Showing posts with label ATS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ATS. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

New year offers hope for Hallandale Beach's long-suffering citizens to end their city's long-standing reputation as a South Florida laughingstock & punchline: the home of so much long-standing incompetency, secretiveness, red tape and anti-taxpayer attitudes at City Hall under Mayor Joy Cooper. Recent moves by HB commissioners to pocket unused travel funds is perfect example of what needs to be held up to critical public scrutiny; re My 2014 endorsements for candidates to sweep out the mediocrity that infests City Hall, and increase public accountability, oversight and expectations of city employees

New year offers hope for Hallandale Beach's long-suffering citizens to end their city's long-standing reputation as a South Florida laughingstock & punchline: the home of so much long-standing incompetency, secretiveness, red tape and anti-taxpayer attitudes at City Hall under Mayor Joy Cooper. Recent moves by HB commissioners to pocket unused travel funds is perfect example of what needs to be held up to critical public scrutiny; re My 2014 endorsements for candidates to sweep out the mediocrity that infests City Hall, and increase public accountability, oversight and expectations of city employees
A recent Bill Gjebre article in the Broward Bulldog on the sad and pathetic state of public policy/legislating in the ocean-side city I live in here in Broward County struck me as the perfect point of departure for my first blog post of the year, since it so perfectly encapsulates so much of what is presently (and has been) wrong with the current five-member Hallandale Beach City Commission and the ingrained culture of self-dealing and crony capitalism that permeates HB City Hall.

So much incompetency and anti-taxpayer attitude that it actually repulses a majority of its own citizens with something to contribute and causes many who lack staying power to NOT get involved at all in the first place. Which explains why year-after-year, there are always large number of vacancies on the city's various advisory boards that never get filled.

And when a citizen's advisory  group is actually doing something helpful and invaluable, like the CRA Advisory Board, HB Comm. Alexander Lewy, Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and Mayor Joy Cooper strip it of some of its most intrepid and valuable voices -in rather transparent fashion- because those voices are asking hard questions about what has been going on for so many years at the direction of and approval of the the City Commission/CRA Board and City Manager's office, with little to no genuine oversight or accountability as the Broward IG's final report on the city explained in great detail.

Why invest the time and energy when you know that the City Commission and City Manager's office don't really care what your group thinks and will just ignore, rewrite or bury what you have to say and what your group has uncovered?
That, of course, only encourages the very forces that already control this city that are loyal to Mayor Joy Cooper and keep it a laughingstock and punch line for South Florida's news media. That is, to the extent the latter pay attention at all, which is rarely and always with a desire to NOT really delve into what -or rather WHO- is at the nexus of almost all of the city's longstanding problems -the ego and ambitions and failed policies of one woman: Mayor Joy Cooper.

I think if you've read this blog for any amount of time, you can immediately see what this article really paints a picture of -an ugly portrait of a poorly-managed city that is led by people who are not qualified to lead.

Broward Bulldog
Hallandale commissioners approve taking from the city, giving to themselves
DECEMBER 30, 2013 AT 5:51 AM
By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 

Miami Herald's version of Thursday's Broward Bulldog article that ran on Tuesday morning, includes some honest reader comments..
and the URL for that Tweet:
I strongly urge those of you with a Twitter account to Retweet it just like every HB item you find there.

As most of you know, personally, on this subject, I favored an approach where the elected HB City Commission voted publicly for a reasonable salary increase, and it either passed or didn't, so that the money trail was clear and unambiguous.
But in any case, I did NOT want to see ANY taxpayer dollars allocated towards a travel allowance being given to the commissioners as a parting gift.

Frankly, I'm completely dumbfounded that Bill Gjebre did not ask the most obvious question: Why, after all these years in office, over ten years, is Mayor Joy Cooper perpetually unable or unwilling to make hard choices when it comes to where she goes on the public dime and actually live within the generous limit?
Why is she even given one cent more? What's the justification? 

The reason she does that is that she knows the same thing we do -that there are 
NOT even three people with integrity on the current city commission to speak on behalf of the public at large. 
Their collective weakness empowers her to grab for more than she should have, more than is reasonable, just like all bullies do.

We know from practical experience that part of this equation is the that to  degree that is never written about or discussed publicly by the media, Mayor Cooper uses these quasi-govt. functions to further her own personal and political agenda. And not just a little, but a lot more than the majority of the people at these events.

After all, it's where she gets to shoot the breeze with her govt. cousins, corporate cronies and lobbyist pals who don't live here, and yet who keep telling her what a great job she's doing.

Like the folks at American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the red-light camera company from Arizona that rewarded her so generously at campaign time last year. And right before last year's election, what did she write about in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel when they foolishly asked her to write a Guest Op-Ed about the subject?
To the surprise of nobody, she wrote -somebody wrote!- something that sounded suspiciously like it could've come straight from the ATS PR Dept.

And just as I wrote at the time on this blog, the Sun-Sentinel exacerbated the situation by 
NEVER disclosing anything about Mayor Cooper's relationship with the company, or, their own chummy relationship with the various FL politicians involved with the politician-led Leagues: Cities, Mayors, Counties.
How much do they give them anyway? Or the Broward League of Cities?

Good question, how come nobody in South Florida's large press corps ever thinks to ask and investigate? Nobody ever puts a microphone directly in that group's leaders' faces and ask them why they are so afraid of disclosing that information to the very people who make their little club possible, taxpayers.
And what about those large legal bills/lobbying subsidized by citizens all over the county that includes payments to people who seem to have a wheelbarrow full of conflicts. Especially with Broward taxpayers, who are tired of being fleeced.

Where IS the list of how much in taxpayer money each Broward city gives the  Broward League of Cities, one of the least-transparent non-profit groups in the whole county, as I've mentioned previously with respect to their website?

Tell me, when Mayor Cooper was head pooh bah of the FL League of Mayors, consistently adopting and recommending anti-taxpayer moves in Tallahassee, and the other members of that group bemoaned their money woes in their cities, what do you think she told them?
Do you think she said what a great job ATS was doing of giving HB City Hall lots of loot and could do the same for them?
I do.

Who was she representing at those meetings, the people of HB?
No, herself.
One hand helps the other, especially at election time.

You doubt me, look at how they react when their ATM might be removed...

WTSP-TV, Tampa
Florida red light cameras would be strangled if new House bill passes 
6:55 AM, Dec 28, 2013
By Noah Pransky
Florida's League of Cities has come out strongly against RLC reforms and repeals.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/article/350392/8/Florida-House-going-after-red-light-camera-reforms

Speaking of no, who at HB City Hall is prepared to actually tell her no?
It's embarrassing that such a small city allows a thin-skinned bully of so little actual accomplishment and distinction to walk all over it time and again.

You might recall that a few years ago the ENTIRE five-member HB City Commission went to the FL League of Cities annual blowout in  Orlando -everyone!- even while much-larger Hollywood sent one person.
Correct, and among them that year that the same woman who refused to do her job, then-Comm. Dotty Ross, who refused to leave her office on the 2nd floor of City Hall so she wouldn't have to vote on whether or not to fire then-City Manager Mike Good

Not surprisingly, then-Vice Mayor Bill Julian didn't have the common sense to direct the then-City Attorney David Jove go up there and tell Ross that she was breaking the law and had to come down or live with the resultant legal consequences.
Ross's absence prevented a legal quorum from being present, even though as I 
documented at the time, she was not only there at City Hall, so was her carwhich didn't drive itself to HB City Hall.

Her failure to appear and vote unless there was a conflict of interest was a direct violation of state law and her oath of office, but what happened to Ross?
Nothing. Broward SAO Mike Satz and Co. being their usual underwhelming selves.

As the news year dawns, just a reminder of a few things: 

a.) In the new year, I won't be voting or endorsing anyone running for HB City Commission who is unwilling to consistently show integrity, backbone and forthrightness, especially on important financial and public policy matters. 
I will only support and endorse someone who articulates a consistent reformist point of view that champions citizen/taxpayer/small business rights, and makes clear that they are in favor of MORE public accountability, oversight and transparency at HB City Hall -and actual, 
tangible performance of its employees, not the current unacceptable situation of anything goes.

Why does this matter?
Because Bill Julian said in 2012 that he'd learned from his (many, many) mistakes and would act and vote differently on the dais if given a second chance.after being kicked-out in 2010 and coming in third in a three-way race..
He got elected almost 14 months ago but where's the tangible proof of him following through on those promises to the community do better and act more prudently on behalf of residents and taxpayers? 

b.) I also won't be supporting anyone who can't/won't figure out how to send even one public email in the course of their first few months in office, much less their first year in office, outlining their priorities for the city and laying out the specific steps they favor in accomplishing those goals. What's the plan?

c.) Everyone has individual strengths and weaknesses they bring to bear on a campaign,as well as different ideas for making this city the better place it ought to clearly be already but isn't, largely because of th awful public policy advocated and approved by the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew.

That status quo majority is literally strangling the life out of this city, and as I kow from many conversations with people who have invested in this city, chasing some small businesses out-of-town thru HB City Hall's red tape and continued incompetence.
All made worse by City Hall's unwillingness to hold individual city employees and Dept. heads responsible, including the Police & Fire Dept.

That's precisely why getting many MORE people in town involved and having honest 
public discussions and debate is the only chance we have of saving the city.
That will be impossible without the genuine support and meaningful numbers from residents living on A1A.
Any approach that ignores this reality is doomed to failure.

So with that in mind, if a candidate doesn't appear to be capable of the sort of city-wide consensus-building we need, a straight-talker who is capable of hosting even one public meeting within a few months of their being elected, outlining their goals and what they see as the biggest problems to resolve within the city, I will let you know and you can act however you think is best.

In case you hadn't noticed or preferred not to be reminded of it because it's so dispiriting to consider, with respect to both b and c above, our current reality with both Commissioners Julian and Lazarow is such that although both got elected almost 14 months ago, each has failed to pass even the very low threshold I suggest.

Zero emails to the public at large or even a pretense of discussing public policy on a website of theirs so that HB residents would know what they were thinking,
Zero Q&A public meetings with HB residents, to say nothing of having anything approaching the scope and citizen interaction of what former Comm. Keith London did so successfully for so many years.
Yes, it's exactly what it looks like.

Friday, May 31, 2013

Given the longstanding mismanagement and corruption involving MILLIONS of dollars at Hallandale Beach CRA, why has Broward's independent Office of Inspector General refused to hold a single outreach mtg. with citizens in Hallandale Beach, while OIG has met with other Broward civic groups? It's very perplexing and counterintuitive to getting cold hard facts out into the sunshine and the public realm

Above, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott at a Broward League of Women Voters event in Coconut Creek, FL on January 24, 2013. Below, four of the five Hallandale Beach citizens who found time on a busy weekday afternoon to drive up to Coconut Creek in northwest Broward County to listen to and ask some questions of Mr. Scott. Pictured left-to-right are Keith S. London, Dr. Robert Selz, Dr. Judy Selz, and Csaba Kulin. Not pictured: me! January 24, 2013 photos by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.



Below is a copy of my email this afternoon to Hallandale Beach's two reps on the Broward County Commission, Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief, about the independent Broward Office of Inspector General relative to an issue that I've previously mentioned here on the blog and in numerous emails around the area, almost of which have elicited the same perplexed and unhappy reaction among concerned citizens upon first learning of it.
The email speaks for itself.

I should mention here that as of 8:00 p.m. tonight, in advance of Tuesday's important County Commission meeting in Fort Lauderdale with an agenda item re an audit of the HB CRA by the County Auditor's office, Comm. Sharief has not publicly made her opinion known, while Comm. Gunzburger has made clear to everyone that she is going to fight very hard for it.
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/05/broward-auditor-looks-at-hallandale-beach-cra-with-eye-toward-recovering-misspent-funds/

I sincerely hope that Comm. Sharief will show the same good judgement and pro-citizen sentiment that she's consistently shown the past few years on many issues, including the controversial red-light camera issue, where she has been one of the very few bright spots among all of Broward's pols, city officials and public policy pundits. 

Comm. Sharief has been a consistent opponent of the overwhelmingly pro-RLC County Commission and Broward Legislative Delegation's knee-jerk votes on this issue, the very same people who have been so VERY quiet the past few weeks about the #shortyellow issue in Florida, where the Florida Dept. of Transportation lowered the required length of the yellow traffic light below the Federal standard of 4.5 seconds, without contacting the Florida Legislature and its leadership, in order to capture more cars on camera and generate more revenue for Florida cities.

That's entirely in keeping with the long-time strategy of the taxpayer-supported Florida League of Cities, many of whose individual members received considerable campaign contributions last year from the companies engaged in this so-called service, which is exactly what happened here in Hallandale Beach.

As you regular readers of the blog will recall, Arizona-based  American Traffic Solutions and Mayor Joy Cooper have become the best of friends the past few years after she and the City Commission forced this on city residents a years ago despite their consistent opposition, in order to generate more funds for the city.

The mayor received thousands of dollars in campaign funds from ATS after writing a pro-RLC essay in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and it's largely because of her that Hallandale Beach has became so infamous around the state on this issue.

While I'm hoping for the best since it seems like such an obvious thing to vote YES given the damning IG report on the HB CRA, personally, I believe that a vote against an audit by Comm. Sharief on Tuesday would do long-lasting damage to her public standing in Hallandale Beach, especially among its more well-informed and most-concerned residents, all of whom are super-voters.

But its her vote, so she's going to do whatever she's going to do, and if she votes NO, she will have to live with the resulting negative consequences.

-----
Given the longstanding mismanagement and corruption involving millions of dollars at the HB CRA, why has Broward IG's Office refused to hold a single public outreach mtg. with citizens in Hallandale Beach, while meeting with other Broward groups?


May 31, 2013
3:30 p.m.

RE: Given the longstanding mismanagement and corruption involving millions of dollars at the HB CRA, why has Broward IG's Office refused to hold a single public outreach mtg. with citizens in Hallandale Beach, while meeting with other Broward groups that were NOT directly affected?


Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

Since the question of whether or not the Broward County Commission should authorize the Office of Broward County Auditor Evan Lukic to perform a thorough audit of the Hallandale Beach Beach CRA will be coming-up at Tuesday's meeting, given the city's longstanding failure 
to have normal and effective operating quality controls over millions of dollars in place, or even pretend to have actual public accountability and thorough follow-up to ensure that  public funds were spent for their intended if ill-founded purposes, a motion that I support 100%, due to the HB City Commission/CRA Board's longstanding refusal to have a thorough audit of the entire HB CRA, i.e themselves, I'd like to bring to your  attention a related issue involving the Office of the Broward Inspector General.

Since The Commission authorized the creation of that Office a few years ago, you won't be surprised to hear that it has held several public meetings with various civic groups, affinity and social groups throughout Broward County to get their "message" out.
It's actually entirely what you'd expect.

Included among those meetings was one that was hosted in late January by the Broward League of Women Voters in Coconut Creek featuring IG John W. Scott.
I and four other very-concerned Hallandale Beach citizens actually attended that get-together at a condominium, despite its lack of proximity to HB.

But despite my personally having provided the IG's Office with a LOT of verifiable information regarding unethical and illegal conduct and behavior involving individuals in this community, esp. regarding the HB CRA, and Mr. Scott's own publicly declarations that he believes getting his office's message out is an important function -and it being brought-up at that very meeting- his office have refused to hold a single public community meeting with citizens of Hallandale Beach since his office initiated its investigation of the City of Hallandale Beach involving its missing-in-action supervision under former HB City Managers Mike Good and Mark A. Antonio involving so much mis-spent millions and missing documents, to say nothing of the missing professionalism HB taxpayers had a reasonable right to expect but never receivedDespite the fact that this city's residents and taxpayers have been personally affected by what has happened.

I have personally written to Mr. Scott on several occasions and have brought up the issues of his Office showing some good faith to this community by actually following-up on his OWN public declarations and do so for all of the most-obvious reasons.
That includes a written request to him over a week ago, yet his office has been completely, and rather curiously, non-responsive on this matter.

I strongly urge the two of you as representatives on the County Commission of this community's beleaguered citizens to contact the IG's office and remind them that they have a logical AND moral duty to speak directly and publicly with the citizens of this directly-affected city.
A duty that is at least as strong as it is to all of the many Broward groups that the IG's Office has already spoken to that are NOT directly affected at all.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

re Red-Light Cameras: Greedy FL cities, Tallahassee-based lobbyists, FL League of Cities and Lake Worth Sen. Jeff Clemens lead effort to gut proper yellow-light timing, gut Motorist's Rights, and gut effort to lower Red-Light Camera fines; Naturally, Sen. Gwen Margolis is not part of the reform and increased safety effort but rather the team intent on keeping dollars flowing into cities at all costs


WJHG-TV/Panama City, FL video: Red Light Camera Changes Shot Down
Posted: Thu 5:24 PM, Mar 21, 2013A A  
Updated: Thu 9:26 PM, Mar 21, 2013Back to News
http://www.wjhg.com/news/headlines/Red-Light-Camera-Changes-Shot-Down-199438831.html

The following blog post combines certain portions of an email I sent out early Friday morning after spotting various versions of stories 
on my blog's Google Reader about how Florida state Sen. Joe Abruzzo's SB 1342 proposal fared in the Senate Transportation Committee Thursday morning in Tallahassee.

It also incorporates information from earlier news stories I'd kept under wraps on attempts in various states to set minimum lengths of time for yellow traffic lights to display before a red light appears, per the continuing controversy in Chicago previously mentioned here on the blog on November 24, 2012, one of my most-popular posts:

More Red-Light Camera shenanigans: National Journal's Mike Magner has warning for U.S. drivers about unscrupulous cities' amber-colored money trap: Yellow means Green & $$$ - "Dreaded Yellow Light May Be Trap for Traffic Violations" -on purpose. And Rahm Emanuel's Chicago, with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., is the most brazen of all

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-red-light-camera-shenanigans.html

Just to reiterate, the FHWA's "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices," i.e. Federal regs require that a yellow light be at least 3-6 seconds in length. 
http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/

Despite lots of lip service, Florida cities, especially those located in South Florida, like Hallandale Beach where I live, do NOT want longer yellow/amber times on their traffic signals because this would necessarily result in giving motorists more time to continue thru the intersection or to come to a complete stop, which would mean less speeding and red-light running ticket fees for their hurting bottom line. 
Plain and simple, the cities have become addicts for those fines and will do anything to keep getting their fix, and that's nowhere more true than in Hallandale Beach. Especially cities that take their marching orders from the taxpayer-subsidized Florida League of Cities, which Mayor Cooper was recently the head of. 

---


Tampa Bay Times Buzz politics blog 
Red light camera fines survive in Senate
By  Michael Van Sickler, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
March 21, 2013 1:05pm
 Red light runners would have paid less for getting violations and had more time to pay them under SB 1342 by Sen. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, but the lobbying muscle of the agencies and governments that produce revenue from the fines overturned it.
If approved, the bill would have reduced fines from $158 to $100 and given violators 90 days to respond rather than the current 30 days.
Read the rest of the post at: http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/red-light-camera-fines-survive-in-senate/2110424

Given her past track record and ardently pro-government/anti-citizen sensibility, it's no surprise that Northeast Miami-Dade's very own Sen. Gwen Margolis supported the unhelpful Clemens amendment to keep cities rolling in the dough and not create a longer yellow light to actually do something about safety.

As has been mentioned here on the blog more than a few times, Margolis once famously suggested that it might be necessary to make the William Lehman Causeway/Bridge in Aventura -a bridge connecting the beach area of Sunny Isles to the mainland (and hospitals) that was needed decades before it was finally builta pay/toll bridge.

For many years, Margolis has been doing the bidding of the City of Aventura -the city just south of Hallandale Beach- on behalf of their red-light camera operation, which unlike Hallandale Beach's money-grab, at least has the benefit of having large signs that mention that it's the handiwork of Aventura, so there's no confusion on who'd doing it.

Here are the two scenarios that the folks at American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona-based vendor who's been fervently pushing them across South Florida, and even tried to co-opt Broward County into sharing their physical resources so they could piggyback at still more locations, along with their army of lobbyists and cronies at the Florida League of Cities are most afraid of:

a,) passage of the bill for complete repeal, CS/HB 4087
http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/4087/Analyses/ma8BkhAmaAbhZG7qzRPSDC6p4Z8=%7C7/Public/Bills/4000-4099/4087/Analysis/h4087a.EAC.PDF
or, b.) the Florida Supreme Court ruling them illegal:
Sunshine State News
Florida Supreme Court to Hear Red Light Camera Cases, Could Refund Millions of Dollars
By Eric Giunta, November 14, 2012 3:55 AM
http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/florida-supreme-court-hear-red-light-camera-cases-could-refund-millions-dollars


Miami NewTimes
Freedom fighter Richard Masone takes on red-light cameras in South Florida 
By Gus Garcia-Roberts, June 24 2010
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-06-24/news/red-light-cameras-are-now-legal-in-south-florida/

After watching the videos and the articles above, some of you might want to consider contacting the city attorney and police chief in your own city and ask what the minimum yellow light-change interval time is and when it was last verified.
And while you are at it, ask what the city's official standard is for legal right turns on red.




Red light camera in Hallandale Beach has some seeing red

Uploaded July 8, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wl8xGKzfTU

That goes double for taxpayers and residents here in Hallandale Beach, with two red-light cameras, at Hallandale Beach Blvd. & U.S.-1 and the one near Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W. 9th Court, and whether they have been adjusted properly since initial installation to meet the standard cited in this bill.

Given that the city and HBPD would NOT publicly release their own statistics about tickets for speeding and red-light running in this city at the locations where the devices were eventually placed -which should have been where the highest incidents were, right?- prior to the adoption of tehm, you have very good reason to cast more than a little doubt on what you'd hear.
But contact them anyway and see what they say and let me know at hallandalebeachblog-at-gmail-dot-com

I ask this because everyone who has been paying attention here knows that it took FDOT well over a year AFTER a HB-controlled red-light camera was installed on west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W. 9th Court, near the IHOP, to actually place legible warning signs where they could be seen by drivers, instead of being hidden behind trees -on a block lacking any street lights- per my many complaints.

Here's the bill that was proposed but then gutted by Sen. Jeff Clemens

http://www.flsenate.gov/PublishedContent/Committees/2012-2014/TR/MeetingRecords/MeetingPacket_2152_2.pdf

The action described in the articles/posts above can be seen at the hearing's video  

http://www.flsenate.gov/media/videoplayer.cfm?EventID=2443575804_2013031257
starting at the 85:47 mark thru 109:49

Thinking about this causes me to wonder why HBPD STILL insists on placing police officers conducting old-fashioned speed-traps on relatively little-traveled W. Dixie Highway and First Avenue and NOT where the speeding cars in this town actually are -on Federal Highway?

IF public safety is really the number-one concern, why does it seem that most of the actual speeders ever caught, usually in front of Gulfstream ParkRace Track & Casino's S.E. 3rd Street entrance, are caught almost always by Aventura Police, not HBPD?

Hmm-m...

In a related news, DO try this at home: 

Go to http://www.crimemapping.com/map/fl/hollywood

Then place your cursor on the + part of the zoom-in/zoom-out function on the right until its as close as possible.
Now place the cursor on the - sign and click it five times.
Focus the map so that Aventura is not shown.
And there in front of you will be the evidence of what constitutes the most-common link of most crime in HB and Hollywood: Federal Highway/U.S.-1.
Okay, so book 'em and read 'em their Miranda Rights...

By the way, not that this will surprise you, but almost five months later, nobody from either upper management or on the Editorial Board of at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel ever responded to my direct questions last year about why they asked HB Mayor Joy Cooper, the former head of the Florida League of Cities, to write an essay re Red-Light Cameras for their Op-Ed section, given her 2012 campaign contributions from American Traffic Solutions.


That email was posted here as

When are Broward County residents FINALLY going to get the "whole truth" from the Tribune Company's South Florida Sun-Sentinel and some public explanation for their continued reluctance to report it and useful context in Broward County news? Their problems with facts & bias are getting worse by the month; Joy Cooper's red-light camera friends and supporters; Sun-Sentinel's pro-Debbie Wasserman-Schultz bias is a continuing insult to readers; @MayorCooper


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

My own guess is that a large part of the Sun-Sentinel's refusal to respond to me and address those reasonable concerns stems from the fact that they were embarrassed to have me publicly point out that they were NOT smart enough to ask Mayor Cooper 
 BEFORE they agreed to publish her red-light propaganda, whether or not she'd already received or anticipated receiving any campaign contributions from ATS, or whether the Florida League of Cities has received any money from them.

The news paper didn't mention those obvious questions or ethical concerns in or near what she wrote, even though they are the very sort of obvious questions that should've been asked, with answers shared with readers.
Bit they didn't do that.

For more on the topic of Red-Light Cameras in Hallandale Beach, and photo examples of where the warning signs were placed -out-of-sight- see:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/American%20Traffic%20Solutions




Red Light Ticket Capital YouTube Channelhttp://www.youtube.com/user/MrBFagel

Section 316 of the Florida Statutes, the State Uniform Traffic Control Law:

Monday, October 29, 2012

re South Florida Sun-Sentinel:When are Broward County residents FINALLY going to get the "whole truth" from the Tribune Company's South Florida Sun-Sentinel and some public explanation for their continued reluctance to report it and useful context in Broward County news? Their problems with facts & bias are getting worse by the month; Joy Cooper's red-light camera friends and supporters; Sun-Sentinel's pro-Debbie Wasserman-Schultz bias is a continuing insult to readers; @MayorCooper

I sent the following email on Friday to some of the known members of what for lack of a better word I'm calling the "Central Editorial and Management Brain" of The Tribune Company's South Florida Sun-Sentinel, though it is, admittedly, somewhat incomplete since the Sun-Sentinel does not currently list it's own top management executives and Dept. heads on its own website. Oh, well.
You work with what you have.

You can well imagine why they choose to keep readers in the dark about who is responsible for the final product, much less, their contact information.
No, you're right.
They're not so big on transparency when it comes to themselves as when they rail against others.

I should think that at this point, regular readers of the blog hardly need me repeat here and now why it was sent, as the email is pretty self-explanatory -and long overdue.
And the fun is just beginning...

I've deleted the email addresses below.
-----

Subject: When are Broward readers going to get the entire truth from you? re South Florida Sun-Sentinel's continued reluctance to report the truth and useful context in Broward County
To: Dana Banker, Rosemary Goudreau, Gary Stein, Douglas Lyons
Cc: Michael Mayo, Brittany Wallman, Brittany, 
And to the following management executives from the Miami Herald: Aminda Marques, Rick Hirsch

October 26, 2012

Dear Messrs Banker, Goudreau, Stein & Lyons:

I'll be honest.
I'm writing today to get you to admit the truth, because the truth has been sadly absent or elusive from far too many stories, columns and editorials over the past year in the Sun-Sentinel, and curiosity has been M.I.A.
Frankly, the truth seems to have become a much lower priority for Sun-Sentinel the past few months in its news accounts of local government and politics.

Since I still have a lot of errands to run this afternoon, I'll mention just two here out of the many that I'm already personally aware of.

#! 1 - Before the Sun-Sentinel printed Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's Op-Ed on July 22, 2012, supporting both the idea of and the expansion of red-light cameras throughout South Florida, 
did anyone from your Editorial Board or senior management think to ask her whether or not she had received or expected to receive campaign contributions from any company associated with that particular issue?

I ask because shortly after you provided Cooper with that giant platform to sing the praises of something that has NOT worked in this city -despite her aggressive manhandling efforts to cram it down the collective throats of Hallandale Beach residents, something proven by a report issued by the city weeks ago that  showed there actually was an increase in accidents 
Mayor Cooper received several thousands of dollars from Arizona-based ATSAmerican Traffic Solutions, the very company that installed their equipment here in Hallandale Beach.

Was Cooper ever asked whether or not ATS had ever paid for any meal or given her any gift while she was the elected President of the Florida League of Cities, or whether they gave the League any money before or while she was President and had the cameras installed in Hallandale Beach, when they were desperately scouring the state looking for pliable Florida pols to initiate it in their communities as a money-maker for them and the city, even while
arguing that it would decrease accidents?

If not, why not?
Why has your newspaper refused to mention these easily-verified facts in the three months since that her words appeared in-print and online?

2. For months, your newspaper has refused to make mention of a negative story involving Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz that has appeared in newspapers large and small throughout the United States.

The story concerned the-then new e-book written by the POLITICO's Glenn Thrush on the 2012 presidential campaign. 
The short version of the story is that among employees at Obama HQ in Chicago, DWS was by far their least-favorite Obama surrogate.
Not earth-shattering news, of course, but still news, especially for your newspaper given where it is distributed.
In fact, it's actually much more newsy than most of the pieces you run on DWS, of which there are too many in my opinion, as opposed to the almost complete lack of anything mentioning Frederica Wilson, who for another 11 days represents me and tens of thousands of your readers.

(You were certainly late to catching onto the fact that she had among the ten worst attendance records in the entire U.S. Congress in 2011, even before her surgery. 
And what bills has Wilson sponsored in two years that have moved anywhere?
None.)

It's quite noticeable that your newspaper, the local newspaper for her purposes, has, on too many occasions, gone out of its way to avoid printing it, mentioning the Thrush e-book or even alluding to it in articles, columns, essays, blogs or Letters to the Editor.
I know because I have actively looked for any signs of it -to no avail- even after checking your archives.
I checked hoping I was wrong and just missed it -nope, I was correct.
You never mentioned it.

It's almost like there's an invisible shield around the newspaper, or more accurately, a choke-collar around editors' collective throats, that interferes from treating this particular elected official like any other.

But an arm's-length relationship with her seems to be something that your newspaper seems incapable of achieving because it acts like it wants so very much more.

Frankly, that sort of continual submissiveness in a newspaper does nothing for its current and longstanding reputation among readers of not just being a lapdog for all things DWS, but practically being a member of her Inner Circle, a Golden Lapdog or whatever she calls people or groups she plays for fools.

Yes, there are many, many intelligent and well-informed people in South Florida who believe that she has you right where she wants you -on a short-leash.
The central problem is that you think it's out of affection, while she no doubt sees it as neutralizing the one newspaper that is most likely to print her foibles and problems and have them broadcast far beyond her congressional district.

(Though you may not think so, or like the comparison, among people who ARE paying attention in HB and Hollywood with respect to your coverage of DWS, your newspaper is viewed no differently than the taxpayer-subsidized faux newspaper in HB, the South Florida Sun-Times, in its fawning coverage of Mayor Joy Cooper, who, along with her husband, previously threatened to run the owners out of business many years ago after they printed something that was just slightly critical of her.)

(I didn't have that article handy when I sent Friday's email but have since found it.
It was a guest column that appeared on December 4, 2003, written by then-Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Anthony "Tony" Musto, and it was titled, appropriately enough, "Is there really a magic act going on in Hallandale Beach?"
In it's next-to-last paragraph re the state's Sunshine Laws and the city's very strange and un-democratic reading of it under Mayor Joy Cooper and the City Commission, which included Bill Julian, it concludes with this line that rings as true today as it did almost nine years ago. 
"The mayor, however, has fostered a closed-door mentality that minimizes the dissemination of information and citizen involvement.)

Frankly, in my opinion, the remaining shreds of your journalistic objectivity disintegrate completely when people in a responsible position at your newspaper decide to allow Anthony Man to engage in his over-the-top coverage of DWS's every single movement at various times throughout the year, even while he neglects to mention the time of day to give readers any sense of perspective.
It's so unseemly, not to mention, so uninformative and boosterish, that I've had to throw the paper in the garbage bin rather than in the recycling bin to prevent the stink from it fouling up my kitchen.

I have written on this subject many times and the truth is that the Miami Herald is no better on this subject, having never mentioned the DWS/Thrush story either.
But then it's common knowledge among Broward residents who pay attention that their management and editorial team don't really consider Broward County to be a real place, full of living, breathing people/consumers/voters, just a place marked terra incognita on their maps, a fact that is proven when they go 6-7 months without anything anyone or anything re Broward County govt., politics, personalities or current events, much less, public policy, even appearing in their predictable four-page Sunday Op-Ed section.
The very same section where they can't go two weeks without mentioning Cuba or Haiti on their four pages, but something on where a good chunk of their readership lives, NADA.

Their consistently terrible coverage of local news and govt. in Broward County and unwillingness to have a Broward-centric columnist is their problem to solve, but it's no excuse for your newspaper and its its employees consistently ignoring what is in plain sight, even while it's now become par for the course for both of you.

But you at least have the advantage of geography, so what's your excuse for always being so slow on the uptick and always late to the news? 
Or not even present?
Or consciously NOT printing news that's not favorable to powerful or influential people with whom you deign to stay on good terms with?

It's all very curious and does not at all encourage either respect or future support. 

DBS, Nine-year resident of Hallandale Beach