Observations re Leo Grachow's selection as Hallandale Beach's interim Commissioner: "I thought he was a perfect fit for the job." So says a clearly disconnected-from-reality Comm. Bill Julian, who DIDN'T rate Grachow best, but instead voted BEST the least-qualified of the 3 finalists! Meanwhile, the candidate giving the single-best oral presentation, Chad Lincoln, received a 1 (out of 25) from HB's notoriously thin-skinned Mayor Joy Cooper; voting distribution chart

Above, the May 20th, 2014 voting results of the four members of the Hallandale Beach City Commission for an interim Commissioner to serve the final five months of Comm. Alexander Lewy's term, winnowing a large field of prospective candidates down to eight and then to three. My friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County activist, Csaba Kulin, one of the eight semi-finalists, created this very helpful chart based on information provided to him afterwards by the City Clerk. Columns 1-4 denote who received votes to make the Top Three and Columns 6-9 indicate the specific number from 1-25 each candidate received.  

Before I step all over my lede below, I should mention that one of the most striking things to happen that evening, something noticed by anyone paying close attention in the room or watching on TV, but as usual, NOT mentioned by Sun-Sentinel reporter Susannah Bryan three days later -as so many salient facts about what really goes on in HB are never acknowledged or mentioned by her in print- was that the individual candidate who the clear consensus of the public in the Commission Chambers felt gave the single-best four-minute oral presentation of the evening, my friend Chad Lincoln, received a measly score of 1 from Mayor Joy Cooper. That is to say, a 1 out of a possible 25 points.

Even if you had never read this pro-reform blog of mine before, or read the rest of this individual blog post, that's really everything you need to know about our thin-skinned, fact-challenged and consistently anti-democratic mayor in a nutshell.

It's been common knowledge for the longest time -in part because I've mentioned it so frequently here after something Mayor Cooper herself said and did- that her biggest fear has long been that the true facts about the state of this city and its longtime mismanagement under her actually get out and penetrate the minds of the people in this state whose opinion she cares about.

That is to say, her pals throughout the area and up in Tallahassee, like the folks at the Florida League of Cities or state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, the latter of whom as I've written here often last year and this year, is always happy to play guard dog for her up in Tallahassee, and help keep the germane facts from getting made public, as Sobel did in running interference for the mayor re the city's completely mismanaged and unethical CRA with the JLAC.

All to prevent an honest audit so that Hallandale Beach residents, taxpayers and small business owners could finally discover where all the tens of millions of CRA dollars went.

So, all this said, smart, articulate and creative straight-talkers like Chad and Csaba were always going to be persona non grata to her no matter what they said or did, despite the fact that they DO know much more about the city and how it's doing than the three candidates who made the final cut. 

Cooper and Julian eliminated the single person most clearly able to articulately challenge and rebut her on the facts and on the policy, with Cooper giving Chad one-tenth of the total that she gave to the person she rated just above him, whom she gave a 10 to.

Yes, the Gospel according to Joy Cooper.

And Comm. Anthony A. Sanders didn't even vote for Grachow to make the Top Three, even while selecting two generally unknown people from Northwest who rarely if ever speak at City Hall during public comments and made blah oral presentations when they had the chance to speak for four minutes that night, so you can see that he has NOT changed a whit since embarrassing himself over his vote to approve the incompatible condo tower at 2000 S. Ocean Drive in April, something that the articulate and affluent voters over on the beach won't be forgetting come November when Sanders is on the ballot.

Now, back to the question of Leo Grachow's selection as Hallandale Beach interim Commissioner: "I thought he was a perfect fit for the job."

So sayeth a clearly disconnected-from-reality Commissioner Bill Julian.

Julian, the HB City Commissioner who was the only one of the four of them voting on Tuesday May 20th, who didn't vote for Etty Sims to be among his Top Three choices of the 8 semi-finalists when he had the chance. Julian was the idiot who rated Sheryl Natelson the highest of the final three -Grachow, Sims, Natelson- despite the fact that she didn't know the answers to most of the questions asked of her, and completely whiffed on all three fact-based questions posed to all the three candidates by Comm. Michele Lazarow, unlike Etty Sims and Leo Grachow.

Honestly, how do you rate the worst-performing candidate of the final three as your highest-scoring, which, in fact, is exactly what Julian did? Well, when you are Bill Julian, it's what we've come to expect and fear -logic and reason as completely alien concepts.

(But I will mention that in the weeks since ranking Mayor Cooper's pal Sheryl Natelson first, Julian has been appointed to his old position of Vice Mayor. Just saying...)

You'd think the Sun-Sentinel reporter who was actually present and saw the whole thing acted out in mind-numbing detail for three-and-a-half hours might have noticed that twisted logic, eh?

Maybe asked Julian directly afterwards how it came to be that the candidate who received the most votes to be in the Top Three, after a very good oral presentation and then nailing the answers in the Q&A, Etty Sims, hadn't even made Julian's list at all.

Maybe ask Sanders why he didn't vote for Grachow to make the Top Three if, as Julian says, "he was perfect for the job."

Or, ask how it is that the ONLY candidate who 3 of the 4 commissioners ranked as among the Top Three, Etty Sims, DIDN'T get the position.

Those are the questions begging to be asked.

But then that would require Susannah Bryan to do some real reporting, wouldn't it, instead of merely engaging in stenography and taking what is handed to her by the city? Yes.

All of this was exactly the sort of result we could have predicted. 

And in the case of myself and some of you out there, DID. 

That given a chance, Bill Julian would find a way to blow a golden opportunity to do the right thing for the community and would, instead, screw things up -yet again.

Predicted that the bad, incompetent, incorrigible and completely disconnected-from-reality 
Bill Julian, the very City Commission candidate who promised the entire city in 2012 that he'd really change his spots, and would, IF given a 2nd chance to serve -after being kicked off by voters in 2010- finally show sound judgement for a change, instead of continually being a laughingstock, 
NEVER left and never ever changed for the better. It's just that some of you desperately wanted to believe he'd really changed. 

Nope.

Cooper, Julian and Sanders are exactly what they look like.

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Sun Sentinel
Hallandale Beach's newest commissioner sails through first City Hall meeting
By Susannah Bryan, Sun Sentinel
7:11 PM EDT, May 23, 2014

HALLANDALE BEACH

Longtime mediator Leo Grachow may have just the right stuff to bring peace to a sometimes testy city commission, some say.

The native New Yorker was chosen from a field of 18 candidates Tuesday and sworn in as a commissioner the very next evening.

After the swearing-in ceremony, Grachow took a seat on the dais for his first meeting as a commissioner.


"It was a long agenda and sometimes that can get contentious," Grachow said. "But it went pretty smooth."

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-commissioner-profile-hallandale-20140523,0,6702072.story

re Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders' stealthy "meetings." From the same man who's stonewalling the Broward Inspector General, who NEVER returns your phone calls or email, and who WON'T visit your neighborhood to meet with you or your neighbors; #HallandaleBeach, @SandersHB, @MayorCooper, @AlexLewy

Above,  501 N.W. 1st Avenue in Hallandale Beach polite society and public policy circles is considered THE most egregious example of dozens of exasperating and highly-questionable examples of dubious government spending and crony capitalism that've taken place on Mayor Joy Cooper's watch, and one of the most dubious of any in Broward County, which is REALLY saying something. It's the infamous former property owned by HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders that has seen so many tens of thousands of Hallandale Beach taxpayer dollars and CRA dollars poured into it. The one the city rushed to buy and overpay for despite having no plan of any kind in place for what it would do with it once it was bought. For what, THIS? So the city can receive one dollar in rent a year? photo by South Beach Hoosier © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Showing the sort of personal initiative that we need to see more of around Hallandale Beach if we're going to succeed in bringing the sort of long-overdue and genuine good government initiatives that Hallandale Beach City Hall desperately needs, like "real" transparency and financial accountability and oversight that are worthy of the name, Chad Lincoln has this update on the latest efforts by Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders to evade both his moral and sworn duty to follow the laws of Florida and Broward County and speak with the Broward Inspector General.

Coupled with that, of course, Sanders continuing refusal -for 46 months now- to speak with residents from the whole city and level with them about the ethical cloud he and his wife Jessica have put themselves under since he was placed on the City Commission in August of 2008 by Mayor Cooper in a manner that was NOT consistent with the city's own established-rules -which had been used the year before.

Not leveled with residents of the entire city after being endorsed by both the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel based on his... well, we're not sure exactly, but we have our suspicions, too, just like all of you do, given how poorly Sanders performed for the two months prior to that 2008 election, often not saying anything more than replying "here" during the perfunctory role call at the beginning of the City Commission meeting.

Yes, those 2008 endorsements of theirs definitely reeked of patronizing condescension, but to be fair, perhaps both newspapers thought that because he was both an African-American and a pastor, that he would bring some sort of intangible qualities to the mix, and would, at a minimum, be an honest and earnest representative of the entire community, and bring to light matters that might otherwise never see the light of day.

Oh that it were all true...

Instead, though, the sad reality for all of us is that instead of bringing something positive to the mix, Sanders has been the very craven picture of what there was already too much of at City Hall on the City Commission -Joy Cooper's Rubber Stamps.

Sanders genuinely seems to believe that he owes no duty to the citizens of this community.

There will likely be more about this matter before the end of the week, as Comm. Sanders attempts to continue to successfully stonewall the law until AFTER the November election 17 weeks from today, with HB taxpayers now on the hook for paying an outside counsel, who will no doubt continue to tell Comm. Sanders exactly what he wants to hear.

Continue to tell Sanders what he seems to really believe, based on his own words and actions and lack of candor with us and fidelity to the law -that he is above not only the law, but also the reasonable norms and expectations of a public official in the 21st Century: of having to actually interact with the very public he purports to represent.

Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders could hardly be more obvious in his condescending contempt for both the law, the norms of society and for us as individuals, citizens and taxpayers of this very poorly-managed city, which very clearly doesn't sweat the small stuff.

This community's patience with Anthony Sanders has run out.

-----

Chad's update is a follow-up to his two written comments placed in the Broward Bulldog, http://www.browardbulldog.org/ the first on June 23rd, the second on July 5th

Chad Lincoln

June 23, 2012 at 1:07 pm

It’s time for Commissioner Sanders to resign from the Commission.

His and his wife’s dealings with the City have never been at arms length. Their persistent shoving of their snout into the City’s coffers has begun to appear as Pay for Play for political support in the NW quadrant of Hallandale. Is Mayor Cooper buying votes in the North West Quadrant with Taxpayer monies? Is she using the Sanders as her conduit? In Hallandale Beach and with this Mayor one sure has to probe the issue. It’s time to follow the money.

And while Commissioner Lewy claims these troubling transactions predated his election to the Commission. he has dirt some of the same dirt on his hands during his tenure. Commissioner Lewy moves in lock step with the mayor in all dealings of Mayor Cooper and Sanders. Example: he can not escape his recent attempt to funnel $200,000.00 to Sander’s wife’s training business in the NW Quadrant. $200 grand!!! Commissioner Lewy, was brazen in the attempt undertaken at 2AM, but gutless in his not stating clearly who he was seeking to designate the money too. Typical Hallandale cronie politics as practiced by Mayor Cooper and her merry band of ….

Oh, and some one should explain why the citizens of Hallandale would even consider returning EX Commissioner Julian to office when it was he that signed the contract to give Sanders a windfall purchase of the property. Julian approved and bought the property at huge price over appraised values. Could Ex Commissioner Julian have shoved his snout in the coffers right along along with Sanders?

Am I the only one that feels the need to shower the slime off, after learning more of the loathsome practices by Mayor Cooper and her cronies that are being foisted upon We the People of Hallandale?

-----------------------

Chad Lincoln

July 5, 2012 at 11:13 am

Public Announcement:

Chad Lincoln,

Community Activist

Hallandale Beach Resident

Friday., June 29th. 2012, at 1:54 P.M. I had a surprising yet welcome call from an unfamiliar number (954) 540-5200*. When I answered a tentative lady introduced herself as Jessica Sanders, wife of Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Sanders.

After the quick introduction, Mrs Sanders launched in to a civil discussion where in she expressed objection to my recent public postings on the Broward Bulldog about the City Commissions expressed unwillingness to cooperate with the Broward County Inspector General’s (IG) investigation. She continued to insist the basis of the IG’s investigation is based upon half truths and lies. Mrs. Sanders wanted to know why I would make statements as I did to demand City officials stop avoiding the IG’s investigation? And yes, I did color those posts with questions being asked about their conduct. For which I do not apologize.

In this 23 minute discussion, Mrs. Sanders repeatedly requested I sit down with her and Vice Mayor Sanders to hear the truth (as they believe it). I was gratified with the offer, but had stipulations where: the meeting would be an open meeting to include myself, other Hallandale residents, and interested community activists and leaders; and the content of the meeting must be factual and honest. She verbally accepted the idea and we agreed a meeting was long past due for them to air out the financial dealings she and her husband have had with the City Commission and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) which involved material sums of tax payer money and benefits.

In the service of this offer and to accelerate the possibility of such a open forum, of facts and figures supported by documentation and minutes and notes of meetings, I am attempting to reserve a room at the Hallandale Cultural Center (behind city hall) large enough to hold a large number of attendees. I will publish date as soon as the meeting date is set and approved by Mr. & Mrs. Sanders.

This notice will be sent via the same online news pages/blogd, plus HB residents with email addresses, additionally by Hallandale Beach “code red” telephone robo calls where residents are not on the DNC list, and notice to the media in the hopes they will publish the event as well as attend and report. Of course representatives of the Broward County IG’s office will be notified of the public meeting.

I agree with Mrs. Sanders, this dark cloud hanging over the City Commissioners’ conduct deserves to be aired and answered to the peoples benefit, and to protect the names of the Commissioners and ex member Julian in the community. Such a meeting potentially benefits all.

I thank Mrs. Sanders and Vice Mayor Sanders for coming forward and proposing this opportunity for the community.

*Note: Telephone number (954) 540-5200, is published in association with the following organizations, represented by Mrs. Sanders:

• Palms Community Action Coalition – Cell Phone

• Broward County Health Department – Alternate contact

• Eagles Wings, HB Contact phone

--------------

July 15th UPDATE on Vice Mayor Sanders’s Public Meeting:

On Friday July 6th, I went to the HB Cultural Center and contracted for rental of the main meeting room capable of holding 100+ attendees for a Public Forum where Vice Mayor Sanders and his wife could address the citizens interested in their disclosure of their dealings with the city of HB. That date set was July 24th. 2012 from 6:30PM to 8:30PM on Approved Permit # 3033.

In booking the room I made it clear to “Louise” who was booking the room that I had to confirm Vice Mayor Sanders and his wife’s schedule, and an alternate date for July 23rd. was available if needed.

Louise stated she was uncertain if the rental would be free of charge or not, and that was to be determined when she checked with her supervisor. I told her if by policy it would not be free, I would write the City Manager to request a waiver of the fees as is the established policy under prior CM San Antonio. It was clear that as soon as I confirmed the Sander’s attendance we would settle the charges if any.

Friday evening, before I reached the Sanders’ about t 6:00PM A voice message was left for me by a woman from City Hall that Vice Mayor was not going to attend a Non City Forum on the 24th, and that even though the City Hall was closed over the week end, I had to call and confirm I still wanted the date and my willingness to pay (a $450 fee) before Monday morning or they would cancel the date at the open of business. So the date was cancelled by “book club” tactics at the doings of Vice Mayor Sanders and the squeeze out of the contract date.

The recording did state that I was welcome to attend Vice Mayor Sanders “regular” citizen forum to be held in the near future. That tidbit was interesting as I nor anyone else I can find this side of the Dais knows anything about Vice Mayor Sanders Holding regular forums for Hallandale Beach Residents. We all seemed to know about those held by Commissioner Lewy and Commissioner London, but Vice Mayor Sanders town halls, are a best kept secret of Hallandale Beach.

Subsequently, I spoke directly to Vice Mayor Sanders after the Special meeting of the Commission held to award Tommy Lopez, ex lifeguard, the Key to the City on July 9th. 2012. aI spoke to him in chambers over the dais in a public discussion which was looked on by Commissioner Lewy. Vice Mayor Sanders wanted to impress upon me that his wife did not run his calendar and had no authority to make appointments for him. He again stated I was welcome to attend his meetings where he would discuss matter important to the community. He seemed unsettled by my response in asking why he had Jessica call me to establish just such a meeting. (And further I impressed upon him that he made no effort to inform the public of his meetings as did Lewy and London.) My understanding with Jessica Sanders was I would get a meeting room as quickly as possible and get back to her to square things up on her end for attendance. That was the deal and I had every reason to expect Vice Mayor Sanders and his wife actually were talking with one another.

The public meeting was frustrated by Mayor Sanders. The People were close to establishing a venue for Vice Mayor and Jessica Sanders to hold a public forum about their financial dealings with the City of Hallandale. (That meeting was at their request.) Such a meeting is very much to their mutual benefit if they expect to have the support of the citizens in the future. So what we have learned is that there is to be a meeting held by Vice Mayor Sanders where in he and maybe Jessica Sanders will discuss their financial dealings with the City of Hallandale Beach.

I’m not going to hold my breath, don’t you either.

A new voice for civic engagement in 2012: BetterBroward; World Shocked over Firing of Lifeguard Tomas Lopez in Hallandale Beach, FL; a WPLG-TV video connects-the-dots on the extent of the city's negligence in public oversight

North Beach lifeguard stand, Hallandale Beach, FL. May 30, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved


The following is the first post of a new website that's been created by my friend and fellow

Hallandale Beach civic activist Chad Lincoln, a concerned citizen with a very strong desire for genuine financial accountability and transparency in public policy decision-making in a city that has seen precious little of either the past ten years, and who, like me and many of the others whose names I've mentioned here frequently, is unwilling to stand on the sidelines and let the status quo crowd continue to keep this city under their cynical thumb.

I encourage you to take a look at what he's written since it's a topic that we've not only all been

discussing for a week straight now, but also because he and I are among many concerned

residents of this city who realize that this whole incident at the beach recently could well have

had a much more tragic ending.

It also only underscores the extent to which basic oversight responsibilities of the HB City

Commission on a whole host of issues have been effectively outsourced to Mayor Cooper and the various city managers to decide for them, with 3 of the 4 elected commissioners -Ross, Sanders, Lewy- largely reduced to the role of Rubber Stamps, a role that that, oddly enough, they seem more than happy with, though it's NOT exactly my idea of checks and balances in a democracy.

Better Broward -The Voice of  Reason in Hallandale Beach

World Scrutinizes Hallandale Beach, Channel 10 News Discredits Mayor Cooper

http://mad.ly/873be2?pact=10448286358&fe=1

Chad expects the site to be up on WordPress within the week.