Showing posts with label Ann Murray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ann Murray. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

The news story hiding in plain sight is often news that #SoFL newsrooms simply have no interest in covering, whether fairly or with bias. In any case, Rod Velez's legal qualifications to serve on Broward School Board will soon come to a head, as Gov. DeSantis may again have to replace an elected official in Broward County

The news story hiding in plain sight is often news that #SoFL media newsrooms simply have no interest in covering, whether fairly or with bias. In any case, Rod Velez's legal qualifications to take office on Broward School Board will come to a head soon, as Gov. DeSantis may again have to replace an elected official in Broward County.



For several weeks since the August 23rd primary election, the talk among Broward's political chattering class -and in the South Florida news media, to the the extent it ever appeared- had been about whether or not Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would AGAIN remove Donna Korn if she won the Broward School Board At-Large seat that was the subject of a runoff race last Tuesday vs. Allen Zeman

Their race, which Zeman won 51% to 49%, was the subject of a recent large group email blast of mine as well as a subsequent blog post here on Oct. 19th.

The Korn Conundrum: Broward School Board At-Large candidate Donna Korn, who's already been removed by Gov. Ron DeSantis bec of a Grand Jury's recommendations, remains unpopular with the public and unable to defend her track record. But her opponent, Allen Zeman, is not just someone who is largely unknown, but has a troubling history of claiming things to be true that are NOT. Of actually lying with impunity. What should Broward County voters do?

https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-korn-conundrum-broward-school-board.html

But while that subject generated at least some attention, what had NOT been discussed publicly in the 1,001 ways that you would expect or anticipate for a subject as serious as whether or not a candidate was even qualified to run for elected office, were many facts coming to light via myriad stories and rumors re Broward School Board District 1 Rod Velez, and his eligibility status to represent Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Dania Beach if he was, in fact, elected, as a result of a prior felony conviction.

Things first began to dribble out a few weeks ago from his opponent in the runoff, Marie Murray Martin, the daughter of former District One incumbent Ann Murray, who was one of the four School Board members removed in late August by DeSantis, who was running to replace her mother. 

Using her Facebook campaign page and other Social Media of her mother, friends and supporters in SE Broward and elsewhere, Martin was successfully able to get uncorroborated information about Velez into the sunshine and online that local Miami and Fort Lauderdale- based news media had ignored reporting publicly in the ways that, well, they have literally patented over the past 25 years.

(As I have written since starting this blog in 2007, having previously lived in Chicago and Washington, D.C. and knowing dozens of well-known Beltway journalists, columnists and 
editors at top-tier news organizations well enough to go to ball games, movies with them, or, attend barbecues at their homes, no media market in the USA more avidly ignores reporting 
more stories of public interest and consideration than the South Florida news media, print and TV. They think that TOO!
Too many "reporters" here act like wannabe-corporate publicists for the powerful, affluent and influential, not curious investigative reporters, or, at least semi-skeptical representatives of the public pushing back consistently against the taxpayer-paid PIOs of South Florida about what is fact and what is fantasy.) 

That is to say, Marie Murray Martin ran to replace her mother on the Broward School Board dais WITHOUT ever speaking publicly or in-person at any event in Hollywood or Hallandale Beach the past few months about all the many ethics and corruption questions surrounding her mother for the past 12 years, to say nothing of the ones about her mother's consistently poor judgment and inability and unwillingness to tell the truth to area parents.
Or, to even look them in face without Murray having lots of BTU members around her -or Robert Runcie in tow- to run interference and keep the public quiet.

Ann Murray was notorious for being a no-show at education events in Hallandale Beach the past 16 years -even before she ran and got elected- as I have always been quick to remind readers here and my Followers on my Twitter feed, @hbbtruth

As you regular readers of the blog know well, ethically-challenged Ann Murray has been the subject of DOZENS of fact-filled and and photo-filled posts on this blog over the time she has been an embarrassing hand grenade of an elected official, always ready to explode in the faces of residents, parents and stakeholders in this area who want better quality education oversight and accountability.

A week before the election, perhaps sensing that the race was perhaps getting away from her, not surprisingly, a dam broke and a wall of unflattering information about Velez came gushing out, most of which was not independently corroborated. Little wonder where that was coming from, given the glaring apathy of the South Florida news media.


Now, in the days since the election where Velez won 52%-47%, there's finally some reporting.
Some, not much, and to be honest, WLRN radio barely counts.
Once upon a time it might've, especially before the pandemic, but that was YEARS ago.

When I lived and worked in Washington, D.C. from 1988-2003, I listened to NPR's D.C. affiliate, WAMU 91.3 FM, on average about 8 hours a day, Monday thru Friday.
That was largely because I was in an office setting most of the day when I wasn't in a meeting, over on Capitol Hill for a hearing or meeting or doing some handholding of a client over there or some nearby bar or restaurant.
But since I returned to South Florida, well, WLRN has become far too too smarmy, dupliitous, stridently liberal, and too predictable.
Even worse in my opinion, far too incurious or unwilling to challenge the Democratic government orthodoxy that has so badly served the public here for so long in ways large and small, whether housing, transportation, ethics, or business development.

These days, WLRN is more more like NPR's Junior Varsity, and their JV B team at that, with the same likes and dislikes, and the same fetishizing of some subjects and places beyond anything that makes sense. That is, if it's in Wynwood it gets on air, Hallandale Beach or Hollywood, no chance.
No chance at all!

WLRN is actually worse than Tampa Bay's NPR station, WUSF-FM, where they at least try to have someone on once in a while with an alternative POV.
Here, it's always the same names and same voices saying the same things that make no sense.
 


Now there's some informed talk among some usually-informed people here and in Tallahassee that Gov. DeSantis could simply say that the rules are the rules, and remove Velez and say that he was not in compliance with Florida law regarding former felons voting and being legally qualified to run for office.
Then, presumably, replace Velez with an interim person until another election can take place in a few months, since saying that he broke the law and leaving him in place is even more problematic for a guy like DeSantis, who clearly does not like unnecessary drama that can go sideways.

Here's a snapshot of some of what was going on this weekend while you were watching the Dolphins big 39-16 win against the Cleveland Browns or otherwise staying away from local politics and government.








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Wednesday, October 19, 2022

The Korn Conundrum: Broward School Board At-Large candidate Donna Korn, who's already been removed by Gov. Ron DeSantis bec of a Grand Jury's recommendations, remains unpopular with the public and unable to defend her track record. But her opponent, Allen Zeman, is not just someone who is largely unknown, but has a troubling history of claiming things to be true that are NOT. Of actually lying with impunity. What should Broward County voters do?

The Broward County Public Schools HQ, home of the Broward School Board, long the hotbed of flat-out unethical behavior, egregious cronyism, and corruption of the sort that you seldom see in the 21st Century

The Korn Conundrum: Broward School Board At-Large candidate Donna Korn, who's already been removed by Gov. Ron DeSantis because of a Grand Jury's recommendations -which were not publicly released because several Board members fought their public release- remains unpopular with the general public and seems unable to defend her track record in-person. 

The problem for voters aas well as Broward County parents, students and taxpayers is that Korn's opponent, Allen Zeman, is not just someone who is largely unknown to the residents of Florida's fourth-largest county, but someone whom it fairly be said to have a troubling history of claiming things to be true that are... NOT. Some people even say he lies with impunity.

How many people do you know who'd claim that they'd been promoted to Admiral quicker than anyone in the history of the U.S. Navy? Who would even think of saying such a thing?
Tom Lauder of Red broward has been all over this story even as most of the South Florida news media have taken a pass on holding Zeman to account, to say nothing of asking why Korn is running for an office largely on a campaign based on campaign signs.. 

So, what should Broward County voters do?

*I'll be updating this post over the next 24-48 hours, as my first draft of this post crashed with some interesting info somehow not saved, so I'm basically reinventing the wheel on this. 😒

Here's a small look at how it's going thus far from my perch on the At-Large seat, watching with dismay that the choices are so dismal and unappealing.
And I haven't even posted my words and concerns about how many people I know who find the unappealing District One Broward School Board race between Marie Murray Martin, daughter of disgraced recent School Board member Ann Murray, subject of dozens of fact-filled columns here at the blog in the past, and Rod Velez, endorsed by The South Florida Sun Sentinel but someone not without his own ethical problems staring us in the face. 
That post re District 1 will be posted within the next week

Some of the most fervent and opinionated independent-minded education activists as well as Deep Blue Broward Democrats I know have told me that under no circumstances will they vote for any of these four candidates because they, literally, do NOT want to be blamed for having thrown them a lifeline. 
When I joked with them that they were engaging in a  little bit of pro-active election denialism -which is a favorite go-to subject on PBS' News Hour show- even BEFORE the votes are counted while the never-ending early voting takes place.
They laughed -weakly- at hearing that because they know how it makes them look sort of hypocritcal, but they literally want these four people to just... disappear.

Sort of like those Donna Korn campaign signs on high-traffic Hallandale beach Blvd. disappeared that I reference below, based on my own first-hand observations.
I'll have a column about the Murray vs. Velez race here within the week.


While some of you were sleeping the past few weeks...






 All from RED BROWARD @RedBroward:

September  21, 2022
“Admiral” Allen Zeman Tells Sun-Sentinel He Had “Admiral Rank”
https://redbroward.com/2022/09/21/admiral-allen-zeman-tells-sun-sentinel-he-had-admiral-rank/#comments

September 20, 2022
“Admiral” Allen Zeman Hired Roger Stone “Protégé” To Work On His Broward School Board Campaign
https://redbroward.com/2022/09/20/admiral-allen-zeman-hired-roger-stone-protege-to-work-on-his-broward-school-board-campaign/

August 19, 2022
Admiral Z-Man?!? Broward School Board Candidate Allen Zeman Says He Was “Promoted To The Admiral Rank Faster Than Anybody In The History Of The Navy.”
https://redbroward.com/2022/08/19/admiral-z-man-broward-school-board-candidate-allen-zeman-says-he-was-promoted-to-the-admiral-rank-faster-than-anybody-in-the-history-of-the-navy/

I'll be updating this post over the next 24-48 hours, as my first draft of this post crashed with some interesting info not saved, so I'm basically reinventing the wheel on this. 😒

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

In light of U.S. Appeals Court ruling against President Trump's use of Twitter and Blocking people, when can we expect Broward School Board to publicly say when it'll conform to the spirit and letter of the law? Don't hold your breath!


Above and below, July 13, 2010 photo by me, looking south at the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In 2016, quite out-of-the-blue, I received an interesting Tweet from someone I'd never met or ever heard of before, Angela Greben, a San Jose, California resident. Among other things, Angela really hates government agencies and officials who seem to not think twice about violating norms (or even laws) about public records and transparency and what the public is entitled to expect in the way of access to public information. 

Her tweet caused quite a ripple after I wrote about it and what I thought it represented.
Though I've never spoken about it before, despite all the dozens of prior blog posts I'd written here about the feckless School Board, her tweet, and actually seeing that list of Blocked people, with my name on top of it, caused me to receive lots of email from concerned people all over Broward County, South Florida and points north and west whom I'd never heard from before.
People who shared my own misgivings about the bad conduct of the scandal-plagued and mis-behaving Broward County School Board.

That is to say, the Broward School Board as a collective entity, as well as it ragtag collection of constituent members and superintendents, and their army of supporters and flacks.

For you newcomers, take a look at this post from earlier in the year:
Culture of Corruption & Incompetency by Feckless Broward School Board, General Counsel Barbara J. Myrick & Supt. Robert Runcie in a Nutshell.
re The special Grand Jury impaneled by the Florida Supreme Court via Gov. Ron DeSantis investigating feckless Broward County Schools & its School Board: 
Broward education activists & taxpayers want you to make sure that Broward Schools General Counsel Barbara J. Myrick is one of first persons grilled. 
She has a LOT to publicly account for, as does nearly every School Board member

Yes, the whole cast of charcters at Broward Schools have been a frequent and popular target of my fact-filled blog posts and fact-based Twitter barbs ever since I started the blog twelve years ago, and then, finally got a Twitter acount under the nom-de-guerre @hbbtruth

Yes, as in Hallandale Beach Blog + Truth, because that's what this blog is all about in the end. 
Revealing the truth so that the public knows what is reality and what is, you know, Fake News.

To my own eternal regret and embarrassment, I was rather late to the Twitter party, especially given my ENFP personality, who I am in the scheme of things locally in this part of southeast Broward and the sheer volume of history I know as well as the number of knowledgeable and influential people I know who know even more than I do, including about the Broward School system's history, track record, and its various roster of players over the years, who've shared what they know with me.
People like Charlotte Greenbarg, for instance.

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
- Winston Churchill

So, as to that part above about having "enemies"... For those of you who are newcomers to the blog, I've been writing fact-filled, analytical blog posts about the serial corruption, incompetency and fecklessness by the Broward School Board on a whole array of issues for the past twelve years.

And, I've also written about them with regularity as well on my popular South Florida Twitter handle, @hbbtruth, since October of 2013, often buttressing some other person's good point with facts, or, necessarily throwing some cold water on someone via cold hard facts who wants us to believe something that can't be believed by anyone who knows anything about common sense or human behavior.

Trust me, there's a good reason that so many activists, personalities, elected officials and members of the South Florida or Florida press corps that you know and trust are Following me on Twitter and reading my latest post on this blog, which can net anywhere between 15,000 and 90,000 page views a month, depending upon the subjects du jour and the time of year, with, not surprisingly, "the season," October thru April being highest readership numbers for the blog.


That means not just accepting whole what is written in South Florida newspapers or on websites or seen on TV, but of my actually going to meetings all over Broward County -and especially in Hollywood and Hallandale Beach- and meeting other concerned and curious Broward citizens and taxpayers who wonder about the same things I do: ethics, accountability, public oversight, conflicts-of-interest and power plays by certain parties and groups within the Broward education Establishment and the people who support it in the Broward business community, who make lots of money on the school system as contractors and vendors for projects needed and wasteful.

So, I have seen first-hand the incriminating reports and the damning photos and the files that have been so much in the news since 2007 surrounding the culture of corruption.

As you might imagine, that sort of consistent public questioning of elected officials and administrators and a willingness to publicly challenge people personally to substantiate and back up what they say leads to lots of things.

On the one hand, it means that many people throughout Broward who make education one of their chief concerns -regular citizens, public officials as well as many local print/TV reporters and columnists- know from personal experience that when I say something, that I not only know of what I speak, but can also personally produce the incriminating evidence, or, know the very people who can produce it so that the public finds out the truth.

That sort of effort over a dozen years also creates all sort of friction with people who are supposed to be working FOR the public, including numerous past and current elected Broward School Board members, administrators and their staffs, who do NOT like seeing the truth being publicly discussed in a logical and reasonable way.
And even worse, discussed in print where anyone can see the facts and not have to accept their own particular spin on things.

So that kind of effort is why I was on the Top Ten list of people whom the Broward School system has been BLOCKING on Twitter since 2016, as the Angela Greben tweet above makes clear.
Yes, I wear they're BLOCKING of me like a gold medal, and proudly so.


















Yesterday we all learned that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit had finally ruled in a case that has been featured dozens of times in U.S. news media over the past few years, issuing a unanimous opinion that President Trump has been violating the U.S. Constitution by blocking Twitter users who criticize or mock him.

Plaintiffs Buckwalter, Cohen, Figueroa, Gu, Neely, Papp, and Pappas (“Individual Plaintiffs”) are social media users who were blocked from accessing and interacting with the Twitter account of President Donald J. Trump because they expressed views he disliked.  The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University is an organization alleging a right to hear the speech that the Individual Plaintiffs would have expressed had they not been blocked.  The Plaintiffs sued President Trump along with certain White House officials, contending that the blocking violated the First Amendment.  The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Buchwald, J.) found that the “interactive space” in the account is a public forum and that the exclusion from that space was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.  We agree, and, accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.

that he engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by utilizing Twitter’s “blocking” function to limit certain users’ access to his social media account, which is otherwise open to the public at large, because he disagrees with their speech.  We hold that he engaged in such discrimination and, consequently, affirm the judgment below

The ruling leaves open lots of other interesting questions, like whether this will also apply to other federal, state and local elected officials, governments or agencies?

Read the court's opinion for yourself:







So in thinking about all of this yesterday, I knew that someone needed to ask a reasonable question to someone at the Broward School Board about its past history of Blocking concerned Residents like me on Twitter, given that South Florida's news media has not exactly jumped on this sort of story to the extent that I and many other civic activists believe they should have.

So, I thought of whom the most reasonable person was on the School Board whom I could ask.
That was an easy call.

It certainly isn't the feckless, foul-mouthed and Runcie-supporter who represents Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, Ann Murray, long a target of public criticism here on my blog and on my Twitter handle DOZENS of times when she has repeatedly and publicly engaged in misdirection and misrepresented both herself and her long track record of inaction, inadequacy and logrolling. 

Because of the demographics of this part of Broward, our area should have an outstanding person on the School Board representing us. Someone who is known for their savviness, public demeanor, scrupulous ethics, their reliable, hardworking nature, and their willingness to admit when they are wrong and adjust their thinking to new facts and new realities.
None of which are qualities that have ever been associated with Ann Murray.
We could do SO MUCH better than Ann Murray, who was narrowly re-elected last November.


Given what I wrote about her last Friday on the blog and had earlier tweeted about her, it clearly wasn't going to be Dr. Roslind Osgood, now was it?

Mystery solved at Broward School Board! The Doctor did it! New York Times revealed that Broward County School Board member Rosalind Osgood used her African-American college sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, as a conduit to mobilize supporters of Supt. Robert W. Runcie at BCSB meetings earlier this year debating Runcie's future



In the end, I decided I'd use Twitter to ask School Board member Lori Alhadeff, someone who actually led the charge in March to make Supt. Runcie publicly accountable, to his one of his bosses, even though many of the School Board members defer to him so much on policy issues and decisions at meetings that you can well be forgiven for thinking that they work for him, not the other way around.
But not her.

What Lori Alhdaeff wants doesn't seem like too much to ask for: she wants the truth, positive results and to end the reign of the faceless School bureaucrats who seemingly can never be held to account publicly, no matter how bad things get and have already gotten.
That's something and someone worth supporting, especially under the horrific and unique circumstances that led her to running for the School Board last year.
Her pain is real and omnipresent.




I'll keep you advised on what I hear about this, since we all know that unless they are pushed or shoved, there are far too many members of the South Florida press corps who simply are NOT going to see this issue for what it truly is.
A sign that for many people in government in South Florida, i.e the Broward School Board and the Supt. Runcie, there are rules for some people and special rules for special people.
And they think they are special people.

No, the law has to apply to everyone if it is going to be both respected and followed.
No special rules for special people.
Period.



Thursday, October 22, 2015

Since facts still matter... Important facts & context NOT revealed in Sun-Sentinel's account of Broward County School Board hiring Leo Bobadilla from Houston to head its "troubled $800 million bond program." Charlotte Greenbarg, Buddy Nevins & Ericka Mellon help me connect some dots on the 'bigger picture' and what it reveals is NOT positive about Broward School Board members' public accountability. Surprise!

Since facts still matter... Important facts & context NOT revealed in Sun-Sentinel's account of Broward County School Board hiring Leo Bobadilla from Houston to head its "troubled $800 million bond program." Charlotte Greenbarg, Buddy Nevins & Ericka Mellon help me connect some dots on the 'bigger picture' and what it reveals is NOT positive about Broward School Board members' public accountability. Surprise!




South Florida Sun-Sentinel
District hires $185K executive - School board vote brings aboard head of embattled bond program in Texas
By Brittany Shammas, Staff writer
October 21, 2015

The Broward County School Board voted Tuesday to hire the leader of an embattled Houston school district bond program to oversee its own troubled $800 million bond program, which is being used renovate aging schools.

Leo Bobadilla, chief operating officer at the Houston Independent School District, will earn $185,707 as Broward's chief facilities officer. He'll be responsible for overseeing the construction and design of new facilities, as well as maintaining, repairing and renovating existing facilities

Read the rest of the article at:

Broward Beat
Slammed In Last Job Because Of Bad Audits, Now Hired By Broward Schools
By Buddy Nevins
October 18, 2015

The Houston school executive chosen to manage Broward’s school construction was slammed for running a program that overpaid contractors and allowed lawful spending caps to be circumvented.

Leo Bobadilla, chief operating officer of the Houston school system, is due to be hired on Superintendent Robert Runcie’s recommendation on Tuesday.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/slammed-in-last-job-because-of-bad-audits-now-hired-by-broward-schools/

Do I even need to point out that this week, per the above matter, we saw YET ANOTHER 
embarrassing vote on the Broward School Board by SE Broward's member, Ann Murray, who showed all over again that facts and context never really matter to her as long as she and the other School Board insiders can keep common sense accountability and reform from coming into play before even more kids and parents abandon the Broward public schools? 
Apparently so.

But if you were hiring someone for an important position of public trust, wouldn't you want to know as many salient and relevant facts as possible about their past experience, good and bad? 
Probably so.
The problem is that Ann Murray doesn't.

This is hardly surprising, given Murray's consistently unimpressive track record on behalf of the public and public education, which I have cited 44 times in the past 7 years on my blog, most recently, back in June:
Broward County residents increasingly dismayed by brazenness of Broward County 
Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie & Broward School Board's Ann Murray and Rosalind 
Osgood's actions re bond $$ transparency & oversight

Supt. Robert W. Runcie wants Leo Bobadilla
Okay, that's good enough for Murray to say yes.
Just like the guys from Chicago that Runcie also said he needed to hire to fix things for him who never quite worked out. 

At times like this, it's very hard to recall that Supt. Runcie works for her and us, not the other way around.
And I remind you that I was a Runcie supporter initially, but at some point you have to admit that it's not working out the way you hoped.

Below, a relevant fact about this matter from my friend Charlotte Greenbarg, longtime Hollywood and Broward civic activist and education reformer, now making a big difference over in Lutz, in Hillsborough County.
(Yes, Lutz. Which, admittedly, I had never heard of before Charlotte moved there, since it sounded more like an App than a real place in Florida.)

Makes you wonder why the fact that the Houston audit was apparently going to be released the next day wasn't mentioned in the Sun-Sentinel article, no?
Really, the Broward School Board couldn't even wait 48 hours?

FYI: The abc13.com link below has a video about the story, too.


--------

This is the article from the Houston Chronicle. The Broward School Board didn’t think it was important to wait for the audit. Wonder why? 
They hired the Houston person the day BEFORE the audit was released.

Charlotte Greenbarg, President
IVBE, Inc.
Lutz, FL




 
TED OBERG INVESTIGATES
Audit: HISD's inflation claims as cause for $211M shortfall are false
A just-released audit contradicts claims by HISD officials that "rising inflation and construction costs" were to blame for a $211 million budget shortfall.

By Ted Oberg and Trent Seibert
Wednesday, October 21, 2015 06:46PM

HOUSTON (KTRK) --

 An audit released Wednesday contradicts claims made last month by Houston Independent School District officials that "rising inflation and construction costs" were to blame for a $211 million shortfall in the school district's failure to complete all school projects promised to the community.
Read the rest of the article at: