Wednesday's N.E. Quadrant meeting in HB: a perfect opportunity to capture the angry mood of a city re over-development

Those of you who have called or written me in
the recent past and said that you'd have loved
to have covered this particular story earlier...
well, now you'll have your chance on Wednesday
night.
Mieux vaut tard que jamais.

Reminder: Next Wednesday, April 7th, is the
day that the Johnson Street RFP goes before
the Hollywood City Commission and the
commissioners finally get to pose questions to
the presenting teams, and vote for one team,
vote for both teams to proceed, or vote to start
over.

According to the City Manager's office, whom I
spoke to earlier today, their tentative schedule
is to have the regular City Commission meeting
at 1 p.m., the CRA meeting at 4 p.m. and their
combined CRA/City Commission meeting at 5 p.m.,
which is when the Johnson Street proposals
will come up.

I expect to have pared my video of the past
Johnson Street meetings down to the best
parts I recorded since last year and up on
the blog and YouTube page by this weekend,
so you might want to swing by and see what's there.

By the way, for those of you who don't know,
the DUO, pictured below, is located south of the
Diplomat Golf Course in HB and next to the
already commercially-zoned parcel the
Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union already
owns that neighborhood residents can live with,
just as they are also okay with a new upscale
500-room hotel to replace the existing 60-room
building and a new adjoining small retail complex
to it, located in the center of the golf course.

We all genuinely wish they'd manage and market
the golf course better than they currently do,
so that more people would use it, but we don't
have any control over that.

It doesn't help, however, that they seem
completely disinclined to actually listen to
the honest criticism of the course by avid
golfers in the area, real consumers, as if the
self-evident problems will somehow resolve
themselves.

What the community and nearby Hollywood
residents oppose is the Diplomat's owner
proposal to build 4-5 more of these incompatible
out-of-scale condo towers in a single-family
residential neighborhood, on secondary roads,
and threatening the future of the golf course
if they do not get their way with the condos.

We will not let their threats and bluffs
go unanswered.


Below, DUO

Below, depiction of a Diplomat condo tower on Atlantic Shores Blvd.,

looking SE towards the Intracoastal and the Atlantic Ocean.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:56 PM
Subject: N.E. Quadrant Meeting

Hello Friends;

Tomorrow night, the City of Hallandale Beach will hold a "quadrant" meeting to INFORM US what is going on and ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS we may have.

This is OUR TIME to ask about the DIPLOMAT LAC. NO 3 MINUTE CLOCK. It is OPEN to ANYONE. Even if you do not live in the N.E. area. Even if you do not live in Hallandale.

It does not get any EASIER to let the Mayor and Commissioners know how you feel about MORE TRAFFIC, MORE DEVELOPMENT, MORE HIGH RISES etc.

How would you like to see 6 or 7 high rises the size of the DUO on Diplomat Parkway? 900 residential units plus the 500 room hotel on Diplomat Parkway?

With 3000 residential units approved, do you think we need another 950 units to be approved? We have a ton of vacant, unsold and foreclosed units.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 6:30 P.M. Towers of Ocean View South, 600 Parkview Drive, HB.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT, TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO COME.

WEAR A RED SHIRT OR BLOUSE SEE YOU THERE WEDNESDAY NIGHT

Csaba Kulin

President, Fairways North, Inc.

VP United Condominium Association of Hallandale Beac

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

from Csaba Kulin
to Commissioner Anthony Sanders
date Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:57 PM
subject Broward County Commission Second Meeting on the Diplomat LAC

Honorable Commissioner Sanders;

We, the presidents, directors and residents of Fairways North, Inc., Fairways Inc., Fairways South, Inc. and Seventeenth Green Condominiums joined together in a coalition to be able to better represent out interests, wishes and desires. The 450 residential units of our 4 associations stand shoulder to shoulder with each other to protect our quality of life. I am sure that our collective voice will be more difficult to dismiss than each of us individually, now and in the future.

As you know, we have achieved something very seldom happens. The residents of HB with the help many others, were able stop BIG MONEY even if its is not the final vote. The most important thing that it "DID NOT PASS". As I understand the Diplomat can come back for an "other bite of the apple" in April.

I am sorry that you found it in your heart to speak up against us, but what BC Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin said was that really bothered me. She said "my 1360 registered voters in the N.W. section of Hallandale Beach, which I represent, want me to vote in favor of approving the Diplomat LAC". That was our 5th vote we needed to stop the LAC.

The 1360 registered voters of N.W. represent 6.5% of the 20,200 registered voters of HB. They are welcome to do whatever is in their best interest.

On the other hand, Commissioner, you were also elected by the other 93.5% registered voters of HB, and that 93.5 does not want the Diplomat LAC.

You are all about jobs, jobs and jobs. I agree with you, but you know that jobs are in hotels and commercial buildings. Residential units DO NOT create jobs. The Diplomat is already zoned for a hotel and a large commercial building with stores and offices. Please do not listen to the fear tactics of the Diplomat.

On behalf of the "Fairways Coalition" I ask you to meet with me/us to discuss what you are able and willing to do to help us secure that most important FIFTH vote on BC Commission on April 27, 2010.

To the Diplomat it is money, to some others it is politics but for us it is our quality of life is at stake. Tell me how any elected official can be for either of the first two?

The following Associations and Individuals stood shoulder to shoulder with us in this epic struggle. Not everyone was able to be at the Commission Meeting in person for various reasons but I can assure you, they were there with us in spirit. I hope the announcement after our victory will include the name HB Commissioner Anthony Sanders.

• Broward Coalition - President Charlotte Greenbarg
• Fairways Coalition Members
• Fairways South, Inc. President Michel LaPalme and Residents
• Fairways Inc. President Colin Edwards and Residents
• Fairways North, Inc. Board of Directors and Residents
• Seventeenth Green, Hon. Don Boudria, P.C.
• The Hemispheres President Julian Axelrod
• United Condominium Association of Hallandale Beach President Louis Parades
• Hollywood Lakes Section Civic Association President Terry Cantrell
• Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Bill Julian
• Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London
• Dave Smith
• Catherine Kim Owens
• Former Hallandale Beach Mayor Sonny Rosenberg
• Drs. Bob and Judy Selz
• Golden Condo Association President Beverly Carawan
• Venetian Park Condo Association David Chizen
• And many, many others with their e-mail, phone calls and going the meetings.

Thank You,

Csaba Kulin

President, Fairways North, Inc

VP United Condominium Association of Hallandale Beach

Bad news for Diana Wasserman-Rubin, no fan of Quality-of-Life in Hallandale Beach & Hollywood: Angelo Castillo may oppose her and he will win

The Broward Beat column by Buddy Nevins that I link
to below just got posted this morning, which explains why
there is only one reader comment there thus far.

Yesterday DWR voted against the thousands of people in
the Hallandale Beach neighborhood -and nearby Hollywood
residents- that are quite literally under-the-gun from the
unpopular and incompatible Diplomat LAC proposal,
as she has cast her lot with HB City Comm. Anthony A. Sanders
instead of the larger number of residents in this area whose
family's Quality-of-Life would be negatively affected by
the multiple condo towers and the increased traffic that
come with them.

She actually told three HB residents who met with her
at her office on Monday afternoon that she personally
avoids coming into that part of HB -i.e east of U.S-1-
because of the traffic nightmare, where we all know
from experience that we NEVER see HB Police
actually on duty to prevent the gridlock that Aventura
prevents by ACTUALLY having a visible presence
on Biscayne Blvd. and giving real tickets to scofflaws
'blocking the box."

(Just like you, if I had a dollar for every time
I saw an emergency vehicle with a siren wailing
try to head west on Hallandale Beach Blvd.
towards Aventura Hospital while it's
bumper-to-bumper from Three Islands to U.S-1,
I'd be sporting a new car.
So where are those HB cops, anyway?)

But if a vote for the Diplomat helps DWR with keeping
Sanders' Pied Piper support in NW, i.e the promise of
future jobs for NW residents, she was only too happy
to throw you and your family's neighborhood and Q-O-L
overboard, and tell you that's just tough.

That's her choice, of course, and she's welcome to it,
but if she thinks that Anthony Sanders and his
consistently anti-democratic, anti-transparency
voting record, truly abysmal lack of preparation
for city meetings -not even bothering to show-up
for the city's final vote on their big Transportation
Master Plan meeting last year- over-budget and
YEARS overdue, won't be an absolute albatross
around HER neck, she's very much mistaken.

But then isn't this vote of her's only a self-evident sign
of how truly desperate she is that she's stuck with the
equally dis-connected Sanders, who all this time later,
STILL can't tell you to your face what the official
city plan is for the property the city bought from him
and his wife for more than it was appraised at,
with your tax dollars?

Rushed with urgency to buy this one piece of property
as if there were oil deposits underneath and eager
oil execs were jetting in from Houston to sign a deal.
You know, Texas Tea?

A nondescript property which you own that the city
is now renting out for a grand total of -yes- $10 a month.
(And guess who had that deal?)

So what's the long term plan, exactly?
Where's the written strategy?
There isn't one.

Sanders can't tell you any more than Joy Cooper,
Mike Good or Richard Canonne can explain what
the grand plan for the sixty-plus properties that the
city ALREADY owns, that has no apparent rhyme
or reason to it.

And by city, I mean that YOUR tax dollars bought
and own.

Without an actual written plan that everyone in this
city knows about and can read, there is no guideline
or deadline -and ZERO scrutiny and accountability
for Hallandale Beach taxpayers.

That's why it's the way it is -HB City Hall wants it
that way. It's the same reason that HB citizens only
saw the Diplomat's submitted application and docs
to the city placed on the city's website just 28 hours
before the first vote -the P&Z- with Mayor Cooper
and Commissioners Julian, Ross and Sanders
consistently refusing, meeting after meeting, to support
Comm. Keith London's common sense motion to place
them on the website far enough before the vote would
take place, so that everyone could read them and come
to understand what they were proposing and draw
their own conclusions.

That collective refusal to allow you, the citizen taxpayers
of this city, to actually know what was being proposed,
was no accident.

It was entirely intentional, which is why I made a point
of mentioning it yesterday when I spoke before the
Broward County Commission, to explain, in part, why
the majority of well-informed citizens here so
adamantly oppose the Diplomat's over-the-top plans
for numerous condo towers in a residential neighborhood.

The self-evident nature of the city's unfairness to us,
and their completely unprofessional and unethical conduct
-AGAIN!- as if HB City Hall was a silent partner in the
enterprise, trying to FIX things so we'd have little chance
to respond in a reasonable fashion, was galling, and the
local news media's completely ignoring that fact only
made it worse.

That's the price many of us currently pay for living in
a city with a corrupt City Hall at the same time we
have a sleepwalking local news media.

IF he chooses to run, I'll be enthusiastically supporting
Angelo Castillo for the good of both Broward County's
future as well as this city's, which desperately needs all
the help and good, positive ideas it can get.

Smart, savvy and dynamic common sense help that,
in my opinion, it ISN'T currently getting and won't
receive in the future from disconnected and uninformed
Diana Wasserman-Rubin.

It's taking longer than I expected to go thru the hours
of photos and video I shot at yesterday's Broward
County Commission meeting, but I will definitely have
some of the material up by late tonight.

----------
Broward Beat
http://www.browardbeat.com/opponent-closing-in-on-wasserman-rubin/
Opponent Closing In On Wasserman-Rubin
By Buddy Nevins
March 24, 2010

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-wasserman-swamp-school-20100128,0,3130912.story
Wasserman-Rubin's husband played key role in controversial school land deal
By Scott Wyman, Sun Sentinel
January 28, 2010


The pull quote from the article below:
"I seldom get a call from the city," Wasserman-Rubin told those gathered at the
barbershop at 708 Foster Rd.
Just saying...

South Florida Times
July 2007; updated March 17, 2008

http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=290&Itemid=42

Residents outraged over neighborhood neglect

South Florida news media's silence in asking Steve Geller hard questions has never been more noticeable than now

What follows is an email I sent out this afternoon
to numerous South Florida print/TV reporters
and columnists, raising questions that you may
well have been asking yourself.

The part about Steve Geller could've been
asked last month or last year.
Oh, that's right, I did.
Reporters and columnists, not so much.
-------------

Monday March 22nd, 2010
Noon

Many of you have a reputation for being more
than willing to indulge former State Senator
Steve Geller's ego, and to contact him for
almost any reason under the sun if you think
he'll say something pithy that'll make your
audience chortle, even if he really doesn't
know any more about the subject than many
other people you could ask.

So that said, is there a reason that you and
the rest of the South Florida news media
haven't asked Steve Geller to publicly
declare his own sympathies, one way or
the other, in the fight by Hallandale Beach
citizens -and their allies in Hollywood-
against the incompatible Diplomat LAC
plan scheduled to be voted upon Tuesday
afternoon by the Broward County Commission?

Or to ever mention what other local Broward
pols are saying or doing in relation to the
prospect of four or five 25-story-plus condo
towers being dropped on a residential
neighborhood, largely because the Union
that owns the Diplomat Country Club,
along with their partner Starwood, has done
such a dreadful job of improving and marketing
the expensive golf course, that nobody wants
to play there.

(If they get the approval they seek from the
Broward County Commission, it's clear that
the Plumbers & Pipe Fitters Union will
try to sell it toute-de-suite.)

For instance, sounding-out local pols like
Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons, Jennifer
& Ken Gottlieb, Elaine Schwartz or
Ann Murray or...

In most parts of the country, they'd be part
of the equation, and maybe even vocal leaders
in the fight.
But here, they just sit on the sidelines, as if
local voters in HB and Hollywood don't notice
their MIA status, and won't take it into account
negatively come Election Day.

(They're in for a surprise, as we WILL
take it into account and ask questions
about their silence.)

No, instead, we are met with completely
incurious reporters who don't seem to want
to ask reasonable questions that Southeast
Broward residents want answers to.

It's the biggest issue in this city -besides
reforming a very corrupt HB City Hall-
and yet you all have, individually and
collectively, given Steve Geller a free ride
for months.

You've been completely averse to asking basic
questions of someone who could, theoretically,
actually represent most of this city and
Hollywood if he were to actually somehow defeat
Sue Gunzburger, though I think it's unlikely.

Why?
Why this great reluctance to ask Steve Geller
tough questions?

Is it the possibility of losing access to
a quotable source?

Frankly, that's what most people I know who
are interested in public policy in South Florida
believe.
You know, the ones interested enough to actually
show-up and participate and be quoted by you
or featured in interviews you conduct?

That's also the belief of many Florida reporters
from outside of South Florida.
If you didn't already know, many of them think
Geller plays the South Florida media like
a violin, some more easily than others
-from practice!

And why the great reluctance to ask Geller
to state the specific date by which he will
actually be living in the Commission
District he's running for, while he continues
to live outside of it up in Cooper City?

Geller has been a carpetbagger this entire
campaign, an adjective that you all seem
very reluctant to use for reasons that don't
necessarily speak well for your profession's
integrity.
It's all just so very, very curious.

And what is Broward Commissioner Diana
Wasserman-Rubin going to do on the
Diplomat LAC, since Hallandale Beach is part
of her District, even if the project itself is not?

Will she continue to give the concerned
neighborhood the complete runaround?

DWR had no problem at all in meeting Hallandale
Beach Commissioner Anthony A, Sanders
in person on March 8th at the Hepburn Center
in HB to hear the typically one-sided rhetoric
sans facts that he specializes in.

But when the actual neighborhood directly affected
by the over-the-top project wanted to show her
around and give her some first-hand perspective
and context to better understand their plight
-and more easily imagine a 25-30-story
condo suddenly going up 100 feet from
their kitchen window, and plunging them
into near permanent shade- after initially
agreeing to come, DWR decided the following
day, last Friday, that she didn't want to meet
with them on-site.
Which defeats the purpose of a walking
tour, no?

Instead, she asked them to come to her
West Park office today at 4 p.m., at the
Family Success Center, 4733 SW 18th Street,
one block south of Pembroke Rd.

Those of you who want to break away from
the media herd may want to consider
swinging-by there and see how it's goes,
but at this point, given all her other myriad
problems, DWR seems to just be digging
herself into a deeper hole with HB citizens,
who already thought she was distant and
far-removed from their day-to-day concerns,
which will only be magnified if she votes
for the Diplomat on Tuesday.

After failing to meet residents where
the project is slated to be built.

For the record, besides Sue Gunzburger,
who has been to numerous meetings in both
HB and Hollywood on this issue that I've
attended, NONE of the other Broward
County Commissioners have bothered
to come to the affected area to see what's
in store for these beleaguered residents.

Perhaps the attached Massing Study done
by the Diplomat's consultants will give
you a sense of their future if the Diplomat
gets their way.

Seeing is believing, which perhaps best explains
why DWR chooses not to visit the scene.

She knows that she can't look people in the eye
and say that she likes what the Diplomat
proposes to do to their home, so she forces a
handful of them to have to come to HER office,
where she has home-court advantage, and can
conclude the meeting whenever she wants.

If I were a betting man, as of this afternoon,
I'd say that Diana Wasserman-Rubin will
vote for the Diplomat's project, along with
both Stacey Ritter and Elaine Lieberman,
the latter two forever the developer's friend
and among the biggest individual drags on
Broward getting into the 21st Century thru
their smirky, ham-handed ethical problems.

Me, I'm just wondering when the news media
down here will once again have both some bark
and some bite.

-----

Those of you who want to see the Massing Study
I referred to above for yourselves should drop me
an email and I'll send it to you.
Write me at hallandalebeachblog(-at-)gmail.com

Chaz Stevens' latest video is a reality gut-check for Deerfield Beach; Angelo Castillo's idea on improving voting participation in Broward County

Chaz Stevens' latest video is exactly what I wanted
to do in 2008 with the City of Hallandale Beach's
(COHB) curious purchase of Pastor/Commissioner
Anthony A. Sanders personal property for much more
than its appraised value, as if HB City Hall had more
money than sense. LOL!
Well, history has clearly borne me out on this.

COHB was in a rush to buy this property owned by the
then-Pastor Anthony A. Sanders and his wife, so that
the city could promptly... do nothing with it at all.

Now that they've put HB taxpayers on the hook for it,
one of more than sixty-plus properties that COHB
currently owns, they rent it out at $10 -yes $10-
a month to a group the city wants to co-opt and stay
on friendly terms with for completely political reasons.

But what was the actual rationale for the purchase in
the first place, which was NEVER publicly advertised
on the HB City Commission agenda, but instead,
done under the stealthy rubric "Other," depriving
HB citizen taxpayers of their opportunity to not only
be publicly heard on this unseemly transaction,
but ask for proof of what STILL remains the city's
imaginary action plan?

They have a very vague idea but no actual overall
written plan they can either point taxpayers to,
or are willing to publicly share with them,
IF it even exists on paper.

Meanwhile, COHB's financial situation goes from bad
to worse -see http://changehallandale.com/,
click Budget or Debt - and they STILL can't answer
perfectly reasonable financial questions by residents
about this absurd purchase, despite plenty of time
and resources to do so.

In fact, this specific issue came up again this past week
at a city Quadrant meeting held at the city's Cultural
Center -more on that on Monday, along with video-
and once again, the city's highly-paid staff could NOT
point to something actually either written down
(or approved by the City Commission) that justified
a premium price bring paid for a mediocre piece of
property in 2008.

Like it was a Ken Griffey, Jr. Rookie baseball card
at the pinnacle of the baseball card craze in the early
1990's that disappeared once the actual merchandise
had been sold to the gullible public.
Caveat emptor, mes amis!

For those of you who are late to what Chaz Stevens
has uncovered in his corner of Broward, you can see
what larger point he is proving with 100% accuracy
-and video- along with his latest muckraking adventures,
here, http://www.myactsofsedition.com/ some of which
the Broward Palm Beach NewTimes has written
about quite well, while the Herald and Sun-Sentinel
largely continue to play catch-up.



Video is at:
http://www.myactsofsedition.com/my_acts_of_sedition/2010/03/housing-in-deerfield-beach-a-video-montage.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ActsOfSedition-ABlogAboutDeerfieldBeachPolitics+%28Acts+of+Sedition%29

In today's Broward Beat, Angelo Castillo writes
about a simple plan that results in Broward citizens
taking back voting from bureaucrats, with the added
dividends of increased participation and depriving
anyone from their 15 Minutes by whining about voting
sites or hours.

I love voting in person, but I'm willing to vote by mail
if it increases actual public participation.
http://www.browardbeat.com/castillo-expand-voting-by-mail-keep-city-voting-separate/

Personally, I still wish that Castillo would run this Fall
against the longstanding, ethically-challenged and largely
clueless Broward County Commissioner whose district
includes a small part of HB, Diana Wasserman-Rubin,
but for now, he seems to have decided to make his
re-election in Pembroke Pines his first priority, which
occurred this week with him getting 87.64% of vote.

(And what was DWR talking to Comm. Sanders and
some of his acolytes about over at the city's Hepburn
Center on Monday night?
Some well-informed people hereabouts think that she's
actually considering the possibility of supporting the
out-of-scale Diplomat LAC next week at the
County Commission, the 23rd, in exchange for
Sanders vocal support and his acolytes' help,
which likely won't come for free.
But then you already knew that, right?)

Castillo has more practical ideas and common sense
than 99% of the elected officials pols I run into in
Broward and M-D, and would, I think, make a great
county-wide ELECTED Mayor in the future if the
circumstances ever presented themselves, and residents
could ACTUALLY vote for that instead of the Broward
County Commission crowning one of their members.

I feel this way in large part because he is someone who
is not afraid of new ideas as a solution to resolving
longstanding problems.

Problems that have made and will continue to make
Broward less desirable than it could be with the proper
leadership and hard work.

Me, I'm for diversity -I want smart and honest
people with common sense.

If you're hanging around the house for the next few hours,
at 2 p.m., Turner Classic Movies is showing one of
the best political films ever made, All The King's Men,
based on Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_King%27s_Men

No, not the Sean Penn & Jude Law's recent clone,
which I intentionally skipped, but the powerful original that
was so compelling that it won the Best Picture Oscar for
1949, as well as the Best Actor Oscar for Broderick
Crawford.

Here's the film trailer:
http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=159099&titleId=27628

Public corruption in plain sight: latest on Nelson Santiago no-bid deal highlights difference in political cultures/openness b/w HB & Hollywood

Above, the screenshot I snapped on Monday of
the "Client" web page of the Ear-Q Corporation
website. http://www.ear-q.com/

You'll notice that it not only has a photograph of
Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, due to
their creation of her personal website, but also
features the official City of Hallandale Beach
icon.

It also features The Future Foundation Inc.,
which seems to be the 'favorite son' charity over
at Hallandale Beach City Hall.

A Google search proves quite instructive.
Where's their website?
It can't be found.

But a search does turn this up thru a cache:
The Future Foundation, Inc is a Not for Profit Corporation dedicated to providing educational and cultural arts experiences for youth residing within the City of Hallandale Beach. Activities and events are provided free of charge to our participants. The Future Foundation also provides grants up to $5,000 to non-profit organizations to support their efforts to provide opportunities for education and arts to our youth in our community.

Guess where their mailing address is?
Hallandale Beach City Hall.

Guess what's the first thing on the city's website,
under FAQ?

1.	How to Contact the Future Foundation

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/FAQ.aspx?QID=181

And when you click the provided link,
www.thefuturefoundationhallandalebeach.com.
what do you get?

Server not found

If you believe the number-one FAQ that people
accessing the city's perfectly awful website want
to ask is this, you are sadly mistaken.

But in Joy Cooper and Mike Good's 'alternative
reality' where the city is well-run, perhaps it is.

What more can you say about such people?
A lot more...

Today I'll try to explain how, among other things,
the recent troubling episode involving Dr. Nelson
Santiago and his no-bid contract from the
City of Hallandale Beach further illustrates the
wide gulf in political cultures and openness between
the City of Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.

More than is usually the case, actual facts matter
here.
So, like our friend Joe Friday from Dragnet,
here are the facts that are known as of now.

Back in mid-January, I received both the agenda
and all pertinent docs for Hollywood's Technical
Advisory Committee ONE ENTIRE WEEK
before their meeting about a property in north
Hollywood Beach.

A property that, quite frankly, I didn't know much
about or have any opinion about one way or the other.

I didn't go to the actual meeting and have no idea
of how the committee ruled.

But if I had wanted to spend a few minutes finding
out about it, the City of Hollywood had given me
a reasonable amount of time to come up to speed
with it via the docs that were filed with it.

I bring this up because when I first received it,
I quickly realized that this simple example of a
computer-generated email offered an insight into
the vast differences between how things are
routinely done in Hollywood and how dreadfully
they have been and continue to be done here
in Hallandale Beach, since I returned to South
Florida from the Washington D.C. area in late
2003.


In November, two weeks before HB Planning
& Zoning Board meeting on the Diplomat
LAC, the Hallandale Beach Commission
vote 4-1 against Comm. Keith London's
common sense motion to put the LAC proposal
application and related onto the HB city website.

So, even as Mayor Joy Cooper was ripping
HB citizen taxpayers at the very same Commission
meeting and calling them "uninformed" and
"uneducated" for opposing the city's RAC proposal
-done to get in before Amendment 4 is
approved this coming November by Florida
voters- Commissioners Cooper, Julian, Ross
and Sanders didn't say or do ANYTHING about
actually getting pertinent information on the
Diplomat project into the public realm,
so they could read it and make sense of it.

So what happened?
Precisely what the Mayor, the City Manager and
the Diplomat all wanted.

The Diplomat tag team of Debbie Orshefsky
and Suzanne Friedman and their consultants
got to have their meetings around town without
worrying about HB and Hollywood citizens actually
being able to see the relevant docs actually in print,
and raise questions based on what they themselves
had said or promised to do.

(They were aided in this effort by someone who is
a longstanding paid "spy" for the city, more details
of which you'll be hearing about this weekend on
my blog. As you anticipate that, though, ask
yourself this simple but troubling question:
In the year 2010, what sort of creepy elected
officials are so craven that they think it's actually
appropriate to pay someone in the city to spy on
their neighbors, like they were a member of the
Soviet era Secret Police, or KGB?)

Keeping with their policy of NOT officially putting
the agenda or all relevant information for City
Commission and P&Z meetings on the city's
website until the Monday morning of the week
of those meetings -despite the fact that the
deadline for agendas is 5 p.m. Friday-
because the December P&Z meeting was moved
to a Tuesday to accommodate a Wednesday
afternoon City Commission meeting, the
relevant documents were not placed on the
city's website until about 28 hours before
the meeting started.
Twenty-eight hours.

On a project that directly affects the lifestyles
and Quality of Life of thousands of HB and
Hollywood residents and visitors.

So how this pertain to the recent no-bid contract
awarded to Joy Cooper's internet guru friend,
Dr. Nelson Santiago?

First, a quick recap using selected excerpts of
my own Monday blog post to connect-the-dots.

As you may recall from my previous emails and
blog postings, no-bid contracts awarded to pals,
cronies and political supporters of HB City Hall
are nothing new, and the specialty of Joy Cooper
and Mike Good.

This recent case with Santiago is but the latest
example of thousands of taxpayer dollars being
given to people, thru grants and CRA loans,
whose degree of demonstrated expertise in a
particular area is, perhaps, rather secondary
to their personal connections and political
support of the Mayor Cooper's and City
Manager Good's agenda.

For instance, the $25,ooo no-bid contract given
last summer to Debra Brown, where elected city
commissioners were not even told about this until
a week after-the-fact.

Debra Brown is the sister of Comm. Anthony
A. Sanders confidante Josh Brown, who was
part of the team who received a $90,000 grant/loan
from the Hallandale Beach CRA for a perfectly
dreadful business plan.

A plan which is little more than an extended
propaganda arm of City Hall, despite the fact
that his team didn't even meet the then-existing
low standards that the city had in place for
eligibility to make sure that the money is for
a serious purpose that promotes the specific
written goals of the city's CRA, the most
important of which is what?

Yes, eliminating "blight."

So, how exactly are giant screen TVs being placed
in east-side Hallandale Beach restaurants and
businesses as well as the common rooms of
expensive condos on State Road A1A, running
nothing but paid ads and blather from the likes
of Mayor Cooper and the city, accomplishing
that particular goal?

Especially since the city already has
complete control of an existing cable
TV channel, which they have completely
mis-used for years.

This isn't 1982, where many small businesses in
South Florida weren't properly wired and have
access to Cable TV, and so couldn't play CNN
near the front register of their businesses,
like a dry cleaning shop, or in the middle of
their barber shop or beauty salon.

It's a plan so bad that that they were forced to
admit that they couldn't get a bank loan for it.

Now that the city has given them money, many
recipients have either moved the TVs after they
were originally hooked-up due to either customer
complaints and annoyance, or outrage at
finding-out they were lied to when they were
first told that the TVs were from the City of
Hallandale Beach, with signs to that effect
sighted near some of the TVs at condos.

Theses TVs don't do anything to alleviate blight.
It's all a not-so-clever fig-leaf for a political deal
and money to change hands and promote
Joy Cooper and Hallandale Beach City Hall.
Period.

It's using money for a purpose that most HB citizens
would be opposed to on its face because of stupidity,
if they even knew about it, but because it also
personally benefits people who are supporters of
Comm. Sanders, and longtime Cooper & Good
crony and cheerleader Joe Kessel, it gets approved.

(Does my telling you the facts here make me an official
"naysayer," to use the latest term Mayor Joy Cooper
throws around to describe opponents of her's, after
having already called them -including me- "Nazis"
while at HB City Hall, Room 257,

where Cooper also described Comm. Keith London
as "a Hitler" to another elected Hallandale Beach official,
who, characteristically, said and did nothing upon hearing
this slander?
Then naysayer it is, and proudly so.)

For instance, to cite but one example, the team,
such as it is, didn't actually own any property within
the City of Hallandale Beach, a standard which previous
applicants had to meet.

If there was nothing 'fishy' about this particular contract,
why did it not appear on the City Commission's agenda
that day, along with relevant staff and supporting docs
on the city's website, and come up for a vote by the
elected HB City Commission, instead of secretly
brought-up instead by unelected Good thru "Other"?

It's precisely because they didn't want HB citizen
taxpayers to know about it in advance that Good
and Cooper did this.

That's the exact same route thru which Good,
Police Chief Thomas Magill and Fire Chief Daniel
Sullivan have all been rehired within the past
18 months.
Also in Room 257.


Without it EVER appearing on the public agenda,
without the public being given the opportunity to
speak about them and their past performances.
You know, like a normal city?

Can you name another city in Florida where
the re-hiring of the City Manager, Police Chief
and Fire Chief would intentionally be handled
in such a secretive and manipulative way
in order to keep the public completely in the
dark?

No, only Hallandale Beach under Joy Cooper
and Mike Good would be so brazen as to
attempt to foist this on this city's residents,
regardless of what the state's Sunshine Rules
say, but with the implicit cooperation of noted
wink-wink HB City Attorney David Jove,
it was "Mission accomplished."

And believe me, they're very happy they got
away with it, too.

Add it all together and it sounds to me like a
very intriguing news story and the basis for
formal ethical and criminal investigations by
multiple State of Florida and Broward County
agencies and LEOs.

And failing that, the FBI.

And it's all 100% true.

-----
Previous emails and blog posts on this subject:

Monday March 8, 2010
A simple question re Dr. Nelson Santiago's no-bid contract in Hallandale Beach
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/simple-question-re-dr-nelson-santiagos.html

---

March 5th, 2010
9 p.m.

Over the next few days, I suspect that we will all learn a great deal more
about that other co-host of the since-postponed Kendrick Meek fundraiser
planned for Mayor Joy Cooper's home tonight, Dr. Nelson Santiago.

He appears to have some very interesting ties to Mayor Cooper, her
personal website and a no-bid deal from the City of Hallandale Beach
regarding the 2010 Census.

Yes, no-bid contracts, the specialty of Hallandale Beach City Hall
under Joy Cooper and Mike Good!

Time to put on your Sherlock Holmes caps and start some
serious sleuthing!

Dave

----

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/curious-doings-kendrick-meek-postpones.html

Friday, March 5, 2010

Curious doings: Kendrick Meek postpones fundraiser at Mayor Cooper's house; Alexander Lewy's postage gift from Hallandale Beach taxpayers



Forwarded message
From: Mayor Joy Cooper & Dr. Nelson Santiago <invite@eventbrite.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:47 PM
Subject: EVENT POSTPONED!!!: CONGRESSMAN KENDRICK MEEK for U.S. SENATE

Due to scheduling conflicts we have postponed the event in Hallandale Beach. If you were planning on attending please call (305) 655-3213 for alternate arrangements. You are invited to the following event: KENDRICK MEEK for U.S. SENATE Location: Home of Mayor Joy & Dr. Harry Cooper 301 Holiday Drive Hallandale Beach FL Can you attend this event? Respond Here For more information click here

City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes propaganda thru $50k grant to FAUX newspaper

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

These are excerpts from an email I sent around the

city, county, region and state to some interested parties

I know on Monday, shortly after getting wind of the

latest HB debacle under the anti-reform tag-team of

Cooper & Good and the Rubber Stamp Crew:

more cash in the pipeline for the propaganda arm

of Hallandale Beach City Hall, the South Florida

Sun-Times.

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

Who says that the economy is in bad shape?

You wouldn't know that if you were here last
week, since the City of Hallandale Beach,
Pop. 37,400, decided to give $50,000 to a
company that puts out the free vanity newspaper
called the South Florida Sun-Times.
Why?

So they can CONTINUE writing only positive
things about Hallandale Beach City Hall and
the people who run things there, since you
really can't call what they do there 'managing.'
Coincidentally, like the very people who write
them checks -just like they did last year.

That's the same publication that the city spent
taxpayer funds on -and employee resources on-
last December when HB city officials actually

mailed out letters soliciting local businesses to

place ads in the Sun-Times, and NOT with

other South Florida media outlets.

I've not only seen that particular letter, I've

made a copy of both it and the city envelope

it was mailed in from HB City Hall.

For those of you who perhaps don't know,
the South Florida Sun-Times is a FREE
broadsheet with no measured ABC circulation,
does NOT print Letters to the Editor, and they

give Mayor Joy Cooper a weekly "column,"

if you can call what she writes a column, and you

won't be surprised to hear that she says whatever

she wants without any fear that any dissenting

points-of-view will ever appearing in the rag.

Since they don't actually cover the City Commission

meetings like a real newspaper, because they don't

want to bite the hand that feeds them, they allow

material and nonsense to run under Cooper's name

that is often more fictitious than factual.

Frankly, it's all the same to them as long as the city's

check doesn't bounce, so in that respect, they have

much more in common with a print shop like Kinko's

than a genuine independent newspaper.

They're a printing press for City Hall, plain and simple.

One of the more unusual things about their operations

-and I'm far from the only person in S.E. Broward

who knows this or who has noticed it- is that they

also don't hesitate to pretend to be at public events in

the area that they don't actually attend.

Yet, that doesn't prevent them from writing about
matters and discourse as if they were really there.

And as you'd guess, they are just positively delighted

with whatever people from HB City Hall say or do.

(That is, unless their name happens to be Comm.

Keith London, in which case you are practically

invisible.)

And isn't that what a paid government propaganda

organ is supposed to do?

Ignore those who would cast sunshine and scrutiny

on the words and behavior of the powers-that-be?

Yes.

I've ACTUALLY been at some of the events
they've described, and knew who everyone
there was, and they had nobody there.

This includes the mysterious selection of Anthony

Sanders as an interim HB commissioner exactly

one year ago in the Commission Chambers.
There was hardly anyone there and yet...

Let's just say there's a lot of Oliver Stone-inspired
fiction in what they print.

Simply put, in a free market economy, it is NOT the

job of government, especially Hallandale Beach City

Hall, to use taxpayer funds to pick winners and losers

in the local economy, and play favorites.

What makes it especially heinous is that the foolish and

irresponsible decision is not being made by someone

whom the citizens of this community have elected, but

rather by someone that is NOT only un-elected, like

City Manager Mike Good, but someone who doesn't

even live here.

To prove that this vapid vanity press is not real journalism,
consider their allowing City Hall employees to write and
then insert something masquerading as a news article, below,
in order to spin City Hall's take on an important issue that
could hardly be more transparent, i.e City Hall paying much
more than the appraised value of Comm. Sanders property,
see my post from Oct. 27th:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/decreasing-value-of-miami-herald.html

If they'd had more time, the city might've even said that Anthony Sanders
was born in a log cabin!


As the great poet Anonymous once put it,
the Sun-Times is the place where,
"Seldom is heard a discouraging word,
and the skies are not cloudy all day."

Wonder if this bad trend will catch fire across
the country, or whether common sense will
ultimately prevail, and American cities that
already have such bad deals in place for
taxpayers will actually be killed?

With two weeks off for vacation, sick days
and the odd holidays, that comes out to about
$1,000 a week to subsidize a joke that
nobody-but-nobody believes and which
very few people read.

Which, of course, explains why there are
still plenty of them from July still sitting
on a shelf in HB City Hall, near the elevator
and supposed Public Notices board.
People won't take them even when
they're free!

I guess in the end, the real joke is on
Hallandale Beach's already -beleaguered
taxpayers, who have to find out after-the-fact,
months later, what their un-elected City
Manager has been doing with their money.

He's not even bothering to require the
principals involved to show-up in person
at a public city commission meeting and be
subject to any scrutiny, much less, possible
ridicule.

But then that's why this was handled
this particular way, because it does
stink!

Once again, un-elected Mike Good
playing Santa Claus with taxpayers
money.

And Mayor Joy Cooper just lets him.

To protect the innocent, I've removed the names and

email addresses of some residents that appeared below.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
------------------------------

Sent: Tuesday,

January 13, 2009 8:16 PM

To: London, Keith

Subject: Sun Times & City Biz

Mr London,

Thank you for understanding the fact that the city should not be in the newspaper business. After reading the article in the Sun Sentinel I was appalled and shocked at the reasoning used by your fellow commissioners and Mayor for advertising in the Sun Times and their use of city funds to promote a private for-profit business. As a Broward county business person I wish that the communities in the county would "bail me out" in these challenging economic times, but as you are aware, this is not how it works. No explanation is needed, it business.

If you and your other city officials would like to explore other ways to reach the citizens of your community in a non partisan, unbiased and more economical way, please contact me, but all you need is part time graphics person, a good web press printer, and a distribution vehicle such as Valassis or the USPS (I do not work for a printer or Valassis). In addition, market the city web site via your webmaster and you'll be set.

Thanks for your time.

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