Honestly, how many more times must residents of Hallandale Beach ask who's more consistently incompetent and lax, the Broward State's Attorney Office or the Hallandale Beach Police Dept.?
Just when you think it can't get any worse, #EvenWorse knocks on the door and enters, as today's amazing article by Ray Downs makes clear.
Ever see the initial or final report done 2 years ago by the independent Police consultants re HBPD's request for accreditation, and the Dept.'s response?
I ask because I spoke for quite a bit to the consultants with lots of facts, figures and jaw-dropping anecdotes they'd never heard about previously, anecdotes that fairly illustrated the sad reality of policing here.
Judging by their puzzled reaction in this newest story, I highly doubt the elected members of the HB City Commission have actually read the accreditation reports, all this time later.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions about the Commission's curious work ethic and laissez-faire attitude about fully upholding their job responsibilities and finally holding the HB Police Dept. accountable for its actions and
behavior.
Fortunately, the Broward SAO contest will be one of the most-important election races in all of Broward next year, as new people with energy and determination, to say nothing of a desire to FINALLY bring it firmly into the 21st Century, seek to replace the present myopic embarrassment of a State's Attorney we have in Mr. Satz, and his equally ineffectual and unresponsive staff with people who see their job as SAO as being pro-active and fully-engaged with the community in practice, not just for photo-ops.
Those new candidates for Satz's job won't be quiet all year about that race even if the South Florida news media tries to snooze away the year like they did in 2012, when as I blogged at the time, the Miami Herald's first real story about the campaign actually ran AFTER Early Voting had started and AFTER the paper's Editorial Board had already endorsed Satz.
Would've been nice if the Sun-Sentinel, for a change -FOR ONCE- actually focused on the myriad reasons why HB citizens have been calling for RLC to go for years, including an honest accounting of the the history of Mayor Cooper, City Hall and HBPD consciously deciding NOT to share public info on traffic accidents so that citizens could actually see where largest number of accidents occurred.
Or why they are supposed to indulging mayor Cooper's edifice complex to the tune of just under $400k.
But once again, when presented with stories on a silver platter about dysfunctional Hallandale beach government and public policy, stories that cried out for some genuine depth in it, the Sun-Sentinel went for the bury-'em-with-quotes approach with the RLC story that left HB's unique circumstances and perspective completely unexplored, and has instead left objective observers just as confused as to why this happened here instead of happening in another city.
And how can they bring the word trend into the story as a hook without ever explaining how it all happened? It's dumbfounding.
What are those elements here that could be found in other cities be that could make it happen elsewhere?
They don't say.
Until that paper is sold and new management, better editors and better and more-enereprising reporters are there, that paper is an afterthought when it comes to local news and political coverage.
No mention at all of the city starting a RLC program before the state authorized one, and with so little attention to detail by the City, HBPD or then-City Attorney David Jove that required warning signs were actually obscured from the public driving by, as I noted at the time with photos connecting-the-dots.
All these years later, there's still ZERO warning signs on either east-bound or west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. approaching U.S.-1
Those required warning signs on the median near NW 10th Terrace were NOT there when the city started their program or when the state did but much later.
I know because I have the photos that show that lack of attention to detail at the time, and most of you have already seen them.
They didn't want to do that because they knew that if the facts came out, they'd be hard-pressed to explain why they were so insistent on placing cameras in places that'd clearly generate less REVENUE, including the illegal right-hand turn money they were getting hand-over-fist at the beginning that got the city so much negative media coverage across the state.
As of January 16th, the whole topic of "short yellow" within the context of traffic lights, has never once appeared in the Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Really.
I was going to mention this salient fact a few months ago in a blog post aftersome outstanding reporting by WTSP-TV's Noah Pransky on the subject which showed how common the problem was, but held off on doing so.
8 mos later, Hallandale Beach murders of Toronto snowbirds still unsolved. Inside a tragic whodunit http://t.co/3HPUaiWKPp — Rachel Mendleson (@rachelmendleson) September 5, 2013
Double murder of Toronto snowbirds Donny Pichosky and Rochelle Wise may be linked to robbery, Florida police say:
http://t.co/OjEx9n5vde — Karissa Donkin (@kdonk) April 4, 2013
A month later, murder of Donny Pichosky and Rochelle Wise remains a mystery http://t.co/gl6tvBMg — Toronto Star GTA (@StarGTANews) February 10, 2013
Below, excerpts from my email of Thursday afternoon to certain concerned residents of Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and people in South Florida and Tallahassee with an interest in public affairs in Southeast Broward County, plus selected news reporters who know a story when it is staring at them from a silver platter I've handed them. -----
Canada's largest daily newspaper, the Toronto Star, has an update today, below, on January's double-homicide of Toronto-area snowbirds in the Three Islands neighborhood of Hallandale Beach.
Unsolved Hallandale Beach Florida murders leave family ‘broken’: Exclusive
Toronto snowbirds Rochelle Wise and Donny Pichosky died eight months ago; their son is issuing a plea for help in solving the case.
By Rachel Mendleson, News reporter
Published on Thu Sep 05 2013
At first glance, it was almost as though nothing had changed.
It was late March, more than three months after his mother and her husband were killed in their Hallandale Beach condo, and Jamie Wise was in Florida for Passover.
The investigators had finished collecting evidence. They told him he could visit the scene.
Some of you recall receiving emails from me in Stockholm a few days after it happened when I first read about it online on my trip, asking what-if-anything was known and whether there was actually a rapid public information outreach campaign taking place in the general area, or, was it the usual HBPD routine of chasing-its-tail, as was the case with the Lynda Meier
disappearance in 2010, which got me so angry because HBPD and HB Crime Watch -then led by Alexander Lewy before he was elected a City Commissioner months later-
didn'teven do the bare minimum you'd expect in such a case, or routinely seen done in a TV drama or film.
Yes, that jaw-dropping 2010 fiasco where the HB Police Dept. NEVER put upANYflyers
at ANY of the dozens of parks, restaurants, retail stores, parks that residents visit daily, in the days immediately after Meier's disappearance, where a possible witness may've been found.
Not one.
They NEVER even so much as put one up at next door City Hall, but sure as hell, there was a
taped missing poster for someone's pet at the time, right next to the front door of the Police Dept..
But not for Lynda Meier.
Yes, I still have THAT incriminating photo of the missing pet flyer at City Hall, just like I still have the photos of all the dozens and dozens of storefront windows that had nothing in them about this missing HB resident,even though store/restaurant owners and managers that I personally spoke to in-person all over the city unanimously said they'd have put one up IFthe HB Police Dept. orHB Crime Watch had merely asked them to.
But they NEVER asked!
And where exactly was the HB Crime Watch crew under Alexander Lewy, who never said anything the least bit critical about what ThomasMagill was doing or saying -or not doing- all those years when he was police chief, and alive?
Sitting on their ass!
They sure the hell weren't passing out flyers at the busy intersections or stores or restaurants we know from the released video of her car driving west on U.S.-1, like would be donein other cities across the country in the first 72 hours, when time is of the essence in looking for her and any prospective witnesses.
As some of you know from my past emails -and by my standards- a very short blog post in February,
for months I've publicly criticized the HB Police Dept.'s communication efforts to the public of info/photo of this "person of interest" at Venetian Park that was NOT immediately visible (and available) on the city's website, as would be common in most cities.
Why?
TheHBPD, the HB Police Chief and the HB City Manager won't say why it was made so intentionally difficult for the public to even find that photo -and still is, eight months later- on the very, very remote chance they even saw something or knew something, given that the video shows such a small area that was perhaps barely visible to anyone walking thru the parking lot in front.
So, knowing how very tenuous and short people's memories are for even important
things, much less, fleeting things that they did NOT connect to the murders, why did
it take4 months before flyers with relevant info were ever seen on bulletin boards around
town at popular places, like at Panera Bread, one of few places in town with a bulletin board?
And why were there no visible displayed flyers in the neighborhood in the weeks and months
afterwards even while you could, with some looking, still find flyers for lost pets?
Not even near the so-called security gate to Golden Islands on Atlantic Shores Blvd.
I NEVER saw a single one -and I was actively looking for them, as many of you know
from past conversations.
Is it any wonder that as is being reported here, HBPD has NOT had a new lead or tip in a month when their initial public outreach efforts were so feeble?
This is the same crew that would NOT allow a HB City Commissioner to attend a meeting of
the complex's residents.
A City Commissioner who only lives a few blocks away and far closer to the scene of the horrible crime than anyone else on the City Commission.
Why did so many WEEKS pass between that initial meeting, mentioned by every local TV
station and newspaper, and when that photo was actually made public thru a press conference and actually placed on the city's second-rate website, albeit,NOT right where you could see it, but rather requiring you to jump thru 3-5 more hoops and links to see it.
IF you knew what you were doing!
Precisely the wrong way to do something that would actually
help HBPD resolve the case by pointing them in the right direction.
-----
Selected excerpt below is from my email to the woman outside of HB who
was in charge of reviewing HBPD's documents re accreditation, which many
of you have seen before in prior emails.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 7:00 PM
Follow-up re Hallandale beach Police Dept. accreditation
...On May 13th, I went over to Panera Bread, a place that I usually go about twice a week, but which I hadn't been to for over a week due to my busy schedule.
The public bulletin board in that restaurant used to be full all-the-time, but for whatever reasons, starting just before the election thru the last week, has attracted few flyers or public notices.
Since that place is very popular, and that bulletin even more so, it was very noticeable to my friends and I, but who can say why it was suddenly so bereft of info?
Anyway, after got my coffee and bagel and the coffee was too hot to drink, as usual, I placed them down at a table near a friend and walked back to see if there was anything on the bulletin board, and what do you suppose I found?
Yes, almost FOUR MONTHS after it would've mattered and might've actually done some positive, two HBPD flyers re the twin murders from January suddenly appeared out-of-the-blue.
Since I'm a familiar face there, I asked some employees there how long the flyers had been up and it was just as I described -they were put up sometime within the previous few days, when I hadn't come by.
But the two victims were killed on January 9th, so why did it take almost FOUR MONTHS for HBPD to place the flyers in a place that is one of the single most-popular places in town, and located within a mile of the
* ImportantThree Islands community meeting tonight at 7 p.m.at the Anchor Bay condo at 300 Three Islands Blvd., located adjacent to the Three Islands south security gate. Park in guest parking.
Besides the two recent unsolved murders in Venetian Park -see below- and the increase in break-ins and robberies in the area, there's likely to be more than a little discussion and gnashing of teeth by HB residents who areVERYfrustrated with the city's laughably insufficient policing policies in the area, which makes it likely that this'll be one of the few public meetings this year where HB City Hall does not have 'plants' at the location to kiss their butts and say what a great job everyone is doing.
Everyone at HB City Hall is NOT doing a great job, and that includes the HB Police Dept.
Almost everyone I speak to in this city, but esp, who those who live in NE and the Venetian Park neighborhood in particular have watched with dismay as whatever visible Police presence the TISND is paying for that's assigned to the area near Scavo Park, seems to spend all or most of their time doing paperwork, NOT actually observing what's going on and interacting with citizens.
It's sort of hard to interact when the assigned off-duty police car that the Three Islands Safe Neighborhood District is paying for always seems to have their tinted windows up -and the A/C is on.
Everyone I know in the area believes this to be the case because they've personally watched it so many times, for so very long. And so have I.
It's become the defacto default position for the police.
I plan on being at the meeting tonight.
-----
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Mystery lingers in Canadian couple's Hallandale Beach slaying
As if the years-and-years of former Hallandale Beach Commissioner William "Bill" Julian's habit of routinely parking in Handicapped/Handicapped Access/NO Parking spaces all over this small but dense city while in office wasn't bad enough, as he set a terrible example of someone successfully being able to use their perceived power as a shield to get and receive special treatment that regular residents of this city couldn't get and wouldn't expect -due to HBPD always looking the other way- or, his infamously trying to triple City Commission salaries over lunch at a City Commission meeting with no TV camera to record his selfish and delusional words and actions for posterity, having claimed in press accounts that he and the rest of the Commission deserved "executive" corporate salaries -for their part-time job- there's yet another particularly galling nugget about Julian's queer and anti-democratic notions of civics and a participatory democracy that far too few people in this community know about. That is, until now.
Another day at the beach, another day of entitlement!
Bill Julian: Red white and blue -and illegally parked! Yet again!
Yes, Julian really does think he's entitled!
It's a very telling and troubling anecdote that says much about Julian and his strange ideas, notions and alternative universe, a world he probably much prefers to reality, since there, at least, his consistently bad judgment and bad votes on public policy that hurt both individuals and the city collectively, never require him to sincerely apologize or express remorse for all the lasting damage he has done to this community, where he had power far beyond he what he could competently handle, just like Comm. Anthony A. Sanders does now in the opinion of so many of the most-informed people in this city.
I quickly referenced this anecdote on Wednesday night, speaking next-to-last among a dozen or so Hallandale Beach citizens who were overwhelmingly against the original motion of Comm. Alexander Lewy, Agenda Item 11 B, B.AN ORDINANCE OF THE MAYOR AND CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH, FLORIDA, AMENDING CHAPTER 12 "ELECTIONS," SECTION 12-04. QUALIFICATION OF CANDIDATES TO ESTABLISH CRITERIA AND PROCEDURE FOR CALLING A SPECIAL ELECTION BASED ON THE IRREVOCABLE RESIGNATION OF A COMMISSIONER AND SETTING OF QUALIFYING PERIOD IN CONFORMANCE WITH STATE LAW; PROVIDING A SEVERABILITY CLAUSE; PROVIDING A CODIFICATION CLAUSE; PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE; PROVIDING A REPEAL CLAUSE; PROVIDING A CONFLICT CLAUSE; AND FOR ALL OTHER PURPOSES. (FIRST READING) (STAFF: CITY ATTORNEY) (SEE BACKUP) (Staff Report, Supporting Docs) This one issue brought close to a full room to the City Commission Chambers on the same night as the NFL's 2012 opening-night kickoff, with the Cowboys at Giants game on national TV while we were busy observing our local government chasing its tail and finding out -yet again- that nobody in the city really knows what the city's charter says or means. After spending most of my three minutes reminding everyone in the room and watching on TV about some true and inconvenient facts surrounding aspects of the HB Charter Review Commission -and yet more broken promises and poor to non-existent oversight by former City Manager Mark. A. Antonio, which I will detail here in a separate post soon- and refuting with facts the predictably disingenuous and dishonest remarks uttered earlier by a few people, including Andrew Markoff, who even on a group he sought to join proved to be an outlier once again, I hurriedly spent the last twenty-five seconds of my three minutes reminding everyone once again of how truly lacking in character and judgment former HB Commissioner and CRC member Julian, was and remains. Julian, who's running again in November after coming in a well-deserved third in a two-seat race in November of 2010, has seemingly never learned from any of his experiences and dozens and dozens of egregious mistakes while in office for ten years, and his support of Lewy's efforts, detailed by Lewy himself in an email he circulated last week, is entirely in keeping with that dismal track record Julian earned, and which this town bears the scars for. That dubious track record of ten years is why he came in third, after all -people remembered what he said and did.
Here's the rest of the story that I couldn't fit in and mention on Wednesday night... which I'd originally planned on posting here on Tuesday but was unable to. Unfortunately for both common sense and the wallets and purses of HB's residents, taxpayers and business owners, trying and succeeding in in doing something both ridiculous and anti-democratic has a long and undistinguished history at Hallandale Beach City Hall. After all, who'll ever forget former Comm. Bill Julian famously musing from his seat on the Commission dais on whether he should bring forth his idea for an ordinance of a residency requirement that would mandate that all candidates for city office in Hallandale Beach have lived in this city for THREE YEARS before being eligible to run.
Really.
Showing the sort of very bad judgment that was long Julian's trademark in office for ten long years, Julian had convinced himself that this ordinance of his would ensure that only well-qualified candidates ran for local office here, as if simply living here for a finite period of time and breathing our air made residents either well-informed or articulate about the public policy issues confronting this city.
Showing his well-known parochialism, it never even seemed to have occurred to Julian that
it wasn't HIS job or the City Commission's to decide for all of us who got to run for local office
in this town.
It's called a democracy for a reason, and as long as someone met the reasonable eligibility requirements, that decision to run was solely up to any potential qualified resident, NOT to incumbent politicians who had a vested self-interest in discouraging people from running against them.
Especially well-informed citizens who know the issues better than the Commissioners, their worst fear.
Julian's idea was so preposterous and so patently unconstitutional, that even bump-on-the-log
then-City Attorney David Jove found himself forced to explain some very basic concepts of
democracy to Julian on why such a thing would never fly, due to its unreasonable and capricious nature.
It would also subject the city to a barrage of lawsuits the city could never hope to win,
since the ordinance was so clearly unconstitutional on its face.
You'd think that an elected official living in the 21st Century in a modern American city would
have the good sense to implicitly understand this, but once again, Comm. Julian did NOT.
He had to have it explained to him before he pulled his idea off the table.
You won't be surprised to hear that Julian, now a Commission candidate in November, fully
supports what Lewy, Cooper and Sanders were attempting to do to Hallandale Beach's citizen voters at Wednesday night's City Commission meeting.
Yes, it's classic Julian being Julian, always with the bad judgment, in or out of office. Julian the outlier, always the person who fails to pay attention, fails to grasp the obvious and who consistently put his foot in his mouth and embarrass the citizens of this community. The worst enemy of Bill Julian is a smart voter who pays attention and who possesses a good memory.
Below is a slightly expanded version of an email I sent out early Friday night to a couple of dozen very smart and well-informed folks living in Hallandale Beach, Broward County and points beyond, including some pols you may've heard of...
-----
March 23rd, 2012
9:45 p.m. Request for common sense suggestions for the Hallandale Beach City Manager candidates to strongly consider enacting if hired to clean-up the dysfunction at HB City Hall Over the weekend and into next week I'm planning on cobbling together a list of about 12-15 different areas of concerns about the City of Hallandale Beach and the way it works -or more often, doesn't- for the perusal of not only other concerned HB residents like you who are greatly dissatisfied, but who DO NOT KNOWwhat's really been going on for years like you do, but also for the four HB City Manager finalists selected at Wednesday's City Commission meeting. (See Tonya Alanez's Sun-Sentinel article about that at bottom.) I'll likely send it out as an email by mid-week and also post it to the blog for the wider world to read and consider, since given past history here, I have grave doubts about how the city's planned public meet-and-greet for the four candidates at the HB Community Center on Friday night will be stage-managed.
Personally, I'd prefer that NO elected officials or city employees be allowed to attend that event, since the mayor and commissioners will have already have had plenty of time to ask questions individually of each candidate by then, plus, will be seeing them again the next day, too. The public should have as much time to interact with the candidates as possible. I don't want to talk to one of the candidates about a serious concern with the mayor, one of the commissioners, or even someone from the City Manager's office hanging around and eavesdropping.
(And can we expect the new City Manager to have the freedom to tell the highly-paid current Asst. City Managers to resign this summer, so that the new CM can hire anyone he or she feels would be better-qualified, and who'd actually respond to citizens instead of actively avoiding giving them honest answers, instead of saying -totally true- "Don't worry"? Hallandale Beach desperately needs someone smart and savvy -and fair- along the lines of the City of Hollywood's Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark ) If you have any good ideas on any subject that you feel are important for others to know about, whether relating to existing city public policy, city practices -i.e. any of the several bad habits that never change or die- to add to my initial draft below, most especially if you have any good anecdotes or photos that buttress your particular points, please send 'em to me this weekend. Or, if you want, I'd be happy to run YOUR list on my blog, too, plus any photos or anything you want to add. In some ways, I'd like to think of it as a Visitors Guide to the reality of living in exasperating HB for someone thinking of moving here that really wants to make a positive difference, but who also is smart enough to want to know where all the bodies are buried before they sign onto the dotted line.
----- My 3/23/12 Draft
Some suggestions for all of the Hallandale Beach City Manager candidates to strongly consider 1.) re New Police Chief, replacing current one who is "retiring" in a few months: Your new hire should be from outside of South Florida, and definitely NOT someone from within HB's existing ranks, since the new Chief also needs to be someone who actually takes constructive criticism and is willing to change policies and plans that continually prove they DON'T work. Which means bringing FRESH EYES to the situation!
Someone who is willing to aggressively cut-out the established cliques and sense of favoritism that are so well-known and established here. Someone willing to assign pro-active foot patrol cops near various traffic choke-points throughout the day, esp. during 'the season.' Intersections of a.) State Road A1A & E. Hallandale Beach Blvd. b.) NE/SE 14th Avenue &E, Hallandale Beach Blvd c.) E. Hallandale Beach Blvd. & U.S.-1/Federal Highway d.) W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. & NW/SW 10th Terrace
This is the intersection where Denny's & IHOP are across the street from each other, and the last real intersection going to or from I-95. In fact, this is such an important intersection in Hallandale Beach -supposedly- that it was the first place the city placed a red-light camera after the state officially allowed them last year.
This, despite the fact that the city was completely unwilling to share with citizens any sort of chronological traffic incident reports showing whether it was actually the scene of more red-light running than other locales, or at least near the top.
If it's really about safety and NOT money, as I believe it is here in this city and have shared on this blog and with Broward Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief, wouldn't you put the tools you have where they would do the most good? And as I have written here many times in the past with photographs showing the reality of the situation, wouldn't you make sure that the red-light warning sign was actually very visible to drivers instead of largely hidden by trees and obscured by other signs? Yes, if your aim was safety and not revenue. Considering the millions of tax dollars going to the HB Police Dept. every year, and not so wisely, either, just like in other cities, residents and drivers should know that there are certain roads here during the day where their odds of seeing a real live cop -and not a decoy police car- are pretty good, so they can have a degree of confidence of safety as well as know where the nearest cop is located in case of some emergency. Unfortunately, too many HB cops are desk cops who never seem to leave the immediate Police HQ and City Hall area during their day shift, a fact that is obvious to anyone looking at the parking lot, where there are so many police cars that never ever move for months on end. Just like the Code Compliance vehice in front of City Hall. We also need a new police chief who will strike the proper balance and take the long-term approach by enacting new rules strictly regulating the number of hours per week and month that HB cops can do off-duty work. HB taxpayers are already paying far too much in salaries and benefits -average of about $140,000 a year per officer- to continually have grousing, sleepy, and un-focused cops showing-up on the scene when contacted. Sleepy cops are a danger to themselves and the community and around here, as most of us know from personal experience, they also tend to be angry and resentful cops, something we already have entirely TOO MANY of! Per the above comments about the HB Police Dept., consider the following anonymous comments by HB cops at http://forums.leoaffairs.com/viewtopic.php?f=409&t=98243&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=45 and look up http://forums.leoaffairs.com/search.phpand search for "Hallandale" http://forums.leoaffairs.com/viewtopic.php?f=409&t=98243&p=671414&hilit=Hallandale+Beach#p671414 More to come... ----- www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/fl-hallandale-city-manager-finalists-20120322,0,2317946.story Orlando Sentinel Hallandale Beach narrows field of city manager candidates By Tonya Alanez, Sun Sentinel 5:09 PM EDT, March 22, 2012 HALLANDALE BEACH In their search for a new city manager, commissioners on Wednesday narrowed a field of nine candidates down to four. They'll make their final pick April 2. More than 70 applicants applied to replace retiring City Manager Mark Antonio. That pool was initially whittled down to nine finalists, which city commissioners reduced further on Wednesday. The four candidates vying to be Hallandale Beach's next top executive are: • Corey Alston, South Bay's city manager; • Renee C. Crichton, Miami Gardens' deputy city manager; • Alvin B. Jackson Jr., Hallandale Beach's current Community Redevelopment Agency's director; • Susan A. Stanton, an accountant in Fort Lauderdale's Housing and Community Development Division. The finalists will tour the city and meet city staff and department heads on March 30. They will also meet the public at a reception at the city's Cultural Community Center, 410 SE Third St. Beginning at 8:30 a.m. March 31, the candidates will interview one-on-one with commissioners, followed by a 1:30 p.m. group interview in the commission chambers. The final selection could be made then or at a 6 p.m. April 2 commission meeting. Antonio, 55, is set to retire June 29 after 25 years with the city. He earned $165,000 a year. Upon retirement, Antonio says he is looking forward to spending time with his wife and family, traveling and getting into community volunteer work. Assistant City Manager Antonio assumed the top job after former City Manager Mike Good was fired in June 2010 for chronic absenteeism, an uncommunicative work style and questionable contracts. The city is now grappling with the results of a recent audit of its Community Redevelopment Agency that found "general disorganization of the city's files and records," including incomplete land acquisition and commercial loan files. City officials say they have updated policies and rectified problems "to ensure that the mishandling of paperwork doesn't happen again."
