A visit to The Institute for the Advancement of Political Corruption, in Deerfield Beach, is a trip your kids will never forget! And neither will you!

Today I make up for an oversight of mine and give more attention to someone who actually deserves it.

Someone who is the anti-Kardashian - Chaz Stevens.

Despite being at polar ends of Broward County, Deerfield Beach to the north and Hallandale Beach to the south -right next to Aventura in Miami-Dade County- these two cities are Kissin' Cousins in the world of South Florida municipal corruption and indifference to public appearances.

If a different person was in charge at the Broward State's Attorney's office, it's not so far-fetched to imagine that they'd have a temporary office located at those two respective city halls to make it easier for the investigators to get the requested docs -and save gas money from driving to-and-from the SAO's office in the Broward Courthouse in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

But - sigh- we have the person we do until next year's election.

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Excerpt from an email I sent Chaz Stevens about six weeks ago:

May 15th, 2011
10:55 p.m.

Dear Chaz:

I'd have said something congratulatory to you by now about this morning's Herald article but I've been having constant computer problems all weekend.
Je me regrette!

I'll try to post a comment on the Herald's site on Monday and will, hopefully, reference it on my blog later on Monday, after some time has settled to see which of your naysayers -who've never done anything themselves- come out of the woodwork to rain on your (long overdue) parade.

Longtime bomb-throwers like West Hollywood Dissident and Unowho, et al, who never seem to be right in either their predictions or their after-the-fact analysis when they've publicly attacked you, me, Keith London and many others we could name who want to reform this part of the Sunshine State.

I'm thinking that my comments at the Herald might be better taking one of them to the woodshed, as opposed to my simply saying what I think.

But who knows, perhaps I'll rise above the fray... and pay no heed to the peanut gallery of misfits that spins their wheels on other people's blogs and websites trying to make excuses for their

favorite political pets (miscreants) in Broward that we have been given in such generous amounts!

Instead, perhaps expose them at my blog for the frauds they are.

Cheers!

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In my comments above, I was referencing certain people who CONSTANTLY used Bob Norman's then-extant blog at the Broward NewTimes to go off-topic from what he'd written about, to delve into picayune matters that 99% of Norman's readers could care less about, including their various feuds with other readers, anonymous and otherwise.

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Miami Herald

Activist uses email blasts, blog to keep politicos honest

By Daniel Chang

May 14, 2011

Chaz Stevens is not a professional investigator, yet his digging has led to several Deerfield Beach officials facing corruption charges.

Prosecutors secretly admire him. Defense attorneys openly loathe him. And followers of Broward politics can’t seem to get enough of him.

Still, it’s hard to know what to make of Chaz Stevens, the rabblerousing activist who wields email blasts and a website — myactsofsedition.com — like a bludgeon, heaping scorn and ridicule upon, and leveling criminal complaints against his hometown public officials.

Since launching his tech-savvy anti-corruption crusade in 2007, Stevens’ tips to the State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have led to the arrests of three Deerfield Beach politicians for corruption, including ex-Mayor Al Capellini and former commissioners Stephen Gonot and Sylvia Poitier.

It’s a track record that might earn Stevens a great deal of respect and admiration — if only he didn’t take such conspicuous pleasure in degrading his targets with equal amounts of scurrilous name-calling, innuendo and condescension, delivered with a generous helping of narcissism.

“I have only one thing to declare,’’ Stevens blogged this week after a Broward jury convicted Gonot. “My genius.’’

Indeed, Stevens filed the initial complaint that led to an FDLE investigation of Gonot in 2008, then followed up with leads for investigators and prosecutors, including an email he sent last week to Assistant State Attorney David Schulson, the prosecutor, who had already rested his case but reopened it to share the new evidence with the jury.

Stevens’ tip to Schulson: that Gonot had flown to Las Vegas to participate in a poker tournament the morning after his best friend had cashed a $5,100 campaign check at the center of the state’s theft and misconduct charges.

The evidence provided a plausible motive for Gonot’s theft, and undermined the defendant’s claims that he was overwhelmed at the time with a divorce and the failing health of his parents.

It is unknown whether the revelation swayed the jury’s verdict, but Gonot’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Harris, attempted to discredit Stevens early in the trial, accusing the activist of trafficking in “rumor and innuendo,’’ and questioning why state investigators would take seriously complaints from such a source.

Stevens wears Harris’s remarks as a badge now, and makes no apologies for his clearly biased reporting on Deerfield Beach and on Gonot’s trial, from which he posted exclusive videos of the defendant testifying and provided running color commentary.

“People don’t like me because I am who I am,’’ Stevens acknowledges. “I wish people were smarter to see the message. They get so hung up on the messenger. It’s disappointing.’’

He began his civic activism by ridiculing city politicians with doctored photos and outrageous claims posted on his blog.

An expert in Photoshop, Stevens recalled one occasion where he took a screen grab from TV of Gonot, and edited the photo to look like it was taken from a surveillance camera. Then he alleged the image came from cameras Gonot had surreptitiously planted in city hall.

Stevens shivers as he recalls the “buzz’’ his post created.

“I got calls from city employees,’’ he said, laughing. “The police came and did a sweep of city hall. They didn’t find anything.’’

By 2008, Stevens was looking to take his watch dogging game to another level. He learned to cull public records for the types of facts that could stand up as evidence in a criminal complaint and, eventually, a court of law.

It was a turning point for Stevens’ activism. While his complaints against Gonot and Capellini were based on the investigative legwork of the alternative newspaper New Times and others, Stevens’ complaint against Poitier was the first to originate from his own exhaustive review of meeting minutes, financial reports and other documents.

Stevens launched his crusade against Poitier in 2009, brazenly taking on a matriarch of Broward politics first elected to the Deerfield Beach commission 37 years ago and who also had served on the Broward County Commission from 1985 to 1998.

By his count, Stevens filed 23 criminal complaints against Poitier. But what really seemed to push the 75-year-old politician to the point of exasperation was the incessant taunting and vilifying on Stevens’ blog, in email blasts, on T-shirts and in doctored photographs that he posted online.

In March, Stevens posted a video on YouTube of Poitier on the Deerfield Beach commission dais, threatening to sue the activist for libeling her reputation and calling for “a showdown.’’

He made much hay of this on his website, and even threatened to sue Poitier for defaming his character.

And then the roof caved in for Poitier.

On April 12, state prosecutors charged Poitier with five misdemeanor counts of falsifying records, based on an investigation launched by Stevens’ original complaint. (She has plead not guilty.)

Stevens was overjoyed.

“It’s a glorious day,’’ he crowed in an email blast addressed to the press. Contained in the same email was an example of Stevens’ unflagging activism — a criminal complaint he had filed with FDLE in March, alleging the Deerfield Beach Housing Authority had violated state laws on public bids.

Tom Connick, a Deerfield Beach attorney who represents housing authority director Pam Davis, said Stevens is “flat out wrong’’ about the agency. And though he gives Stevens credit for rooting out corruption among city officials, he takes issue with the manner in which Stevens works.

“There are some things which he has brought to light that appropriately should have been brought to light,’’ Connick said. “There are other things that he claims are problems or issues, and he’s just flat out wrong. They’re not. ... I think the tragedy of Stevens is that he appears to be essentially someone who gets his self esteem by destroying instead of being constructive.’’

Stevens said he piles on the insults and attitude for effect, and suggests it is a strategy.

“It irritates,’’ he said. “It draws attention. ... I’m kind of an attention whore.’’

Connick said Stevens abuses public records laws by issuing broad requests that require hours of manual labor and reams of printed materials. He accused him of making unfounded accusations and degrading women.

But what bothers Connick most is Stevens’ in-your-face style.

“His destructiveness is so overpowering and inextricably woven into his personality,’’ Connick said, “that he’s really a negative factor.’’

To be sure, Stevens’ over-the-top manner has earned him enemies.

He believes someone poisoned his dog, and said he sometimes fears for his personal safety.

Physical threats, though, don’t seem to get under Stevens’ skin like the anonymous comments about him posted online at various local news websites and ridiculing his living arrangements, love life, weight and employment status.

It’s the two-way rule of the Internet, giving equal platform to anyone with a keyboard, a computer and something to say.

Stevens, 46, says such comments used to bother him, but that he’s “grown a thicker skin’’ about the personal attacks.

“It doesn’t matter where I live,’’ he says. “It doesn’t matter if I have a girlfriend or not.’’

For the record, Stevens lives with his parents in Deerfield Beach.

“I travel a lot,’’ he said. “It doesn’t make sense for me to have a house.’’

He works as a freelance software designer and website developer, and estimates that he devotes about 60 percent of his free time to activism.

And though he doesn’t get paid for his work, Stevens does enjoy some fringe benefits — namely the attention, but lately something closer to fulfillment.

“Now it has meaning,’’ he said of his activism. “Now it serves a purpose. It serves a public good.’’

This is not Stevens’ narcissism talking.

In April, on the same day that Poitier was charged, Kessler International, a forensic accounting and investigative firm that has audited Deerfield Beach’s community development division and civic festivals, announced it had created a new award called “The Chaz.”

Michael Kessler, chief executive of the firm, said the award will be bestowed annually to an activist with a proven track record of exposing government corruption.

He credited Stevens for reaching out to his financial investigators with leads, which ultimately led to an audit by the U.S. Housing and Urban and Development’s Office of Inspector General, which ordered the city to repay $224,000 in grants after finding that Poitier and another commissioner, Gloria Battle, had violated federal regulations intended to curb special interests.

“He supplied us with a tremendous wealth of information at the onset,’’ Kessler said of Stevens. “If you followed his blog, there were always tidbits of information.’’

And while Kessler also noticed the heavy doses of scorn, ridicule and name calling on the website, he is willing to indulge Stevens’ personality based on his track record.

“You have to take the whole enchilada,’’ he said, “but I think it brings levity to a very serious situation. That levity sometimes can be detrimental, but ... I don’t think I’ve ever seen an email that he’s written that when we went back and looked at the documentation, that the documentation was false.’’

Stevens points out that he’s not a professional journalist or corruption investigator and has no credo he must follow.

“Who cares if you have to put up with my stupid foibles?’’ Stevens said of his brand of activism. “It’s a little greedy that you want a corruption fighter and a grown up.’’

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Following his missive this morning:

Subject: DBHA BSC: The Institute for the Advancement of Political Corruption

If you have the misfortune opportunity to have listened to Anus T. Connick's rave review of Deerfield Beach Housing Authority Executive Director Pamela Davis*, you'd not ever want to second guess her credentials. However, according to the published Roles and Responsibilities of the Board Commissioners, doing just that is at the top of their to-do list.

So being that the existing BOC won't allow you and I (mostly me) a chance at that discussion, let's take a moment this morning to discuss an issue regarding Davis' performance and you decide for yourself if she makes the grade.

Speaking of which, we are *not* grading on a curve.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.myactsofsedition.com/my_acts_of_sedition/2011/06/the-institute-for-the-advancement-of-political-corruption.html

I wrote the following to Chaz this morning:

Come for the lack of oversight - stay for the star-spangled corruption!

And closer to us, hard by the Broward/Miami-Dade County line, coming soon: another look at what former Congresswoman Carrie Meek has been doing with all that free land and the tens of thousands of dollars that Miami-Dade County has been funneling her way for years.

Teaser Alert: Putting lots of photos of herself on a fact-free website DOESN'T make the project she promised the county an actual success.

Just saying...

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http://www.myactsofsedition.com/

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

Michael Butler's knowing retort to mayor Joy Cooper's blather in Miami Herald. When you know the true facts about her reign of ruin...

acts of sedition: Scotchy scotch scotch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QYvRlQG9Qc

My friend Michael Butler has posted a pithy and knowing retort to Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper's blather in the Miami Herald titled We want to work with the governor. http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/06/2052839/we-want-to-work-with-the-governor.html

Her words served as the jumping-off point for my later blog post here on Monday titled simply, There's what Joy Cooper says -and there's reality. Here's a dose of reality to chew over; What does Jessica Sanders do exactly? http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/theres-what-joy-cooper-says-and-theres.html

Michael's response in total:

Mayor Cooper says "...a city has a unique bond with its citizens."

Hallandale sued me because of a PRR I made for her BCC email address list, from an email signed Mayor Cooper and the title of which was "State of the City". Is that the "unique bond to which she refers?"

Mayor Cooper talks about fiscal responsibility but presided over a period where the city's budget doubled to $100 million, added $28 million debt (a 20-fold increase!), and blew through $35 million of a $50 million financial reserve.

How do these facts square with her "fiscal accountability and responsibility, making government smarter, and fiscal responsibility for the future?"

She's wrecked the city's finances. Visit ChangeHallandale.com

As some of you readers know, despite my personally notifying several -I repeat, several- Miami Herald reporters, editors and top management personnel over several months about the city's lawsuit filed against Michael at the behest of a petulant Mayor Cooper, for his simply exercising his right under the Sunshine Laws of the Florida Constitution to avail himself of public information, the Herald NEVER wrote about the situation at the time it was occurring.
And the same goes for Miami's local TV stations, who just yawned collectively.

This, despite the fact that the case illustrated to a perfect degree the extent to which South Florida municipalities have been running circles around concerned citizens attempting to get public information they were entitled to, by intentionally obfuscating the truth and refusing to comply with state law, FOR YEARS.

The Herald and local TV stations have NEVER made any reference to the case despite plenty of opportunities.

IF I wanted to, I could name the people at the Herald and local TV stations who knew all the pertinent facts and still chose not to do anything about it, but why mention people who have done nothing to bring credit to themselves?

IF you want to know why so many well-informed people in South Florida have given up on the Miami Herald as a viable news source for information they use in their daily lives, consider their curious lack of curiosity when given a compelling news story on a silver platter.
Instead of seeing the possibilities, they looked askance and acted bored.

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My previous posts on Michael and our collective efforts to bring genuine accountability and transparency to Hallandale Beach, Florida can be found at: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Michael%20Butler

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Chaz Stevens
http://www.myactsofsedition.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/actsofsedition

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.

Upcoming 2010 Spring Cleaning Media & Blog Purge: Sleepwalking South Florida news media and lemming blogs to be tossed overboard!

There is just a tremendous amount of news and information that will be coming to this space over the next few weeks, much of it about political ideas and strategy and upcoming elections that will have the possibility of seriously shaking up the deplorable status quo hereabouts.

Things both long in the planning as well as items that I've, admittedly, sort of lucked-into by paying close attention while most of South Florida's news media continues their 2010 spring slumber, preparing for their 2010 summer-long siesta.

But that's how it goes when you try to keep your eyes and ears open, return emails and phone calls from others promptly, and try to remain on good terms with people in a position to either make news -or cover it- all over the county, state and country.

In fact, I suppose you might even call what I have in mind -and in many cases, already have written- a torrent, though given the Broward School Board's continuing sub-par performance, if there are any Broward high school grads reading this, that's your cue to right-click 'torrent' and see what Google says it means.

I've got some big changes in store for my humble little blog, as this weekend I'll begin my 2010 Spring Cleaning Media and Blog Purge, wherein I make some long overdue changes that I had originally planned on making after Christmas, but couldn't due to time constraints
and some family obligations.

It's my hope that these particular changes will improve the blog's functionality and topicality, though perhaps not to everyone's satisfaction.
C'est la vie.

Frankly, I don't spend any time worrying about what people I've NEVER met, actually spoken to or received an email from, think about the blog, whereas those who have taken the time to actually contact me with their thoughts know that I generally take their constructive criticism pretty well, and only wish that I could change it the way I want to.

In the case of the former, people who have never contacted me but who have heaping helpings of criticism, I refer to people who never seem to actually manage to attend South Florida govt. or public policy meetings in person, what most people in the country might call no-shows, and who seem to "cover" things almost entirely second-hand from their living room or dens.

As anyone paying attention knows, that's the exact OPPOSITE approach of Genius of Despair and Gimleteye at Eye on Miami, http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/;
Daniel A. Ricker at Watchdog Report, http://www.watchdogreport.net/;
Chaz Stevens at My Acts of Sedition, http://www.myactsofsedition.com/;
Michael Butler at Change Hallandale Beach, http://www.changehallandale.com/;
Sara Case at Balance Sheet Online, http://www.balancesheetonline.com/;
Bett Willett at Blog by Bett, http://blogbybett.blogspot.com/ and myself.

(In case you're unfamiliar with the situation involving my friend Michael being sued by Joy Cooper, the thin-skinned, anti-democratic mayor of our fair city -who calls her political opponents "Nazis" while at Hallandale Beach City Hall- for simply attempting to get some public records, YET ANOTHER story that the Miami Herald and all of the local Miami TV stations have completely ignored, please see the following:
1.) http://openrecords.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/michael-butler-sunshine-troublemaker-of-the-week/

2.) http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/10/mayo_why_are_taxpayers_footing.html )
3.) http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/10/judge_patti_henning_and_mayor_joy_cooper.php )

While I obviously don't agree with them on everything they might say about a particular subject,
I ALWAYS know that they are actually spending their time and energy to be physically present and accounted for when news could be made that's of interest to the discerning and concerned citizens of South Florida.
And they don't lie or intentionally misrepresent the facts.

Both are more than can be said for the large majority of South Florida's sad sack excuse of a press corps, who would be greatly improved if 75% of them were fired toute-de-suite, and simply replaced by some of the plucky and curious kids on the journalism farm at Ernie Pyle, Medill and some other places I could name, where curiosity is a prerequisite.
See http://journalism.indiana.edu/ and http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/

Then we'd see some serious Who, What, Why, When Where and How action in our local media diet, and improved verb subject agreement and proper verb tense, to boot, and less fluff TV stories on liposuction, women's clothes, Rapping Grandmothers, and Grade D celebs and celebutantes making paid appearances at South Beach clubs.

It's exactly like the sad and feeble approach employed over at WTVJ-6 -the News Nobody Watches- "who don't know what's going on, and send a cameraman (without a reporter) to an event at the last minute just so they can maintain the illusion they're a real news operation."

That particular tart quote comes from one of their most industrious TV news competitors, who told me that exact thing two years ago while we were both sitting in the Broward County Chambers for a Broward County Charter Review Commission meeting.

This comment about Channel 6 only served to confirm what I'd long felt since returning to the area from D.C., and when I shared this comment with other industrious reporters and bloggers I know, who have often shared their take on what ails South Florida and its incurious news media, they all seconded that emotion.

It goes without saying that if I knew then what I know now, I'd have perhaps made some different choices when starting the blog, perhaps going with TypePad instead of Blogger, or perhaps some other blogging platform, as many newspaper and TV friends of mine in D.C. had originally suggested. http://www.typepad.com/

Since many of you readers probably don't know this, with Blogger's software structure, unless I remove all the 'anchors' on it at the beginning, the photos and thoughts about the area, I can't physically move my most recent comments up to the top of the blog.
If I could, I'd have done that years ago.
But I can't, hence the upcoming changes.

But even with the changes I hope to make over the next few weeks, I know that I won't be matching the prodigious blog posting and video output of South Florida's number one Watchdog, Chaz Stevens, who surely must get less sleep than anyone in the 954 area code.

FYI, last night and early this morning, I downloaded all the video I shot from Tuesday afternoon's historic Broward County Commission meeting, where the plucky underdog activists from Hallandale Beach brought the Broward County development/lobbying machine to heel, 6-3, and hope to have at least some of it on my YouTube page on Thursday.

My personal take on what transpired yesterday will soon be here, along with photos, now that I'm finally starting to get caught up on all the sleep I've been missing the past few weeks.

Monday's Broward School meeting at Deerfield Beach Middle School on countywide security procedures -more incompetence!

Below, an email I sent tonight to South Florida
blogger extraordinaire Chaz Stevens of
Deerfield Beach, http://www.myactsofsedition.com/
Saturday April 10th, 2010 9:55 p.m.

Dear Chaz:

While at Panera Bread late this afternoon,
while doing some reading and writing,
I noticed the ad on page 5B of the Herald
-above- regarding an official Broward School
meeting at Deerfield Beach Middle School
Monday night at 7 p.m.

I made a note to myself that when I got home,
I'd go to the Herald's online advertising page,
make a copy and send it along to you for you
to post or mention to your readers, since your
city has sadly become the Ground Zero for
this contemptible behavior at schools.

But when I checked the Herald's advertising
website as I have in the past,
http://newspaperads.miami.com/ROP/Categories.aspx,
the ad did NOT appear for some reason,
so I've gone ahead and snapped a photo of it
with my own camera -with predictable
results.

Still, I think it's legible enough for you to
make out okay.

So, guess who doesn't have anything about
this meeting on their own website?

Correct.
Broward County Schools.
http://www.browardschools.com/

The same geniuses that have at their
disposal, a Cable TV station with TV cameras
that taxpayers have already paid for,
http://www.becon.tv/ but which,
somehow, over the course of the past
few months, could never be used to
televise LIVE or tape any of the
so-called Integrity meetings by
Butterworth & Company,
http://browardschoolsintegrity.org/
have now decided to run a paid advertisement
in the newspaper while neglecting
to mention it on their own website.

Geniuses, that is, if by geniuses you
mean clueless, incompetent morons.

Notter & Company are some kind
of role models for the kids, huh?

Just more proof, as if needed, that all
the Broward School Board incumbents
running this Fall have to go buh-bye.

This is just more evidence that they're
part of the problem, not part of the
eventual solution.
Adios!

-----

So faithful readers, here's the current list
of announced Broward School Board
candidates, which I'll be discussing again
by Monday night:
http://www.browardsoe.org/electioncandidates.aspx?eid=89

Did you notice whose name is conspicuous
by its absence?
I did.
Rhymes with brook.

I actually saw her VERY SWEET decked-out
'campaign' bus rolling north up U.S.-1 past
Gulfstream Park nine days ago, but I got my
camera out too late to actually snap a shot of it
and run it here.

re 1/11/10 Ben Smith in POLITICO: Game over: The Clintons stand alone; Haiti

I've held off on posting this for a few days since
there was so much discussion of the contents
and short-term implications of Game Change
by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
over this past weekend on the network chat
shows, I didn't want to add this to the pile
when you couldn't properly appreciate it.

I personally know that at least a handful of you
have actually started reading it, but Ben Smith's
overview below is the best I've seen so far
because he sees past the individual anecdotes
towards the larger un-mentioned story,
the fall of the House of Clinton.
After you've read it, I think you'll agree.

Last year I was running Ben's POLITICO
widget on my blog, along with their 44 widget
for Obama stories, so people could easily
access his entertaining and informative pieces,
but I seemed to run into constant technical
problems with those widgets, so I reluctantly
pulled them down.

Thursday 2:00 p.m.
By the way, it's just my opinion, but 46 hours
after the earthquake in Haiti, I find it completely
unbelievable that the the U.S. military and our
erstwhile Allies in the region seem NOT to have
established a working unit to coordinate logistics
and air traffic control at the Port-au-Prince
airport, the way we quickly did at the Baghdad
airport
after our invasion, which I supported.

I know the latter had many months of planning
overall, but on the other hand, I think it's fair
to remind you that this time, we know that
nobody will be shooting at us, right?

Sufficient number of trucks to move planes
stuck on the airport out of the way and placed
on the perimeter so they don't pose a safety
hazard, gas re-supply trucks to handle refueling,
mobile air traffic control units, modules,
helicopter techs, etc.

While I haven't seen these stories myself,
I have already heard from friends who know
about these things that UPS and FedEx
would like to use some of their planes to bring
supplies, starting initially from their hubs of
Memphis and Louisville down there, and
then return quickly, perhaps to Miami
and Hollywood-Ft. Lauderdale to keep
shuttling back-and-forth, and maybe
even deploy some of their logistics
professionals down there.

Why?

So we DON'T see the absurd sight of:
a.) people passing supplies hand-to-hand
instead of using conveyor belts or fork lifts, or
b.) well-meaning charity groups dropping boxes
of supplies into huge crowds of desperate people,
with the entirely predictable chaos.

But UNTIL the airport is completely cleared
and secured, they can't, and therefore nothing
of significance is going to happen.

At 2:10 p.m., I've yet to see a shot of the airport
under control.

Popular South Florida blogger and activist
Chaz Stevens from Deerfield Beach, a veritable
one-man tidal wave of information and enthusiasm
and a sharp-eyed watchdog for public transparency
and accountability from state and local government
at his blog, Acts of Sedition,
http://www.actsofsedition.com/ wrote
in earlier that I may be wrong.

Actually, you are wrong I believe. Two Coast
Guard Cutters (one by the name of Forward)
are off the coast of Haiti providing air traffic control.

Chaz is no doubt right, but I was referring to the
airport itself, per se, though perhaps I was not so
clear when I sent this out as an email a few minutes
ago.

My sense of things is that some of the reporters
there are going out of their way not to criticize
the chaotic recovery efforts thus far, but once
that dam has been breached, it won't stop.

Then it's Obama's tar-baby, whether that's
fair or not.
With the MLK holiday on Monday and even
more Americans home watching the awful scenes
unfold before them on TV, right before his
State of the Union speech, our response
to this tragedy, such as it is, will be firmly
placed around his neck.
Just saying...

-----

POLITICO
Game over: The Clintons stand alone
By: Ben Smith
January 11, 2010 06:05 PM EST

A new book is out with a highly critical but unsourced portrait of Hillary Clinton. This familiar occurrence — it’s happened too many times to count over the years — has usually been greeted with an equally familiar response: A fast and furious counterattack from the Clinton inner circle.

What’s notable about the highly publicized release of “Game Change,” however, is the virtual silence from the Clinton camp. The lack of public outrage seems to mark the sputtering end of what was once known as the Clinton political machine and underlines a fact that onetime Clinton loyalists acknowledge: The book’s primary sources about the former candidate and current secretary of state are her own former staffers and intimates.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31345.html#ixzz0cQXHlJSP

---------

See also:
The Atlantic Online
Marc Ambinder's excellent blog, which I get everyday
"The Juiciest Revelations In "Game Change"
January 8 2010
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2010/01/the_juiciest_revelations_in_game_change.php


Los Angeles Times
BOOK REVIEW 'Game Change' by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
The political journalists provide juicy insider tidbits about the 2008 presidential candidates, their spouses and other players, but it's hard to see the enlightenment behind the entertainment
By Tim Rutten
January 13, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-rutten13-2010jan13,0,4331192.story


An excerpt of the book that ran in
New York magazine last Saturday

Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster
A candidate whose aides were prepared to block him from becoming president. A wife whose virtuous image was a mirage. A mistress with a video camera. In an excerpt from the new book Game Change—their sweeping account of the 2008 campaign—the authors reveal that, inside the Edwards triangle, nothing was too crazy to be true.

Read the excerpt at:
http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/