Showing posts with label Hallandale Beach Police Dept.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hallandale Beach Police Dept.. Show all posts

Friday, March 6, 2015

ICYMI: the DOUBLE Hallandale Beach connection on the recent story about fired Miami Gardens police chief arrested after a prostitution arrest; Surprise! It's City Manager Renee Miller and the Hallandale Beach CRA

In case you forgot about this -or never knew it- the former Miami Gardens deputy Police Chief Paul Miller referred to in the Miami Herald article below about the just-resigned Stephen Johnsonwho resigned amid allegations of harassment and illegal stop-and-frisk tactics at the 207 Quikstop, is the husband of current Hallandale Beach City Manager Renee (Crichton) Miller.






Renee Miller, whom you will recall like it was yesterday, is the very same woman who so famously and frequently lectured us over recent years at HB City Commission and CRA meetings that one of the reasons that SHE was so well-qualified to undermine the valid and scathing criticisms that you and I have so frequently made public with self-evident evidence about the longtime incompetent and unsatisfactory doings of the HB CRA and the equally-curious, perplexing (and unsatisfactory) 

policies and practices of HBPD that routinely wastes personnel and resources like there's no tomorrow, was because... SHE helped create and manage them in Miami Gardens before she was (so foolishly) hired here.

Of course, when a certain charming, well-informed and well-known female HB civic activist of our acquaintance decided to contact the City of Miami Gardens last year to inquire about this boast of Renee Miller's and put it to the test, the folks in Miami Gardens more than scratched their heads.
Let's just say that THEY didn't quite remember recent history the way our current City Manager tells it. 
Not at all. 
Surprise!

In case you missed the amazing recent This American Life segment on the Miami Gardens Police Dept. and the 207 Quickstop while Paul Miller was Deputy Chief, it's here.
You might want to sit down before you listen to it!


The second HB angle on the story is that Police Chief Johnson was the pastor at HB-based Bethel House of God Church at 516 NW 4th Avenue, a past recipient of HB CRA largesse.

You might better remember Bethel from this doc written by Marcum LLP, a January 2012 draft for the City of Hallandale Beach in the form of an Agreed-Upon Procedures Draft in response to the HBCRA's years of completely inadequate and invisible financial control over millions of HBCRA dollars by City Managers Mike Good and Mark Antonio and their two -and current- Assistant City Managers, Nydia Rafols and
Jennifer Frastai, former City Attorney David Jove, Mayor Joy Cooper and the four other members of the HB City Commission acting as the CRA Board, where nobody drawing a HB paycheck ever bothered to verify whether CRA funds were being spent properly or prudently, to say nothing of being spent as outlined in their own formal requests for funding.
Or, whether it had simply been used for pocket money. 

Which as we know from the Broward State's Attorney's Office, happened in the case of one of Mayor Cooper's most-vocal political supporters, Dr. Deborah Brownthe little minnow that was arrested per Inspector General: Hallandale Beach ‘grossly mismanaged’ millions in public funds
while no HB elected officials or bureaucrats were arrested or fired.

Or perhaps you know Bethel House better from this doc from 2012;

Yes, THAT Dr. Deborah Brown.

From last Spring:

BROWN, DEBORAH R

INMATE INFORMATION

Arrest Number: 801400840 Arrest Date: 05/19/2014 
Race: B Sex: F DOB: 10/09/1961 
Height: 504  Weight: 179 Hair: BRO Eyes: BRO 
Arresting Agency: MAIN JAIL 
* Location: Main Jail 
* Visitation: 2B View Schedule
* Expected Release Date:  

click to enlarge  

CHARGE(S) INFORMATION

Charge Number:1
Case Number:14006686cf10a
Statute:812.014-2c1
Description:GRAND THEFT>$300<$5000
Charge Comment:NIC
Charge Status:PENDING TRIAL (Surety Bond is pending)
Bond Type:BD
Bond Amount:1,000.00
Disposition:
Projected Sent. End Date*:
* Subject to Change

The Deborah Brown the city gave its MLK Humanitarian of the Year award to, remember, even as I discovered on my own -long before the Broward IG- that she was routinely failing to file required non-profit financial documents for her group with the IRS.
Not that anyone at HB City Hall was checking that.

The very woman who annually leased property from the city/CRA in NW Hallandale Beach for years for peanuts -$10.
AFTER the city poured lots of taxpayer money into it.

Property that as you'll recall had previously belonged to Comm. Anthony Sanders and his wife, which was bought from them by the city for about $89,000 more than it was actually worth.
And when time came to vote on the purchase, not surprisingly, Comm. Sanders didn't
have the good sense to recuse himself on the vote, as HB's former City Attorney David 
Jove, the legal bump-on-the-log waiting to retire and collect his pension, simply let it all 
slide, as he had for so many years.

Trust me, the Local10 video with Glenna Milberg, as well as my own comments, speak volumes: 



The Hallandale Beach scandal that won't go away

Above,  501 N.W. 1st Avenue, which in Hallandale Beach polite society and public policy circles is considered THE most egregious example of dozens of exasperating and highly-questionable examples of dubious government spending and crony capitalism that've taken place on Mayor Joy Cooper's ten-year watch, and one of the most dubious of any in Broward County, which is REALLY saying something. 
It's the infamous former property owned by HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and his wife, Jessica, that has seen so many tens of thousands of Hallandale Beach taxpayer dollars and CRA dollars poured into it. 
For what, THIS?

A property which was bought by the city without ANY plan for its future use, and which is now rented to a non-profit for $10 a year, and which Sanders can still use for free? 
(Some of the above is from 2012 blog posts.) 
The same public property that Deborah Brown's brother, Josh, used for some very curious purposes, including, perhaps, at least temporarily for purposes of running for office.
But isn't using that a prohibited purpose on public property? 

Yes.

The same public property controlled by Deborah Brown that had partisan campaign signs for Mayor Cooper, Comm. Sanders and Comm. Julian on it for WEEKS in 2012 prior to the November election?
Campaign signs on taxpayer property? Yes.





From my October 15, 2012 blog post titled, 'Ethics? Not for us! Follow-up to my post re Hallandale Beach's unethical "business as usual" attitude, with "special rules for special people" if they are named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders; What ethics? What rules? @MayorCooper, @SandersHB"

Deborah Brown's attack on a Keith London for Mayor volunteer at a HB election site at Ingalls Park in SW HB on Election Day in 2012 precipitated HBPD being called in to bring order there.
And actually having to keep many police officers on hand to make sure that Brown and 
other Cooper for Mayor supporters didn't start physically attacking their opponents -again.

Or did you never read about that bit of news in the Herald and the Sun-Sentinel?
For obvious reasons, you also never saw that fact appear in the HB CRA-subsidized South Florida Sun-Times, HB City Hall's propaganda sheet.
HB citizens' reality in the current media age is as certain as death and taxes: being ignored ad infinitum and watching as far too many print and TV reporters accept pablum from HB City Hall as an explanation rather than concentrating on what is right in front of them and raining cold hard facts down upon officials and forcing them to account for what REALLY happens here.

But then the reality here is that two groups that ought to be looking out for HB citizens, the Broward IG office and the Broward States Attorney office are NOT fully doing their job with any sign of gusto, either, given how much entrenched incompetency and corruption has been going for years in this target-rich environment.

As it happens, since I was at Ingalls Park within minutes of HBPD being called, I took several photos of all the HBPD cops forced to stand around for hours and hours doing nothing but drinking Cokes and playing with their cell phones.
I never ran the photos on my blog because at a certain point, even after all these years, no matter how hard I try to stay vigilant, how do you (I) accurately describe the surreal dimensions of HB's everyday reality?

Trust me, people in the rest of Florida and around the country can't believe what we routinely are forced to bear and to accept as "normal" every day in Hallandale Beach.
Nobody is going to help us but ourselves.
More thoughts on that next week.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Csaba Kulin sounds the alarm over Hallandale Beach City Hall's aggressive attempts to prevent HB citizens from knowing just how much taxpayers will be paying the Police under their new union contract and how they arrived at those figures; HB City Commission's First Reading on this item is tonight at 6:30 p.m.; decision on waiver of $450k in fines owed by Florida East Coast Realty to be decided tonight


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Today, courtesy of an email from my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach and Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin to City of Hallandale Beach Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield, City Manager Renee C. Miller, City Clerk Sheena James and the five members of the HB City Commission, plus others,  I have some amazing information to share with you regarding Hallandale Beach City Hall's aggressive attempts to prevent HB citizens  from knowing just how much taxpayers will be paying the Police under their new union contract, and how  they arrived at those figures. As per usual, I've deleted the email addresses for obvious reasons.

Also on tonight's agenda, 
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2013-03-20/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202013-03-20%2018-30.htm
will be the continuing debacle of a real estate developer trying to get out of paying $450,000 in fines it owes HB taxpayers, namely, Jerome Hollo and Florida East Coast Realty and its property next to the Mardi Gras on U.S.-1, which I've previously discussed here at the blog

You need to show-up and let your voice be heard -no handout$ to developers with no tangible plans to do anything with land but let it sit idle.

HB City Commission meets tonight at 6:30 p.m.

-----

March 19, 2013
Dear City Manager Mrs. Miller, City Clerk Mrs. James and City Attorney Ms. Whitfield:
The printed Agenda of the City of Hallandale Beach's City Commission meeting for March 20, 2013 at 6:30 PM lists item #14-B as Resolution to Ratify a Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Hallandale Beach and the Broward County Police Benevolent Association.
In reading the Supporting Documents of Item 14-B, I noticed that a part of the Agreement refers to modifications, i.e. additions to the existing and new pension systems.

The Florida Constitution and Florida Statutes (Exhibit 1) explicitly require an “actuarial review, and has furnished a copy of such statement to the division” prior to the last public hearing on retirement systems benefit changes.

I submitted a Public Record Request (Exhibit 2) on March 7, 2013 to inspect ALL actuarial reviews -and have reason to believe there is more than one- related to the current pension changes to see if the changes are being made on a sound actuarial basis. Taxpayer dollars paid for the report and taxpayers have a legal right under the Florida Constitution to see the public information BEFORE a vote of the City Commission is made, to ensure that the city is being diligent and following applicable state laws.

Exhibit 3 is the response I received from Mr. George Amiraian, the City of Hallandale Beach's Director of Human Resources on March 15th, 2013.
Item 1 of Mr. Amiraian’s e-mail refers to an Annual Actuarial Report prepared for an entirely different purpose, NOT for the current pension changes.In Item 2 of Mr. Amiraian’s e-mail he makes the claim that the City of Hallandale Beach is “exempt from public records disclosure” on account of ongoing negotiations with the Hallandale Beach Fire Dept., a separate unit, and for which a separate Annual Actuarial Report will eventually be provided to the city for their specific use in THOSE negotiations, a fact that Mr. Amiraian knows well, since he is a person who has been directly dealing with these issues for many years.

The claim of immunity would thus seem to be false because one Actuarial Report has nothing to do with another legally-mandated, taxpayer-paid for Actuarial Report, otherwise, there would be no need for the city to eventually receive a second Actuarial Report at the appropriate time that deals exclusively with HBFD. This is yet another fact well-known to Mr. Amiraian.

Since I attended the February 25, 2013 meeting of the Hallandale Beach Police and Firefighters’ Personnel Retirement Trust and Mr. Adam Levinson reported on the “Ratification of Actuarial Study Regarding Proposed Police CBA”. Mr. Adam Levinson, attorney representing the Trust, told me after the meeting that the “Actuarial Study” is a public document as of that time.

There was a mention that there are two additional Actuarial Reports, but they are not public records as of February 25, 2013. Further evidence of an existing Actuarial Report is the City Manager’s reference to the total dollar amount of savings without any detail as how she arrived at that number.  I'd like for you to review the entire issue of immunity in this case and notify me in a timely fashion why the City of Hallandale Beach is NOT required to adhere to the current applicable Florida state laws.

Additionally, I'd like for you to explain to me why the official “Actuarial Study” is NOT part of the publicly-disclosed "Supporting Documents" available to the public in sufficient time BEFORE Wednesday night's City Commission meeting to analyze its financial impact on their city's futures, since it's THE most-germane document there is. http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2013-03-20/Item%2014B/index.html

I believe I'm being entirely consistent when I insist that the citizens of this city have the right under Florida's Constitution to know ALL the pertinent facts in this important matter and know exactly much money the elected City Commission will be spending as well as how they will be making allowances for those particular costs in the future. In short, show the public how those specific costs figures were arrived at.

They have a right to know these facts BEFORE the Hallandale Beach City Commission votes on it, NOT months after the fact.
Given these facts, I'd like you to explain to me why Agenda Item 10-B should not be postponed to a future date until all these issues have been properly resolved and the city is in compliance with the letter and spirit of Florida's laws and Constitution.

Sincerely,
Csaba Kulin
   
Exhibit 1.
Florida Constitution
ARTICLE X MISCELLANEOUS
SECTION 14.  State retirement systems benefit changes.
SECTION 14. State retirement systems benefit changes.—A governmental unit responsible for any retirement or pension system supported in whole or in part by public funds shall not after January 1, 1977, provide any increase in the benefits to the members or beneficiaries of such system unless such unit has made or concurrently makes provision for the funding of the increase in benefits on a sound actuarial basis.
History.—Added, H.J.R. 291, 1975; adopted 1976.
2012 Florida Statutes
Chapter 112. PUBLIC OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES: GENERAL PROVISIONS
PART VII ACTUARIAL SOUNDNESS OF RETIREMENT SYSTEMS
112.63 Actuarial reports and statements of actuarial impact; review.
 (3) No unit of local government shall agree to a proposed change in retirement benefits unless the administrator of the system, prior to adoption of the change by the governing body, and prior to the last public hearing thereon, has issued a statement of the actuarial impact of the proposed change upon the local retirement system, consistent with the actuarial review, and has furnished a copy of such statement to the division. Such statement shall also indicate whether the proposed changes are in compliance with s. 14, Art. X of the State Constitution and with s. 112.64.
Exhibit 2.
March 7, 2013
Dear Hallandale Beach City Clerk,
I request to inspect the following documents under Florida Statue 119 from the City of Hallandale Beach Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Personnel Retirement Trust and the City of Hallandale Beach.

If for any reason you believe any of the requested material is exempt from Florida Statue 119 please list the exemption and fulfill the remainder of this request.
I would like to inspect the following documents:
1.    Copy of the Actuarial Study Regarding Proposed Police CBA.
2.    Copy of the Actuarial Study the City of Hallandale Beach has in its possession.
3.    Draft of the Pension Ordinance which will be presented to the City Commission and the residents in the near future.
After inspection, I will decide the documents I wish to have a copy of.
Please acknowledge my request and notify me with an estimate of the cost, if any, and when the records requested will be available for my inspection.
Sincerely,
Csaba Kulin

Exhibit 3.

From:
"Amiraian, George" 
To:
"Kulin, Csaba" 
Subject:
Public Records Request
Date:
Fri 03/15/13 05:09 PM
Attachments
Name
Type
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Part 1
text/plain
Part 2
text/html
Csaba, I have listed below the answers in writing to your Public Records Request received on March 7 2013
1. Copy of the Actuarial Study regarding Proposed Police CBA.
As previous discussed, the latest Actuary Study can be found on the City’s website www.hallandalebeachfl.gov
2. Copy of the Actuarial Study the City of Hallandale Beach has in its possession.
Also discussed, the Actuary Study that the City of Hallandale Beach has in its possession is exempt from public records disclosure due to ongoing negotiations with the Fire Union.
I hope this answers your questions.
George Amiraian
Director of Human Resources
City of Hallandale Beach
400 South Federal Hwy
Hallandale Beach, Florida 33009

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Why would you even consider voting for such a despicable person as Bill Julian for the Hallandale Beach City Commission? Besides Julian's creepy habit while an elected official of illegally parking in Handicapped Parking spaces for YEARS, when you add his truly terrible judgment and penchant for saying and doing the wrong thing, why would you even consider giving him a voice in deciding this city's future?; @SandersHB



May 16, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. 

Above, the official shield used to be used for "Official Business" only for former Hallandale Beach City Commissioner William "Bill" Julian, now running desperately to regain a seat on the City Commission. 
Julian claims in his campaign advertising to be honest and full of integrity, but the reality for Hallandale Beach's citizen taxpayers is that Julian is anything but that. 

Regular readers of this blog already know that's true because I've shown the damning evidence consistently over the years as it has grown, and you don't have to take my word for it, the evidence of Julian's own words and actions so overwhelming make the case AGAINST him
having any power in this community and any say-so about this city's future.

Here are just some of the most recent blog posts about Julian and his shocking lack of scruples: 

In Hallandale Beach, it's déjà vu all over again with Bill Julian's very sketchy ethics in plain view for all to see; In every way that is important, Julian is unfit to be elected and make decisions about this community's future, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/in-hallandale-beach-its-deja-vu-all.html

No longer a secret in Hallandale Beach: More details on Bill Julian's longstanding anti-democratic tendencies while HB City Commissioner - he wanted to require residency of 3 years in order to run for local office in HB!; The worst enemy of Bill Julian is a smart voter who pays attention and who possesses a good memory; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy


Classic Bill Julian being Bill Julian -Why the rush at Hallandale Beach City Hall in 2009 to buy the Sanders property, with no actual plan in place for its use? Julian -"for the good of many, many people in Hallandale." Just NOT for the good of HB's own taxpayers!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/classic-bill-julian-being-bill-julian.html

But the reality today is that lots of Hallandale Beach citizens and other interested parties are coming to this blog who have never done so before, and have no idea what I've written about Julian before in detail and with photos to prove it and who aren't interested in plowing thru the blog archives to find the dozens of references to Julian's displays of unethical behavior and incompetency -which continue to this day, as he illegally uses my copyrighted photographs on his campaign website and in his campaign advertising- so I'm boiling it down to the most egregious case.
The example that stands for everything else you need to know about Bill Julian, and which breaks the camel's back.

Have you ever heard the saying that how you act and behave when nobody can see you is when you really reveal your true character? I suspect, like me, that you have. 
So if that's true, what do you think it reveals about someone's character when they consciously choose -hundreds of times- to act in egregiously anti-social and illegal ways -and are brazen about doing so publicly on govt. property?

The vast majority of govt. officials who have a reason to carry a real badge denoting some power DON'T park in Handicapped Parking spaces like Bill Julian routinely did for MANY YEARS all over this city, but perhaps most egregiously, while hanging-out with his pals and eating and drinking at The Beachside Cafe at the city's North Beach. 
Why couldn't Julian just act like a normal human being, like a regular Hallandale Beach citizen, and simply park in the nearby city garage for $1 an hour? 
It would have been so easy. 
But that is not how Bill Julian rolls.

Instead, for many, many years, as regular beach-goers like myself and the young Jeff Ellis & Associates lifeguards could observe first-hand for ourselves, literally dumb-founded at Julian's sheer audacity, he regularly parked in THE only Handicapped Parking space at North Beach near the sidewalk. 

Or, if that space was occupied by someone for whom it was intended, equally as bad and carrying the identical FINE amount as parking in a Handicapped Parking space, Julian parked his car in the Handicapped Access parking space, a spot legally designated to allow cars and vans to help discharge people in wheelchairs or who otherwise required assistance getting out of a vehicle. But it's NOT for parking! 
And most assuredly, it is NOT for parking by able-bodied City Commissioners like Bill Julian to use and abuse. preventing someone who really needed it from using it. 

So why did Julian do it hundreds of times over the years, just like he routinely parked in officially designated No Parking or Emergency Only parking spots all over Hallandale Beach, whether retail, hotel, condos, et al?
Things that I and lots of other people have observed and commented on.

Hard as it is to believe, in my opinion, it's because Bill Julian feels a deep sense of entitlement and believes he is owed something by society at large.

It's the same troubling reason that when no citizens were present for a HB City Commission mtg. in Room 257 at City Hall, Julian brazenly made a motion to triple the salaries of HB City Commissioners like himself, voted FOR it -it passed- and said publicly afterwards that he felt like he ought to be paid like a corporate executive because of all the work he did in what everyone knows is a part-time job.

To me and many of the most concerned and well-informed residents of this small city, the photo I've chosen to place at the top of this blog post represents a lot of things, and one of them is that William "Bill" Julian was and is so full of himself that he had no problem in publicly identifying himself on his car's dashboard where everyone could see it.
It also shows that he wanted the people who could do something about it, his pals at HBPD, to know whom it was and to look the other way -because of who he was
Special privileges for special people.

And as you'd no doubt guess, the Police Dept. ignored what Julian did over-and-over.
Like hapless Sergeant Schultz in Hogan's Heroes, they "see nothing."   

What sort of person does this and actually flaunts it?

A person who publicly feigns modesty but who has clearly shown thru his own words and actions that he's full of pomposity, a sense of entitlement and possessed of a giant chip on his shoulder. 

Through these and similar acts that have happened hundreds of times over the years throughout this city while he was a public official sworn to uphold the laws of this state, Bill Julian showed what a truly despicable person he is.

When you add that knowledge to Julian's already well-known bad judgment and his knack for saying and doing the wrong thing, why would you even consider voting for such a person?
So DON'T!

Meet the new Bill Julian, same as the old one! And still utterly without remorse for any of the mountain of negative things he has done in the past to the residents and taxpayers of this city thru his bad judgment.


----------
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
For one politician, Hallandale Beach's land purchase seems heaven-sent
Michael Mayo, News Columnist
February 22, 2009

The Hallandale Beach City Commission moves in mysterious ways. Take the case of Higher Vision Ministries and the Eagle's Wings Development Center in the city's impoverished northwest area.

At a hastily called Feb. 12 special meeting, the commission approved buying the church-owned property where the Eagle's Wings community center stands for $235,000.

That's $35,000 more than the city's most recent appraisal of the land (in November), nearly $90,000 more than the value listed by the Broward property appraiser and $190,000 more than the church paid for the land in 2001.

Considering the way the economy and local real estate market have been tanking, that's a pretty sweet deal for Higher Visions.

So who runs the church and the social-service center? Pastor Anthony Sanders.

The same Anthony Sanders who's a Hallandale Beach commissioner.

"We were supposed to do this two years ago, long before I was on the commission," Sanders said Friday. "Back in early 2007, the price was $350,000. This should have been done a long time ago, but the city kept dragging its feet."

Sanders, elected to the commission in November after being appointed last summer, abstained from the 3-1 vote. He said the price was fair, noting two other appraisals that valued the property at $275,000 and $230,000.

But one city-sponsored appraisal put it at $147,000, and the most recent valued it at $200,000.

Given the circumstances, Commissioner Keith London (the lone dissenter) said the city should have waited longer. Or at least had the sense to take up the matter as a clearly labeled agenda item at a regular commission meeting.

The land purchase wasn't listed on the agenda for the special meeting. It was brought up as "other business" during the session called by Mayor Joy Cooper on an unrelated matter. The meeting wasn't held in the commission's usual spot where sessions are videotaped, but instead was in an upstairs room without cameras.

"Does this pass the smell test?" said London. "I don't think so."

You'd think Hallandale Beach commissioners, who took a public relations pounding for engineering a pay raise in a similarly sneaky way a couple years ago, would have learned by now.

The city, through its Community Redevelopment Agency, has vague plans to build an affordable housing project on the block where the center stands.

"We're doing it for the good of many, many people in Hallandale," said Vice Mayor Bill Julian, who approved the deal with Cooper and Commissioner Dorothy Ross.

London didn't understand the rush: "If somebody said we have to buy this parcel by a certain date to complete a plan or it will fall through, then I could see doing it. But there is no plan."

I called City Manager Mike Good to get their version of events but didn't hear back.

Sanders said the deal closed on Feb. 13, the day after the special meeting, with the money already in the bank. The Eagle's Wings center hasn't been given an eviction date, he said. The center, which provides computer and other training classes and submits food-stamp applications for residents, was open on Friday.

"Is it standard to buy a property from a commissioner and then let them use it rent-free?" London said.

Sanders said London is grousing because of "envy."

"This isn't a personal thing," London said. "It's a finance issue."

Sanders' church bought the property for $45,000 in 2001. Eagle's Wings has received $130,000 in city grant money this decade, along with county and state contracts. The nonprofit agency's 2007 tax return listed income of $113,190 in government grants.

Sanders, a longtime activist in the northwest area, said the city's purchase of the property is "just a drop in the bucket," noting the $12 million the city spent to acquire land for a park in a better part of town.

Sanders has been critical of the redevelopment agency's stagnant efforts in the northwest. Two-thirds of Hallandale Beach falls within the CRA boundaries, including robust areas near Gulfstream Park.

"When the economy was up, we didn't do anything [in northwest] and now the economy is down and they say we can't do anything," said Sanders. "So when can you do something?"

Seems like Sanders' commission colleagues have already done plenty for him.