How is Broward County Democratic Party chair Mitch Caesar NOT like a Mother Bear? Unlike this video of a Mother Bear at Brooks Falls in Alaska protecting her young cubs, Caesar has NOT been seen publicly trying to save his six Dem legislators who may be (illegally) living outside the districts they're supposed to represent, and who may well get prosecuted for violating the FL Constitution: Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz. Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs, Perry Thurston; What was the greater societal good that Caesar thought was accomplished by them drawing a salary for a job that they may NOT have been legally qualified for?

http://explore.org/#!/videos/player/mother-protects-her-cubs-at-brooks-falls

Brooks Falls Bearcam: http://www.nps.gov/katm/photosmultimedia/brooks-falls-bearcam.htm

Unlike this amusing video of a Mother Bear at Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park in Alaska protecting her young cubs, Broward Democratic Party Chair Mitch Caesar has NOT been seen trying to save his six Dem legislators who may be illegally living outside the districts they're supposed to represent, and who may well get prosecuted for violating the Florida Constitution and breaking the trusts of the voters: Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz, Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs and Perry Thurston.

But that doesn't fully explain away the complete failure of ANY reporters at the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, CBS4, NBC-6, 7 News and Local10 to even attempt to interview Caesar and ask him on-camera why this wink-wink acceptance of it has been allowed to go on for years in Broward County under the one-hand-washes-the-other brand of political cronyism, wherein Broward lobbyists are in far too many instances the chief campaign fundraising link for pols whom they'll later be appearing before.

It's a system that completely disadvantages the public interest and non-profits and unduly rewards a handful of already-powerful lawyer/lobbyists in downtown Fort Lauderdale what is an overwhelmingly Democratic County -with too few powerful Independent-minded pols who refuse to play that game and will push back hard, a gaping weakness in the political culture here that usually exists even in the smallest counties around the country.

In short, people who are used to always getting what they want, or indirectly threatening elected officials and their pals and sycophants with turning off the campaign cash spigot.

Mitch Caesar has been the Broward County Dem Party chair the entire time many of these pols have been in their current office, committing fraud, so he has a lot to account for personally. 
But he doesn't seem to be held responsible for anything by the current press corps in South Florida.
With the exception of a handful of reporters, the press here acts like Caesar is just like you and me -watching from a distance and finding out from TV and the newspaper and blogs like mine.
But he's NOT like you and me -he's at the center of everything in Broward County.

How come he was fine for so many years with so many hundreds of thousands of Broward voters being lied to, intentionally?

And even more importantly, what exactly was the greater societal good that Mitch Caeser personally believed was being accomplished by the six of them drawing a salary for years for a job that they may've NOT legally been qualified for under the Florida Constitution?
Name one. 
Name two.

It's because we all know implicitly that he can't give even one good reason to such a simple question that I've assembled the Top Ten Reasons It's So Important to Broward County Residents... to have such unremarkable and even thoroughly mediocre legislators in office like Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz, Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs and Perry Thurston, even if they have to intentionally violate the Florida Constitution to do it:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Above, the complete list.

What do you know, there's not a single valid reason.

Or are you one of those people, outliers, who believe that rank mediocrity should always be rewarded at election-time, since that would explain a lot in Hallandale Beach and other cities in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Missing voices in Broward County's ethics debate are ignored by South Florida news media. It's our old media friend: Mr. Lack of Curiosity!

Earlier today I sent a version of the following email to some
folks around South Florida and the rest of the Sunshine State
who make it their business to pay attention to what's going on
hereabouts in local government, especially as it applies to the
issue of ethics and political miscreants.

Per the Broward Beat and Broward Politics blog postings
I cite and link to for your perusal, it's worth mentioning that
State Senator Chris Smith and State Rep. Perry Thurston
both voted against Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff's common sense
ethics proposal at the Broward Legislative Delegation public
meeting that I attended three weeks ago at the FAU campus
in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

(Ellyn Bogdanoff, who I think is a very impressive person
and full of moxie and enthusiasm, is running for State Senate
District 25 this Fall, which is currently represented by
Jeff Atwater, who's running for Florida Chief Financial Officer.
See http://www.ellynbogdanoff.com/ and
http://www.jeffatwater.com/)

That BLD meeting was scheduled to iron-out aspects of a bill
that would provide the proper legal framework for an IG
position to be created in ethics-starved Broward County.

Not surprisingly, this important meeting got ZERO coverage
on local Miami TV newscasts, so citizens here heard nothing
about the absurd histrionics and melodrama that took place,
with petty verbal tantrums thrown by Messrs Smith and
Thurston, with an assist to State Sen. Dan Gelber,
chiefly for his wasting so much time chasing-his-tail that
the public's ability to actually speak at the end of the meeting
was greatly compromised, as some people who wanted to
speak, were not able to, including myself.

But at least Gelber voted in favor of it, unlike the other two.
That is, after he lectured everyone in the room as he channeled
a Law prof schooling kids on the intricacies of property law,
when all they really wanted was to retrieve their errant ball
from his front yard.

Instead of dealing with it forthrightly, he chose to use it as a
pretext to share what he, apparently, believes to be his colossal
legal mind.
It would seem Gelber loves to get on a soap box, even when
it's not necessary.

Personally, I was already inclined to support another candidate
for State Attorney General this Fall, but I can tell you after
this particular first-hand experience, State Sen. Dan Gelber,
in person, makes a very poor case for the plausibility of
Dan Gelber the FL AG candidate.
http://www.dangelber.com/

He was every bit the caricature of a preening pol and left many
of the people who attended the meeting dumbfounded, if my
subsequent conversations and emails from fellow attendees
is any indication.

Some even volunteered that they'd actually been leaning towards
Gelber instead of State Sen. Dave Aronberg for AG, but now
were re-thinking that decision.
http://www.davearonberg.com/

I guess I hardly need mention that people who'd be attending this
sort of meeting are more well-informed about what's really going on
here than the average voter and that their opinion, among friends,
neighbors and co-workers, is considerably more persuasive than
any paid ad.

In that sense, Gelber's performance that day was almost like an
in-kind political contribution to Aronberg.

On a more important note, to me, one of the most obvious but
least-discussed aspect of the current Broward County ethics
killing-zone is the almost complete absence of any African-American
or Hispanic individuals or groups speaking publicly for making
stronger ethics both a reality and a priority here, and not just an
abstract idea in a book or political campaign.

All the minority "Usual Suspects" who generally clamor to get
their spin out to the public and news media in order to be thought
of as serious players in this community's future, were and are
almost entirely MIA -Missing in Action!

I can name the exceptions, since I know who some of them are,
like Ted Mena, a former Coral Springs city commissioner and
business owner, whom I met in 2008 while he was on the county's
Charter Review Commission.

He has been a consistent voice for greater public accountability
and transparency in local government and stronger ethical standards.

In my opinion, he'd exactly the sort of person with integrity and
common sense that we need dozens of clones of in Broward County
and local government to flush-out the defective govt. and political
miscreants and ticking-time bombs.

He recently wrote something about the current ethics debacle,
which I've placed at the bottom of this post for you to consider.

But as is the case with so many other issues I could name,
along with you, the South Florida news media hasn't even noticed
this absence of diverse voices on this important issue, even though
we're constantly told -lectured!- by theses same newspapers
and TV stations how important diversity is.

The news media has been too preoccupied the past few weeks by...
well, now that you mention it, nothing in particular.

I plan on posting some things in the near future on the above topics
and what I observed first-hand, and will try to post some video
I shot up in Fort Lauderdale as well.

----
Broward Beat
Commissioners Loving Ethics Reform To Death
By Buddy Nevins

In Tallahassee its called, “Loving It To Death”.

That is defined as loading up of a piece of legislation with so much unnecessary baggage that it is sure to fail.

Some Broward County Commissioners appear to be using that tactic to kill the ethics regulations that the public is clamoring for.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/commissioners-loving-ethics-reform-to-death/

----
Sun-Sentinel's Broward Politics blog
Gunzburger runs into trouble protecting proposed ethics code
By Scott Wyman
February 23, 2010

A move by Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger to protect Broward’s fledgling ethics ordinance ran into trouble Tuesday. Gunzburger wanted to draw up a ballot issue to place the ethics rules in the county charter – meaning they could only be changed in the future by voters. As a task force wrapped up its work to write the code this month, concern grew that the commission could immediately gut or rescind it.

Read the rest of the story at: http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/02/gunzburger_runs_into_trouble_p.html


Sun-Sentinel's Broward Politics blog
Bogdanoff sees passage of legislation to create anti-corruption office
By Anthony Man
February 22, 2010

State Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, said Monday she’s confident there’s enough momentum to win passage of legislation that could lead to creation of an inspector general to police corruption in Broward’s local governments.

Action on the legislation moves to Tallahassee next week when lawmakers gather for the annual legislative session. Bogdanoff said she expects lawmakers will soon put the finishing touches on the inspector general legislation.

The IG would be an independent office with authority to investigate the County Commission, the School Board, independent agencies such as the North Broward Hospital District, and all the cities, towns and villages in the county. The office would have the power to subpoena people and documents.


South Florida Sun-Sentinel
ETHICS AND THE GOVERNMENT
January 20, 2010
By Ted Mena

Most municipalities in our country have a declaration of policy concerning ethics as it applies to municipal employees, which of course is what politicians are in most county and some city governments.

Most of these declarations state that municipal employees are there to work for the citizens of a city or county. These statements of policy also say that it is the responsibility of that person to "act in a manner that promotes trust and confidence in government with complete transparency and honesty in their services, and to avoid even the appearance and perception of impropriety."

It seems to me that some people in Broward County government and the School Board have not read, nor understand, this simple and straightforward statement of policy. Most of these policies are in most cases being ignored here in Broward.

Presently, there is a committee on ethics looking into this matter. They need input from the public as well as the media, who need to step up and publish what these politicians are up to and investigate them to see who else has "conflicts of interest." When I was a city commissioner in Coral Springs, where city commissioners do not get involved in any procurement process at all, I was appointed to the Broward County Charter Review. As a member for two years of this committee, the issue of ethics came up and was looked into. The present Ethics Commission is the result. I can tell you that many of the county commissioners serving in Broward did not want to have this committee on ethics.

One of the reasons that some county commissioners give for being involved in the procurement process is that they do not want county staff to provide them the "backup" on issues before them. They say that they don't have time to read it. But that's what they are paid to do!

(It must be because they are too busy hobnobbing with lobbyists to obtain money to be reelected at parties on yachts or hotel.)

Thanks to Eggelletion, Salesman, and Gallagher, we now have a strong reason to do something about it. Let's put some teeth in the ethic rules and some consequences to misbehavior. We need a watchdog group to make sure these ethic violations do not occur and that this group is independent of the commissioners. County commissioners should not be involved in any role in the procurement process since back in November 2008, the public voted to have the Ethics Commission created. Commissioner Angelo Castillo of Pembroke Pines wrote recently, "We are becoming a community of disbelievers in government to operate effectively..." Hopefully, we will get something done this time.

Ted Mena is a former Coral Springs city commissioner and a Broward County business owner.

Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter Unplugged on Ethics, January 2010

Below are the verbatim comments of Broward
County Commissioner Stacy Ritter as recorded
before the Broward County Ethics Commission
meeting of January 13th, 2010.

I think they speak for themselves, and what
they say to me is that for all of her tough talk
and PR spin over the past few months,
Stacy Ritter DOESN'T want meaningful
pro-active ethical accountability in Broward
County government, and prefers that she
and her colleagues continue their stealthy
and unethical behavior behind games of
semantics in public, while playing puppeteers
behind-the-scenes.
Or are THEY the puppets, as some insist?

On Sunday I will have info and news for you
here about the Ethics Committee and the
Broward Legislative Delegation, both
of whom have VERY IMPORTANT public
meetings and votes coming in the next few
days.

The Delegation will be voting next Tuesday,
Jan. 26th, on their Draft of an Ethics bill from
2-4 p.m. at the downtown Broward College
campus on E. Las Olas Avenue, up on the
12th floor boardroom.
There have to be ten members for a quorum,
and at least one member must be a State Senator.

The next meeting of the Broward Ethics
Commission is two days later, Thursday
the 28th, from 5-8:30 p.m., where they will
react to what the Broward Delegation says.

I'll have agendas, bill drafts and links here
for you to peruse and try to bring you up
to speed on what's happening, good and bad,
as well as detail efforts to derail the focus
of the Ethics Committee so that it will be
weaker than it ought to be.

----------

http://www.cityethics.org/print/991
Broward County Legislators Drag the County's Ethics Feet
By Robert Wechsler
Created 2010-01-14 17:13

Also see www.sunshinereview.org
and http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Florida

----------

MAYOR (sic) RITTER: Well, thanks. I didn't ask to be on the agenda, so I appreciate you giving me a couple of minutes.

I have spent some time -- good morning everybody. Thank you for your service. I have spent some time going through the minutes of the past several meetings, and have been quite frankly disturbed at some of the comments that have been coming from this Committee and feel there are some assumptions that have been made here that

9 Ethics Commission 1-13-10 BS

are, quite frankly, wrong. I have seen it in other Commissions and Committees where you are asked to do things and you may not know exactly what the Commission does, so you are asking for changes to stuff that you're really not sure what we do. I’ve see it with the Management and Efficiency Study Committee, on which I sit. There are lots of decisions and conversations being said about things we already do, that people don't know we do or things we have tried to do that haven't worked. And there is not a whole lot of knowledge of the process, and I found that true in some of the comments that have come from this Commission. Just having received your draft, which is skeletal, it's going to be hard for me to make any comments on that specifically, but I'm concerned that there appears to be a perception from this group that the County Commission is full of corrupt elected officials who want nothing better than to line their pockets, and to date, we have had, since I have been on the Commission, in November 2006, one County Commissioner who has pled guilty to an offense that had nothing to do with his office and has been charged with an offense that has something to do with land use, not procurement, yet you have chosen to focus on procurement, and I haven't received a single e-mail from anybody in this county, either way, that focuses on procurement. There has never been a hint of scandal, as it relates to Broward County's procurement process, and yet, you wish to change a system that is quite frankly not broken. And I was most disturbed by my colleague Commissioner Wexler's comments as it relates to procurement, and what she perceives to be an issue, which I quite frankly don't see. You had all discussed with her, and this is the meeting she attended and I have lots of tabs that made me scratch my head, but she -- the Commissioner who sits on the most selection committees and who actually raised her hand three times yesterday to sit on

10 Ethics Commission 1-13-10 BS

the three selection committees that were on the agenda, seems to feel that Commissioners don't belong on the selection committee. Well, I like to lead by example, so if I don't think something should happen, I don't participate in the process. And so I scratch my head when one of my colleagues comes and says we should change something that she participates in quite freely, and gleefully, I might add.

When the conversation came to sand bagging, lots of people come to the table with agendas. I dare say that some of you have come with agendas too, which may not be what you are putting down on the public comment, but that doesn't make it illegal and it certainly doesn't make it unethical. If I'm sitting in a selection committee and I think company A is the best company, but company B is the stiffest competition, I may well choose to rank company B lower because I think company A should win. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing illegal or unethical in that, and if you want to know the reasons why we vote, all you have to do is ask us. Sometimes you will get the right answer and sometimes you will get the couched answer, but that is politics. I don't think the selection committee is broken.

Commissioner Wexler talked about intimidation of staff. The County Commission doesn't hire and fire staff, so they shouldn't be intimidated by us because we're not their bosses. The County Administrator is their bosses. And if they have issues with the County Administrator, they should take it up with her, not with us because we don't hire and fire the people that are sitting at the table with you.

There was a comment that not a lot of questions are asked by staff at selection committees because of the intimidation. I don't ask a lot of questions at selection committees, and I can promise you, I'm not intimidated by a single one of my

11 Ethics Commission 1-13-10 BS

colleagues. That is not the reason I don't ask questions. I don't ask questions because I read the proposals, which are thorough, and I listen and watch the presentations, which are equally thorough, and I make up my mind based on the proposals and the presentations. There is no intimidation there. I get my questions answered either beforehand or in the proposal and the presentation.

I think that your Inspector General local bill has some problems with it. You are allowing somebody who basically does what the auditor does. We're already paying for somebody to do much of what the Inspector General does, and I don't think the county needs an Inspector General and an auditor to overlap each other, and I think the County Commission, by the way -- I would certainly be willing to put an ordinance on the agenda to talk about an Inspector General. It's funny you want the Legislature to meddle in this, because in 2000, Mr. Scherer, you and I were on the same side of a strong mayor, to try to curtail the Legislators attempt to meddle into county business by putting a strong mayor on the ballot. We were at the same table to kill it, and our argument was, the Legislature shouldn't meddle in county business. They should take care of their own house and let the County Commission take care of its own house, but 10 years later, I know times change, people change and issues change, but I don't think the Legislature should meddle.

I think that there are, by the way, Legislatures who have been accused of things. Legislatures who have gone to jail, but I don't see you talking about them. There are Legislatures who actually work for businesses that have business in front of the Legislature, and vote on their issues, but I don't see you talk about their conflicts. I don't see you talk about the conflicts in Congress. I see you talk about selection committees,

12 Ethics Commission 1-13-10 BS

that Congress doesn't sit on selection committees; that the Legislature doesn't sit on selection committees. But the Legislature doesn't sit as the executive branch, which the County Commission does. The Legislature doesn't sit as the judicial branch, which the County Commission sometimes does, and we always sit as the Legislative branch. So really you can't compare -- and by the way, I have experience. I can speak from both angles. I was a Legislature. I know what is going on up there that nobody seems to care about. All you seem to care about is one of us is going to jail for something that had nothing to do with what he did here at the county, and I do not mean to diminish the offense. It was horrendous and no elected official should ever betray the public confidence, but you're going to allow an Inspector General to investigate anonymous complaints. Now as someone who has been the subject of anonymous attackers on the web, I can tell you that is really harmful. I believe also I have a constitutional amendment to confront my accuser. Now with an anonymous complaint, I lose that. How can you do that? How can you not let me, if I'm accused of something, defend myself to the person who is the accuser. I could go on. I have lots of notes and tabs.

I notice that last week you had Charlotte Greenbar come to speak to you. She notoriously hates the County Commission. She notoriously hates the School Board. She made some comments about School Board members shouldn't sit on selection committees either, but I don't see anybody talking about that either, and I recognize that your purview is the County Commission, yet you have on occasion, gone outside of that and discussed things that are not within the quote purview of the Ethics Commission. If you want to, and we all want to make sure that our elected officials are trustworthy, and by the way, I'm not sure you could ever make 100 percent of the public believe that that

13 Ethics Commission 1-13-10 BS

is true. Those people who think we're dirty will always think we're dirty, no matter what we do or say, and those people who think we aren't will always think that. Then you might want to broaden it. You might want to broaden your local bill and say you know, it applies it Legislatures too, and it applies to municipal officials and it applies to the School Board and it applies to the Hospital District Commissioners and it applies to every Water Control Board supervisor in this county, to every single special district supervisor in this county, which there are 97, because quite frankly to single out the County Commissioner for something is wrong. If you want to talk about elected officials and corruption, let's talk about elected officials and corruption, but to paint us all on this County Commission with a broad brush, when I have seen members do nothing illegal or unethical –have seen members do things for their own reasons, which I may not agree with, but they are elected to do that, and if the public doesn't

like the job we're doing, then the public knows how to get rid of us.

MAYOR RITTER: If I may conclude.

COMMISSIONER DE JESUS: If you could close, because the Mayor is here for his appointed time.

MAYOR RITTER: Thank you.

And this isn't personal, Bill. You and I have a personal relationship that completely transcends this, and I hope that you would know that. We're disagreeing on an issue, but we're not disagreeable. I still count you as a friend and I still hope that you count me as one at the end of the day.

MR. SCHERER: I do. 16 Ethics Commission 1-13-10 BS

MAYOR RITTER: I think that perception of lobbyists is also misunderstood. And lobbyists purvey the system anyway. Politics and lobbyists, just like politics and sex sort of go hand-in-hand, sometimes in my house they are one and the same, but we just had a major procurement on the court house. Construction manager on the court house, the winner had no lobbyist, knocked on everyone of our doors all by himself.

MR. SCHERER: That is why I fired mine.

MAYOR RITTER: Well, good for you.

But the point is that yes, sometimes it happens that way and sometimes it doesn't. We just did the financial services. Now the winner did have representation. The person I voted for had no representation. It happens. It's not always the fact that the lobbyist client wins, but it is sometimes the fact. That is just true in life. Lawyers represent clients. We want our clients to win, just like the lobbyists want our clients to win. And by the way, I told my appointment, Ken Fink, that he is free to do -- not told me. He can do whatever he wants. He is a grown man. But I have put no pressure on him --

MR. FINK: Thank you.

MAYOR RITTER: -- and he and I have argued like cats and dogs on this. We have screamed at each other, but at the end of the day he is going to do what he thinks is right and I'm going to tell him he is wrong, but I think if you are moving towards a, Miami Dade system, which is what looks like is happening, is a big mistake. The last major project in Broward County was the rental car center at the airport. Before my time, Commissioners sat on the selection committee. It came in under budget and on time. The last major project in Miami Dade was the airport, which came in a billion 17 Ethics Commission 1-13-10 BS

dollars over budget and did not come in on time, and the only people that you can complain to are the staff, not the elected officials, and I mean no disrespect to the staff, but the staff controlled the process in Miami Dade and staff spoke to the staff, not to the elected officials.

So at the end of the day, if you are looking for accountability and transparency, in my opinion, and with all due respect to this Committee and the intelligence of this Committee, I think you're heading down the wrong path. You will not find accountability or transparency if you hand this over to the non-elected officials. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER DE JESUS: Thanks for your time.

MAYOR RITTER: Thanks for letting me speak. I didn't -- I came to monitor, but a politician with a microphone. Good luck.

COMMISSIONER DE JESUS: Thanks for sharing your thoughts.