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.

S.O.S.! Newspaper hits iceberg! What's going on at the Tribune Co.'s sinking South Florida Sun-Sentinel? Their continued poor judgment, even as the newspaper -and its shrinking base of advertisers- are becoming increasingly irrelevant to news consumers in Broward County who want their news free of bias, taint AND mustiness, not facts and context, has real consequences

S.O.S.! Newspaper hits iceberg! What's going on at the Tribune Co.'s sinking South Florida Sun-Sentinel? 

Their continued poor judgment, even as the newspaper -and its shrinking base of advertisers- are becoming increasingly irrelevant to news consumers in Broward County who want their news free of bias, taint AND mustiness, not facts and context, has real consequences.

Its pay wall is like a parasite that's killing off the host, and making its formerly-popular Broward Politics blog now nothing more than an afterthought because it counts now as an article in monthly totals, not as a blog post. A newspaper website that needs SERIOUS rethinking and redesign.

You call that news coverage? 

1.) As of today, November 19th, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's education blog, South Florida Schools, has posted exactly one item in the past 6 weeks. Way to keep your nose to the grindstone! http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/

Yes, even while all sorts of things, good and bad, have been going on in that subject area the past six weeks, that newspaper blog has been silent.
It's one thing for a personal blog to go quiet for awhile for reasons that we can all well imagine, but really, a newspaper blog that posts one thing in six weeks, wrapped around an election?

Good luck finding that sort of situation existing at a normal, well-run newspaper unless the person/team behind it are either gravely ill, been transferred to other beats or the blog itself is being phased out.
Which is it for South Florida Schools?

I don't know the particulars of it, but I do know that it sure doesn't look good.
Especially for customers who want to read more serious and in-depth coverage of the subject, just as they would expect to find more in-depth coverage in a sports team-related blog, not just read PR releases.

Does a Broward School Board employee trying to choke an autistic child on a Broward School bus count as news these days?
Is that a subject that would greatly benefit from the infinite amount of space a blog gives a reporter to provide a lot more context than a print newspaper article affords, and even allow some degree of reader interaction?
We'd all agree that the answer to both is yes, so why is there NOTHING like that at the one place that you should be able to count on finding it on the Sun-Sentinel's website?
Now there's a question!

Not only are there no video interviews on that blog with any of the newly-elected Broward School Board members who won 13 days ago, candidates who were all elected to some degree based upon on what they said they hoped to do to change the still-extant culture of corruption there, and make the system more accountable to taxpayers, parents and students, but there's not even a single written blog post about that subject.

And since there's NOT even that, the bare minimum one should reasonably expect if it were being run professionally and with any common sense, of course there's NOT anything there about why those particular new members may or may not succeed in their desirable goal, based on their own backgrounds and professional experiences.
Nice job!

2.) On Friday Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's resident lapdog at the newspaper, Anthony Man, posted his most recent entirely-predictable, not-really-news re DWS that he wrote in all of about five seconds at the Sun-Sentinel's Broward Politics blog.
No, actually it was just the intro to a video of her.

Yes, another in a long line of DWS-related posts by Man that the Sun-Sentinel runs that fall squarely into the dog-bites-man category.
Yet another piece on her NOT showing party independence or actually going out on a limb or even showing some perspective or original insight that you never considered before.

Hey, guess what?
DWS supports Israel -STILL.
Snooze...

And speaking of not surprising, Man doesn't even publicly mention in his intro that the video he chooses to run is actually from her office. Typical.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RepWassermanSchultz/

Wasserman Schultz condemns Hamas rocket attacks on Israel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-wasserman-schultz-hamas-israel-20121116,0,6429879.story

Notice anything else about that blog post now?
Correct, the Broword Politics blog has recently been moved to behind the Sun-Sentinel's (unsuccessful) pay wall.

Which means that for many people throughout South Florida, including civic activists, concerned citizens and bloggers I know and trust, as well as other members of the South Florida press corps, that blog has largely become even more irrelevant than before, and is now an actual afterthought.

As if the Broward Politics blog's lack of freshness, topicality and outside-the-box thinking on any subject involving county or municipal government, or the pols who inhabit it, weren't already hindrance enough the past few years.

If the Sun-Sentinel's management were really going to make a mistake like that and move a popular feature like that blog behind a pay wall, one of the few features that people I know actually read fairly consistently, couldn't the Sun-Sentinel's management team at least have had the good sense to bring in some new people -with fresh eyes- at the beginning of this year?

In my opinion, having entirely new reporters there, people who'd actually ADD something new to the rather static and staid view of this county that that blog has promoted for so many years, where, typically, almost as soon as someone's name comes up in a piece, you already know what's going to come -and you're almost always right- would end.

How great would it be for readers to actually have the sense that the newspaper was amping-up their reporting and resources towards the election, perhaps starting this year off with some blistering expose or analysis of something that doesn't appear in the print edition?
An actual online exclusive, just like what other media companies do to drive eyeballs?

Something that showed readers some much-needed energy and freshness there, and an implicit warning that that the predictable habits that we've all observed there for far too long, will soon be disappearing -quick!

Yes, as I've watched the Sun-Sentinel increasingly become disconnected from reality and even unaware of many local news stories that they ought to be owning but aren't, it's become
increasingly apparent to me that the very people who are running that newspaper (into the ground) often appear, publicly at least, to have very little real idea of how other newspapers, even smaller ones, actually make their own blogs more interesting and compelling to readers, visually and content-wise.

I know they are aware of it, so why isn't that knowledge and understanding filtering down and actually showing up in print and online with better-written blogs and better and more original content at the Sun-Sentinel?

It's not exactly Breaking News that there are many well-written and compelling non-political blogs that I subscribe to or bookmark which are part of the New York Times and The Washingon Post, and that's largely because when I lived in the Washington area from 1988-2003, I used to religiously read both newspapers daily from cover-to-cover.

And once both newspapers had online presences, I read content there, too, so I remember the blogs they created that didn't quite work out as planned, as well as the ones that have remained steadfast and only grown in popularity over the years, like the very popular technology blog written by David Pogue, which has changed titles a few times, and now even comes with videos. http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/
I continue reading both newspapers and 5-10 of their blogs every day, and buy the Times in print about 3-4 times a week.

New York Times video: 60 Seconds With Pogue: Fitness Bands
http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/11/14/technology/personaltech/100000001903028/60-seconds-with-pogue-fitness-bands.html
  
But in the context of my blog post today, there's one blog in particular that I'd like to mention because it's an excellent example of the sort of focus and scope that I and many of my friends would greatly prefer the Sun-Sentinel to emulate -the State of NoVA blog, written by Tom Jackman. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-

This recent post is exactly the sort of thing you'd never see at the Broward Politics blog
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/manassas-news-and-messenger-and-insidenovacom-top-prince-william-news-sources-closing-down/2012/11/14/e2f8bde2-2e7b-11e2-89d4-040c9330702a_blog.html

In my opinion, a newspaper that refuses to properly maintain and improve the depth and quality of writing and frequency of its own blogs, and which has added no new original content in-print or online, is seriously mismanaged and deluded if they think that news consumers with an almost infinite amount of choices, will now suddenly pay for the same-old-thing.
That same tired old thing that they really weren't so crazy about in the first place.

That perhaps is the worst sin of all among the Tribune Company's executives who felt that they no longer had a choice about waiting to erect a paywall for the Sun-Sentinel so many months after they did that at their Los Angles Times property -it was all so damn predictable!

Why, knowing all that they did about how these paywall introductions usually go across the country -esp. in more serious newspaper towns- did they make no serious effort to improve the print version first, to endear themselves to existing readers?
Then, after existing readers could see that a serious effort was being made to improve the paper, make the online experience better by making both more compelling and original content?
The sort that would make people actually willing to pay?

To me, the only plus for the Tribune Company and the Sun-Sentinel's executives throughout this whole mess has been that the state of serious journalism in South Florida has fallen so badly that it never seems to have occurred to the news directors at Channels 4, 6, 7 & 10 to actually do a series of stories on how badly the Sun-Sentinel has bungled things, and now has a knife at its throat after going this route, and the very people holding the knife are -yes- themselves.
There's always that!

Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all!

Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all!


Or, in terms that residents in my part of traffic-gridlocked southeast Broward County particularly well understand, whom we need like more creeps who illegally park in disabled parking spaces.
Like former Hallandale Beach Comm. William "Bill" Julian, who turned doing something morally contemptible into an art form while he was in office.


His years of serial illegal and appalling behavior with respect to this easily-understood law, one so simple that even children know what's right and what's wrong, is one that I and so many other HB citizens have observed first-hand dozens and dozens of times, and have described here on the blog numerous times in the past, complete with photos.


(All you have to do is do a simple word search for "Julian" in the search box at the top of the right column.)


But as we know so well in this county and this part of Florida, unrepentant pols like Julian seemingly have no qualms about using their perceived power to try to get away with completely inexcusable behavior until they're finally caught by people in authority who don't care who they are.


In part, because pols like Julian know that they generally have little to fear from South Florida's current press corps, whose dedication to strong and intensive coverage of local government news, is clearly much weaker than it is in other parts of the country -though less and less so there, too- despite giving it lip service on their editorial page.


Safe in his foreknowledge that under Police Chief Thomas Magill, the Hallandale Beach Police Dept.'s many years of unwillingness to ticket him and treat him like they would any other citizen would continue -despite how obvious his behavior was, with his name clearly evident on the dashboard- the bitter proof of Julian's unrepentant and unethical behavior is not just his complete unwillingness to admit his behavior and apologize to the public, which has STILL never taken place, but rather that Julian actually dares to run again this year for the City Commission this coming November -after being rejected in his re-election in 2010 and coming in third in a three-way race- and imagines that the question of his moral unfitness for office and general incompetency won't come up.


As if we had all developed a case of collective amnesia about Julian's YEARS of clownish, churlish and uninspiring behavior, on and off the dais. 
We haven't.


Given what I've written here so many times in the past in this space about the need for stronger ethics rules in Broward County and the creation of an Inspector General's office, as well as the need for those more-stringent rules to have full effect in Broward's thirty-SOMETHING municipalities and grand duchies, I draw your attention now to something truly eye-opening that ran in the Sun-Sentinel last weekend, which many of you out there in the blogosphere may well have missed due to holiday planning or football bowl game-induced slumber.

www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-ethics-ordinance-in-effect-20111231,0,3978237.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

County ethics law already changing Broward's city governments

By Ariel Barkhurst, Sun Sentinel

11:11 PM EST, December 31, 2011

The strict Broward County ethics code goes into effect for city leaders on Monday, but it's already having an impact on how elected municipal officials approach their jobs.

Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis said his consulting business had to give up some Broward County clients, since the new definition of lobbyist incorporates some of what he does.

Oakland Park Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue resigned her positions with the Broward League of Cities and the county's trash contract management board because "those meetings are full of lobbyists," and she doesn't want to get in trouble with the new requirement to report contact with contractors, vendors and lobbyists.

Many mayors and commissioners say from now they'll takes notes if anyone approaches them about city business in case the conversation might qualify as contact with a lobbyist, even if the conversation happens at a grocery store or a movie theater.

When the strict code goes into effect Jan. 2, it will bring a "new normal" to the way city officials operate, said Jacob Harowitz, a partner with Goren, Cherof, Doody & Ezrol, P.A., a firm that provides legal services to many local cities.

"It's going to be very easy for us to get into trouble with this new law," Boisvenue said. "I support it, but it's going to be very easy to get tripped up."

The law was demanded by voters in November 2010. In Broward County, 15 city, county or school board members or their family members have been charged with or imprisoned for public corruption crimes in the past three years.

The code forbids taking anything — even a mint — from lobbyists, contractors or vendors; taking gifts greater than $50 in value from anyone at all; sitting on or influencing selection or evaluation committees within the city; and lobbying other governments in Broward County.

The code means officials have to document how much they make at their day jobs, every time they raise money for charity and every time they meet with a lobbyist, vendor or contractor, and it means getting 8 hours of ethics training every year. Most of the rules apply to elected officials' close family members, too.

Most city officials have opposed the code at every step and fear it will impede their ability to govern.

The Broward County Commission voted on Oct. 11 that the rules they've labored under since August 2010 apply to city officials, too.

Officials tried to block or water down the ordinance by arguing it would lead officials to resign, keep them from raising money for charities, deter people from entering politics, isolate politicians from residents and reporters and create opportunities for prosecution of officials for petty, accidental violations, such as accepting a cup of coffee from a lobbyist.

"I know what's right; I don't need an ordinance telling me what to do," Ortis said in May.

Since the Oct. 11 vote, there has been plenty of hand-wringing as municipal leaders educate themselves about the new rules.

"I think the county commission kind of threw out the baby with the bath water," said Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick.

Good communication between residents and officials is going to be harder, he said.

"You have to be so careful now about everything," Resnick said.

A few cities, Wilton Manors and Hillsboro Beach among them, have placed charter changes on their Jan. 31 ballot to supersede the new ethics law.

The changes ask voters whether elected officials should be subject to Florida ethics law in their day jobs, rather than the Broward County law. That would mean leaders in those cities don't have to disclose how much they make in their primary employment, and they can keep lobbying if that's part of their job.

"It makes sense in these smaller communities to do this," said Resnick, who sometimes has to lobby in his job as a partner with Gray Robinson, P.A. "There's a limited number of people willing to volunteer their time."

Most officials have gone to seminars put on by city attorneys in the past few months to brush up on the code's implications.

Some have been frightened by their education.

"I've already seen people backing off from being involved in charity," said Cooper City Mayor Debbie Eisinger.

"There is still a lot of confusion," said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler.

Some, though, think the rigor of the new law is a good thing.

"As an elected official you live in a fish tank now," Boisvenue said. "Everyone can come and see what you're doing and how big your fins are. There's never a time you're not an elected official."

Reader comments at:

http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-ethics-ordinance-in-effect-20111231/10

After reading this, I immediately thought of two separate things I'd read before that dealt with Gary Resnick's longstanding unhappiness with increased scrutiny on behalf of the public good.

Did you?

The first was from just over two months ago:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward Politics blog 

Live blogging: The Code of Ethics passes unanimously

By Brittany Wallman 

October 11, 2011 02:55 PM 

That particular blog post included many delicious tidbits re lawyer/lobbyist/mayor  Resnick, of which the most prominent was:

Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick is being used as an example of a lobbyist who will be in violation of the Code of Ethics if it passes as-is.

The Code says a politician cannot lobby 'across,'' meaning lobbying in other City Halls in Broward.

That's what Resnick does, Commissioner Lois Wexler said. Resnick's in the audience.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/10/live_blogging_the_coming_code.html

This particular Broward Politics blog post followed by four months a previous Brittany Wallman post that also dealt with stricter ethics laws in Broward and once again, Gary Resnick found a way to shine.

That is, if by "shine," you mean found a way to put a verbal noose around his own neck thru his self-serving choice of words.
I do.



Broward Politics blog
Wilton Manors' Resnick: New ethics code would cause mass resignations
By Brittany Wallman June 8, 2011 08:06 AM

If the politicians in all the City Halls have to live with Broward County’s new ethics code, some of them just might quit.

That’s what Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick warned the County Commission on Tuesday, as he and other city officials asked for a more lenient set of ethics rules for the 150 elected officials in Broward’s 31 cities than the ethics code that applies to the nine county commissioners right now.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/06/wilton_manors_resnick_new_ethi.html

So here's a great question I deliver on a silver platter for South Florida's news media.
Why don't you all ask lawyer/lobbyist/mayor Gary Resnick to publicly give you the names of any Broward municipal elected officials who have resigned if this was as ONEROUS as he claims?

As of today, six months later, there have been exactly ZERO resignations.

I believe that is the exact opposite of MASS RESIGNATIONS, correct?

So why no follow-up?


Gary Resnick is yet another example of a Broward pol who remains remarkably aloof and  tone-deaf with respect to both the appearance and reality of ethical conflicts, and compounds that by thinking that by being ballsy, nobody would notice and take his words seriously.

I not only noticed, I remembered that verbal noose he put around his own neck.

And frankly, I felt it was time to give it a good yank right about now.


Perhaps you all in the South Florida press corps might want to actually ask Mayor Resnick if his intuition and powers of observation while up on the dais are equally inaccurate and inept, or whether he simply misunderstood the depth of the public's dis-satisfaction with what has been going on in this county for years, with all the self-dealing and crony capitalism.


And while you're at it, don't forget to ask anyone who does resign -if ever because of this legislation- what their problem was with following the will of the people.

As for Gary Resnick, perhaps he might understand it better in terms he understands.

On November 4th, 2008, Resnick was first elected mayor of (the diminutive People's Republic of) Wilton Manors, despite the fact that he garnered only 44.25% of the total mayoral vote, receiving 2,349 votes, while 2,959 voters opposed him. 

Roughly 603 more voters in Wilton Manors opposed him than supported him, but he was still considered the "winner."

http://www.browardsoe.org/ERSummary.aspx?eid=101

He seemed to understand THAT part of the simple math.

That same day, on the question of Broward County Charter Amendment 8, 57.30% of all Broward voters that day -322,974 to be exact- said YES.

That's a clear majority.

So why does he have such a hard time understanding what THAT vote of 38 months really meant, and why does he and so many of his pals at City Halls across this county like Cooper City's Debby Eisinger think they're irreplaceable, and above the scrutiny, when the preponderance of evidence I've seen after eight years suggests that most Broward municipalities are NOT particularly well-managed, and are certainly NOT responsive to taxpayers?

For the record, also, not mentioned in the Barkhurst article from last Saturday is that Sam Goren and his law firm made money from not just individual Broward cities, but also from the Broward League of Cities -which is to say, from Broward taxpayers in member cities- who tried to audaciously kill this overdue legislation with their (Debbie Eisinger's) letters to area charities that basically threatened them to put pressure on Broward commissioners -or else.

Would love to see something at the Sun-Sentinel or Herald or local TV create an easily understood chart or graph, that shows exactly how much Broward's cities have paid to the Broward League over the past five years.

For the cities involved, it's like free money, but it's not, is it?

Nope!

It's real money that continues to be mis-spent on lobbying and legal efforts to keep the average citizen taxpayer in Broward at heel -and at a disadvantage.
With Sam Goren's help.

Broward's present/future problems in a nutshell: Not enough leadership, too much Kristin Jacobs-like behavior -Fighting over scraps: a meaningless job

Broward's present/future problems in a nutshell: Not enough leadership, too much Kristin Jacobs-like behavior -Fighting over scraps: a meaningless job that nobody respects.

No, not fighting over important ideas, a principle or even an issue that nobody else is willing to stand up for that demands some public illumination and a degree of long-overdue oversight,

or even fighting for something supported by her campaign donation friends, but rather a fight over a dubious position that nobody outside S. Andrews Avenue knows about, cares about or respects.

You know, just because you buy a $6.99 Captain's hat you come across at Marshall's doesn't make you a real captain or mean that Broward citizens have to salute you.

Though some will, apparently, like lobbyist Seth Platt, who Tweeted,

Seth Platt

Grats to John Rodstrom as the New #Broward County Mayor &@Kristin_Jacobs as the New Vice-Mayor

15 Nov

The same prescient Seth Platt the lobbyist who said in 2010, when polls showed Allen West doing well in FL-22, "POLLS DON”T MEAN SQUAT"?

Yes, that one.

Well, for those of us NOT dependent upon the kindness of Broward Commissioners to survive or make a living, this is yet the latest in a series of HBR Case Studies of why, in large part, Broward County government is in the mess and funk it's in.

Yes, the intersection of Dysfunction Junction, just like its colleagues at the Broward School Board.

They're in the same boat, but all paddling in different directions.

So where's the surprise that they're drifting?

Really, all this Sturm und Drang over a position as vice-mayor of Broward County that was not decided by actual Broward voters, but, like the so-called mayor's position -yes, I use lower-case for undemocratic titles- voted upon by less people than who will decide who's homecoming king and queen at any high school any of you can think of?

Decided by less people than the ones who decided who would be in charge of Rush at the Chi Omega house at FSU? (And to be honest, one less important than the latter...)

Just because nine people think something is important does not mean that I and other Broward residents who are paying attention have to agree to the pretense and say that it's important, too.

I reject the premise.

Peruse and decide for yourself - in chronological order:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward Politics blog

Broward's Kristin Jacobs digs in heels for vice mayor post

By Brittany Wallman

November 15, 2011 12:38 PM

Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs is the vice mayor now, and the vote was unanimous., But that eventual result didn't come easily for her.

Jacobs had to fight for that title, even forcing her colleagues one by one to announce whether they supported her bid.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/11/browards_kristin_jacobs_digs_i.html

BrowardBeat

Commissioners Squabble Over Meaningless Job: Vice Mayor

By Buddy Nevins

November 15, 2011

Does Goody Two Shoes, known to most of us as Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, have some mud on her soles after today’s divisive vote on who will be the next Broward Vice Mayor?

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.browardbeat.com/kristin-jacobs-fights-for-meaningless-job-vice-mayor/

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward Politics blog

The ugly fight for the Broward vice mayor title: behind the scenes

By Brittany Wallman

November 16, 2011 11:04 AM

A lot of backroom deal-making, threatening and vote-gathering led up to Tuesday's Broward County Commission vote on who would be vice mayor, observers told me afterwards.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/11/the_fight_for_the_broward_vice.html

Voting for a county-wide Broward Mayor who'll either show vision and leadership -or not- who's voted directly by -and held accountable by- Broward voters, is a long overdue idea and reality that has once again been dismissed by the status quo crowd on S. Andrews Avenue.

Not that it has ever really gotten a fair shake in this county since I returned to South Florida eight years ago, given who comprised the Broward Charter Review Commission.

Lots of apologists for the way things are now, save Ted Mena and Michael Buckner among a few CRC members who deigned to show any foresight and gumption for the public's right to decide those things themselves.

Though I don't know them very well, I'd vote for either one tomorrow for County Mayor before I let Broward's lobbyist crowd foist one of their longtime pals upon us as a stalking horse.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward Politics blog

Broward commish kills countywide mayor proposal, again

By Brittany Wallman November 2, 2011 08:09 AM

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/11/broward_commish_kills_countywi.html

And yet for this dubious position of vice-mayor, to read the accounts, Kristen Jacobs is like a wild hog going after a bone, and woe onto anyone or anything getting in her way.

Go ahead, keep your bone, but don't be surprised when we ask publicly over the next year why of all the things that possibly could've taken the time and energy of nine elected officials, these table scraps are what YOU fought over.

No, we won't be forgetting.

Yes, Broward Comm. Kristin Jacobs, the very same woman whose staff tried to take me to task last year because I wrote on this blog that, in my opinion, she was unfit to be on the Broward County MPO -another mess of a group that gets little public or press attention that I've gone after here on the blog a few times- after she never once attended a single public Transportation forum in Broward of the many I've attended over the years, prior to July, even while hundreds and hundreds of Broward citizens could find the time and energy do so over the same time-frame.

Even on Saturday mornings at the Broward Convention Center.

You won't be surprised to discover that among this interested group of concerned Broward residents, people DID notice who were no-shows, besides anyone from the Miami Herald.

From the looks of things -my own observations and emails from others- Jacobs couldn't even be bothered to show-up and feign interest, even while officials and experts from Tallahassee, Atlanta and Vancouver showed-up at one forum in particular to inform and educate.

They didn't take it well when I told them that the word "transportation" wasn't even on her county bio website at the time, yet she was suddenly on the Board that sets policy.

Now THAT'S Broward County in a snapshot!

I hung up on her office the third time they called me with a bad attitude.

Later she/they sent a letter, one I never opened.

Seriously, how many unimpressive women politicians can one county possibly bear to have at one time.

From north near Palm Beach County to the south near me, just north of the Miami-Dade line, Broward County has some of the most unethical, unsavory, and undemocratic, to say nothing of venal female politicians in the country: this Rogue's gallery includes the duplicitous Joy Cooper, now convicted Sylvia Poitier, anti-democratic Lori Moseley, and Debby Eisinger, the latter of whom voted with members of the majority of the appointed Broward CRC against allowing Broward citizens to vote on whether or not to have an elected Broward County mayor in November of 2008.

How does an elected public official justify voting against elections that allow citizens to determine their own form of govt. structure?

Exactly, but that's just what Cooper City Mayor Debby Eisinger did.

The same woman who fought against tougher ethical standards for Broward municipal officials

It's why she's on that list that goes on and on...

They make me glad that there is some hope out there. that is if by there, you mean NOT here.

I do.

Because of what I've read and seen of her, her unwillingness to play the fool and swallow spin from the wealthy and the well-connected or political parties, her unwillingness to play pretend and accept illusions or fantasy for real solutions to problems, unless something unexpected happens -either to her or to me- if Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs runs for governor of Florida in 2014, I'll support her.

She's a real MAYOR, elected by real VOTERS, winning a run-off 68%-32%, despite being out fund-raised 2-1.

And best of all, Teresa Jacobs has smarts, hubris and moxie, something that can't be said about the majority of the pols in Broward or South Florida.

Just saying...

-----

For more information on this issue, see"

Broward Charter Review Comm. discussion re county-wide elected mayor and composition of County Commission, April 9, 2008, pp 68-126

http://www.broward.org/Charter/Documents/crc_ph_agenda_04092009.pdf