A perfect end to a perfect Wednesday night thinking about ethics: Jennifer Gottlieb and Eleanor Sobel FINALLY get exposed; hot pizza, cold Heineken beer, '80's fave Lisa Whelchel on "Survivor," and reading some of the fascinating Grand Jury testimony re Beachside Montessori Village; Miami Herald: Records in Broward schools investigation reveal affairs; #BeachsideMontessoriVillage

 

Jennifer Gottlieb, standing, Ann Murray, sitting, Hollywood Beach Culture & Community Center, Hollywood, FL. Photos are all from February 22, 2011, all by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Nineteen months later, I haven't forgotten how pitiful it was to watch the organized group of brainwashed Beachside Montessori Moms in attendance that night cheer Gottlieb and Murray's serial lies, spouting their Kool-Aid nonsense that denied the self-evident reality of how the school came into being and how it came to be the particular way it was - racial whitewash.

Yes, the same two School Board members from next-door Hollywood who couldn't be bothered to attend the long-in-the-planning event at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center four months later in June of 2011 on the longstanding funding/physical problems at Hallandale High School, where the parents and taxpayers got a chance to vent as well as hear from some of the original litigants in the successful lawsuit against the Broward Schools to end the unequal funding.

My friends Csaba Kulin, Catherine Kim Owens and myself were the only objective people from Hallandale Beach in attendance that night in Hollywood to see the entire dog-and-pony show, which sadly, only Channel 7 bothered to cover, despite the opportunity to ask two people with some real culpability for the whole sordid mess to explain in their own words what had really happened.

 

 

The devastating article that the Miami Herald is printing in its Thursday edition -see at bottom- regarding the unethical conduct of former Broward County School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb leads me to make the following observation:

Bob Norman: 1

Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Channels 4, 6, 7 & 10: 0

Bob Norman wins.

Here's my post of July 26, 2010 on the subject that remains one of the most-read posts I've had in over five years:

Weeks later, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel & Miami TV newscasts STILL consciously ignoring Bob Norman's spot-on story re School Board's Jennifer Gottlieb

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/weeks-later-miami-herald-sun-sentinel.html

The latter members of the South Florida press corps were, sadly for of us, all too gutless to print or report on TV what some of them knew, she was putting taxpayers at risk, so instead of simply reporting the news and letting readers or viewers people draw their own conclusions, news reporters here didn't just actively avoid reporting the news -they actively suppressed it! 

Surprise! Welcome to Egypt!

Meanwhile, all the time, the Herald's supposed Education reporter at the time, Patricia Mazzei, well, she "knows nothing, nothing" -just like Sgt, Schultz!

But then as many of you know from prior conversations with me where I have cited specific articles of her's and the subjects, among people I know and trust, Mazzei is better known for what she consciously chooses NOT to report, rather than what she writes.

Which helps readers how, exactly?

Two months ago I saw Mazzei at a M-D County Commission meeting in the chaotic and almost-Third Worldly Steve Clark Bldg. in downtown Miami, and it was all I could do to not to laugh hysterically when I saw her just a few feet away from me, thinking about all the interesting facts and points I'd heard at the meeting we'd both been awake for, but which I knew she'd make sure never saw the light of day in the newspaper, leaving readers in the dark yet again. 
Mazzei would make a very good "minder" in North Korea.

This Herald article below, two years too late, comes as the perfect end of a perfect Wednesday night thinking about ethics: hot pizza, cold Heineken beer, '80's fave Lisa Whelchel on "Survivor," and reading some of the fascinating Grand Jury testimony re

Beachside Montessori Village. 

My favorite so far? 

Someone under oath posited that mendacious former Broward County School Board member Eleanor Sobel wanted to use the school "to bolster  her campaign for the Florida Senate."

That's 100% believable because that's the same woman who had the nerve to actually use a HB City Commission meeting as an opportunity to get signatures from the audience -during the meeting- so she could run for School Board, even though we all 'knew' she'd not stay, and was just using that job to get a salary and govt. pension while waiting to run for Steve Geller's Senate seat.

And that's what she did, isn't it?

I know that we're all still waiting to see Norman's promised interview with our mendacious mayor Joy Cooper on his blog on Channel 10's website re the city's red-light camera report that repudiates everything she's been saying, and her receiving mayoral campaign contributions from the Arizona firm spearheading that RLC effort in South Florida, American Traffic Solutions, just days after she wrote an essay in support of red-light cameras in the Sun-Sentinel.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/bob-normans-blog-post-re-red-light.html

Yeah, I guess nobody at the Sun-Sentinel had the good sense to ask truth-averse Cooper

if she'd received any campaign contributions from the firm when the paper asked her to write essay. Oops!!!

That was real nice of the firm to wait until AFTER Cooper wrote a pro-RLC Op-Ed before giving her thousands and thousands of dollars.And damn convenient, eh?

That's how Joy Cooper rolls!

By the way, for those of you who didn't get the word earlier today, some other things have come up, so my long-in-the-works blog post that publicly crushes Hallandale Beach beat reporters, the Sun-Sentinel's Tonya Alanez & Herald's Carli Teproff, for their longstanding lack of curiosity and attention to detail -esp. re Comm. Sanders and the ethical scandal that has been swirling around him and his wife Jessica for the past three years, and specifically, his abject refusal to meet with HB taxpayers and tell them the truth- originally slated to appear this week, will appear on Saturday or Sunday morning instead.

Trust me, it's NOT going to be very pretty for them, but then given their dismal track record covering news here, of almost going out of their ways at time to avoid reporting what was right in front of them, a fact which has ill-served Hallandale Beach residents who want real reform and transparency at Hallandale Beach City Hall, how could it be otherwise?

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Miami Herald

Records in Broward schools investigation reveal affairs

By Michael Vasquez

Posted online September 19, 2012

While still in office, former Broward School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb engaged in two different romantic affairs with men who worked for a company doing business with the school district, according to law enforcement records now made public.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show that two employees of Citigroup, which was hired to help Broward finance bonds used to build schools, admitted to sexual trysts with Gottlieb.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/19/3011179/records-in-broward-schools-investigation.html

In case you didn't see it yourself, here's Bob Norman's take on the situation:
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/FDLE-School-board-member-had-voting-conflicts/-/3223354/16654466/-/2p6c5vz/-/index.html

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See also:

WPLG-TV, Miami

Bob Norman's Blog

Has school brought segregation to Hollywood?

Published On: Mar 24 2012 01:25:20 PM EDT  
Updated On: Mar 24 2012 01:31:53 PM EDT

  

I saw former Broward School Board Member Jennifer Gottlieb at a kids' event not long ago and she mentioned that the controversial school she helped build in her city of Hollywood, Beachside Montessori Village, was rated third-best in the state for FCAT scores.

I thought about saying, "Yeah, it's amazing what $20 million in taxpayers' money can do."

Read the rest of the post at 
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Has-school-brought-segregation-to-Hollywood/-/3223354/9693822/-/2m3qr1z/-/

And be sure to read my friend, Charlotte Greenbarg's comments below it!

Broward School Board redistricting/incumbent-protection racket set to get first dose of public criticism tonight in Hollywood. Just don't say racial whitewash & Beachside Montessori together aloud or Ann Murray's head will explode. Both are Ann Murray's idea of success stories! LOL!!

Broward School Board redistricting/incumbent-protection racket set to get first dose of public criticism tonight in Hollywood. Just don't say racial whitewash & Beachside Montessori together aloud or Ann Murray's head will explode. Both are Ann Murray's idea of success stories! LOL!!

"Ann Murray could not be reached for comment despite messages left at her office..." 

Hell, this despicable woman won't even answer reasonable questions posed to her when she's sitting right in front of you at a public meeting that's supposed to inform the public.

She is such a disaster for this county's school children and this part of it in particular.

Wait until you see the upcoming videos I have of her sitting stone-faced at Supt. Robert Runcie's Listening Tour visit to Hollywood Hills High School and repeatedly refusing to answer questions posed to her by Hallandale Beach residents.

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http://www.browardschools.com/press/articles/3-21-2012a.htm

Broward Schools Press Release

School Board Redistricting Steering Committee Schedules Public Hearings and Mapping Workshops             The Broward County School Board recently appointed a 19-member Redistricting Steering Committee to lead the single Board member reapportionment process, and create a recommended map with new district boundaries to balance the populations of the seven School Board districts based on 2010 Census data.             Although proposed changes to School Board member districts will modify the geographic areas for single member districts one through seven, countywide seats eight and nine will not be impacted. Map revisions also will not affect attendance boundaries and student transportation.             The Redistricting Steering Committee has scheduled three mapping workshops to be held in each of the District’s south, central and north administrative areas. These workshops will provide instruction, requirements and assistance to those who wish to create a new School Board member district map for consideration. The first of three mapping workshops will be held on Monday, March 26th at 5:30 p.m. at McArthur High School, Auditorium (6501 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood).             The 2011-2013 redistricting project provides for extensive public participation through a series of seven public hearings – one in each of the seven districts throughout the county – to inform community members and receive public comment. The second in a series of public meetings to inform the public about the process for drawing new School Board district map alternatives will take place on Thursday, March 29th from 6 – 8 p.m. at the Kathleen C. Wright Administration Center, Board Room (600 SE Third Ave., Fort Lauderdale).             For more information about the redistricting process and dates and locations of future public hearings and mapping workshops, visit:(www.broward.k12.fl.us/redistricting) or contact Patrick Sipple, School Boundaries, at 754-321-2480.

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www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/fl-school-board-protects-incumbents-20120322,0,6761748.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward School Board protects incumbents, fails to redistrict for 2012 elections

By Anthony Man, Sun Sentinel

9:27 PM EDT, March 22, 2012

One criterion Broward School Board members are unabashedly using to redraw district boundaries: saving their own jobs.

"Protection of incumbents" is one of the seven principles board members have said should be used to remake district boundaries for electing the School Board to take into account the latest Census results.

Though it's not illegal, and incumbent protection has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, plenty of people are displeased.

"We all know that's the unwritten rule in redistricting. But someone put it in black and white?" asked Kevin Tynan, a former Broward Republican Party chairman who served a year as an appointed School Board member and lost a 2010 campaign for a full term. "That's so wrong."

Civic activist Charlotte Greenbarg — president of the Broward Coalition of 200 homeowners associations representing 150,000 people and an appointed member of three School District advisory committees — termed it "bizarre."

Tynan, Greenbarg and Carol Smith of the League of Women Voters of Broward County are also concerned about the School Board's failure to redraw the political boundaries for seven board members in time for the 2012 elections. The two other board members are elected countywide.

District boundaries are normally redrawn every 10 years to reflect population changes as shown by the Census. Instead of redrawing boundaries for elected members' districts for the 2012 elections, the Broward School Board is delaying until 2014.

The state is redrawing districts for the Legislature and Congress in time for this November's elections. The Broward County Commission and the Palm Beach County School Board have already completed their redistricting.

Board members' district boundaries have no impact on where students attend school. The delay means unequal representation for residents in decisions affecting the county school system because the populations in the existing districts are so out of whack. District 2 in southwest Broward has 45,700 more residents than it should. District 5 in central Broward has 20,300 too few, and District 7 in the northeast part of the county is short 16,500 people.

As long as those inequities aren't remedied, the School Board is pretty clearly violating the principle of one-person, one-vote handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Tynan, a lawyer, said the board is "lucky" it hasn't been sued.

"It's something they needed to do. There's no excuse," he said.

The School Board was blasted in a February 2011 report from a statewide grand jury looking into corruption which found the board was so lacking in leadership that it deserved to be abolished.

Scott Spages, a Davie political activist, said the School Board's redistricting priorities will do nothing to improve its reputation. "This School Board has ranged from criminal to dysfunctional, and it just further speaks to the issue of them being dysfunctional," he said.

Both Spages and Greenbarg said they couldn't understand how the School Board bobbled a task that other Florida government bodies have managed to complete. After all, they said, the 2010 Census and need to redistrict in keping with its results weren't exactly secrets.

"Redistricting isn't rocket science," Greenbarg said. "They should have done it the first opportunity they had to put the numbers in the computer and get the districts."

Michael Rajner, chairman of the School Board's Redistricting Steering Committee, referred questions about the timing of redistricting and the incumbent-protection mission to board members.

School Board Chairwoman Ann Murray could not be reached for comment despite messages left at her office on Wednesday and Thursday. Laurie Rich Levinson, the vice chairwoman, said she wasn't happy with the failure to redraw districts in time for the 2012 election.

She said she raised the matter at workshops with other board members in August and September, but that district staff balked, arguing that it would be too difficult to redraw the map by the end of 2011. State law requires setting school board boundaries in odd-numbered years.

"In retrospect I think there should have been more pushing to go out and get it done when everybody else managed to go out and get it done," she said.

The Census Bureau provided population information in April. The Palm Beach County School Board held hearings around the county and adopted its new districts in November. The Broward School Board appointed its Redistricting Steering Committee that month. The seven criteria the board told them to use: compactness and contiguity; preservation of political subdivisions, communities of interests, prior districts and incumbents; and compliance with federal Voting Rights Act requirements for creating districts that help elect members of minority populations.

Though disappointed by the delay in redrawing the map, Rich Levinson, who was elected to the school board in 2010, said there's a positive element to what's happening now. The series of public hearings the redistricting steering committee plans around the county means process will be "very thorough and transparent," he said.

Details on 11 hearings and workshops planned by the Redistricting Steering Committee at SunSentinel.com/BrowardPolitics.

Reader comments at: http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/fl-school-board-protects-incumbents-20120322/10?sort=asc

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WPLG-TV, Miami

Bob Norman's Blog

Has school brought segregation to Hollywood?

Published On: Mar 24 2012 01:25:20 PM EDT  Updated On: Mar 24 2012 01:31:53 PM EDT

    

I saw former Broward School Board Member Jennifer Gottlieb at a kids' event not long ago and she mentioned that the controversial school she helped build in her city of Hollywood, Beachside Montessori Village, was rated third-best in the state for FCAT scores.

I thought about saying, "Yeah, it's amazing what $20 million in taxpayers' money can do."

Read the rest of the post at 
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Has-school-brought-segregation-to-Hollywood/-/3223354/9693822/-/2m3qr1z/-/

And be sure to read my friend Charlotte Greenbarg's comments below it!

Some of you will recall that in an email earlier this month, I shared with you the URL to the Westside Gazette story that Bob Norman notes above re Bethune Elementary, the day after it first appeared.

http://www.thewestsidegazette.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=112729&sID=4&ItemSource=L

 

February 22, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Further, I not only haven't forgotten the joke of a public meeting that Jennifer Gottlieb and Ann Murray had on Hollywood Beach on February 22nd last year at the Hollywood Beach Culture & Community Center, following the devastating final report of the grand jury that so many of us hoped ended with some more people in hancuffs.

http://www1.wsvn.com/pdf/BrwdStateGrandJuryReport.pdf

I haven't forgotten how pitiful it was to watch the organized group of brainwashed Beachside Montessori Moms in attendance cheer Gottlieb and Murray's serial lies, spouting their Kool-Aid nonsense that denied the self-evident reality of how the school came into being and how it came to be the particular way it was - racial whitewash.

February 22, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.  

February 22, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier. 

(Yes, the same two School Board members from next-door Hollywood who couldn't be bothered to attend the long-in-the-planning event at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center four months later in June on the longstanding funding/physical problems at Hallandale H.S., where the parents and taxpayers got a chance to vent as well as hear from some of the original litigants in the successful lawsuit against the Broward Schools to end the unequal funding.)

Csaba Kulin, Catherine Kim Owens and myself were the only objective people from HB in attendance in Hollywood to see the entire dog-and-pony show, which sadly, only Channel 7 bothered to cover, despite the opportunity to ask two people with some real culpability for the whole sordid mess to explain in their own words what happened.

 

I would have liked to have been able to link or post the Channel 7 video with then-7 reporter Reed Cowan interviewing Murray, and her patently absurd alibis and claims that persuasive information was coming soon that would make the public see the Board's side of everything and agree with them, but unfortunately, it is no longer available on their website -though I have it saved on my computer.

(Cowan is now at KSNV-TV, Channel 3, the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas. Quick, someone tell http://www.sfltv.com/ )

Disappearing TV news videos are a blogger's perpetual lament, of course, as well as for anyone seriously interested in public policy, and yet it's become a depressingly familiar routine at South Florida TV stations.
Unfortunately for me, that includes a few rare stories I've seen in the past eight years down here that actually paint an accurate picture of government financial funny business and government agencies run amok, ones that I'd love to keep permanent links to on my blog for everyone to see, some for the very first time.
But once they're taken off the station website, they're never to be seen again except on a demo or portfolio reel for some future employer. 

Sorry, no Jen-Jen for you today!

 

Days before school starts, Broward County has a rudderless & clueless education system on auto-pilot, and the mice just jumped ship...

RedBroward's video: Amateur tape of Channel 10's newscast with investigative reporter Bob Norman. August 2011.

http://youtu.be/kjFW2r5SvWs

Days before school starts, Broward County has a rudderless & clueless education system on auto-pilot, and the mice just jumped ship. It's time to re-think the idea that they are in any way Social Media/Tech. savvy... or competent.

Broward County School Board

K.C. Wright Administration Building,

600 SE 3rd Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

(754) 321-0000

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Broward Schools, "We are Broward County Public Schools, the 6th Largest District in the Nation"

http://www.browardschools.com,

@browardschools,

http://twitter.com/#!/browardschools,

On June 20th they tweeted, "Follow BCPS This Summer on Twitter and Facebook"

http://www.browardschools.com/press/release.asp?press_id=1313

Following this Tweet they generated 3 more Tweets, the last one of which was on June 30th.

There was NOTHING in July or August.

Nothing about the resignations of School Board members Dave Thomas or Jennifer Gottlieb.

Really.

So, the very same well-paid people at Broward Schools who weren't smart enough to figure out a way to use the resources they already had at BECON TV to televise the INTEGRITY meetings on their own station -the resources and equipment that Broward taxpayers had already paid for!- a subject of several fact-filled blog posts here last year, and a station that appears on both cable and satellite, have now shown themselves to be completely incapable of competently using the Social Media they claim to be hip to in order to share the fact that suddenly, they were a Board of 7, not 9.

Monday, when you went to the Broward School Board's website and looked at their Press Release homepage, http://www.browardschools.com/press/, you would see for yourself that they STILL have nothing about the Thomas and Gottlieb resignations posted, days later.

Even though it's less than a week 'till school starts.

When you go to the school system's website, check the left corner links under News/Links and click "Ethics Panels."

Guess what you are directed to?

Instead of the county's homepage for INTEGRITY or whatever they're calling their feeble Ethics efforts these days, which would be the logical guess, you are instead sent to a fake education website full of ads. http://www.browardschoolsintegrity.org/

Surprise!!!

And not to sound heavy-handed or anything but there's a Twitter page for a kids show on BECON called Teen News.

Why? http://twitter.com/#!/browardteennews

Their last Tweet was September 2nd, almost a year ago.

Apparently someone named Jeb Brunt is in charge, but is it really too much to ask if this group or their Twitter feed

is really necessary in the year 2011, if they're so poorly organized that almost an entire year has gone by...

I think that's your clue that they are un-necessary.

It's time to eliminate extraneous and superfluous!

But then the School Board members themselves are hardly role models for Social Media as now-former At-Large School Board Jennifer Gottlieb so ably demonstrates.

She has authored a grand total of two Tweets in 29 months and her last one was in April 2009, 28 months ago.

http://twitter.com/#!/jenjengottlieb

I'm curious why her 147 Followers still, apparently, follow her if she can't figure out something to say in 28 months.

http://twitter.com/#!/jenjengottlieb/followers

isn't that kind of a sign that it's not really working out?

While she only has 6 Followers compared to Gottlieb's 147, At-Large School Board member member Robin Bartleman

http://twitter.com/#!/rbartleman at least writes more often...

Well, actually I don't know if she does or not since...

@rbartleman's Tweets are protected.

You'll excuse me for wondering just what the point is for an elected official like Bartleman to have a Twitter page, using her real name and her official School Board photo in a Social Media site, as well as a link to her School Board bio, but "protect" her Tweets on a site designed to share information.

It's like they're gold bars in her 'panic room' at home, and only her 6 pals, her BFFs, can see them /read them.

Seems sorta weird and about what you'd expect from a twenty-year old Rush Comm. Chair at a college sorority, but not what you expect in an elected public official.

(I dated a few of the former while at IU and was even friends with the President of PanHel, and they would've absolutely killed to have something like Twitter.

Instead, they had old-fashioned face-to-face meetings.)

If you want to have a Twitter page that you can share private information with your select circle of pals and don't want to send emails instead like most people, please DON'T use that official photo and don't link to the School Board website.

On a related matter, curious about why I never saw or heard anything in newspaper articles, blogs or on local TV newscasts about what the person who is supposed to be representing the pro-active voice of involved school parents thinks about what has been going on, I checked the website and Twitter page of the Broward County Council of PTAs, too.

BCCPTA is the parent 501(c)(3) non-profit for roughly 170-plus PTA groups throughout Broward County.

I found out that the president of that well-meaning group is named Linda Nestor and never having heard of her, I did a search to see what I could find out about her and what she and they have been saying of late about what's been going on this summer, with one scandal and embarrassing revelation after another dropping straight from the skies here, including the ones below.

Well, not surprisingly, being where we are, it's a deadly case of Pete and Repeat, if you're familiar with that conundrum.

BCCPTA

http://www.ptabroward.org/,

@BCCPTA Broward County, Florida,

http://twitter.com/#!/BCCPTA,

Their last tweet was on June 25th, six long weeks ago.

Hmm-m... has anything happened here with the School system since then?

I'd say yes, but she says no.

That's not a good sign.

Seriously, does anyone over at the K.C. Wright Bldg. or the supposed parent organizations know how to stay pro-active and focused like a laser beam, or in general, know what the hell they're doing?

It doesn't really seem that way to me or to the many people I know and respect who pay MUCH closer attention to the Broward County Schools.

In fact, the preponderance of the evidence to date suggests that a lot more resignations and firings are desperately needed here, because Broward County taxpayers are definitely NOT getting a dollar's worth of value for a dollar given to the Broward County Schools.

Just saying...

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It's Official: School Board Member Jennifer Gottlieb Resigns

By Bob Norman

POSTED: Friday, August 12, 2011

UPDATED: 9:41 pm EDT August 12, 2011

http://www.local10.com/bobnorman/28851873/detail.html

Bob Norman's Blog archive: http://www.local10.com/news/28120953/detail.html

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-broward-school-maintenance-buildin20110814,0,1710879.story

The contract for the $5.2 million construction project expired 13 days after it was signed in 2008, but work has continued amid questions about whether the facility is even needed.

By Cara Fitzpatrick, SUN SENTINEL

August 15, 2011

For three years, the Broward School District has allowed work to proceed on a $5.2 million office building in Pembroke Pines, despite a deepening budget crisis that prompted at least one board member to question whether it was still needed.

Now the district has racked up $2 million in construction costs but has only an unfinished project, an expired contract and a potential legal and financial nightmare to show for it.

"We are stuck in a mess that should never have happened," said Nora Rupert, who unsuccessfully tried to persuade fellow board members in June to consider shelving the project.

In the two months since then, Royal Concrete Concepts, of West Palm Beach, performed about $514,000 in work on the project, or about a quarter of the total. The company has declined comment.

The project, which is near Stirling Road and SW 202 Avenue, has been planned for more than a decade, and the School Board approved a building contract for it in April 2008. District officials said the new offices would save about $608,000 a year by decreasing the time maintenance employees spent driving every day from other district offices to job sites.

But earlier this month, district auditors discovered the contract for the project expired just 13 days after it was approved. Despite that, about eight months later, district staff gave the company the green light to start working, issuing a "notice to proceed."

District officials said they aren't sure why the expired contract wasn't noticed before now but said they haven't yet paid most of the $2 million.

Without a valid contract, J. Paul Carland II, the district's general counsel, said Thursday the district could risk a lawsuit from Royal Concrete if it called off the project altogether. He said it was also difficult to keep building without a legal agreement to spell out the price, deadlines and responsibilities of the district and the company.

"We just have to scramble," Carland said.

Further complicating matters is how the project was financed, district officials say. The district used federal stimulus bonds, which can't be used for salaries or school maintenance projects. To switch to another project, the district likely would have to come up with another $2 million, said Omar Shim, the district's capital budget director.

Board member Ann Murray called the project a "total mess" that had been propelled by "gentlemen's agreements" rather than with valid contracts and other documents. District staff should have known there wasn't an up-to-date contract, she said.

"It's your job to sort this out," she told Interim Superintendent Donnie Carter at last Tuesday's meeting.

Carter, who declined an interview with the Sun Sentinel, put a temporary stop to work at the site last week. Tom Lindner, the district's construction chief, said the project has gone through at least four project managers.

District officials gave Royal Concrete the go-ahead in May to pour the foundation, level the property and start erecting pre-fabricated buildings for the maintenance offices, Lindner told board members Tuesday. He said the project proceeded slowly because the district first wanted to finish school construction.

District officials also wanted to be closer to finishing a neighboring project, a controversial $18 million bus depot with office space, a bus wash and fueling station. When that was first planned, district officials said the bus depot would cost about $4.5 million.

The district has used the site, at times, to store old buses. Lindner said the final building on the site is about 93 percent complete.

The price for the maintenance offices also has fluctuated. It was originally approved as a $4.8 million project. Lindner said he's not sure why the cost changed but said the district still plans to use both facilities.

Board member Patricia Good said at this point it's difficult to know what to do.

"Do you stop the project? Do you continue with the project? With what's been raised, I don't know," she said.

Reader comments at:

http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-broward-school-maintenance-buildin20110814/10

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Jennifer Gottlieb resignation is proof that EVERYTHING surprises Ann Murray: the sunrise, her own shadow, gravity...

Looks like I may finally have some incentive to dig-up and post that video I shot of Jennifer Gottlieb and Ann Murray up in Hollywood Beach one night back in January, making one lame excuse after another, for the excesses at Beachside Montessori Village -and the school system- before many of the cliquish Montessori moms, who, you should know, think they are either the bee's knees or the cat's pajamas!

They are neither, just the sort of sycophants who swallowed their self-serving prattle and have been funding these two despite their dubious character and judgment..

The meeting that only Channel 7 News of the 4 English-speaking Miami TV News operations bothered to cover as mentioned here at the time, with then-7 News reporter Reed Cowan asking Ann Murray some tough questions.

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Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/12/2356823/broward-school-board-member-jennifer.html

Second Broward School Board Member steps down

School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb becomes the second person to resign from the nine-member board and the resignations come at a time when school is about to start in the troubled district.

BY LAURA FIGUEROA

August 13, 2011

Jennifer Gottlieb makes two.

Just before the Aug. 22 start of the school year, Gottlieb, a veteran member of the Broward School Board, notified Chairman Ben Williams that she is stepping down.

Gottlieb’s departure comes a day after freshman school board member Dave Thomas announced that he was leaving the board to focus on his wife’s health issues.

While she did not give a specific reason for her resignation, a formal letter of resignation would be forthcoming, Williams said in a phone interview.

“I was surprised that she was resigning, but we didn’t go into detail, “ Williams said.

Calls to Gottlieb’s cell and home phone numbers were not returned Friday.

Though rumors of Gottlieb’s eventual resignation had been swirling around, especially after Thomas’s announcement, many political insiders, education activists and those who serve on the board with her, say Gottlieb’s abrupt departure came as a surprise, especially since she just won another term on the board in a tight August 2010 race.

“That really floored me,” said school board member Ann Murray, when learning of Gottlieb’s resignation. “She’s done a great job. I’ve supported and admired her, and if this is based on what’s in the best interest of her family then I support her.”

Gottlieb, whose district covers much of Hollywood, has come under sharp criticism in the past year. While never naming her directly, a state grand jury report released in February blasted her for pushing for the construction of the Beachside Montessori School Village in Hollywood.

The $25 million K-8 center had been championed by Gottlieb, who said it was a way to replicate the successes of a similar charter school in Fort Lauderdale.

But, the grand jury report dubbed the Hollywood project as the “beachside boondoggle” and blasted it as “a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the Board and District.”

“Beachside cost the taxpayers over $25 million, including over $6 million in land acquisition, displaced dozens of residents, razed almost all of a local community park, and built in an area and a time where there was an abundance of empty elementary and middle school seats,” notes the grand jury report.

Gottlieb, a mother of two, who is married to Broward Court Judge Ken Gottlieb, got her start in education as a teacher at Dania Elementary School in Dania Beach. She also worked for the Broward Teachers Union as a government relations manager.

The union threw their support by Gottlieb when she ran for the board in September 2006, and she was able to defeat incumbent Darla L. Carter, who had served on the board for 10 years.

BTU President Pat Santeramo, said he was surprised by Gottlieb’s resignation, but also noted over the years the union’s relationship with their one-time ally grew distant. He cited Gottlieb’s support of former Superintendent Jim Notter’s calls for impasse during contract negotiations as a major reason for the rift.

Notter has resigned his superintendent post and the board is currently searching for someone to lead the country’s sixth largest district.

“As a former employee, she contributed a lot to building up the government relations between the two sides,” Santeramo said. “It’s unfortunate that over the past couple of years she lost her connection to her background in the classrooms.”

The two vacancies leave room for Republican Gov. Rick Scott to make board appointments in line with his conservative policies. Though the seats are non-partisan, Democrats have largely had a stronghold over the board.

“I have no doubt the governor is going to identify professional individuals who can continue the functions of a board member,” Williams said.

The board has many issues to deal with while awaiting Scott’s appointments, including the search for a school’s chief and the appropriate response to the critical grand jury report. Scott’s appointments are likely to take several weeks.

The board also is dealing with the fallout from charges of corruption against former board member Beverly Gallagher and Stephanie Kraft.

Gallagher was arrested in 2009 and is serving a three-year sentence in federal prison. Kraft who left last year, is under a corruption investigation by the Broward State Attorney's office.

Board member Robin Bartleman, who, like Gottlieb, fills a countywide at-large-seat on the dais, said the board could not let the resignations distract from the business at hand.

“There’s still seven of us,” Bartleman said. “We have to continue working on the budget, implementing new legislation, and making sure the doors open on the first day of school.”

Herald Staff Writer Patricia Mazzei contributed to this report

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http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-08-06/news/fl-broward-schools-overtime-20110806_1_highest-overtime-earners-bus-drivers-broward-school-district

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Despite budget woes, Broward schools continued to pay huge overtime

By Cara Fitzpatrick, Sun Sentinel

7:39 p.m. EDT, August 6, 2011

Even as it grappled with a $171 million shortfall, the Broward School District continued to pay some school employees more than three times the usual rate for driving an activities bus, cleaning or working in an after-school program.

Although district auditors recommended ending the practice about two years ago, Broward paid some employees with second jobs overtime at the hourly rate of their primary positions. That meant some staffers earned up to $48 an hour as bus drivers— jobs that typically pay $11.58 to $21.73 an hour. Others earned up to $38 an hour as custodians, a job that starts at $11.23 an hour.

Related

Watchdog reports: Are schools misspending taxpayer money?

But making a change is "not just a simple measure," said Gracie Diaz, associate superintendent of human resources. Most school employees with second jobs are entitled by federal labor law to the same rate as their primary position if the work duties are similar.

Only about 6 percent, or about 417 employees, could be paid the lower rate, she said.

Still, that would have saved about $200,000 a year, or about five new teachers' salaries, according to district officials.

Another suggestion by district auditors to eliminate a pay supplement for bus drivers would have saved about $1.5 million a year. But it has been ignored because it would require re-negotiating union contracts.

The latest audit of overtime pay was released on Aug. 2, the same day the School Board approved a tentative $2.9 billion budget that calls for increased class sizes, a reduction in the arts and the loss of about 2,400 jobs, many of them teachers on annual contracts.

"It shouldn't be two years to implement things from an audit," said board member Nora Rupert, who along with Laurie Rich Levinson voted against the budget. Jennifer Gottlieb was absent.

In the first three months of this year alone, Broward paid about $1.3 million in overtime to 6,946 school employees working second jobs in the district, auditors found.

And, while total overtime — about $3.7 million — went down during that period, overtime paid to employees with second jobs actually increased 33 percent, or about $310,000, according to auditors.

District auditors recommended in 2009 that overtime costs could be cut by hiring outside workers for some jobs, switching employees with second jobs to a lower hourly overtime rate and cutting the supplement for bus drivers.

Diaz said the overtime rates will be cut, but former Superintendent Jim Notter wanted to wait until the start of the new fiscal year, July 1, to lessen the effect on employees. The district also had to change its policies and payroll systems, which took time, she said.

The district hired about 907 outside workers last year, she said, but because of training issues it's not always as effective as using an existing employee. Those workers also are the first to be let go so laid-off district employees can have their jobs, she said.

Other auditor suggestions haven't been used.

Patrick Reilly, the district's chief auditor, said bus drivers were among the district's highest overtime earners, despite having lower base salaries than many other employee groups.

Drivers who have routes longer than six and a half hours are entitled by contract to an extra 30 minutes a day in pay to clean the buses and do paperwork, he said. But those duties already are included in their job descriptions and cutting the extra pay could save about $1.5 million a year.

Senior drivers are entitled by contract to first choice of routes with overtime, inflating the costs.

The transportation department is more than $50 million in the red, according to the district, and officials say they're looking into some cost-saving measures there.

Board member Ann Murray, who used to work in transportation, told Reilly to stop "badgering" departments where problems have already been identified. "It's easier to blame then fix sometimes," she said Tuesday.

But Rich Levinson said Friday the district can't wait for years to make changes.

"At all cost we need to protect our schools," she said.

Reader comments at:

http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-broward-schools-overtime-20110806/10

Soon I'll be sharing some informed and uninformed thoughts on whom Gov. Rick Scott should consider appointing as interim members to the Broward County School Board.