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. 

-----
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!

------
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!

More intentional Hallandale Beach City Hall misdirection & deception re HB CRA - Media Trackers Florida has more proof of the unseemly behavior at City Hall that HB citizens recognize on sight from past experience: "Hallandale Beach Officials Failed to Document Contacts with Florida Lobbyist"

The chickens are finally coming home to roost in Hallandale Beach and they want an honest audit done on the city's scandal-plagued Community Redevelopment Agency, (CRA), so citizens can finally find out where all the millions of dollars really went. Above, a scene from North Beach, Hallandale Beach, FL. February 14, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

For reasons that I hardly even need explain to most of you regular readers of the blog at this point in the continuing controversy that is the scandalous Hallandale Beach CRA, and the efforts of the city's elected officials and top administrators to suppress any effort by Hallandale Beach citizens to get an honest audit of the CRA, this email of mine was sent this morning to lots of interested parties throughout Florida with an interest in making sure that South Florida taxpayers are not intentionally made monkeys of forever. 

Besides the trustworthy and hardworking elements of the local press corps -a diminishing number to be sure- lots of Broward's most well-informed citizens, civic activists, bloggers and a few selected elected officials, were Florida Governor Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Florida CFO Jeff Atwater and Florida state Senators Jack Latvala, Jeremy Ring and Joseph Abruzzo, as well as Broward Inspector General John W. Scott.

Most of you reading this already know perfectly well why the state legislators who are supposed to represent the best interests of Hallandale Beach's citizens in Tallahassee, state Senator Eleanor Sobel and state Rep. Joe Gibbons, are NOT part of the list.

Certainly things would be easier if they were anything but the colossal failures they've proven themselves to be over so many years on so many issues of interest to this community.
Not just unhelpful, but actual obstacles.

No, our small community's collective misfortune is that Gibbons and Sobel's perfectly dreadful track records in office, individually and collectively, over SO many years, consistently shows that they DON'T put our community's best-interests first, but rather their own, especially their own political futures.
That dismal track record makes them completely untrustworthy in every important respect that counts, especially when it comes to getting the truth for HB's beleaguered citizens out of a City Hall led by their imperious pal, Joy Cooper.

-----

Hallandale Beach Officials Failed to Document Contacts with Florida Lobbyist

By: Tom Lauder 

June 27, 2013

http://mediatrackers.org/florida/2013/06/27/hallandale-beach-officials-failed-to-document-contacts-with-florida-lobbyist

Just to confirm the validity of this post above, not that any is needed, since the facts are crystal clear, as of 5 p.m. Thursday, I'd still NOT received the copies of the text messages sent between lobbyist Judy Stern and Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and HB City Manager Renee Miller that I requested in writing on June 12th.

Text messages that had one central goal in mind: preventing an honest and accurate audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA so that HB residents, taxpayers and small business owners could FINALLY find out where the millions of CRA dollars really flowed all these years with no genuine oversight or follow-up by officials.

Officials who were, in theory, supposed to do that as part of their official responsibilities -but didn't.

But as we have all learned the hard way, oversight and follow-up were simply words that did NOT exist in their lexicon for YEARS, with important files missing left-and-right and many documents missing or inaccurate in the files that actually were present.

In this most-recent case, Cooper, Miller and Stern were aghast about a June 4th public request to the entire Broward County Commission requesting an audit of the CRA performed via Broward County Auditor Evan Lukic's office.

Well, you already know what transpired, who said what and who did nothing at all to help HB residents get that long-overdue public accounting that's been denied us all these years by the same powers-that-be at HB City Hall who didn't want any more public scrutiny.

But then this isn't even the first time all year that public disclosure of public information has been a quaint and abstract idea in Hallandale Beach.

Yes, as previously mentioned, the same poorly-run city that DIDN'T publicly disclose its legally-required official Contacts list for well OVER two months, even while city officials, elected and administrators -inc.  the Mayor, City Manager and CRA Director- were meeting with real estate developers, at least one of whom, Stephen Riemer publicly admitted at a March 18th CRA meeting that he wanted the city to (illegally) use its power of eminent domain to buy-out small businesses near properties he  already owns near the FEC tracks, in order that he can build a large development there.

Presumably, after he and the city have chased-out all other existing businesses, however they can to help him personally, no doubt using CRA funds.

That's illegal in this state, of course, as the FL Legislature has made clear, but then lots of federal, state and local laws are routinely ignored in Hallandale Beach with the current crew in charge the past few years, with my blog an accurate chronicle of their years of mendacity and anti-democratic fervor.

As you might well imagine, those small businesses owners resent NOT knowing what's going on and NOT being able to get honest and forthright answers from the very people who are supposed to be working for them, not against them.

But here's what they see with their own eyes, right in front of their businesses: promised, overdue road improvements by the city delayed several times without any sort of public explanation, and after hearing Riemer declare war on them at a public meeting, they can't help but wonder if it's being done intentionally by the city to drive the businesses out, just as Riemer wants, using CRA funds.

Lots and lots of curious coincidences that always turn out the same way, eventually add-up to an interesting fact pattern that's hard to ignore.

There was deception everywhere when Riemer spoke at that March 18th HB CRA meeting against the city's long-promised funding of that CRA-funded road improvement program, which took place without the public knowing anything at all about those private meetings he'd held with city officials because the city didn't post them.

Though they had the opportunity to do the right thing, albeit, after-the-fact, and publicly disclose to the public that they'd met privately with Riemer, the city officials who met with Riemer never disclosed it. 

They acted like this was the first time they were hearing anything at all about Riemer's plans or concerns.

Yes, disingenuous is the word that comes to mind. 

But that's how things continue to roll routinely in a city where the spirit and letter of Florida's  Sunshine Laws are routinely ignored by the very people in charge of following the laws and enforcing them.

In case the link within the story above proves hard to pull up, it's at

http://www.scribd.com/doc/150219454/Stern-Hallandale-Beach

-----
Not in email:

Among the many recent predicates for the email above that help explain it, especially the situation on the city's Fashion Row area -N.E. First Avenue- that has, unfortunately, pitted small business owners against the City of Hallandale Beach, whose employees and elected officials have been arrogant, deceptive, and intentionally duplicitous to them, while blaming others for their own actions, are the following:

TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2013

Future of Hallandale Beach's Fashion Row Arts District on N.E. First Avenue to be discussed at an important 5:30 p.m. meeting on Wednesday at Dekka; What, if any, are insurance executive and developer Stephen L. Riemer's strategic plans for the future of the N.E. First Avenue area, alongside the F.E.C. tracks?; More cases of déjà vu on Hallandale Beach's woeful website

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/future-of-hallandale-beachs-fashion-row.html

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Entrepreneur Luciana Preguerman and other Fashion Row shop owners in Hallandale Beach draw a line in the sand over the City Commission/CRA threatening to sabotage an already-approved and budgeted plan for street improvements they've been desperately waiting for, and are livid over the new CRA Director's inability to logically articulate why they're considering such a move. They want answers before Monday night's important CRA meeting at 5 p.m.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/entrepreneur-luciana-preguerman-and.html

It's raining cold hard facts again! Media Trackers Florida exposes the secret of Hallandale Beach's terrible After-School Special on Ethics starring Joy Cooper/Joe Gibbons pal & lobbyist Judy Stern; Some HB residents, previously on the fence, are finally seeing Joy Cooper's lack of character that we always knew was missing, a fact she confirmed herself years ago when she called yours truly a "Nazi" at a City Comm. meeting -where she thought I couldn't hear her- and then called HB Comm. Keith London "a Hitler." Yes, the same hypocrite who wants to lecture other people about civil behavior!

Hallandale Beach CRA accused of misspending $2.1 Million, Broward County Commission takes no action on audit request.
By Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com, Published On: Jun 04 2013 05:17:10 PM EDT
 Updated On: Jun 05 2013 11:02:28 AM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/hallandale-beach-cra-accused-of-misspending-21m/-/1717324/20421380/-/mcmla1/-/index.html
-----

#UNC Hallandale Beach CRA accused of misspending $2.1M: A report by the Broward County Office of Inspector G... bit.ly/17YATUG
— trish galla (@GallaTrish) June 4, 2013

State of the South Florida news media in 2013: A non-reporter is seemingly paying more attention to the biggest ethical scandal in Broward County than CBS4, NBC6, 7News and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. 
Surprise! 

* To give you an accurate idea of how badly things are botched at Hallandale Beach City Hall and the city's complete lack of any kind of transparency (or remorse to taxpayers) on this matter, the Broward Inspector General's preliminary and final report about the City of Hallandale Beach CRA -characterized by them as "gross mismanagement"- as well as the city's own response to them, have still NEVER appeared on the city's own website. 
Not once. 

But because of this Broward County Commission meeting that touched on the scandal, the city's response to the preliminary response IS on Broward County's website, but still NOT on the city's. Really. 
Who could make this sort of thing up?
-----

Lobbyist Judy Stern uses texts to thwart Hallandale CRA investigation florida.mediatrackers.org/2013/06/10/hal… @browardpolitics @browardbulldog @buddynevins
— MediaTrackersFL (@MediaTrackersFL) June 10, 2013

-----

MediaTrackers Florida

Hallandale Beach Mayor and Controversial Lobbyist Thwart Investigation of Financial Mismanagement

By Tom Lauder

10TH JUN 2013 AT 14:20

Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and controversial lobbyist Judy Stern joined forces to prevent a Broward County Commission investigation of the misappropriation of funds by the Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). Hallandale Beach residents asked the Broward County Commission for assistance after a Broward County Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation “identified numerous instances of gross mismanagement that stemmed from institutional deficiencies in the establishment, organization and function of the CRA.”

Read the rest of the post at:

http://florida.mediatrackers.org/2013/06/10/hallandale-beach-mayor-and-controversial-lobbyist-thwart-investigation-of-financial-mismanagement/

I strongly suggest you check back throughout the day for reader comments at the URL!

-----

Having nothing to do with this very meaty post below, I'll soon be doing a public records request for all 2013 correspondence between HB City Hall and lobbyist Judy Stern, since HB City Hall so completely tried to sandbag me on the Stephen Riemer request, taking well over a month to respond after they'd promised a response within five days.

All of this is a result of my trying to connect-the-dots on the fact that real estate developer Riemer has met several times with City Manager Renee Miller and CRA Director Daniel Rosemond without the city publicly disclosing that as required by state law, or the city's own ordinance that requires a public disclosure within 72 hours.

Instead, the Broward city where the buck rests with Renee Miller took almost three months.

Then, they insulted me by asking me to pay $677.18 for copies of completely extraneous documents that I'd specifically said I didn't want, i.e bury me under paperwork. 

Trust me, I can spot the rope-a-dope strategy from a mile away, so I didn't fall for it, but this should be a clear sign to all of you reading this that HB City Hall is once again engaging in their longtime practice of trying to frustrate HB citizens and taxpayers making valid public information requests, and choosing to play hardball with public information that should've been properly disclosed and made public MONTHS AGO.

I found this information from this article re a text message from Judy Stern to Broward County Comm. Tim Ryan to be especially amusing:

"Media Trackers Florida obtained text messages sent by Stern to Ryan’s office on the morning of the Commission meeting. Stern blasted whistleblower Keith London for bringing the item before the County Commission. She wrote, “Keith and his blogs are such twists of the truth.”

Amusing since I'd already contacted Comm. Ryan the week before the meeting and had shared more facts with him connecting-the-dots on this HB scandal than he could probably have known existed.

Plus, until Keith London left a message on my voicemail last weekend, a few days before he and Comm. Michele Lazarow spoke to the entire Commission, I hadn't spoken to him or Michele in-person or by phone in well over two months -March 31st.

But when you're Judy Stern, what are a couple more lies and half-truths to tell after a career of them?

That's who she is.

In any case, it's not a half-truth but rather the complete truth that I'm the person who discovered that Dr. Deborah Brown's little HB group was no longer considered a non-profit by the IRS -because they hadn't filing their Form 990's for years- and that COHB officials were clearly 

NOT performing even the most cursory due diligence or double-checking of documents.

Which is exactly what I told the Broward Inspector General's office last year.

AFTER posting it here on the blog first.

As if we didn't already know from their not-so-glittering track record, Judy Stern and Joy Cooper's understanding of the word 'truth" is NOT the same as yours and mine.

A distinction for which you and I are clearly very thankful.

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

Above, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott at a Broward League of Women Voters event in Coconut Creek, FL on January 24, 2013. Below, four of the five Hallandale Beach citizens who found time on a busy weekday afternoon to drive up to Coconut Creek in northwest Broward County to listen to and ask some questions of Mr. Scott. Pictured left-to-right are Keith S. London, Dr. Robert Selz, Dr. Judy Selz, and Csaba Kulin. Not pictured: me! January 24, 2013 photos by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Below is a copy of my email this afternoon to Hallandale Beach's two reps on the Broward County Commission, Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief, about the independent Broward Office of Inspector General relative to an issue that I've previously mentioned here on the blog and in numerous emails around the area, almost of which have elicited the same perplexed and unhappy reaction among concerned citizens upon first learning of it.
The email speaks for itself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 31, 2013

3:30 p.m.

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

Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

Since the question of whether or not the Broward County Commission should authorize the Office of Broward County Auditor Evan Lukic to perform a thorough audit of the Hallandale Beach Beach CRA will be coming-up at Tuesday's meeting, given the city's longstanding failure 

to have normal and effective operating quality controls over millions of dollars in place, or even pretend to have actual public accountability and thorough follow-up to ensure that  public funds were spent for their intended if ill-founded purposes, a motion that I support 100%, due to the HB City Commission/CRA Board's longstanding refusal to have a thorough audit of the entire HB CRA, i.e themselves, I'd like to bring to your  attention a related issue involving the Office of the Broward Inspector General.

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

It's actually entirely what you'd expect.

Included among those meetings was one that was hosted in late January by the Broward League of Women Voters in Coconut Creek featuring IG John W. Scott.

I and four other very-concerned Hallandale Beach citizens actually attended that get-together at a condominium, despite its lack of proximity to HB.

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

I have personally written to Mr. Scott on several occasions and have brought up the issues of his Office showing some good faith to this community by actually following-up on his OWN public declarations and do so for all of the most-obvious reasons.

That includes a written request to him over a week ago, yet his office has been completely, and rather curiously, non-responsive on this matter.

I strongly urge the two of you as representatives on the County Commission of this community's beleaguered citizens to contact the IG's office and remind them that they have a logical AND moral duty to speak directly and publicly with the citizens of this directly-affected city.

A duty that is at least as strong as it is to all of the many Broward groups that the IG's Office has already spoken to that are NOT directly affected at all.

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

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/indiana-secretary-of-state-convicted-of-6-voter-fraud-charges.html

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

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/when-if-ever-is-sleepwalking-south.html

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

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/curious-case-of-broward-county-comm.html

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.