents the quality newspaper they deserve, not more of the same old unsatisfactory status quo that is so galling

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel's vending machine outside Hollywood City Hall

My fact-filled email to a Sun-Sentinel reporter sheds long-overdue light on the behavior of both Florida state Sen. Eleanor Sobel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's sloppy and incurious brand of journalism, and how both negatively affect Broward residents; After today, I give up on the Sun-Sentinel until the Tribune Co. sell it off to someone savvy enough to give beleaguered Broward residents the quality newspaper they deserve, not more of the same old unsatisfactory status quo that is so galling

What follows is a copy of an overdue email that I sent Friday afternoon to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Specifically, Tallahassee-based reporter Kathleen Haughney, with cc's to Dana Barker, the Sun-Sentinel Broward metro editor, Rosemary Goudreau, their Editorial page editor, Douglas Lyons, senior editorial writer and columnist, and columnist Gary Stein.

Also receiving it was columnist Michael Mayo and reporter Susannah Bryan, who currently has Hallandale Beach and Hollywood as part of her beat.

I've been waiting, semi-patiently, since Tuesday afternoon to send it off, get it out of my system and finally cross it off of my long list of Draft emails that are going to be dropping around South Florida like little mini-explosions over the next few weeks.

Mostly, though, I waited to see if someone else in Broward County noticed any of the same curious and troubling things that I caught right away when I saw the article shortly after it went online Monday night.

As I fully expected, nope!

For those of you who know a little more about the history of the incidents that are discussed herein, it's my effort to convincingly connect a lot of the missing dots that I've not mentioned here on the blog previously over the past few years about the behavior and conduct of Florida state Senator Eleanor Sobel, the real way way the Broward County PBA tries to exert its influence politically in Hollywood, and adds yet more fuel -and specifics- to the roaring that is the insufferably poor job that the the Sun-Sentinel has been doing for many years in competently and FAIRLY covering Broward County education policy, local and state government and local and state politics.

Not that the Miami Herald has anything to brag about in any of this, either, since they've ben just as asleep at the wheel.

All matters of great concern to me and many of you that I've written about with lots of skepticism, anger and incredulity over the years when comparing what appeared in-print and online in the Sun-Sentinel, and what they should've been doing to get the true facts and context out about the reality of what has been going on in thsi area for many, many years, most of them bad.

Trust me, it was very liberating to do and my birthday gift to myself.

-----.

Per "Lawmakers criticize Hollywood for financial problems"

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hollywood/fl-hollywood-audit-under-review-20130211,0,4665582.story

So, where to start with your article?

Hmm-m... I'll start with the most obvious mistake - lawmakers, as in plural.

Not due to you personally, obviously, but a problem all the same since the only lawmaker -singular- that you actually mention by name in your article is Eleanor Sobel, someone with a demonstrated history of NOT caring so much about what things cost, especially when she can try to use her influence to get them from taxpayers.

(See the bopttom of this post for the proof of that.)

You also never mention the name of the joint panel that heard the testimony, the nine-member Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, or mention or quote ANY of its members by name, even those from South Florida or Broward.

Sort of relevant, don't you think?

Especially in an article headlined mistakenly with the word lawmakers?

Three of the committee's nine members are from Broward or Miami-Dade -state Reps Daphne Campbell and Cynthia Stafford from Miami and state Senator Jeremy Ring of Northwest Broward- and yet somehow, for whatever reasons, you couldn't find them or an unbiased legislator to quote, just Sobel?

Sort of curious, don't you think?

But even more egregiously as far as the actual truth is concerned -and reader's understanding of the story- is the fact that you NEVER mention anywhere in your article that Eleanor Sobel is NOT even on that Joint Committee, despite your quoting her.

I already knew Sobel wasn't on it, and spent 25 minutes on the phone yesterday talking to the Committee's staff on how it is that Sobel came to be there in the room, let alone speak on the matter, but you just let readers assume she was allowed to be there as both the original complainant and a sort of pseudo-judge who got to ask questions of the very people she

complained about, which would strike most people as a clear conflict-of-interest.

And how is it, exactly, that you NEVER actually quote ANYONE who's an actual voting member of the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee that was holding the meeting?

Yes, that's more than a little curious, and God forbid you actually place a link in the article to the meeting's info pack given how little facts and context you actually provide

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Data/Committees/Joint/JCLA/Meetingpackets/021113.pdf

As for the context phase of the story, or rather the lack of it, you utterly fail to mention the salient fact that it was members of the Hollywood Police and Fire unions, past supporters of Sobel's, who were the two interest groups that were most adversely affected by the various financials moves the city had to make, however clumsily.

To this day, many of them still won't stop complaining and bitching about the overwhelming vote by Hollywood taxpayers against THEM, to show the two unions that notwithstanding whatever moves were made at City Hall, there was, in fact, a finite limit to the sense of entitlement that these employees were allowed to feel via Hollywood taxpayers' wallets and purses.

Which is precisely why Sobel brought the complaint forward in the first place -to carry their water and stay on their good side prior to last November's election. 

http://www.bcpba.org/pdf/Broward_Centurion_October_2012_Pg._5.pdf

Nobody-but-nobody believes Eleanor Sobel genuinely cared one whit about any of that budget melodrama until she realized that there was a mutuality of interests between her and the unions before the election, and most well-informed people in Hollywood I know and respect would suggest that everything else being equal, it probably wasn't even originally her idea to file the complaint, but rather one "suggested" to her by a little bird.

You may think otherwise, of course, but one of the prevailing opinions about Sobel among well-informed citizens who are actually paying attention and hip to her past antics and practices is that Sobel is utterly without guile, besides not always being the brightest bulb, and totally transparent to a fare-thee-well.

But now that I think about it, "obvious" is probably a much-better description of her than "transparent," because Sobel was certainly anything but transparent or responsive when she was repeatedly asked by residents of SE Broward and news reporters to declare where all that mysterious "outside money" came from in her first FL Senate campaign in 2008, which proceeded to use it to malign, libel or otherwise bitch-slap anyone who ever looked at Eleanor Sobel so much as cross-eyed.

I knew as much in 2006 when I personally observed Sobel displaying her trademark gall by standing-up and trying to speak into a microphone before a Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting started, and because she's pals with Mayor Joy Cooper, she was allowed to make a partisan plug for herself at a govt. facility full of people gathered there to conduct govt. business -the meeting- to get signatures for a petition to get her name on the ballot without paying the S.O.E.

Not signatures for a charity for kids or pets or something else, but rather for herself.

Sobel then proceeded to ignore any notions of normal decorum while the City Commission meeting was going on when she worked the aisles to get signatures on her clipboard.

I just looked at her, aghast, when finally she got to me. 

This, of course, was back when Sobel pretended that she really, really cared about education and kids' futures and wanted to be on the Broward School Board.

It was common knowledge that she only wanted the School Board gig, a govt. job with little heavy lifting, while she waited for bombastic state Senator Steve Geller's term-limited seat to open.

And that's what it was, wasn't it?

After watching that exhibition of narcissism that night in HB, nothing she ever did or said afterwards surprised me

And seriously, tell me again why it is that more than three months after-the-fact, after the City of Hollywood has already taken Jeff Marano and the Broward PBA to court for breaking Hollywood's voter-approved campaign finance law, which the Broward PBA completely trampled in order to get its favored candidates elected, as if their illegal efforts were always their plan, and that any associated court costs, if any, were just the cost of doing business, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has still yet to mention this litigation even ONCE, much less, reported on the latest activities?

http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/election-violations-police-union/

Not even once.

No articles, no columns, nothing in the Broward Politics blog and certainly no editorials.

You call that journalism?

I hope that you and your colleagues at the newspaper can manage to be considerably more accurate with the facts and include more useful context the rest of 2013, and that your editors can better manage their self-evident biases, or else it's going to be a very, very long year for the Sun-Sentinel readers who have chosen to remain readers instead of bailing-out because of their continuing disappointment with the current state and direction of the newspaper.

By the way, since I'm sure you've noticed, I've chosen to include other people in this cc, not because I think they care at all about hearing more about Sobel, so much as the fact that some of them were (and continue to be) completely oblivious and complicit the last few years in not only self-evident factual screw-ups in the Sun-Sentinel regarding facts and context in stories and editorials regarding Southeast Broward, but about corruption, ethics violations and activities contrary to Florida's constitution in Hallandale Beach that should've appeared but NEVER did, despite their value to the general public.

The fact is that your paper has even endorsed one of the worst offenders.

Twice.

Despite my best efforts and taking the time and effort to educate them via email about the nature of those problems, those managers and editors have consciously avoided, ignored or acted oblivious to the facts-on-the-ground that citizens here could and can see with their own eyes.

Instead of being enterprising and rising to the occasion, the Sun-Sentinel collectively and those people individually, chose not to respond when it really mattered -or since.

Which is why I've consistently posted my fact-filled criticisms of the newspaper and them personally on my blog, so others would be just as well-informed about the facts and their identities as I am.

October 30, 2012

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/their-lack-of-journalism-ethics-is.html

October 29, 2012

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/when-are-broward-county-residents.html

October 17, 2012

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/absolutely-pummeled-hallandale-beach.html

August 14, 2012

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/so-when-are-miami-herald-and-south-sun.html

July 6, 2010

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/geography-as-destiny-and-column-inches.html

Today's email then is not directed at you individually, per se, so much as you just happen to be the very last straw after dozens of similar fact patterns, ones that don't seem intent on presenting the whole story to residents of this area who want all the facts.

I've been consistent about wanting facts, context and honesty to matter even while your newspaper continues showing a type of consistency of a completely different sort, and one that is chasing its few remaining readers away.

At this point, in my opinion, the best thing that can happen for concerned residents of Broward is for the Tribune Company to sell the Sun-Sentinel to a group led by someone smart and savvy enough to know that the only way that the paper can ever hope to make any money and be truly relevant and of value to readers in the future is by giving intelligent readers more of what they want.

Someone who will cut out the saturation of fluff and dead stories that makes people so reluctant to buy the paper because they think the whole thing can be read in less than five minutes.

Readers want more in-depth stories on local government and agencies, more/better reporters who are genuinely curious and self-motivated, don't take things for granted and who actually hustle to create a broad array of resources in the community to turn to and quote, instead of relying on the same old familiar cadre of suspects making the same old blandishments.

Clear-cut the deadwood that doesn't seem to aspire to more than banal, and who perpetually want to be begged to show-up to cover the news, and then, seem to want the public to be grateful if they DO show-up.

Since that isn't going to happen in the next few months, I'm going to make things much easier for myself and simply pull the plug on the Sun-Sentinel and give up on thinking there's any logical reason for me or any of my well-informed, civic-minded friends to contact anyone there about anything at all, when it's like spitting into the wind.

I'll start on that later today by posting this on my blog, sending links to it to the circle of people I know locally and around the state who've come to trust my judgment from experience, and then, I'll start deleting every single Tribune/Sun-Sentinel email address I have on my computer.

(So, there's no point in you or anyone in that cc field responding to this, since it'll just go straight to spam. It's a little late to be concerned now.)

After all, you can't wake people up who are pretending to be asleep, and I and so many people I know who wanted this city and that paper to be much-better than they are, are tired of pretending that anything we say or do is going to change things at the Sun-Sentinel  until that new owner eventually comes in and starts making BIG changes in personnel and employee attitudes.

-----

InspectorGeneral	Jan 30
to me

Your email  has been received by the Broward Office of the Inspector General.  Your information will be reviewed to determine what action will be taken.

Sincerely,

Broward Office of the Inspector General

-----

Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark	Jan 30

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I was not aware of the material.  I will address it immediately and I will also put a protocol in place to prevent it from happening again.  Regards, Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark

From: David B. Smith
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2013 2:33 PM
To: Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark
Cc: John W. Scott; Bryan, Susannah
Subject: Please try to do a better job in 2013 of preventing partisan political material from being left in the public lobby outside the City Comm. Chambers -for months at a time

-----

Please try to do a better job in 2013 of preventing partisan political material from being left in the public lobby outside the City Comm. Chambers -for months at a time

David B. Smith	Jan 30
to Cathy

Dear City Manager:

Please do a better job in 2013 than in 2012 of preventing overtly partisan

political material from being left in the public lobby outside the City Clerk's

office and outside the City Comm. Chambers -for MONTHS at a time.

The offenders are State Sen. Eleanor Sobel and state Rep. Elaine Schwartz,

who already have a district office that's just steps from Hollywood City Hall.

One that in the case of Sen. Sobel, was actually subsidized by Hollywood

taxpayers a few years ago as I recall from having been present at the City

Commission meeting where it was approved.

It still remains unclear to me why that was such a great deal for Hollywood

taxpayers, rather than Sen. Sobel actually paying rent out of her legislative

account for a space at one of the many empty storefronts along Hollywood

Blvd. between City Hall and Young Circle.

She'd certainly have plenty to choose from.

Sobel and Schwartz or perhaps their pals and "helpers" would do well to

NOT keep bringing over copies of articles that mention them by name and

leaving those copies in very conspicuous locations in the public lobby.

(It's not fooling anyone.)

Even worse, leaving copies of articles that support the position in Tallahassee

of interest groups who are well-known campaign contributors of Sen. Sobel,

like various medical associations, to say nothing of copies of actual political

endorsements of them. 

It's all a little too frequent and too coincidental not to be an actual plan.

A self-defeating plan as it turns out.

Last week, upon visiting the second floor to look at the Sunshine Board

outside the City Clerk's office for some information about some upcoming

public meetings, for about the 12th time in the past six months -though 

it's probably much more- I saw overtly pro-Schwartz and pro-Sobel 

materials carefully placed in the public lobby where they couldn't possibly

be missed. 

While it may not be unethical, per se, it's both tacky and unprofessional

and makes it seem like the city is just winking at this overtly partisan

behavior.

I could have sent this to you a year ago and it would have been just as true.

I apologize for not having done so then, but the problem remains...

Your city in action -make that inaction: 10 days later, still no CORRECTIONS to the City of Hallandale Beach's website re its own 2012 Election results. Yes, the same chronic lack of attention to detail at City Hall and accuracy on the city's website as we've come to expect for SO MANY YEARS; @SandersHB

Your city in action -make that inaction: 10 days later, still no CORRECTIONS to the City of Hallandale Beach's website re its own 2012 Election results

I guess city spokesmodel Peter Dobens was too busy polishing someone's car or fetching coffee and donuts to get around to changing it by Friday at 5 p.m. to accurately reflect the final recount totals of the Broward Supervisor of Elections on Tuesday -that pro-reform challenger Michele Lazarow was elected to a four-year term on the city commission and Anthony A. Sanders will serve a two-year term... 

http://www.cohb.org/DocumentCenter/View/6361

Nope, still no corrections to the news as of 10:00 p.m. Saturday night, November 17th:

http://www.cohb.org/CivicAlerts.aspx

Yes, the very same chronic lack of attention to detail by City Hall and accuracy on the city's website as we've come to expect for SO MANY YEARS.

Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante is no Paul Revere! Caught in the act: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's son's Midnight Ride of campaign sign-stealing -on Election Day!; Anything goes now in HB -even political intimidation- as Broward IG & Broward SAO sleepwalk while laws & ethics are repeatedly laughed at by pols in power; @MayorCooper, #FDLE, @myfloridalegal, @fbi.gov

Above, the poster boy for public corruption in south Broward County -the most corrupt county in Florida: the City of Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex. October 3, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante is no Paul Revere! Caught in the act: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's son's Midnight Ride of campaign sign-stealing -on Election Day!; Anything goes now in HB -even political intimidation- as Broward IG & Broward SAO sleepwalk while laws & ethics are repeatedly laughed at by pols in power; @MayorCooper, #FDLE, @myfloridalegal, @fbi.gov

"Good always prevails," Cooper said. "Didn't your mom tell you that?" 
-from Cooper re-elected in Hallandale Beach
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-11-06/news/fl-election-day-hallandale-beach-20121106_1_commission-term-new-fire-station-commissioner-dorothy-ross

Hmm-m... I suppose it all depends on whom your mother is, doesn't it?
What sort of ethical role model SHE is. 
Is she conscientious and does she instill a proper, grounded sense of perspective, or does she teach by example that you can always get away with what you want because of who she is, and if that doesn't work, you can just ignore the rules that everyone else in society has to follow?

Is your mother the sort of person who, when she's the mayor of a small town, a propos of nothing in particular, when she thinks she can't be overheard, tells a City Commissioner that she thinks that one of their town's citizens, someone sitting in a chair patiently waiting for a Commission meeting to start -and the only citizen in the room- is a "Nazi"?
Does she follow that up by saying that she thinks that one of the other city commissioners, who isn't present yet, "is a Hitler"? 

Yes, I guess it really all depends upon whom your mother is.

But then after all these years and all the unethical incidents we've collectively witnessed, we pretty much know what sort of role model Joy Cooper is, and it's certainly not one for "good."

For years, whether we wanted to hear them or not, nearly everyone who pays close attention to civic affairs in Hallandale Beach heard the same familiar fact-filled stories, with lots of specifics, about the dysfunctional Cooper family and their myriad anti-social behavior problems: excessive drinking, physical altercations, and most alarmingly, FREQUENT and excessive phone calls to the 911 service asking for a police response.

We heard how seemingly all members of the family -including the mayor- had developed a well-practiced yet despicable habit of using her position as an elected official in this town as, alternately, either leverage or a crutch, whenever they had run-ins with various members of the law enforcement community in South Florida.

Of which there have been so many, to say nothing about possible incidents where the other party reluctantly decided NOT to call the police on them after all.

Not surprisingly, they were said to be especially fond of the old standby, "Don't you know who I am/my mother is/my wife is?" line when confronted by Police Officers, as if being mayor of this small city somehow entitled her and them to some sort of special treatment or consideration by the police of any city.

It's precisely the sort of thing that is not only illegal, but specifically prohibited behavior by elected officials in the State of Florida.

Correct, because it's someone using their office to gain a benefit not legally available to other Florida citizens.

The problem, of course, is that we all know from personal experience in living in Hallandale Beach that this sort of thing happens here fairly routinely, because we've seen for ourselves that there are, in fact, some people in this community who can, quite literally, do whatever they want to do, no matter that it's illegal under state, county or city law, and they never have to face the public and legal consequences. 

In some cases, they practically dare authorities to say anything or do anything to stop them.

Lest you forget, I've written about unethical behavior by well-known people in this community breaking the law in quite a number of ways a few times in just the past two weeks on my blog, and lots of people have been reading all about it.
In fact, 2,700 people read this one post of October 15th:

Ethics? Not for us! Follow-up to my post re Hallandale Beach's unethical "business as usual" attitude, with "special rules for special people" if they are named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders; What ethics? What rules? @MayorCooper, @SandersHB

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/ethics-not-for-us-follow-up-to-my-post.html

No doubt many Hallandale Beach residents were nodding in silent agreement as they read it because they've frequently observed public signs of this sense of entitlement, too, and now feel somewhat relieved at least that they're not alone in having seen the same despicable behavior, too. Misery lives company, and here, it's the whole town that is being made miserable by Joy Cooper and her actions, words and attitude towards regular citizens, with some of us receiving extra dollops of her attitude.

Perhaps the most-famous recent incident of Cooper family members being treated differently involves Mayor Cooper herself, after she crashed her moving car into another moving vehicle, which as it happened, turned out to be a City of Hallandale Beach emergency response vehicle -responding to an actual emergency call.

There were plenty of witnesses to that incident, of course, including members of the the public who witnessed it, and the city employees in the vehicle that Mayor Cooper actually hit.

But how did that all turn out exactly?

Yes, good luck trying to find out what exactly were the legal and financial consequences to Mayor Cooper for that careless and reckless behavior of hers.

Hmm-m...

More frequently, there are all the fact-filed stories that have been borne out by history about various members of the Cooper family being caught speeding by police, esp. the Aventura Police, and running that familiar line of theirs on the police officers, as if they'd never heard that sort of self-important excuse before.

Yes, whatever else you can say about them, the Cooper family's grandiose sense of entitlement and perks, and their lack of hubris, never seems to wane.

(Not unlike Andre Pierre, North Miami's mayor. In May of 2011, he was caught speeding by Aventura Police on his way to meet, of all people, Mayor Cooper. He said all sorts of incriminating things and ALL of his remarks were recorded by a camera inside the squad car, one that the officers on the scene can't turn-off, and which prints out a ticket to prevent anything illegal from transpiring, with all the info fed directly to Aventura Police HQ for monitoring. WTVJ-TV/Channel 6 showed the video on-air and it was amazing -and appalling. But pretty reflective of the both the low-caliber and high self-importance that many South Florida pols possess, including in our very own city.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/North-Miami-Mayor-accused-of-abuse-of-power-for-implying-threats-to-cops-121368674.html )

So, all that said, now on to the story of Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante... and his true identity

On Tuesday night, while over at the Upper Deck restaurant with some friends, watching election results across the nation rolling on their bank of TVs, I received the following photos from a reliable source.
The source said that earlier that morning, at approximately 12:05 a.m., just under seven hours before the polls opened for voting, he spotted an individual removing political campaign signs over near the intersection of Hallandale Beach Blvd. and Ansin Blvd., roughly the area between the IHOP and the Burger King.

An individual who clearly has a real problem with the concept of Freedom of Speech.

He doesn't seem to like it, and he most certainly wants to eliminate public displays of free speech he disagrees with as best he can, at least in Hallandale Beach.

This reliable source told me that after witnessing this activity take place, he drove his vehicle up close to this other person's vehicle so that he could get its license plate number and later report what he'd seen to the proper law enforcement authorities.

Well, within moments of doing this, the person removing the signs came over to my source in his car and, if you can believe this, asked my source what HE was doing, as if his own behavior was perfectly normal -someone with campaign signs after Midnight near one of the city's three most-heavily-traveled and highest visibility roads.

Even for Hallandale Beach, that's highly suspicious behavior, especially when the person with political signs after Midnight is NOT placing political yard signs in the ground and exercising their right of free speech, but rather removing them and eliminating someone else's right to free speech.

Removing political signs that are NOT theirs to take.

So, you're no doubt asking who was that un-masked man?

The creepy guy engaging in odd, to say nothing of blatantly anti-democratic and unethical conduct?

The creepy guy who thought that he was so brave -after Midnight- removing other citizen's signs where they expressed their freedom of speech, but who when my reliable source grabbed his camera to snap a shot of the license plate to have him later identified by Police, ran like a coward back to his car and placed his hands over his license plate?
The creep who then jumped inside his car and hit the gas to get out of the area?

Who was it?

Well, many of you reading this won't be too surprised to discover that the creep engaging in this  anti-social, anti-democratic behavior not only has quite a track record,
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/05/hallandale_beach_matt_cooper_spit_on_your_kids.php but is also none other than Mayor Joy Cooper's adult son, Matt.

Talk about apples not falling far from the tree...

Yes, the son who was discovered to have had almost as many Driver's Licenses and ID's as Jason Bourne.

Except that rather than merely pretending that he's a fictional spy in a Robert Ludlum novel, the evidence suggests that perhaps Matt Cooper has been busy playing the role of Midnight Vigilante, driving around Hallandale Beach under the cover of night and removing campaign signs of people who disagree politically with his mother's reckless and wasteful policies that both insult common sense and punish taxpayer's wallets.
Yes, it's not too creepy, is it?

One can safely surmise that it was Matt Cooper's last Midnight Run of such creepy and anti-democratic behavior, if only because of the political calendar.
But it does publicly raise the question of whether or not Matt Cooper is perhaps the answer or one of the answers to another simple question that's been puzzling residents of this city for weeks.

That question is who or what group of people were responsible for taking/ruining so many campaign signs of candidates opposed to Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders?
Signs which, oh, mysteriously, went missing in this small city, esp. during Early Voting, often within hours of them going up in the evening in places where they were legally allowed to be.

I mean such anti-social behavior doesn't just come out of nowhere, does it? So I doubt that the night before Election day was Matt Cooper's first night of criminal mischief in Hallandale Beach.

That sort of illicit behavior might best explain how it came to be that the large 2' X 8' campaign sign belonging to my friend, Csaba Kulin, a well-known Cooper critic and City Commission candidate, was... well, mysteriously pushed-over or knocked-down alongside the Nick's restaurant parking lot off N.E. First Avenue and Hallandale Beach Blvd., AFTER surviving completely intact that strong windy two-day storm we had in the area associated with Hurricane Sandy.

But suddenly, during normal weather, down it went?
Really?

Funny how Csaba's well-braced sign could just fall away and yet the same-size campaign sign for Mayor Cooper, just a few feet away, and both erected by the very same reputable company, was not an inch out of place. 

Not an inch.

So, Csaba's sign is fine at 6 p.m. when I drive by it one night on my way to Hollywood, but the next morning, with normal weather, it's leaning like the Tower of Pisa -times ten.

Yes, that's not too curious.

If we lived in a more "normal" American city, and could actually take proper law enforcement,  equal treatment of citizens, and genuine prosecution for granted, or lived in an area of the U.S. where the local State's Attorney and their staff actually made it their business to actively investigate and prosecute public corruption and the elected officials and govt. employees who engage in unethical and illicit behavior, regardless of who they are, we'd all have a lot less problems to deal with in this city, and doubtless be carrying around a whole lot less angst.
Imagine that!

A city in an area where the area's professional law enforcement and prosecutors properly understand their obligation to residents to investigate all bona fide complaints.
Like the one that Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and his pals engaged in blatant political intimidation of African-American citizens in NW Hallandale Beach by placing Sanders campaign signs in the FRONT YARDS of residents -without their permission.

The reality here is that many African-American residents in NW who removed the unwanted Sanders campaign signs from their property, quickly found a new Sanders sign back up the next morning to replace it, in a not-so-subtle hint by Sanders & Company to area residents that they better 'get with the program.'

Is THAT the "experience" that the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board meant in their wrong-headed endorsement of this do-nothing man who actively avoids his own constituents?

The whole thing with the Sanders signs was both obvious and egregious, so what happened to Sanders?

Nothing.

In that hypothetical and more normal version of Hallandale Beach, after an investigation and interviews with the people who were directly affected and involved, and more than sufficient evidence to prove charges in state court -as there is- someone from the Broward SAO would've contacted the Miami offices of the FBI and the Dept. of Justice and had their agents and lawyers come up for a nice visit, and decide whether or not this reasonably constituted a Civil Rights violation under federal law, as I strongly suspect it does.

Instead, we got less-than-nothing, we got complete indifference from the people directly responsible for enforcing laws.

The reason for this is because we don't actually live in a city where citizen's rights are fully-respected and where laws and rules are equally enforced or even prevail.
Instead, we live in a city where law enforcement and prosecutors sleepwalk and go out of their way to ignore the mountain of facts and evidence.

To live in Hallandale Beach in the year 2012 is to inhabit a city where the sort of basic assumptions about civic life and who protects the public go right out the window, especially when it comes to the actions and behavior of the city's elected officials, their families and friends, plus city employees.

Yes, it's not unlike a small isolated town in Mexico or a village up in the mountains of Colombia, run by narco-trafficking clans.

The people in charge do what they want, and want everyone else in town to tow the line and just pretend that they don't see what's going on right in front of them -or report it to authorities.

But what authorities?

Friends, sorry to remind you, but since Mike Satz's SAO evinced no interest whatsoever in doing their jobs here in the months before Tuesday's elections, when there was a mountain of evidence, facts and strange behavior aplenty to connect-the-dots -and God forbid that Satz's office would've had all the evidence they needed then to indict and begin proceedings against an African-American elected official like Sanders, while Satz himself was running for office countywide!- there's no reason to expect that they will now, suddenly, become both more curious and more professional now that Satz's own election is over.

It's my considered opinion that given all we've seen thus far from the Broward SAO to root out public corruption and its pernicious culture here, and especially what we haven't, seen -action- Hallandale Beach citizens should consider themselves on their own right now, a situation made worse by the fact that the vast majority of the South Florida news media could NOT be any less interested in our collective plight.

Yes, it's just another reminder of where we live in Florida and what happens when the city's leaders don't respect the laws that the rest of us are obliged to follow and respect, and their friends and cronies -and family members- do the same as well..