Local FL news coverage that is making a positive difference: In another FL city beset with egregious examples of CRA ethical shenanigans and rampant crony capitalism, Volusia County publisher Henry Frederick takes his responsibility to the community seriously, and asks hard questions about public ethics, government accountability and journalistic credibility. His fact-based straightforward questions are blunt when necessary: Is the Daytona Beach News-Journal protecting New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer? And if so, why?; @NSBNEWSnet

nsbnews YouTube Channel video: Headline Surfer publisher Henry Frederick shows Volusia County Chairman Jason Davis film of how New Smyrna Beach CRA funds are actually being used, contrary to Florida law. Part I of 4. Uploaded April 29, 2013. http://youtu.be/RSoIXIp2OtA

In another Florida city beset with what seems to be egregious examples of CRA ethical shenanigans and rampant crony capitalism, Volusia County publisher Henry Frederick takes his responsibility to the community seriously, and asks hard questions about public ethics, government accountability and journalistic credibility in his part of The Sunshine State.

His fact-based straightforward questions are blunt when necessary, but then the facts seem to indicate that they are: Is the Daytona Beach News-Journal protecting New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer? And if so, why? 

You read your morning newspaper and see stories written from the point of view of a mayor or city manager, neatly... fb.me/2XhTUVGwt
— Henry Frederick (@NSBNEWSnet) May 1, 2013

Headline Surfer
Is the Daytona paper protecting NSB Mayor Adam Barringer?

Posted Tue, 2013-04-30 06:34

By Henry Frederick

http://headlinesurfer.com/content/412000-daytona-paper-protecting-nsb-mayor-adam-barringer

See more on the misuse of New Smyrna Beach CRA funds and other Volusia County and Greater Daytona Beach antics/news at the nsbnews YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/nsbnews/

@NSBNEWSnet https://twitter.com/NSBNEWSnet

*Starting in the near-future, you'll start seeing videos like the one above on this blog. Some of which have already been recorded. 

Compare and contrast the effort and clearly pro-citizen tone taken above by the Headline Surfer, where wasted taxpayer dollars don't get the shrugged shoulders response it does from the Miami Herald and  South Florida Sun-Sentinel, at http://headlinesurfer.com/ with the intellectually fallow and taxpayer-subsidized faux newspaper of Hallandale Beach, which was specifically cited by the Broward Inspector General's Office in their damning report on the true costs of years and years of incompetent and almost-invisible oversight of Hallandale Beach's CRA, the myopic South Florida Sun-Times.

BROWARD INSPECTOR GENERAL FINAL REPORT RE: GROSS MISMANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS BY THE CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH AND THE HALLANDALE BEACH COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY

http://www.broward.org/InspectorGeneral/Documents/OIG11-020HallandaleFinalE-REPORT04-18-13.docx.pdf

Please be advised that the report can take up to a minute to open due to the many exhibits. 

It took 55 seconds for me.

Above, the document that memorializes the fact that the City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes one-sided propaganda thru a grant to the FAUX newspaper.

And yes, that is the same FREE fake newspaper that gives Mayor Joy Cooper a "column" to extoll her particular brand of ill-informed nonsense and half-truths without fear that a Letter to the Editor will EVER appear that directly refutes and corrects her serial mis-statements. 

The Sun-Times not only DOESN'T run them, they DON'T print ANYTHING the slightest bit critical of Hallandale Beach City Hall, Mayor Cooper or the present and past two City Manager and their high-paid staff, who, facts seem to show, did NOT perform their jobs professionally for years, given how the CRA scandal only seemed to grow and grow, with nobody at City hall paying any attention to where the dollars went and providing any genuine accountability for taxpayers.

Just so you know, as of early 2010, HB's city manager and staff made more in salaries than the Hollywood City Manager's Office, despite the City of Hollywood being well over THREE TIMES larger in both size and population. 

Guess who'd never ever mention that salient fact during budget talks -or ever? 

Yes, the Sun-Times!

Yes, the same preposterously one-sided one about a parallel world where HB City Hall and Mayor Joy Cooper and her pals and cronies are always right, always smarter and always looking out for HB residents, taxpayers and small business-owners, when the plain truth is the exact opposite.

Cooper, who has fought so hard and for so long to keep that money flowing to Craig Farquhar and Company , himself, an unethical hypocrite and poseur who while dependent on the city's purse, can't keep his checkbook boosterism and half-truths straight, claiming on the one hand to have had no opinion on the very unpopular Diplomat LAC proposal championed by Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew a few years ago, but then all anyone had to do was check the Broward County website, and there was an email from Farquhar supporting it.
Bu-Bu... Busted!!!

(That out-of-scale development next to the Diplomat Country Club was eventually defeated by the Broward County Commission.)

Farquhar shows his support for the City Hall that feeds him by never allowing a Letter to the Editor to appear in-print, and by running a weekly so-called "column" by the mayor that in the time I have lived here, nine years, has never once read as if it was actually written by her, given her well-known spelling, syntax and metaphor problems that have been well-chronicled elsewhere.

(Lots of people in Hallandale Beach think they know who really writes those columns of hers, and based on the two names I hear the most, both attorneys, I tend to agree.)

Above, self-serving tripe served weekly! August 30, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Above is what passes for normal here in HB, but which is more accurately called propaganda elsewhere.

The perpetually-ridiculed and taxpayer-financed faux newspaper, South Florida Sun-Times, with one of the most egregious and laughable front pages of the past few years -and that's saying something! 

From my July 25, 2012 blog post title, When Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper says "setting the record straight" in her "column" at the taxpayer-financed faux newspaper, grab your wallet or purse, and be prepared to endure self-serving, nonsensical rationalizations that fail both the logic and reality test; 

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/when-hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-cooper_25.html

Broward Bulldog
Sweet deal for owners of Hallandale newspaper that features mayor as columnist

By William Gjebre, Broward Bulldog, 

February 9, 2012

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/02/sweet-deal-for-owners-of-hallandale-newspaper-that-features-mayor-as-columnist/

November 8, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The taxpayer-subsidized faux newspaper that serves as the propaganda arm for Hallandale Beach City Hall and Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew - the South Florida Sun-Times. 

This particular vending machine was photographed in 2009 just two feet away from one of the emergency fire exits of The Flashback Diner on U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway & S.E. 3rd St. across from Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino. 

Where it'd been in that same position for many years! 

In a normal, well-run city, they'd never have been allowed to be placed in the direct path of a Fire Exit, but in Hallandale Beach, a trio of similar vending machines can be placed right next to an Emergency Exit in a building one block from HB City Hall -and nobody there EVER notices the self-evident safety problem/code violation! 

More often than seems humanly possible, under the present imperious mayor, and with staffers who seem not at all interested in the best long-term interests of this city's residents, Hallandale Beach City Hall is deaf, dumb and blind to everything around them.

To the great detriment of residents, taxpayers and small business-owners who desperately want the city to be normal and be MUCH-BETTER than it has been allowed to be, and for problems to really be solved, NOT just ignored by city administrators and city employees and kicked further down the road. 

October 1, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved 

re John Mica's contention that SunRail is still on track; this issue barely exists in the Miami Herald's world

June 30th, 2009

The Miami Herald has not mentioned

this important story or what John Mica

has been up to the past few weeks in

his attempts to keep SunRail alive.

In fact, the Herald hasn't mentioned the

admittedly not-perfect SunRail by name

since June 13th.

But then as we've all borne witness to

over the past few years, their spotty

news coverage of non-political issues

around the state is hardly Breaking

News, itself, is it?

I'll be doing a blog post in the near-future,

long in the making, on the Herald's

very odd and mystifying coverage of

mass transit in general, and this issue

in particular, since Larry Lebowitz

no longer covers regional planning

and transportation-related issues

for the newspaper, and Alfonso

Chardy does.

The signs were clear for all to see

when the paper didn't even bother

to send anyone to cover the

Tri-county Regional Transportation

Summit that I -and many of you-

attended at the Broward County

Convention Center in FTL, many

Saturday mornings ago.

(Perhaps they were staking-out

Father Cutie, instead?)

Yet because of the nature of the

debate, that would have been the

perfect venue for the Herald to

actually incorporate some of that

multimedia element they keep

talking about, but when they had

the chance to do it, and truly help

illuminate an important issue,

they just blew it.

The Herald's almost complete

indifference to SunRail's future,

and what that might mean in

Central Florida for common sense

TOD, and locally for Tri-Rail,

coupled with what I perceived to

be their very moralizing editorial

against it on May 9th, is, to me,

just another sign of its swift decline

from quality newspaper into

near-irrelevance, just when South

Florida needs the paper to actually

be much better than its been in

quite some time.

But then what would you expect

from the Miami Herald,

whose Editorial Board foolishly

backed the taxpayer-funded

Marlins Stadium, and seemed

to be okay with the City of

Miami and Miami-Dade County

NOT submitting the issue to a

public referendum, but which

not only raps SunRail, but

seems inclined to nail the

coffin shut on SunRail on

account of taxpayer costs?

Wow!

When exactly did the Herald's

Editorial Board start worrying

about costs like they were

Ohio Republicans?

Costs and basic physics didn't

and haven't prevented them from

championing a proposd cargo

tunnel to the Port of Miami,

even though, to me at least,

that's clearly going to be a

financial and natural disaster

waiting to happen.

Just in case you forgot how

things are really done down

here in South Florida, here's

a reminder:

Fired Miami Bureaucrat

Continued To Get Full Pay

http://cbs4.com/iteam/CIP.City.Miami.2.1059931.html

I-Team: Fired, Retired, But

Still Working

http://cbs4.com/iteam/Fired.CIP.Director.2.1064666.html

CBS4's Gary Nelson shoots

-and he scores!

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

Daytona Beach News-Journal

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02063009.htm

June 30, 2009

Mica: SunRail is still on track despite political setbacks

By JAMES MILLER
Staff Writer

ORLANDO -- The proposed commuter-rail line connecting DeLand and metropolitan Orlando is not dead, despite two consecutive years of dramatic setbacks in the Florida Legislature, supporters said Monday.

In fact, SunRail is very much alive.

Negotiations to carve out a commuter-rail agreement palatable to wary lawmakers will be extended for six months.

The project could have been shut down today, according to an opt-out clause in an agreement between CSX Transportation, which owns the rail corridor, and the state Department of Transportation, which wants to buy it.

"We are on target to keep moving the project forward," U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Winter Park Republican and SunRail proponent, told an audience of SunRail supporters and media Monday at Metroplan Orlando headquarters.

Mica said the 61.5-mile system was necessary "for the sake of the environment, for the sake of energy, for the sake of moving people around our community."

Envisioned by boosters as a key transportation alternative in the growing Interstate 4 corridor, SunRail has been estimated to cost the federal and state governments and five local partners -- Volusia, Orange, Osecola and Seminole counties and Orlando -- $2.7 billion over 30 years, including operations.

But the project appeared to reach a dead end this spring when, for the second year running, the state Senate rejected legislation needed to make it a reality.

Controversial language addressing liability for accidents, budget woes and union opposition helped lead to the defeat.

On Monday, Mica said proponents were working to address each of those issues.

Perhaps most important, he said CSX had agreed to revisit the liability language.

As proposed this spring, it would have shielded the rail company from up to $200 million in damages to commuters or other people in the corridor, even if CSX caused the damages through its negligence.

The FDOT was slated to pay CSX $432 million in a purchase deal, but CSX would have leased the corridor for freight traffic so its trains also would be in use there.

"The long and the short of it is CSX has agreed to look at new terms of liability in which there will be certain limits, I believe, and responsibility for CSX in case of negligence," Mica said. "I don't want to get into specifics."

In a statement, CSX said it planned to continue discussions for six months at the request of elected officials.

"Those discussions will center on whether options exist to bring the transaction to a successful conclusion," according to the statement.

Company spokesman Gary Sease declined to elaborate.

If SunRail proponents are able to hammer out a revised proposal, it could go before the Legislature in a special session this fall, said Sen. Lee Constantine, an Altamonte Springs Republican who's been shepherding SunRail in the Senate.

Constantine said lawmakers likely will have to go back in the fall for at least one other issue, anyway.

"Having it in the light of day by itself with very few other issues I think would be a real positive for us," he said.

Other changes discussed Monday include a potential state application for transportation stimulus money for the project.

Using additional federal money could free state transportation dollars for projects in other parts of the state and potentially soften some lawmakers' budget-based opposition.

Although much of the recent wrangling over SunRail has been happening at the state and federal levels, local officials almost certainly haven't had their last look.

Significant changes to already negotiated agreements would put SunRail back before the Volusia County Council, said County Chairman Frank Bruno.

Only one council member -- Jack Hayman -- has voted against SunRail so far, citing uncertainties about long-term costs and ridership.

james.miller@news-jrnl.com

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

This story includes multimedia on the URL

Orlando Sentinel

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-commuter-rail-csx-062609,0,43843.story

Orlando Sentinel Exclusive

SunRail commuter train might be back from brink

By Dan Tracy, Sentinel Staff Writer

June 26, 2009

Just days before facing a potentially crushing deadline, the SunRail commuter train proposed for Central Florida might be chugging along again.

Backers of the $1.2 billion project have won a crucial negotiating extension and likely will be heading back to the state Legislature, which has scuttled the plan twice before, most recently two months ago.

"It's far from a done deal. But what we have is one more chance," said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who chairs the local SunRail committee.

Added state Sen. Lee Constantine, R- Altamonte Springs, and a prime SunRail supporter: "I think we are off life support. We're still not healthy, but the prognosis is improving."

A key development was the waiving of next week's deadline to buy tracks from CSX, the Jacksonville train company that owns the line SunRail intends to use.

CSX officially agreed this week to back off the June 30 cutoff date to give lawmakers another chance to consider the plan, company spokesman Gary Sease said.

"We are talking to the Florida Department of Transportation and local officials about options to continue the transaction," Sease said, declining further comment.

Without CSX, it would have been impossible for the train that would link DeLand in Volusia County with downtown Orlando and Poinciana in Osceola County to ever materialize.

Insurance still issue

But SunRail still remains far from becoming a reality.

Most vexing remains the problem that stopped SunRail in the Legislature the past two sessions: getting an insurance policy.

The state Senate has twice balked at approving a $200 million pact that assigns liability in case there is an accident. Opponents contend the plan placed too much risk on the state and not enough on CSX.

Dyer said SunRail hopes to blunt that criticism by having CSX assume more risk, particularly when its employees are at fault.

Critics also have decried the high cost of SunRail, saying it amounts to corporate welfare. It was an especially effective argument during the past legislative session when lawmakers were forced to raise some taxes and fees, raid trust funds and rely on federal dollars to plug a $4 billion hole in the budget.

But U.S. Rep. John Mica, R- Winter Park, said he hopes to win even more money from the federal government — close to $250 million — from the nearly $800 billion stimulus package approved earlier this year by the Congress.

"More federal money, less state money," Mica said. "We'll get as much as we can get there."

Some of the money saved by the state could, in theory, be diverted to the struggling Tri-Rail commuter train in South Florida. Constantine tried to win votes in that region last session by offering to back a $2 surcharge on rental cars, but South Florida lawmakers turned him down.

Now that Tri-Rail is facing layoffs, service reductions and a related loss of federal funding, Constantine said, they might be more willing to work with SunRail supporters.

Mica previously has applied for $300 million in federal funding. About $40 million was aside for SunRail in the current budget, he said.

Special session?

Constantine and Dyer said they could bring SunRail back to the Legislature when it meets early next year or during a special session.

The most probable scenario, Constantine said, is a special session called during September or October, when regular committee meetings are held.

"Let's tee it up," he said.

Likely standing in the way will be Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, who successfully led the two previous fights against SunRail.

Dockery, whose hometown would be forced to accept extra freight rerouted by SunRail, has argued the commuter train is too expensive and the insurance policy is loaded against the state.

She was traveling Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

The attempt to resurrect SunRail largely came together Wednesday, when Dyer flew to Washington to meet with Mica, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, and representatives from CSX, the Federal Transit Administration, Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak.

Dyer and Mica both characterized the talks as "very positive."

The federal representatives, Dyer and Mica said, stressed that SunRail is critical to state hopes of building a high-speed train because they want it to connect to anther form of mass transit, not just a large parking garage.

Florida is seeking $2 billion in federal money to pay for a 90-mile link between Orlando International Airport and Tampa with a train capable of going at least 110 mph.

Ten areas have been declared eligible by the government. Besides Florida, other likely applicants include California, North Carolina, the Pacific Northwest and Pennsylvania.

As much as $8 billion is up for grabs. The Obama administration might start awarding grants by the end of the year.

Dan Tracy can be reached at dtracy@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5444.

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