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Showing posts with label Broward Courthouse Taskforce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Broward Courthouse Taskforce. Show all posts
Above and below, July 13, 2010 photos by South Beach Hoosier, looking south at the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
More bad reporting on education at Miami Herald -We'll tell you about meetings the morning of them rather than in advance so you can attend them ...
We'll tell you about govt. meetings the morning of them rather than in advance, like on Sunday, so you know in advance and can maybe plan to attend.
The same reason we run our "Week Ahead" calendar on Monday instead of Sunday like most normal newspapers would do.
And if Broward School Board members engage in questionable personal behavior, we'll tell you about it MONTHS after-the-fact.
That is, if we do at all.
Love,
The Herald
They did the same thing for the Broward Courthouse Task Force meetings, only quoting -parroting- judges and selected courthouse workers and never interviewing anyone in depth who was knowledgeable and AGAINST the construction of a new County Courthouse, despite the fact that a clear majority of the county's taxpayers were/are against it.
Not that you'd ever have known it from what the Herald wrote at the time.
They could never find the opposing P.O.V. because they never honestly looked.
Was Thursday's story in the Herald by Laura Figueroa,
(*Friday night postscript: Actually, the Herald has changed the story that used this URL on Thursday afternoon, wherein Figueroa talked about the meeting being held that night, and then used the same exact URL on Friday on that meeting. I checked the Herald's archives and they completely deleted the original story I complained about in an email I sent to about 6-7 dozen people around South Florida. Surprise!)
If so, Runcie would be better off telling the Herald not to even bother sending anyone to meetings -not that they always were, just like the Broward County Ethics meetings they rarely attended- and that henceforth, he'll call their bluff, and make arrangements for his public comments to be videotaped and placed on the school's website or a new YouTube page within 24 hours for the public to see for themselves.
If only...
Oh, and in case you forgot, in the year 2011, the Herald STILL doesn't have an Education blog, either!
Predictably, NOT mentioned in Thursday's Herald story -why wasn't this meeting with Runcie being televised on taxpayer-owned BECON, which is on both satellite and cable systems in Broward County?
Is it the same reason that the three-headed Integrity meetings -none of whose meetings were ever held south of Downtown FTL- were also NOT aired on BECON?
Plain old-fashioned incompetency!
See my January 10, 2001 post on the topic of the complete under-utilization of BECON to communicate with shareholders, Monday night's public meeting of Notter's Three Amigos -Bring hand warmers! Where are BECON's TV cameras?
Supt. Runcie needs to take the initiative ASAP and make an example out of some highly-paid people in the school system, who can't even conceive of the simple idea of putting that meeting on TV and having an email address that questions could be sent to from Broward parents and taxpayers, and give them their unconditional release.
The only forum being held in south Broward will be on October 20th at McArthur High School, 6501 Hollywood Blvd. from 7-9 p.m.
BCPS to Host Broward Legislative Delegation Public Hearing Broward County Public Schools will host a Broward Legislative Delegation public hearing to receive testimony concerning issues related to education and cultural affairs on Monday, October 10, 2011 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Collins Elementary School, 1050 NW 2nd Street, Dania.
My previous posts on the James Notter-appointed Integrity Committee:
Oh yeah, and be sure to ask Integrity member Bob Butterworth what he thinks -on camera, too- about the very idea of the present School Board members voting on this before the new members are sworn-in. Yet another nail in Broward Schools ...
Rather ominously for concerned Broward citizens and taxpayers who hoped for more diligence and speed on their part, panel member Bob Butterworth said "he is confident Broward School Board members "want to do right" and will take the ...
The three members of the independent commission – Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, attorney W. George Allen, and former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth — are donating their time. But the school district agreed to pay for ...
previously that the January 10th Butterworth & Company public meeting could've been and should've been televised on the Broward School Board's own cable channel, BECON-TV, using the very TV cameras that Broward taxpayers have ...
To serve on the commission, Superintendent Jim Notter chose former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth; Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, a former state legislator; and attorney W. George Allen, who filed the lawsuit that forced ...
Does PR guru Bob Butterworth know about this meeting in secret? And when, specifically, is he going to meet with Broward parents and taxpayers in public and answer their questions? Just wondering. Or is that too much to ask? ...
1st Sun-Sentinel column about FP&L and Notter both turning to Bob Butterworth to lend some assistance, In Sticky Situations, Just Add Mr. Butterworth http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-butterworth-mayocol-b103009,0,2880202.column ...
Only in Broward County: Courthouse security catches man with gun at entrance, but judges overreact oh-so predictably, demanding an armed cop in EVERY courtroom.
As if on cue, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said he wants $17.2 million for more deputies in courthouses.
In a word: NO!
How can I put this in a way that you will understand -the courthouse security we already have WORKED.
Whether that is because the security that day -Wednesday- was Sherlock Holmes-like or because the person apprehended was stupid enough to put a gun in a gym bag thru a magnetometer at a place that warns you in advance, you be the.. yes, judge.
Here's the line from the Sun-Sentinel article below that tells you everything you need to know:
Though armed deputies roam the courthouses, there are none working in any Broward courtroom unless a judge asks for one or there's a murder trial.
Exactly.
Because an armed deputy is NOT required for every single courtroom.
In any case, what would all these armed cops do on Fridays after lunch?
Hasn't Broward legal blogger JAABLOGalready proven time and again that on Fridays, many of the courtrooms in the Main Courthouse in downtown Ft. Lauderdale are empty?
Yes, he has proven it to a fair-thee-well.
Guess they could provide security and walk along the largely tourist-free FTL riverfront and count the number of graffiti 'tags' on the bridge and the poles and the signs...
Is it impossible for even one legitimate Miami-based TV/print reporter in the year 2011 to do a story on the Broward County Courthouse, and for just once, just for the hell of it, actually describe in detail what things are like there on Fridays?
I know that this is expecting a lot since they could NEVER manage to do even ONE story on the financial, historical and political context behind the "fix" that was the Broward County Courthouse Task Forceunder Chair -and downtown FTL property-owner?- Ilene Lieberman, and the predictable decisionsthat were made, despite the fact that that story was practically given to them on a silver platter.
And still they blanched...
"It's not a question of 'Do we need a courthouse?' We need it and we need to get it done," said Commissioner Ilene Lieberman who headed the task force.
(See more on that so-called Task Force below, which once included Scott Rothstein.)
It's really NOT that hard to do.
But you have to want to actually do it.
To NOT keep making excuses for avoiding the story and knowing that you will rattle some powerful and well-connected Broward cages in doing so.
To stop procrastinating.
Here in South Florida, the local news media doesn't want to.
After second gunman this year enters a Broward courthouse, sheriff seeks security funding
By Linda Trischitta and Danielle A. Alvarez, Sun Sentinel
8:48 PM EDT, September 28, 2011
FORT LAUDERDALE
After a second incident this year when an armed man entered a Broward County courthouse, the chief judge and the sheriff called for county funding to increase security.
No one was hurt before Francois V. Brown, 39, of Miramar, was arrested Tuesday at the county's south regional courthouse on Hollywood Boulevard.
On Wednesday, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said he wants $17.2 million from the Broward County Commission to hire and arm deputies in four Broward courthouses and family court.
To quote myself from JAABLOG's February 2, 2010 post titled Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me ...
Posted by JAABLOG at 2/2/2010 9:29 PM
2/3/2010 1:40 AM Hallandale Beach Blog wrote:
First, some facts about Tuesday's vote on financing a new Broward County Courthouse, a story that only the Daily Business Review, JAABLOG and I wrote about. Not asking for plaudits, just noting it for historical context.
For those courthouse denizens who animate this blog with their constant contempt of Broward taxpayers thru your comments here, who think that a new Broward County Courthouse is very important, guess what?
The South Florida news media could hardly care less about you. You barely register on their horizon. You are insignificant.
In the days and weeks before the vote, the two daily South Florida newspapers and the four network TV stations sat on their hands and reported nothing about this issue. Neither the Herald or the Sun-Sentinel have mentioned this subject in print or online since last September, when a Guest Op-Ed purported to have been written by Comm. Stacy Ritter was published in the Sun-Sentinel.
Once again, on something very important, South Florida's news media has shown they were sleeping on the job, and let the people down.
Did you EVER see anything last year on TV about the ties that the members of the Lieberman-led Task Force had to the Broward legal establishment, who desperately want a brand new pony?
Preferably, with a brand-new barn and a lifetime supply of feed. On the taxpayer's dime. Nope. There never was one
Watching the coverage Tuesday night at 11 p.m., actually thinking there'd be some interviews -with somebody!- this point was drive home all over again.
At 11:16 p.m. CBS-4's Antonio Mora did a 15-second read without any visuals and said the vote happened "last night," which as we know, is incorrect.
At 11:27 p.m., Local10's Laurie Jennings also did a 15-second read
with archived visuals of yellow tape and leaking ceilings.
There's the press coverage of your shiny new pony.
And why is it that so few usually well-informed people actually know how poorly Lieberman handled the rigged Task Force last year?
I wrote last year on my blog how she and the county administrators didn't follow basic aspects of the state's Sunshine Laws, and instead, tried to fool the public by arranging for the agenda and assorted relevant public docs for the last meeting, which should've been online before the meeting, to be placed online HOURS AFTER the last meeting was already over.
Not that they actually had the final public meeting listed online days before the meeting, since they didn't. Lieberman was the one in charge -the Chair. But the media didn't care -just like now.
Keep up the great work, JAABLOG!
-----------------------------
In case you forget how that vote for taxpayers paying for a new Broward Courthouse went, voting in favor: Ken Keechl, Stacy Ritter, Ilene Lieberman, Al Jones and Diana Wasserman-Rubin.
Voting against: Sue Gunzberger, Lois Wexler and John Rodstrom.
Back in October, TheSunshineStateNews did this interview with then-CFO candidate Jeff Atwater on the subject of the 'Taj Mahal' Courthouse in Tallahassee, who asked why Alex Sink, then the Florida CFO and Democratic nominee for governor, didn't raise red flags about its costs and instead just signed the checks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x16WC96yqqg
See also:http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/ and http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSunshineStateNews
-----
Following-up on her excellent reporting of three weeks ago on the new First District Court of Appeals Courthouse in Tallahassee -Florida's state capital for those of you reading this post overseas- which I commented upon here in a December 19th post I titled, with mock humor, Lucy Morgan in St. Pete Times: Why can't anyone remember how a $50-million courthouse now called the 'Taj Mahal' stayed off the radar and got okayed? http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/lucy-morgan-in-st-pete-times-why-cant.htmlon Saturday, Lucy Morgan of the St. Petersburg Times actually outdid her earlier piece.
She gave readers and observers of all things political in Florida, the shady and the legit, a real bracing wake-up call by giving us a knowing description of what's what in the new Home Sweet Home for the elite judicial set.About the only thing missing are duvets, a private wine cellar and Swedish au pairs to help their kids after school with homework, otherwise, it's all there.
Atwater: Taj Mahal courthouse 'far worse' than a pricey building
By Lucy Morgan, Times Senior Correspondent In Print: Saturday, January 8, 2011
TALLAHASSEE — State auditors are questioning more than $1 million in bills submitted for the new $50 million courthouse built by the 1st District Court of Appeal.
"This is one of the great embarrassments for Florida government,'' new Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater said of the building derided as Florida's Taj Mahal. "The audacity and arrogance that was displayed in doing this and their continuing effort to hide the ball has been a complete disservice to hardworking Floridians who deserve better from public officials.''
The day after Atwater was sworn into office this week, he was briefed by auditors who now work for him. He said he will personally inspect every outstanding bill and will allow no payment until he can determine what was purchased. His auditors are continuing an investigation that started under former CFO Alex Sink.
"I now believe it is far worse than just an expensive building,'' Atwater said.
Some of Atwater's questions surround apparent attempts by the court to buy big screen television sets and furnishings for the courthouse with the proceeds of a $33.5 million bond issue that taxpayers will repay over the next 30 years.
"I cannot imagine financing equipment for 30 years that will depreciate over the next three to five years,'' Atwater said.
A former Senate president, Atwater said he has completely lost confidence in the Department of Management Services, the state agency responsible for overseeing construction of the courthouse. Officials at DMS signed off on the questionable purchases the judges requested.
"I do not believe they (DMS) have been straight with the people of Florida, certainly not with our department,'' he said. "They have been disguising what they were trying to get us to sign off on — and I have only been here a day.''
In October the CFO's scathing audit of the project accused the judges of illegally taking control of planning and construction away from DMS and laid much of the blame on the lobbying of 1st DCA Judges Paul M. Hawkes and Brad Thomas.
Auditors are now questioning a number of bills submitted by DMS for Peter R. Brown Construction Co. and Black Box Network Services, the company providing telecommunications equipment to the court. Black Box billed the state $693,450 for services and electronics equipment but has yet to collect $571,105 due to questions raised by auditors.
A $113,450 bill approved by DMS Nov. 29 lists a series of change orders for Black Box installations with charges for "labor'' without details. One of the items listed as labor is for $58,699.01. That is exactly the amount listed on a Sept. 7 bill for 14 TV sets and a $17,364 "restocking fee'' for the return of 16 60-inch TVs.
The St. Petersburg Times obtained the September bill in a records request from DMS, but officials in Atwater's office say they have never seen the September bill and believe the more recent bill that listed the TVs as "labor'' was an attempt to hide what had been purchased.
When the Times asked for bills DMS paid for electronics or furnishings, DMS initially denied any such payments had been made. But when pressed to provide bills submitted by Black Box, the agency produced a copy of the September bill.
The judges originally planned to put a 60-inch flat screen in each of 16 judges' chambers but apparently returned the televisions after the Times reported in August on the courthouse's many luxuries. Auditors are also questioning the legality of the restocking fee Black Box requested.
Auditors say they can't immediately determine how many televisions the court is attempting to buy. They sent an inspector out to count after getting a bill for nine. The inspector found the nine sets, plus two more still in boxes. The court was paying $5,978 for each 60-inch television, $2,273 for 47-inch televisions and $3,325 for 52-inch televisions, far more than the price of similar-sized TVs at major electronic stores.
Internal memos indicate auditors could not determine what was being purchased in one December bill for $145,000. When they asked for additional documentation they discovered that $41,000 of the total was for the nine TVs.
Officials at DMS did not respond to detailed requests for comment on Friday.
First DCA marshal Stephen Nevels says the court has 27 televisions in the new building: nine 60-inch monitors; two 52-inch; seven 46-inch; three 42-inch; two 40-inch; and four 17-inch. Nevels said the court has not seen any of the bills that have been handled by DMS.
Atwater is trying to unravel other questionable expenditures. One involves the purchase of art for the new building, and vendors that DMS and the court authorized to provide services that exceed the $100,000 limit on art that state law says can be purchased for a new building.
One of those vendors is Signature Art Gallery, owned by Mary Maida, wife of Tallahassee lawyer Tom Maida. The gallery agreed to frame 400 historical photos in the new building at a cost of more than $357,000, money that was to be paid by construction manager Peter R. Brown. In addition the court has agreed to pay $72,000 for original paintings by seven Florida artists.
The framed photographs include scenes from the 32 counties in Florida's northern district: greased pig contests, tobacco farms, lighthouses, cotton pickers, Tarzan at Wakulla Springs and other historic scenes.
Auditors have refused to approve payment of the bill because it exceeds the $100,000 limit. Some at the court have argued that the photos are not art and should not be included in the amount state law allows for art when a new building is built.
The situation leaves Mrs. Maida, owner of a small gallery in northeast Tallahassee, with a huge unpaid bill. Her husband, a lawyer at Foley & Lardner, has written to lawyers in Atwater's office asking for copies of all records relating to the art.
He has not filed a lawsuit. "I hope we don't have to,'' Tom Maida said when asked about the debt. "We certainly believe she is entitled to be paid by the state.''
It will be up to Atwater to decide. He's trying to determine what the state should do where a vendor has entered into a contract in good faith expecting to be paid for work — but that work violates state law.
Meanwhile Hawkes, chief judge during much of the construction project, and other officials involved in the project have been asked to appear before a Senate budget committee Wednesday to answer questions about the new courthouse. Thomas, the other judge who helped lobby for the project, also was invited. On Friday he notified the committee he will not appear.
"He had no problem coming to lobby for a $50 million courthouse, but now he can't come back to answer questions,'' said committee Chairman Mike Fasano.
Thomas did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.
Lawmakers approved the money for the project and passed a $33.5 million bond issue that was tucked into an unrelated transportation bill on the last day of the 2007 legislative session. They say they had no idea the judges planned to build such an elaborate building.
The 110,000-square-foot building houses the 1st District's 114 employees. Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Canady is working on plans to remodel part of the building to accommodate 50 to 60 state court administrative employees, who could move out of rented quarters and save the state about $300,000 a year.
Atwater said he cannot allow the problems with the new building to go unaddressed. "There are people at DMS who tried to stop this, at least tried to bring a level of thoughtful scrutiny to it and it may have cost them their jobs,'' he said.
So, three weeks later. the lap of luxury in Tallahassee paid for by Florida taxpayers begins to get described in detail...
I can only imagine what a proposed new Broward County Courthouse -forced down the throats of protesting taxpayers- would be like with all the prima donna judges in this area.
That proposed County courthouse, adamantly opposed by the vast majority of Broward County's citizen taxpayers, but popular with the small clique of downtown Fort Lauderdale's business, legal and lobbying community, for reason that should be obvious, is an explosive subject I've written about many times, even while the Miami Herald has been positively obsequious and sycophantic in their news coverage, practically serving as a stenographer for the proponents of the plan.
Last year, Ritter created her own hand-picked "Broward County Courthouse Task Force" and installed her friend and fellow courthouse backer, Commissioner Ilene Lieberman, as the chairwoman.
Not surprisingly, the task force just came back with exactly what Ritter and Lieberman wanted: a recommendation to build a new courthouse without asking the permission of the public. The task force report also includes a convoluted half-baked plan to pay for it.
And Ritter and Lieberman are real cocky about it too, treating it all as a done deal. But you have to understand that Lieberman might have more than altruistic motives to rush this project forward. In 2005, she and lawyer husband Stuart Michelson, who serves as the Sunrise city attorney, bought an office suite close to the courthouse (at 800 SE Third Avenue) for $1.35 million.
Wow!
I've discussed here how the so-called 'Courthouse Task Force' was intentionally stacked with supporters of the plan, not well-respected, open-minded community reps with no personal or professional conflicts. No, that would have been too easy!
Instead, people selected for it had personal agendas from the beginning, and some even stood to profit from it in a manner that would not be ethically or legally acceptable with a similar proposal for any other building in this county.
In fact, the task force DIDN'T even follow the county's own rules and provide public information about their public meetings prior to them taking place, as the last meeting's agenda and related information were NOT posted to the county's website until many hours AFTER it was over.
Oversight or intentional?
In my letter to Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry complaining about these violations, I made the case for intentional by simply reciting the known facts, which were overwhelming. And in case you forgot, the chair of that Broward County Courthouse Task Force, appointed by the Broward County Commission itself, was none other than Broward County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman, a woman who owns property near the proposed site in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Really.
Here are HBB links to past posts of mine on her ethics as well as this subject:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that's how things are DONE in Broward County, Florida, U.S.A. in the early years of the 21st century. In broad daylight.
The mind literally reels at the excess just waiting for Broward taxpayers if a new county courthouse is built in the location favored by the powerful few and well-connected, who are mostly Secret Santas for each other, even if they don't personally celebrate Christmas.
What are friends for?
IF there ever is a brand-new courthouse in Broward, it needs to be on/near or adjacent to U.S.-1 so that a futureFEC rail line commuter train station is close-by, and logic and reason actually enter the public planning conversation for a change. http://www.sfeccstudy.com/ If you aren't going to consciously locate venues that attract lots of foot traffic, like stadiums, arenas, shopping malls, govt. buildings like county courthouses or county HQ, near safe and well-designed mass transportation hubs to cut down on the number of vehicles on the roads,and create some positive business synergy and efficiency -and make everyone's life simpler while saving money on parking fees- what's the point in pretending there's any kind of logical, well thought- out County/regional transportation policy?
I don't know about you, but personally, I'm tired of pretending that myopic mediocrity in South Florida government planning is satisfactory.
Once again,below, clear evidence that Comm. Ilene Lieberman is playing her by now familiar role. Not the role of pragmatic idealist, not the role of reasonable compromise, but the role of obstructionist.
She waited until after the county Charter Review Commissionmade their recs last year before deciding to offer up a measure that the County Auditor -whom I have no quibble with- ought to be required to makes financial estimates of the prospective costs of ballot initiatives and referendums, and that such info appear on the ballot.
There are lots of well-informed people in Broward who are in complete agreement with me that Comm. Lieberman came up with the proposal that became an ordinance, at least in in part,to sink the idea of having an independent, advisory MTA in this area that could start making positive suggestions based on what the public and transportation-users think, not what box the county wants to put people in.
And by an advisory MTA, I mean one that was composed of real taxpayers and which paid proper heed to citizens, and which was NOT the puppet play-thing of the County Commission and their faceless bureaucratic MPO system, which few citizens know about or understand.
That MPO system, while not without some smart and well-meaning people, many of whom I've met, is great in the abstract, but the reality is that it's also the refuge of many bureaucratic drones who give taxpayers and bus riders the back of their hand, like they're laboratory rats. Employees I'd like to see axed, toute-de-suite.
It's the last refuge of the dim-witted Joy Coopers of the world, who say that everything should be done thru MPO as a way of avoiding true accountability, even while keeping parochial pols in charge, due in large part to the pervasive influence of the Broward League of Cities, which is too great in my opinion.
For simple proof of this, go to the Minutes of the last public Charter Review Commission meeting, April 9, 2008, 1 p.m. http://www.broward.org/charter/pdf/crc_ph_agenda_04092009.pdf Start at the public comments on page 6 and watch what happens when Joy Cooper is asked a series of very reasonable questions by CRC members Ted Mena and Michael C. Buckner. It speaks for itself.
In the year 2009, citizens don't want to take a seat in the back of the bus while imbeciles like Joy Cooper do the driving -off the cliff.
(The woman who at the formal presentation and Commission vote on the city's over-due, over-budget Transportation Master Plan, at the HB Cultural Center, was too dumb to ever ask the city's consultants whether or not the city's own mini-bus drivers were ever interviewed for input; they weren't.
Right, ignore your own employees who are best-positioned to speak to traffic issues and patterns and take the word of consultants who do their research based on city traffic patterns during the slowest partof the year. That's her enlightened management style which has so coarsened public sentiment and common sense here. In case you forgot, that's the meeting that Comm. Anthony A. Sandersnever attended and subsequently never gave an explanation for missing. Yeah, because traffic isn't really much of a concern here.
About what you'd expect from a city like Hallandale Beach that is so poorly-run and with so little apparent awareness of how very poorly it is regarded in South Florida, that when it came time to host BCTA chief Chris Walton for one of his frequent visits throughout the county, that he was given the HB Cultural center at the SAME TIME as a HB City Commission meeting. Really. SNAFU!)
As if, somehow, Broward taxpayers would suddenly forget everything they knew and had experienced in the recent past and would suddenly accept govt. estimates on construction costs -and Broward's in particular as reliable- and use that factoid as a deciding factor in deciding an issue.
See also:
When that move of Lieberman's later seemed to be a real impediment when the Broward County Commission wanted to do something to help fast-track a new county Courthouse, in part because that would have to appear on the ballot if a bond issue, along with that estimate she insisted upon, Lieberman appointed herself to the county's Courthouse Taskforce, and was promptly made Chair, giving her two chances to bite the apple and affect this important decision, not just one. Right, because she has no obvious conflicts.
You read about that decision where in the South Florida media, exactly? Right, it never came up.
As to the Ethics Commission. simply do what Charlotte Greenbarg suggested, as quoted by Scott Wyman in his very good Sun-Sentinel article of September 10th: Broward ethics panel plans sweeping reforms "My ideal would be something very simple -- don't ask and don't take," said Charlotte Greenbarg, president of the Broward Coalition, an umbrella group representing area homeowner and condo associations. "They shouldn't ask for anything and they shouldn't take anything. Who could argue with that? So easy that even a Broward County commissioner could remember it,
Lieberman did a poor job as Chair in the view of many who were closely following the actions of Taskforce members, many of whom seemed to have conflicts of interest of the sort that in a more enlightened community with higher standards, would cause them to have never passed muster in the first place.
Not that they were bad people, simply that their own experience and personal and professional relationships with certain people was of a sort that would tend to cause them to not be objective as to the basic question of whether a new Courthouse was, in fact, needed.
As opposed to having the existing one modified and expanded, using some artistic creativity and making it far safer, more energy-efficient, technology-based and taxpayer/citizen-friendly, NOT lawyer/judge-friendly.
Some outside-the-box thinking was required, but as usual, that kind of thinking was shown the door.
Quick, name the Taskforce member who was appointed specifically to represent the average county taxpayer? There wasn't one.
As you know from my previous posts,
Lieberman did NOT properly update Taskforce meeting information on the county website, and under her leadership, they actually had the gall to place agendas, past Minutes and other pertinent material on the county website hours AFTER their last public meeting, not prior to that meeting. So, where did you read about that in the South Florida media, exactly? Right, it never came up.
And all of a sudden, word started emerging in the usual places that the County Commission was going to try to finesse this project instead, so that it won't ever have to appear on the ballot for taxpayers to give their informed consent, because it's abundantly clear that Broward taxpayers are NOT in favor of building a new Broward Courthouse. Period.
Ilene Lieberman, churlish chronic, self-interestedobstructionist to common sense. --------- This is part of an email that was forwarded to me. I've deleted some blank space to make it more compact.and easier to read:
From: Cepero, Monica Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 1:13 PM To: 'Alfreda Coward'; 'Carl Shechter'; 'Comm. Carl Shechter'; 'Felicia M. Brunson'; 'Howard Bakalar'; Jardine, Arlene; 'Julie Lakosky'; 'Kenneth Fink'; Leu, Leah; Cepero, Monica; 'Neal de Jesus'; Robert Wolfe; 'Robin Rorapaugh'; Russo, Jean; Seff, Bradley; Teitler, Robert; 'Washington Collado'; 'William Scherer' Subject: Broward County Ethics Commission verbatim minutes
Attached are the verbatim minutes from the last Ethics Commission meeting. The summary minutes will be forthcoming next week.
Have a nice weekend,
Monica
Monica M. Cepero
Assistant to the County Administrator
115 South Andrews Avenue, Room 409
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
Well, it's now 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday Nov. 25th. the day before Thanksgiving, with county employees off on Friday. I just went to the Broward County Ethics Commission homepage at: http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/welcome.htm
As you can see for yourself, the Minutes for the November 12th Ethics meeting are not there now, two weeks later. Trust me, based on what the verbatim Minutes say, when you actually see the Minutes in print, you will be very, very angry. The next meeting of the Broward County Ethics Commission is Monday December 9th, from 9-11:30 a.m. --------- Broward Beat
Sources: County Commissioners Trying To Block Ethics Rules By Buddy Nevins
Some Broward County commissioners are apoplectic over what’s happening at the Ethics Commission.
And it is causing them to act, well, downright unethical.
Some County Commissioners are accused by sources of applying pressure to reign in the ethics group. The group was created by voters to draft new ethics rules for the county.
“We’re having trouble and it’s coming from the Fourth Floor,” said one ethics commission member.
The Fourth Floor of the Government Center is where commissioners are cloistered behind two sets of receptionists.
BCPS to Host Broward Legislative Delegation Public Hearing