Giving credit where credit is due is fine, but receiving a Pulitzer Prize because you earned it the old-fashioned way is even better: Well-earned Pulitzer Prize to Sun-Sentinel for devastating series by Sally Kestin & John Maines on South Florida's army of out-of-control off-duty cops driving at high speeds; @SallyKestin

Giving credit where credit is due is fine, but receiving a Pulitzer Prize because you earned it the old-fashioned way is even better: Well-earned Pulitzer Prize to Sun-Sentinel for devastating series by Sally Kestin & John Maines on South Florida's army of out-of-control off-duty cops driving at high speeds; @SallyKestin

Excerpt from New York Times article of April 15, 2013: 2013 Journalism Pulitzer Winners

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday. The list of winners in the journalism categories follows.

PUBLIC SERVICE
THE SUN SENTINEL, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Sun Sentinel won its first Pulitzer Prize for a three-part series by Sally Kestin, 48, an investigative reporter, and John Maines, 57, a database editor, that examined the driving speeds of off-duty police officers in South Florida. Using data from highway tolls and GPS technology, the reporters found 800 police officers from a dozen different agencies driving at average speeds of 90 to more than 120 miles per hour.

As a result of the series, there was an 84 percent drop in the number of officers driving more than 90 miles per hour and many of the officers faced disciplinary action.

“I think we really ended up saving lives,” Ms. Kestin said.

And these were just the ones they wrote about!
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/speeding-cops/

If only we saw more enterprising reporting like this in South Florida, he said to himself...
http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2013-Public-Service

In late 2010, South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter Sally B. Kestin wrote the following article as part of a series on questionable government spending, and within an hour of seeing it, I'd sent an email out with a link to it to friends around the state and the country because it was so accurate and fair. 
It was the first piece of hers that brought her to my attention.

(Yes, she's Northwestern Class of 1987, so she was in Evanston at the same time I was living there on the North Shore, when the first McDonald's there, next to the Hotel Orrington, was eat-in only, no take-out.)

It includes spot-on quotes from my friend, longtime Broward County civic activist and truth-teller  Charlotte Greenbarg, regarding South Florida cities continued refusal to bite-the-bullet on runaway Police Union contracts and stop giving away tax dollars in a tough economy thru a program that is more anecdotal than practical or economical.

Given how small the City of Hallandale Beach is, just 4.2 square miles, this problem of take-home cars is a real problem here, where few police officers actually live.
Which means we are spending more than most Broward cities as a percentage. 

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-11-13/news/fl-sheriff-take-home-car-20101111_1_patrol-cars-cars-home-pbso
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
South Florida deputies get take-home cars — and we pay
by Sally Kestin Sun-Sentinel
November 13, 2010

Sheriff's deputies in South Florida enjoy a perk almost unheard of in most jobs: take-home cars and in some cases unlimited free gas.

Employees of the Broward and Palm Beach County sheriff's offices are permitted not only to drive their department-issued vehicles for personal use but also to and from work, even if they live outside the county. Some log 100 miles or more each day on their commutes.

The rationale for take-home cars is that deputies are always on call, and having marked patrol cars on the roads helps deter crime. But even some managers and non-sworn officers get cars for commuting, and critics say the benefit is a luxury taxpayers can't afford, particularly in tough economic times.

The sheriff's vehicle policies in Broward and Palm Beach counties are more generous than those of other large police agencies in the state, which require employees to live within a certain distance to get a take-home car.

PBSO has 1,538 employees who drive cars home. More than 225 of them live outside the county.

About 2,900 BSO employees get cars, but the sheriff's agency said it cannot determine how many are non-Broward residents.

Charlotte Greenbarg, president of the watchdog group Broward Coalition, said deputies should only be allowed to take cars home if they also live in the county they serve. "We've got terribly tough times, the money's very tight, the budgets are shrinking as our incomes are,'' she said.

The car perk is part of the contracts negotiated by unions representing sheriff's employees. At BSO, union members who are not assigned vehicles instead get a pay supplement of $453 a month, or $5,441 a year.

The sheriff's offices pay for maintenance of the take-home cars, and gas is subsidized by taxpayers.

BSO employees living in Broward pay nothing for the use of their sheriff's vehicle and gas up for free at county pumps. Last year, the sheriff's office began requiring employees who live in Palm Beach or Miami-Dade counties to pay $40 to $55 every two weeks, depending on the distance of their commutes.

"I realize that's a burden on the taxpayers,'' said Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti. "We are now asking them to pay for their gas for commuting so at least they're paying something if they live outside of Broward County.''

PBSO employees pay a fuel charge of $25 every two weeks if they live in the county and $30 for out-of-county residents.

They're allowed to drive the cars not just while on duty but also for personal errands. PBSO employees can use their cars on their days off and while on leave, as long as they remain in Palm Beach County.

BSO's policy says deputies are "encouraged to use their vehicles off duty'' while in Broward.

Taking cars home is a benefit to the public, sheriff's officials said.

"Deputies, even if they're going to and from work, they're still on duty,'' said BSO spokesman Mike Jachles. "It's a deterrent. You don't know how many crimes might have been prevented because that deputy is driving through a neighborhood or a car is in his driveway.''

Off-duty deputies have rescued people trapped underwater in cars, rendered aid at accidents and intervened in crimes, he said.

Deputies can also respond quicker in an emergency, Lamberti said.

"The positive side of it, it provides us the ability to respond when everybody has their own car whether it be a hurricane, Super Bowl, Orange Bowl,'' the sheriff said. "They don't have to go somewhere, get in their vehicle and then respond.''

Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said allowing deputies to take cars home actually saves about $9 million a year in "prep time'' costs the sheriff's office would otherwise have to pay. A federal court ruling said sheriff's deputies were entitled to time and a half pay for getting ready for work, including driving to get their patrol cars and loading their equipment, he said.

"The reality is, in economic times, it's a perception thing. It's like, 'Geez, I don't even have a job, how come they get take-home cars?' '' Bradshaw said. "Come strap on a gun, get involved in what these deputies do, risk your life every night, I'll give you a take-home car. I don't consider it a perk in any way.''

BSO spends about $19 million a year on fuel, maintenance and vehicle replacement, while the budget at PBSO is $14 million. The sheriff's offices can't say how much of those costs are related to taking cars home.

A 2007 audit by the city of West Palm Beach found that more than half the miles logged on its take-home vehicles were for personal commuting by the employees, including one who lived more than 80 miles away. The city restricted take-home cars to police officers living in or near West Palm Beach. About 80 employees lost vehicle privileges, saving the city $700,000 a year.

The savings would be higher at the sheriff's offices, which are much larger.

Many police and sheriff's departments in Florida allow employees to take cars home, but some large agencies are more restrictive.

Employees at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, for instance, cannot use cars for commuting if they live more than 10 miles outside the county, and the cutoff at the Orange County Sheriff's Office is 20 miles.

In Hillsborough, employees living in other counties pay 50 cents a mile for the distance between the county line and their homes.

The Florida Highway Patrol gives troopers take-home cars, but they must live within 30 miles of the city where they're assigned. They can drive the cars to and from college if they're enrolled or a gym to stay fit, but other personal uses are not allowed.

BSO used to require employees to live in Broward to take cars home until the mid 1990s, Lamberti said. The sheriff's office recently renegotiated the union contract for road deputies but kept the car perk and other benefits.

Deputies at BSO and PBSO make $45,000 to over $100,000 a year, and some take in thousands more in overtime. They get a minimum of seven weeks in vacation, holidays and sick time – more for employees with longer service.

Like many other public agencies, sheriff's offices have been hard hit by plunging tax revenues. BSO recently cut $23 million from its budget, and Lamberti issued an ultimatum to 254 jail deputies – take a pay reduction and a demotion or be fired.

Sgt. Anthony Marciano, head of the union representing Broward jailers, said his members don't get cars to take home.

"I'm glad [road deputies] have that perk,'' he said. "But when you have budget cuts and you're cutting my union members' salaries. . . I don't think it's fair.''

WHAT: Take-home cars for deputies and other sheriff's personnel

COST TO US: Total vehicle budget is $19 million in Broward and $14 million in Palm Beach County; take-home cars represent an undetermined portion of that

-----
@SallyKestin  https://twitter.com/SallyKestin

http://topsy.com/twitter/sallykestin

How stories re Al Lamberti and Louis Granteed show the smug hypocrisy among South Florida's news media, esp. the unsatisfactory coverage of actual news in Broward from the BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes

Below is an email I sent on Wednesday to reporter Brittany Wallman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in which I use her story about Broward Sheriff candidate Louis Granteed swinging by The Cheetah strip club in Hallandale Beach to connect it to previous  actions of the BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes towards current Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti, a Republican, and a matter I've previously discussed on the blog -smug hypocrisy among South Florida's news media, and unsatisfactory coverage of actual news in this county from the NewTimes.


-----


re your post titled "Sheriff calls news story on his campaign website "spam''
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/12/sheriff_calls_news_story_on_hi.html


You know what would really be great?
If the Broward NewTimes actually joined the 21st-Century and posted the office email addresses of all of its top editorial staff, just like the Herald, Sun-Sentinel, local Miami TV station news operations and most reputable blogs do, even ones I criticize and find overly-sycophantic, local and nationally, of which there are plenty.


Like, perhaps, Eric Barton's official office email address.
Nope, that's top secret!
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/about/staff/


Instead, as I noted many months ago in blog posts about the NewTimes' abject failure to cover many subject areas that they ought to be right on top of, but aren't -like anything about FL-17 Rep. Frederica Wilson, and her near-invisibility in south Broward, before and after the election 13 months ago; her trip to Israel being paid for by AIPAC; her failure to ever sign-up to co-sponsor the House companion bill for Obama's Jobs Bill despite continually criticizing the GOP for not supporting it, just like DWS has done, et al- the NewTimes continues to rely on a corporate gatekeeper/walled-off email system that ensures that readers writing comments can't tell whether or not their email to NewTimes personnel was actually ever received by the individual(s) they wanted to receive it, and, of course, you CAN'T cc or bcc anyone else with the concerns you're sharing, whether over the merit of something, bias, wrong info, need for a correction...


Very basic stuff, but the NewTimes has continued to fail that "comment" test.
Eric Barton needs to look in the mirror, perhaps then he'd find out himself why so many former readers like myself have abandoned it in droves.


-----


Speaking of Louis Granteed, in case some of you didn't spot it in a post of mine from Wednesday December 14th titled, Dr. Judy Selz zeroes-in on wasteful city spending, angering Comm. Lewy; Keith London's take on Hallandale Beach City Comm. meeting of Dec, 7 2011
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/dr-judy-selz-zeroes-in-on-wasteful-city.html

Some free advice to 2012 Broward Sheriff candidate Louis Granteed, currently Assistant Hollywood Police Chief, per conversations he's had with friends of mine in Broward at various events:

You might want to strongly reconsider constantly praising Lewy to the hilt when you meet citizens from Hallandale Beach. If they are an informed person, chances are great that they are already more than hip to Alex Lewy and what he is all about.Your praise only serves to draw attention to how little you know about him.

Just saying...

Only in Broward: Courthouse security apprehends man with gun at entrance, but judges overreact, want armed cop in EVERY courtroom. In a word: NO!

Only in Broward County: Courthouse security catches man with gun at entrance, but judges overreact oh-so predictably, demanding an armed cop in EVERY courtroom.

As if on cue, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said he wants $17.2 million for more deputies in courthouses.

In a word: NO!

How can I put this in a way that you will understand -the courthouse security we already have WORKED.

Whether that is because the security that day -Wednesday- was Sherlock Holmes-like or because the person apprehended was stupid enough to put a gun in a gym bag thru a magnetometer at a place that warns you in advance, you be the.. yes, judge.

Here's the line from the Sun-Sentinel article below that tells you everything you need to know:

Though armed deputies roam the courthouses, there are none working in any Broward courtroom unless a judge asks for one or there's a murder trial.

Exactly.

Because an armed deputy is NOT required for every single courtroom.

In any case, what would all these armed cops do on Fridays after lunch?

Hasn't Broward legal blogger JAABLOG already proven time and again that on Fridays, many of the courtrooms in the Main Courthouse in downtown Ft. Lauderdale are empty?

Yes, he has proven it to a fair-thee-well.

Guess they could provide security and walk along the largely tourist-free FTL riverfront and count the number of graffiti 'tags' on the bridge and the poles and the signs...

Is it impossible for even one legitimate Miami-based TV/print reporter in the year 2011 to do a story on the Broward County Courthouse, and for just once, just for the hell of it, actually describe in detail what things are like there on Fridays?

I know that this is expecting a lot since they could NEVER manage to do even ONE story on the financial, historical and political context behind the "fix" that was the Broward County Courthouse Task Force under Chair -and downtown FTL property-owner?- Ilene Lieberman, and the predictable decisions that were made, despite the fact that that story was practically given to them on a silver platter.

And still they blanched...

"It's not a question of 'Do we need a courthouse?' We need it and we need to get it done," said Commissioner Ilene Lieberman who headed the task force.

(See more on that so-called Task Force below, which once included Scott Rothstein.)

It's really NOT that hard to do.

But you have to want to actually do it.

To NOT keep making excuses for avoiding the story and knowing that you will rattle some powerful and well-connected Broward cages in doing so.

To stop procrastinating.

Here in South Florida, the local news media doesn't want to.

Other than Bob Norman.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

After second gunman this year enters a Broward courthouse, sheriff seeks security funding

By Linda Trischitta and Danielle A. Alvarez, Sun Sentinel

8:48 PM EDT, September 28, 2011

FORT LAUDERDALE

After a second incident this year when an armed man entered a Broward County courthouse, the chief judge and the sheriff called for county funding to increase security.

No one was hurt before Francois V. Brown, 39, of Miramar, was arrested Tuesday at the county's south regional courthouse on Hollywood Boulevard.

On Wednesday, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said he wants $17.2 million from the Broward County Commission to hire and arm deputies in four Broward courthouses and family court.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/crime/fl-broward-courthouse-weapons-20110928,0,7833370.story

See also: http://jaablog.jaablaw.com/2011/09/28/bso-press-conference.aspx

To quote myself from JAABLOG's February 2, 2010 post titled Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me ...

Posted by JAABLOG at 2/2/2010 9:29 PM

2/3/2010 1:40 AM Hallandale Beach Blog wrote:

First, some facts about Tuesday's vote on financing a new Broward County Courthouse, a story that only the Daily Business Review, JAABLOG and I wrote about. Not asking for plaudits, just noting it for historical context.

For those courthouse denizens who animate this blog with their constant contempt of Broward taxpayers thru your comments here, who think that a new Broward County Courthouse is very important, guess what?

The South Florida news media could hardly care less about you. You barely register on their horizon. You are insignificant.

In the days and weeks before the vote, the two daily South Florida newspapers and the four network TV stations sat on their hands and reported nothing about this issue. Neither the Herald or the Sun-Sentinel have mentioned this subject in print or online since last September, when a Guest Op-Ed purported to have been written by Comm. Stacy Ritter was published in the Sun-Sentinel.

Once again, on something very important, South Florida's news media has shown they were sleeping on the job, and let the people down.

Did you EVER see anything last year on TV about the ties that the members of the Lieberman-led Task Force had to the Broward legal establishment, who desperately want a brand new pony?

Preferably, with a brand-new barn and a lifetime supply of feed. On the taxpayer's dime. Nope. There never was one

Watching the coverage Tuesday night at 11 p.m., actually thinking there'd be some interviews -with somebody!- this point was drive home all over again.

At 11:16 p.m. CBS-4's Antonio Mora did a 15-second read without any visuals and said the vote happened "last night," which as we know, is incorrect.

At 11:27 p.m., Local10's Laurie Jennings also did a 15-second read

with archived visuals of yellow tape and leaking ceilings.

There's the press coverage of your shiny new pony.

And why is it that so few usually well-informed people actually know how poorly Lieberman handled the rigged Task Force last year?

I wrote last year on my blog how she and the county administrators didn't follow basic aspects of the state's Sunshine Laws, and instead, tried to fool the public by arranging for the agenda and assorted relevant public docs for the last meeting, which should've been online before the meeting, to be placed online HOURS AFTER the last meeting was already over.

Not that they actually had the final public meeting listed online days before the meeting, since they didn't. Lieberman was the one in charge -the Chair. But the media didn't care -just like now.

Keep up the great work, JAABLOG!

-----------------------------

In case you forget how that vote for taxpayers paying for a new Broward Courthouse went, voting in favor: Ken Keechl, Stacy Ritter, Ilene Lieberman, Al Jones and Diana Wasserman-Rubin.

Voting against: Sue Gunzberger, Lois Wexler and John Rodstrom.

re South Florida's elected officials and law enforcement continually acting ignorant of First Amendment rights -feigned ignorance or real stupidity?

Below is a copy of an email that went out to a few dozen pretty well-informed people around the State of Florida late Monday afternoon as a bcc.

The email also went out as a CC to the following individuals: Katie Fisher of the First Amendement Foundation in Tallahassee, http://www.floridafaf.org/; Dominic Calabro of Florida Taxwatch, http://www.floridataxwatch.org/, someone who has proven himself to be a person who won't put up with alibis or nonsense from govt. bureaucrats abusing their authority or failing to give proper accountability; Doug Lyons of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and Anders Gyllenhaal and Edward Schumacher-Matos of the Miami Herald.

In the near future, there will be much more context and details to the story below about legal, ethical and bureaucratic excess in -surprise- Tamarac, the city that along with Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach continually fights Hallandale Beach for the title of most venal and corrupt.

Those helpful details and context will include some particulars on the continuing pathetic performance of Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti, someone who needs one of his many apologists or minions throughout the county to tell him to wake the hell up and stop sleepwalking his way thru his job, and in particular, STOP disrespecting the very citizen taxpayers who pay his salary.
We are not amused!

This isn't Sparta, Mississippi, comprende, and he doesn't get to pick and choose which laws he want to follow.
What doesn't he understand about that?

Message to the South Florida news media: Al Lamberti's 'hall pass' has expired, so please stop treating him like he's some frigging old-line royal, okay?
It's very uncomfortable to read and watch and only makes you reporters who walk on eggshells in your stories about him seem even more like sycophants than you are.

And now to the email:

In case you missed it the first time, last month, please consider the following material below as predicates for today's email from Broward community activist Bett Willett to myself, and ask yourself, where-oh-where is Michael Satz and the Broward State Attorney's Office or Judge Victor Tobin's free-floating anti-corruption crew to make examples of all the miscreant pols and LEOs in South Florida?
MISSING IN ACTION!

And are things really so bad in South Florida's media community in the year 2010 that the news media willingly ignores example after example of South Florida city attorneys pretending they DON'T know what's permitted at public meetings under the State and Federal Constitution?
Really?

Once upon a time in South Florida media, Hallandale Beach's reflexively anti-democratic city attorney David Jove's continual winking at self-evident violations of the state's Sunshine Laws by the City Manager, Mayor and City Commission would've gotten a reporter's attention and resulted in an utterly devastating front page story, along with a handy chronology graph
of all the curious things that had transpired while he was present but looking away, all while drawing a taxpayer-funded paycheck.

Alternately, I would've come home tired from practice after school and would've seen a devastating Ike Seamans or Susan Candiotti story -with very long legs!- that would've literally caused his family to cry after it aired, and it would've been thoroughly sourced and 100% accurate.

Which would make it powerful as hell and a warning to others like him to shape-up and fly right -or else!

A story that would've been updated often as more and more people told what they knew and had seen, with video showing Jove's nonchalant attitude towards the law being bent, broken and ignored with him just sitting there.
And we'd have literally gulped at his sheer stupidity.
But now?

Outside of a handful of reporters, these stories just sit there, limp, waiting for a better-late-than-
never arrest to suddenly give some news editor or TV news director's the idea to give the story some well-needed oxygen.

If public corruption is a 24/7 effort by public officials in South Florida, and it is, is it too much to ask that in the year 2010, a local Miami TV station or newspaper actually have a few reporters whose only job is reporting on and investigating municipal, county and state chicanery, who promptly return emails and phone calls.

While I lived in the Washington, D.C. area for 15 years, I was fortunate enough to come to know more than a fair amount of people who'd won Pulitzer Prizes, and even more people who should've but didn't, if you believed what they told me at Oriole ballgames at Camden Yards.

The one characteristic they all shared is a genuine willingness to reach out to people who actually know something of value and to try their best to be approachable, since they never knew when or how a compelling story would make itself known to them.
You know, our old friend serendipity?

In South Florida, it's not exactly Breaking News that there are far too many reporters and editors who are NEITHER.

They practically have to receive invitations to be convinced to show-up for some government meeting or public policy matter.
(Question: When did that become the job of the citizen, to convince the reporter to actually show-up and do THEIR job?)

And everyone knows who they are, regardless of what city or county you live in, because they are the same names that always come up in private conversations.

That's fine, after all, I'm not a publisher or a TV station general manager, but then they shouldn't expect me to care when they are the next one thrown overboard because of either the economy or a station management shake-up or "creative differences."

And trust me, that's the opinion of the majority of people I know down here who follow local government and politics VERY CLOSELY.

They're the same discerning folks who agree with me that South Florida NOT currently having a dynamic Cable TV station with a local hard-news focus is a deep embarrassment that belies the area's claims to sophistication.

------------------------

1.) From: Bett's G-Mail
Date: Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:22 PM
Subject: Tamarac

I went to the Tamarac Commission meeting after being asked by the Colony West folks to speak to the commission about Amendment 4 and golf course conversions, read below from my blog about what happened:

Friday, April 16, 2010 -
Civil Rights Trampled in Tamarac
http://blogbybett.blogspot.com

Tuesday's S.E. Broward Republican Club meeting: 9/12 Tea Parties and 2010 BSO Budget

Southeast Broward Republican Club

Dear Members and Friends,

Our next meeting is Tuesday,
September 1st, 2009

Check In: 6:30 P.M.
-Meeting Begins: 7 P.M.
Hollywood Beach Culture & Community Center
1301 South Ocean Drive/ A1A
Hollywood, FL 33019

Topic of Discussion: The 9/12 Tea Parties
and the Broward County Sheriff's Office
2010 Budget

Please feel free to pass on our invitation to your
friends and family, all are welcome.

Take I-95 to Hollywood Blvd., drive East towards
the beach.

Drive over Hollywood Blvd. Intracoastal Bridge.
turn right/South.

The Hollywood Beach Culture and Community
Center will be on your left-hand side at
intersection of Azalea Terrace.

Metered parking lot. Refreshments served.

Tickets will be on sale for the "Heroes In Action"
- Hollywood Police Athletic League-Boxing event.

If you have any questions, please feel
free to call me anytime.

Until then...Stay active, connected and informed!

Ed Napolitano, President
(954) 296-0041

----------
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1191012.html

Miami Herald

Details of Broward Sheriff's Office budget cuts expected

BY DIANA MOSKOVITZ

August 18, 2009

The budget battle between Broward County commissioners and Sheriff Al Lamberti could be near a resolution by Tuesday's end.

The Broward Sheriff's Office is scheduled to go before commissioners Tuesday with details of how it will trim $21 million from its spending plan. Most of the savings would come from cutting in-custody treatment programs, an unspecified number of layoffs and closing the Stockade, the minimum security jail.

About $3 million of the total would be made up in more money from fees.

Lamberti would reopen the Stockade in short bursts should the inmate population get too high. Broward is under a federal court order to stay beneath a jail population cap or face a fine.

If approved, the budget agreement would end months of wrangling between commissioners and BSO.

With property values down, county commissioners began this year's budget process with an approximate $100 million shortfall. They wanted Lamberti to shoulder about half of the burden and cut $46 million from his agency, the largest of its kind in Broward.

His proposal meets about half of the county's goal. Whether this is enough to please county leaders will be hashed out at Tuesday's workshop.

If Lamberti and commissioners don't reach a compromise before the start of the fiscal year Oct. 1, the sheriff could appeal his budget to the Florida Cabinet, a potentially lengthy process.

A presentation about BSO's spending plan is scheduled to go before county commissioners at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Broward County Government Center, 115 S. Andrews Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. It will be the first in a full day of presentations from various county services.

--------------
Two columnists write on the no-win situation for
BSO with Maury Hernandez

sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/sfl-bso-maury-mayocol-b083109,0,514119.column

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

In real world, miracle deputy doesn't get dream ending

Michael Mayo

News Columnist

August 31, 2009

If the miraculous recovery of Broward Sheriff's Deputy Maury Hernandez were a movie, the ending would have Hernandez putting on his badge and holster and returning to his job as a street detective.

But this is real life, which means things aren't so tidy. Two years after taking a bullet to the head during a traffic stop, Hernandez walked into a recent meeting at the Sheriff's Office in uniform, and the reaction was discomfort.

Hernandez, 30, now confronts a tangle of insurance and pension issues. Instead of life-affirming triumph, there's soul-deadening bureaucracy. He has a lawyer. There's tension in the air.

"I'm not asking for a charity position," Hernandez wrote by e-mail Monday. "If the sheriff didn't really mean it when he said there would be something waiting for me then I just want him to tell me so. I will not have hard feelings."

Said Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti: "Emotions have overtaken everything."

On this there's agreement: Hernandez isn't fit to perform his old job. His mobility is compromised, his left arm partly paralyzed. Basically, a return to a weapon-carrying law-enforcement job doesn't appear possible.

During his rehabilitation, Hernandez got full pay through the county's worker's compensation system. But that's about to lapse. Lamberti said Hernandez has two options:

He can retire with a permanent disability pension from the state, which would pay him 65 percent of his salary for life, tax-free. The payments would start at $32,229 a year and rise with inflation. He'd also get lifelong health insurance.

He can take a civilian job with the Sheriff's Office, something like an investigative aide. But that would mean he'd be disqualified from getting disability benefits related to the shooting in the future.

"It's Maury's decision, but we just want to make sure he fully understands the ramifications," said Lamberti, who didn't attend the Aug. 5 meeting.

"So far, all that has been offered is disability retirement, which is not a job," Hernandez wrote Monday. I wanted to talk face-to-face, but his attorney wouldn't allow it.

"I loved working at the BSO, and my heart is there," Hernandez wrote. "It's a shame the way things are right now, but there is too much positive history and too many great friends there for me to say that my feelings have soured."

Lamberti said he wouldn't want Hernandez to return to the Sheriff's Office, get injured because of his condition and not be entitled to benefits. The sheriff said the meeting was meant to be a starting point, not an ultimatum.

"We want what's best for Maury," Lamberti said.

Lance Block, Hernandez's attorney, called the Aug. 5 session "a sales meeting to get him to take the disability option."

If Hernandez took the disability pension, Lamberti said he could remain involved with the Sheriff's Office as a motivational speaker or crisis-team volunteer. "Look, the guy is a true inspiration," Lamberti said.

Lamberti knows that Hernandez makes for the ultimate sympathetic figure, and this is a public-relations fight he can't win.

But it's not as if Hernandez is the first to get wounded or disabled on the job. If Lamberti makes an exception to let Hernandez keep his position, then lawsuits from other disabled deputies could follow.

Hernandez's shooter, David Maldonado, is now serving a life sentence.

A shame that Hernandez, as the victim, might also have to serve a life sentence, losing the job he loves.

"I don't know what my next step will be," Hernandez wrote.

Not exactly a Hollywood ending. But it could have been a whole lot worse.

----------------
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/daniel-shoer-roth/story/1199594.html

Miami Herald
August 24, 2009

BSO denies deputy his dream to serve again

By DANIEL SHOER ROTH

Ever since Maury Hernández emerged from a coma a year and 10 months ago he has received countless demonstrations of the community's affection and been highly decorated. He even got to throw the first pitch at a baseball game between the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays.

Through it all, Hernández, the deputy shot in the head while on duty two years ago, has yearned for only one thing: to return to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

He was ecstatic when he was scheduled to meet with BSO on Aug. 5. The night before, he filled four notebook pages with new handwritten ideas. And in the morning, he suited up in his old uniform, which now includes a green honor medal usually presented posthumously to fallen officers. He came that close.

He was devastated after the meeting. He says BSO officials told him he would go on permanent disability retirement. "It's the worst betrayal of my life,'' said Hernández, 30, who suffers from motor-function problems on the left side of his body. "Everybody knew I wanted to go back to work.''

Jim Leljedal, a BSO spokesman, said no final decision has been made on Hernández's case. "We discussed his future, his options and his eligibility for a disability pension,'' Leljedal said. "Everyone here admires and loves Maury, and we want the best for him.''

BSO seems to think retirement would be best. Hernández says that was the only offer on the table.

"If they really want the best for me, they should have asked me, knowing that going back to work is what my heart wants,'' said the Cuban-American officer who lives in Hialeah with his parents. Hernández almost died protecting this community, and BSO, for all its proclamations of love and admiration for him, responds by shattering his dream of returning to the work he loves. Shameful.

It's deviously hypocritical coming after Hernández became Al Lamberti's poster child during his campaign for sheriff and never missed a photo-op next to the hero.

This injustice could stir Broward County's Hispanic community, which claims it is not adequately represented in Broward's police departments, said José "Pepe'' López, a member of BSO's new diversity committee.

"This is not well seen in the Hispanic community, especially among Cubans who went all out to support the sheriff with donations and votes,'' López said.

Doctors gave Hernández no hope of survival in August 2007, when David Maldonado, a motorcyclist he confronted for speeding past several red lights on Pembroke Road, shot him twice. Last year Maldonado was sentenced to life in prison.

The officer survived miraculously and gradually recovered, winning the hearts of South Floridians.

On Thursday, Hernández accompanied his father, Mauricio, to Dadeland Mall to buy a handbag for his mother, Rosa, for the couple's 32nd wedding anniversary Saturday. When they went to gift-wrap the present, Hernández said the clerk told him, "You are that cop! You have no idea how much we've prayed for you.''

Two years ago the Hernándezes spent their 30th anniversary at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, surrounded by their son's colleagues and superiors, who brought them a cake.

"In these two years, the BSO kept a very close relationship with us, almost like family,'' Mauricio said. "We don't understand why the case is now so tactlessly handled.''

The answer may be in the budget. If Hernández is given a disability retirement, his pension, which would equal his salary, would be paid from sources other than BSO's budget. Except this is not about money, but about honor.

"At police departments there are enough positions assigned to officers wounded while on duty,'' said Alejandro Recio, a retired detective from the Hollywood Police Department. ``If Maury wishes to go back to work, he deserves that right.''

Hernández is not thinking of conceding defeat. He has hired an attorney.

These last few years, life has taught him to challenge all predictions. First he was told he would never walk again. But he walked. Then he was told he would walk only with a cane. He now walks without one, and strolls around a neighborhood lake.

"This is why I believe I can still make a difference in the police department,'' Hernández said. "There is nothing like getting up in the morning and doing the work you love.''

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/daniel-shoer-roth/story/1199594.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1