These are the 'Mean Streets' I cover. I cover the waterfront... Hallandale Beach, Florida, U.S.A. and the Rubber Stamp Crew that holds it hostage

Aerial views of Hallandale Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

http://youtu.be/vXRFoLZ7oN8

These are the 'Mean Streets' I cover.

"I cover the waterfront..."

And I cover and observe with alarm the sham community meetings fronted by lobbyists and developers, the ungodly long City Commission meetings where logic, reason and common sense are, more times than not, no-shows to proceedings whose results are known before they ever start.

And I cover the graffiti-filled streets and drug-dealing back-alleys, dirty and unattractive public city beaches and pitch-dark public city parks where the first impressions drawn by residents and visitors are decidedly negative -and stay negative because of the apathy and neglect of those in charge at City Hall, who are oblivious and defensive about what is entirely self-evident.

Hallandale Beach has enormous potential, and, literally, an ocean of possibilities because of its great location and weather.

It's a city that ought to be a LOT BETTER place to live in and work in than it is now.

And everyone knows it.

But Hallandale Beach is also an ocean-side community that for years has been held hostage by the myopic, condescending and completely under-performing Rubber Stamp Crew of Mayor Joy Cooper, with the result that Hallandale Beach City Hall is genuinely afraid of open public debate and the public they purport to represent, as well as the voices of change that seek to hold THEM accountable.

In 48 weeks, the future of this city will be in the hands of Hallandale Beach voters to decide what kind of community this is going to be: more of the tyranny of the status quo, or, transparent, accountable and hard-working representatives who don't sleep-walk and shirk their responsibilities

In short, what kind of Quality-of-Life they and their families and neighbors will enjoy.

You all know what side I'm fighting for.

A classic scene from 1953's "On the Waterfront": Edie and Terry reminisce, verbally spar and connect; Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint make movie magic!

http://youtu.be/dHtJUWO7yeA

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http://mfmediahouse.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/mfmediahouse1

Hallandale Beach's Parks & Recreation Master Plan's first two public meetings are Saturday -be there!

As many of you already know, for well more than a year, I've been busy taking photographs and shooting video documenting the longstanding problems I've personally observed with this city's Parks & Recreation Dept., speaking to Hallandale Beach residents who use them for myriad purposes, finding out what they like or don't like, as well as talking to people who DON'T or WON'T use them and find out why that is.
You'd be surprised at what some of those reasons are.

I've also frequently spoken to the contracted-lifeguards from Jeff Ellis & Associates at the public beach about:

a.) the many, many complaints they hear from HB residents and visitors alike about the dirty, unattractive and poorly-maintained conditions of the beach, both North and South -the responsibility of DPW Director John Chidsey- as well as the

b.) longstanding public safety problems that the Police Dept. has ignored for years, thru their infrequent presence, and

c.) The Beachside Cafe NOT fulfilling their obligations to the city's residents under their signed lease, which ought to be opened-up to new bidders.
I've got a copy of that contract, so I know exactly what I'm talking about and I can tell you, some of those terms have NOT been honored for years.

In most cases, though, the things I heard about were problems or situations I already knew about or been told about by other HB residents, but every so often, the lifeguards would have something new to add that I hadn't observed or heard elsewhere.
Which, of course, is why I always asked them, no?

For instance, the city NOT having a suitable back-up plan in place when a boat they use to get to swimmers in bad surf conditions, like rip tides, was damaged, and supposedly being repaired.

So, for weeks during the summer, the lifeguards DIDN'T have a resource they needed to keep swimmers safe.
So tell me, why did the city play with the safety of this city's residents and not have a plan?
Who wants to answer that question?

I'll be at the 1 p.m. meeting tomorrow on the beach, although without my foam board with photos and info re longstanding problems at the city's Parks and Public Beach, and the DPW and City Manager's Office ignoring both the problems themselves, and the city employees' very poor work ethic and failure to report the problems up the chain of command.

That foam board I've mentioned previously to some of you via emails, will be in evidence at the O.B. Johnson meeting in NW next Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m., and I encourage you to do the same thing.

The extant flimsy excuse for a primer on the Parks Master Plan is at:
http://fl-hallandalebeach.civicplus.com/DocumentView.aspx?DID=1722

It's an appallingly short five pages and almost entirely devoid of text and also does not identify possible funding sources.

Hallandale Beach Parks & Rec. Master Plan -Southeast Quadrant
Saturday, March 12th, 10:00 a.m.,
Bluesten Park
501 S.E.1st Avenue

Hallandale Beach Parks & Rec. Master Plan -Northeast/Beach Quadrant
Saturday, March 12th, 1:00 p.m.,
North Beach Community Center
2813 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd.

The Great Hallandale Beach 'North Beach' Dedication Debacle of 2011 is Today

Above and below, January 21, 2011 photos by South Beach Hoosier.



With less than 22 hours to go 'till the The Great Hallandale Beach 'North Beach' Dedication Debacle of 2011...

Yes, my new name for the fiasco that's scheduled to go down at 5:30 p.m. on the beach Tuesday under the iconic HB Water Tower is The Great Hallandale Beach 'North Beach' Dedication Debacle of 2011.

January 21, 2011 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

Curious to see what the city was finally doing to promote something that should've taken place in the Fall of 2007, I drove by the North Beach facility on State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive and Hallandale Beach Blvd. on Monday evening around 8 p.m.

There, with the clock ticking, and everyone in the city perfectly aware of how badly this fiasco reflects on the people at HB City Hall, I saw for myself that the city finally decided to do what it should've done ten days ago -and often has for other MUCH LESS important reasons.


January 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Meanwhile, the Golden Isles Tennis Club has had their sandwich board in the highly-visible spot of the median on Hallandale Beach Blvd. and 14th Avenue, near the Publix and the Walgreens, for at least three weeks.

Whom do we all know who plays tennis over there?


January 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

When I got there, the first thing I noticed was how ridiculously dark it was over there, as ALL the safety lights were NOT on between the A1A sidewalk and the front of the building, and we all know that there are ZERO turtles in that city water fountain, since until last month, there was no water in it for 16 months.

So unless something changes between now and then, about 15 minutes into Tuesday's 5:30 p.m. dedication, it will be pitch black.
The perfect metaphor for this city in a black hole.


January 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

I caught the west-bound traffic light on A1A right away and so didn't see whether or not the city actually spelled everything correctly on the board, but I wouldn't count on it.
Could someone please check in the morning?


January 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

And did anyone happen to notice what day and time the city's electronic board FINALLY made it over there, since it wasn't there late Friday afternoon?
If so, please share the knowledge in the morning so we all know!


I wonder if anyone from the community will heckle the parties directly responsible for this black eye, like Mayor Joy Cooper, City Manager Mark Antonio or DPW Director John Chidsey, who was hired what seems like years ago specifically to speed-up the process and open the facility?
Didn't happen, did it?

In any case, as usual, there will no doubt be far too many HB police officers present, hanging around with nothing to do, with some no doubt parking their police cars right on the brick sidewalk that surrounds the water fountain that was empty for so very long, another Chidsey success.

They may even leave their emergency lights flashing as they do for the other events I've witnessed over there the past few years that defied description, like the Air Supply concert, where well-known cronies of the City Hall crowd and PAL used the public facility and parked in the city's public garage, while the public was forced to park many blocks away and walk.

Yes, it often seems like the elected officials and employees of this small city forget that they work for the people here, not the other way around, and that it's their thinking -not ours- that needs to Change, as my friend Michael Butler forcefully reminded City Manager Antonio on Wednesday night after city employee Antonio insulted Michael, myself and about two-dozen other HB citizens by patronizingly saying that we needed to change our behavior, not him.

No, we know EXACTLY who needs to change their myopic thinking and their way of doing things, and it's NOT us.

Steps and strategies towards "fixing" that kind of outmoded thinking at Hallandale Beach City Hall is already well under way, and one of them employs a management method that I've mentioned here on the blog before as being one of my personal favorites -addition-by-subtraction.

Change Hallandale:
http://web.me.com/mike.butler/Change_Hallandale/Updates/Updates.html

A sagacious friend calls, I listen; an old benchmark returns; no North Beach video here today

What's right in front of you and never been used...

Above, the pathetic little sign erected on the side of the city's North Beach complex, facing away from most passing traffic, is the perfect reminder of the sort of over-paid geniuses who populate Hallandale Beach City Hall. January 21, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Per my last blog post on the longstanding fiasco that is Hallandale Beach's two-story North Beach facility, located just steps from the Atlantic Ocean, and which despite being given to this city's residents for FREE on August 3rd, 2007, has NOT been open to the general public but once in those intervening 41 months, my plan for the blog today was simple.

I'd post numerous photographs of the facility from several different angles and perspectives so those of you who come here regularly could get a better sense of just what is at stake here, and why the vast majority of this city's concerned and well-informed residents, full-time and seasonal, are VERY ANGRY at HB's mayor, city manger and city commission for squandering a valuable and dynamic resource for what is now three-and-a-half years.

A facility that communities in South Florida not located on the ocean, like Hialeah, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Miami Lakes, Sunrise, Tamarac, et al, would positively kill to have in their city, especially for FREE.
(And then there's the observation deck on top, too...)

Yes, those are just some of the many South Florida communities which, however poorly-run they might well be on a day-to-day basis, you know with certainty have at least some elected officials who would've had the common sense to see what a dynamic facility it could be, and who'd have done everything in their power to "fix" and and open to the public ASAP.
All the more so so they could pat themselves on the back at the public dedication.

Now contrast how those hypothetical and presumably enthusiastic dedications elsewhere might've been to the very somber and subdued one that will surely take place in Hallandale Beach on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., where the very people who are most responsible for totally mismanaging this and screwing-over the residents of this city, are going to be present, and try to say with a straight face to them that the only way that you residents can utilize it is if you pay for it. Yes, it's been one slap in the face after another for 41 months.

(Not like it's the only city boondoggle in this city, since the city's municipal storage parking lot on Ansin Blvd., near1-95, that cost well over a million dollars, had but seven vehicles utilizing it the other day when I paid my most recent visit of the past several months, leaving what seems like hundreds of parking spots empty. It was very weird! Oh, trust me, dear readers, I have literally dozens of photos and video of that facility, too, just waiting to see the light of day here.)

Yes, Tuesday afternoon here promises to be yet another "only in Hallandale Beach" moment for this city's beleaguered citizen taxpayers, one more civic insult for them to endure, individually and collectively.

I was also going to post video here of the North Beach facility, showing just how close it is to State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive, the sand and surf of the beach, as well as the neighboring Beach Club condos, which are the three tallest buildings in the entire city.

Well, there's been a change of plans for the blog today. And a concurrent change of philosophy in how some things will be done going forward into the future.

Late Saturday night I received an unexpected phone call from a friend who is more aware than most of the stories and personalities that have come to animate this blog over the past four years.

Someone noted for their candor and savvy who knows a lot more about me than most people I know and deal with regularly in Hallandale Beach and South Florida, and who has been encouraging when it was needed, but also pointed-out mistakes or areas that needed improvement when they were needed, too.
In the case of the latter, both in the blog and in my life.

As it happens, this person is also pretty aware of many if not most of the blog posts that never made it online, for whatever reason, since they're part of the sounding board that I consult from time to time when I rethink something that seemed genius, funny, or insightful at the time, but which... well, maybe not so much.

This person reminded me of some of the things that we had discussed just a few weeks ago when talking about things we'd both learned in the past year and some things we both wanted to avoid in this new one, as well as some new ideas and traditions we wanted to inaugurate.
One of the things on that short list of mine, which I've hinted at here but written about more forcefully in emails to friends, with very specific examples, was to stop enabling South Florida's lazy and dis-interested news media.

To stop making excuses for the middling mediocrity that characterizes far too much of what passes for news media in South Florida, and their sorry excuses to me and others privately when they pump us for information and either don't do the story at all, or do it in such a piss-poor way that I don't even recognize it, and wish I had never wasted my time talking to them.

(You know, like my bad experience with Channel 4's I-Team, which proved to be a one-way street just months after I was invited down to the station in Doral and met everyone.
Unfortunately, I got sucked-in and didn't wise-up and cut them out-of-the-loop until months after I should've.)

I needed to stop pretending that certain people I'd met in the local news media really gave a crap about Hallandale Beach, Hollywood or Aventura specifically, or Broward and South Florida in general -or the intricacies of public policy- when they called or emailed, wanting information from me or access to something or someone I could arrange.

Instead, go back to using the measuring stick that I'd used so well -usually- in Bloomington and Chicago and Washington, where the benchmarks were genuine accountability and actions spoke louder than words.

It probably won't surprise many of you that over the past four years, I've tried many times to get the local Miami TV stations and local South Florida newspapers to give various compelling stories I knew about some play, and in the case of the North Beach facility in particular, had many sit-down discussions with reporters and columnists about the facts and context of what has or hasn't taken place, even sharing chronological photos to show that nothing was being done for LONG periods of time.

All so that something positive would come from it, and that people here in HB could actually gain some use and enjoyment from something on the beach that already belonged to them, and which had been, in essence, stolen from them by Hallandale Beach City Hall's custodians.

To paraphrase that very animated phone conversation with my friend, here's a taste, and I should mention that this savvy person used to make a lot of money in media circles:

"Why the hell are you going to run photos and video on Sunday of that facility and video or whatever of that oblivious Antonio guy totally stepping all over HB's citizens at London's meeting, with his totally unacceptable comments to citizens about who works for who, when you know that the press down there is so f-ing lazy that they will use whatever you've done, ignore you, and then try to make it seem like they always knew what was going on, just finally decided to do something about it themselves?

Dave, don't help them, ignore them or beat them at their own game, but whatever you do, DON'T make their job any easier. Better yet, start FINALLY doing those video reports you kept talked about doing months ago, and simply go around the
news media and post your stuff to your YouTube page. And though I know you already know this well, let me just remind you: reporters are NOT your friends."

So that's what I'm doing.

The promised photos and video will be up soon, but I'm no longer making public promises here on the blog about that sort of thing when there's nothing positive to gain from it.

Believe me, last night, once I realized I was changing my plans, I was very keen on publicly revealing what news and print reporters and columnists and correspondents have taken information from me in the past, who has called me up or who has sat across a table from me and promised me that finally -finally-their editor or producer or news director was going to let them file that story.

But as my friend reminded me, there's no point in burning a bridge when they don't have to know they're being burned -digitally.
Eventually, it'll sink in when they don't hear from me anymore.

No more promises.
Results, not words.
The old benchmark is back in play, and there will be no substitutions.

Just added my two cents to the debate and website... New Times: "Hallandale Beach's North Beach Facility Might Finally Open, After Four Years"

Looking west from the Atlantic Ocean and the beach towards the Hallandale Beach Water Tower, Fire/Rescue station, North Beach Community Center.
October 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Below is the email that I sent out this morning to my well-informed grapevine after finally deciding to comment on this BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes article of yesterday. It'll be interesting to see if any other reporters FINALLY show-up on Tuesday to grill Mayor Cooper or City Manager Antonio about this longstanding scandal.

In any case, on Monday I plan to invite the State Attorney's Office to attend.

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BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes

Hallandale Beach's North Beach Facility Might Finally Open, After Four Years

By Stefan Kamph, Fri., Jan. 21 2011 @ 6:36AM

Mike Butler is facing an uphill battle. He's the blogger and gadfly of record in Hallandale Beach (the 40,000-citizen heel of the Broward boot), and he's the one who calls out the city for spending through its reserve funds, paying its city manager nearly half a million bucks a year, and leaving the beach in suboptimal conditions.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2011/01/hallandale_beach_north_beach_opening.php

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Here's what I posted above:

To paraphrase a sports maxim, Hallandale Beach City Hall can't stop Change Hallandale and Hallandale Beach Blog, they can only hope to contain them.
And they will FAIL at that.

The biggest problem that the status quo Cooper Crew have is that while my friend Michael and I and many other concerned HB residents are entirely forthright, transparent and public about the sort of city we'd like HB to be, and equally clear about the sort of accountable public policy that we believe ought to prevail here -which, at at a minimum, is a dollar's worth of service/product for a dollar's worth of taxpayer's funds, plus some innovation with common sense instead of the longstanding secrecy and duplicity- history has shown us that the Cooper Crew is deathly afraid to share PUBLIC information in a timely fashion and debate the issues based on facts in public forums -without their completely controlling the forum or the microphone.

Plus, they have shown over-and-over again that they can't ever admit being wrong about something, and are equally unwilling to admit that other people actually have good ideas, too.

Friday afternoon at 4 p.m, about 45 hours AFTER HB City Manager Mark Antonio said at Comm. London's 'Resident Forum' that the (taxpayer-funded faux newspaper) South Florida Sun-Times was City Hall's main avenue for informing residents -despite the fact that nobody actually reads it because it's nothing but PR and propaganda- I swung by the North Beach Community Center with a copy of that laughable rag.

I walked around the area as I have so many countless dozens of times and took notes -and photos and video.

Here's what I found: One smallish banner hanging on the side of the Fire Station facing NOT the passing traffic on State Road A1A, but rather facing south towards The Beach Club and residents leaving that condo complex.

There were ZERO signs on the doors of the Community Center bldg. itself, ZERO sandwich boards advertising it on the beach or on the A1A sidewalks.

There were ZERO of the city's electronic message boards that are ALWAYS seen on U.S.-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd. two weeks before the city's overly-aggressive PAL has something THEY want to promote.
(Why exactly does PAL have special rules that allow them to do whatever they want? Nobody ever wants to say why they get special privileges in this city.)
.

Looking east from State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive & Hallandale Beach Blvd, Hallandale Beach, FL. July 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

As for the faux newspaper that Mark Antonio said would have word about Tuesday afternoon's public unveiling, almost 42 months after it was given to the city for FREE on August 3rd, 2007, the event that only two of the concerned residents at London's meeting had even heard about prior to Antonio mentioning it there, well, they had ZERO words about it in the last issue before the event.

Not wanting to be hasty, I gave a copy of it to a friend to read and asked him to carefully double-check and see if he saw a single word about Tuesday's event at the North Beach bldg. NOPE!
There was NOTHING there.

Typical!

That's the anomie-centric HB City Hall Crew in a nutshell: unable to even mange to get a word in edgewise about their little spectacle in the fake newspaper that THEY themselves keep alive thru HB taxpayer-subsidies.
How absurd!

Video of City Manager Antonio's remarks at Comm. London's Wednesday night meeting, along with photos and video from Friday of the North Beach Community Center will be on my blog on Sunday, where I already have dozens of photos of its neglect over the past three-and-a-half years, along with numerous blog posts about its longstanding mismanagement.
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

Many of them ask the basic question that NEVER is answered: Why have mayor Joy Cooper and past and current city managers adamantly refused to hold a city-wide forum where citizen taxpayers of this city could weigh-in on what THEY want that building to be for?
That discussion should've taken place YEARS AGO!

Nobody has a problem with the city to make revenue from renting the place out on weekends, as I've mentioned at numerous budget meetings, but what taxpayers DON'T want is for it to continue to be off-limits to them Monday thru Friday, and used exclusively, as it has been, as a warehouse for the city's office chairs, and a beach-side clubhouse for PAL and other City Hall cronies, as my past photos on the blog have shown.
That public facility doesn't belong to them, it belongs to all of us.

By the way, Hallandale Beach City Hall DID finally 'fix' the large water fountain located in front of the North Beach bldg. and the Fire Station last month.
It only took the city 16 months to get water into the fountain.
Congrats!

South Florida's apathetic news media; Giving credit where credit is rightly due: Buddy Nevins: "Blogger Chaz Stevens Scores Again"

Above, photo of Hallandale Beach Water Tower and so-called North Beach/A1A Community Center. July 12, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

It should be a positive and dynamic resource, not a storage closet on the beach!
I've been meaning to bring your attention since last week to Buddy Nevins' spot-on blog post at Broward Beat, titled simply, Blogger Chaz Stevens Scores Again, as it underscores a point that I've been wanting to make here on the blog for quite some time.

While I was, of course, happy to see Chaz finally get some overdue credit where credit is rightly due, that dispatch, good as it was, could've easily been written any number of times in the recent past by others in the South Florida news media if they'd been more curious, were paying more attention and were, frankly, more professional and savvy.
To me, what makes that piece last week unusual is not so much where it appeared so much as that it took so long for it to ever appear anywhere.

In other parts of the country, that is to say, one where the majority of the news media professionals are NOT so inclined to be spoon-fed information when they show-up at a public meeting to compensate for having done so very little homework prior to walking thru the door -as seems to be the case in South Florida, based on my own personal observations the past seven years- Chaz Stevens would have an even higher profile than he does now.
And would be a valuable resource that someone would be smart enough to want to help from time-to-time to keep information about public policy issues coming out.
And everyone concerned would benefit, most especially, the public -taxpayers.

In that part of the world where common sense, logic and reason STILL makes personal appearances once in a while, someone in the local news media, especially at a TV station that imagines itself savvy on the investigative front, would've been smart enough to know how to use the valuable information that Chaz digs up thru dint of personal effort -at personal expense- and know how to actually carry the ball forward from that point on.

Many former South Florida TV reporters you and I could all name -Ike Seamans, Susan Candiotti,et al- would know exactly how to get the facts in Deerfield Beach gleaned by Chaz dispersed to the greatest number of South Florida TV viewers in an informative and
perhaps even amusing way.

Perhaps by using video of certain pols voting one way in public and claiming no conflicts of interest, yet money still somehow winding-up in their own pocket, their family's or those of pals and cronies.

Those two reporters were expert at coming to people under scrutiny with all the facts and asking them to explain them all away -on camera- just like the golden age of Sixty Minutes in the 1970's and '80's.

Here, it's a simple case of one person who's been paying attention -Chaz- having bought all the ingredients and making it easy for the South Florida news media to put it all in the oven for the appropriate amount of time.
It's not rocket science! After besides, the oven does all the hard work.

But instead, the continual problem that I and my friends Chaz and Micheal Butler and some other South Florida bloggers and civic activists that I could name here share with the South Florida news media, is the one for which there is seemingly no cure for in the year 2010.
http://www.myactsofsedition.com/http://web.me.com/mike.butler/Change_Hallandale/Updates/Updates.html

How do you fix the South Florida news media's longstanding apathy, lack of curiosity, lack of effort and even the inability of them to seriously think thru a situation to see the possible consequences, given certain options?
In short, what to do if the South Florida news media simply doesn't care?

On a personal level, how do you combat their apathy, other than simply by de-listing certain print reporters, columnists, editors and TV producers and reporters from your email list if they consistently fail to respond to the self-evident, fact-based material that you give them on a silver platter, often with photos or links to video?

Well, I've already deleted plenty of them because certain print and TV reporters have made it abundantly clear that they don't really want to hear from readers or viewers who actually know something of public interest, despite all the faux encouragement on their websites that they do.
You can't make reporters, columnists and producers curious or conscientious if they aren't already.
You'd think that natural competitiveness would drive at least some of them to try to get the most interesting and compelling stories in print or on the tube ASAP, right?
In the abstract, that's true.
But that abstract idea of journalism simply DOESN'T exist in South Florida.

Consistent, rigorous fair-minded reporting is something glimpsed from time-to-time, but it's often but a dream, and usually disappears moments later.

Some members of the South Florida news media that I've met and otherwise observed from close distance over the past seven years are, indeed, very professional, and exactly like what you hoped they'd be like.
They give you some solace when things look bad that at least some people really do seem to be in the business for the right reasons.

But these few people in South Florida-very few- are doing the vast majority of the real heavy lifting for everyone else, and often are given to apologizing for their colleagues down here who evince a more, well, dis-interested approach to news, when you speak with them in private.
Trust me, this apologia happens much more often than you imagine.

But sadly for South Florida citizens, the truth is that the media industry people these true professionals are often apologizing for are almost comically disconnected to reality.
At times, seeing in-person how clueless they are, their inability to formulate good probing questions that can lead to rich sources of information being made public, is downright scary and jaw-dropping.

It's almost as if they seem to imagine that they are merely practicing for what they foolishly imagine will be some lucrative PR gig for themselves in the future.

As if they don't really see the gigantic dis-connect staring back at them in the mirror -their own lack of curiosity and willingness to follow-up on information they are already given.
And they want to be on the other side?

They're the very reporters you WOULDN'T contact with information on behalf of a PR client!

Let me give you a perfect example of this lack of media curiosity, if by perfect, you mean one that causes me and other concerned citizens in this community great consternation and distress. I do.

Last Friday, December 3rd, was the 40th-month anniversary of the so-called Hallandale Beach Community Center on State Road A1A being given to the citizens of this city by the developers of The Beach Club, which had used it for their sales office and as a 'model.'
It has been CLOSED continuously to this city's citizen taxpayers to whom the facility belongs,
for all but one day in those 40 MONTHS, July 24, 2010, a city-sponsored Parks & Rec Master Plan meeting that I attended.
See my post on that meeting with photos at: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/final-hallandale-beach-parks-rec-master.html

Photos by South Beach Hoosier

Photos by South Beach Hoosier

Looking west at the so-called North Beach Community Center that Hallandale Beach City Hall resuses to allow its own citizens to use.
For years, I've written multiple emails and blog posts about it, with photos and video, and sent information not only to the responsible officials and other concerned citizens, but to the South Florida news media.

A new two-story building off of A1A, located below an iconic landmark, the HB Water Tower that is just steps from the Atlantic Ocean, and that was given to the city for FREE over three years ago, REMAINS CLOSED to the very people who ought to be using it every day -the residents and taxpayers of this city.

It's a new facility near the beach that land-locked cities like Hialeah, Pembroke Pines, Doral, Miramar and others would kill to have the opportunity to have, and yet here in Hallandale Beach, it has remained closed to citizens, even while it has been used by cronies of HB City Hall for their use, usually parties and fundraisers.
But what about a public building being open to the public?
Did you see that story last week in the Miami Herald or in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel or on ANY of the Miami TV station newscasts?

No, you didn't, because the South Florida news media may talk a good game about being sophisticated news professionals, but in general, they fire nothing but blanks.
The South Florida news media has completely ignored the story that is just staring at everyone on the beach.
But if this happened in Coral Gables, do you think that it would be ignored for 40 months?
I don't.
That's where South Florida's concerned residents all live in the year 2010, in a landscape largely populated by an incurious and hibernating news reporters, editors and producers.

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Broward Beat
Blogger Chaz Stevens Scores Again
By Buddy Nevins

Chaz Stevens is the face of the new media.
Not me. I’m the old media working on the Internet.

Stevens, with no experience in journalism listed on his biography, has brought Deerfield Beach City Hall to its knees. He is the the new version of a city hall gadfly– electronically empowered, fighting the power structure with bits and bytes.

This week he got more results.

Read the rest of the post at:http://www.browardbeat.com/blogger-chaz-stevens-scores-again/

Above, September 2008 photo of Hallandale Beach Water Tower by South Beach Hoosier.

Now, though, as you can see in my photos below, it's just an airy storage room for stacked-up chairs, albeit in a room that just happens to be steps from the shore of the Atlantic Ocean.Pathetic!
Above, July 12, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier looking east from front door of HB A1A Community Center. The Palm trees you see thru the window are on the beach.

Above, July 12, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier looking north from window of HB A1A Community Center, opposite The Beach Club condo towers.

Above, July 12, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier looking west from window of HB A1A Community Center, reflecting the Palm trees behind me and the Atlantic Ocean less than 80 yards behind me. The color teal you see is the bottom of the Water Tower outside the front door.

A two-story facility with an observation area on the roof that is but a stone's throw from the Atlantic Ocean, one that other towns and cities in South Florida would positively kill to have, which was given to Hallandale Beach for free, and yet under Mayor Joy Cooper and former City Manager Mike Good and present City Manager Mark Antonio, for 40 very long months, it's been strictly off-limits to its rightful owners, the citizen taxpayers of Hallandale Beach.

I'll have more news about this facility in the days ahead and who will be using it
before New Years Day.
One guess: NOT the Hallandale Beach citizen taxpayers who own it.

Hallandale Beach's Dotty Ross: "It's just inconceivable to me that there's one area in this city that I don't know about." Oh, really?

Above, a self-evident public testament to the continuing inadequacy, incompetency and obliviousness of Hallandale Beach City Comm. Dotty Ross while in office: the HB city water fountain off of State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive and Hallandale Beach Blvd., that has remained broken for well over a year, directly in front of the iconic HB Water Tower, and the so-called A1A/North Beach Community Center below it, that remains closed to Hallandale Beach's citizens taxpayers, today, marking exactly 37 months!
August 6, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier -looking west towards the HB water fountain and State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive. & HBB.

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Hallandale Beach's Dotty Ross: "It's just inconceivable to me that there's one area in this city that I don't know about."

Oh, really?
It sure doesn't seem that way to us.
In fact, it doesn't seem that way to anyone in the immediate area of this small ocean-side city who's paying close attention and who opens their eyes even occasionally.

No, Dotty Ross's large and continuing role in the reign-of-ruin all around us is quite secure and well-known to us.

As you can see for yourself, below, the Hallandale Beach Blog Time Machine comes in handy once again.

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Miami Herald
HALLANDALE SUED OVER AT-LARGE VOTING
January 16, 2002

By Hector Florin

A lawyer for U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings filed a class-action lawsuit accusing Hallandale Beach and its commissioners of limiting black voters' rights by holding at-large elections that reduce blacks' chances of getting a commission seat.

Mikel Jones, an attorney in Hastings' office, said single-member-district voting is the remedy. Under single-member districts, voters would elect commissioners who live in their respective districts. The County Commission, the School Board and various municipalities have recently changed to single-member districts.

The suit was filed Tuesday in Broward County Circuit Court, on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 73rd birthday.

"The city of Hallandale has used, and continues to use, voting procedures . . . to create, enhance and promote the opportunity for and existence of discrimination against minorities,'' the lawsuit reads.

Jones pointed to the city's October special election when the Rev. Josh Brown Jr., the only one of nine candidates living in the primarily black northwest section, received an overwhelming number of votes from his region but finished third overall.

More than 70 percent of Hallandale Beach voters are white. Many live in high-rise condominiums in the city's east side.

Mayor Dorothy Ross, however, feels Hallandale Beach - a rectangular city of 4.5 square miles - is too small to cut up into five districts. She scoffed at the idea that commissioners are not attune to concerns in all areas.

"Most people, when they have district voting - it's a big area that they're talking about,'' Ross said. "It's just inconceivable to me that there's one area in this city that I don't know about.''

Jones said Anthony Musto, the winner of October's election, gained much of his support from white voters.

"A good number of white folks voted for him because he's white,'' Jones said. "I'm not saying he doesn't have credentials . . . but color really does matter apparently.''

Musto said he had not read the lawsuit.

Assistant City Attorney David Jove referred all inquires to City Attorney Mark Goldstein, who did not attend Tuesday's commission meeting because of a bout with the flu.

----

Oh, really?
It doesn't seem that way to us.

In fact, it doesn't seem that way to anyone in this small ocean-side city who's paying attention.

Paying attention, something that you've NOT been doing much of for many years, as you have voted nearly 100% for whatever City Manager Mike Good or mayor Joy Cooper have proposed, by hook or by crook, no matter how petty, no matter how undemocratic, and no matter how short-sighted it was for HB's citizen taxpayers.

So tell us, Comm. Ross, why DO you vote on agenda items that are intentionally kept away from the public, and NOT printed on paper or placed on the city's third-rate website, and held up in a second-floor room at City Hall where your words, actions and votes are intentionally NOT televised or videotaped?

Why have YOU done this dozens and dozens of times for years, including voting to give yourself a huge raise?

And why have YOU shown zero remorse for anything that you have done, even when it's later proven to be thoroughly wrong for its citizens?

YOU need to be recalled from office as soon as possible, and people in this city will work hard to make that happen.
They are working on it right now.

Your time has come and gone and yet you remain on the stage as a myopic, mean-spirited hindrance to this city ever getting out of the black hole you drove us into.

In April, YOU even have the unmitigated gall to publicly chastise Hallandale Beach citizens at HB City Commission meetings, as they were walking from their seats to the microphone to speak under public comments, before they could say anything, and then YOU pathetically called my friend and community activist Csaba Kulin, one of the most honest persons in the entire city, a "shill"?
Do you have no shame, Dotty Ross?

No, Comm. Ross, Csaba Kulin is just one of the many, many HB citizens who can see exactly what's right in front of them: a poorly-run and largely unaccountable City Hall, and in you, a VERY sad and angry 80-something year old misanthrope who is completely blind to the continuing harm she does.

You were mysteriously "nominated" for Florida League of Cities elected public official of the year in 2008, just months before you stood for re-election.
Hmm-m-m...

Not because of anything positive that YOU had actually done that year for this city's citizens, residents or business owners, and YOU were NOT selected by a blue-ribbon committee that sought to reward excellence and hard work, but rather "nominated" by your Rubber Stamp cronies on the city commission, something that the Miami Herald and Sun-Sentinel articles NEVER mentioned in their puff piece.

But the honest citizens of this community who have paid attention to your behavior and votes knew the score, and knew a self-dealing con job from Joy Cooper and Mike Good when they saw it thrown in their faces.
Not that this troubled YOU at all in the least.

Many people, even people who once voted for you and once gave you the benefit of the doubt, have confided to me over the past six years how very disappointed they are in you.

In fact, they have even gone so far as to volunteer the notion that if you weren't a city commissioner, they really have no idea what you would do with your time.

As if that was a reason to keep someone in power like YOU who has clearly outworn their welcome with little tangible good to show for their time there, compared to the myriad problems you and your cronies have neglected and exacerbated thru your chronic inattention to detail and lack of support for genuine transparency and accountability.

YOU are just foolish enough to imagine that YOU are still fooling everyone, and that HB's citizens can't see that YOU are someone who has continually been making excuses for the unsatisfactory results at HB City Hall for YEARS and YEARS, long ago erasing whatever good you may've once done.

Frankly, I'm not entirely sure what you would do with all that time if you weren't a HB city commissioner, but it's not my problem.

I don't care what you do in the future, all I know is that I and many other informed and concerned citizens want to push that hypothesis forward ASAP, so we can all find out for ourselves.

I do know one thing for sure, though, and that is that you, Comm. Dotty Ross, are the case study in this small town of the principle of addition-by-subtraction.

This city's chances to improve and crawl out of its longstanding black hole, to no longer be the butt of news media jokes and a regional laughingstock, and for its citizen taxpayers to finally breathe the air of normalcy at Hallandale Beach City Hall, WILL improve dramatically if YOU no longer have a vote on the Hallandale Beach City Commission.

That's precisely our goal.

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.