Showing posts with label Barbara Sharief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barbara Sharief. Show all posts

Friday, November 29, 2013

Sandbagged! Independent audit of Hallandale Beach CRA was in offing by Florida JLAC, but Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens/taxpayers get stabbed in the back by Eleanor Sobel, Oscar Braynon II, Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief. Why? To help HB mayor Joy Cooper preserve her facade that everything here is okay; @mayorcooper

Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex, November 19, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved 

Sandbagged! Independent audit of Hallandale Beach CRA was in offing by Florida JLAC, but Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens/taxpayers get stabbed in the back by FL state Senators Eleanor Sobel & Oscar Braynon III, FL state Reps. Joe Gibbons & Shevrin Jones and Broward County Comm. Barbara Sharief.

Why? To help Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper preserve her facade that everything her is okay, @MayorCooper. 
You know, the mayor with the twitter account that is nothing but her, her, her, her -plus mindless govt. press releases, including many that have nothing to do with this city or county or state. 
See for yourself: https://twitter.com/MayorCooper 

 They put a higher price on protecting Mayor Joy Cooper's political flank than actually helping the community -their constituents- find out where and how the $80 Million REALLY was spent. 
The very Hallandale Beach CRA that Broward IG labeled guilty of "gross mismanagement" with Joy Cooper in charge. 

Thanks to the five of these useless elected officials, we may never know. 
But we WON'T FORGET their betrayal of Hallandale Beach's residents, taxpayers and small business owners when next elections roll around next august and November.
No, we definitely WON'T forget and we will make sure that the public and the press forget, either. 
And no, this Thanksgiving weekend, we are NOT thankful for these turkeys.

More below the articles. 
Two senators short-circuit Legislature’s plan to audit troubled Hallandale Beach CRA 
By Willliam Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
November 26, 2013 AT 6:13 AM
A Florida Legislature’s joint auditing committee is dropping its inquiry of Hallandale Beach’s questionable use of local redevelopment funds at the urging of two area state senators, one a long-time acquaintance of Mayor Joy Cooper.
Democratic Senators Eleanor Sobel and Oscar Braynon II, representing portions of Hallandale Beach, could not be reached for comment, despite repeated calls, to elaborate on a letter they signed recommending against a state audit or any action related to the controversial city spending of Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) funds.
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/11/two-senators-short-circuit-legislatures-plan-to-audit-troubled-hallandale-beach-cra/

As for the below, who even knew that turkeys like our mayor could dream, much less, of ghosts? 

 South Florida Sun-Sentinel  
"Ghost' of Keith London haunts Mayor Cooper  
By Brittany Wallman  
November 26, 2013 2:14 PM EST
sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-commissioner-lazarow-mayor-cooper-mix-it-up-20131126,0,7873057.story 

Not mentioned above but equally as guilty of denying citizens the honesty they deserve is Broward County District 8 Commissioner Barbara Sharief.

Map showing how HB is divided at FEC Railroad tracks, with everything west of Dixie Highway in Sharief's District 8 and everything east in Sue Gunzburger's District 6.
http://bcgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=c7f7450dc0b147d4b4b9526d9b1f93e7

WHERE exactly has she been the past two years on this very important issue to all of us?
A woman who is supposed to represent Hallandale Beach's residents' best interests but who has done just about everything but the past three years?

The very woman whose Broward County Comm. district was the HOME of the majority of the corruption, incompetency and unethical behavior directly tied to the HB CRA, where there was no accountability at HB City Hall under Mayor Cooper and her high-paid minions? 

 Where was Comm. Barbara Sharief resolve to do the right thing?
Missing-in-action, just like Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones, Sobel & Braynon.

Barbara Sharief was and continues to be in hiding on this issue, refusing to respond to public calls for her to say or do something -anything.

I know this from first-hand experience because she and her staff have ignored my emails about this issue for the past two years, though I actually know much more about the HB CRA situation than she or her staff did -or Gibbons or Jones or Braynon- and knew things that as many of you regular readers know, that even the Broward IG hadn't yet learned at the time.

A continued willingness to suspend reality and ignore inconvenient and troubling facts and the people who will tell you the truth is NOT a good sign in an elected official, and is actually proof that Barbara Sharief is NOT a genuine leader by any stretch of the imagination as most of us know the word.

Well, when you know that Sharief didn't even show-up at the June 4th County Commission meeting where the issue was brought-up, you could see that she wanted no part of being on the right side of financial accountability and ethics.
Months later, given her own financial and ethical situation, we see the double irony of that and wonder if her absence was even more revealing than we first thought.

Trust me, those inconvenient facts WON'T be forgotten as she runs for re-election next year, having to explain to the news media and area residents and voters why she so completely and willingly abandoned her own constituents, just like the power-craven and egotistical Sobel, the useless and high-living Jones, and the completely-invisible-in-HB Braynon, whom nobody has ever seen or knows from Adam.

As for Joe Gibbons, District 100 state rep. and former HB city commissioner of no particular distinction, who actually has the gall to run to replace term-limited Sue Gunzburger on the Broward County Commission for District 8 despite his sub-par performance and the fact that his wife and kids have NEVER lived here since he was married, the truth about Gibbons with respect to many ethical and policy issues has been known for years, despite the media's chronic inattention to detail.

Gibbons is only fooling himself if he thinks his recent stunt of showing-up at a HB City Comm. meeting for a few minutes when some kids are making a presentation -with their parents in the Chambers- and then splitting after they left, impressed anyone.
Gibbons can't change his stripes.
(And Gibbons is now so typecast by his abysmal track record in office that even the name, position and caliber of his supporters -and what they represent- are actually a big plus, almost a paid commercial for his opponent, former Hollywood City Comm. Beam Furr, who didn't run for re-election last year.)

Gibbons is both ineffectual and a carpetbagger, and a longtime apologist for the corrupt and incompetent status quo at HB City Hall that so thoroughly mis-served the public.
The very place he did nothing positive to change while he was there.
He is a knee-jerk in every respect that matters.

In case you those earlier recent blog posts of mine laying out the case or the predicate for better understanding these four characters ignoring what was happening with the millions miss-spent at the HB CRA, here they are for you in chron order:

 Nov. 2:  http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/latest-news-re-hallandale-beach-cra.html

On Sunday at some point, I'll have much more here on the blog to say in detail about Comm. Barbara Sharief's own failure to lead on an issue of great and urgent concern to this 
often-neglected community, and look out for the best-interests of HB residents -me and my neighbors.

But I will tell you one thing right now and that is that based on my conversations with people around town and the county, I believe Sharief has not only long since lost the benefit of the doubt of any concerned and well-informed HB or Broward citizen who cares about the true facts and wants a better-run county, she has no chance of ever recapturing it.
That's gone for good.

I'll also have some news and facts about her that may surprise many of you.
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Saturday, November 2, 2013

Latest news re Hallandale Beach CRA: Where are Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief hiding? They're NOT adequately representing HB citizens who want to find out where the $80 Million in CRA funds has really gone; Response of JLAC re my inquiry re legislator's letters re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

Latest news re Hallandale Beach CRA: Where are Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief hiding? They're NOT adequately representing HB citizens who want to find out where the $80 Million in CRA funds has really gone; Response of JLAC re my inquiry re legislator's letters re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

 November 1st, 2013

If any FL state legislator you have recently spoken to has told you, either flat-out or strongly implied, that they have made clear their desire for there to be a JLAC-authorized audit of the HB CRA, as the official response I received from Tallahassee Thursday afternoon makes clear, those state legislators are NOT being honest with you.

There are 140 elected state legislators in Florida and not a single legislator among the bunch has had either the backbone or initiative to directly contact JLAC's office and publicly declare their public support for this community's desire to find out where the $80 Million in CRA funds has really gone the past ten years.

So you might ask, where ARE the four state legislators that represent Hallandale Beach in Tallahassee, and why are they still in hiding on this issue, and not stepping-up to represent their constituents and get the facts on such an important issue?

Well, since you asked, as you'll recall from my previous email on this matter, state Sen. Eleanor Sobel and state Sen. Oscar Braynon II have lined-up firmly on the side of protecting the flank of the very woman who is most directly-responsible for the mess that combines the very worst aspects of corruption, crony capitalism, incompetency, indefensible public policy and consistent lack of oversight and accountability, Mayor Joy Cooper. 

As for Braynon, well, my sense of things in talking to the people who are the most-involved in this community is that Braynon is so little known and seen in this city that he is far more rumor than reality, a fact that should not go unnoticed or unremarked upon by others.

As for state Rep. Joe Gibbons and state Rep. Shevrin Jones, well, like members of an Old West bank-robbing gang, they are currently hiding in plain sight from their own constituents within the safe confines of the hip pocket of Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper and her lobbyist pal, Judy Stern.
To be brought out whenever these two women find it convenient and serve as props that insulate them from any moral or legal responsibility and incoming fire from legislators, the media and the public.

Sorry to say it, folks, but there's your late-2013 snapshot of the 'Profiles In Courage' of your members of the Florida legislature. They are exactly what they appear to be.

And after you've finished pondering that question, that is, how we can be represented by so many people who show so little concern about such an important issue, ponder something else: Where is Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief?

The handful of times I've personally interacted with her she's always been friendly, engaged and willing to speak honestly about what she thought about a particular issue or situation, even if it was an unpopular opinion.
Which is all to the good I think.

But here's the thing.
I've probably sent Comm. Sharief and her staff a few dozen emails over the past two years re the HB CRA, each one full of facts, first-hand anecdotes and the city's very own troubling and inexplicable words and docs that painted the picture of the longstanding mess it's been in, doing little public good while greatly profiting a small handful of people with connections to HB City Hall.
Even if only because of those emails I sent her, Comm. Sharief knows -or should know- much more than most of the reporters who've written about this subject, the few who have

I would argue that my sending those emails to her was entirely appropriate given that most of the incompetency, corruption, and general shadiness with the HB CRA took place in -wait for it- her District.

So given all that, what has Comm. Sharief actually said or done the past two years to show that she's actually looking out for HB taxpayers and small business owners on this matter involving, I remind you, tens of millions of dollars?

Comm. Sharief and her staff have NEVER responded to any fact-filled email of mine that specifically dealt with the HB CRA over the past two years.
Comm. Sharief was NOT present at the Broward County Commission meeting in June when former HB Commissioner Keith London and current Comm. Michele Lazarow spoke honestly and plainly about the longstanding need for this community to finally have an honest and thorough audit.

Yes, an honest accounting for what has taken place in the past that will assure HB residents.
To no avail.

Despite having the better part of two years to say or do something that was in any way supportive of the effort for the people of Hallandale Beach to finally get the truth, Comm. Barbara Sharief has said and done nothing.
Period.

Are HB residents, taxpayers, small business owners -and voters- supposed to ignore that inescapable fact?
I think not.

Why are local TV/print reporters and other bloggers NOT directly asking the five of  them to explain themselves on this issue, and say why they are sticking it to the people of this community, and, frankly, actually seem to be supporting the very people who are directly responsible for this financial scandal, as Sen. Sobel and Sen. Braynon have made clear for everyone with their condescending tone in their letter to JLAC telling them NO AUDIT.

If you feel inclined, here's how you reach them:

Braynon's District Office: 606 NW 183rd Street Miami Gardens, FL 33169 (305) 654-7150

Sobel's District Office: The "Old" Library First Floor 2600 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, FL 33020 (954) 924-3693

Gibbons' District Office  Suite 203, Pembroke Park Town Hall  3150 SW 52nd Avenue Pembroke Park, FL 33023-5413  (954) 893-5006

Jones' District Office  1965 South State Road 7  West Park, FL 33023-6733 
(954) 893-5010

Sharief doesn't list a district office on her website, only her main office at the Broward County Governmental Center, 115 S. Andrews Ave., Room 410 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 
954-357-7008

Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) is physically located at 876 Pepper Building,
but their mailing address is 111 W. Madison Street Tallahassee, FL 32399-1400 
(850) 487-4110  jlac@leg.state.fl.us

Those are the facts as of 2:00 p.m. on November 1st, 2013.
It's up to you to change the dynamic now or we will never find out where that $80 Million in CRA funds really went.

On a happier note, there are still lots of very talented people in this world whom you have never of -until now- who have bright futures ahead of them, and one of those persons is Miriam Bryant 


Steve Layton YouTube Channel:  Miriam Bryant sings the DuBose Heyward/George Gershwin classic from Porgy & Bess, "Summertime" on the August 10th, 2013 broadcast of SVT's "Sommarkväll" at The River Cafe, Göteborg, Sweden.
http://youtu.be/5cVr9VKmmdo
As seen in my October 30th, 2013 blog post re Miriam,
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/just-like-swedish-summers-short-sweet.html

Hallandale Beach is on both the ocean and on the Intracoastal, so why in the year 2013 do we NOT have even one restaurant like the one shown in Miriam's video, The River Cafe in Göteborg, Sweden?

Good question.
That's why there are elections that carry genuine consequences.
Something similar-but-smaller in scale that allows the public to actually be able to see and feel the water should already be in the works on the south side of the Intracoastal bridge, next to where The Related Group's project The Beachwalk is being built now.
But it isn't, is it? Nope.
Another missed opportunity for Hallandale Beach.

-----
I've removed the email addresses below for obvious reasons and replaced by name with initials.

The Committee has not received any written requests, either for or against an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA, since the September letter from Senators Sobel and Braynon.

Kathy DuBose, Coordinator
Joint Legislative Auditing Committee 
(850) 487-4110 


From: JLAC 
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 1:44 PM
To: Dubose, Kathy; White, Deborah
Subject: FW: Attn: Kathy DuBose -re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC


From: DBS
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 1:00 PM
To: JLAC

Cc: DBS
Subject: Attn: Kathy DuBose -re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: DBS
Date: Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 1:00 PM
Subject: Attn: Kathy DuBose -re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC
To: Joint Legislative Auditing Committee
Cc: DBS


October 30th, 2013
12:55 p.m.

Dear Ms. DuBose:

Just wanted to follow-up on my previous email of two months ago and your response of Sept. 9th regarding the possible audit by JLAC of what I and so many other Hallandale Beach citizens believe has been an ineffectual and poorly-managed Hallandale Beach CRA for
so many years.

To date, has the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee received a request FOR or AGAINST an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA from any member of the Legislature, other than the September 16th letter AGAINST an audit co-written by Sen. Eleanor Sobel and Sen. Oscar
Braynon II?

There have been no media reports in South Florida of any kind the past six weeks on this issue, to say nothing of anything publicly from the two state senators who are supposed to represent the citizens of this community, who have borne witness to the millions of CRA dollars that have gone out  the door with nothing tangible to show for them, not the very people directly responsible for doing so.

I just wanted to know what the scoreboard is looking like as of this afternoon.
Thank you in advance for your assistance!

 ----
I've added these links to earlier Broward Bulldog articles to give any new readers of the blog some sense of perspective that's not written by me:

 "Hallandale finds allies amid aggressive response to county’s request for CRA documents." I'll have a lot more on this matter and our angry and vindictive Mayor Cooper soon.




 Broward opens broad inquiry into misuse of property tax dollars by CRAs; millions at stake




 Hallandale Mayor sends multiple texts to Lobbyist during Broward Commission meeting




 Defiant Hallandale commissioners reject call for new legal opinion on CRA spending




 Hallandale may seek Attorney General opinion on CRA spending; statewide impact seen




 Hallandale diverts millions from CRA’s budget to pay for non-redevelopment programs




 Hallandale Mayor & Commissioners fail to document contacts w/ lobbyist Judy Stern




 Unhappy Broward commissioners want more control over city CRAs




 Lobbyist Judy Stern uses texts to thwart Hallandale CRA investigation




 Legislature asks Hallandale for answers about CRA spending; Subpoenas land at city hall




 A problematic model: Hallandale Beach CRA under city manager’s thumb




 Broward Auditor looks at Hallandale Beach CRA with eye toward recovering misspent funds
By William Gjebre* BrowardBulldog.org 
The Broward County Auditor’s Office has begun looking into whether Hallandale Beach should be required to repay some of the millions in tax dollars allegedly misspent due to “gross mismanagement” by city officials.



Broward Inspector General: Hallandale leaders don’t know what they’re talking about, By William Gjebre* BrowardBulldog.org. The Broward Inspector General’s final report on the “gross mismanagement” of millions in tax dollars by Hallandale Beach is sharply critical of city leaders it says have shown a “basic misunderstanding” of what’s gone wrong.





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Monday, June 3, 2013

Questions, questions and more questions about Tuesday's important Broward County Commission meeting re possible audit of controversial Hallandale Beach CRA; Meeting now has an added feature: City Manager Miller and CRA Attorney Zelkowitz who publicly argued that the Broward IG didn't have legal authority over the HB CRA, will now be speaking and playing the role of Wiley E. Coyote before the boulder falls on them. Must-see TV! HB citizens want the truth, not more stonewalling, finger-pointing and spin from city's elected officials and city employees

October 13, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
While I hope that as many of you reading this as possible make an earnest effort to try to attend the meeting in-person on Tuesday morning to be supportive of the effort to finally get a meaningful audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA and where all the millions went, which will be made in-person by Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former HB Commissioner Keith London, it will be available by webcast: agenda item #87, at http://broward.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=5

 I'll be there to not only watch the proceedings and see who shows up in the chambers, but also to record it for posterity and later uploading to my YouTube Channel at some point.

 You need to keep in mind, though, that while there's a lot of consent agenda at the beginning of the meeting, the question of when the item will actually come up is entirely up to the various whims of the Commission, depending upon what gets pulled or moved around.

 Which is to say that your concept and my concept of time and space are NOT always the same as their's, so you may need to turn the volume of your computer down a bit lest you become hypnotized by all the talk about RFP's, advisory boards and an alphabet city of environmental groups having something or another to do with the airport and some very bad stuff under the ground there.
In other words, stay caffeinated!

And in case you forgot where you lived, here's a photo of the HQ of a place where you have never been able to find anything meaningful or truthful about what was going on with the HB CRA or the scandal involving it: the CRA-subsidized faux newspaper.

The faux newspaper that serves as a propaganda arm to Hallandale Beach City Hall, which was specifically cited in the Broward Inspector General's final report. April 17, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Below, following the meeting info, is my email of late this afternoon to Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief and many other interested parties throughout the Sunshine State, especially here in Hallandale Beach and Broward County.
Lots of good facts there, especially for those of you who have not been following the story closely.

 Full agenda is at: http://205.166.161.204/agenda_publish.cfm?id=&mt=ALL&get_month=6&get_year=2013&dsp=ag&seq=351

MEETING OF JUNE 4, 2013
(Meeting will convene at 10 a.m.)

Agenda Item 87.
DELEGATION:  Keith London and Hallandale Beach City Commissioner, Michelle Lazarow

Attachments
Exhibit 1 - Delegation Request

 -----
In case the links above don't work for you, they are at
http://205.166.161.204/agenda_publish.cfm?id=&mt=ALL&get_month=6&get_year=2013&dsp=agm&seq=14253&rev=0&ag=351&ln=60577&nseq=&nrev=&pseq=14386&prev=0#
and 
http://205.166.161.204/docs/2013/CCCM/20130604_353/14253_Exhibit%201%20-%20Keith%20London%20031213.pdf

-----

June 3rd, 2013
4:45 p.m.

Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

I just heard the good news this afternoon that Hallandale Beach City Manager Renee Miller and HB CRA Attorney Steven Zelkowitz have formally requested an opportunity to speak in-person before the entire Commission on Tuesday in response to this agenda item.
I couldn't be more pleased.

I'm particularly interested in hearing the comments of Ms. Miller, who assured me last summer in-person when we spoke for about ten minutes or so that she was indeed a "reformer," and wanted very much to end what was publicly perceived as the culture of deceit and misinformation that has long existed at Hallandale Beach City Hall as de facto policy, and instead, bring more public transparency to it so that citizens would have more confidence in what was being said and done in their behalf.

These comments of hers to me followed her speaking for at least 30 minutes to dozens of very-concerned and well-informed HB residents who posed tough questions to her, wherein she closed by asking everyone in the room for a fair chance to be judged based on her own record, not their assumptions, which is not at all an unreasonable request.

As a longtime critic of the consistent way things have been done in such egregiously unprofessional, incompetent and aggressive ways at HB City Hall, where logic and reason seldom if ever intersected, I hoped for the best and was  prepared to believe her once she'd become more familiar with the city and its many problems and had some time to initiate these changes she spoke about, though in more vague terms than I'd have liked.

I say "interested" in hearing her comments because the truth is that by any reasonable standard, using her own track record, Ms. Miller has been anything but a "reformer" since then, and has engaged in precisely the sort of stealthy, unsavory and below-the-radar conduct and behavior that not only completely contradicts everything she said last summer, but which is identical to the very problems SHE was supposed to rectify when she was hired last year.
But isn't, of course.

Under her "leadership" the city was scheduled to hold a public meeting that was advertised as being the latest occasional Visioning meeting to discuss the city's future.
Well, they planned to do so, but that meeting was postponed and re-scheduled.

But on the very day the public meeting was scheduled to be held -held NOT at HB City Hall but in a city park building- the meeting did NOT appear on the city's own website calendar, and the public that showed-up was NOT allowed to speak or ask questions or even correct the record when "facts" were stated that were anything but facts.

Which would've made great TV for anyone in HB watching at home on cable TV except for the fact that the city, which is to say Ms. Miller, chose NOT to allow TV cameras inside to either broadcast the public meeting LIVE or to record it for viewing on cable TV or viewing on the city's website later, as has happened in the past.
I mean it's only the city's future, right?

So with that in mind, here are some assorted thoughts, facts and questions you may want to ponder as this agenda item is discussed and Mr. Zelkowitz and Ms.Miller try their best to defend the indefensible and keep HB taxpayers in the dark about what really has been happening for years to all that money with zero accountability and responsible follow-up by city employees, despite their job titles and salaries.

After all the many months this scandal has consumed in wasted time, energy and taxpayer dollars, here's what we know as of now for facts.

The City of Hallandale Beach still has NOT placed a copy of the Broward IG Report on their own website NOR have they publicly posted their official response.

That very same city website that all these months since he was hired, still doesn't list the public email address of the CRA Director, Daniel Rosemond, the man brought in by Ms. Miller from the city she used to work for last year.

Mr. Rosemond is here to do something for the CRA, though what that something actually is is not at all entirely clear based on his record thus far, since he seems to have already forgotten that we don't work for him, he works for us, the residents of this city.

You see, as if the HB CRA didn't have enough problems with public trust and confidence -that is to say, the public's complete lack of trust and confidence in them and their policies- Mr. Rosemond had no problem in showing-up at a public event in March where neither Ms. Miller or any members of the City Commission were present, and within a matter of minutes
was repeatedly telling the assembled HB citizens that he was supposed to be reassuring, that he had "no obligation" to meet with them.

So, this is the new guy brought in by Ms. Miller to change the culture of corruption and incompetency that has NOT been properly held accountable?
An arrogant person who insults taxpayers and small business owners who know far more about the problems with the CRA than HE does from first-hand experience?

For at least ten weeks, as I've written you previously, the city was in violation of Florida law and the city's own ordinance by NOT publicly disclosing the Lobbyist and Visitor logs, meaning that even as the city in the form of Ms. Miller was publicly saying the IG had no authority and then later said the report was wrong, the city was violating the law. Period

And who was directly involved in some of these meetings with a developer that were NOT being properly disclosed when it was supposed to be?
The new CRA Director.
Oops!!!

This fact is already known to both the Broward IG's Office and the Broward State Attorney's Office, not that they've done anything about it publicly yet, which raises its own questions for dumbfounded HB residents, who wonder why the latter in particular seems SO very disinterested in paying attention to what has been going on here for years in plain sight.

1.) How much money in attorney fees and personnel costs has the City of Hallandale Beach spent in defending their myriad legal positions that are clearly in opposition to the best long-term interests of its citizen taxpayers since the Broward IG's Office first began their investigation of the city?

2.) How much of that came AFTER the preliminary report was issued that the city was asked to respond to, neither of which were posted on the city's website?

3.) Lest you doubt the veracity of what I've written here, here's what the City of Hallandale Beach has on its own website as of 4:30 p.m. today about the Broward Inspector General's preliminary report and the final report, as well as the city's official public response to them
Nothing.
Really.
Teaser Alert: That's not by accident.

It's simply not enough to say that you want to change things for the better, you actually have to follow-thru and make good on them.

I truly hope that you will both be very firm in your questioning of Ms. Miller and press her to answer reasonable questions that she has refused to answer publicly for many months as she has engaged in finger-pointing and stonewalling.

In my opinion, thru her own words and actions, Ms. Miller has already lost the trust and confidence of HB citizens who closely follow what's really going on in this city
As more and more HB citizens open their eyes and slowly find out the truth about what has been allowed to take place with her in charge, that disapproval and distrust of her will only grow.

It's unfortunate, but the buck ultimately stops with Ms. Miller.

Please vote to give HB taxpayers the truth they were owed years ago but prevented from finding-out by the very people who were supposed to be working FOR them -their elected officials and city administrators.
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Friday, May 31, 2013

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

Above, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott at a Broward League of Women Voters event in Coconut Creek, FL on January 24, 2013. Below, four of the five Hallandale Beach citizens who found time on a busy weekday afternoon to drive up to Coconut Creek in northwest Broward County to listen to and ask some questions of Mr. Scott. Pictured left-to-right are Keith S. London, Dr. Robert Selz, Dr. Judy Selz, and Csaba Kulin. Not pictured: me! January 24, 2013 photos by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
Below is a copy of my email this afternoon to Hallandale Beach's two reps on the Broward County Commission, Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief, about the independent Broward Office of Inspector General relative to an issue that I've previously mentioned here on the blog and in numerous emails around the area, almost of which have elicited the same perplexed and unhappy reaction among concerned citizens upon first learning of it.
The email speaks for itself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 -----
Given the longstanding mismanagement and corruption involving millions of dollars at the HB CRA, why has Broward IG's Office refused to hold a single public outreach mtg. with citizens in Hallandale Beach, while meeting with other Broward groups?
May 31, 2013
3:30 p.m.

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


Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

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

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

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

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

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

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