Showing posts with label Eleanor Sobel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eleanor Sobel. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Where did Millions of Hallandale Beach CRA dollars go? Years later, HB taxpayers still want answers, and the #FL state legislators responsible for preventing a much-needed JLAC audit of the HB CRA at the time still DON'T want to publicly talk about it. Seems like déjà vu, no? Sobel, Braynon, Gibbons & Jones are no Profiles in Courage!

Where did Millions of Hallandale Beach CRA dollars go? Years later, HB taxpayers still want answers, and the #FL state legislators responsible for preventing a much-needed JLAC audit of the HB CRA at the time still DON'T want to publicly talk about it. Seems like déjà vu, no? Sobel, Braynon, Gibbons & Jones are no Profiles in Courage!
So now that in 2017 the Hallandale Beach City Commission has a 3-2 pro-reform majority on it, intent on undoing a lot of the serious damage that has been done to the city the past dozen years under Mayor Joy Cooper, you probably won't be too surprised to discover that quite a lot of people in Hallandale Beach, Broward County and South Florida are STILL very interested in finding out where all the millions of Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) dollars were going for years. 
Not surprisingly, that includes me and many of you readers of this blog.

 And not just because it's Hallandale Beach, but the larger issue of municipal CRA performance in Florida and whether cities have successfuly thwarted the original intent of what the state legislature meant to do when they created the enabling legislation.

In fact, the Florida Bulldog's William "Bill" Gjebre has a new fact-filled article on that very subject today that I am only too happy to highly recommend to you, and link to below.

 I've even included a few links and tweets re just some of the dozens of things I've written about the HB CRA over the past nearly-ten years this blog has been in existence to give any of you newcomers to the blog some much-needed context and nuance for understanding this newest call for some much-needed financial accountability.

 Along with Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Keith London and a few of my friends who are fellow civic activists, like Csaba "Chuck" Kulin, I've been among the most-outspoken and VOCAL critics of the operation of the city's CRA program, with me particularly liking to engage with and call-out the pathetic reporting efforts of the local South Florida news media that so often ignored the scandal that was, literally, right in front of them.

 But most could not be bothered because it was taking place in Hallandale Beach, not Pembroke Pines, Doral, Hialeah, Pinecrest, Palm Bay, Aventura or... 
Yes, that geographical discrimination that local reporters have been guilty of down here for so many years, where some stories are reported upon simply because of where they take place, not the core of the facts and the issues involved. :-(

 More specifically, how and why under Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew, and a succession of City Managers, for so many years  the Hallandale Beach CRA was allowed to operate with nothing resembling the sort of basic financial accountability and oversight that you'd expect of an entity that spent millions of dollars -on the public's behalf.
With so very little tangible to show for that money that was supposed to address the problems the CRA is tasked with solving or fixing.


Florida Bulldog
New majority on Hallandale commission wants to know: Where did CRA millions go?By William Gjebre, FloridaBulldog.org  
January 18, 2017 at 5:05 AM

The new majority on the Hallandale Beach City Commission will seek the first-ever forensic audit of all expenditures by its troubled Community Redevelopment Agency for the past five years, including finding out why $7.4 million had to be cut to balance the agency’s budget this fiscal year.

Current Vice Mayor Keith London and Commissioner Michele Lazarow had been frustrated in seeking such an audit by the previous commission majority headed by Mayor Joy Cooper.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2017/01/new-majority-on-hallandale-beach-commission-wants-to-know-where-did-money-go/

























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Thursday, September 29, 2016

Make plans to attend tonight's important Hollywood Mayoral and District 1 City Commission candidate forum at the Hollywood Beach Culture & Community Center at 7 PM, 1301 South Ocean Drive



Writing this post to remind you about tonight's important Hollywood Mayoral and District 1 City Commission candidate forum at the Hollywood Beach Culture & Community Center at 7 PM, 1301 South Ocean Drive.


I will be attending it and hope that as many of you as possible can make it as well to let the candidates know what you and your neighbors believe are the top local concerns and priorities of Hollywood residents and Small Business ownwers -esp. in the Hollywood Lakes and District 1 community- and let them and any pundits and reporters who attend get a sense of what they all collectively ought to be talking about, writing about and considering as voters as Election Day draws near.

As you might guess, I'm working on some questions of my own, and am hopeful that the local Miami news media will take full advantage of the opportunity to show up and perhaps do some LIVE stand-ups for the 6, 10 or 11 pm newscasts.

I have been to two candidate forums so far, each of which drew very large crowds of residents and interested parties. First was the joint candidate forum on September 16 at the Fred Lippman Community Center that featured the City Commission District 2 and mayoral candidates -minus District 1 incumbent Patricia Asseff- and last week at David Park in Hollywood Hills featuring all three mayoral candidates: Asseff, Joshua Levy and Eleanor Sobel.

In theory, tonight's forum should give District 1 candidates Debra Case, Victor Debianchi, Stacey North Kotzen and Luis H. Prada plenty of time to draw attention to their particular priorities and make a case for their candidacy, given that District 1 has traditionally had a lot of influence on what happens in the city because it includes the beach area that has long served as the economic engine of the city, via tourism.
So far, to my mind, based on what I've seen and heard, all the District 1 candidates have thus far been talking too much in cliches and platitudes, and really need to give some specificity and nuance to the voters to give them some sense of what they are for -and what they are against.

I do have some news to share with you that I suspect few of you have caught wind of yet, and that is that I learned recently that former Broward County Sheriff and Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth and former Broward Commissioner Sue Gunzburger have officially endorsed Victor Debianchi in the District 1 Commission contest.

As many of you know, the Dolphins at Bengals game tonight is slated to kickoff at 8:20 and I was hoping to miss as little of it as possible after the candidate forum is over, so depending upon what time it's over, and knowing that they'd like to close up around 9 pm, I may be there a bit after the forum if there's a TV showing the game.
So if you don't get a chance to come by and say hello before or during the forum, swing by afterwards and let me know what you think.

Also, you might be interested in knowing that tonight is Comm. Asseff's 49th wedding anniversary, and yet because she cares so much about the city and its residents, instead of celebrating the anniversary, she'll be there tonight to listen to the residents and Small Business owners of Hollywood, and explain her goals and priorities for the city moving forward.

See ya there!

Dave

All August and September 2016 photos below by me, South Beach Hoosier. © 2016 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
















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Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Tonight's meeting is the time to let Hallandale Beach officials and your neighbors -plus the South Florida news media- know exactly what you think about unethical Comm. Bill Julian, Simpleton Extraordinaire; Here's who WON'T be there: Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons, Oscar Braynon II and Shevrin Jones, who turned their back on public corruption at HB City Hall years ago, letting CRA scandal get worse, not resolved

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall, September 2016, as captured by me, SouthBeachHoosier, © 2016 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
Tonight's meeting is the time to let Hallandale Beach officials and your neighbors -plus the South Florida news media- know exactly what you think about unethical Comm. Bill Julian, Simpleton Extraordinaire; Here's who WON'T be there: Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons, Oscar Braynon II and Shevrin Jones, who turned their back on public corruption at HB City Hall years ago, letting CRA scandal get worse, not resolved

 Important update to my last post: #SoFL #ethics - Proving that the past is prologue, yet again, here comes ethically-challenged Commissioner Bill Julian to once again personally make Hallandale Beach a laughingstock. But this time, a NATIONAL laughingstock. 

Surprise! It involves votes on real estate development and favors in return. Here's the latest 

on the matter, along with a stark reminder of Bill Julian's previous unethical actions


 So, like many people in Broward County, we were recently surprised to wake up one morning and discover the strangest thing in in the pages of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the very newspaper that had specifically instructed its Hallandale Beach reporter to NOT report on the bribery allegations against Vice Mayor William "Bill" Julian in the context of their recent meetings.
It was an editorial about the longstanding public corruption and ethics problem at Hallandale Beach City Hall and the current one involving Commissioner Bill Julian

 Here's a reminder about that lack of media clarity and accoiuntability from the newspaper first:

POLITICO Florida
Florida newspaper kills story of local official allegedly seeking favors from developer
By Marc Caputo
08/26/16 05:33 AM EDT
The South Florida Sun Sentinel killed a news story on its website about Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Bill Julian admitting on tape that he sought developer favors in return for his vote — a move by the newspaper’s leadership that appears to be part of a pattern of censoring controversial stories, according to multiple sources inside and outside the Fort Lauderdale newsroom.

The story concerning Julian’s alleged bribe-taking was first reported by WPLG-10, where investigative reporter Bob Norman obtained a voice message that the commissioner mistakenly left after he failed to properly hang up a phone. Julian discussed voting favorably for the $450 million Diplomat Golf & Tennis Club and linked it to alleged pledges from the developer’s attorneys who allegedly promised campaign contributions and campaign volunteers as well as a new van for his favorite city charity.

Read the rest of the article at:

 That Editorial is here:
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial: Hallandale Beach running off rails

Of course, it's important to keep in mind that the Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board are the very same folks who were perfectly happy to keep quiet for YEARS about the Hallandale Beach CRA and the crimes against HB residents and Small Businesses that took place there over a period of years, which resulted in perhaps $80 Million going out the door with precious little of a tangible nature to show for it, as I so often wrote, blogged and tweeted about, with links here:

That is to say, the Sun-Sentinel ignored it for years AFTER a damning report had already been issued by the Broward County Inspector General showed that there was practically no oversight or vetting at HB City hall by anyone in a position of authority of the kind that would be expected, including from longtime Mayor Joy Cooper or the previous two City Managers.

So, where were Hallandale Beach's various state legislators when all of this was actually going on and what did they do?
State Senators Eleanor Sobel and Oscar Braynon II were actively trying to prevent a Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. audit in Tallahassee into the HB CRA -and succeeded!- while State Rep. Shevrin Jones was so clueless and uninformed about what was going on in his own district that he NEVER knew what was going on -admitting as much in a tweet to me.

Jones never publicly offered to help the public get the facts they were entitled to, even though the public in question that was most-angry and most-taken advantage of was, of course, his own constituents.
And Joe Gibbons did what he does best: saying nothing and doing nothing to help Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens and Small Business owners who had a right to expect more from all of them than endless amounts of apathy, indifference and outright obfuscation of the truth.
With help like this, who needs enemies?

And don't forget! A scheduled meeting to discuss the alleged bribery scandal surrounding 
Comm. Bill Julian will take place tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Hallandale Beach residents and interested parties who want to speak need to sign up in advance.
This is prior to the controversial vote on the Chateau Group project on US-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd.

Many if not most of you who are familiar with how things actually work at Hallandale Beach City Hall are also quite familiar with how frequently Mayor Cooper has brought up items that 
were NOT on the scheduled agenda and tried to force the Commission to vote on that matter, 
even when the staff said that they did not have any information to provide the Commission
at the time so that they could make an even vaguely-informed vote.


​
Like, above, the way in 2013 Mayor Cooper tried to have the City Commission forgive the hefty 
fines that Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino accrued from the city and state for violating 
the city's own Code Compliance rules, by starting work on huge temporary buildings before they 
had any permits. They owed the city $52,000.

Gulfstream Park first tried to pressure city employees and when that didn't work, they simply called Mayor Cooper across the street instead of following established procedures and contacting the City Manager and the rest of the Commission to inform them and the public about their self-created "problems."

I remind you that this email below is esp. important given that unlike it has always done in 
the past, even when they were held at locations other than the HB City Hall Chambers, the 
city did NOT televise -via their cable channel- or video record last month's Planning & Zoning 
meeting held at Ingalls Park re the very controversial Chateau Square project proposed for 
the SE corner of US-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd., which comes before the HB City Commission 
next Wednesday night for the first of two required readings.
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Thursday, December 10, 2015

Confirming what most of us have long suspected, apparently, some #Broward cities & communities must be divided so that some political careers can manage to stay afloat. For instance, Eleanor Sobel's. Her track record in office is cringe-worthy!; Matt Dixon: Deposition questions partisan emails of redistricting plaintiffs

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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Questions are being raised -again!- about South Florida reporters' curious notions of journalism, esp. continuing to leave out important context & questions about ethical conflict-of-interest -and burying the lede- re the City of Hollywood, Broward County PBA, Traci Callari & Eleanor Sobel. "Hollywood suing pension boards over perk known as '13th check"

I'll admit it: I really hate lazy, incurious reporting that's neither accurate or timely, and which doesn't ask the questions that NEED to be asked to give proper context, yet, wants to take a bow for their effort anyhow.
And South Florida in the year 2015 is positively swimming in this sort of bad journalism.

 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Hollywood suing pension boards over perk known as '13th check'
Susannah Bryan, Staff writer
July 12, 2015

City Hall is taking on all three employee pension boards, saying their leadership broke state law by sending lucrative "13th checks" to retired firefighters, cops and other employees periodically over the past nine years.

The payouts have ranged from $200 to more than $26,000. The cost of the payouts next fiscal year comes to $9 million for all three pension boards, city officials say.

Hollywood commissioners agreed Wednesday to file a lawsuit against the pension boards for sending the checks to retired workers despite the pension plans being severely underfunded.

 Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/hollywood/fl-pensions-hollywood-13th-check-20150710-story.html

 Quick, can any of you tell me what important context is NOT mentioned at all in the above Sun-Sentinel article about the City of Hollywood's financial priorities, and where questions about any
prospective voting conflicts faced by City of Hollywood Comm. Traci Callari are, in my opinion, the buried lede?

For those of you who have either known me personally for a while, or perhaps have Followed me for any amount of time via the blog or Twitter, the answer is rather obvious.
Callari's own husband, James, i.e. Jamie, a City of Hollywood detective.
He's mentioned unfavorably in this 2005 NewTimes piece about the way the Broward PBA has for years attempted to make the HPD its puppet,
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/hollywoods-finest-6314673
and mentioned in this one from 2013 about his curious notions of.. well, let's just say it's NOT good.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-02-02/news/fl-dea-hollywood-clash-20130202_1_dea-agent-cones-hollywood-police-officer

Given what seems self-evident, Comm. Callari's husband would likely be slated to receive a generous check in the future if the city continued to do business in an obviously prejudicial way to current and future taxpayers and its own financial future. 
What's the reason that it isn't mentioned at all so that any reader reading this story might know this salient fact from the outset and be free to draw their own conclusions about Comm. Callari's sense of priorities, whatever they are, such as they are?


Correct. 
Once again it's asleep-at-the-wheel Sun-Sentinel beat reporter Susannah Bryan, the same reporter I've written about so often in this space because of my and many other SE Broward residents dissatisfaction with her.
Residents, civic activists and business people in Hollywood AND Hallandale Beach who want to know all the pertinent facts. 

 For instance, last September 26th:
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

Bryan consistently fails  to summon up enough strength or energy to actually ask reasonably-hard, pointed or even follow-up questions of public officials and city bureaucrats, especially in Hallandale Beach after they say and do things that logic can not explain by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes, the very same beat reporter that, years after-the-fact, has NEVER written at all -much less, knowledgeably- about the Broward PBA (intentionally?) breaking Hollywood's voter-approved city charter law about campaign election reporting requirements and contribution limits in Hollywood city elections.
Those new rules came about after Hollywood's appointed Charter Review Comm. responded to the public by getting it included on the ballot.

(I know because I sat in on some those Hollywood Charter Review meetings where increasing the expected levels of ethics and fair-dealing at Hollywood City Hall, and getting increased 
accountability and oversight for the public were stressed. 
As opposed to what actually transpired at Hallandale Beach's Charter Review meetings.)

That charter change took place BEFORE the Broward PBA's zealous efforts of November 2012 to oust several incumbentsand get at least one of their troika of candidates elected to prevent the public from keeping close watch over the purse.

The Broward PBA succeeded in getting Traci Callari on the Commission as a reliable pro-PBA and anti-taxpayer vote after ousting incumbent Heidi O'Sheehan, AFTER the Broward PBA forces were thoroughly trounced at the ballot box earlier by Hollywood voters across the city in a
referendum revolving around issues involving the city's union contracts/pensions and the city's budget hole, a vote that the Broward PBA and its president Jeff Marano has never either accepted or forgotten.

And let's not forget that it was the Broward PBA that got Florida state Senator Eleanor Sobel to have the City of Hollywood investigated by the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. in Tallahassee, since the Broward PBA endorsed Sobel and agressively worked the polls for her. 
Yes, the same Tallahassee group composed of state Senators and state representatives that Sobel DIDN'T want to see investigate the City of Hallandale Beach and her longtime friend, Mayor Joy Cooper, for their shockingly lax management, year-after-year, of the HB CRA, which saw $80 Million dollars wasted, with near-zero oversight.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/sandbagged-independent-audit-of.html

 Foe those of you who forgot or never knew about Eleanor Sobel's stealthy work to protect her friends and special interest group pals from any legitimate scrutiny and oversight, see my blog posts from:

 October 17, 2013
Instead of looking-out for you and your Hallandale Beach neighbors, HB's craven state legislators (Sobel, Gibbons, Jones & Braynon) are doing Mayor Joy Cooper's dirty work in Tallahassee, making excuses for her ten years of oversight/policy failures with the HB CRA; #JLAC
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/instead-of-looking-out-for-you-and-your.html

November 2, 2013 
Latest news re Hallandale Beach CRA: Where are Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief hiding? They're NOT adequately representing HB citizens who want to find out where the $80 Million in CRA funds has really gone; Response of JLAC re my inquiry re legislator's letters re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/latest-news-re-hallandale-beach-cra.html

November 29, 2013 
Sandbagged! Independent audit of Hallandale Beach CRA was in offing by Florida JLAC, but Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens/taxpayers get stabbed in the back by Eleanor Sobel, Oscar Braynon II, Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief. Why? To help HB mayor Joy Cooper preserve her facade that everything here is okay; @mayorcooper
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/sandbagged-independent-audit-of.html

Eventiually, the City of Hollywood sued the Broward PBA soon thereafter for breaking the city's campaign finance rules. 
So where exactly have you heard about THAT in South Florida?

For the record, as of today, the South Florida media parties who've never once mentioned these salient facts about Comm. Traci Callari includes the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Miami Herald, News4/WFOR-TV, NBC6/WTVJ-TV, WSNV-TV and Local10/WPLG-TV. 
Plus, rather predictably, the Hollywood Gazette and the South Florida Sun-Times. 
Which means everyone who OUGHT to be investigating and explaining the facts in a useful context.
#Surprise #NotSurprised

Which, of course, is why blogs like mine exist.
Unless something unexpected happens, this specific issue will be covered in more depth soon on my blog, with useful fact-filled links that connect-the-dots, along with a shout-out to former Hollywood civic activist Sara Case, co-editor of the greatly-missed Hollywood Balance Sheet blog. 

 Sara, now living up near Washington, D.C., is the only person besides myself to ever mention how very curious it is that such important facts and context about this matter of great financial importance to Hollywood residents and Small Business owners, never seemed to see the light of day in-print or on-air, despite how much people say they want to know MORE about what's really going on at South Florida city halls in general, and theirs in particular.
That speaks volumes about the current sorry state of journalism and the people who populate the news media in South Florida.

 Dave
Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth
https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
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