"High Noon" in Hallandale Beach on Wednesday night? After so many months of HB City Hall intentionally stonewalling the public, the city's long-running CRA scandal and the Broward IG's damning report of the HB CRA Board, alleging "gross mismanagement" of millions of dollars, will FINALLY get a public airing on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at HB City Hall; Is the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. poised to come to the rescue of long-suffering HB residents who've longed for a complete audit of the entire CRA for many years, and want to see some punishment after years of ZERO accountability and little tangible to show for the MILLIONS that went out the door?

Above, looking north on U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway at the scene of so much of the toxic public policy problems in our small ocean-side city the past ten years, where logic, reason and integrity rarely if ever intersected, with residents, taxpayers and small business owners always taking it on the chin and the powers-that-be doing whatever they wanted with no fear of punishment: the Hallandale Beach Municipal complex, 400 S. Federal Highway. January 29, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. ©  2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

"High Noon" in Hallandale Beach on Wednesday night? After so many months of HB City Hall intentionally stonewalling the public, the city's long-running CRA scandal and the Broward IG's damning report of the HB CRA Board, alleging "gross mismanagement" of millions of dollars, will FINALLY get a public airing on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at HB City Hall; Is the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. poised to come to the rescue of long-suffering HB residents who've longed for a complete audit of the entire CRA for many years, and want to see some punishment after years of ZERO accountability and little tangible to show for the MILLIONS that went out the door?

Today's important blog post consists of two parts. The first is a group email that I sent out this morning around 8:45 a.m. to a much larger than usual number of people in South Florida and around the state, after having noticed a new and interesting post over at Broward Bulldog regarding the never-ending scandal that is the Hallandale Beach CRA, and the efforts of the powers-that-be at HB City Hall to cover-up all the financial facts for as long as possible and avoid a thorough audit by credible third-parties. It's pretty self-explanatory.

I also have something from somebody for you to peruse the insightful email that was sent out last week by former HB Commissioner Keith London regarding Wednesday night's important HB CRA Board of Director's meeting at City Hall, the very first opportunity the public has had to discuss this matter, despite the Broward Inspector General's report on the city's "gross mismanagement" having come out months ago.

Besides the usual assortment of well-informed Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Broward residents, activists and bloggers, and the handful of reliable news media members I trust, I also sent it to Florida Governor Rick Scott, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi,  Florida CFO Jeff Atwater, Florida state Senators Don Gaetz, Jack Latvala, Joseph Abruzzo and Jeremy Ring, state Rep.Lake Ray, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott and Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief, both of whom represent parts of Hallandale Beach in their district.

Sen. Gaetz is the Florida Senate President, Sen. Latvala is the Chairman of the Ethics and Elections Comm., while Rep. Ray and Sen. Abruzzo are the Co-chairmen of the important Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, which Sen. Ring is a member of.

Sen. Ring is the only state legislator receiving my email today who is actually from Broward County. 

You more regular readers of the blog who pay attention and who connect-the-dots quicker than the news media know perfectly well why contacting state Senator Eleanor Sobel and or state Rep. Joe Gibbons would've been a waste of time, reasons which I explained in a recent post about this matter.

I have previously discussed the work of the JLAC a few times before here on the blog and the important role they might have if the Broward County Commission didn't do anything last month, which is exactly what happened

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&File=index_css.html&Tab=committees

Local10 video: Hallandale Beach CRA accused of misspending $2.1 Million
Broward County Commission takes no action on audit request.
Reported by investigative reporter Bob Norman
Published On: Jun 04 2013 07:11:25 PM EDT, Updated On: Jun 05 2013 11:01:19 AM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/cra-accused-of-misspending-21m/-/1717324/20425002/-/3mpae4z/-/index.html

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Broward Bulldog

Hallandale may seek Attorney General opinion on CRA spending; statewide impact seen

By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 

July 9, 2013 AT 5:56 AM

Hallandale Beach city commissioners on Wednesday will consider asking the Florida Attorney General for a ruling on how community redevelopment funds can be spent, a decision that could have a far-reaching impact.

“This is an opinion that would affect every CRA in the state of Florida,” Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) attorney Steven Zelkowitz cautioned city commissioners at a recent meeting.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/07/hallandale-may-seek-attorney-general-opinion-on-cra-spending-wide-impact-seen/

Until I saw this article an hour ago, I was planning on sending out an email later this afternoon that I thought you'd find of great interest 

In it I'd cordially invite everyone to attend this "High Noon in Hallandale Beach" re the HB CRA scandal on Wednesday at 6 pm at HB City Hall, and come watch in awe as the city once again tried their best to obfuscate, lie and spin its way out of a hornet's nest while denying any culpability at all.

http://cohb.org/files/2013-07-10/Exported%20OV%20Docs/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202013-07-10%2018-00.htm

http://cohb.org/files/2013-07-10/Additional%20Information-%20Abruzzo-Ray%20Response%20Letter%20FINAL.pdf

And, of course, I'd have implores you of the great importance in attending this meeting so that you, too, can bear witness to what some of us concerned HB residents have been watching in plain sight for years while responsible parties did nothing but avert their eyes.

I call it "High Noon in HB" because of what's truly at stake tomorrow night:

HB City Hall's longstanding lack of ethical integrity and the CRA Board's desire to "Win friends and influence people" thru old-fashioned crony capitalism  and dollars not their own, with little-to-no public accountability, despite  lots of high-paid staff that never inspired confidence among the public and who never evinced much-if-any concern with such picayune matters as laws, norms and ethics, to say nothing of the community's long-term best interests.

Those of you who think you will hear an even semi-plausible or reasonable explanation from Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. Alexander Lewy and City Manager Renee Miller for why they have fought so hard to prevent a public meeting on the facts of this matter of great public importance, down to them publicly haranguing members of the public -and publicly haranguing other members the elected City Commission- who DID want to talk publicly

and candidly about it, and the millions of CRA dollars that have flown out the door with so little tangible to show for it, are, I'm afraid, in for a great deal of disappointment.

This is not Japan, so they will NOT apologize for their longstanding stonewalling, nor will they oblige you in trying to explain their stealthy actions and words of the past several months, just as they believe they never needed to publicly explain to you why they have fought so hard and for so long to prevent a public audit of the entire HB CRA from ever taking place.

And no, to answer another question I anticipate, you will also NOT hear any reasonable explanation tomorrow night, years-after-the-fact, for why Comm. Lewy, after midnight at a HB CRA meeting with few if any residents still in attendance, tried to funnel over $200,000 in CRA funds to a group controlled entirely by Comm. Anthony A. Sanders  and his wife, Jessica.

And to do so without ever mentioning the actual name of the group publicly, but instead, by erroneously referring to their so-called stellar track record.
A "track record" that the facts show is anything but stellar and a non-profit group which is and has been anything but transparent and accountable to the public for the money they've received for so many years from the city.

In other words, don't hold your breath waiting for battlefield conversions.

Below is the simple and common sense email from Keith London that he sent out last week to give the area an idea of what was really going on, and which I forwarded to many of you here in South Florida and around the state who are not on his email distribution list.

By the way, as of this morning, I've still NOT received all the public documents I formally requested weeks ago via a Public Records Request about Mayor Cooper, City Manager Miller and lobbyist Judy Stern and their intense lobbying efforts to prevent the Broward County Commission from voting for an audit of the HB CRA via the Broward County Auditor's office.

Surprise!!!

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NOT in my email but posted here on the blog for your information and education:

The reference above to Comm. Lewy refers to his actions and words at the public meeting of July 19, 2011, mentioned in my blog post of August 1, 2011

While you were sleeping: Comm. Alexander Lewy's budget chicanery & Liberal Guilt just cost you another $200,000-plus. For what and for whom, exactly?

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/while-you-were-sleeping-comm-alexander.html

See also:

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Csaba Kulin asks Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield THE question HB citizens have long wondered, esp. as the Broward IG's Office has been busy investigating the city and turning-up mountains of incriminating and jaw-dropping evidence: Who at HB City Hall is supposed to make sure that applicable laws, ordinances and rules, especially those regarding ethics and conflicts of interest, are followed and enforced fairly? Teaser Alert: You won't like her answer

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.ca/2013/05/csaba-kulin-asks-hallandale-beach-city.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Keith London
Date: Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 10:30 AM
Subject: Finally- Hallandale's First Public Meeting to Discuss the Response to the OIG Report

Share

Everyone, This is a reminder there is a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 6:00PM of the City Commission in conjunction with the Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (HBCRA) Board of Directors to review and discuss the City's/HBCRA's Final Draft Response to the Broward County Office of the Inspector General's Investigative Report. The response to the OIG and Florida Legislature is due on 7-16-13, two weeks from today. There is NO back up material at this time. This meeting would not be taking place if not for Commissioner Lazarow making a motion seconded by Commissioner Julian and majority voted by Commissioner Sanders. Copper and Lewy voted NO to a public meeting and would still like everyone to believe nothing happened. The following are the links to the documents from the Broward OIGs office for your review: Broward County Office of the Inspector General, “Regarding Gross Mismanagement of Public Funds by the City of Hallandale Beach and the Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency: The Inspector General made various recommendations on report page 56 related to ensuring the independence of the CRA and requested a status report by July 16, 2013. We are interested in the policies and procedures that City and CRA management intend to implement to ensure compliance with the requirements of Chapter 163, Part III, F.S. Letter from the Florida Legislature Joint Legislative Auditing Committee requesting the following: Please provide documentation to support how the initial amount was determined. If any estimates were used in determining this amount, please provide an explanation of the basis for using such estimate and how the estimated amount was calculated. Also, please provide the detailed spreadsheet that Ms. Ladolcetta references in her response.   Please provide the specific authority upon which the City relied to use CRA monies for the above-noted expenditures. Absent specific authority to support the use of CRA monies for expenditures not authorized by Chapter 163, Part III, F.S., or not included in the CRA Plan, it appears that the CRA monies should be restored to the CRA Fund. In addition, to resolve the disagreement, we request that the City Council, sitting as the governing board of the CRA, request an opinion from the Attorney General regarding the specific expenditures in question. The City Council should ask the Attorney General the following question(s): (1) Is the use of the CRA funds for such expenditures allowable under Ch. 163, F.S.? and (2) if not, should the City restore the funds to the CRA? In addition, we suggest that the City Council agree to abide by the Attorney General’s Opinion. Please provide a copy of the status report to the Committee at the time it is sent to the Inspector General. Hallandale’s Staff Response to the preliminary OIG report. This is referred to as “staff’s response” because the meeting next week is the first time the OIG report is an official agenda item. To date, there has never been an official motion, resolution, vote or action by the city commission or CRA board of directors related to this important issue. The lack response and oversight of this issue by Cooper has cost the taxpayers an additional $40,000 for the CRA attorney because of the additional work necessary to appropriately respond to the OIG Report and the Joint Legislative Committee Letter. In Cooper’s and Lewy’s opinion, this issue is being appropriately handled by the City and CRA attorneys and requires no further discussion or explanation to the public; hence no transparency.  Please clickhere to listen and watch the June 17, 2013 CRA meeting: But Cooper and Lewy refuse to respect the opinion of The State of Florida Attorney General the highest attorney in the great State of Florida. Please read the opinion here. Please plan on attending this meeting and supporting open transparent government. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need additional material. Regards, Keith Keith S. London   Cell: 954-494-3182 email: keith@keithlondon.comwww.keithlondon.com

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Don't say it with flowers, say it with subpoenas! Subpoenas finally drop on the heads of Hallandale Beach officials, including Mayor Joy Cooper, and now the Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. is showing genuine interest in getting the WHOLE TRUTH from the HB CRA about what happened to all that money. Yes, the scandal in Broward County involving MILLION$ that the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and their Dana Banker & Rosemary Goudreau have been ignoring for months. Future owners of the Sun-Sentinel, please take note!

Local10 video: Hallandale Beach CRA accused of misspending $2.1 Million
Broward County Commission takes no action on audit request.
Reported by investigative reporter Bob Norman
Published On: Jun 04 2013 07:11:25 PM EDT, Updated On: Jun 05 2013 11:01:19 AM EDT

http://www.local10.com/news/cra-accused-of-misspending-21m/-/1717324/20425002/-/3mpae4z/-/index.html

Legislature asks Hallandale for answers about CRA spending; Subpoenas land at city hall browardbulldog.org/2013/06/legisl…
— Broward Bulldog (@BrowardBulldog) June 10, 2013

My comments after the article. 
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Broward Bulldog

Legislature asks Hallandale for answers about CRA spending; Subpoenas land at city hall

By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org  

June 10, 2013 AT 6:15 AM

The Florida Legislature’s joint auditing committee is wading into Hallandale Beach’s questionable spending of local redevelopment funds, demanding that city officials explain the use and handling of those funds.

Legislators who head the committee also are urging the city commission to ask Florida’s Attorney General for a new opinion to clarify how Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) funds can be spent. City leaders have challenged a previous opinion.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/06/legislature-asks-hallandale-for-answers-about-cra-spending-subpoenas-land-at-city-hall/

While all you regular readers of the blog know by now that I've written FL state Senator Jeremy Ring about the HB CRA scandal before, perhaps some of those fact-filled emails I also sent to the fair-minded state legislators on the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee and certain members of the FL House and Senate leadership who still genuinely care about public accountability and the public good, emails that I've never mentioned before, have finally worn away their natural skepticism that things here in Hallandale Beach at the CRA could really be as bad as we all knew they were in fact.

Nothing like having the facts on your side in an argument, and we've all collectively had facts by the mountain-lode from the very beginning.

HB City Hall, on the other hand, had it much easier.

There, highly-paid city employees only had their never-ending desire to keep Mayor Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew happy, and spending money where she wanted it spent, without having those pesky problems of caring what actually happened to the money or even whether it was spent the way it was supposed to, albeit, for impermissible purposes.

Finally, a few rays of sunshine...

This afternoon, former Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London, a friend, sent the following comments out over the transom, and I thought they were worth your attention.

 

Everyone,

Last week Commissioner Michele Lazarow and I spoke to the Broward County Commission regarding the “Gross Mismanagement” by Hallandale Beach of its CRA.

On Friday I received a copy of the letter from the Florida Legislature Joint Legislative Committee demanding specific action(s) by the city of Hallandale as outlined in the Broward Office of the Inspector General official report title “Gross Mismanagement”.

As a “concerned citizen” I also spoke with the Florida Auditor General’s office and requested they perform a complete audit of Hallandale CRA under Florida Statue Chapter 163. I was pleased to see their office was copied by the Florida Legislature Joint Legislative Committee letter on Friday.

In addition, the State Attorney’s office has issued subpoenas to the city of and at least one elected Hallandale Commission member seeking documentation into the “criminal investigation” of Deborah Brown.

The above information is vastly different than the story Cooper portrays in her writings in the Sun Times last Thursday (the newspaper which receives $50,000 annually from the City and a CRA grant of $25,000) – click here.

The State Attorney’s Office, Florida Legislature Joint Legislative Committee, Florida Auditor General, Broward Office of the Inspector General, and The Broward County Commission will surely enjoy reading the rants of denial in her article while the investigation continues. 

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* I'll have a video posted here very soon of the comments that Keith and HB City Commissioner Michele Lazarow made last Tuesday before the Broward County Commission so that you can hear them for yourself.

Officially, those photos that I sent some of you by email last Tuesday afternoon of Keith London and Mayor Joy Cooper at the Broward County Comm. meeting ran at the Broward Politics blog, so if you were to go to the Sun-Sentinel's website, they don't appear in search results.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-keith-london-joy-cooper-20130604,0,4413456.photogallery

Here's the link to the reader comments to the strange S-S photo gallery of Tuesday, the one that incorrectly implied that Mayor Cooper would speak, which if the Sun-Sentinel's Tonya Alanez had simply read the agenda docs, she'd know that was NOT going to happen.

http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/gallery/sfl-keith-london-joy-cooper-20130604/sfl-keith-london-joy-cooper-20130604-002/10

Not that they went back to correct that, after-the-fact, as would happen at most newspapers!

And where's any mention of what was actually said about the HB CRA at that meeting, either in the morning or later in the afternoon on Tuesday?

There is NONE.

If you want more proof of the Sun-Sentinel's obliviousness to this story, consider this.

If you do a search on the S-S website itself, there's nothing on their website about the HB CRA scandal or what Keith London or Comm. Michele Lazarow have said about it, whether last Tuesday or in the past few months, even though it's clearly news.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=%22Hallandale+Beach+CRA%22&btnSubmit=&target=adv_all&date=&sortby=contentrankprof&spell=on

0 results for ‘"Hallandale Beach CRA"’. Showing 0 results for‘"Hallandale Beach CRA"’.

Sort by: Relevance | Date

No Results Found

So, obviously, there's also no high-minded editorials from them about the HB CRA scandals and HB City Hall's longstanding lack of ethics.

LOL!

In fact, what Michele actually says or does or thinks about any issue of any kind at HB City Hall has never caught the attention of the S-S since her election in November.

Nothing about a single issue in 7 months according to their own records!

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=%22Michele+Lazarow%22&btnSubmit=&target=adv_all&date=&sortby=contentrankprof

Yes, despite everything that has happened here over those same seven months.

Your first reaction upon hearing this likely to shake your head and say 

"How in the year 2013 can that be true?"

There's your local news coverage, Sun-Sentinel style.

Some well-informed people around Broward have been suggesting something to me for many months and now I'm officially going to share this bit of groupthink with you, though that was before I started hearing last week that subpoenas were on the way:

They believe that Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo has thrown in the towel on HB and is no longer going to get exorcised by what  happens here, since he believes that the Broward State Attorney's Office doesn't want to do their job and neither does FL Attorney General Pam Bondi's office, either.

They further believe that Mayo sees writing a column about HB, like he once did fairly frequently for a few years, as a losing proposition, and that he no longer thinks it's worth the time or effort because nobody cares what happens here.

In that respect, he'd just be like News4, NBC6 and 7News, who have been invisible on this story.

* Attention future owners of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Here's your snapshot of newsroom editor Dana Banker's commitment to fair-minded local news coverage as viewed thru the prism of someone who lives in my city and who is well-informed -nothing.

And let's not forget Rosemary Goudreau, the editorial page editor under whose leadership nothing about the HB CRA scandal has ever appeared in print.
You know, in case facts matter.

Mark your calendar for June 4th! Latest news re controversial Hallandale Beach CRA: Keith London set to appear at Broward County Commission and urge them to heed the recommendations of the Broward IG's damning report on HB CRA, urge Broward County Auditor to perform audit and get a full-accounting for HB taxpayers of where the $70 million has gone; Need to get FL Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. more involved, per my previous emails to Sen. Jeremy Ring

Received the following message Tuesday afternoon from my friend and former Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Keith London, and post it here today with the sincere hope that many of you who are reading it now will take full-advantage of the information he provides, and start planning on being in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday June 4th, 13 days from now.

I strongly encourage you to show your support for the things I've been writing about here on the blog for so many years -genuine transparency, meaningful oversight and real accountability in local govt.- and your opposition to the people at HB City Hall, now and in the recent past, who've actively worked to keep the public in the dark, by joining me and others to stand up for clean government at County HQ.

Below Keith's email is an excerpt of the April 23, 2013 email that I sent to Sen. Jeremy Ring of the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, a group of state legislators in Tallahassee that I've long believed needed to get involved, too, and request an audit.




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Here's some more info on the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&File=index_css.html&Tab=committees

I strongly encourage you to also contact Sen. Jeremy Ring, who's actually on the Committee,  as I did, to let him know how you feel about your CRA dollars being continually squandered for so many years and the people responsible for it STILL being without any sense of remorse.

.

The Senator's email address is "Sen. Jeremy Ring" <ring.jeremy.web@flsenate.gov>

The reference below is to Bill Gjebre's Broward Bulldog article of April 23rd, 2013 titled, 
Broward Inspector General: Hallandale leaders don’t know what they’re talking about

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/04/broward-inspector-general-hallandale-leaders-dont-know-what-theyre-talking-about/

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April 23, 2013

Dear Senator Ring:

Below, just in time for Wednesday's print edition of the Miami Herald, is more proof of the longstanding corruption, crony capitalism and serial half-truths practiced by the powers-that-be at Hallandale Beach City Hall. 

It's just the latest of several shoes to drop, and certainly won't be the last.

For the good of the residents, taxpayers and small business-owners of this beleaguered community that have been lied to constantly and intentionally by Hallandale Beach City Hall, literally, for years, with millions squandered in the process, with almost nothing tangible or of value to show for it, 

I formally request that you and the Joint Legislative Audit Comm. authorize a top-to-bottom audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA as soon as is practicable.

The very people entrusted by this community to perform their duties with respect for our state's laws as well as with financial common sense and diligence, have instead serially abused that faith and their power by engaging in this illegal, despicable and incredibly incompetent behavior, and are the very same ones who have worked hardest to prevent a full-scale audit of the city's CRA from taking place over the past few years, no doubt for fear of what the public would ultimately discover.