As imperfect as they are, the NFL "replacement" officials are still performing their job much-better than the following people or groups in Florida are performing their's...

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As imperfect as they are, the NFL "replacement" officials are still performing their job much-better than the following people or groups in Florida are performing their's...

Broward County Legislative Delegation 

Time to end 'free ride' for the Broward Legislative Delegation on Broward taxpayers' back; they should pay ALL costs of an office few citizens know of

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/time-to-end-free-ride-for-broward.html

Broward County School Board, esp. ethically-challenged Chair Ann Murray, who legally represents Hallandale Beach on the Board, and yet has continually demonstrated that she's afraid of meeting with well-informed Hallandale Beach parents and taxpayers in public and the city. Murray also refuses to answer longstanding questions in public about her very questionable judgment and decisions.

Ann Murray -she's a phony, a bigot and a no-show. Consistently. That's what voters have seen of her tenure on Broward School Board so far -she needs to go!; update on projects at Hallandale High School

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-1-of-2-ann-murray-shes-phony-bigot.html

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-2-of-2-ann-murray-shes-phony-bigot.html

Video of Bob Norman's news report at Channel 10: Montessori school called 'Jen's baby', Report blames former school board member Jen Gottlieb for $25M pushing project through
http://www.local10.com/news/FDLE-report-details-how-Beachside-Montessori-Village-was-built/-/1717324/16694318/-/pfxegl/-/index.html

Broward School's Transportation Dept. and director Chester Tindall 

Video of Bob Norman's news report at Channel 10: School board: Bus drivers wanted
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/School-board-Bus-drivers-wanted/-/3223354/16502446/-/6i1o4q/-/index.html

Broward schools paid $800,000 for GPS, but rarely used it

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-09-19/news/fl-broward-bus-gps-update-20120919_1_gps-project-nora-rupert-school-board

Substitute teachers in Miami-Dade and Broward County -As true today as it was over thirty years ago... 

Florida Dept. of Transportation, District 4 
Inattention to detail costs lives, risks lives, and costs money, yet they are chronically tone-deaf to criticism that is not only self-evident to folks paying attention to longstanding problems. 

When was the last time that District 4 Secretary James A. Wolfe subjected himself to intense questioning and follow-up about the dept.'s efforts and policies from the public -in public- instead of merely to industry professionals at closed and often paid events? Or even to reporters who cover transportation? 
Whose name, phone number and email address doesn't appear on District 4's webpage?
http://www.d4fdot.com/index.asp
Why it's the very person in charge -James A. Wolfe. 
It's also not searchable!

Office of Broward State's Attorney Michael Satz

Not enough space on page to delineate the full scope of the problems, suffice to say that 36 years for one person to be in charge of such a responsible position is too much, esp. for someone who has produced such paltry results in the State of Florida's most corrupt county -the worst of 67!

Broward County Democratic Executive Committee and disconnected Chair Mitch Caeser. Lots of people are quoted as having said variations of that as long as nobody cares who gets the credit, a lot of positive things can be accomplished. The problem in Broward County is that Caesar and his cronies DO care who's in charge and who gets the credit. Desperately, desperately care! But what do they have to show for it? He and his pals are the head party boss and cabal of a one-party county that long been the most-corrupt in the state. Which means that he apparently writes a lot of letters requesting clemency for his friends, many of whom he also lobbied while they were elected municipal officials before they were arrested and frog-marched out in handcuffs. 

Florida Democratic Party Alex Sink, Nan Rich and Charlie Crist? The Three Stooges.

Miami Herald's management and editorial staff, esp. those responsible for local news and schools coverage. 

Fact checking the Miami Herald's dubious claims on Education: Over the weekend, I unexpectedly found myself forced to 'school' the Herald's Executive Editor after she bragged about the Herald's coverage of Education. I had to bring up some inconvenient facts rebutting that claim
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/fact-checking-miami-heralds-dubious.html

So when are the Miami Herald and the South Sun-Sentinel going to note the elephant in the room in Hallandale Beach? The ethics of and the complete lack of candor from Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders & his wife Jessica; Mayor Cooper and Comm. Sanders screw with public's access to HB budget meetings; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/so-when-are-miami-herald-and-south-sun.html

Is there anyone in South Florida media with lower visibility than Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg? What are his specific plans for transforming the newspaper so it doesn't remain
irrelevant to what goes on in South Florida, seemingly always the last to know something or report something?

What's going on at the Miami Herald? More than a year after the last one fled, the Herald still lacks an Ombudsman -and shows no sign of getting one- to represent readers deep concerns about bias, misrepresentation and flackery on behalf of South Florida's powerful & privileged at the Herald. And that's just one of many unresolved problems there...
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/whats-going-on-at-miami-herald-more.html

For another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County, more lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza -Part 1
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/for-another-consistently-lousy-year-of.html

South Florida Sun-Sentinel's management and editorial staff, particularly those directly responsible for unsatisfactory local news and school coverage, esp. the editors, reporters and columnists who have shown over the years that they are nothing more than lapdogs for Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

OMG! Really, another interview with predictable Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on Channel 10's TWISF tomorrow? Why? Will there be any mention of the Sun-Sentinel STILL ignoring the Glenn Thrush book's depiction of DWS's unpopularity at Obama HQ in Chicago?; Sun-Sentinel has completely morphed into the Snooze-Sentinel! It's now more of an idea of a newspaper, and a bad one at that, rather than a newspaper you actually look forward to reading

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/omg-really-another-interview-with.html

And did I mention that their Broward Politics blog hasn't added anything to their YouTube Channel in over 16 months? http://www.youtube.com/user/BrowardPolitics/
Way to stay current!

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, President Mike Dee and General Manager Jeff Ireland 
In other parts of the country, though not here, it's not unusual to hear people say "To whom much is given, much is expected."
With respect to the Dolphins, not so much. #EpicFail

Above,  501 N.W. 1st Avenue, which 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. For what, THIS? photo by South Beach Hoosier © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Myopic and inattentive City of Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper and the three members of her Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew on the City Commission, who thru their continued negligence and actual unwillingness to perform basic oversight functions and be strictly accountable to, and honest with, taxpayers, have made what should be one of the nicest parts of Broward County into something that is NOT.

See numerous stories proving this at  http://www.browardbulldog.org/?s=hallandale

The city's budget has nearly doubled the past 6 years and what is there to show for it? What is the tangible thing that taxpayers can look at or feel? And the same is true with the money that the city has wasted from the CRA thru grants and loans to their pals thru crony capitalism.
Karma has big plans for them!

Myopic City of Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Fluornoy and his top-heavy dept. with enough psychological and relationship problems to keep Freud and Jung busy for a year. That they also are guilty of speeding in inappropriate places around town and are routinely inattentive to basic self-evident safety problems all around the city, esp. on the city's main three roads, makes it all the worse. 
Some Cops Given A Pass If Caught By Red Light Cameras
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/04/22/some-cops-given-a-pass-if-caught-by-red-light-cameras/

Their complete abdication to Mayor Cooper on the red-light camera issue was proof positive to many people who formerly gave them the benefit of the doubt that the Police Dept. is now hopelessly and morally compromised. The next police chief needs to come from outside of the Dept., preferably, from far away! 
There are still far too too many mediocre cops in this city with chippy attitudes.

Pampered City of Hallandale Beach Fire Dept. Daniel Sullivan and the dept. that regularly uses a fire truck to buy groceries at Publix and seems a little too chippy. 
Oh, and they also don't cite businesses for violations of fire safety regs that are pro-City Hall or give money to PAL.

City of Hallandale Beach DPW Director Hector Castro and his lazy and unprofessional staff, who for years have made this city a mess for the eye to behold and given new meaning to the word underwhelming, especially with their horrific care of the city's public beaches.
That's why, if you didn't already know, why embarrassed HB residents refuse to take visiting family and friends to HB's beach on holidays and go instead up to nearby Hollywood Beach,  which is why that beach is SO crowded then.

Hundreds and hundreds of embarrassed Hallandale Beach residents and their guests, spending money there instead of their own city.
Another Joy Cooper success story.

Miami Herald grave robbers at it again! Herald's threadbare Broward homepage runs 15-day old story as Breaking News to fill-up space!

Miami Herald vending machine in front of Denny's restaurant, Hallandale Beach, FL.
July 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier


Miami Herald grave robbers at it again!
Herald's threadbare Broward homepage runs 15-day old story as Breaking News to fill-up space!


Shades of 'The Donald Misdirection,' wherein the Miami Herald intentionally ran a weeks-old story about Donald Trump's consideration of a presidential run as "Breaking News" on their Broward homepage, sometimes as one of Top Three stories in all of Broward County, WEEKS after the story first appeared online, and, yes, WEEKS after he formally announced he would NOT run.


It didn't matter, though, the Herald desperately wanted eyeballs, so there that story stayed, day-and-night, day-after-day, week-after-week. Who needs editors!


I wrote about this subject the first time on May 16th in a post titled, Answer: It's about Donald Trump. Question: Why is a month-old story still on Miami Herald's Broward homepage under 'Breaking News'? Blame Jay Ducassi, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/answer-its-about-donald-trump-question.html.


I then followed-up on May 18th due to continued grave robbing of old stories with a post titled, Donald Trump Redux is further proof of the Miami Herald's gross incompetency and fundamentally-flawed idea of (and coverage of) Broward County in 2011.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/donald-trump-redux-is-further-proof-of.html

That the Herald is so oblivious to both reality and public perceptions, and continue to do such a piss-poor job of covering Broward County issues, personalities and trends in an intelligent fashion, not to mention, local government, that they have to resort to running old stories to fill-up the space that ought to be more properly filled with CURRENT stories on those subjects, tells you plenty about journalism as practiced by McClatchy's Miami Herald under publisher David Landsburg and executive editor Aminda "Mindy" Marques in the year 2011.


What do you call the anti-Pulitzer Prize?

Screenshot I captured this morning of Miami Herald's Broward homepage.

Do you see the link for the last story under Breaking News in the left-hand column?

Police: Woman’s body found in Hollywood pool

It's 15 days old!

Posted on Tuesday, 07.05.11

Police: Woman’s body found in Hollywood pool

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/05/2299894/police-womans-body-found-in-hollywood.html

Watch me presciently predict with amazing accuracy how the Miami Herald will cover a U.S. citizenship ceremony taking place today in South Florida

Watch me presciently predict with amazing accuracy how the Miami Herald will cover a U.S. citizenship ceremony taking place today in South Florida.

That is, if they cover it at all.

If so, it'll be just like this one -website photo above,article below- that took place on Flag Day, June 14th.

Do I even need to say that it was written by Alfonso Chardy, he said laughingly?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/14/2266824/becoming-citizens-on-a-special.html

Like most Mainstream Media operations in this country, they WON'T ask the new American citizens what their opinions are regarding current immigration issues or whether they favor the so-called DREAM Act.

(If you want to incentivize illegal immigration and encourage fraud, pass that poorly-written and completely non-rigorous legislation and watch what happens.)

Specifically, they won't ask anything along the lines of whether these newest Americans, people who consciously chose to follow the laws of this country and go thru the procedures, support the Herald's pro-amnesty editorial page position, one that essentially argues that all non-violent immigrants should be allowed to stay once they get here, and that anyone who says any differently is clearly a racist and likely an anti-Hispanic zealot in particular.

They won't ask the newest Americans if they feel like chumps, since as far as the newspaper and many of its reporters and columnists -like Alfonso Chardy- are concerned, there's no real reason for anyone to go thru all that trouble when all you have to do is say that you want to stay, since after all, you can't deport everyone, can you?

Oh yes, the intellectually dishonest 'they can't deport everyone' mantra they use as their fail-safe position.

The reason they don't dare ask these new U.S. citizen what they think is because of how very badly it would look for the patronizing newspaper and their pro-amnesty pals like Cheryl Little at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, (FAIC) -the number-one resource for the Miami Herald and the rest of South Florida's news media for completely one-sided, factually-impoverished stories on immigration, as I've stated here many times before- if the very people for whom the Herald imagines its position would most help, middle-class people who just want to fit-in and contribute and be the future backbone of any community they're in, reject that policy outright, what does that say about the people at the Herald and other pro-amnesty redoubts?

That they are fundamentally out-of-touch with their community.

The Herald's chronic failure to be able to show some basic fairness and moral integrity when they cover immigration issues grows worse by the week, as is its complete failure to ever acknowledge on its own pages that polling indicates over-and-over that its particular editorial position -and the clear-cut personal opinions of many of the Herald's reporters and columnists- is in the clear minority in this country, this state and South Florida.

It has a terrible and irreversible case of 'clientitis'.

For instance, one of the central tenets of the Herald under the present McClatchy Corp.'s leadership, with publisher David Landsburg and executive editor Aminda Marques in

charge, clearly seems to be to NOT write or print articles that would likely antagonize influential economic sectors -read real estate and hospitality industry- large traditional advertisers and their customers, or large blocs of citizens, no matter how accurate the particular article.

(Everyone paying attention here knows that's it's true, especially the TV reporters I talk to all the time. They shake their head at what they see and are glad they don't work there.

Question: Where's the Herald's recent news story or editorial on Miami heat owner Micky Arison continuing to stiff-arm M-D taxpayers and not live up to the contract he signed? Missing-in-action!)

In South Florida, and especially in Miami-Dade County, home of one of the largest Hispanic, foreign-born populations in the country, that usually means, yes, Latinos.

Imagine that!

So, everything else being equal, you'd think that a story about how Hispanic students are faring in school would be a natural for Herald to get into the paper given the area's demographics, right?

Surprise! When the news is NOT positive for them, no, that story does NOT appear in print.

Besides not seeing it in the newspaper that day, the other tip-off that it was too hot for the Herald to print was that as of Monday night at 7:30 p.m., there are ZERO public comments, which as anyone knows, is VERY, VERY UNUSUAL for any story about Latinos in the Herald.

Here is the article, read it while you can:

Hispanic, white achievement gap as wide as in 90s

By Christine Armario

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted on Thursday, 06.23.11

MIAMI -- The achievement gap between Hispanic and white students is the same as it was in the early 1990s, despite two decades of accountability reforms, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/23/2281273/hispanic-white-achievement-gap.html

"Everyone into the pool" is not a sound public policy or a winning strategy.

Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/14/2266824/becoming-citizens-on-a-special.html

FLAG DAY

Becoming citizens on a special day

A total of 181 people took part in a naturalization ceremony in Hialeah on Flag Day.

By Alfonso Chardy

June 15, 2011

Citizenship ceremonies are normally emotional events, particularly for the immigrants swearing allegiance to the United States — a few of whom dab at their eyes to wipe away tears.

But on Tuesday, María Betancur could not contain her joy as rivers of tears streamed down her cheeks. They came at the moment when she joined 180 other new citizens in a rendition of God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood.

Betancur, 66, born in Colombia, stepped out of her place in the auditorium and ran to an area below the stage where the officials were standing, crying loudly in front of everyone.

After the ceremony, Betancur said she couldn’t contain her pride and love for the United States.

“I have deep gratitude for this beautiful country that has given me and many other immigrants great opportunities,” Betancur said.

On Tuesday, she was among the new citizens swearing allegiance to their new country during an hour-long citizenship ceremony at the Hialeah Field Office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — an event made all the more memorable because it helped mark Flag Day.

The day, officially proclaimed as National Flag Day in 1949, marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes on June 14, 1777.

During the ceremony, they waved a sea of small U.S. flags as they sang.

Among the others who became citizens was Cuban-born Teresa Medina, a former resident of Mariel, whose family symbolized the immigrant odyssey of Cuban refugees.

Medina, 60, was the first of her immediate family to reach South Florida, arriving on a boat with a group of other refugees 21 years ago.

She was followed by another sister, Lupe Medina, who arrived during the Cuban rafter crisis of 1994.

Their mother, Josefa López, 80, came in 1993 on a visitor visa and stayed.

Cubans made up the largest contingent of new citizens in Tuesday’s ceremony with 99. They were followed by Colombians, 27; Venezuelans, 13, and Jamaicans, 10.

The new citizens came from a total of 20 countries.