Tuesday's S.E. Broward Republican Club meeting: 9/12 Tea Parties and 2010 BSO Budget

Southeast Broward Republican Club

Dear Members and Friends,

Our next meeting is Tuesday,
September 1st, 2009

Check In: 6:30 P.M.
-Meeting Begins: 7 P.M.
Hollywood Beach Culture & Community Center
1301 South Ocean Drive/ A1A
Hollywood, FL 33019

Topic of Discussion: The 9/12 Tea Parties
and the Broward County Sheriff's Office
2010 Budget

Please feel free to pass on our invitation to your
friends and family, all are welcome.

Take I-95 to Hollywood Blvd., drive East towards
the beach.

Drive over Hollywood Blvd. Intracoastal Bridge.
turn right/South.

The Hollywood Beach Culture and Community
Center will be on your left-hand side at
intersection of Azalea Terrace.

Metered parking lot. Refreshments served.

Tickets will be on sale for the "Heroes In Action"
- Hollywood Police Athletic League-Boxing event.

If you have any questions, please feel
free to call me anytime.

Until then...Stay active, connected and informed!

Ed Napolitano, President
(954) 296-0041

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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1191012.html

Miami Herald

Details of Broward Sheriff's Office budget cuts expected

BY DIANA MOSKOVITZ

August 18, 2009

The budget battle between Broward County commissioners and Sheriff Al Lamberti could be near a resolution by Tuesday's end.

The Broward Sheriff's Office is scheduled to go before commissioners Tuesday with details of how it will trim $21 million from its spending plan. Most of the savings would come from cutting in-custody treatment programs, an unspecified number of layoffs and closing the Stockade, the minimum security jail.

About $3 million of the total would be made up in more money from fees.

Lamberti would reopen the Stockade in short bursts should the inmate population get too high. Broward is under a federal court order to stay beneath a jail population cap or face a fine.

If approved, the budget agreement would end months of wrangling between commissioners and BSO.

With property values down, county commissioners began this year's budget process with an approximate $100 million shortfall. They wanted Lamberti to shoulder about half of the burden and cut $46 million from his agency, the largest of its kind in Broward.

His proposal meets about half of the county's goal. Whether this is enough to please county leaders will be hashed out at Tuesday's workshop.

If Lamberti and commissioners don't reach a compromise before the start of the fiscal year Oct. 1, the sheriff could appeal his budget to the Florida Cabinet, a potentially lengthy process.

A presentation about BSO's spending plan is scheduled to go before county commissioners at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Broward County Government Center, 115 S. Andrews Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. It will be the first in a full day of presentations from various county services.

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Two columnists write on the no-win situation for
BSO with Maury Hernandez

sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/sfl-bso-maury-mayocol-b083109,0,514119.column

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

In real world, miracle deputy doesn't get dream ending

Michael Mayo

News Columnist

August 31, 2009

If the miraculous recovery of Broward Sheriff's Deputy Maury Hernandez were a movie, the ending would have Hernandez putting on his badge and holster and returning to his job as a street detective.

But this is real life, which means things aren't so tidy. Two years after taking a bullet to the head during a traffic stop, Hernandez walked into a recent meeting at the Sheriff's Office in uniform, and the reaction was discomfort.

Hernandez, 30, now confronts a tangle of insurance and pension issues. Instead of life-affirming triumph, there's soul-deadening bureaucracy. He has a lawyer. There's tension in the air.

"I'm not asking for a charity position," Hernandez wrote by e-mail Monday. "If the sheriff didn't really mean it when he said there would be something waiting for me then I just want him to tell me so. I will not have hard feelings."

Said Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti: "Emotions have overtaken everything."

On this there's agreement: Hernandez isn't fit to perform his old job. His mobility is compromised, his left arm partly paralyzed. Basically, a return to a weapon-carrying law-enforcement job doesn't appear possible.

During his rehabilitation, Hernandez got full pay through the county's worker's compensation system. But that's about to lapse. Lamberti said Hernandez has two options:

He can retire with a permanent disability pension from the state, which would pay him 65 percent of his salary for life, tax-free. The payments would start at $32,229 a year and rise with inflation. He'd also get lifelong health insurance.

He can take a civilian job with the Sheriff's Office, something like an investigative aide. But that would mean he'd be disqualified from getting disability benefits related to the shooting in the future.

"It's Maury's decision, but we just want to make sure he fully understands the ramifications," said Lamberti, who didn't attend the Aug. 5 meeting.

"So far, all that has been offered is disability retirement, which is not a job," Hernandez wrote Monday. I wanted to talk face-to-face, but his attorney wouldn't allow it.

"I loved working at the BSO, and my heart is there," Hernandez wrote. "It's a shame the way things are right now, but there is too much positive history and too many great friends there for me to say that my feelings have soured."

Lamberti said he wouldn't want Hernandez to return to the Sheriff's Office, get injured because of his condition and not be entitled to benefits. The sheriff said the meeting was meant to be a starting point, not an ultimatum.

"We want what's best for Maury," Lamberti said.

Lance Block, Hernandez's attorney, called the Aug. 5 session "a sales meeting to get him to take the disability option."

If Hernandez took the disability pension, Lamberti said he could remain involved with the Sheriff's Office as a motivational speaker or crisis-team volunteer. "Look, the guy is a true inspiration," Lamberti said.

Lamberti knows that Hernandez makes for the ultimate sympathetic figure, and this is a public-relations fight he can't win.

But it's not as if Hernandez is the first to get wounded or disabled on the job. If Lamberti makes an exception to let Hernandez keep his position, then lawsuits from other disabled deputies could follow.

Hernandez's shooter, David Maldonado, is now serving a life sentence.

A shame that Hernandez, as the victim, might also have to serve a life sentence, losing the job he loves.

"I don't know what my next step will be," Hernandez wrote.

Not exactly a Hollywood ending. But it could have been a whole lot worse.

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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/daniel-shoer-roth/story/1199594.html

Miami Herald
August 24, 2009

BSO denies deputy his dream to serve again

By DANIEL SHOER ROTH

Ever since Maury Hernández emerged from a coma a year and 10 months ago he has received countless demonstrations of the community's affection and been highly decorated. He even got to throw the first pitch at a baseball game between the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays.

Through it all, Hernández, the deputy shot in the head while on duty two years ago, has yearned for only one thing: to return to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

He was ecstatic when he was scheduled to meet with BSO on Aug. 5. The night before, he filled four notebook pages with new handwritten ideas. And in the morning, he suited up in his old uniform, which now includes a green honor medal usually presented posthumously to fallen officers. He came that close.

He was devastated after the meeting. He says BSO officials told him he would go on permanent disability retirement. "It's the worst betrayal of my life,'' said Hernández, 30, who suffers from motor-function problems on the left side of his body. "Everybody knew I wanted to go back to work.''

Jim Leljedal, a BSO spokesman, said no final decision has been made on Hernández's case. "We discussed his future, his options and his eligibility for a disability pension,'' Leljedal said. "Everyone here admires and loves Maury, and we want the best for him.''

BSO seems to think retirement would be best. Hernández says that was the only offer on the table.

"If they really want the best for me, they should have asked me, knowing that going back to work is what my heart wants,'' said the Cuban-American officer who lives in Hialeah with his parents. Hernández almost died protecting this community, and BSO, for all its proclamations of love and admiration for him, responds by shattering his dream of returning to the work he loves. Shameful.

It's deviously hypocritical coming after Hernández became Al Lamberti's poster child during his campaign for sheriff and never missed a photo-op next to the hero.

This injustice could stir Broward County's Hispanic community, which claims it is not adequately represented in Broward's police departments, said José "Pepe'' López, a member of BSO's new diversity committee.

"This is not well seen in the Hispanic community, especially among Cubans who went all out to support the sheriff with donations and votes,'' López said.

Doctors gave Hernández no hope of survival in August 2007, when David Maldonado, a motorcyclist he confronted for speeding past several red lights on Pembroke Road, shot him twice. Last year Maldonado was sentenced to life in prison.

The officer survived miraculously and gradually recovered, winning the hearts of South Floridians.

On Thursday, Hernández accompanied his father, Mauricio, to Dadeland Mall to buy a handbag for his mother, Rosa, for the couple's 32nd wedding anniversary Saturday. When they went to gift-wrap the present, Hernández said the clerk told him, "You are that cop! You have no idea how much we've prayed for you.''

Two years ago the Hernándezes spent their 30th anniversary at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, surrounded by their son's colleagues and superiors, who brought them a cake.

"In these two years, the BSO kept a very close relationship with us, almost like family,'' Mauricio said. "We don't understand why the case is now so tactlessly handled.''

The answer may be in the budget. If Hernández is given a disability retirement, his pension, which would equal his salary, would be paid from sources other than BSO's budget. Except this is not about money, but about honor.

"At police departments there are enough positions assigned to officers wounded while on duty,'' said Alejandro Recio, a retired detective from the Hollywood Police Department. ``If Maury wishes to go back to work, he deserves that right.''

Hernández is not thinking of conceding defeat. He has hired an attorney.

These last few years, life has taught him to challenge all predictions. First he was told he would never walk again. But he walked. Then he was told he would walk only with a cane. He now walks without one, and strolls around a neighborhood lake.

"This is why I believe I can still make a difference in the police department,'' Hernández said. "There is nothing like getting up in the morning and doing the work you love.''

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/daniel-shoer-roth/story/1199594.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1

Update on latest Broward County Courthouse Taskforce meeting, which again can only see one answer: MORE MONEY!

My comments follow the article.

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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/1029948.html

Miami Herald

New courthouse talks move forward

By Diana Moskovitz

May 2, 2009

For years, Broward County leaders have bemoaned the state of their main courthouse, an old, oddly organized building prone to leaks.
Now a task force says the best solution is constructing a new, 17-story tower with a $328 million price tag. County commissioners are scheduled to discuss the proposal Tuesday.
This will be the county's second attempt in recent years at getting a new courthouse. In 2006, Broward leaders proposed a more expensive plan that required a voter-approved, $450 million bond issue. Voters rejected that idea.
As for the new proposal, no floor-by-floor plans for the building exist.
County consultants say they can't craft detailed plans without the commission's OK.
But they have identified a general layout, which elements they cut from the 2006 plan, and a long list of problems that need fixing.
At issue, they say, is an outdated design with a heavy dose of wear and tear in the building, which at its core is about 55 years old.
''It has outlived its life. It has outlived its culture,'' said Mario Cartaya of Cartaya and Associates Architects, one of several consultants hired by the county to examine the courthouse. ``And so, because of that, you've got severe issues.''
Cartaya highlighted these problems:
• A layout that mixes judges, employees, visitors and prisoners in the same space, even sometimes putting judges and inmates in the same elevator at the same time.
''This is the one that is a ticking time bomb,'' Cartaya said.
• Water, sewer and electrical systems from the 1950s that are failing or close to it.
Cartaya also predicted needing a new air conditioning system in the next year or two.
• Weakened connections between the windows and the walls that could fail in another hurricane, especially a Category 2 or higher.
Some fixes require tearing down entire walls, which would mean renting separate space so the courthouse could continue while undergoing renovations. Other problems, like the shared elevators, can't be changed, leading to the question:
Which is cheaper, building a new courthouse or fixing the old?
Consultants say a new one probably would be cheaper.
That assessment probably is correct, said University of Florida professor Michael Cook, who teaches the cost of construction and estimating at the M.E. Rinker Sr. School of Building Construction.
Cook hasn't analyzed the Broward courthouse, but said its situation sounds similar to other public buildings he has studied. Since they are built to last a long time, when they finally break down, sometimes the pipes and mechanics inside the building aren't made any more, making the fixes -- and bringing the building up to code -- expensive.
''It's like an automobile. How much are you going to invest in an auto when you can get something brand new that will last a lot longer for a little more, maybe even less?'' Cook said.
There are exceptions to that idea, such as the 81-year-old Miami-Dade County Courthouse. That building benefits from several factors, said architect Don Dwore, who is in charge of the Broward project for another consultant, AECOM Design.
It's made of stronger materials -- masonry -- as opposed to Broward's metal and glass, which was prevalent in the 1950s. Also, Miami-Dade took good care of the building, which earned designation on the National Register of Historic Places, further requiring good maintenance, Dwore said.
''It's on the historic register. That elevates any building to another status,'' Dwore said.
Last year, two plumbing leaks forced the Broward courthouse to close, including a burst pipe in December that soaked court files, knocked out phone service and delayed trials. Earlier this year, a handful of courthouse employees sued the county, alleging the building made them sick.
Those breakdowns lead to a renewed push for a replacement building, resulting in the latest plan: the 18-story building to be built where the judicial garage sits.
The bottom floor would be a garage.
Courtrooms, clerk offices and state attorney offices also would be housed in the building, the task force report says.
The courthouse's newer wings -- east and north -- were built about 15 years ago and would remain as is. They include criminal courtrooms and most of the public defender's office.
When the new tower is done, the old west and central area would be torn down and landscaped, according to the report. Those areas include what is now the main lobby, civil and family court, clerk of the court, courtroom administration and most of the state attorney's office.
But to bring down costs and avoid another bond issue proposal, some features included in the 2006 plan were cut, including:
• Plans to buy land near the courthouse to add 3,000 parking spaces. The new proposal adds about 600 spots. The county will try to add more parking around the courthouse, but as a separate project, said Pete Corwin, assistant to the county administrator;
• Moving the main public defender's office into the new building. It will stay in the east wing;
• A handful of extra courtrooms;
• Upgrades to satellite courthouses;
• Larger work spaces. In total, the new courthouse will be more than 200,000 square feet smaller than the 2006 courthouse proposal.
But the new plan will have a bit of room for growth. The tower would include an empty floor for adding offices or courtrooms as needed, Dwore said.
Chances are good that floor would be put to use pretty quickly, Dwore said, adding, ``I've never seen a courthouse shrink.''
Reader comments at: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/v-fullstory/story/1029948.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=5840663&commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1#Comments_Container
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The May 5th Courthouse Task Force Update on Tuesday will begin in Room 430 at 12:00 PM or immediately following the morning County Commission meeting.

NOTE: This is NOT the same room as the County Commission Chambers, Room 422, so leave early if you want to get a good seat.

The County's one-sided Task Force interim report is at: http://www.broward.org/courthousetaskforce/pdf/interim_report.pdf

It concludes thusly: "The Task Force plans to meet again in June to discuss several open issues related to future phases. These include the long term phasing plan; and an updated estimate of shell space; potential for Stimulus funds; use of a County owned building on Federal Highway; and the potential sale of the land on the New River."

I definitely plan on attending this and really letting the criticism flow.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll even get some answers to the reasonable questions I've posed here in the past, including the curious composition of the group, ALL of whom have a self-evident tie-in to Broward's legal community or to County or local government.
Talk about a complete lack of diversity!

Yet there's not a single architect, urban planner, engineer or high-technology expert on the Task Force?
And the chair of the Task Force is one of the County Commissioners, Ilene Lieberman?
Now that's Broward County in a nut-shell!


Is it really that hard to get honest, open-minded people in this county to be on a panel?
No, but that presupposes that was, in fact, what they wanted; it wasn't.
They wanted a booster club, not a fact-finding group.

Broward County Courthouse Taskforce Is More Stacked Than Salma Hayek, Whom I Love

Friday April 3rd, 2009

1 a.m.

The Broward County Courthouse Taskforce is completely stacked against both common sense and the interests of Broward taxpayers.

That point is made abundantly clear when you go to their webpage,

http://www.broward.org/courthousetaskforce/

and you immediately notice that they have NOT changed it since the day of their last meeting, Feb. 27th.

Now, less than 12 hours before the very LAST public meeting, on Friday at 1 p.m. at the Courthouse, Room 1882, what do you see?

They STILL don't show the date and time of Friday's meeting on their own webpage!

That's exactly the sort of outreach approach to Broward taxpayers and citizens that make even moderate DLC Dems like me queasy at the prospect of the Broward County Commission trying to "fix" things.

My intuition, based on paying attention and what's happened in the recent past, is that they will try to "fix it" so they can vote for a new Courthouse WITHOUT the public ever getting to vote on the issue.

To be perfectly honest, the unfair Taskforce is more STACKED than Salma Hayek, whom I just love, as anyone who knows me can tell you.

And yes, I already purchased the April issue of InStyle magazine with her on the cover, but I usually buy it most months anyway.

http://www.instyle.com/instyle/package/general/photos/0,,20219137_20265520,00.html

(I've seen just about every film Salma's been in, good, bad and banal, like the horrid film version

of The Wild Wild West.

See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120891/

and http://www.flickr.com/photos/7595377@N04/524674713/

As someone who was a huge fan of the original TV series, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058855/ and who can still recall most of the better episodes, I thought from the moment I heard about it being 
made into a film, in the right hands, a good cast and a compelling story, could be a license to print

money, and ensured that it was just the first in a very popular and profitable Wild Wild West series

of exciting films that combined American history and adventure, not unlike the way the National

Treasure films with Nicolas Cage took off. Just consider how much better WWW would've

been if Jeff Goldblum had been cast as Artemis Gordon instead of IU grad Kevin Kline, with

Kline cast as Jim West instead of you know who, whom I detest.)

If you know anything of Salma off-screen, you will know that she is well-known for being a straight-shooter, someone who tells the truth with both insight and spirit, and who never blanches from being quite critical about all aspects of the myriad problems of her native Mexico.

She doesn't try to sugarcoat it or whitewash it.

Yes, talent, looks and attitude!

Contrast that attitude, though, with the majority of the elected city and county officials of Broward County, who,collectively and individually since I returned to South Florida five years ago, have never failed to at least try to spin an issue of great public concern to their own petty and parochial advantage, regardless of the long-term consequences for Broward residents and taxpayers for their folly.

Right below is an email that I wrote and emailed a few days ago to Broward Comm. Suzanne Gunzburger, who represents my part of the county, and to Comm. Ken Keechl, so far as I can tell, just about the only elected officials in Broward who consistently has taken the wise p.o.v. that building a new legal Taj Mahal for the Broward legal community is NOT the only solution to the current problems.

As it turns out, I didn't call them on Wednesday as I planned because I decided that until I went to the

meeting myself on Friday, it would all just be informed speculation.

After actually being there, though, having already reviewed the documents and materials online and

knowing the facts, well, that's when some real judgments can be made about both the Taskforce

in general and on the individual members in particular, and whether they were up to the challenge, or took the safe way out: tax and build.

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

March 31, 2009

Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Keechl:

I will try to reach you Wednesday afternoon from the Orioles' last home spring training game in FTL, against the Marlins, to discuss the Courthouse Taskforce.

As I note below in the comments I left on the Herald's own website, from its very composition to the so-called public outreach effort via webpage, it reflects VERY POORLY on Broward County's elected leaders and so-called management.

Go to the website yourself and see what I see, and decide if I'm wrong:

http://www.broward.org/courthousetaskforce/

Yes, it really does say that the next meeting is February 27th, which is the sort of thing I've come to routinely expect over the past few years with Hallandale Beach's truly embarrassing wreck of a website, which to cite but one quick example, STILL doesn't list the name anywhere on the website of the man who became the city's Public Works Director about seven weeks ago.

Really.

No name, no phone number, no email address.

That's HB City Hall's crazy idea of accountability and transparency, but that's not something I'd expect with the County's website.

But there it is.

So, with less than 72 hours to go before the LAST scheduled public meeting, when is the information from February's meeting actually going to be available to the public, and on the County's website?

I'm irate that the next Taskforce meeting at 1 p.m. on Friday is the LAST public meeting, because having attended the last public Broward County Charter Review Committee meeting last April, I've seen for myself what happens at the last public meeting.

Among other things, regular Broward citizens get rolled and Big-footed, and the staff attorneys just look the other way or make pathetic excuses that are neither reasonable nor fair!

Or even true.

I wrote about that troubling experience in detail last August and how the South Florida media completely ignored it at

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/letter-to-anders-gyllenhaal-of-miami.html

Comm. Keechl, given all that's happened, it really looks more and more like they all should've listened to you in the first place, and NOT tried to take advantage of the very real and myriad

problems there to try to reinvent the wheel, with taxpayers paying for it.

http://www.broward.org/kenkeechl/02_09_newsletter.pdf

But they didn't, and now, Broward citizens and taxpayers can see and read for themselves what will likely happen, unless common sense somehow head's 'em off at the pass.

By the way, in case you missed it, a Herald article on the Taskforce by Todd Wright on the day of the last meeting on February 27th, at bottom, which I planned on attending but couldn't make, was so badly written that in a story ostensibly about that afternoon's meeting, Wright never actually mentioned

a.) what time the Taskforce meeting was,

b.) where the meeting was to take place, or

c.) even note the Taskforce's webpage to help readers interested in getting more info.

And THAT's what passes for serious local news coverage?!

That piece from February was perhaps the worst thing in the Herald all year, except for all the things they didn't run but should've, which I'll detail soon on my own blog.

In my opinion, what's needed is to renovate and expand the existing Broward Courthouse, yet take full advantage of the current economic situation to drive home good deals for Broward taxpayers with designers, architects and construction firms.

DO NOT just rubber stamp the Taskforce's upcoming final report, which I can already anticipate in my head, which will likely use the very lawsuits described below as ammunition to faithfully serve well the interests of the county's legal community.

I'm no psychologist, but based on everything I'm reading and hearing, it sounds to me like many of these folks involved have a real Edifice Complex.

Or is it Edifice Envy?

I want a safer, cleaner and SMARTER Courthouse and infrastructure, with less dead-wood employees and much more transparency and accountability to the public.

Quite frankly, on the last half-dozen times I've been in and or near the current Broward Courthouse, it often seems like a hangout for teens cutting class.

I like well-designed public areas, but in that regard, the scene I saw in FTL more closely resembled what I often observed in D.C. whenever I'd swing by the District Courthouse and watch one of my friends, a federal prosecutor for then-U.S. Attorney for D.C. Eric Holder, do her thing at a trial.

Tons of teenagers and people milling around for hours and hours, many of whom never actually seemed to go into the building.

Witness intimidation?

H-m-m-m... I wonder?

All I know is that it used to make her nervous, given the sorts of VERY serious cases she prosecuted

against some of D.C. worst career criminals, back when D.C. led the country in murders, to everyone's horror and chagrin.

I plan on being at Friday's Taskforce meeting and will only be too happy to share my displeasure with all the Taskforce members about how this whole enterprise has been mismanaged from Day One.

Based on what I already knew, what I've read and observed, as well as what reliable people who are much better attuned to the Broward legal community than me have shared with me, if on the surface, all the Taskforce members seem to all have either family, friends, institutional or political supporters who will greatly benefit from a new Courthouse building, tell me,

what reason would they have for actually supporting renovation

(and possible expansion) of the existing building?

Yes, it seems pretty stacked to me.

So how does a Broward citizen undo that damage?

I guess I'll find out on Friday.

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http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/977937.html

Miami Herald

BROWARD COUNTY COURTHOUSE

Court staff: Building mold made us sick

Is mold making workers at Broward County's main courthouse ill? Several think so, and have filed lawsuits.

By Diana Moskovitz,

DMOSKOVITZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM

March 31, 2009

Read the lawsuit at: http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2009/03/31/18/mold.source.prod_affiliate.56.pdf

Five employees at Broward County's main courthouse have filed lawsuits saying mold at the building made them sick.

The lawsuits are the latest chapter in the downtown Fort Lauderdale courthouse's ongoing structural woes, which have resulted in several floods and power outages that forced its closure for days at a time.

On Friday, a county committee looking into what can be done about the building will meet at 1 p.m. at the courthouse.

The five lawsuits were filed Monday, naming Broward County and three companies that worked on various stages of repairing and cleaning up the courthouse: D. Stephenson Construction, C&B Services and Affordable Restoration.

On Tuesday, the plaintiffs' attorney, Walter ''Skip'' Campbell, said all of his firm's clients suffered serious respiratory problems because of the courthouse conditions.

''That courthouse has been deteriorating since I've been practicing law,'' said Campbell, a former state senator.

The lawsuits seek damages and the relocation of court services out of the courthouse.

County officials would not comment, saying they had not been served with the suit yet. But County Mayor Stacy Ritter said leaders are trying to address the building's problems.

''Clearly the county commission understands that the courthouse is an aging building,'' Ritter said, ``and we continue to have ongoing challenges to ensure that the complex remains viable for public use.''

Representatives of the companies being sued could not be reached for comment.

Those claiming damages are Patti Buchholtz, Sun Rentel, Brenda Spony, Jody Romm and her husband Michael Romm, and Stefanie Krathen Ginnis and her husband Eric Ginnis.

Broward's courthouse isn't the first in the region raising concerns about mold.

Lawsuits also have been filed by the family of late U.S. Magistrate Theodore Klein, contending that mold at Miami's federal courthouse contributed to the illnesses that caused his death.

The Broward lawsuits outline several instances believed to have contributed to the mold problem, starting with water damage left behind after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma tore through Broward County in 2005. Air samples taken afterward showed the courthouse 'was a `very sick' building with long standing water intrusion problems,'' the lawsuit stated.

A pair of pipe bursts worsened the conditions. One in late 2008 soaked court files, knocked out phone service and forced the building to close for several days. A second in January added more water damage.

And on Feb. 12, a urinal on the eighth floor broke, flooding several floors below, the lawsuit stated.

Reader comments at:

• http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/977937.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=2316883#Comments_Container

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  http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/breaking-news/story/924432.html

  Miami Herald

  Broward courthouse panel debates renovation or rebuilding
  

  By Todd Wright

  February 27, 2009

  
  

  The Broward County Courthouse task force is meeting to brainstorm about leaky pipes and other structural problems at the judicial complex, parts of which are more than 50 years old.
  The second meeting of the group -- made up of lawyers, judges, business leaders and elected officials -- is expected to focus on determining which is cheaper: renovating or building a new facility.
  Recent floods caused by breaks in the outdated and rusted pipe system has added fuel to the discussion, which many thought was dead after voters shot down a 2006 bond issue to build a $450 million courthouse.
  But a series of accidents, highlighted by a flood that shut down the courthouse for two weeks in December, has caused county officials to revisit the issue.
  During the first task force meeting in January, a pipe burst in the state attorney's office, soaking hundreds of files and causing the entire juvenile division to be relocated for about a week.
  Earlier this month, another flood plagued a judge's chambers and a day later, a severed electrical wire left portions of the courthouse in the dark for half a day.

  Both mishaps forced some hearings to be rescheduled.

  Reader comments at:

  http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/breaking-news/story/924432.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1