That stink you smell is coming from Wilton Manors' cocky lawyer/lobbyist/mayor, Gary Resnick, who doesn't much care for Ethics rules that negatively affect his own wallet

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Over the past few weeks, many well-informed observers of the Broward political and govt. scene have surely asked others they trust in private, "What is it with Gary Resnick?"

Alternatively, they've asked themselves, "WTF is with Resnick?"

Those of you reading this today obviously know which camp you're in, though you can be in both, of course.

Like me.

Does Resnick honestly think that the Broward County Commission-approved Ethics laws that are supposed to govern the conduct and behavior of all elected municipal officials in Broward, among many others, was just a strong suggestion?

What are the real reasons that have animated Resnick's fervent efforts the past few weeks to figure out a way to obfuscate, blunt and somehow overturn those clear-cut rules on Ethical conduct, so that they do not apply to him and his small fiefdom north of Fort Lauderdale?

There are lots of reasons to choose from, and obviously only Resnick knows the real ones, though surely they can't be the transparently self-serving ones he's been offering up to the local South Florida news media that has drawn gasps of dismay from county residents and activists, can they?

Oh yes they can!

Hmm-m... let me restate that last point.

To be factual, I should say the local South Florida news media in the singular form of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, as they have done the lion's share of the reporting on this issue.
The four English-speaking TV stations and the Miami Herald -with the exception of a two-minute segment by Channel 10's Bob Norman- have yet to engage any of their own reporters, columnists, producers or cameramen in a SINGLE hour's worth of reporting or investigating on the story, and get the answer directly from Resnick and his band of acolytes at Wilton Manors City Hall or outside of his law firm's office.

Why? 

Do I REALLY have to tell you? 

Not if you are a regular reader here and are aware of the shallow-end of the journalism pool that South Florida has unfortunately drawn in these early years of the 21st century.

Channel 10 News
Bob Norman's Blog
Resnick wants to keep lobbying
Published On: Jan 16 2012 09:20:39 AM EST  
Updated On: Jan 16 2012 09:37:09 AM EST
Video at: 

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Wilton-Manors-mayor-undercutting-ethics-reform/-/3223354/8148064/-/14v1vb9z/-/index.html


This being Broward County, where it's far easier for a person publicly doing the wrong thing to get friends, acquaintances and supporters to stick-up publicly for their own bad judgment and uncouth behavior than it is for the South Florida news media to find any fair-minded people of stature and accomplishment in the community to point it out, as would happen in other parts of the country, I encourage you to not only watch the Bob Norman video, but to peruse the reader comments as well.

You see, this being Broward, the reader comments contain public cheerleaders for Gary Resnick's behavior and attempts to 'secede' from the county's ethics law, which he finds so troublesome for his personal bottom line.

Not surprisingly, one of them is a longtime pro-union, Democratic Party functionary named Ron Mills, the president of the Dolphin Democrats, which he describes as "Florida's oldest and largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Democratic club."

He is also the person behind the blog called Broward's Blog, http://browardsblog.blogspot.com/

In my opinion, Mills' comments on the Channel 10 website speak for themselves, just like Resnick's audacity and gall.

It seems to me that if, like Mills, you hold your friends to a lesser standard than you would tolerate in others, have such a high tolerance for uncouth and unethical behavior by your friends and people you support politically that you've got no problem in publicly making pathetic excuses for their inexcusable actions or words, you're clearly going to be labeled a hypocrite publicly in the future when you try to use your perch to point-out smaller moral and ethical deficiencies in people whom you oppose politically.

At that point, people are more than entitled to disregard your opinion in the future, given your own opaque outlook on ethics, and the difference between right and wrong.

You tell me, is Resnick doing it and thinking he can get away with being so ballsy because he is an elected official in an otherwise obscure one-horse town, where most people outside that duchy of his prefer cars as transportation?

Is it because Resnick lives in a county where other elected municipal officials rarely if ever criticize or call-out another, and most of the local public policy groups that in other parts of the country might be engaged and call him on the carpet, instead maintain their Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil policy of looking the other way?

Is it because Resnick is an attorney who lobbies other cities in Broward County for his clients, yet has so perfected his wax indignant pose, that when people paying close attention to what he's actually doing publicly use the word "lobbyist" as a pejorative, just like it was applied so frequently and accurately for years to lawyer lobbyist Steve Geller -the previous champion of lawyerly distinctions-without-a-difference- he practically pouts, hurt by your critical words?

Is it because Resnick is so cocky, and thinks that by being upfront about it, that somehow mitigates what he is attempting to do, burrow underneath an ethical fence that is supposed to be a barrier to self-serving behavior, a move made necessary  because of so many recent ethical lapses by elected officials in Broward, big fish and minnows?

In this situation, Resnick truly seems to want to ignore both the spirit and the letter of the law, one passed unanimously-if-unhappily by the Broward County Commission last year.

Or, could it just be that Resnick -like everyone else down here with a pulse and two eyes- knows that the local news media is NOT exactly a beehive of eager worker-bees who give 110% on local news stories, so because he's the Gay mayor of a heavily-Gay city, he thinks that if he gets any sort of serious push-back on the issue, he can always pull out the 'victim card' from his back pocket, flash it to the news media, and maybe even play them a tune on his tiny violin?

Maybe it's some weird combination of all these things that make Resnick think that he and his tiny town are above the rules that govern everyone else.

They aren't, of course, and the proof of that is that you can smell HIS stink all the way down on the Broward and Miami-Dade countyline.

With or without an ocean breeze.

Read the following and draw your own conclusions about this 'character" and watch as things begin to heat up on this issue starting Tuesday, when he attempts to go over, around or under the ethical wall of conduct.

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward politicans need to choose: Lobbying or public office, not both
Ballot measures would undo new ethics code in some municipalities
Michael Mayo, Sun Sentinel Columnist
January 23, 2012

Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick has taken some heat lately, for good reason. He's been leading the charge to undo some provisions of Broward county's strict new ethics rules for municipal officials, which took effect Jan. 1

Read the rest of the column at:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-01-23/news/fl-ethics-vote-mayocol-b012412-20120123_1_new-ethics-code-mayor-gary-resnick-broward-cities

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Wilton Manors leaders accused of 'scare tactic' over ethics ballot measure
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
9:03 p.m. EST, January 25, 2012

Wilton Manors voters are being encouraged to approve a ballot measure Tuesday that weakens the brand new Code of Ethics. According to Mayor Gary Resnick and City Manager Joe Gallegos, the code requires advisory board members to share their salaries with the public.

But that's not true, Gallegos acknowledged Wednesday.

The Code of Ethics has no such requirement in it, despite what he and Mayor Gary Resnick have said publicly. 

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/wilton-manors/fl-wilton-manors-misinformation-20120125,0,6413170.story


South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Mayo on the Side blog
Are ethics code foes distorting the truth?
By Michael Mayo
January 25, 2012 09:32 AM

As part of the effort to weaken Broward's tough new ethics code in some local municipalities, are some officials distorting the truth to rally support for their cause?

I ask because it seems salary-disclosure requirements might not apply to appointed advisory board members, contrary to what Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick told me in an interview on Monday.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/mayo/blog/2012/01/are_ethics_code_foes_distortin.html



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My three most recent posts that mentioned both the new ethics laws in Broward County among municipal officials and Gary Resnick's rather strange understanding of them, all from this month, are here in chronological order:


Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all! 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/broward-cities-need-tougher-ethics-laws.html 

My coda to "Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols"; Debby Eisinger's curious fact pattern

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-coda-to-broward-cities-need-tougher.html

Please stick to your guns on stronger ethics and do everything in your power to prevent Mayor Resnick & Co. from beginning the race to the bottom of the ethics barrel in Broward
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/please-stick-to-your-guns-on-stronger.html

Please stick to your guns on stronger ethics and do everything in your power to prevent Mayor Resnick & Co. from beginning the race to the bottom of the ethics barrel in Broward

Above, looking NW at the Broward County Government HQ at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. January 3, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.


Below is a copy of an email that I sent Friday morning to Broward County Commissioners Suzanne Gunzburger, Barbara Sharief and Chip LaMarca, along with Broward's Inspector General John W. Scott, with a cc to Robert Wechsler, one of the national voices for ethics and transparency in local and state government in the U.S. at cityethics.org, where he blogs on what's going on -or isn't- at http://www.cityethics.org/Blog-RobWechsler


I later sent a copy of it to selected people I know in Broward, South Florida and Tallahassee who have a strong  interest in the issue of stronger ethics at the local level in Florida, where most of the corruption currently exists for the most obvious of reasons -opportunity, lack of oversight, morally-compromised and beholden city attorneys, and lack of adequate press coverage.


The same group whom I sent a copy of my previous posts last Sunday about Wilton Manors mayor Gary Resnick and Cooper City mayor Debby Eisinger, whom in my opinion, thru their own words and actions, have come to personify the anti-ethics reform crowd in this county. 
Apparently, nothing can be allowed to stand that threatens their perceived power in their respective fiefdoms.


Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all! http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/broward-cities-need-tougher-ethics-laws.html 

My coda to "Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols"; Debby Eisinger's curious fact pattern

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-coda-to-broward-cities-need-tougher.html

From my perspective, to put it bluntly, this issue will go a long way towards deciding, before this year's elections, whether or not Broward County's civic activists and organizations are actually prepared to 'walk-the-walk' and get actively engaged, or whether it will be yet another completely uninspiring example of them collectively taking-a-powder, and shying-away from the issue and opportunity to both say and do the right thing for the larger Broward community.


In other words, being a real 'player' in the community who has earned their reputation from actually doing something more than sending out press releases, holding press conferences or taking the side of the real estate/development and business establishment in every fight.


And do I even have to mention here how laughably preposterous objective and well-informed people here view individuals and groups who continually and blindly take the side of the local Broward Democratic Party's top honchos, and the way the party does business?


Especially given what a laughingstock so many of them have made of themselves over the past ten years, given how dependent so many of them are on lobbying local, county and School Board officials?
They are walking-and-talking conflicts-of-interest, unable to separate the personal from the professional and hoping to deal with others with a similar personality.


In my opinion, there are a lot of civic, professional, ethnic community and business groups in South Florida, and Broward County in particular, that want to be taken seriously by the public at large and the press corps, but who seem to have gotten a little too comfortable over the past few years sitting on the sidelines, when it would've been better for everyone involved to have had them actively engaged on community issues that were outside their usual or parochial bailiwick.


I've mentioned the name of some of them to those of you whom I communicate with fairly regularly, and as you more regular readers to the blog know, I was personally less-than- thrilled at the apathy shown in Broward by some of these same groups when the official Florida Senate congressional and legislative redistricting meeting finally hit town.


Nobody had the foresight to actually host a pre-meeting get-together so that open-minded citizens could get an overview of what they would later see presented, and what other options were reasonable that were in compliance with the FairDistricts requirements that Florida voters overwhelming approved.
Instead of seizing the opportunity that was just sitting there, these Broward groups, individually and collectively, did NOTHING.


Simply put, it's time for them to get off the sidelines and cowboy up, or risk becoming superfluous to what takes place in the future.
I'm not the only one who's paying close attention to see who does what.
Just saying...


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Per Brittany Wallman's to-the-point Broward Politics blog post of Thursday,
Wilton Manors' Resnick seeks to undo parts of new ethics code, on Jan. 31 ballot
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2012/01/wilton_manors_resnick_seeks_to.html
I merely reiterate to you all what I wrote Sunday - 
Broward cities need tougher ethics laws... 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/broward-cities-need-tougher-ethics-laws.html


Having read her story that included this newest grab-bag of excuses offered up by Mayor Resnick, I will make arrangements next week to try to speak to you all for just a few minutes to let you know why I believe that standing silent in the face of this frontal assault on the new ethics rules is a losing proposition for everyone in Broward County who wants this area to not obly have a higher Quality-of-Life, but a higher quality of civic life, too.


Lower standards might be why some businesses choose to relocate to some foreign countries, but lower standards and the perception that some municipal elected officials in Broward have an upside-down understanding of what public service is, should never allow that to become SELF-SERVICE.


But that seems to be exactly what Mayor Resnick desires for himself.
Me, I don't think the people of his city or this county actually owe him a certain economic position in life, nor do I believe that a city should be allowed to simply opt-out so that that their mayor and his pals can ignore laws he finds personally constricting economically.


I know what side of this ethics fight that I'm on, and having attended those early morning Broward Ethics Comm. meetings, I'm equally happy if not more so to let everyone I know learn what sorts of characters are behind this effort, and the sorts of damnable, self-serving excuses that are being trotted-out to try to justify this insulting end-run around a standard that actually means something.


Mr. Scott, IF you need a Broward citizen to make a formal complaint to you in order to get your office officially involved in this matter, I'm only too happy to volunteer. 
Frankly, given what I've seen and heard first-hand from attending those Ethics Comm. meetings, often dumbstruck at the transparent early attempts by some members to water-down anything that had any teeth to speak of, it'll be my pleasure.


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Since I wrote this on Friday and Monday is a holiday, I'll post any received email comments, official or otherwise, later in the week to give people some time to formulate their own thoughts. But you're welcome to respond here on the blog, too, of course. 

Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all!

Broward cities need tougher ethics laws, not self-serving pols like Gary Resnick & Debby Eisinger, whom we need like more bad restaurants, more ruined-views of the beach... -NOT at all!


Or, in terms that residents in my part of traffic-gridlocked southeast Broward County particularly well understand, whom we need like more creeps who illegally park in disabled parking spaces.
Like former Hallandale Beach Comm. William "Bill" Julian, who turned doing something morally contemptible into an art form while he was in office.


His years of serial illegal and appalling behavior with respect to this easily-understood law, one so simple that even children know what's right and what's wrong, is one that I and so many other HB citizens have observed first-hand dozens and dozens of times, and have described here on the blog numerous times in the past, complete with photos.


(All you have to do is do a simple word search for "Julian" in the search box at the top of the right column.)


But as we know so well in this county and this part of Florida, unrepentant pols like Julian seemingly have no qualms about using their perceived power to try to get away with completely inexcusable behavior until they're finally caught by people in authority who don't care who they are.


In part, because pols like Julian know that they generally have little to fear from South Florida's current press corps, whose dedication to strong and intensive coverage of local government news, is clearly much weaker than it is in other parts of the country -though less and less so there, too- despite giving it lip service on their editorial page.


Safe in his foreknowledge that under Police Chief Thomas Magill, the Hallandale Beach Police Dept.'s many years of unwillingness to ticket him and treat him like they would any other citizen would continue -despite how obvious his behavior was, with his name clearly evident on the dashboard- the bitter proof of Julian's unrepentant and unethical behavior is not just his complete unwillingness to admit his behavior and apologize to the public, which has STILL never taken place, but rather that Julian actually dares to run again this year for the City Commission this coming November -after being rejected in his re-election in 2010 and coming in third in a three-way race- and imagines that the question of his moral unfitness for office and general incompetency won't come up.


As if we had all developed a case of collective amnesia about Julian's YEARS of clownish, churlish and uninspiring behavior, on and off the dais. 
We haven't.


Given what I've written here so many times in the past in this space about the need for stronger ethics rules in Broward County and the creation of an Inspector General's office, as well as the need for those more-stringent rules to have full effect in Broward's thirty-SOMETHING municipalities and grand duchies, I draw your attention now to something truly eye-opening that ran in the Sun-Sentinel last weekend, which many of you out there in the blogosphere may well have missed due to holiday planning or football bowl game-induced slumber.

www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-ethics-ordinance-in-effect-20111231,0,3978237.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

County ethics law already changing Broward's city governments

By Ariel Barkhurst, Sun Sentinel

11:11 PM EST, December 31, 2011

The strict Broward County ethics code goes into effect for city leaders on Monday, but it's already having an impact on how elected municipal officials approach their jobs.

Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis said his consulting business had to give up some Broward County clients, since the new definition of lobbyist incorporates some of what he does.

Oakland Park Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue resigned her positions with the Broward League of Cities and the county's trash contract management board because "those meetings are full of lobbyists," and she doesn't want to get in trouble with the new requirement to report contact with contractors, vendors and lobbyists.

Many mayors and commissioners say from now they'll takes notes if anyone approaches them about city business in case the conversation might qualify as contact with a lobbyist, even if the conversation happens at a grocery store or a movie theater.

When the strict code goes into effect Jan. 2, it will bring a "new normal" to the way city officials operate, said Jacob Harowitz, a partner with Goren, Cherof, Doody & Ezrol, P.A., a firm that provides legal services to many local cities.

"It's going to be very easy for us to get into trouble with this new law," Boisvenue said. "I support it, but it's going to be very easy to get tripped up."

The law was demanded by voters in November 2010. In Broward County, 15 city, county or school board members or their family members have been charged with or imprisoned for public corruption crimes in the past three years.

The code forbids taking anything — even a mint — from lobbyists, contractors or vendors; taking gifts greater than $50 in value from anyone at all; sitting on or influencing selection or evaluation committees within the city; and lobbying other governments in Broward County.

The code means officials have to document how much they make at their day jobs, every time they raise money for charity and every time they meet with a lobbyist, vendor or contractor, and it means getting 8 hours of ethics training every year. Most of the rules apply to elected officials' close family members, too.

Most city officials have opposed the code at every step and fear it will impede their ability to govern.

The Broward County Commission voted on Oct. 11 that the rules they've labored under since August 2010 apply to city officials, too.

Officials tried to block or water down the ordinance by arguing it would lead officials to resign, keep them from raising money for charities, deter people from entering politics, isolate politicians from residents and reporters and create opportunities for prosecution of officials for petty, accidental violations, such as accepting a cup of coffee from a lobbyist.

"I know what's right; I don't need an ordinance telling me what to do," Ortis said in May.

Since the Oct. 11 vote, there has been plenty of hand-wringing as municipal leaders educate themselves about the new rules.

"I think the county commission kind of threw out the baby with the bath water," said Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick.

Good communication between residents and officials is going to be harder, he said.

"You have to be so careful now about everything," Resnick said.

A few cities, Wilton Manors and Hillsboro Beach among them, have placed charter changes on their Jan. 31 ballot to supersede the new ethics law.

The changes ask voters whether elected officials should be subject to Florida ethics law in their day jobs, rather than the Broward County law. That would mean leaders in those cities don't have to disclose how much they make in their primary employment, and they can keep lobbying if that's part of their job.

"It makes sense in these smaller communities to do this," said Resnick, who sometimes has to lobby in his job as a partner with Gray Robinson, P.A. "There's a limited number of people willing to volunteer their time."

Most officials have gone to seminars put on by city attorneys in the past few months to brush up on the code's implications.

Some have been frightened by their education.

"I've already seen people backing off from being involved in charity," said Cooper City Mayor Debbie Eisinger.

"There is still a lot of confusion," said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler.

Some, though, think the rigor of the new law is a good thing.

"As an elected official you live in a fish tank now," Boisvenue said. "Everyone can come and see what you're doing and how big your fins are. There's never a time you're not an elected official."

Reader comments at:

http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-ethics-ordinance-in-effect-20111231/10

After reading this, I immediately thought of two separate things I'd read before that dealt with Gary Resnick's longstanding unhappiness with increased scrutiny on behalf of the public good.

Did you?

The first was from just over two months ago:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward Politics blog 

Live blogging: The Code of Ethics passes unanimously

By Brittany Wallman 

October 11, 2011 02:55 PM 

That particular blog post included many delicious tidbits re lawyer/lobbyist/mayor  Resnick, of which the most prominent was:

Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick is being used as an example of a lobbyist who will be in violation of the Code of Ethics if it passes as-is.

The Code says a politician cannot lobby 'across,'' meaning lobbying in other City Halls in Broward.

That's what Resnick does, Commissioner Lois Wexler said. Resnick's in the audience.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/10/live_blogging_the_coming_code.html

This particular Broward Politics blog post followed by four months a previous Brittany Wallman post that also dealt with stricter ethics laws in Broward and once again, Gary Resnick found a way to shine.

That is, if by "shine," you mean found a way to put a verbal noose around his own neck thru his self-serving choice of words.
I do.



Broward Politics blog
Wilton Manors' Resnick: New ethics code would cause mass resignations
By Brittany Wallman June 8, 2011 08:06 AM

If the politicians in all the City Halls have to live with Broward County’s new ethics code, some of them just might quit.

That’s what Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick warned the County Commission on Tuesday, as he and other city officials asked for a more lenient set of ethics rules for the 150 elected officials in Broward’s 31 cities than the ethics code that applies to the nine county commissioners right now.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/06/wilton_manors_resnick_new_ethi.html

So here's a great question I deliver on a silver platter for South Florida's news media.
Why don't you all ask lawyer/lobbyist/mayor Gary Resnick to publicly give you the names of any Broward municipal elected officials who have resigned if this was as ONEROUS as he claims?

As of today, six months later, there have been exactly ZERO resignations.

I believe that is the exact opposite of MASS RESIGNATIONS, correct?

So why no follow-up?


Gary Resnick is yet another example of a Broward pol who remains remarkably aloof and  tone-deaf with respect to both the appearance and reality of ethical conflicts, and compounds that by thinking that by being ballsy, nobody would notice and take his words seriously.

I not only noticed, I remembered that verbal noose he put around his own neck.

And frankly, I felt it was time to give it a good yank right about now.


Perhaps you all in the South Florida press corps might want to actually ask Mayor Resnick if his intuition and powers of observation while up on the dais are equally inaccurate and inept, or whether he simply misunderstood the depth of the public's dis-satisfaction with what has been going on in this county for years, with all the self-dealing and crony capitalism.


And while you're at it, don't forget to ask anyone who does resign -if ever because of this legislation- what their problem was with following the will of the people.

As for Gary Resnick, perhaps he might understand it better in terms he understands.

On November 4th, 2008, Resnick was first elected mayor of (the diminutive People's Republic of) Wilton Manors, despite the fact that he garnered only 44.25% of the total mayoral vote, receiving 2,349 votes, while 2,959 voters opposed him. 

Roughly 603 more voters in Wilton Manors opposed him than supported him, but he was still considered the "winner."

http://www.browardsoe.org/ERSummary.aspx?eid=101

He seemed to understand THAT part of the simple math.

That same day, on the question of Broward County Charter Amendment 8, 57.30% of all Broward voters that day -322,974 to be exact- said YES.

That's a clear majority.

So why does he have such a hard time understanding what THAT vote of 38 months really meant, and why does he and so many of his pals at City Halls across this county like Cooper City's Debby Eisinger think they're irreplaceable, and above the scrutiny, when the preponderance of evidence I've seen after eight years suggests that most Broward municipalities are NOT particularly well-managed, and are certainly NOT responsive to taxpayers?

For the record, also, not mentioned in the Barkhurst article from last Saturday is that Sam Goren and his law firm made money from not just individual Broward cities, but also from the Broward League of Cities -which is to say, from Broward taxpayers in member cities- who tried to audaciously kill this overdue legislation with their (Debbie Eisinger's) letters to area charities that basically threatened them to put pressure on Broward commissioners -or else.

Would love to see something at the Sun-Sentinel or Herald or local TV create an easily understood chart or graph, that shows exactly how much Broward's cities have paid to the Broward League over the past five years.

For the cities involved, it's like free money, but it's not, is it?

Nope!

It's real money that continues to be mis-spent on lobbying and legal efforts to keep the average citizen taxpayer in Broward at heel -and at a disadvantage.
With Sam Goren's help.