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

Friday, July 5, 2013

More on Broward County politicians' residency ruse: Is intentionally violating & evading the Florida Constitution 'the new normal' for ethical standards in the Sunshine State? Latest facts & chronology regarding at least 5 Florida legislators from Broward -and one Broward Commissioner- who DON'T live full-time in the districts they were elected to represent

More on Broward County politicians' residency ruse: Is intentionally violating & evading the Florida Constitution 'the new normal' for ethical standards in the Sunshine State? Latest facts & chronology regarding at least 5 Florida legislators from Broward -and one Broward Commissioner- who DON'T live full-time in the districts they were elected to represent
Why would you expect an individual who values power more than integrity and who doesn't really live full-time where they do, to care as much about the actual day-to-day Quality of Life and problems of those constituents and small business owners as someone who does?
It's part of why it's called representative democracy.

 It's supposed to be a lot more than just any old job you drive to from somewhere else.
Sometimes, things are exactly what they look like.
This is just such a time.
























video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
Local10 News video: 
Senator caught on video staying outside district, Maria Sachs has home in Boca Raton, claims to reside in Lauderdale condo
Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published June 26, 2013 04:45:07 PM EDT



















video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
Local10 News video: 
Broward Commissioner's residency claims don't hold up, 
North Miami mayor sued over city's residency rule
Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published June 25, 2013 03:07:21 PM EDT
Updated June 25, 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT, 
Related article at: http://www.local10.com/news/more-elected-officials-living-outside-districts/-/1717324/20709398/-/pok1gcz/-/index.html



Media Trackers Florida
City Commissioner in Florida Resigns Under Residency Questions
By Tom Lauder
June 21, 2013

Local10 News video: 
Florida Democratic leader caught living outside district
Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published June, 12 2013 03:34:55 PM EDT, 

Media Trackers Florida
Florida State Rep. Joseph Gibbons Avoided Making Residency Claims Under Oath
By Tom Lauder
May 3, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Residency Games Are A Family Affair for Florida State Rep. Joseph Gibbons
By Tom Lauder
May 2, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Rep. Joseph Gibbons Appears to Violate Constitution's Residency Requirements
By Tom Lauder
April 16, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida State Rep. Hazelle Rogers Flaunts Constitution's Residency Requirements
By Tom Lauder 
April 15, 2013

-Related ethical problem
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
State attorney probed Gibbons' campaign funds
By Brittany Wallman
11:14 a.m. EDT, April 15, 2013
Office of Broward State's Attorney closeout document re Joe Gibbons commingling campaign funds and personal funds, where he blamed his staff for all the problems.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
County Commission candidate's ties to Broward questioned
Gibbons' wife, young kids live elsewhere
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
April 12, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida House Minority Leader Claims to Live With Felon to Meet Residency Requirement
By Tom Lauder
April 11, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Senator Maria Sachs Thumbs Nose at Residency Law
By Tom Lauder
April 4, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Legislator Claims to Live Separately from His Wife to Meet Residency Law
By Tom Lauder
April 1, 2013

-Related ethical problem
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Ethics commission: Rep. Gibbons cleared
By Brittany Wallman
11:05 a.m. EST, February 7, 2013 

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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Unexpected good news for supporters of Beam Furr's candidacy -look at all the "Usual Suspects" of Broward endorsing feckless, ineffectual, business-as-usual Joe Gibbons for County Commission. Gibbons, the pol who STILL can't answer basic questions about his real job, where he lives and why his life is SO VERY complicated, with a straight face. His job, his wife and his kids are ALL located elsewhere, so are the only things keeping him in Broward his own ego and ambition? How did such a mediocre pol get such lofty ideas about himself? Now THERE'S a question!; same as for Alexander Lewy now that you mention it

A week before some of us concerned citizens in Hallandale Beach were seeking to appeal to the Broward County Commission's good judgment, and direct them to have County Auditor Evan Lukic's office perform a thorough top-to-bottom audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA so we can all see just where the tens of millions of CRA dollars really went over the past few years, since it's clear there are too many missing documents, unanswered questions and outright lies and disinformation from current and former elected officials and administrators, we were once again reminded of how very poor that judgment of their's so often is.

 Broward Bulldog
Broward Auditor looks at Hallandale Beach CRA with eye toward recovering misspent funds
By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
May 13, 2013 AT 6:08 AM
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/05/broward-auditor-looks-at-hallandale-beach-cra-with-eye-toward-recovering-misspent-funds/

 My post on this of last week:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/mark-your-calendar-for-june-4th-latest.html

That friendly reminder comes courtesy of Tuesday's Broward Politics blog and a piece by Brittany Wallman detailing that four members of the current Broward Commission are foolishly supporting undistinguished no-account Joe Gibbons over Beam Furr in the 2014 race to replace incumbent and term-limited District 6 member Sue Gunzburger, who, months ago  endorsed moderate, Good Government-type Furr, the former Hollywood City Commissioner whose district  was just north of HB and Pembroke Road and west of U.S.-1, and which is currently held by Peter Hernandez.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
County Commission wants Gibbons elected
By Brittany Wallman
1:38 p.m. EDT, May 28, 2013
Read the post at 
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-county-commission-wants-gibbons-elected-20130528,0,3207643.story

In my own personal estimation, Beam Furr is someone whose quality character, serious work ethic and problem-solving personality is much more-attuned to the genuine concerns of southeast Broward's most-concerned residents than the disingenuous and unproductive Gibbons, who spends so much time away from the area, and whose actual "residency" as such is more implied and assumed than ever proven to a reasonable degree that would satisfy people who know the true facts.

But then given how very reluctant the local South Florida news media and local law enforcement officials have been to take a public stand against Joe Gibbons and similarly situated elected officials in South Florida, and FOR the letter and spirit of the actual laws of the state -with the exception Bob Norman of Channel 10 and his wife Brittany Wallman of the Sun-Sentinel- versus the wink-and-a-nod approach long taken towards ethics and rules by the leaders and foot soldiers of Broward  Democratic Party chief Mitch Caeser's team, it's no wonder that so few Broward residents know the true facts about Gibbons, despite how many years he has been engaging in this strange tale of his and I've been writing about it.

 BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
House Pro Tem Investigated for Homestead Fraud
By Bob Norman
November 15 2010 at 10:15 AM
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/11/joe_gibbons_investigated_homestead_fraud.php

 County Commission candidate's ties to Broward questioned
Gibbons' wife, young kids live elsewhere
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
April 12, 2013
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-04-12/news/fl-joe-gibbons-homestead-20130406_1_joe-gibbons-homestead-exemption-d-hallandale-beach

 State attorney probed Gibbons' campaign funds 
By Brittany Wallman
11:14 a.m. EDT, April 15, 2013, 
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-04-15/news/sfl-state-attorney-probed-gibbons-campaign-spending-20130415_1_joe-gibbons-sloppy-bookkeeping-memo

 To add to the list of media and law enforcement's failed opportunities you could also add the general weakness and the dog-chasing-its-tail fecklessness of Broward County Republicans, and their inability or unwillingness to go after all the low-hanging fruit.
Their failure to mount a smart and fact-based civic offensive against Gibbons and others in the Broward Dem Party's leadership with gaping holes in their claims to meeting state residency requirements.

 A real professional media campaign  that tears off the thin facade Gibbons and others have used as a shield for years, with facts that can not be disproved or labeled mere allegations.
Some things are either true or they're not, and when you know that people are engaging in a public charade, you don't do the public any favors by tolerating people in your midst who are breaking the spirit and letter of the rules and laws, no matter how much it might embarrass the guilty parties. 

 In case you doubt me on this...
Los Angeles Times
Indiana secretary of state convicted of voter fraud
February 4, 2012  1:17 pm

 As If I haven't already mentioned this subject a hundred times before here in this space -or is it more than a hundred?- when it comes to Gibbons and his ever-changing narrative, alibis, excuses and rationales that are contrary to how 99.9% of the people in this county live their life.

 Joe Gibbons is NOT a professional athlete, an airline pilot, an FBI agent or a Navy SEAL, all people who spend lots of time away from their homes and their families, yet for some unexplained reason, nobody in South Florida's enormous press corps has ever simply walked-up to Gibbons with a microphone and asks him how come he can't either get a job in South Florida, instead of with a law firm in Tallahassee, or, doesn't simply resign and actually get a job where his wife and children live.
Imagine that! 

 Really, as if I needed even more reasons to be supportive of Beam Furr's candidacy!

 Today's piece by Wallman contains a list of Broward's "Ususal Suspects" -below- who are sponsors of an upcoming Joe Gibbons fundraiser, and it's not just that it's composed of 4 of members of the current County Commission, but also includes some of Gibbons' quite unremarkable and under-performing friends from the legislature representing Broward.

 People who are without any tangible accomplishment other than showing a real knack for whining and complaining instead of generating genuine good ideas for citizens and businesses that are actually popular with Florida taxpayers and their colleagues in Tallahassee which will improve the area's Quality of Life.
It's not just salaries that have been stagnant in South Florida the past 25 years, it's the Quality-of-Life.

 Of course, the fact that these pols really DON'T see how their public endorsement of oleaginous  Gibbons is a BIG PLUS for Furr among people who want real public accountability instead of more of the usual politics-as-usual that causes Broward to remain so mediocre in so many ways, is pretty funny to me and many of my friends.

 Frankly, we only wish this exact same crew of characters would have a fundraiser for Gibbons every month until the August 2014 primary, because then it'd give voters and the news media plenty of opportunities over the next 14 months to ask them just what it is, exactly, that Gibbons is so adept or masterful at that would make him a good County Commissioner?

 I ask because nobody-but-nobody sings his praises as a hard worker or public speaker or behind-the-scenes font of knowledge who makes logical arguments that sway opponents.
Not even other Broward Democrats who know him would say that with a straight face, so, what explains this great fascination to publicly endorse such an under-performing person before he's said even one thing publicly about what he thinks he could do at the Commission that others couldn't?
Now THERE'S a real good question the news media ought to be asking him and his pals!

The names on that list made public by the Sun-Sentinel's Wallman are precisely why I wrote here weeks ago -and told some of you in-person weeks before that- that my intuition was that state Senator Jeremy Ring of northern Broward County, a Democrat who's very respected by Republicans in Tallahassee, would likely play much more of a role in getting that long-overdue audit of the corrupt, incompetent HB CRA that we are owed -and which HB Mayor Joy Cooper has been so adamant about NOT allowing- than most people thought.

 That Cooper opposes a thorough audit of the HB CRA is quite understandable when you know that the facts that come out of it will inevitably reflect very negatively on her and her personal neglect and culpability while she has been mayor for the past ten years and was supposed to be looking-out for residents, not taking advantage of them.

 As well the facts would, given that Cooper was driving the CRA for so long to do the very things it did, however unsavory it appeared to Good Government types like me or my friends in SE Broward.
She didn't care about that, she cared about getting what she wanted and what helped her politically. Period.

 That the Gibbons fundraiser is -surprise- NOT being held within his own state House District -nothing for you HB, West Park, Pembroke Park and Miramar! is par for the course.
Yes, just like his last state House race had its mailing address outside of the district.

 Here are the names again for the record: Broward School Board District 2 member Patricia Good; Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis and Commissioner Iris Siple; Broward County Commissioners Dale Holness, Martin Kiar, Stacy Ritter and Lois Wexler; state Reps Jim Waldman and Perry Thurston. 

What is it about NOT representing this area except in the legislature that animates this strange character named Gibbons, since it's clearly NOT about making the community better?

 But then I could say the same thing about the person whom fundraiser sponsor and Comm. Marty Kiar most resembles politically around HB, City Comm. Alexander Lewy, aka Lewy the Liar, who is running to replace Gibbons in state House 100 next year.

 (Of course, quite a lot of pro-reform people I know in HB say 'good riddance' however you can rid this town of Lewy and the strange tenets of Lewyism, like the urge to always create a bigger government job corps, but me, well, I think of the genuine harm he could do up in Tallahassee while exerting no real power, while simultaneously getting an even more swelled head and high opinion of himself, despite having never really done any heavy lifting of any kind, since I really don't like to reward that sort of thing. Me, I'm looking quite forward to voting against Lewy next year.)

Seeing Kiar's name on this list of back-slappers is absolutely no surprise, since he shares a lot of the worst aspects and elements of the mentality and ideology of Lewy -which is to say that he's 99.9% ego & ambition, .01% sincerity.
Like Lewy, he's not just shallow like the shallow end of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, he's shallow like a store-bought pool that has no depth of any kind.

 All these many months later and the public has still never been told by the South Florida news media how Kiar explains how it came to be that the Broward County Commission districts were redrawn in such a way that the only precinct in Kiar's hometown of Davie that made it into District 1, Comm. Ilene Lieberman's old district, was, yes, Kiar's.
What a small world!!!

 The small convenient world of Broward politics-as-usual where people with power have favors done for them behind-the-scenes by other people with power, and the public is never the wiser -and the press corps just keeps snoozing the afternoon away.

 I mentioned this fact twice last year on the blog and have referenced it a few times in emails, all while the two local newspapers and TV stations made almost no effort to find out the answer.

May 2, 2012
When, if ever, is the sleepwalking South Florida news media going to demand that Broward County Comm. candidate Marty Kiar publicly answer questions about how his one precinct in Davie was the one placed in District 1? The silence on this matter is positively deafening, but the questions WON'T go away

May 9, 2012
The curious case of Broward County Comm. candidate Marty Kiar's Tweets, which, for me, are more revealing for what they DON'T say
Oh, and since you would not have read this elsewhere, Gibbons-supporter Kiar missed that first 911 County Commission meeting last month that everyone in the news media said was so damn urgent.
Never mentioned was why Kiar was missing on what was expected to be a close vote and naturally, South Florida's news media cooperated by never bothering to ask him.
Guess it wasn't so urgent after all.

Noticeable by his absence on this party list is Broward Comm. Tim Ryan, which is a good thing from my perspective, since he's someone I've long admired since returning to South Florida from the Washington, D.C. where I lived and worked for 15 years.
Ryan is such a scrupulously ethical and big idea guy, and someone who actually got meaningful ethics legislation passed while he was in the state legislature, unlike Joe Gibbons, Steve Geller and Eleanor Sobel, all of whom have been under-performers for Hallandale Beach residents in so many different areas that I can't even let myself get sidetracked by mentioning them all here.

 There's still lots of interesting things yet to emerge publicly about Joe Gibbons, and I know some of them myself.
Reasonable questions and facts that will cause people with open minds to question his credibility and basic honesty, especially not just his odd "arrangement" with his wife and children who don't live with him, but what he actually did/does for HER former business and the true level of his involvement with it.
There's much more there than you have heard or read thus far, if you just know where to look.
I do.

 In the end, the main reason for the beleaguered residents of Hallandale Beach to be against Gibbons is the simplest one: he's NEVER been a very good or even reliable representative for this community's best long-term interests.

 While it's never been reported publicly in the two newspapers or on TV, anyone who has been paying even the slightest amount of attention to what goes on in this community -or been reading this blog- knows that Joe Gibbons has NEVER been helpful to the residents of this city who want genuine reform, meaningful transparency and public accountability at HB City Hall.

 Joe Gibbons has been totally AWOL for years, whether it was the case of the unpopular and incompatible Diplomat LAC project championed by Mayor Cooper that was eventually defeated by the County Commission, the longstanding HB CRA corruption, or even the red-light cameras and how they came to be introduced into this community by Mayor Cooper as a revenue-generator, not a tool for public safety, and placed on streets that were not where they were most-needed.

 Joe Gibbons has had plenty of opportunities to do the right thing and he has always done nothing.
Why would you think he'd be any different in representing you as a Broward County Commissioner?

 We DON'T want a do-nothing County Commissioner who just goes along with whatever the dominant political establishment wants, like so many pols in South Florida.
No thanks! 

Gibbons showing-up on Election Day at the HB Cultural Center doesn't make up for all that, esp. if you saw the crowd of misfits that he hung with while there. 
Not surprisingly, it was the very defenders and architects of the mess at the CRA, the people who always have their hand out for CRA and taxpayer money, not the people in this community who want the WHOLE TRUTH and nothing but the truth.
Again, as if I needed more reasons to be supportive of Beam Furr.

Depending upon my schedule in June, I might even swing by the Gibbons fundraising event in Fort Lauderdale in a few weeks and park myself outside the restaurant and take photos of all the local pols and bundlers going inside to tell this useless elected official how great he is, and place it here on my blog for all to see.
You're more than welcome to join me!

 -----
Given how much I wrote about this recently here on the blog, I suppose I should remind you readers that All Aboard Florida is having their after-the-fact scoping meeting Wednesday afternoon in Fort Lauderdale.

 But because there will be no presentation of any kind, just handouts and perhaps a video running somewhere on a screen, plus, no doubt, some attractive female PR types to chat everyone up, to me, it looks to have all the hallmarks of walking into a room where everyone there wants there you to either sign-up for a new cell phone provider or a new credit card -an immediate U-Turn for me.

 Which is to say that I won't be going due to the lack of real information and feedback, and instead, will be going to Hollywood City Hall for their important joint CRA/City Comm. mtg,
on Margaritaville at 5 p.m.
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

What's the difference between clean and Broward taxpayers 'being taken to the cleaners'? Bob Norman & Brittany Wallman on firm charging Broward taxpayers a million dollars a month to clean-up Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport


Above, looking NW at the Broward County Government HQ at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. January 3, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

What's the difference between clean and Broward taxpayers 'being taken to the cleaners'? Bob Norman & Brittany Wallman on the firm charging Broward taxpayers a million dollars a month to clean-up Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport; 

 WPLG-TV, Channel 10, Miami, FL
Broward Commission tosses low bid
By Bob Norman
Published On: May 02 2012 08:45:27 AM EDT  
Updated On: Jun 11 2012 11:58:07 AM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Broward-Commission-tosses-low-bid/-/3223354/12481944/-/6dnvn7z/-/index.html
Be sure read the reader comments!

 Meanwhile, as the 13-month old Sun-Sentinel article below proves, just like the above, over a year ago, Seth Platt, supercilious flack-for-hire, and a living-and-breathing reminder of much of what currently ails the Broward Democratic Party with moderate voters, was trying to throw his light-weight around and kill the messenger.

 In 2011, his target was Broward County Auditor Evan Lukic and in 2012 it's Bob Norman of Channel 10 who pops Platt Junior's balloon full of hot air, bombast and self-importance.

 (This blog post today is one of the ones that got delayed by my bad service from AT&T last month, due to their server.) 

 http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-05-10/news/fl-janitorial-waste-20110509_1_cleaning-contract-airport-director-kent-george-county-auditor
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward overpaid almost $1 million to clean airport, audit says
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
May 10, 2011

FORT LAUDERDALE — Broward visitors overpaid almost $1 million to clean the airport over the 2008-09 budget years, and the county still pays more than other Florida airport authorities for janitorial work, the county auditor says.

The new audit raises an alarm about a $63 million cleaning contract the county has with Sunshine Cleaning Systems Inc. Its 280 workers wash windows, clean toilets, vacuum carpets, and clean parking garages and sidewalks at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

At about $7.56 of cleaning per square foot, Broward's airport is paying more than twice what Miami's airport pays for similar work, county auditor Evan Lukic says in the just-released audit.

Relatively little in Lukic's audit -- about $15,500 worth -- is tied to alleged overbillings by Sunshine Cleaning. Rather, the mistakes he points to, totaling $950,000, were the county's. And county officials, including Airport Director Kent George, say they'll accept responsibility.

"Our aviation personnel did not do a great job in administrating this contract,'' George said on Monday. "Changes have been made. And it won't happen again.''

County Administrator Bertha Henry wrote to commissioners in a memo Thursday that "the underlying cause for this problem is a combination of staff insufficiency and to a lesser extent, competency.''

County commissioners are scheduled to talk about the audit on Tuesday, though the company has asked for a postponement. They will also consider extending Sunshine's contracts to clean the library and the South Regional Courthouse.

The scope of the problem with the airport spreads beyond George's turf. Sunshine's contract was vetted by county purchasing director Brenda Billingsley, placed on the September 2008 county agenda for Lukic, Henry, county attorneys and others to review at the time, and then approved by county commissioners.

George said the audit didn't shake his support for Sunshine.

"The company's performance at the airport has been very, very acceptable,'' he said on Monday. "They have done a good job with an aging facility and a growing passenger base.''

The contract included annual 4.1 percent raises for the cleaners that were higher than they should have been, Lukic says.

Just a few weeks after the cleaning contract was approved, the county changed its Living Wage Ordinance in a way that could have saved taxpayers $950,000 on the cleaning contract. On top of that, Sunshine paid its employees the lower wage but got to keep the extra that the county paid, Lukic says in his audit.

Lobbyist-attorney George Platt, who represented Sunshine in the contract negotiations, said the county insisted on creating the deal the way it was. He said the extra money was spent on employee benefits.

"It's just wonderful you can have a Monday-morning quarterback who was on the field and is now finding fault with a process he was part of,'' Platt said.

In the Thursday memo to commissioners, Henry says, "gaps still remain'' in county staff's ability to watch over contracts.

She asked staff to review the way the contracts are negotiated and said she will report their findings in 90 days. She also said she agrees with Lukic that the airport cleaning contract must be put back out for competitive bids.

Here's what happened, according to those involved: Inflation was so high when the cleaning contract was in the works, at 5.8 percent, that the county was afraid to pay for a contract that used the Living Wage Ordinance as its basis. The county's Living Wage was tied directly to increases in inflation.

So Sunshine agreed to pay $13.24 an hour in wages the first year, with a flat 4.1 percent raise each of the next four years. The contract was approved on Sept. 16, 2008.

Weeks later, on Oct. 7, the county voted to change its Living Wage to limit annual increases.

Lukic says purchasing director Billingsley knew the Living Wage law was about to be changed and asked George's aviation staff to reflect it in the contract. Yet no one followed up to make sure the contract was changed during negotiations, according to the auditor.

Henry said in her memo that after lots of explanations to her from staff about what happened and why, she heard "none that is acceptable to me and it will be addressed accordingly.''
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Friday, February 3, 2012

Bob Norman's must-see video of Florida Panthers president, who DOESN'T want to answer questions about $7.7 million sweetheart loan from Broward County

The must-see Bob Norman investigative video I have for you at the bottom of this post, from Thursday night's Channel 10 six o'clock newscast, is the perfect follow-up to my recent emails to some of you out there in the blogosphere on the never-ending subject of the NHL's Florida Panthers asking the Broward County Commissioners, their landlord at the Bank Atlantic Center, for a multi-million dollar loan, an egregious example of crony capitalism.


It's a subject that I first raised here on the blog in a November 6, 2011 post titled, The Florida Panthers hockey team's owners & mgmt. are about to get a cold dose of economic reality falling on their head -no taxpayer money for you!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/florida-panthers-hockey-teams-owners.html


I was wrong about the "no taxpayer money for you" part, though, as on Tuesday afternoon, the Commission caved-in to specious reasoning by a vote of 6-2.


It was the worst sort of crony capitalism, as instead of just picking winners and losers, and in this case, one where one party will profit much sooner at the expense of the other -as so often has happened the past ten years in my own city of Hallandale Beach with CRA loans under the direction of Mayor Joy Cooper- the County Commission was given financial information days before the vote by County Auditor Evan Lukic that the deal as reconfigured from November would make taxpayers 'The Biggest Loser,' they went ahead and voted for it, anyway.


The most recent South Florida Sun-Sentinel articles on this anti-taxpayer vote:

Panthers deal enriches arena operator, not Broward, county auditor charges
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
January 17, 2012  9:26 p.m.
Florida Panthers back at table with new loan request, $7.7 million Broward vote Tuesday
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
January 31, 2012  4:10 a.m. EST, 

Broward Politics blog
Lobbyist Watch: Milledge says county shouldn't be looking for profit from Panthers
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel 
January 31, 2012  02:56 PM
Broward says yes to Florida Panthers $7.7 million loan
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
January 31, 2012  6:55 p.m. EST

My favorite take away is from the first one from January 21st:

Broward County has gotten the short end of the stick in its financial deal with the Florida Panthers, and a proposed loan would only tip the scales further, the county's auditor charges.

To date, the county has paid more than $90 million for the arena that serves as the Panthers' home, and gotten back just $331,000 in profit-sharing.

The Panthers side of the scoreboard is far brighter, according to county records. Since the doors at BankAtlantic Center opened 13 years ago, Arena Operating Co., the Panthers' sister company that runs the arena, has rung up a reported $117.4 million in profits. That's more than 353 times what the county has banked.

This absurd loan to the Florida Panthers, via the use of the county's hotel bed tax,
is opposed by the Greater Ft. Lauderdale hospitality industry, a preening, self-important and self-serving group to be sure, but one which most people would agree has a much better idea about what tourists do and do not want to do when they visit Broward than the County Commission, and going to a Panthers game on the outskirts of The Everglades near nothing but a huge shopping mall -Sawgrass Mills- is NOT one of them.

My last bit of context for you to absorb before watching Bob Norman's eye-opening video is this Forbes.com video featuring the Florida Panthers' smug and tone-deaf president Michael Yormark.


Yormark won't answer reasonable questions from an actual reporter from the area like Bob Norman, someone who WONT feed him marshmallow questions like Forbes.com's Executive Editor Mike Ozanian does.



Forbes.com video:, Winning Panthers Look To Cash In. January 11, 2012.
http://youtu.be/wCld3dhT3V0


SPORTSMONEY 
January 12, 2012 @ 3:12PM
Panthers Skate Towards More Revenue

Article at: 


The Channel 10 video, and the antics of the people shown, speaks for itself.



WPLG-TV
Bob Norman's Blog
The BankAtlantic shuffle
Published On: Feb 02 2012 08:03:45 AM EST  
Updated On: Feb 02 2012 08:26:55 AM EST

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/The-BankAtlantic-shuffle/-/3223354/8582968/-/i3du6wz/-/

Coming tonight on Channel 10's 11 p.m. newscast, Bob Norman asks, Where are the profits?
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Saturday, January 28, 2012

That stink you smell is coming from Wilton Manors' cocky lawyer/lobbyist/mayor, Gary Resnick, who doesn't much care for Ethics rules that negatively affect his own wallet


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Over the past few weeks, many well-informed observers of the Broward political and govt. scene have surely asked others they trust in private, "What is it with Gary Resnick?"
Alternatively, they've asked themselves, "WTF is with Resnick?"

Those of you reading this today obviously know which camp you're in, though you can be in both, of course.
Like me.

Does Resnick honestly think that the Broward County Commission-approved Ethics laws that are supposed to govern the conduct and behavior of all elected municipal officials in Broward, among many others, was just a strong suggestion?

What are the real reasons that have animated Resnick's fervent efforts the past few weeks to figure out a way to obfuscate, blunt and somehow overturn those clear-cut rules on Ethical conduct, so that they do not apply to him and his small fiefdom north of Fort Lauderdale?

There are lots of reasons to choose from, and obviously only Resnick knows the real ones, though surely they can't be the transparently self-serving ones he's been offering up to the local South Florida news media that has drawn gasps of dismay from county residents and activists, can they?
Oh yes they can!

Hmm-m... let me restate that last point.
To be factual, I should say the local South Florida news media in the singular form of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, as they have done the lion's share of the reporting on this issue.
The four English-speaking TV stations and the Miami Herald -with the exception of a two-minute segment by Channel 10's Bob Norman- have yet to engage any of their own reporters, columnists, producers or cameramen in a SINGLE hour's worth of reporting or investigating on the story, and get the answer directly from Resnick and his band of acolytes at Wilton Manors City Hall or outside of his law firm's office.
Why? 

Do I REALLY have to tell you? 
Not if you are a regular reader here and are aware of the shallow-end of the journalism pool that South Florida has unfortunately drawn in these early years of the 21st century.





Channel 10 News
Bob Norman's Blog
Resnick wants to keep lobbying
Published On: Jan 16 2012 09:20:39 AM EST  
Updated On: Jan 16 2012 09:37:09 AM EST
Video at: 

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Wilton-Manors-mayor-undercutting-ethics-reform/-/3223354/8148064/-/14v1vb9z/-/index.html


This being Broward County, where it's far easier for a person publicly doing the wrong thing to get friends, acquaintances and supporters to stick-up publicly for their own bad judgment and uncouth behavior than it is for the South Florida news media to find any fair-minded people of stature and accomplishment in the community to point it out, as would happen in other parts of the country, I encourage you to not only watch the Bob Norman video, but to peruse the reader comments as well.

You see, this being Broward, the reader comments contain public cheerleaders for Gary Resnick's behavior and attempts to 'secede' from the county's ethics law, which he finds so troublesome for his personal bottom line.

Not surprisingly, one of them is a longtime pro-union, Democratic Party functionary named Ron Mills, the president of the Dolphin Democrats, which he describes as "Florida's oldest and largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Democratic club."
He is also the person behind the blog called Broward's Blog, http://browardsblog.blogspot.com/

In my opinion, Mills' comments on the Channel 10 website speak for themselves, just like Resnick's audacity and gall.

It seems to me that if, like Mills, you hold your friends to a lesser standard than you would tolerate in others, have such a high tolerance for uncouth and unethical behavior by your friends and people you support politically that you've got no problem in publicly making pathetic excuses for their inexcusable actions or words, you're clearly going to be labeled a hypocrite publicly in the future when you try to use your perch to point-out smaller moral and ethical deficiencies in people whom you oppose politically.
At that point, people are more than entitled to disregard your opinion in the future, given your own opaque outlook on ethics, and the difference between right and wrong.

You tell me, is Resnick doing it and thinking he can get away with being so ballsy because he is an elected official in an otherwise obscure one-horse town, where most people outside that duchy of his prefer cars as transportation?

Is it because Resnick lives in a county where other elected municipal officials rarely if ever criticize or call-out another, and most of the local public policy groups that in other parts of the country might be engaged and call him on the carpet, instead maintain their Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil policy of looking the other way?

Is it because Resnick is an attorney who lobbies other cities in Broward County for his clients, yet has so perfected his wax indignant pose, that when people paying close attention to what he's actually doing publicly use the word "lobbyist" as a pejorative, just like it was applied so frequently and accurately for years to lawyer lobbyist Steve Geller -the previous champion of lawyerly distinctions-without-a-difference- he practically pouts, hurt by your critical words?

Is it because Resnick is so cocky, and thinks that by being upfront about it, that somehow mitigates what he is attempting to do, burrow underneath an ethical fence that is supposed to be a barrier to self-serving behavior, a move made necessary  because of so many recent ethical lapses by elected officials in Broward, big fish and minnows?

In this situation, Resnick truly seems to want to ignore both the spirit and the letter of the law, one passed unanimously-if-unhappily by the Broward County Commission last year.

Or, could it just be that Resnick -like everyone else down here with a pulse and two eyes- knows that the local news media is NOT exactly a beehive of eager worker-bees who give 110% on local news stories, so because he's the Gay mayor of a heavily-Gay city, he thinks that if he gets any sort of serious push-back on the issue, he can always pull out the 'victim card' from his back pocket, flash it to the news media, and maybe even play them a tune on his tiny violin?

Maybe it's some weird combination of all these things that make Resnick think that he and his tiny town are above the rules that govern everyone else.
They aren't, of course, and the proof of that is that you can smell HIS stink all the way down on the Broward and Miami-Dade countyline.
With or without an ocean breeze.

Read the following and draw your own conclusions about this 'character" and watch as things begin to heat up on this issue starting Tuesday, when he attempts to go over, around or under the ethical wall of conduct.

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward politicans need to choose: Lobbying or public office, not both
Ballot measures would undo new ethics code in some municipalities
Michael Mayo, Sun Sentinel Columnist
January 23, 2012
Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick has taken some heat lately, for good reason. He's been leading the charge to undo some provisions of Broward county's strict new ethics rules for municipal officials, which took effect Jan. 1

Read the rest of the column at:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-01-23/news/fl-ethics-vote-mayocol-b012412-20120123_1_new-ethics-code-mayor-gary-resnick-broward-cities

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Wilton Manors leaders accused of 'scare tactic' over ethics ballot measure
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
9:03 p.m. EST, January 25, 2012
Wilton Manors voters are being encouraged to approve a ballot measure Tuesday that weakens the brand new Code of Ethics. According to Mayor Gary Resnick and City Manager Joe Gallegos, the code requires advisory board members to share their salaries with the public.
But that's not true, Gallegos acknowledged Wednesday.
The Code of Ethics has no such requirement in it, despite what he and Mayor Gary Resnick have said publicly. 
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/wilton-manors/fl-wilton-manors-misinformation-20120125,0,6413170.story


South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Mayo on the Side blog
Are ethics code foes distorting the truth?
By Michael Mayo
January 25, 2012 09:32 AM
As part of the effort to weaken Broward's tough new ethics code in some local municipalities, are some officials distorting the truth to rally support for their cause?
I ask because it seems salary-disclosure requirements might not apply to appointed advisory board members, contrary to what Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick told me in an interview on Monday.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/mayo/blog/2012/01/are_ethics_code_foes_distortin.html



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My three most recent posts that mentioned both the new ethics laws in Broward County among municipal officials and Gary Resnick's rather strange understanding of them, all from this month, are here in chronological order:


Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all! 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/broward-cities-need-tougher-ethics-laws.html 

My coda to "Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols"; Debby Eisinger's curious fact pattern



Please stick to your guns on stronger ethics and do everything in your power to prevent Mayor Resnick & Co. from beginning the race to the bottom of the ethics barrel in Broward
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/please-stick-to-your-guns-on-stronger.html
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