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Showing posts with label Brittany Wallman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brittany Wallman. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

A Rising Tide May Lift All Boats but... the proposed Wave streetcar in downtown Fort Lauderdale is a bad idea that's the wrong plan in the wrong place at the wrong time. But will simply being a bad and impractical idea be enough for the Broward County Commission to actually kill it? The vote comes today at 2:00 PM - Time to hammer the nails in that coffin!

A Rising Tide May Lift All Boats but... the proposed Wave streetcar in downtown Fort Lauderdale is a bad idea that's the wrong plan in the wrong place at the wrong time. But will simply being a bad and impractical idea be enough for the Broward County Commission to actually kill it? The vote comes today at 2:00 PM  
Time to hammer the nails in that coffin!

Broward Beat
Ft Laud Mayor Dean Trantalis Takes Fight Against Streetcar To The County
By Buddy Nevins









I'll be writing something about these articles and what it represents over the next few days, while also finishing up my big long-promised 2018 blog post re Broward County and its longstanding, myriad transportation problems, something that I've been writing off-and-on for many months, while trying NOT to repeat what I've written in any of the DOZENS of fact-filled blog posts I've penned the past ten years about public transportation.
Posts that often caught people's fancy throughout South Florida and caused them to nod in agreement because of both my persuasive writing and institutional knowledge and memory about a lot of transit elements in South Florida that other residents either never knew about, forgot about, or took place before they moved here.
So, actual context for better understanding the current sad and sorry state of affairs.

Like the proposed Miami-Dade Metrorail Purple Line that would've connected NW Miami-Dade to Downtown Miami and the Dadeland South, which is one of the reasons that people in NW Dade voted for Metrorail in the first place -to achieve a sense of connectedness to the rest of Miami, especially its job center, government center and attractions.

To cite but one simple benefit of that Purple Line that was never built, it'd have allowed allowed Miami Dolphins football fans in South Dade as well as notoriously fickle University of Miami students to go to Dolphins and Hurricanes games via the very large University station in Coral Gables. 
No need to drive and pay for parking.   
Just as they could have done for the Marlins baseball team if it the line was up and running years ago the way it should have been, which would've made building a baseball stadium near the football stadium and thereby utilize the same great road connections the area has, including direct access to the Florida Turnpike.

It wouldn’t be the first time Miamians fell victim to a transit bait-and-switch. Miami-Dade voters in 2002 approved a half-penny transit sales tax that was supposed to pay for a massive Metrorail expansion — one new line would jut out west to Florida International University, while another would connect to the Miami Dolphins’ Sun Life Stadium.
As it turned out, county politicians had promised far more than they could ever deliver in order to win voter support. Making matters worse: a 2008 Miami Herald investigation revealed that the county frittered away much of the sales tax money on raises for the politically powerful Transport Workers Union. A wasteful hiring spree, meanwhile, awarded transit jobs to aides or relatives of at least nine local elected officials.
above from: Miami Herald
All aboard! Imaginary Purple Line created to generate interest in mass transit for Miami
By Michael Vasquez
March 08, 2013 07:50 PM
Updated March 08, 2013 09:26 PM
http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article1948039.html

 See also http://www.urbanimpactlab.com/purple-line/


But, of course, those same factual blog posts also earned me a lot of animosity from high-ranking people at local transit organizations -like the Broward MPO among others- for daring to hold a mirror up to their consistently dismal performances given the resources they command and their near-anonymous hold on power.
Trust me, there are few govt/agencies in South Florida who are more used to people telling them how wonderful they were/are than the folks at the Broward MPO.

 Which, of course, explains a lot.
The evidence of their collective failure is all around us in Broward
Their failure to take other groups, agencies and elected officials to task publicly and highlight policies and methods that are counter-productive.

 Instead, the Broward MPO is known largely by a sub-niche of people within the political power structure, and as I've tweeted about a few times over the years, is often NOT mentioned in the Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for years at a time. YEARS.
Despite their stranglehold on policies and seemingly endless resources.
Where's the media oversight and accountability? MIA.

 Though I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one of you reading this today to be criticized 
in public by the head of the Broward MPO after I detailed his and his agency's many failings at a Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting some years ago.
Promises, promises, but where were tangible results that Broward residents, taxpayers and Small Business owners actually wanted? MIA.

Thin-skinned Greg Stuart waited until I could no longer speak before blasting me, then obfuscated instead of simply answering the questions I posed to him because the truth was on my side, not his. As both of us knew at the time.
His aides at the time were not exactly the pick of the litter, either, considering their snide remarks at the time that showed that they were more cronies than transportation experts.

Needless to say, then-Mayor Joy Cooper -since removed from office by Gov. Scott after her arrest for numerous felonies- just chuckled from the dais, completely aware that she could prevent me from refuting what Stuart was saying, but unaware that Stuart was, in fact, making a monkey out of her and the entire Commission.
In short, he took advantage of her great ignorance and was flat-out lying to her -to her face- while he also tried to make an example out of me publicly for daring to challenge him and his band of thin-skinned bureaucrats.   

Per the article, as most of you know, I genuinely do consider Beam Furr a friend and believe he's a real role model for what a diligent, hard-working, well-informed and open-minded South Florida elected official ought to aspire to be.
But I also believe that Buddy is 100% right about what he writes here, especially about SE Broward taxpayers' collective disinterest in ponying up money for a bad idea that's the wrong plan in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 Didn't know until Monday that Broward County would have been responsible for the secretive Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority's share of possible Wave cost over-runs over DDA's agreed-upon share of $3 Million. Why was that? Whose great idea was this?  

See page 4:
I will likely be at that Broward County Comm. meeting today at 2 PM, since it could be must-see viewing in-person, as the transit and transportation industry's contractors and lobbyists have so much "riding on" The Wave, and will be happy to break the bank to turn their people out en masse and try to triangulate every county commissioner, however they can.  

But a county like Broward that's suing the state because they say they want to exert "local control" in their own area re guns, is going to have a hard time arguing the opposite POV here, and urging The Wave go forward in FTL when a majority of the elected FTL City Commission clearly don't want it.

But again, that assumes that logic and reason will plays the deciding role here in making the final decision, and I don't have to remind you where we actually live, now do I?

May 9th 615 PM Update: Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it up to Broward Govt. HQ to see this in person and speak against it because the 2 PM agenda time ended up conflicting with something I had to deal with that I had forgotten about, but I did watch the entire discussion online and was pleasantly surprised that some holdouts, i.e. supporters of The Wave, finally saw the light: #facts

I'm concerned, though, that some people on the Broward County Commission, with the same general facts, would likely have voted for it if it had been in THEIR district. 
Won't name names but it's pretty clear who they area. 
Yes, the Usual Suspects! :-(









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Monday, February 3, 2014

Robert Wechsler analyzes it @CityEthics and I can confirm it: Despite best efforts of Broward Inspector General, the state of ethics in Broward County, FL at municipal level is poor and getting worse with "friends" like the Broward League of Cities, fresh from their trying to create loopholes in Broward's hard-won, voter-approved ethics laws, and now looking for a paid spokesmodel to peddle their anti-taxpayer nonsense that's paid for in large part BY Broward's taxpayers; Hallandale Beach City Hall continues to be one of the true ethics hotspots in Florida, given the unwillingness of its elected officials & high-paid staff to follow state & federal laws, esp. those re transparency & participation

Above, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott at a Broward League of Women Voters event in Coconut Creek, FL on January 24, 2013. photo by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. From my May 31, 2013 blog post at
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/given-longstanding-mismanagement-and.html

Robert Wechsler analyzes it @CityEthics and I can confirm it: Despite best efforts of Broward Inspector General, the state of ethics in Broward County, FL at municipal level is poor and getting worse with "friends" like the Broward League of Cities, fresh from their trying to create loopholes in Broward's hard-won, voter-approved ethics laws, and now looking for a paid spokesmodel to peddle their anti-taxpayer nonsense that's paid for in large part BY Broward's taxpayers; Hallandale Beach City Hall continues to be one of the true ethics hotspots in Florida, given the unwillingness of its elected officials & high-paid staff to follow state & federal laws, esp. those re transparency & participation

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Editorial
Next step for ethics reform in Broward
January 30, 2014

The Broward Office of the Inspector General needs help. So do local politicians who want to attend community events while staying on the right side of the county's ethics code.

Inspector General John Scott is calling for the addition of an ethics official or commission to ensure government leaders get consistent advice about accepting gifts or trips -- and an impartial review when rules might have been violated. 

Scott is working on such a proposal for the November ballot. 

And he is on the right track. 

Already, some politicians are objecting, decrying another level of bureaucracy. Some fear an independent body might call out those who are simply trying to do the public's business. 

They should look to history and remember how we got to where we are today. 

Two years ago, voters demanded a new ethics code after watching far too many elected officials hauled off in handcuffs, charged with bribery and public corruption. The headlines continue even today, as readers of the Sun Sentinel well know. 

To enforce the ethics code, commissioners tasked the inspector general's office with investigating and prosecuting potential violations. However, since the referendum's passage, Scott and his staff have discovered problems that need addressing. 

For example, for advice on accepting a gift or free trip, local officials now mostly turn to their city or county attorneys. The result is a plethora of local opinions about what politicians can accept as a freebie. In the past two years, some 900 legal advisories have been served up countywide, the inspector general's office reports. 

These advisories can put government attorneys in the awkward position of having to tell their bosses bad news about taking free stuff -- or how to find a way around the law's intent. They also provide cover to politicians who may be seeking personal gain. 

After recently reviewing legal opinions from Weston to Sunrise to Fort Lauderdale, Sun Sentinel reporter Brittany Wallman found politicians are accepting questionable gifts and perks. 

In Miramar, for example, city attorney Jamie Cole told Commissioner Winston Barnes he couldn't accept 10 free tickets to the circus last year, but suggested the circus could provide "promotional" tickets to the city that could then be given to Barnes guilt-free. 

City attorneys similarly told the mayors of Miramar and Hallandale Beach they could accept free trips to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, though it's hard to see the public benefit there. 

Hallandale city attorney V. Lynn Whitfield told Mayor Joy Cooper the trip was allowed if it somehow promoted "the exchange of ideas between, or the professional development of, governmental officials or employees." She even said Cooper could bring along her husband, all expenses paid, so long as she reported it as a gift. Cooper went, but did not take her husband along. 

The vast majority of local politicians work to do the right thing, no question. But a recent report shows public corruption in Florida continues to rank among the worst in the nation. Between 1998 and 2007, 824 Florida officials were convicted on public corruption charges at the local, state and federal level. The New York Times says the totals may be worse than in any other state. 

Ironically, in the face of this news, Florida lawmakers are considering a proposal to loosen the ethics reins. Legislation filed this month by Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, would strip many gift-reporting requirements for public officials and officially protect them if they have a legal advisory in hand. 

Meanwhile in Broward, the person responsible for investigating ethics complaints says that to improve the process, the system needs to be tweaked. We encourage county commissioners and the Broward League of Cities to embrace his goal and ensure that public officials countywide play by the same rules and definitions. 

Given our history with public corruption, it's time we got this right. 
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-01-29/news/fl-editorial-broward-ethics-code-fix-dv-2-20140129_1_ethics-code-ethics-reform-inspector-general-john-scott

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward needs an ethics czar, inspector general says 2014 could bring next phase of reform, but it's sure to spark controversy with city officials 
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
January 5, 2014
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-01-05/news/fl-ethics-code-changes-20140105_1_ethics-czar-city-attorneys-inspector-general

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Inspector: Ethics system flawed
Brittany Wallman , Staff writer 
February 1, 2014
When it comes to public ethics, nobody does it like Broward County. And that's not a good thing, the county's top corruption cop says.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-01-31/news/fl-broward-ethics-reform-20140131_1_ethics-code-broward-league-corruption-cop

 Keep in mind as you digest the thoughts expressed above that this outrage comes from the same Tribune Company-owned newspaper editorial board that has refused to post a single editorial in over two years on the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal that has cost tens of millions of dollars with very little tangible to show for it.
Yes, people do notice those things.
People like me.

Which is why I made a point of not only attending the Broward IG's oversight meeting on November 8th in downtown Ft. Lauderdale but actually spoke there, one of the few citizens to do so in a meeting where the public comments were largely from municipal officials who were trying desperately to plead for the right to keep their parochial self-serving way of doing things, rather than having one firm set of ethical rules covering all officials.

 And did you notice that the Sun-Sentinel editorial didn't name the attorneys for the Broward League of Cities who are trying to dig holes and loopholes for its members, even though they know full-well who it is? 

 Why do you suppose that is?
(Sam Goren, the attorney who wears multiple hats in this county, just like Steve Geller did.)

 Yes, because they also love to quote him on other matters and don't want to "out" one of their reliable Usual Suspects who will talk on any subject, no matter how poorly-informed he is, because he knows the paper will never mention his egregious conflicts-of-interest.

 The following links from Robert Wechsler are placed here in reverse chron order:

City Ethics blog 
Florida League of Cities' Ethics Reform Proposals I - Preventing the Filing of Complaints
by Robert Wechsler
http://www.cityethics.org/content/florida-league-cities-ethics-reform-proposals-i-preventing-filing-complaints



City Ethics blog 
Florida League of Cities' Ethics Reform Proposals II - Gifts, Ethics Advice, and Training
by Robert Wechsler

City Ethics blog 
Florida League of Cities' Ethics Reform Proposals III - Placing Shackles on Countywide Ethics Programs
by Robert Wechsler
http://www.cityethics.org/content/florida-league-cities-ethics-reform-proposals-iii-placing-shackles-countywide-ethics-program



City Ethics blog 
FL League of Cities' Ethics Proposals IV - Local Govt. Assocs. Should Not Lobby re Conflicts of Interest
by Robert Wechsler
http://www.cityethics.org/content/fl-league-cities-ethics-proposals-iv-local-govt-assocs-should-not-lobby-re-conflicts-interes



City Ethics blog
Good News from Florida Legislative Leaders
by Robert Wechsler
http://www.cityethics.org/content/good-news-florida-legislative-leaders

City Ethics blog
A Government Attorney Ethics Advice Case Study from Florida
by Robert Wechsler
http://www.cityethics.org/content/government-attorney-ethics-advice-case-study-florida


Broward Beat
Update: Ethics Police Won’t Punish Sheriff Israel 
By Buddy Nevins
January 30, 2014
http://www.browardbeat.com/ethics-commission-wont-punish-sheriff-israel/

City Ethics blog
Broward County IG Report on Countywide Ethics Program
by Robert Wechsler
http://www.cityethics.org/content/broward-county-ig-report-countywide-ethics-program




 *By the way, the Broward League of Cities is now looking for spokesmodel to peddle their anti-taxpayer nonsense that's paid for BY taxpayers -here's the RFP
http://www.browardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2014-Marketing-and-Public-Relations-Consulting-Services-RFP.pdf

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Inspector general has cases cooking 
By Brittany Wallman 4:23 p.m. EDT, 
October 31, 2013
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-inspector-general-tallies-a-year-of-work-20131031,0,5917466.story 


South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Corruption watchdog gets positive review 

By Brittany Wallman

November 9, 2013 

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-11-08/news/fl-broward-inspector-general-eval-20131108_1_inspector-general-corruption-watchdog-public-officials


South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Inspector general's Hallandale probe painful
By Brittany Wallman
November 11, 2013
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-11-11/news/sfl-inspector-generals-hallandale-probe-painful-20131111_1_inspector-general-john-scott-hallandale-beach-city-officials

 Not mentioned in the Broward IG article above about Hallandale Beach is the testimony that came out of the Broward IG Oversight Committee meeting I was at that caused nearly everyone in the room to start laughing out loud, and even hoot.
That is, everyone but Hallandale Beach CRA Attorney Stephen W. Zelkowitz and CRA Director Daniel Rosemond.
It was all I could do to not record myself laughing on my videocamera!

 It turns out that someone accompanied Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper to her meeting with the Broward IG's office.
Like all people who had to speak to them, Mayor cooper was allowed to bring someone with her if she chose, but when asked who the person with her was, she told them that it was here attorney when it was NOT.
The truth came out in a way that really hammered home Mayor Cooper's well-known mendacity -the person that the mayor had claimed was her attorney was actually one of her mayoral campaign workers, who taped her comments.
It's not mentioned in the Broward Politics blog tweets below or the articles but as many of you may recall from my emails in November, I specifically recommended that either the Broward IG Oversight Comm. or the Broward County Commission formally require that in the future, when the IG's office is formally investigating a specific Broward city or a CRA, that they be required to have at least one public forum for the affected community to attend and get the basic info on what is -and is NOT- happening, and what the process consists of so that everyone is on the same page.

 A public meeting that is NOT for city employees, administrators or elected officials to show-up at and complain about being picked on, blamed, or made the scapegoat for others, etc.
Anyone drawing a govt. paycheck there whom the IG Office wants to interview under oath should NOT have a chance to poison the public well before they know what the process is.

 I mentioned publicly during my testimony that despite how much I've written about this subject and what I've sent to most of you in emails with links to that's appeared elsewhere, esp. in the Broward Bulldog, that I was forever running into people all over the area who asked me what was the latest news with  the investigation, despite the fact that their Final Report came out in April.

 I usually just shake my head after I tell them what's what and after they've told me, as they often do, that they're "surprised that Mayor Cooper hasn't been arrested yet."

 I didn't see the reporting via tweets below until after I'd sent an email out about what happened.
Once I read it, I realized that my intuition was correct about who some of the people were on the other side of the room who didn't speak and whom I didn't recognize.



































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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, August 24, 2013

Just what you'd expect from smug, self-serving and sanctimonious FL-100 state Rep. Joe Gibbons: Deny, deny, deny and then try to play the role of 'victim' -on video- after years of lying to the citizens of SE Broward County. His behavior and years of serial lies and chronic misrepresentation are anathema to representative democracy, and never passed the smell test. But despite these facts -shocker!- the vast majority of South Florida and Tallahassee's press corps either appeased Gibbons or didn't care enough to report the #ColdHardFacts; @beamfurr

Yes, YEARS after he should have, in what is an obvious ploy to somehow inoculate and ingratiate himself to voters in advance of the Broward County Commission race against former Hollywood City Commissioner Beam Furr next year, after so many years of Gibbons consistently insulting the intelligence of the concerned residents of south Broward County and being an invisible presence, esp. in Hallandale Beach.
And he compounds this by being, not incidentally, one of the least-effective legislators in the area, since Joe Gibbons is nothing if not the very picture of a knee-jerk politician.
Gibbons actually has the unmitigated gall and ego to think that his personal and political ambitions are more important in the larger scheme of things than the truth, which is that the citizens of this part of the county and state are entitled to be represented in government by someone who actually lives here -all-the-time- not less than eight months out of the year.
The citizens of this area deserve to be represented by someone who puts THEIR best-interests first, not his own! Joe Gibbons is the wrong man at the wrong time and he will NOT be missed after he loses next year. 
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Sun-Sentinel video: Joe Gibbons responds to residency accusations.
Video at: http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=91082&sitesection=sesunsentinel&VID=25052122

"I don't think it's right that I'm being kind of dogged like I have been by people who don't have my best interests at heart,'' said Gibbons.
You're right, I don't have YOUR best interests at heart, I have the community's.

The Southest Broward community that I live in whose residents you have lied to and mis-represented for so many years.

You, with your non-legislative job not in Broward or South Florida but up in Tallahassee working as a lobbyist for a powerful and influential law firm.

Color us unimpressed by you putting this community's best-interests LAST on your list of priorities for years, even while you drew a government paycheck purporting to represent us.

 You may've fooled all the lazy and indifferent reporters and columnists in Tallahassee and South Florida who didn't care about FL legislators actually living where they are supposed to, like the Sun-Sentinel's Michael Mayo recently admitted in his own column, but we have been totally hip to your serial lies and intentional misrepresentation all along, Joe Gibbons.

 So start making plans now to move up to Lakeland next summer and joining your dysfunctional family that has indulged your personal ego and overweening political ambition.
You and your serial lies and your weird dysfunctional family obviously need more quality time together to bond!
So, this community, the one you consistently put LAST, is going to give you the boot and give you the time to do just that!

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
County commission candidate — and his wife — say Broward is his home
Gibbons defends against residency questions
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
August 25, 2013
He lives in Hallandale Beach. His wife spends most of her week in Lakeland. Their 4-year-old twins live their lives in Jacksonville. This is the family of Joe Gibbons.
The state representative and his wife spoke out this week, telling the Sun Sentinel that Gibbons spends most of his time in Broward County. Skepticism about where the 64-year-old lobbyist and Democrat hangs his hat has dogged him since he married a Jacksonville lawyer five years ago and the couple subsequently had twins.

Read the rest of the story of a pol coming to terms with his serial lies to his constituents at
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-gibbons-county-candidate-20130825,0,1635095.story

 A reminder: From things I've personally seen and observed, I believe that there's still yet another big shoe that will drop on Joe Gibbons this year.
If everything checks out as it seems to as of now, I hope to be one of the persons dropping that big shoe on him sometime before Christmas.
Christmas is the time for giving after all!
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