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Showing posts with label Bob Norman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Norman. Show all posts

Thursday, October 18, 2018

How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz? Speculation by Buddy Nevins on whether Broward's state's attorney should run for re-election after 42 years in office gives me a chance to piggy-back and raises some questions of my own regarding Satz & Co's underwhelming performance and the state of ethics in Broward County and Hallandale Beach today, as per Joy Cooper

How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz? Speculation by Buddy Nevins on whether Broward's state's attorney should run for re-election after 42 years in office gives me a chance to piggy-back and raises some questions of my own regarding Satz & Co's underwhelming performance and the state of ethics in Broward County and Hallandale Beach today, as per Joy Cooper

 How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz?

Now there's a question...

 As veteran Broward County political observer and Broward Beat blogger Buddy Nevins writes about and speculates about some of the behind-the-scenes moves swirling around whether Broward State Attorney Michael Satz will defy common sense yet again and run for re-election after being in office since 1976, and who might or should run for the office if he doesn't, I hold a mirror up to Satz and his many past failures to act in ways that I believe he should have.

 That includes one huge lingering question that so many people in Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and other parts of South Florida routinely ask me when I'm minding my own business somewhere, regarding the arrest last December by the FBI of then-Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper on multiple felony counts: "Dave, what took Satz so long?" He sat on almost five years of audiotapes of Joy Cooper bragging about her influence to undercover FBI agents posing as real estate interests.






So, continuing on the subject of Satz, per this story and tweet below by blogger Red Broward, i.e. Tom Lauder,
Hallandale Beach Mayor Keith London Pays Disgraced Former County Commissioner With PAC Funded By Developers & Casinos
https://redbroward.com/2018/10/15/londonpac/

 First, I have known and communicated with Tom for many years. I meant to his tweet on Monday afternoon when I first saw it and read the piece.
I even meant to respond to the other day via a tweet storm but got tied up with something else before I really could.
Then, once I started, I didn't have enough time or energy to do it justice the way I wanted to... folks, real tears!
I discovered that my beloved laptop's not working properly so that what I wrote and saved as a file there on Monday night when I got home isn't available for me to write and post here now.
So, that said, I've added a smaller ad hoc version of that response of mine to Tom's story and tweet below my own tweet.

There's more at: https://twitter.com/RedBroward/with_replies

 Tom: I appreciate that you have a very different take than me re Keith London, now Hallandale beach mayor and someone that I have known for roughly 12 years, many of them when he and I spoke or saw one another 3-4 times a week at times when things were going crazy at South Florida's #1 home of chaos, Hallandale beach City hall.

 That's your right, of course, but Keith -whom I haven't spoken to for longer than 45 seconds in more than 5 years, despite so many people even now persisting in thinking that we're somehow tied to the hip like we often seemed to be years ago- has to deal with reality and one of them is that #Gaming and #Gambling interests have ALWAYS mattered in a small city with two separately-operated casinos & race tracks. (The town and this part of Broward was run by Organized Crime just a few decades ago, as any historian can tell you, and as I know you know as well.)

Not to tell you what to think or how to write your posts and tweets but... personally, I think it'd be a good idea to remind your readers when you write about people associated with Hallandale Beach's "gaming interests" who are communicating with or helping Keith with some effort of his, like it's some sort of nefarious plot, you simply need remind them to take a look at a map and see that Gulfstream Park Race track & casino and its Village at Gulfstream are, literally, across the street from Hallandale Beach City Hall.
AND it's still THE largest employer in the city, such as it is.
That explains Gulfstream Park's interest in what goes on across the street.

But that said, I also need remind you that I have personally been one of the -if not THE- biggest critics of Gulfstream Park's management and its operations in the city for the entire length of the 11 years that I have had my influential blog that LOTS of well-informed people in South Florida read to get insight and perspective they don't get elsewhere.
It's why so many people call me and write me to tell me something or even argue a point, including TV/print reporters and newspaper columnists, some of whom are outside of South Florida but who have an interest in what goes on in South Florida, good and bad, whether in Miami, Tallahassee or Washington, D.C.
It's why reporters and bloggers and other, like you, tag me in their tweets, because they know I know the score and can usually add something to what's on the table.

 At HB City Commission meetings as well as many public events and especially on my blog, I have openly laughed at and enjoyed publicly poking large holes in Gulfstream's feeble excuses for all sorts of actions they've taken over the years, including their well-known propensity in the past to use ex-mayor Joy Cooper as their personal go-to person to get everything they wanted.
Sometimes, as in 2013, that included quite justified large fines for operating against the city's own code and trying to get away with things simply because of who they are -used to calling the tune.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/gulfstream-park-race-track-casino-will.html

 Cooper, typically, loved to say she'd take care of it and tried to ram waivers of fines down the HB City Commission without any documentation or even any staff prep, and ignore their proscribed government oversight role. Cooper didn't care, but she also didn't get her way because I let the public know what was what. And one TV reporter in particular - Bob Norman of Local10.

 Local10: Mayor wants $52K fine against Gulfstream Park waived
No vote taken on waiving fine at Hallandale Beach budget meeting
By Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com, and Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com
Published On: Oct 04 2013 06:13:16 PM EDT   
Updated On: Oct 04 2013 11:51:10 PM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/mayor-wants-52k-fine-against-gulfstream-park-waived/-/1717324/22282006/-/p0vivbz/-/index.html


My intimate knowledge of the facts and not just the prevailing media or party narrative, along with some demonstrated shrewdness, plus, actual results, are why I've succeeded in getting negative stories about Gulfstream and other parties on local Miami TV newscasts when they've acted in truly egregious ways that shocked any reasonable person's idea of propriety.
In this case, Gulfstream Park was used to carrying a Big Stick -and was not afraid to use it.
But I'm not afraid of bullies.
Guess how that turned out in the end because of me?

 But all of that said -and it's easy to find on my blog's archives- it is demonstrably true that the Diplomat Hotel and its management team and crew of legal and PR mouthpieces also had a TON of influence at HB City Hall and used that influence and leverage routinely to get what THEY wanted, too, even when HB residents made clear that they were against it, including, famously, the 2009 RAC plan that called for multiple condo towers to go up around their golf course north of F-rated Hallandale Beach Blvd. that were all over twenty-five floors and would have ruined many residents quality of life, including people on Diplomat Parkway who paid thru the nose for homes with unobstructed golf course views and who did not want their home in near-perpetual shade.

 Gulfstream has tried to exploit that perception and beat them at their own game. It's that simple.

 So when writing about the amount of campaign funds that Gulfstream Park gave, be sure to mention that while Gulfstream backed both Michele Lazarow and Annabelle Taub-Lima in their pre-acrimony days vs. Diplomat-backed, ethically-flawed ex-HB Comm. William "Bill" Julian, they still got out-spent by the Diplomat and its minions desperate to get Cooper's pawn Julian back on the dais to do her bidding.
Just saying, proper context and perspective have a place in the Keith London pieces you write.
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Saturday, November 18, 2017

#RemoveHer - What's Past is Prologue: Freud & Jung together could NOT possibly plumb the entirety of depths of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged #HallandaleBeach mayor & town bully #JoyCooper's super-size ego and sense of entitlement. Florida Governor Rick Scott asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting




Local 10 News WPLG-TV, Miami
Video shows Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's husband going on wild rant
Harry Cooper loses it after he's called to attend to wife
By Bob Norman - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 6:25 PM, November 17, 2017
Updated: 8:39 PM, November 17, 2017
https://www.local10.com/news/local-10-investigates/video-shows-hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-cooper-s-husband-going-on-wild-rant

 #RemoveHer - What's Past is Prologue: Freud & Jung together could NOT possibly plumb the entirety of depths of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged #HallandaleBeach mayor & town bully #JoyCooper's super-size ego and sense of entitlement.
 Florida Governor Rick Scott asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting

The ruinous reign of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper has hit yet another bumpy moral pothole that makes Hallandale Beach a laughingstock in South Florida, and this time, her husband husband Harry got involved just to make the whole thing even more of a desperate cry for help. 
Not tragic, just desperate, pathetic and annoying.

And it's hardly surprising to someone like myself who has been writing about the ethical and financial shenanigans in Hallandale Beach for so long that when something like this happens, inevitably, Miami-area TV and print reporters -as well as reporters, activists and legislators from around the state- contact me to see if I have a new angle on this latest incident.

 I try not to disappoint them and have some compelling take, but in this case, no, it's just more of the same damn thing that has so upset concerned residents and Small Business owners people like me and my friends who just want this area to be normal.
To be the well-managed city it ought to have been many years ago but has never had been because that would be incompatible to having Cooper as mayor.

 People want a a city free of corruption, something it still is NOT. despite the end of the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's reign of ruin, after last year's successful election of Anabelle Taub to the City Commission. 

Joy Cooper, the longtime Hallandale Beach mayor and town bully, the sanctimonious woman who called me a "Nazi" at a City Commission meeting almost ten years ago -while I was sitting on a chair writing down some notes even before the meeting started- is clearly gearing up for an explosive and messy final act to her long-running performance that's consistently made this southeast Broward County city a running punchline in South Florida media for well over a decade.
These things never end well for despots!

Florida Governor asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/hallandale/fl-sb-hallandale-mayor-slurring-20171117-story.html

For you newcomers to the blog who have no idea how many hundreds of times I've written blog posts and widely-shared emails that have exposed her narcissistic personality's self-serving nature and outright deviousness, trying her best to make sure that the public is unaware of what she's actually doing, where, for all practical purposes, for years the glorification of her personal persona has long been the city's number one concern, with no expense spared, it's hardly surprising that Joy and Harry produced a son, Matt, who also thought that he had a giant sense of entitlement, too.
When you know all these things, it's not so surprising that Matt Cooper thought he was above the laws and rules that everyone else in the area has to live by and abide.

 All you need to do is re-read my 2012 post below about Matt Cooper's own curious sense of entitlement to know that something like this does not just happen overnight. 
It takes years and years...
And you know what they say about apples not falling far from the tree...

Whatever else you can say about them, the Cooper family's grandiose sense of entitlement and perks, and their lack of hubris, never seems to wane.
This is how the Cooper Clan rolls -our way or the highway.

 As long as they do, the public must be ready to fight back with everything they have.

If you agree, retweet this!



A helpful reminder from me to you!

NOVEMBER 9, 2012
Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante is no Paul Revere! Caught in the act: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's son's Midnight Ride of campaign sign-stealing -on Election Day!; Anything goes now in HB -even political intimidation- as Broward IG & Broward SAO sleepwalk while laws & ethics are repeatedly laughed at by pols in power; @MayorCooper, #FDLE, @myfloridalegal, @fbi.gov
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/hallandale-beachs-midnight-vigilante-is.html

 "Good always prevails," Cooper said. "Didn't your mom tell you that?" 
-from Cooper re-elected in Hallandale Beach
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-11-06/news/fl-election-day-hallandale-beach-20121106_1_commission-term-new-fire-station-commissioner-dorothy-ross

 Hmm-m... irony.
I suppose it all depends on whom your mother is, doesn't it?
What sort of ethical role model SHE is. 
Is she conscientious and does she instill a proper, grounded sense of perspective, or does she teach by example that you can always get away with what you want because of who she is, and if that doesn't work, you can just ignore the rules that everyone else in society has to follow?

Is your mother the sort of person who, when she's the mayor of a small town, a propos of nothing in particular, when she thinks she can't be overheard, tells a City Commissioner that she thinks that one of their town's citizens, someone sitting in a chair patiently waiting for a Commission meeting to start -and the only citizen in the room- is a "Nazi"?
Does she follow that up by saying that she thinks that one of the other city commissioners, who isn't present yet, "is a Hitler"?

Yes, I guess it really all depends upon whom your mother is.

But then after all these years and all the unethical incidents we've collectively witnessed, we pretty much know what sort of role model Joy Cooper is, and it's certainly not one for "good."

For years, whether we wanted to hear them or not, nearly everyone who pays close attention to civic affairs in Hallandale Beach heard the same familiar fact-filled stories, with lots of specifics, about the dysfunctional Cooper family and their myriad anti-social behavior problems: excessive drinking, physical altercations, and most alarmingly, FREQUENT and excessive phone calls to the 911 service asking for a police response.

We heard how seemingly all members of the family -including the mayor- had developed a well-practiced yet despicable habit of using her position as an elected official in this town as, alternately, either leverage or a crutch, whenever they had run-ins with various members of the law enforcement community in South Florida.

Of which there have been so many, to say nothing about possible incidents where the other party reluctantly decided NOT to call the police on them after all.

Not surprisingly, they were said to be especially fond of the old standby, "Don't you know who I am/my mother is/my wife is?" line when confronted by Police Officers, as if being mayor of this small city somehow entitled her and them to some sort of special treatment or consideration by the police of any city.

It's precisely the sort of thing that is not only illegal, but specifically prohibited behavior by elected officials in the State of Florida.
Correct, because it's someone using their office to gain a benefit not legally available to other Florida citizens.

The problem, of course, is that we all know from personal experience in living in Hallandale Beach that this sort of thing happens here fairly routinely, because we've seen for ourselves that there are, in fact, some people in this community who can, quite literally, do whatever they want to do, no matter that it's illegal under state, county or city law, and they never have to face the public and legal consequences. 

In some cases, they practically dare authorities to say anything or do anything to stop them.

Lest you forget, I've written about unethical behavior by well-known people in this community breaking the law in quite a number of ways a few times in just the past two weeks on my blog, and lots of people have been reading all about it.

In fact, 2,700 people read this one post of October 15th:
Ethics? Not for us! Follow-up to my post re Hallandale Beach's unethical "business as usual" attitude, with "special rules for special people" if they are named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders; What ethics? What rules? @MayorCooper, @SandersHBhttp://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/ethics-not-for-us-follow-up-to-my-post.html

 No doubt many Hallandale Beach residents were nodding in silent agreement as they read it because they've frequently observed public signs of this sense of entitlement, too, and now feel somewhat relieved at least that they're not alone in having seen the same despicable behavior, too. Misery lives company, and here, it's the whole town that is being made miserable by Joy Cooper and her actions, words and attitude towards regular citizens, with some of us receiving extra dollops of her attitude.

Perhaps the most-famous recent incident of Cooper family members being treated differently involves Mayor Cooper herself, after she crashed her moving car into another moving vehicle, which as it happened, turned out to be a City of Hallandale Beach emergency response vehicle -responding to an actual emergency call.

 There were plenty of witnesses to that incident, of course, including members of the public who witnessed it, and the city employees in the vehicle that Mayor Cooper actually hit.

 But how did that all turn out exactly?

 Yes, good luck trying to find out what exactly were the legal and financial consequences to Mayor Cooper for that careless and reckless behavior of hers.
Hmm-m...

 More frequently, there are all the fact-filed stories that have been borne out by history about various members of the Cooper family being caught speeding by police, esp. the Aventura 

 Police, and running that familiar line of theirs on the police officers, as if they'd never heard that sort of self-important excuse before.

 Yes, whatever else you can say about them, the Cooper family's grandiose sense of entitlement and perks, and their lack of hubris, never seems to wane.

 (Not unlike Andre Pierre, North Miami's mayor. In May of 2011, he was caught speeding by Aventura Police on his way to meet, of all people, Mayor Cooper. He said all sorts of incriminating things and ALL of his remarks were recorded by a camera inside the squad car, one that the officers on the scene can't turn-off, and which prints out a ticket to prevent anything illegal from transpiring, with all the info fed directly to Aventura Police HQ for monitoring. WTVJ-TV/Channel 6 showed the video on-air and it was amazing -and appalling. But pretty reflective of the both the low-caliber and high self-importance that many South Florida pols possess, including in our very own city.http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/North-Miami-Mayor-accused-of-abuse-of-power-for-implying-threats-to-cops-121368674.html)

 So, all that said, now on to the story of Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante... and his true identity
On Tuesday night, while over at the Upper Deck restaurant with some friends, watching 
election results across the nation rolling on their bank of TVs, I received the following photos from a reliable source.
The source said that earlier that morning, at approximately 12:05 a.m., just under seven hours before the polls opened for voting, he spotted an individual removing political campaign signs over near the intersection of Hallandale Beach Blvd. and Ansin Blvd., roughly the area between the IHOP and the Burger King.

 An individual who clearly has a real problem with the concept of Freedom of Speech.

 He doesn't seem to like it, and he most certainly wants to eliminate public displays of free speech he disagrees with as best he can, at least in Hallandale Beach.

 This reliable source told me that after witnessing this activity take place, he drove his vehicle up close to this other person's vehicle so that he could get its license plate number and later report what he'd seen to the proper law enforcement authorities.

Well, within moments of doing this, the person removing the signs came over to my source in his car and, if you can believe this, asked my source what HE was doing, as if his own behavior was perfectly normal -someone with campaign signs after Midnight near one of the city's three most-heavily-traveled and highest visibility roads.

 Even for Hallandale Beach, that's highly suspicious behavior, especially when the person with political signs after Midnight is NOT placing political yard signs in the ground and exercising their right of free speech, but rather removing them and eliminating someone else's right to free speech.

 Removing political signs that are NOT theirs to take.

 So, you're no doubt asking who was that un-masked man?

 The creepy guy engaging in odd, to say nothing of blatantly anti-democratic and unethical conduct?

 The creepy guy who thought that he was so brave -after Midnight- removing other citizen's signs where they expressed their freedom of speech, but who when my reliable source grabbed his camera to snap a shot of the license plate to have him later identified by Police, ran like a coward back to his car and placed his hands over his license plate?
The creep who then jumped inside his car and hit the gas to get out of the area?

 Who was it?
Well, many of you reading this won't be too surprised to discover that the creep engaging in this  anti-social, anti-democratic behavior not only has quite a track record, but is also none other than Mayor Joy Cooper's adult son, Matt.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/05/hallandale_beach_matt_cooper_spit_on_your_kids.php

Talk about apples not falling far from the tree...

 Yes, the son who was discovered to have had almost as many Driver's Licenses and ID's as Jason Bourne.

 Except that rather than merely pretending that he's a fictional spy in a Robert Ludlum novel, the evidence suggests that perhaps Matt Cooper has been busy playing the role of Midnight Vigilante, driving around Hallandale Beach under the cover of night and removing campaign signs of people who disagree politically with his mother's reckless and wasteful policies that both insult common sense and punish taxpayer's wallets.
Yes, it's not too creepy, is it?

 One can safely surmise that it was Matt Cooper's last Midnight Run of such creepy and anti-democratic behavior, if only because of the political calendar.
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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Next week's Hallandale Beach budget meetings will be a forum for hard and long-overdue questions to FINALLY be asked in public, with honest answers required. HB residents and Small Business owners are in no mood to roll-over and take it like they've been forced to do the past dozen-plus years, as city/CRA funds were wasted in every way imaginable, with no oversight or accountability by people whose jobs it was to provide both

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall. August 21, 2017 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2017 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Next week's Hallandale Beach budget meetings will be a forum for hard and long-overdue questions to FINALLY be asked in public, with honest answers required. Hallandale Beach residents and Small Business owners are in no mood to roll-over and take it like they've been forced to do the past dozen-plus years, as city/CRA funds were wasted in every way imaginable, with no genuine oversight or accountability by people whose jobs it was to provide both!
Updated and Corrected August 23, 2017 at 11:35 PM

Below, for your consideration, some carefully chosen words of wisdom, borne of experience, to carefully think about in the coming days before the City of Hallandale Beach city and CRA budget meetings take place next week, Tuesday August 29th and Wednesday the 30th, at Hallandale Beach City Hall, which is open to the public.
At the bottom, following my comments, I have a copy of some well-thought out concerns
from my good friend and fellow Broward County civic activist, Csaba Kulin, someone who has been working tirelessly for years in 1,001 ways for HB to be the well-run city its residents want it to be. 
And deserved all along.

In my opinion, next week, many LONG OVERDUE actions will need to be taken by the HB City Commission to ensure that steps are being taken so that genuine financial accountability will FINALLY be undertaken that protects the city's residents and Small Business owners immediate and long-term future needs
It's hardly surprising that some of those necessary actions will cause some immediate pain and hardship to more than a few people, mostly city employees.

 But in my opinion, however painful, these cost-cutting moves need to take place now because despite what Mayor Joy Cooper has been saying to her loyal minions and acolytes around the city and to the news media, such as it is, Hallandale Beach is in very dire financial situation.

 Not quite where the City of Hollywood finds itself now financially, but not so far behind that the situation in HB could not be MUCH WORSE if bad and preposterous decisions of the sort that had become normalized at HB City Hall continue.
Preposterous decisions that continually rewarded poor performance and completely-inadequate oversight, and put HB taxpayers behind the financial eight-ball.

In my opinion, that's because rather than making some hard-but-necessary decisions in the past, of making some necessary sacrifices towards the long-term good, the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew borrowed and borrowed and borrowed. 
And to what end?

Too often, to pay current operating expenses, the worst possible reason if done more than once for a non-emergency.
It has been my experience over the years that there are more than a few residents and city employees in HB who have a completely unrealistic opinion as to what the proper function and purpose of a city government is.
As I expect will be shown next week, finally, the city's core function is NOT to provide a job and a good-paying pension to anyone with a heartbeat, regardless of their ability and actual performance.

 This particular city budget will be the first one that will be examined in depth by three people on the Commission -Keith London, Michelle Lazarow and Anabelle Taub- who genuinely want MORE public accountability and oversight over how city funds are spent since I first returned to South Florida in late 2003, after 15 years of living and working in the Washington, D.C area.
That's a very long time for hard-working people and Small Business owners in HB to have to wait for the sort of overdue common sense and hard questions that are normal pretty much everywhere else in cities when it comes to budgets.

 More than a few of HB's Small Business owners have moved out of town specifically because of the combination of foolish financial and public policy decision-making being done at HB City Hall, often based on which of the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's friends could benefit from city funds.
Many of them are the very same people who were given a look by the Broward Inspector General. 
Names that I have mentioned on this blog many times over the years, and spoken to many of the same people reading this now, including print and TV reporters..

But in Hallandale Beach, for years under big-spending and thin-skinned Mayor Joy Cooper, the tradition for the City Commission was to essentially tell every Dept. head and every bureaucrat appearing before them at budget time that they were doing a really great job.
Somehow, everyone is in charge yet nobody is responsible!

 And then the City Commission would borrow money from their Reserves to give them baubles and gloss that would make this city appear semi-normal, when it was anything but that.
For far too long, collectively, the five-member HB City Commission did NOT take their financial oversight responsibilities seriously at this time of the year, with some members NEVER asking one question, even  when it came to funding the largest Departments in the city. Why?

 One of the answers, perhaps the most obvious to someone like me who knows their backgrounds, is that for so very long, none of them were current or former business people who had either owned or operated a very successful business for any reasonable period of time.
They've literally had no business acumen to draw up on.

But it was also true that one of the reasons might be that, simply put, for many of the past City Commission members, being liked by city employees, going along to get along, always seemed to be more important to them than being respected for doing a good job.
Every year, thru their words and actions, the Hallandale Beach City Commission showed that they really didn't know how to handle or mange public money.
Instead, whatever the city's senior staff said was okay by them.

 But some of us knew then -and know now- that the city's bureaucracy, particularly its highest-ranking and highest-paid bureaucrats, often weren't telling the WHOLE TRUTH. 
Weren't always disclosing important facts or potential conflicts, or even filling the City Commission in on what the practical long-term effects of doing something would necessarily be.
You know, the very sorts of things you would think their job would require them to do if they really wanted to keep their job?
Above, Hallandale Beach City Commission chambers. August 17, 2017 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2017 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

 In the opinion of myself and many other concerned people in this area of SE Broward, Florida's third-largest county, the bureaucracy has used that inattention to detail by the Commission to allow a succession of poorly-performing City Managers and Assistant City Managers to say and do pretty much whatever they wanted.

 As if they were the ones really making policy.
And they were - in conjunction with Mayor Cooper.

 How many times have I personally seen the other four City Commissioners finding out at a Commission or CRA meeting or Workshop, about an important decision that had been made at City Hall without their knowledge or required assent/consent because Mayor Cooper and some bureaucrats had decided it needed to happen?
Dozens and dozens of times...

Making the role of the publicly-elected representative sort of an afterthought, right?

 For instance, to cite a particularly galling case, that time in 2013 when Gulfstream Park 
Race Track & Casino, the largest employer in the city, and located directly across the street from Hallandale Beach City Hall, started building "temporary" horse barns on the south side of the track and to the southeast of the Village at GP retail complex off U.S.-1/South Federal Highway, without having been issued building permits? 

 So because they were used to getting what they wanted from the mayor, whose campaign they had always dutifully contributed to, they just kept doing what they wanted because they knew they could pick up the phone and call the mayor and bypass the normal administrative process, as well as their attempts to punish the city's Building Inspectors for actually doing their job correctly.
So without any information for the other Commissioners to read, Mayor Cooper tried to get them to waive the $52,000 in fines incurred by Gulfstream, owed to both the city and the State of Florida. 

 Fortunately, that effort failed. 
That time.

Local 10 News
Mayor wants $52K fine against Gulfstream Park waived

No vote taken on waiving fine at Hallandale Beach budget meeting
Author: Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com
Published On: Oct 04 2013 06:13:16 PM EDT   
Updated On: Oct 04 2013 11:51:10 PM EDT
https://www.local10.com/news/mayor-wants-52k-fine-against-gulfstream-park-waived_2015112721023598

 Me? 
I'm the person who actually called investigative reporter Bob Norman at Channel 10 shortly after I was an eyewitness to this craziness and gave him the incredible play-by-play of what had transpired, along with some needed nuance and context.
And what do you know, soon thereafter, this story appeared on TV to make crystal clear to people throughout South Florida what had taken place in Hallandale Beach.

After several lengthy emails to the many Usual Suspects throughout our area and the state -including many of you reading this post today- describing the dysfunctional situation that never got investigated by the broward inspector general, I posted this photo-filled blog post on November 5th, 2013:

On Wednesday night, Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper has to defend her freelancing, breaking of city's rules in order to help her friends at Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino with bldg. code fines they EARNED. Again! Her campaign contributors, Gulfstream Park, must really love her "Special Rules for Special People" form of advocacy, but why does she save her energy & love for a multi-million dollar company instead of insisting they follow the law and finally fix up their appearance problems?

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/on-wednesday-night-hallandale-beach.html

I especially like this part of what I  wrote:

...It's clear that Joy Cooper, quite literally, sees herself as indispensable.
But she is the mayor of a small city with a city manger form of government, not the mayor of a large urban city with a strong-mayor form of government, yet despite this difference and the well-understood written rules about what is and is not acceptable, she just keeps doing whatever she wants and dares anyone in a position of authority to stop her.

Cooper continues to show that she wants to make as many important decisions for the city (and everyone else) as possible, without adequate vetting and public disclosure.
As she tried to do on September 25th...

Based on what they have said and done the past nine months in genuinely reforming or dismantling many aspects of the incurious culture and operations at Hallandale Beach City Hall, clearly those days have come to an end under Vice Mayor Keith London and Commissioners Michelle Lazarow and Anabelle Taub.
The possibility of being a normal city and erasing the label of being a perpetual municipal laughingstock in South Florida is at hand.   
Finally!

 After everything that I have seen and observed over the years in Hallandale Beach, where people with responsible jobs and impressive titles -and accompanying large salaries- were neither impressive or responsible to HB taxpayers best interests, I believe the best plan to put the city on a more sound financial footing is one that forces "Innovation by Subtraction" down the throats of HB city employees.

 Far too many people within the city's bureaucracy have grown complacent and shown that they can not manage effectively or sensibly.
Let's stop pretending they can, and start making some long overdue changes.

My plan as of today, unless some big news comes up that takes my attention elsewhere, is to give LOTS of examples of this during those upcoming meetings, often with relevant photographs or video here at the blog to illustrate my points.
At bottom is the email that Csaba sent recently to Hallandale Beach City Manager 
Roger Carlton, with a cc to City Attorney Jennifer Merino.

After getting Csaba's email, my initial thought was to write a lengthy email of my own to Mr. Carlton, largely echoing and expanding upon many of Csaba's common sense thoughts and concerns.
But I've decided that I'll wait a bit so that I can be even more specific to Mr. Carlton and others about, how in my opinion, it seems that after a generally positive start, he's been more slow than I'd like to fully grasp the reality this area has had to live with for so many years regarding the city's policies, practices and budget priorities.
(How people with self-evident conflicts of interest had far too much access to and control over public funds, as well as the setting of public policy.)

Namely, who said what, who did what, and who in a position of authority,did nothing at all, when doing nothing only made very bad things even worse.
And what better time to acquaint Mr. Carlton with the facts and reality than when the city's budget is being written, examined and voted upon?
Clearly, there is MUCH he has to learn about what's been going on in HB for years,

Hallandale Beach City Commission - Budget Special Meeting Workshop, held at City Commission Chambers, 400 South Federal Highway

 Tuesday, August 29th and Wednesday, August 30th, 2017, at 11:00 AM 
Details and attachments: https://hallandalebeach.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=555917&GUID=586EC10D-C1D1-49F5-8CCA-80B383C4F014&Options=&Search=

Wednesday August 30th Workshop - 11:00 AM
Agenda: https://hallandalebeach.legistar.com/DepartmentDetail.aspx?ID=20843&GUID=020E7D1D-F811-4643-8FDD-0986CEBA0ED4

 Reminder: It's NOT too late to read or comment on my recent blog post, re the #YoungCircle Roadway Feasibility Study that I believe will make #HollywoodFL traffic worse, NOT better
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 3:24 PM
Subject: Comment on Bulldog Article Comment
To: "CM. Roger Carlton"
Cc: Jennifer Merino 
Dear City Manager Carlton,
In the second Florida Bulldog article (7/19/2017) about Commissioner Sanders “pattern of misconduct” you were quoted “… It is extremely disappointing that there is no outrage in the community about these programs. No demands for reform have been publicly made to date”.
I disagree with those comments. Our community has been loud and clear on this topic for almost a decade.
We just could not get past Cooper/Julian/Sanders/Lewy to do anything about it.  
Do you want us to demonstrate on the steps of City Hall?
Do you want us to disrupt City Commission Meetings like an unruly mob?
Do you want us to threaten members of the City Commission?
No, that is not us.
We did better than that. We elected Commissioners Lazarow and Taub with a mandate to “drain the swamp” at City Hall.
Along with Vice Mayor London they hired a new City Manager, a new City Attorney and we expect you to clean up the mass left behind by the previous administrations.
We want you to focus the ongoing forensic audit on identifying all fraudulent transactions, recover all ill-gotten funds, and prosecute everyone who broke the law.
We remember the 100 million dollar budget of the past; we remember the 480 employee count. During the last five years it grew to a 135 million budget and 560 employees. How many of these new employees working on the “core functions” of the City?
I know you are busy so I will not go on. I am confident you will do your best and I support you in this effort.
I know it hard to put “genie” back in the “bottle” is six months.
I copied a few friends and encourage them to comment on this topic. They may have some additional good ideas for you to consider.
Sincerely,
Csaba (Chuck) Kulin
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