Reminder: There's a killer still at large four years later in #HallandaleBeach. What's new in the 2013 Double Murder of Toronto couple, Rochelle Wise and David Pichosky?

Above, one of the alternating empty Hallandale Beach Police Dept. vehicles that play the role of Scarecrow on Three Islands Drive in northeast Hallandale Beach. Police vehicles that rarely if ever move, which even the dumbest of area criminals know as well as local residents do. The empty police cars are right near the Three Islands Safe Neighborhood District security guard stand that isn't manned, right near the security cameras that didn't/don't work.  
They're just props! Some protection!

February 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Reminder: There's a killer still at large four years later in Hallandale Beach. So what's new?
Precious little judging by what the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. says and shares with the public they are supposed to work for, a longstanding problem for this dept. as I've detailed here in the past many times.
http://hallandalebeachfl.gov/Search/Results?searchPhrase=Rochelle+Wise

So the reality is that the Double Murder of a Toronto couple in Hallandale Beach four years ago this week, with the usual Hallandale Beach flourishes of incompetency and counter-intuitive foul-ups, is STILL unsolved.

Four years ago today, most of us in South Forida woke up to the shocking news that a hard-working, civic-minded and apparently quite beloved Toronto couple were viciously murdered in their winter-time Hallandale Beach home, in one of the quietest areas of the city, Venetian Park.

Then as now, the evidence is clear that the initial failure of the Hallandale Beach Police, the Broward Sheriff's Office and Broward Crime Stopper's to share relevant information with the local community in a timely enough manner, has had very real consequences.

Unfortunately for the public and the family of the victims, they are bad consequences.

This baffling and counter-intuitive approach by all involved likely prevented possible leads from emerging then that may well have made a tangible difference in actually connecting some fragmentary clues, and helping to solve the entirely senseless murder of Donny Pichosky and Rochelle Wise.

A few of you may even recall receiving an email from me four years ago today with the news about a double-murder taking place in a city that, while full of corruption and incompetency, had been, mercifully, low on senseless murder. 
I sent that email of mine on my first full day of a two-week trip to Stockholm, after I'd read the details about it online that morning in my hotel room, almost not believing what I was reading. 
But there was no mistake, was there?

In that email, I asked what-if-anything you'd heard that thus far had not yet been mentioned in published media accounts, as well as whether you were personally aware of any attempt by HBPD or other LEOs of at a rapid public information outreach campaign taking place in the general area.

My fear, quickly confirmed by so many of you, was that it was the usual HBPD routine of chasing-its-tail after-the-fact.
Just as had been the case in 2010 with the Lynda Meier disappearance following her visit to the Bank of America on Hallandale Beach Blvd. one morning, after which, she was never seen alive again. 
Just her car driving west on Hallandale Beach Blvd. and US-1, via FDOT camera footage

My fear that morning while in Sweden was the same as it would have been if I'd been bak here: that HBPD would put on a good Dog-and-Pony show for the local news media but NOT communicate effectively with the very people who might've seen something at the time, without knowing it at the time.

And despite the fact that HBPD had to get to those people right away and had no time to waste.

But waste time is exactly what they did.

That same mentality by HBPD is what had caused me to get so angry in 2010 with the Meier case because HBPD and HB Crime Watch -the latter then led by Alexander Lewy before he was elected a HB City Commissioner months later- did NOT do the bare minimum you'd expect from such a group, esp. in such a time-sensitive case.

The sort of thing that we have all routinely seen done in a TV newscasts, a fictional drama or in motion pictures. Why?

Because it's common sense.

Because we know that people have a short memory and attention span for what seems like inconsequential things/facts that don't fit their daily lives.

So you have to get that information from those people before it completely evaporates.

But those efforts, the sort of thing we all have a reasonable right to expect in case of such an emergency, sadly and rather predictably, didn't take place.

Specifically, some of you will recall that I was calling out HBPD's handling of this double-murder case almost from the very beginning, most egregiously, their choosing NOT to pass out fliers
themselves in the immediate area of the crime in Venetian Park, or to use trained volunteers from the Crime Watch group.

They compounded this by also refusing to post fliers in nearby popular stores or restaurants until long past the point that any possible witness had long since forgotten what they might've seen or heard many weeks and months before for a fleeting second.

There was not a single police flier about this double murder posted on the bulletin board at Panera Bread until July! Five months later!

I know this because I have a photo of the flier there shortly after it went up -too late.
Many of you received a copy of it from me in an email that July bemoaning HBPD's inability to get out of their own way.

And in case you might've forgotten, Michele Lazarow, the HB City Commissioner who lives closest to where this crime too place, someone who actually lives not so far away, and who'd just been elected weeks before, was NOT allowed to attend HBPD's meeting with the neighborhood.
A meeting that Mayor Joy Cooper was allowed to attend.
What does that tell you?
What sort of image does that convey?

There's so many aspects of this particular case that stink to high heaven and still cause me to grieve for this family and their inability to get the closure they need and deserve.
to say nothing of the enormous amount of time it took for HBPD to finally release a photo of a person of interest, and then, made that photo hard to near-impossible to find on the city's own website!

But rather than repeat them all here, in case you want to have your memory jarred in a profound way, here are my last two blog post about this double-homicide, though there have been MANY more emails detailing the numerous policy and procedural failings of all the relevant parties and the failure of the South Florida news media to publicly question and criticize what in any other part of the country would be coming under justified criticism.

(If you want to know more, contact me and we can always meet at Panera Bread and detail and dissect the HBPD blunders all over again.)

:

FEBRUARY 11, 2013 

Still no new news or facts in Hallandale Beach re January's double-murder of Toronto couple in Venetian Park neighborhood; Important Three Islands neighborhood public meeting tonight at 7 p.m.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/still-no-new-news-or-facts-in.html

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013 

Crime and (No) Punishment in Hallandale Beach: Observations on Rachel Mendleson's spot-on Toronto Star article on January's double-homicide of a Toronto-area couple in the Three Islands neighborhood of Hallandale Beach, which remains unsolved 8 months later. I still believe the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. has done a very poor job of engaging in outreach and making it as easy as possible for the community to access relevant info about the case that could prove helpful, just as HBPD and HB Crime Watch completely botched public outreach in 2010 following the disappearance of HB resident Lynda Robin Meier, who has never been found. Just like others at HB City Hall, HBPD continues to never learn from experience

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/crime-and-no-punishment-in-hallandale.html

Dave

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

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies

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

Ray Downs latest article about poorly-managed Hallandale Beach causes reasonable people to ask: 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.? @RayDowns

Hallandale Beach paid $150k to family of unarmed man shot by cop. City's defense was suspect could have "found" a gun http://t.co/ES4em6xNvh

— Ray Downs (@RayDowns) May 26, 2015

Broward NewTimes

Why Hallandale Beach Paid $150,000 to Family of Unarmed Man Shot by Cop  

By Ray Downs 

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/why-hallandale-beach-paid-150-000-to-family-of-unarmed-man-shot-by-cop-7000889

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.

Sorry, that's not quality #journalism.

Observations on the Dysfunction Junction in #HallandaleBeach: Thin-skinned Mayor Joy Cooper orders ineffective Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy to remove political-nemesis Commissioner Keith London from CRA meeting. An ominous portent for any common sense ever seeing the light of day at HB City Hall in 2015, to be sure, but with "reporters" like Sun-Sentinel's Susannah Bryan -who continues to act more like a stenographer who chooses to ignore facts, context and nuance- how would anyone ever find out?

Dysfunction Junction in #HallandaleBeach: Thin-skinned mayor orders police 2 remove political-nemesis Comm. at mtg. http://t.co/4EOmsL4ry5
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) January 14, 2015

Below are excerpts from two emails I've penned over the past few days that were sent to quite a few Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Broward County residents, civic activists and small business owners -plus selected elected officials and serious journalists and bloggers in South Florida and throughout the Sunshine State- who, like me and many readers of this blog, are way beyond merely being seriously concerned, frustrated and vexed about the shocking level of the truly incompetent and mismanaged local government hereabouts, plus, the shocking number of incurious south Florida reporters around who seem more lapdog than genuine watchdog... 
Troubling trends that show no sign of abating in South Florida.

I've made a few editing, spelling corrections and added some tweets that I couldn't include in my emails. All the better to make it easier for you to double-check what I say, no?

Observations on the Dysfunction Junction in #HallandaleBeach: Thin-skinned Mayor Joy Cooper orders ineffective Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy to remove political-nemesis Commissioner Keith London from CRA meeting. 
An ominous portent for any common sense ever seeing the light of day at HB City Hall in 2015, to be sure, but with "reporters" like Sun-Sentinel's Susannah Bryan -who continues to act more like a stenographer who chooses to ignore facts, context and nuance- how would anyone ever find out?

Wednesday January 14th, 2015
1:40 p.m.

On Wednesday morning I tweeted the link to this Local10 story by investigative reporter Bob Norman, so head over to my Twitter feed if you want to RT it, or, add your own comments about this all-too-predictable development.

Dysfunction Junction in #HallandaleBeach: Thin-skinned mayor orders police 2 remove political-nemesis Comm. at mtg. http://t.co/4EOmsL4ry5
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) January 14, 2015

Local10 News
Hallandale Beach mayor orders commissioner removed from meeting
A longstanding feud between Mayor Joy Cooper and Commissioner Keith London disrupts Hallandale Beach business, with the mayor ordering the police chief to remove him.
Published On: Jan 13 2015 06:32:13 PM EST
Updated On: Jan 13 2015 10:33:31 PM EST
http://www.local10.com/news/hallandale-beach-mayor-orders-commissioner-removed-from-meeting/30686362

To me, this is as sure a sign as you'll ever hope to find of the continuing governmental/civic dysfunction and battle of fragile/precious/precocious egos at Hallandale Beach City Hall among elected officials and the army of highly-paid and myopic city officials who regard taxpayers and Small Business owners as both hopeless dupes and Public Enemy #1.

For thousands and thousands of put-upon citizens, residents and Small Business owners in this part of South Florida, people wanted to hang on just a little bit longer in 2015 to the small hope of finally having a "normal" properly-functioning city -for a change- a place
where facts, logic and reason would win the argument, instead of the usual deceit, threats, deliberate misinformation and baffling bureaucratic incompetency, it's an ominous portent for 2015.

After so many years of valuable time, resources and opportunities being continually squandered on brain-dead schemes and circular thinking masquerading as public policy, people here with common sense and a genuine desire to make this area the sort of place it ought to be now but ISN'T, know in their bones that for a whole host of reasons, many poorly thought-out City Commission & CRA policy decisions and ordinances over the past few years need to be seriously revisited and thoroughly re-examined.
Unfortunately for all of us, this kind of incident at HB City Hall Monday makes that sort of necessary public debate and re-examination all but impossible.

In retrospect, many of us who've been paying attention could have placed bets upon this sort of embarrassing incident eventually happening once the HB election results came in nine weeks ago, with the only question being when in the year it took place.
But that would not have been a reflection on how clever we all are are, collectively, per se, so much as a reflection on the Sad Sack cast of not-so-bright characters that we continue to have in place at HB City Hall making important decisions about this area's future.
People who genuinely make no pretense about taking for granted the legitimate concerns and fears that you and I -and our neighbors- have.

For years I've tried my best to name and detail on the blog the specific elected officials and city personnel who do NOT honestly feel it's incumbent upon them to do the sort of basic continual public outreach, factual due diligence and thoughtful policy oversight and
tweaking that's routine among other South Florida cities' elected officials and bureaucracy, even in towns that are known for squabbling over public policy peanuts.

Which means that Hallandale Beach's future, such as it is, remains dangerously constricted and bereft of the sort of fresh air, new ideas and much-more free speech that it needs to right the ship, tethered as it is to the thin-skinned egos and deep reservoirs of personal vanity and high self-regard of a few individuals, who even while claiming to be looking out for the city, are merely looking lovingly upon their own reflection in a mirror. 
Mirror, mirror on the wall...

If these individuals had the smarts and strength of character we'd like them to have to adapt and finally look honestly upon the uniformily unsatisfactory results that years of this myopic and self-destructive behavior has wrought for everyone involved in the city -not least, chasing successful businesses out-of-town and the city remaining both a media punching bag and a perpetual political pinata with goodies going only to friends of City Hall- we might finally see some tangible and long overdue measureable mileposts that'd clearly be in the best long-term interests of this beleaguered city.

But facts are facts, and people like that simply do NOT currently make up a quorum at HB City Hall, which is why it's even more incumbent for well-intentioned citizens who want a better future for themself, their families or their business, to get properly informed and actively engaged, in-person and online, in 2015.
-----

Thursday January 15, 2015
1:45 p.m.

In my email of yesterday afternoon about Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's hysterics and histrionics at HB City Hall Monday night -which included a link to Local10 video- I neglected to include the rather dumbfounding article that appeared in the Sun-Sentinel written by reporter Susannah Bryan.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Mayor tries to remove official during heated meeting
Susannah Bryan, Staff writer
January 13, 2015

Just weeks after Keith London rejoined the Hallandale Beach commission, he came close to being kicked out of City Hall on Monday by his longtime nemesis, Mayor Joy Cooper.

A veteran commissioner, London stepped down in 2012 to challenge Cooper for the mayoral seat. He lost that race, but returned to the commission in November, sparking questions of how long it might take for his legendary battles with Cooper to resume.

          As it turns out, not long at all.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-time-change-hallandale-cra-20150112-story.html

Bryan, of course, is the very same incurious beat reporter for the Sun-Sentinel that I have rightly taken to task many times in the past via emails and blog posts for her CONSISTENT failure to report important facts and relevant context and nuance about issues and matters taking place in Hallandale Beach and Hollywood that would allow readers to make more sense of what she was writing about.

How many times have I told you in the past about frequently NOT recognizing what Bryan wrote about when I myself had not only witnessed it first-hand, but actually recorded it? Correct -many, many times.

For instance... back on September 26, 2014:
Some informed commentary, context and important facts that you didn't read about in Susannah Bryan's recent Sun-Sentinel article about Hollywood City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark and some of her critics re the 'million-dollar mistake.' Trust me, you'll thank me later!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/some-informed-commentary-context-and.html

Informed commentary, context & facts U didn't read about in recent @SunSentinel piece abt Hollywood's City Manager http://t.co/Q2cDRINeyX …
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) October 1, 2014

or almost a year ago.. January 25, 2014
South Florida Sun-Sentinel's incomplete stories re red-light cameras finally getting the boot in Hallandale Beach, and the city's longstanding problems with signage, is just another example of their shallow reporting that consistently misses-the-mark when residents want genuine depth and context
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/south-florida-sun-sentinels-incomplete.html

.@SunSentinel's incomplete stories re Hallandale Beach booting red-light cameras is just more bad, shallow reporting http://t.co/qe9UAPRynV
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) January 25, 2014

@SunSentinel's incomplete stories re Hallandale Beach booting red-light cameras is just more bad, shallow reporting 


Susannah Bryan is the same Sun-Sentinel reporter who, 12 weeks later, has STILL chosen NOT to discuss or report anything about why her October 20th, 2014 online story about the criminal investigation surrounding allegations against interim-HB Commissioner and candidate Leo Grachow, was pulled less than two weeks before the November election.
Not just removed, but surgically-removed -like it had never existed in the first place.

#SoFL Why is news media STILL ignoring criminal allegations re #HallandaleBeach Comm Leo Grachow days B4 election? http://t.co/dz3uyILFhy
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) October 20, 2014

#SoFL Why is news media STILL ignoring criminal allegations re #HallandaleBeach Comm Leo Grachow days B4 election? http://t.co/dz3uyILFhy
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) October 20, 2014

Disappeared! .@SunSentinel story re indecent exposure allegations against #HallandaleBeach Comm. Grachow vanishes http://t.co/7WUWMqR7OH
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) October 10, 2014

re Leo Grachow's selection as Hallandale Beach interim Comm.; Cooper, Julian & Sanders show true colors once again! http://t.co/6cdqsorcKY
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) June 19, 2014

That Bryan and the newspaper have also NOT written anything since then about the eventual disposition of the Broward State's Attorney investigation of Grachow, to say nothing of her failure to write about the concerns among at least some HB residents that the whole incident was nothing but a successful political "dirty trick," tells you plenty about the sorry state of journalism in South Florida in the year 2015.

As you'll soon read below, so does Bryan's refusal to directly ask Commissioners Anthony Sanders and Bill Julian -and accurately quote their responses- why they believe it is a good idea to move what are often contentious CRA meetings involving millions of dollars and crucial public policy, to the afternoon, when most adult Hallandale Beach residents are at work and thus unable to participate.
(As if two of the five City Commissioners saying that they would NOT be able to attend was not enough of a logical reason to NOT change the time.)

That's important and relevant because Commissioners Sanders and Julian are the same people who voted last year to move the HB Planning & Zoning meetings -that also often deal with VERY contentious development projects- to the evening from the 1:30 p.m. time slot they have held for more than ten years.

So, where's Sanders' and Julian's internal consistency, and what principles on behalf of citizens are they defending by agreeing to a time change that would now likley result in LESS people being able to participate at a public meeting?
None, of course, it's merely the latest example of their overt appeasing of Mayor Cooper. Yet again.

Appeasement - the very same thing that Commissioners Sanders and Julian have become so expert at for SO MANY years as members of Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew, instead of taking their responsibilities as elected representatives of this city's citizens seriously, and insisting upon honest answers, real oversight and and genuine performance from city administrators, Dept. heads and employees who've long felt free to do whatever they wanted, with no meaningful repurcussions for continued incompetence, unsatisfactory performance and demonstrated displays of public disrespect for the citizens of this community.
As I've recounted and then some on the blog...and will again very soon after waiting a few months for city employees to actually respond to some questions.

Yes, it's as if it never ever occurs to reporter Bryan to ask such questions, much less, ask pointed questions of subjects that will allow people like you to draw your own conclusions about what's really going on, based on freely-given answers.

But then the incurious Bryan also doesn't bother to include in her story the important historical fact that Mayor Cooper has a LONG HISTORY of deliberately ignoring the city's own administrative procedures, to say nothing of ignoring Robert's Rules of Order, with
the best example of that being from August of 2007, though there are dozens of others to choose from that I have written about here on the blog in often-frustrated dismay.

Back in 2007, Mayor Cooper personally railroaded the installation of Pastor Anthony Sanders as an interim HB City Commissioner many weeks BEFORE then-Commissioner Francine Schiller's date of resignation was official, despite the fact that there was already a scheduled City Commission meeting two weeks later where the matter could have been discussed and debated in a calm, organized and relatively sane fashion, with citizens both present and able to participate.

(Yes, the meeting Ithat  attended and recorded from beginning-to-end and even happened to be standing next to the person who first called Anthony Sanders by cellphone out in the breezeway outside to tell Sanders the news that he'd been selected. That is, AFTER my friend and real estate professional, Arturo O'Neill, sitting next to me in the back of the City Commission chambers, predicted it minutes before it happened. As if he had written the script!)

But Mayor Cooper didn't want to risk that happening, so she violated the city's own written rules and any pretense of following Robert's Rules of Order and acted like a despot.
At an evening City Commission meeting, Mayor Cooper as presiding officer made sure that the public was NEVER allowed to speak during the meeting about the subject at hand after hearing about it just minutes before.


By doing so she ensured that the public also didn't have the chance to speak at all about the self-evident way that Mayor Cooper consciously ignored the city's very own written procedures for handling interim Commission appointments, which they had dutifully followed for Keith London's appointment not so months before.

Just saying... context and nuance really DO matter, even if they don't ever seem to exist in Susannah Bryan's account of the surreal reality that permeates SE Broward County.

Csaba Kulin and I re the Long Trail of Broken Promises, Alibis & Excuses from City of Hallandale Beach's elected officials, City Manager Miller and Police Chief Flournoy re self-evident safety problems for residents/visitors along NE 14th Avenue; photos

Looking south on NE 14th Avenue from Atlantic Shores Blvd., Hallandale Beach, FL. March 31, 2014 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Below is an email that was sent this afternoon by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin to Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and the following: Hallandale Beach Commissioners Anthony A. Sanders, Alexander Lewy and Bill Julian, City Manager Renee Miller, Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy, Assistant City Manager and CRA Director Daniel Rosemond, City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield, along with dozens of other HB residents, both those living on or near the heavily-traveled NE 14th Avenue corridor who have been under assault since that road first began construction in February of 2013, as well as those who live elsewhere but commiserate because it's a perfect example of finger-pointing in this city by both elected and appointed officials at Hb City Hall.

The construction revolves around some desperately-needed storm water pipes, after the city has has had years and years of flooding, especially in Northeast Hallandale Beach.

Keep in mind as you read this that this small city that's only 4.2 square miles to begin with, has some tangible geographical constraints that make getting around difficult even in the best of times, and especially during the tourist season, which makes the mess that's been taking place along NE 14th Avenue especially problematic: we have both the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway on the city's east side, with 1-95 to the west, plus numerous impassable canals.
This, in a city with ONLY ONE east-west street that runs throughout it -Hallandale Beach Blvd., where traffic goes to die in SE Broward and become part of gridlock history.

This is made worse by the fact that we have less than a handful of two-way north-south streets east of usually gridlocked U.S.-1/Federal Highway, the road that serves as the very spine of the city, interconnecting it to the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County to the south and the City of Hollywood to the north. 
U.S-1 is one of just two two-way north-south streets that span the length of the city, the other one being State Road A1A/Ocean Drive over on the beach, which again has Hollywood to the north at its intersection with HBB, and the Village of Golden Beach and Miami-Dade County to the south.

-----

April 9, 2014

Mayor Joy Cooper,

I am sorry you had to experience the indignities of obscene language and gestures the same way as the law abiding residents of N.E. 14^th Avenue had been subjected to for well over a year.

I asked the City Commission a number of times for help. Mayor, you tried to pacify me with promises, City Manager Miller did the same and Police Chief Flournoy said that as “manpower” allows he will enforce the One Way Street violators.

During the March 17, 2014 City Commission Meeting  I stated that we only saw one time a police officer handing out traffic tickets. You did NOT believe me.
I have proof from our police department that only two tickets were issued during the past four months, both on November 30, 2013.

When I met with Police Chief Flournoy on April 2, 2014 he said that “even those two citations should NOT have been issued”.
Chief Flournoy told me that ’signage and markings on N.E. 14^th Avenue are NOT sufficient and the citations would not stand up court’. The Chief said that ‘it is the city’s responsibility to properly mark the street and install proper signage’.

In my opinion it is inexcusable that our city is unable to mark and install signage to make a One Way Street legal. The City placed our residents in danger and created a risk of liability for the City in case of an accident.

Mayor, we like you to tell us when will the City install legal marking and signs so the police can start to enforce the law immediately?

Please do NOT tell us that we have already suffered over a year and we are used to the danger so a few more months do NOT matter.

The residents of 14^th Avenue hope to see the legal markings and signage by the April 22, 2014 community meeting to be sponsored by the City. 

The City Commission has two main functions, making policy and oversight of the operation of the City. We hope that in your oversight capacity you investigate who knew what and when in this unfortunate misunderstanding and share it with the residents.

I attached a couple of pictures to illustrate the current situation on NE 14^th Avenue.

Sincerely

Csaba Kulin
President, Fairways North, Inc. 

Looking south from 600 NE 14th Avenue.

-----

The self-evident lack of concern the City of Hallandale Beach and the contractor involved in this project have shown for the safety and health for the residents in that area, who've been treated like prisoners in their own neighborhood, is nothing short of shocking, even by this city's infamous low standards.

Over the past year, from my visits to Csaba and Susan's home, I've taken LOTS of photos illustrating the points that he makes so well above, and have accompanied him when, together, we've measured the distance across Atlantic Shores Blvd. and compared it to the much-shorter distance on NE 14th Avenue, since for reasons that defy logic and common sense, Comm. Alexander Lewy is strangely insisting on changing the parking equation on NE 14th Avenue -once the construction is finished- to angled parking, just like on Atlantic Shores Blvd..

This, despite the fact that it was already changed from angled to its heretofore parallel parking-to-the-curb status a number of years ago so that additional numbers of parking spaces could be created for residents and visitors.

Why would Lewy and the city intentionally want to go backwards in time and create more problems?

It's a reasonable question to ask: Why would a HB City Commissioner who is required to resign his post in August (in order to run for the FL House 100 primary) suddenly wants to micromanage parking in this area full of angry residents when he was completely unconcerned 

with the negative effects of this botched construction project, to say nothing of the very self-evident safety points that Csaba has repeatedly made? 

It's very, very curious.

In any case, angled parking on only the east side of 14th Street is FAR TOO SHORT an area to safely maneuver, since the lack of space necessary to properly back-up without being IN the road, allows no margin for error for drivers and those already on the road.

It's obvious the first time you see it -and yet...

I've taken tons of photos of Atlantic Shores Blvd. and NE 14th Avenue proving these points, so...

Looking south on NE 14th Avenue from Atlantic Shores Blvd., Hallandale Beach, FL. March 31, 2014 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

Even today, after over a year of haphazard construction and coating the area and the inside of residents apts. & condos/cars with dirt, and after I myself have nearly been hit about three separate times by cars driving on the sidewalk or driving the wrong way, the City of Hallandale Beach can't explain why there never was a mobile watering system in place that would keep the massive amounts of dust down to a minimum, as is typical of projects this large that involve moving and shifting tons of buried dirt, road and asphalt.

When you add the large number of residents living in the area just feet away, many who suffer from existing health problems, it really makes you wonder why so little intelligent thought was 

given to this project's cumulative effect on them in the first place, and how little attention to detail there is in general at HB City Hall under the current crew, since they had plenty of time to put remedial actions in place.

But they didn't.

As for the HB Police Chief, you can see for yourself by the recitation that Csaba makes above, despite knowing what he did, when he did, and despite the persistent and legitimate public complaints from Csaba on behalf of his own tenants and neighbors along the street apprising him of the problems, along with the pleas of others, Chief Flournoy has yet again failed to act and respond in a satisfactory manner for HB residents, and once again failed to give the public the sort of serious response they were entitled to.

Instead, for all practical purposes, Police Chief Flournoy just shrugged his shoulders.

Just more of the same sort of unsatisfactory attitude and results from him we've come to expect over the past few years.

Surprise!