Watch the puppets dance! Remembering the 2010 Hallandale Beach City Manager search that was sabotaged by Mayor Cooper, Comm. Julian & Comm. Ross, to the utter dismay of the city's residents

Butler1Mike video: 2010 Hallandale Beach City Manager search gets sabotaged by Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. William "Bill" Julian & Comm. Dotty Ross.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKU6JYV_wBI&feature=colike

Watch the puppets dance! Remembering the 2010 Hallandale Beach City Manager search that was sabotaged by Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. William "Bill" Julian & Comm. Dotty Ross, to the utter dismay of the city's residents.

This is the follow-up to my post of Sunday the 10th, Hallandale Beach Commissioners spending taxpayer $$$ in a hurry -and NOT in the Sunshine! As usual, Comm. Sanders just sits there and waits to be told what to say and how to vote
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/hallandale-beach-commissioners-spending.html 

Here's the all-too-true back-story on the video above, which was created by my clever and resourceful friend, Michael Butler of Change Hallandale fame. (See more on Michael and his website at the bottom.)

Yes, "I do not want to discontinue this process" said Mayor Cooper.

But the "process" as such at that point was to bring in some suitable candidates selected by the consultant and have them actually visit and tour the city, meet some residents, and see what's what so they and their family could determine if they really wanted to proceed forward.

But "going forward" by ONLY interviewing the incumbent acting-City Manager, Mark A. Antonio, is not proceeding, it's sabotaging. 

This whole sham was made worse and even more ironic -if possible- by the fact that weeks earlier, the mayor was publicly against Antonio even being considered, a fact known by 99% of the HB citizens in the Commission chambers that night, including me.

This long and ponderous evening Commission meeting is one of the rare times in the past 43 months in office that Comm. Sanders actually did the right thing by HB residents, and believe me, there aren't many of those, so they're easy to remember.

Trust me, it's far less than one handful in almost four years in office. 

Frankly, considering how oblivious he is to issues that residents and business owners really care about and have been upset about for many years, how very little he actually contributes to anything during meetings, the way he carries himself around town, as well as the almost clueless way his small cadre of supporters act, unable to see or accept how genuinely unpopular he is after 43 months of sitting there on the dais like a bump on a log, Comm. Sanders has led a very charmed life.

Very charmed.

Especially for someone with such a truly awful voting record that's chock-full of poorly thought-out votes against increased public accountability, financial transparency, and for his always seeming to be against the increased scrutiny and oversight of spending that residents desperately want in a city where the budget has nearly doubled the past six years.

With, as I've stated so often here, so very little to show for it compared to other cities and towns in South Florida.

Where did all that money go?

Sanders' awful track record in office, which causes SO MANY voters who gave him the benefit of the doubt four years ago and voted for him despite their reservations -instead of listening to me and voting for Arturo O'Neill, someone who would've made a positive difference for the community, not a negative one like Sanders- continues to provoke dumbstruck looks on people in this community who pay close attention.

They just shake their heads and say, "I won't be fooled again."

And they won't.

That particular night in 2010, though, with only Comm. Keith London and Comm. Sanders actually committed to an open process that gave HB residents -the people actually paying for the consultant- the time they clearly wanted to let the public "process" play itself out, instead of changing the rules at halftime, the public ended up getting screwed by Mayor Cooper for the umpteenth time when Cooper, Julian and Ross became determined to short-circuit that "process" for good.

Of simply picking up their ball and walking away at halftime.

To the amazement of many people in the room, but not my own or Arturo's, Comm. Ross actually had the temerity to actually mock the public at this and prior City Commission meetings for their commitment to the process we were promised by the Commission but not given.

But then from Comm. Ross' point of view, what the public got for its trouble was less important than the fact that by pulling-the-plug and screwing over the residents yet again that she was supposed to represent, she got to leave this evening meeting and go home to sleep.

And after all, isn't THAT the most important thing?

-----

CHANGE HALLANDALE BEACH

- A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos. 

The kind of evidence that Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew of Commissioners Dotty Ross, Anthony A. Sanders and Alexander Lewy, plus City Manager Mark A. Antonio CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais. 

Theirs is a strange Looking Glass world of un-reality that can quickly confuse -or frighten!- normal people not prepared for such self-evident mendacity. 

Which is where Michael comes in stage-left and I come in stage-right...

See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's well-informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com

Michael's YouTube Channel, Butler1Mike, sure to start getting busy again soon, is at: http://www.youtube.com/user/Butler1Mike

As I mentioned the other day after hearing from him, Michael's website is currently migrating over to WordPress -which I've also frequently considered moving HBB to- so that may explain any technical problems you may run into from time-to-time in seeing the very useful information Michael has there.

Even now, Michael is hard at work putting the finishing touches on an important subject to Hallandale Beach residents and business owners involving millions of dollars, as is my friend Csaba Kulin, whom I spent some time with today to hear how his research was going.

Csaba and Michael continue to be excellent examples of American civic activism at its best, continuing to pour their time and energy into delving into serious financial matters that few others have either the time, energy or inclination to do.

Sadly for all of us who live in this city that ought to be so much better, save Comm. Keith London, their work ethic and dedication to getting the true facts and financial numbers out to the community -which the mayor and her cronies can't bear- completely laps the remaining members of the present HB City Commission, as well as former Commissioner Julian, who is running again after being kicked-out in 2010.

Julian's large role in that 2010 City Manager search debacle, and his own confusion as to what he was doing and saying, will NOT be forgotten by HB voters in November, because it was the perfect example of his general unfitness for office.

Don't think that the dreadful track records of Julian, Sanders and Cooper won't be discussed to a fare thee well, both here on the blog in the future and during the coming 2012 political campaign for Hallandale Beach mayor and city commission, of which Csaba is a candidate for the latter.

That simple contrast both informs and illuminates who really deserves your support and is deserving of your thanks.

I'm proud to have Michael and Csaba as friends.

And those of you who live here should be very thankful that they consciously choose to do the hard work and heavy lifting that 4/5ths of our current elected city officials WON'T do.

Hallandale Beach Commissioners spending taxpayer $$$ in a hurry -and NOT in the Sunshine! As usual, Comm. Sanders just sits there and waits to be told what to say and how to vote

Michael Butler's Change Hallandale video: http://youtu.be/dyM5P3Kl6iQ 

Here's the all-too-true back-story on the video above created by my friend, and fellow civic activist and blogger, Michael Butler of Change Hallandale fame.
(See more on Michael and his website at the bottom.)

In the summer of 2010, in a Hallandale Beach City Hall room where regular HB City Commission meetings are NOT held, the infamous Room 257, a room where the proceedings are NOT televised, and on an agenda item that was NOT previously advertised to the public, Hallandale Beach's City Commissioners discuss how much to pay in a bonus to then-interim-City Manager Mark A. Antonio, who'd been on the job for all of about six weeks at the time. 


And talk about putting the cart before the horse, at one point, you actually hear Antonio, one of two city employee who work directly for the City Commission, tell the members to hurry up and make a decision on how much he should be given, because, as he explains, "his wife" wants to know.
That's both telling and appalling for all sorts of reasons. 


You will also hear oblivious EIGHTY-something HB Comm. Dotty Ross making the sort of disingenuous crack we've come to expect from her -when she's awake that is.
The night meetings, well, those are a different story for her, as she'll often play possum and not say more than four words over 3-5 hours.
In this case, she condescendingly says something about "asking the blogger" about what they're about to do.


Dotty Ross was only too happy to give away thousands of taxpayer dollars at a meeting where the public didn't know what was going on, and in this case, a bonus to someone for just doing the job they were already getting very well-paid for. 
With, I might add, NOT very much for him to point to in the way of positive accomplishments considering the sorry state of the city then -and now. 


Yes, the same exact things in this small 4.2 square mile city that were screwed-up then, as you know from reading my blog -the deplorable conditions of the public beach, the public parks, the dark conditions of and security at city facilities...-are still badly mismanaged and botched now, and it's self-evident, not any great mystery.

And to absolutely nobody's surprise, as you can see for yourself, oblivious Comm. Anthony A. Sanders didn't really want to tax his brain at the meeting and is actually overheard telling his colleagues that he doesn't really care what the amount of the bonus is, they ought to just work it out amongst themselves and he'll okay it.

But the thing is, of course, Sanders is one of the five people elected specifically in this city to make public policy and make those decisions, not sit there like a bump on a log, and yet this is indicative of his behavior for 42 months, as I've been saying so long on this blog.

He'll let everyone else decide what to do and then he'll just apply his Rubber Stamp vote to whatever they say.

Yes, that's Comm. Sanders in action -waiting on the sidelines for the others to tell him what to say and do.

That's a lot of things, but that is NOT "representing."

Many of you have told me that you couldn't believe he really was as bad as I've said and written that you wanted some tangible proof of his sheer uselessness and waste of a seat on the dais, there, now you have it: Him actually admitting that he'd let the other Commissioners decide things.
This is the person who was going to make a difference?
Pathetic!

It might interest those of you who are somewhat new to the blog to know that using their own publicly-revealed figures, in early 2010, the very small group of people working in the HB City Manager's Office received as much in salary as next-door City of Hollywood, this despite the fact that Hollywood is SIX times larger in land size, and with over THREE times the population size -37,000 vs. 140,000. 

Chew on those figures! 

For more on infamous Room 257 at Hallandale Beach City Hall and Mark Antonio's longstanding proclivity to not want to face either the facts or the music, see my post of June 10, 2010 about his role in city employees intentionally preventing me from attending a public meeting, which, when I finally got up there, was mysteriously cancelled.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/latest-unethical-lowlight-at-hallandale.html

-----
CHANGE HALLANDALE BEACH
- A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos. 

The kind of evidence that Mayor Joy Cooper, City Manager Mark A. Antonio and her Rubber Stamp Crew -i.e. City Commissioners Dotty Ross, Anthony A. Sanders and Alexander Lewy- CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais. 

Theirs is a strange Looking Glass world of un-reality that can quickly confuse -or frighten!- normal people not prepared for such self-evident mendacity. 
Which is where Michael comes in stage-left and I come in stage-right...


See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's well-informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com


* March 10th, 2012 update 
I received a few emails from readers yesterday telling me they were having problems with the Change Hallandale website, though it seemed fine when I was on it Friday afternoon. I forwarded one of the comments to Michael and he responded thusly: 
Hey David, thanks for the note! The site is still up although its transitioning to Wordpress….   

Nine months from tonight, the Rubber Stamp Crew at Hallandale Beach City Hall can be kicked-to-the-curb for good

November 13, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Nine months from tonight, the Rubber Stamp Crew at Hallandale Beach City Hall can be kicked-to-the-curb for good

Concepts like common sense, logic, reason, transparency, Sunshine in Government and living-within-your-means could finally make their long-overdue appearance at 400 S. Federal Highway.


Not to mention, new City Commissioners dedicated to providing genuine oversight of the new City Manager and city employees, and a willingness to work hard and become familiar with pertinent information BEFORE City Commission meetings, instead of continuing the current practice where the majority merely go-thru-the-motions and forever defer to un-elected staffers who may not represent the long-term best interests of the city's citizen taxpayers and business owners.


We could finally see some intelligent public policy that encourages genuine community involvement throughout the ENTIRE CITY, and NOT exclusion and stealthiness at public meetings, which leads to important decisions being made at 2:43 a.m., as happened with the vote on the Diplomat LAC in 2010.

We could finally have a city hall where a work-ethic exists among city employees that rewards those who consistently show initiative, get the community involved, create cost efficiencies and increased productivity or tangible results, and proactively cuts red-tape and spots problems ahead of time, instead of merely waiting for them to happen and then pretending you don't know anything about it.


Conversely, that new work-ethic at city hall will make clear that it will punish or replace those who cling to the outmoded and musty status quo policies that have existed here for years, a mindset which has cost this city's taxpayers so very much money with so little tangible good to show for it the past ten years -a city budget that has nearly doubled the past five years.


But this change in both attitude and direction won't be accomplished easily, or just thru collective good intentions and a few clever campaign slogans.


It'll require some hard work and diligence by those who are genuinely committed to bringing meaningful policy reform and financial accountability to this city with so much unrealized potential, so that the citizens of this community can FINALLY leave the embarrassing bad old-days in the rear-view mirror.
So, what are you prepared to do the next few months to make that a reality?

In case you're interested, if all goes as expected, I'll be posting some Alternative State of the City comments on my blog in a few days, which is to say, an alternative to Mayor Joy Cooper's likely myopic and unrealistic snapshot.

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Mayor-charges-residents-20-for-speech/-/3223354/8563986/-/1utfiiz/-/index.html

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Mayor-No-charge-for-speech/-/3223354/8578562/-/a3y74x/-/index.html

If any of you you have something you'd like to contribute, either using your own name or, well, as "Anonymous," send it to me by 8 p.m. Thursday night.

-----

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog 

Change Hallandale Beach- 

A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos. The kind of evidence that they CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais.
See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com

Bad news for HB's profligate tax-and-spend (and borrow) pols: Rasmussen Poll: 60% Favor Considering Spending Cuts in Every Government Program

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Municipal Complex. October 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Though the Rasmussen Reports poll results below are from a national poll, the voter sentiment I detect in my travels around Broward County and South Florida indicate it's even worse around here, esp. as it applies to myopic spending policies that we feel in our collective wallets and purses.

Especially in Hallandale Beach.

That's bad news for Joy Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew in Hallandale Beach that never paid attention before the recent audit that showed conclusively, with damning proof, how financially irresponsible and negligent they have been for YEARS, completely failing their oversight responsibility to taxpayers and residents, while at the same time, quite literally, giving City Managers Mike Good and Mark A. Antonio carte blanche with respect to spending decisions, even while having no actual plans in place for what they were doing.

Not just nothing available online on the city's website, nothing on paper anywhere in the entire Hallandale Beach City Hall complex for you to read and make sense of.

The MARCUM LLP audit, Draft:

Hallandale AUP DRAFT 8-24-2011.pdf 328K View Download

Audit report shows missing records and disarray in Hallandale Beach’s redevelopment agency

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2011/09/audit-report-shows-missing-records-and-disarray-in-hallandale-beach%E2%80%99s-redevelopment-agency/

My September 23rd, 2011 response here on the blog to the draft of the audit findings of the city was titled, re Draft copy of Marcum Rachlin's audit of the City of Hallandale Beach; the entrenched anti-Sunshine, anti-taxpayer culture at HB City Hall

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/re-draft-copy-of-marcum-rachlins-audit.html

Over-and-over for years they have done the same thing, so where are the tangible, positive results they can point to, millions of dollars later?

At this point, as my friend Mike Butler of Change Hallandale fame has been saying for quite awhile, we ought to be able to see some visible signs of where those millions of tax dollars went, right?

So where are they?

http://www.changehallandale.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/Butler1Mike

As of today, we still have large parts of the largest park in the city, Peter Bluesten Park, that is unsafe for adults and children at night because of the city's sheer neglect and lack of proper maintenance, something those of you who care will soon be able to see on my blog, complete with photos and video, that show it's been like this for well over TWO YEARS.

And HB City Hall has known all about it.

This park is only located two blocks from HB City Hall, and yet it seems like in the mind of City Manager Mark Antonio, it's out of sight, out of mind.

He's wrong -yet again.

It's not.

(And yes, in case you forgot me mentioning it here on the blog in the past, that's the very same HB city park that for well over a year DIDN'T properly deploy the recycling bins the city taxpayers have already paid tens of thousands of dollars for, and for this same time period, the city intentionally placed regular-sized garbage/recycling bins outside of the emergency exit for the main park building located there, a fact that you could see as soon as you walked thru the north gate.

Sure, because that's the kind of common sense you want to see from people working with and supervising small children.

People who will argue with you and say that they know best when they clearly don't.)

Yet this same Cooper Crew -Cooper, Dotty Ross, Anthony A. Sanders and Alexander Lewy-that has repeatedly shown that it CAN'T properly maintain what they already have, wants to spend -borrow from the reserve fund- millions more for a park on U.S.-1 where the current Main Post Office is located?

Most of you know how much I've spoken in the past at the myriad public meetings and on my blog about the needs to dramatically improve the city parks and beach, and to introduce more sports/social programs for the very HB adults that are already paying for them, as well as how I've taken Antonio and Cooper at City Commission meetings to task for all manner of things with respect to the dreadful physical & aesthetic conditions of the public parks & beach they are responsible for.

That said, is this really the time to let these same demonstrably irresponsible people make such an important decision, and continue their edifice complex fixation?

Hallandale Beach Government Pays Millions to U.S. Post Office in Yet Another Land Deal

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/11/hallandale_beach_government_pa.php

Hallandale Beach ready to buy more land, this time a post office site for about $9 million

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2011/10/hallandale-beach-ready-to-buy-more-land-this-time-a-post-office-site-at-a-cost-of-about-9-million/

Personally, I'd rather wait until after newly-elected people with genuine dedication to notions of financial accountability are transparency are firmly in place at HB City Hall after the election 51 weeks from Tuesday.

People who understand that sound public policy that is meaningful is about making hard choices sometimes, NOT simply continuing a terrible policy of paying for things from a fund that's rapidly being depleted by folks with no common sense or vision.

I mean who buys properties before you have a sound plan in place for what you're going to do with them?

The same people who overpay for properties and then lets their cronies use them for one dollar.

One dollar?

Let me quote myself from that September 23rd post:

That the City of Hallandale Beach has purchased SO much land is troubling enough, esp. since they have so often overpaid for it. But the fact that they have done so WITHOUT an actual City Commission-approved written strategy or plan that makes sense or shows some awareness of the logical consequences of what they are doing -a plan that taxpayers could read- is very, very troubling indeed, since it makes you wonder why some people's land is bought and others is not, even when the latter's might make more sense to some positive public policy.

To cite but one obvious example of this strange process, consider the land that was purchased by the city for more than it was apparently worth that was owned by present-day Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders and his wife.

That purchase literally seemed to fly thru the city's bureaucracy, because it was, apparently, so key to some grand plan of the city.

Well, what exactly was THAT plan?

Why all the urgency?

Why the need to over-pay for the property?

And now, three years later, the reality for HB taxpayers is that the city rents the property they claimed at the time was so important, to someone for one dollar a month.

One dollar.

Why?

Where is the logic and common sense in any of this, and why WON'T/CAN'T the City Manager, the Mayor or the City Commission logically explain this episode three years after the fact?

What's the plan?

Me, I don't think there is an actual plan.

Hallandale Beach takes a bath on land deals; properties for redevelopment sit idle for years

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2011/10/hallandale-beach-takes-a-bath-on-land-purchases-properties-for-redevelopment-sit-idle-for-years/

If you didn't already know, the person commenting above on some of the websites as "AMWakeUpCall" is HB's self-appointed political commissar, Andrew Markoff.

Almost everyone receiving this email knows what he's all about, but on the chance that this SW HB resident appointed to the Charter Review Comm. by Mayor Cooper is unknown to you, please see my June 13, 2010 post titled, quite accurately,

My upcoming post on Hallandale Beach's self-appointed Political Commissar Andrew Markoff may have words that hurt his feelings -if any. Oh, dear!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-upcoming-post-on-hallandale-beachs.html

In the end, I decided not to follow-up on this post since I realized that talking about all the dozens of hours I spent talking to him about this city and area a few years ago, taking him around to see things for himself that he'd never noticed while living here, even going up to Hollywood City Comm. meetings so he could see how they did things, in short, to connect-the-dots, would seem self-serving and petty.

It was enough that I sounded the alarm and let people who are interested in learning from my own mistake know that when it comes to Andrew Markoff, no good deed of theirs goes unpunished.

See also:

www.KeithLondon.com

-----

From: Rasmussen Reports Date: Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 10:37 AM Subject: 60% Favor Considering Spending Cuts in Every Government Program

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Most Americans continue to believe everything should be on the table when it comes to federal spending cuts.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/federal_budget/november_2011/60_favor_considering_spending_cuts_in_every_government_program

Hallandale Beach Blog's Time Machine visits 1/14/92 and sees what a pathetic hypocrite former Hallandale Beach CM R.J. Intindola is -who needs facts?

The past is prologue -yet again.

Yes, even here in Hallandale Beach.

(FYI: I've deleted a few extraneous "Friends" below from this Facebook post about public policy in Hallandale Beach who didn't actually say anything about the issue so that you can better follow the back-and-forth, NOT to protect the dimwits who seem like they could care less about the actual facts.)

Following this ridiculous pronouncement above by R.J. Intiondola, later, on Wednesday at 11:15a.m. he then goes on to ramble...

Currently, Keith London is seeking through his charter review representative to alter the existing appointment structure of the City Clerk. Currently, the city clerk is appointed by and reports to the City Manager. Keith London believes the City Commission has more expertise at selection, recruitment and managing the position and therefore the elected officials should select and appoint the city clerk. The elected body would therefore supervise the position. He makes this comment without a single day of management, administrative and recruitment experience. This is not unusual for elected officiasl whose ego has blown out of control to believe they are the expert at every and any given subject. Facts are, he has no idea on how to manage an organization.

At 3:34 p.m. Wednesday, Intindola responds peevishly to my friend Michael Butler of Change Hallandale's reasonable question.

It's especially reasonable given that Intindola doesn't live anywhere near here and hasn't attended a 2011 HB CRC meeting in person, like both Comm. London and I have.

Trust me, THAT is one very small list.

London and I were the only ones sitting in the audience at their first meeting.

This comes on top of the central fact that Intindola has no idea what he is talking about, as a simple conversation with the CRC's Chair, Anthony Musto, a former HB City Commissioner himself and current Law School professor would prove.

(Did I mention yet that Musto was Comm. London's appointment?

Meanwhile Comm. Dotty Ross, from the thousands of people in this city whom she could've selected to add their perspective to the group, chose the much-loathed former HB City Commissioner, William "Bill" Julian, to add his longstanding myopia and chronically bad judgment to the mix.

Yes, Julian, a person who along with Mayor Cooper and Comm. Ross and the current and former City Manager, is held personally responsible by a large portion of this city's well-informed populace for why this city is such a mess, and so much LESS than what it ought to be.

And yes, defying logic as he always has, Julian has filed to run for the city commission next year, much to the delight of many friends of mine who anticipate him finally getting the public grilling and buzz-sawing that his ridiculed record deserves, after making this city a perpetual media laughingstock, due in large part to his very own jaw-dropping personal actions, petty and unethical behavior, and penchant for almost always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time while voting also against the larger community's best long-term interests.)

Intindola can't logically explain why the CRC would knowingly vote in favor of an idea they didn't like and knew would make them look ridiculous, or, why, given that, the HB City Commission, who would get it after the CRC to decide whether it goes on the ballot to be voted upon, would then repeat that action and approve it even if they didn't like it.

Intindola can't logically explain his own opinion about London because it completely lacks logic and common sense.

Given what the process is, how exactly does Intindola think that one person, Keith London, can change the form of city government we currently have -for the worse- by himself?

Exactly!

But why let facts get in the way, right?

Mike, he doesn't say anything specifically but all of his actions would leave anyone to that conclusion. He was the commission the higher the city clerk, was to contract out legal services and has made numerous relative other comments degrading the form of government. As part of the profession, I feel compelled to support professionalism in local government and not political hackery.

"As part of the profession, I feel compelled to support professionalism in local government and not political hackery."

So sayeth R.J. Intindola, long-time Georgia resident, former Hallandale Beach City Manager, and self-appointed expert in good government, civics and public administration.

Well, at least the first two are true. Oh, those pesky facts!

R.J. Intindola is nothing but a know-it-all, long-distance serial meddler who writes about things he is neither an expert about nor even an eye witness to.

In short, an embittered and dis-connected man who was thoroughly rejected by his former city last year when he thought he heard them calling out his name.

No, they were NOT.

That sound he heard was just in HIS head.

-----

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

HALLANDALE STRIP CALLED 'DUMB' ACT

By Sallie James, Staff Writer

January 14, 1992

HALLANDALE -- The bare facts about a stripper's appearance at a bachelor party for a public works superintendent on Monday left city officials rolling their eyes.

''I don't condone it, but I am not going to do anything about it,'' City Manager R.J. Intindola said when told about the party held on city property.

The stripper danced her way through the conference room of the Department of Public Works at a 4 p.m. party for general superintendent Mike Good , who is getting married, said John Depp, who supervises the department.

Depp helped arrange for the stripper.

The naked truth? Somebody just used bad judgment, said Mayor Arthur ''Sonny'' Rosenberg.

''I don't think whoever hired the dancer should have done it on city property,'' Rosenberg said.

Intindola said it is not the first time strippers have appeared at parties for city employees. In past years, it has happened three or four times, he said.

He joked Monday that the employees should have sent the stripper to City Commission chambers -- adjacent to his office.

Yes, that R.J. Intindola sure is the consumate professional!

LOL!!!

Almost everyone I know who's well-informed about what happens here in HB has whatever opinion of Intindola they have completely independent of anything I've said or written -or will say or write in the future.

Nobody is going to suddenly jump to his side of an argument based on his bitter enmity and lofty opinion of himself.

My understanding -which could be wrong, but I doubt it- is that Intindola was quite angry that nobody in town would publicly back him last year for the CM position when it was clear that Mike Good was being shown the door with a super-golden parachute, despite Good so frequently NOT showing-up for work, showing-up unprepared or dressed inappropriately for meetings with developers who'd flown into town for the meeting, or -and this is what I suspect eventually soured even loyal Good defender Mayor Cooper- Good NOT even being available on the telephone.
Of nobody, including his wife, the former HB Asst. City Manager -who once worked for two cities at the same time, unbeknownst to one of the cities- actually knowing where he was or how to reach him.

If you look at Intindola's Facebook "Friends," you'll see both Alexander Lewy and Broward School Board member Patricia Good, Mike Good's sister-in-law.

Just saying...

Csaba Kulin re results of $36K Resident/Biz survey HB taxpayers paid for but which Mayor Cooper wants to ignore -esp. the #1 complaint of citizens!

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Municipal Complex monument sign, September 9th, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier. This is where historical revisionism doesn't needs years, decades or even centuries to evolve -just a few minutes!

For your edification and perusal today, I've got excerpts from the ongoing dialogue the past few days between myself and my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach activist, Csaba Kulin, regarding some all-too-typical low-lights of Hallandale Beach self-governance.

Which is to say, comments that accurately describe the longstanding myopic vision of a few and not the foresight one expects from elected officials at least once-in-a-while, even here; banal pettiness instead of an urge to respect the wishes of the community; plus the usual feinting and spinning by the Usual Suspects who, as always, are averse to any sort of public criticism, constructive or otherwise.

First, a rather quick analysis by Csaba that expands upon the email he originally sent out Thursday about the City Commission meeting of Wednesday and the presentation by ETC Institute, who was hired by the city commission to do a survey of the community on a number of issues, though NOT many of the sort of questions that Csaba, my friend Michael Butler of Change Hallandale, myself and others I know would've thought to include.

You'd think in the abstract, wouldn't you, that if you're going to spend almost $40,000 to get answers from the general community -most of whom already have a VERY LOW opinion of the city's elected officials, administrators and employees for valid reasons, and thus, already disinclined to respond at all- you'd at least make sure that you asked questions that elicited the highest-possible response rate by having questions that addressed their underlying concerns and which would reveal the most usable data.

But that's NOT what they did, as Csaba subtly alludes to below.

-----

RE: 2011 Citizen and Business Survey.

During July and August of 2011 the City of Hallandale Beach, the first time ever, surveyed its residents.

The seven-page survey was mailed to 2,500 residents.

About 800 residents replied to the survey by mail or phone.

That sample size gives us a precision of at least +/-3.4%.

The Survey did not provide any great surprises to anyone familiar with our City.

Overall residents were satisfied with the EMS and police services.

The residents were dissatisfied with City’s storm water system and the over flow of traffic in the City.

Overall importance of the services for the City to provide in the next two years were; (1) flow of traffic, (2) storm water system, and (3) the appearance of streets, buildings and facilities.

In the Public Safety Services area residents were satisfied with the EMS, fire and police responses.

The three public safety services residents though were most important for the City to emphasize over next two years were; (1) visibility and frequency of police in neighborhoods, (2) the City’s efforts to prevent crime, and (3) the use of red light cameras.

Other areas of City services are very close to the average of other cities in Florida and nation.

I encourage everyone to read the entire survey results.

I like to concentrate on the responses to the Public Safety Services questions.

Visibility of police and crime prevention is important to all of us but they are very hard to significantly improve over the next two years.

The third one, the red light cameras are the “low hanging fruit” of the issues to resolve.

The red light cameras can be removed by three votes of our City Commission.

Question (Q6) Satisfaction with Various Aspect of Public Safety ranked the use of red light cameras at an “unsatisfied” rating of 45%. According to ETC Institute, the entity administering the survey, any rating above 20% requires the City’s immediate attention.

The Public Safety Importance-Satisfaction Analysis (Section 3, page 4) red light cameras rates “High Priority” ahead of visibility of police and crime prevention.

Hallandale Beach City Commission (HBCC) on September 7, 2011 was presented with the report, had a chance to ask questions and comment on the results.

Most of our Commissioners did not have any questions on the content and recommendations of the report.

Mayor Cooper interpreted, educated us and spinned the results of the survey the way she liked it.

On the “highest priority” in public safety area, Mayor Cooper said "the longer the cameras are in use, the more the residents will like it.".

That's like saying "the beatings will continue till morale improves."

What is the reason behind spending $38,000 on a survey when the City ignores the most unsatisfactory aspect of public safety?

That happens to be also the easiest to remedy, the "red light cameras."

The insensitivity of our City Commission to the desires of the residents is off the scale of good government.

Unfortunately, questions on what the residents think of our elected officials were not asked.

In conclusion, "the beatings will continue till morale improves", maybe past November 6, 2012 unless we all stand together and say "we had enough."

I have attached a link to the City's web site to see the Survey Results.

Pages 11, 68, 106 and 135 deals with red light cameras.

Page 18 shows that 12% of our residents (4560) attend City Commission Meetings in "person". We better build a bigger CC Chamber.

Pages 23 and 24 that 52% of our residents are over 55 years old.

Page 24 say that 33% of our residents have an income over 60G, 33% is between 30 to 60 and 33% is under 30 thousand a year.

Page 27 say that 46% of our residents have a college degree or higher.

Csaba Kulin

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2011-09-07/Item%208G/index.html

-----

In response to that shorter email of Csaba's and some informed conversations I've had with about a dozen or so other HB citizens who closely followed what happened at Wednesday's meeting, as well as the collective promises by the City Commission and City Manager's office at their FIASCO of a Visioning meeting in January to be more attentive and responsive in the future to HB citizen taxpayers' concerns and complaints, some phone calls with Csaba himself about a rather curious and perplexing message he received from Comm. Alexander Lewy, after Lewy received Csaba's initial analysis of the survey results, I composed the following and sent it to the 75 or more citizens, news media types and area elected officials whom I regularly share my thoughts with.

I've added a few words here and there just to add some context.

Dear Csaba:

The Brittany Wallman article on red-light camera expansion in Broward County that I was referring to on the phone Thursday night is this one:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-redlights-tickets-expand-20110907,0,3049306.story

I still hope to run your expanded thoughts on Saturday re the city's survey and the City Commission's seemingly blasé attitude Wednesday night towards Mayor Cooper's vituperative and bullying comments, so give me a head's up if you'd prefer to wait for Sunday instead.

Comm. Lewy's comments to you re your email are par for the course for him, and exactly what I would've expected from someone who seems to be in perpetual campaign cycle.

He seems to be genuinely upset that people actually expect anything from him other than his attendance at Commission meetings!

Just like fomer Comm. Julian's defensive lament after he lost!

The very idea that Lewy would email you and criticize you for complaining about the Commission's sleepwalking on the red-light camera issue after the survey team explained in detail Wednesday how upset the community was, of his actually expecting you to contact him to get his opinion BEFORE you say anything, when he had all the time he wanted on Wednesday night from the dais to say something of consequence and didn't...

Yet another five-hour meeting where he, Ross & Sanders played the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew role to the hilt, yet he gets upset that you actually noticed?

Really, how many more times can I say that Lewy is exactly what I said and wrote he'd be if he actually got elected?

-----

http://www.changehallandale.com/