Having a long tradition of 'White Flight' and a large part of Hallandale Beach's community, essentially, boycotting the local public high school, Hallandale High School, is nothing to brag about. Unfortunately, it's been the sad reality under Mayor Joy Cooper; One of the persons at Hallandale Beach City Hall most-responsible for nothing changing for the better on this issue, Jennifer Frastai, will speak at Tuesday's meeting re education policy in Broward, at Hollywood City Hall at 6 pm. But Frastai won't talk about the real problems here -anything but that!; @MayorCooper

Above, as it has been for many years, one of my three photos of Hollywood City Hall that are three of the first six photos you see on Google Images when you look up Hollywood (FL) City Hall
It's currently #2 after having been #1 for years. I'm always surprised that there aren't more older, historical photos of this or the previous Hollywood City Hall listed on Google. Looking west towards Hollywood City Hall from the half-circle in front of the Hollywood branch of the Broward County library. June 2, 2008 photos By South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

I realize that for some of you, much of the following will seem like ancient history once again repeating itself, and some very bad history at that, but stay with it.

Most people don't know the same facts that you do, and they deserve to.

My comments are after the announcement.

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

From: News and Announcements <listserv@civicplus.com>

Date: Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:51 AM

Subject: Hollywood to Host Consortium of Broward County Education Advisory Boards

View this in your browser

The City of Hollywood Education Advisory Board is participating in a forum of 16 education advisory boards from throughout Broward County to exchange information, explore issues affecting education, and discuss new Broward County School District initiatives. A meeting of the Consortium of Education Advisory Boards will take place Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. in Room 215 at Hollywood City Hall, 2600 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood. Meetings of the Consortium are typically held on a quarterly basis.

One of the topics that will be discussed during this meeting is the Hollywood City Commission’s recent passing of a resolution opposing the practice of high-stakes testing in the public schools. Donna Greene, vice chair of the Hollywood Education Advisory Committee, will make a presentation about the process of gaining Commission support for the resolution. Additionally, Jennifer Frastai, assistant city manager of the City of Hallandale Beach, will discuss the reorganization of the Hallandale Beach Education Advisory Board and Renee Grutman, chair of Cooper City’s education advisory board, will discuss Cooper City’s Resource Fair.

You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to News and Announcements on www.hollywoodfl.org.  If clicking the link doesn't work, please copy and paste the link into your browser.

Since I'm on the mailing list, why am I getting this announcement for the first time the day before it happens?

Do you recognize that name above, Jennifer Frastai?

She's one of the two Hallandale Beach Assistant City Manager whom I and many other concerned HB residents and small business-owners hold personally responsible for much of what doesn't work or has seldom-if-ever worked properly within the City of Hallandale Beach's inefficient and bewildering bureaucracy, few of whom actually live here.

(The other is Nydia Rafols, whose fingerprints, like Frastai's, are all over the lousy public policies currently pursued here, and the self-evident problems that never get resolved, esp. involving the city's Dept, of Public Works, which is forever chasing its tail and making no progress on matters, years after-the-fact.)

In my own opinion, and in the opinion of many other Hallandale Beach residents who actually pay close attention to what actually happens in this city -an effort in contrast to the local South Florida news media, print or TV, or the taxpayer-supported faux newspaper that was specifically and negatively cited by the Broward Inspector General in his report on corruption at HB City Hall, the South Florida Sun-Times- Frastai is someone who has largely escaped the sort of negative public scrutiny that in many other parts of the country would be hers, given her very mixed -at best- track record.
Especially given how many things Frastai has touched over the many years that are no better now than they were years ago.

Given the important topic under discussion on Tuesday night in Hollywood, Education Policy in Broward County, it's important to note that she's the same HB city employee who spent almost 25 minutes of a recent HB City Commission meeting talking about the high-minded "changes" to the HB Education Advisory Board when it needed, maybe, 10 minutes.

I know because I was there in attendance and taped it on my camcorder.
I deleted it once I got home and listened to it again because of how ponderous and unrealistic it all seemed given where we are and given her own record while acting as the city's liaison for education for years.

The faux earnestness with which she spoke was especially meaningless and even irritating given how this city currently operates, a point that was hammered home subsequently by Mayor Cooper herself, as if I could have written it any better, complete with punchline.

Mayor Cooper has wasted little time and has promptly and predictably shown how little regard she had for this high-minded effort to reach out to new faces and new people in the community and get them involved.
People with varied backgrounds and perhaps even some educational/childcare expertise on the Education Advisory Board.
Yeah, it sounds great in the abstract, but what about in reality?

Mayor Cooper showed her true colors and provided the punchline by re-naming her tennis pal, Barbara Southwick, to the same Education Advisory Board that she's already been on for years.

So much for dynamic changes!

So what was all THAT talk about positive changes and new faces, then?

Yes, Joy Cooper, the longtime Hallandale Beach mayor who has NEVER once publicly called for or even convened a single community-wide meeting or forum, say on a Saturday morning morning, that dealt exclusively with any of the myriad of difficult education issues and very real challenges facing this city.
A city where hardly any kids who live east of U.S.-1 -where most of the population is- actually go to the public high school that's in this city.

Having a tradition of White Flight and a large part of the community, essentially, boycotting the local public high school, Hallandale High School, is nothing to brag about.

(And who has been the Education point-person at Hallandale Beach City Hall while all of this was allowed to happen, year-after-year?
Jennifer Frastai.) 

Real estate brokers covering S.E. Broward sure don't boast about THAT fact it when talking to families considering a new home in HB, esp. those moving to the area from out-of-state, do they?
And why would they, since the basic facts would cause most reasonable people to question why they should want to move here if the people who already live here WON'T send their own kids to Hallandale High School.

But then that's been Hallandale Beach City Hall's modus operandi for so many issues under Joy Cooper the past ten years -if she pretends the problem doesn't exist, it doesn't.

And you can be pretty sure the news media will ignore it completely, too, which makes everything worse, since there's no public pushback against bad public policy that doesn't help anyone, yet continues year-after-year.

For those of you who don't already know, Jennifer Frastai, one of the speakers Tuesday night is the same person whom I spoke to for almost an hour to in the HB City Manager's conference room four-and-a-half years ago with another HB Assistant City Manager present who hasn't been around for years, Franklin Heileman.

Yes, just the three of us in the HB City Manager's conference room.

I described to her in detail just about every single problem and every single example of HB City Hall's longstanding myopia, incompetency or lack of oversight that I'd personally observed -and taken photos of- one neighborhood at a time, and placed on my blog.
That's why it took almost an hour.

The truth is, though, there were always a lot more photos and examples I didn't post but could have.

And just so you know, just as I reminded them that wasted afternoon, everything I mentioned was something I'd already communicated to the very people at HB City Hall who were supposed to be in charge of that, so I already followed the chain-of-command.

But it was broken, apparently, permanently.

Even though no organizational flow-chart of the city or even a complete list of areas of responsibility existed then or even currently at HB City Hall or on the city's website, I made an effort to find out who the right person to talk to was.

And in ZERO instances did any of the city employees I communicated with actually do anything to resolve the problems facing HB residents, taxpayers and small business-owners.

Really.

Why do you suppose I started my blog in the first place, anyway?

Simply to complain about stuff?

Hardly.

At one point, about ten minutes into this, after writing some things down, Frastai put her pen down and looked at Heileman sitting right next to her at the other end of the conference table, and asked if all the things I was saying were true, and, implicitly, whether I'd really mentioned the problems and posted these photos on the web.

I'll give Heileman credit at least for being honest about that, since he just nodded, because he knew it was all true.

She seemed a bit stunned.

We then went mentally thru a tour of a city where City Hall couldn't or wouldn't see longstanding problems right in front of residents' noses every day, inconvenient reminders that city employees ignored problems that needed to actually be solved.

Well, despite my reminding Frastai that photos of everything I said were already on the Internet, with its location, length of the problem, et al, on my blog, in case she wanted to confirm my comments, and despite my having given Frastai multiple ways of contacting me my phone or email to let me know what she'd done, she NEVER did anything about the problems I mentioned to HER that afternoon.

She never contacted me, either.

Frastai's the same person whom former City Manager  Mike Good put in charge of making sure that the newly-purchased recyclable bins were placed on the beach in places where beach-goers could use them, to make it as easy as possible, after I criticized both of them at a City Hall budget meeting in 2009.

(Yet it still, needlessly, took many months and even now, is inconsistently done, and seems to be organized in such a fashion to make it for the convenience of city employees, NOT actual beach-goers, the same way the city continues to mis-allocate picnic tables down at South Beach, while there are only two at North Beach, which are often monopolized all day.

The city has foolishly re-purposed hundreds of the recyclable bins to be used for regular garbage and city employees actually hide them, which is why you don't see recycling bins near the baseball stands at Blusten Park all these years later, while they remain next to the fence on S.W. 5th Street, some of which have not moved in years.

Why did taxpayers pay for something that the city has no clear intention of using properly and with common sense?)

Most of which I mentioned here last June 15th,

Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's old threats & lawsuits re-emerge as Hollywood's  Beach One Resort sues over its access to the beach, the latest shoe to drop in The Related Group's Beachwalk project that'd make HB's North Beach a defacto private beach for The Related Group's properties, NOT a public beach for HB residents

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-coopers-old.html

By the way, I think it's awesome that this Education meeting in Hollywood tomorrow is scheduled for the same time and date that the City of Hallandale Beach is hosting their beach re-nourishment meeting over at The Hemispheres Condos.

Yes, the meeting with responsible federal and state officials who, presumably, know what they're talking about and who'll be straightforward with those of us who show-up, creating a real nice contrast with what we usually get at most HB meetings, where blame is placed on outsiders -or those of us here in town who favor genuine reform and transparency- is thrown, to say nothing of the mis-direction, half-truths and spin dumped by the barrel-full.

But NOT a forthright discussion about public policy where ALL the germane facts surrounding an issue or vote are publicly revealed -or even given to the City Commissioners by the city staff, as CRA meeting of February proved- and of the problems that are before us.

Because, apparently, the unvarnished truth seems to really hurt someone's feelings at HB City Hall, so instead, we get the charade of democracy, not the real thing.

Year-after-year...

Above, screenshot of Broward Schools Superintendent Robert W. Runcie, from a May 2012 Channel 10/WPLG-TV newscast on the necessary budget cuts and changes that he needed to institute throughout Broward to make the school administration more accurately reflect the smaller student population and need for paring the budget.

Important day of reckoning for Broward County Schools, taxpayers and parents is at hand: Wednesday's coming clash in Plantation between Broward County's eastern schools and western schools on boundaries -and which schools, if any, need to be CLOSED or consolidated due to costs and students leaving for charter schools; BCPS Public Hearings to Discuss 2013-2014 School Attendance Areas, Usage Recommendations

I received the following very important message this afternoon via email from the City of Hollywood that should be of more than passing interest to the residents, taxpayers and parents of Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Dania Beach and other communities in eastern Broward County, who for so long have complained about the Broward School Board's expenditures flowing to the western part of the county that were growing in population, even as the eastern schools were being "neglected" from their point-of-view.

In Hallandale High's case, it not only was demonstrably true, but well-documented, as I've made perfectly clear in the past here on the blog, thanks to the diligent and thankless efforts of a few, including my hard-working friend, Catherine Kim Owens.

Well, that looming date for a battle over which Broward schools are doing well enough to be kept largely as they are, and which ones that are consistently under-performing, for so long, an academic question with a date far in the distance, seems to finally be at hand.
As all who follow education policy hereabouts must admit, many Broward schools are increasingly empty, since as of May of 2012, Broward Schools has lost 35,000 students in the past 5 years, many to private schools and Broward's charter schools.

It's Wednesday.

Don't doubt for a moment that some very unpopular lines may finally be drawn in the sand and made permanent.

-----

The Broward County School District has scheduled two public hearings to discuss 2013-2014 school attendance areas and school usage recommendations for all elementary, middle, high and combination schools. The District will hold the at the Plantation High School Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 27, 2013 and Wednesday, April 3, 2013.

WHO: Broward County School Board Members, Superintendent, 
          Demographics and Student Assignments Staff, District Staff, 
          Parents and Community

WHAT: Broward County Public Schools Public Hearings on
           2013-2014 School Attendance Areas and School Usage  
           Recommendations 

WHEN: Public Hearing I – Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at 5:30 p.m.
           Public Hearing II – Wednesday, April 3, 2013 at 5:30 p.m.

WHERE: Plantation High School, Auditorium
             6901 NW 16th Street, Plantation 

The Superintendent’s final 2013-2014 school boundary recommendations based on community and School Board input can be viewed at the Demographics & Student Assignments website (http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/dsa). For additional information, contact Jill Young, director, Demographics & Student Assignments at 754.321.2480.

More business-as-usual at Broward School Board is NOT good news for students, parents or taxpayers; Why the need by Broward Schools officials to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?; the very curious Hallandale High School roof situation reveals much about School Board's culture; Why is South Florida news media largely ignoring Broward Schools Diversity Comm. and their Audit Comm.?

CBS4 News/WFOR-TV Miami video: Broward Committee Demands Action For Dilapidated School. Reported by Natalia Zea. February 28, 2011 10:42 PM. Article at 

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/02/28/committee-demands-action-for-dilapidated-school/

Despite what she promised over 20 months ago, above, Broward School Board member Ann Murray never kept her promise to the community most directly-affected -Hallandale Beach.
In fact, she has assiduously avoided coming here and being subject to answering pointed questions from constituents about her behavior, judgment and votes.

It's an all-too-familiar refrain from Ann Murray -spouting nonsense, and thinking that the public will fall for her lies.

My last blog post, on various aspects of education policy, corruption and the recent election of new people to the Broward School Board, 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/speaking-of-diversity-and-backsliding.html
had far too much information to digest for for one post, so I've decided to split it in two and have migrated the second part of it  here so that the important issues I raised can get the proper attention they deserve.

Why the need to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?

Just for the record, I'd like to state that among sincere people I know who are very concerned about education in this city, for both educational and business reasons, they honestly feel they've never publicly received an adequate public explanation for the cancelling of the follow-up tour earlier this year by the Broward Schools' Diversity Committee at Hallandale High School, and the overriding of a vote to have the meeting.

So there's no confusion on this point, Supt. Robert W. Runcie and School Board member Ann Murray are the ones who specifically owe this community a full explanation, not staffers.
Runcie said nothing about it on his recent trip to Hallandale Beach City Hall.
But that doesn't mean that people here have forgotten.

According to people who are in a position to know, Ann Murray and her crew looked at the numbers at Hallandale High and made the decision that they were fine with what they saw, and then she made the decision to NOT have the School system's Diversity Committee re-visit the scene of the crime.

Now onto the case of the curious leaking roof at Hallandale High School...

  From: Michael J. Marchetti
To: andrew@addinsol.com
Cc: RR ; Ann Murray ; Laurie Rich Levinson ; Robin Bartleman ; Patricia Good ; Benjamin J. Williams ; Nora A. Rupert ; Maureen S. Dinnen ; Donna Korn ; Katherine Leach ; charlotte8@comcast.net ; Thomas E. Lindner ;mjmsplace9@aol.com ; Patrick O. Reilly

Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 9:47 AM
Subject: Hallandale High Re-roof Project


Andrew,

In reviewing the agenda items for tomorrow's board meeting I came across item number JJ7 to re-roof HallandaleHS. To my surprise FCM is utilizing the TPM delivery method which is something FCM management told the Board they would not use anymore. As you know TPM is almost identical to the CM@Risk delivery method that allows the District to negotiate as apposed to seeking the lowest contract amount through a competitive bid process. Again, FCM management when asked by the Board specifically said Cypress and Palmview were the last of these types of projects.

In review of the GMP numbers the proposed cost of work is 1,221,678.00 plus fees of 378,000. That translates to the District paying 30% of the cost of work in fees alone. Also noted FCM is justifying these numbers based on an audit done in 2007 by an outside firm when construction costs were at their highest. And finally FCM notes that the plans have been permitted under the old 2007 code but will be resubmitted to the new 2010 code. Why in the world would FCM negotiate a TPM contact with a roofing company as apposed to  hard bidding it after they had a permitted set of plans based on the new code? I suspect one of their answers would be that we came in under the approved budget. This is no special accomplishment when you consider that FCM establishes the budget themselves. If you set it high enough you can always look like a hero. The only way to get to the real number is to competitively bid the job.

It is hard for me to grasp the recent behavior of FCM management. They rushed to issue an NTP for the Zone 4 project when everyone knew there was a problem with the contract. I don't have exact numbers for the settlement but I am sure that cost the District needlessly as FCM management continued to argue on behalf of the contractor. They also continue to argue on behalf of the contractor for delays on the Cypress El. Kitchen project. This despite their own staff and now our internal auditors saying those claims are not justified. FCM and the contractor are claiming that a CCD was not promptly processed by the project manager that caused this extraordinary delay. If this were true FCM management should be held accountable for not having any kind of management report that would have red flagged this over site. The question is how does an important CCD go unprocessed for months without upper management not knowing this. Did they forget to discuss this issue in their staff meetings for six months?

Most recently I notified FCM staff and the Superintendent that they had issued a notice to proceed on the Cooper City HS phased replacement project with only a foundation permit. Again in complete contradiction to FCM management claims to the Board they would never start a project without a complete set of plans that was fully permitted. This past and now current practice of starting projects without complete plans and a permit have been denounced in the past two grand jury reports as always costing the District needlessly.

At the most recent Board workshop on the capital budget I spoke about the Stranahan HS funding of items that are clearly not an emergency or the most critical need of the District. This at the very workshop that Capital Budget came to announce to the Board that their intention was to only fund emergencies and equipment breakdowns because of the shortage of capital funds. Even the most casual observer could look at these events and see despite all of the verbose claims of being fixed and we have better processes now and better people in place are just empty words with no facts to substantiate them. It is clear to everyone that it is business as usual. It is especially clear to the employees who work hard and try to improve the organization that they must keep their heads down in fear and hope they are allowed to remain as FCM management is in the process of purging good employees while hiring more people they can trust to sing in the chorus of we are all better now. Singing in chorus will not change the facts that while claiming financial hardship FCM is authorizing and arguing on behalf of contractors to needlessly spend precious capital funds with no one holding them accountable.

Because the meeting is tomorrow and there is no time for discussion prior to the meeting I am copying the Superintendent and the Board on this issue so they are aware.          

Michael J Marchetti

Physical Plant Operations

Zone 2, Supervisor I

(I've deleted the email addresses and phone numbers that appeared above -except one.) 

In a related matter, who the hell in the Broward School system specifically told members of the Diversity Committee NOT to speak publicly to the news media about what they'd seen and what they knew? 
That person or group of people need to be publicly identified and fired -today!

And seriously, would it kill the local Miami TV stations and newspapers to get off their asses and actually try to find out why administrators feel there's a need for a system of omertà among community volunteers who are, alternately, getting stabbed in the back or getting the shaft from elected officials?

Some of the longstanding personal animus against Murray and which is starting to develop against Supt.  Runcie in this community is directly attributable to the way the Diversity Comm. has been handled and the general state of things at Hallandale High School, though in my case, it doesn't happen to be the only reason to be against Murray.
That's a much longer fact-filled bill of particulars!

-----

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FDLE: Contractor allegedly billed school system for Hummer repairs, Disney trip

Records shed new light on district dealings

By Megan O'Matz, Sun Sentinel

October 13, 2012

More than 250 pages of newly released interviews taken in the state's now-closed corruption probe of Broward Schools contain fresh allegations of a contactor padding bills, employees moonlighting on the job and managers shirking their duties.

Among the jolting assertions in the documents obtained by the Sun Sentinel are the reported actions of an executive of The Weitz Company, a construction firm that did considerable business with the school district.

Joanne M. Lenz, a former Weitz employee, told Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents that her boss, Rick Kolb, had billed the school district about $5,000 for personal expenses, including repairs on his Hummer and a family trip to Disney World. The costs were hidden in invoices submitted to the district for new elementary school cafeterias that Weitz built, Lenz told FDLE under oath in June 2011.

She also told the investigators that in 2008 Kolb helped arrange for a golf tournament to benefit the Broward Education Foundation, a School Board entity that awards scholarships. Kolb recruited subcontractors he did business with to participate at a minimum cost of $2,500 for four players, she said.

When the subcontractors later were awarded school district jobs through the Weitz firm, Kolb added the golf tournament entry fees to the bills submitted to the district and then reimbursed the firms, Lenz said.

"The way the School Board was treated was unfair," Lenz, now a data processor at a Broward school, told the Sun Sentinel Friday.

Kolb was not charged with any crime. He could not be reached for comment Friday through his current employer, Suffolk Construction in West Palm Beach. The FDLE documents do not indicate whether Kolb was asked to give his side of the story.

Weitz's senior vice president of Florida operations, Jon Tori, declined comment Friday, saying he was unaware of the allegations made to FDLE.

Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie, who took over the district last year after the investigation ended, said Friday he is working to eradicate mismanagement, corruption and fraud.

"The game's over," he told the Sun Sentinel. "There's a new sheriff in town. We're going to make sure we operate with integrity and that we focus our efforts on doing what's in the best interest of children. Always."

Among his priorities, Runcie said, is hiring additional internal auditors to ferret out waste and abuse.

The documents obtained by the Sun Sentinel are summaries of interviews FDLE conducted on behalf of a Statewide Grand Jury impaneled in February 2010 at the request of then-Gov. Charlie Crist to investigate public corruption.

The Grand Jury did not indict anyone but released a scathing report in February 2011 saying the Broward School District was so grossly mismanaged it could not be explained by incompetence alone but must involve "corruption of our officials by contractors, vendors and their lobbyists."

From the spring of 2010 through most of 2011, school employees, board members, and vendors were invited or subpoenaed to talk to FDLE.

Much of what the individuals told investigators has been widely reported: that the district was a place where contractors were paid in full despite not finishing jobs, safety inspections were compromised, shoddy workmanship was ignored, board members interfered in day-to-day operations and cronyism drove decisions.

But the fresh crop of documents from FDLE provides new insights into district practices and relationships. Often the information provided to state investigators dealt with the alleged misdeeds, large and small, of School District personnel.

Among the assertions: one district employee was selling hurricane shutters on school district time. Another: real estate.

One employee testified that his job included shuttling School Board members to and from the airport and escorting district "guests" around town.

Another described how a school roofing job, botched by one contractor, was given to another, which was found to be a paving company -- not a roofer.

In the process, the paving company hired an engineer, who hired a lobbyist: the husband of former Broward Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin, according to FDLE's report.

In the midst of the Grand Jury investigation, a secretary in the district's construction department reportedly was seen shredding documents.

Many of the interviews focused on the district's Building Department, which inspects school construction to ensure that the work is done properly and according to safety codes.

Employees described how at times district inspectors were furloughed and private companies hired to do their jobs at additional taxpayer expense.

Because of union rules, certified inspectors were laid off and replaced with uncertified staff with more seniority, FDLE learned.

One of the lesser trained individuals told investigators he inspected fire dampers at a job site while the certified inspector "remained in the car."

Another trainee said after about two weeks of instruction, he was sent out to perform 50 to 70 inspections despite being unlicensed. His supervisor signed the reports, he told FDLE.

Investigators looked closely at relationships some School Board members had with lobbyists and vendors.

A former construction project manager, Sharon Zamojski, told FDLE she attended a political fundraiser at one lobbyist's home, where contractors doing business with the school district each donated the $500 maximum allowed by law.

Contractors at the event then telephoned subcontractors instructing them to show up and also make a contribution, FDLE quoted Zamojski saying. Subcontractors "began to arrive and as they were met at the front door, they delivered their contributions in the form of checks in the amount of $500," the documents state.

The documents also include new claims about the actions of School Board member Jennifer Gottlieb, who abruptly resigned in August 2011.

For example: Gottlieb allegedly did not like the color the newly constructed Beachside Montessori School in Hollywood had been painted and ordered it redone, at an additional cost of $1,500.

In an email to the Sun Sentinel on Friday, Gottlieb said: "I don't remember making any request for the color of the school, maybe someone misconstrued my comments about the colors."

FDLE also was told of the chummy relationship some School Board members, Gottlieb included, reportedly had with Kolb, the Weitz executive.

Lenz said under oath that Kolb regularly took board members to lunch. In one case, she said, Kolb and Gottlieb had a five-hour, $400 lunch at Le Meridien, then a resort in Sunny Isles Beach. She said Kolb was reimbursed by their company for the lunch.

Elected officials cannot accept gifts of over $100. Gift disclosure forms filed by Gottlieb do not reflect any lunches.

Gottlieb told the Sun Sentinel Friday: "I have no recollection of a $400 lunch, but I have no idea what he may have expensed. It was my standard practice to pay cash for what I ate."

In May 2010, district auditors reported that taxpayers overpaid $47 million for 15 cafeteria projects because School Board members added unnecessary playgrounds, bus loops and other items to the deals and doled out the projects to favored firms, Weitz among them, rather than award the contracts based on the lowest bid.

I made the last paragraph bold so it would be sure to catch your attention, since if anyone needed a contemporaneous snapshot of this dysfunctional school system, that's it!

-----

City of Hollywood residents and members of the community are invited to meet Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Boulevard Heights Community Center, 6770 Garfield St. in Hollywood. Mr. Runcie will be available to answer questions from the public about local public schools and other education issues. Members of the public who are interested in attending and asking Mr. Runcie a question are encouraged to arrive early to fill out a question card. 

Light refreshments will be provided. 
For more information, contact Donna Green at hollyed1@aol.com.

Speaking of diversity and backsliding on ethics, Broward County School Board becoming an all-female enclave is NOT good news for concerned taxpayers & parents: expect even more micro-managing and time wasted on trivial matters made melodramatic because these particular people, literally, can't help but pander; Broward Schools Supt. Runcie in Hollywood on Thursday night at the Boulevard Heights Community Center

 

Speaking of diversity, as a result of last Tuesday's election results, the Broward County School Board will now be an all-female enclave: expect even more micro-managing and time wasted on trivial matters made melodramatic because these particular people, literally, can't help but pander; Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie to be in Hollywood on Thursday night at  Boulevard Heights Community Center

I was going to post this collection of news and tidbits last Friday afternoon but thought better of it since I thought few would see it then, and as you'll see, I'm glad I waited, since in the time since I first typed some of these words last Friday morning, I've already seen others in the community and in the press writing about the composition of the new School Board who, in my opinion, lack appreciation for why having an all-female School Board is not exactly reason for taxpayers or students to celebrate.

Based on my own observations and what others who are much closer to all things education in Broward County have shared with me about some of the people elected, I think Broward taxpayers and parents have good reason to be concerned about backsliding on ethics.

While I could always turn out to be wrong, my overall sense of things is that this new crew might not only be more spiteful than professional at times, and attempt to make far too many issues that come before them personal, but also indulge a bit too much in creating straw men for them to attack when the Board is being properly chastised by the public or the news media, or otherwise held to account for inaction or bad judgment or lack of fidelity to rules and procedures.

I also suspect that there will be more instances than perhaps need be when after talking for hours, Supt. Robert W. Runcie will say that it's time to stop the talking and time for voting and actions.
This particular crew seems destined to try to talk everything to death, as if that wasn't already enough of a problem with the current crew of characters.

As most of you already know by now, here's what happened last Tuesday:
District 4: Abby Freedman defeated Shelly Solomon
District 5: Rosalind Osgood defeated Torey Alston
At-Large District 8: Donna Korn defeated Franklin Sands
At-Large District 9: Robin Bartleman defeated Barbara Houston Wilson
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/FL/Broward/42272/111826/en/summary.html#

Over the past 2-3 months of observing political campaigning all throughout Hallandale Beach -and Hollywood- such as it was, given that there were never any chance there'd be actual bona fide candidate debates of the sort that everyone here desperately wanted, owing largely to Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and former Comm. Bill Julian desperately NOT wanting to be a part of any event in the city that they could not control, where they'd be forced to answer pointed questions from well-informed citizens, I only once saw a re-elect Robin Bartleman yard sign in a HB resident's front yard.

As it happens, it was located in a front yard in Southwest HB of someone who also had one for do-nothing Comm. Sanders, so you can well imagine what I thought every time I drove past it,
just off of S.W. Third Street -it's not exactly the sort of illustrious company you'd necessarily choose to be associated with.

While I was certainly glad that Bartleman attended the educational forum in HB in June of 2011 on what was REALLY going on at Hallandale High School with respect to what the School Board was doing to remedy longstanding problems that led to a lawsuit that the School Board lost, a forum that my friend, Catherine Kim Owens hosted and superbly moderated, THE first such serious meeting on education in this city during the eight years that I'd lived here up to that point, despite how crucial that subject is in this community for reasons I've previously mentioned here -and yes, Ann Murray was a no-show at that meeting in HB (again) just like Jennifer Gottlieb was!- considering what I'd seen and read about Barteleman's involvement and performance during the disturbing Douglas High School cheerleading coach saga, I'm not sure if her winning was really such a great thing for Broward taxpayers and parents long term.

See my post on that subject from October 8th, titled,
Dynamite! Bob Norman adroitly uses facts and context to lower-the-boom on the Broward School Board for their abysmal handling of the purported Douglas H.S. cheerleader coach 'scandal" -and drops School Board member Katie Leach squarely on her head; One month before the election, docs show Donn Korn opponent Franklin Sands funds his race with lots of money from his stepson’s lobbying firm -shocker!; @mattgutmanABC
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/dynamite-bob-norman-adroitly-uses-facts.html

Last Wednesday I received the following message from the City of Hollywood with the subject header: Meet and Greet Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie

City of Hollywood residents and members of the community are invited to meet Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Boulevard Heights Community Center, 6770 Garfield St. in Hollywood. Mr. Runcie will be available to answer questions from the public about local public schools and other education issues. Members of the public who are interested in attending and asking Mr. Runcie a question are encouraged to arrive early to fill out a question card. 

Light refreshments will be provided. 
For more information, contact Donna Green at hollyed1@aol.com.

I've now seen and heard Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie three times in person since he was hired by the Broward School Board -twice in Hollywood and once in Hallandale Beach.

(Surprise! Not present at that meeting in HB was School Board Chair Ann Murray, who is this area's representative on the Board, but whom as I've mentioned here so many times, has assiduously avoided showing her face in public in Hallandale Beach for well over a year.)

I've personally videotaped Runcie all three times -and have taken plenty of photos, too- though I've chosen not to post them here or on my YouTube Channel.

At this point, I feel fairly confident that I can tell what direction he's going to take a discussion based upon what the question posed to him is.
That's actually part of the problem -how the questions have so often been posed to him.

I don't know who first told told Mr. Runcie that the idea of having Broward taxpayers and parents write questions via index cards -read by someone else- was a great idea, but it's not.
I see it as both patronizing and condescending and it's precisely the sort of awkward attempt at (mis)communication that the Broward Schools needs to get away from -quick.

Mr. Runcie is very articulate and an agile conversationalist who can talk about a host of issues for long period of time if he wanted to.
He does not need -nor do taxpayers want to see- someone there as a handler, largely to translate what are almost always very understandable questions.

If I'm going to show up for something like this, I think I can also pretty well frame a relevant question for him in the hours and days leading up to the meeting. 
Maybe several, and having attended three of these before, I also know what NOT to ask.

For those folks who show up and can't ask a question in the form of a question, it's not my problem.
Everyone there can either laugh at them or ignore it, but I have to say that this notion that so many School employees are necessary to be present at these get-togethers, to form a phalanx of protection, is getting more preposterous with each passing meeting.
One person will do, nicely, thanks!

If you ask me, that same person could/should also pop a videocamera onto a tripod and point and then get out of the way.
That there hasn't been at least one person within the school system who had the common sense to tape the remarks he's made at any of the dozens of places he's been and put them online on a School system website or a YouTube Channel for taxpayers and parents to see, is ridiculous.
Not tape every meeting but at least one of them?

I seem to personally have more of them on DVDs near my computer than the entire Broward School system does.
What gives with all the continued indifference and half-assed effort?
Where are the signs of those positive changes we were promised? 

Some content originally contained in this post has been moved to: 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/more-business-as-usual-at-broward.html
More business-as-usual at Broward School Board is NOT good news for students, parents or taxpayers; Why the need by Broward Schools officials to impose omertà on school volunteers in Broward?; the very curious Hallandale High School roof situation reveals much about School Board's culture; Why is South Florida news media largely ignoring Broward Schools Diversity Comm. and their Audit Comm.?

re Beachwalk project in Hallandale Beach: Hallandale Beach Mom with common sense writes re the conditions at HB's North Beach. Yet City Hall STILL won't accept ownership of longstanding problems there, just like they've ignored city's education/White Flight problems for years

View Larger Map

Yes, it seems so nice from a distance, but ... 
North Beach, Hallandale Beach, FL

Earlier today I received an adroit comment regarding my post of last Friday titled, Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's old threats & lawsuits re-emerge as Hollywood's Beach One Resort sues over its access to the beach, the latest shoe to drop in The Related Group's Beachwalk project that'd make HB's North Beach a de facto private beach for The Related Group's properties, NOT a public beach for HB residents
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-coopers-old.html


In just a few sentences, she managed to get to the heart of so many longstanding problems in this city: the unwillingness of elected officials and highly-paid city employees in charge to first acknowledge the problems and to solve them to the satisfaction of Hallandale Beach taxpayers residents, and business owners.
Instead, out of habit or personal preference, they either ignore, deny, or kick the can further down the road.


Or, as has often happened when I've publicly discussed these matters, found myself personally attacked for pointing out what everyone but them seems able to see right in front of our collective faces. 


Barboryte wrote:

I went to this beach once and never again. I would rather drive to Hollywood boardwalk and spend money there and have my kids play in the sand and enjoy plenty of showers and clean beach.Maybe it's time to get up and sell and move from this town. All I see is our town being sold piece by piece to developers with absolutely no regard to the residents. 

Her comments are not unlike many I received over the recent years during the battle against Peter Deutsch's Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School trying to force itself down the throats
of a single-family residential Northeast HB neighborhood, on N.E. 8th Avenue, with the promise of far more kids and traffic coming from outside of HB and southeast Broward than the neighborhood either wanted or could stand.


But associated with that issue was the related one that is the abject failure over the eight-plus years that I've lived here of Mayor Cooper and the City Commission and City Managers Good and Antonio to be serious and convene a citywide forum at the HB Cultural Center, say on a Saturday morning, run by a moderator and with experts present, where the city's educational problems and future could be FINALLY be discussed, calmly but honestly.


Frankly, it's as if everyone at HB City Hall was so afraid that the truth would be uttered by so many dozens and dozens of HB parents that it would actually hurt someone else's feelings, so instead, we simply had to just pretend, year-after-year, that the problem didn't really exist.
But it did and it still does.


Specifically, that would mean publicly airing a problem that I've written about here on the blog a few times but which nobody at HB City Hall wants to publicly acknowledge, but which as everyone who has lived here for any amount of time knows, is one of the main reasons that families move away from Hallandale Beach: the popular perception that the nearest public high school, Hallandale High School, is unsatisfactory and a poor educational choice.


So instead we have either White Flight to the more western suburbs of this county, or high school age kids attending private or charter schools located outside of this city.
That's NOT how you build a community -or keep one intact.


But year-after-year this problem has been allowed to exist below the radar.
And equally so, the awful conditions of this city's public beaches, which clearly ought to be a jewel and natural meeting place for the community, but which isn't.


Which, of course, explains why you are much more likely to run into someone you know from HB at Hollywood Beach, near Johnson Street on the Broadwalk, than you are at HB's own beaches.
People have and are voting with their feet -and their cars.


I'm now going to quote myself.
Really.


From my January 19, 2009 blog post titled, Welcome to Hallandale Beach: where old cigarettes and condoms party at the beach that HB Cops ignore!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/welcome-to-hallandale-beach-where-old.html

As we all know from our travels, in many if not most American communities fortunate enough to have a beach, especially those dependent on tourism, the beach is an invaluable resource that's esteemed, treasured and given extra care and concern.

It's a place where city officials and elected officials constantly visit and hover around to keep track of not only its physical and aesthetic condition, but also to gauge the mood of resident and visitor beach-goers to see if there's any problems or concerns there they need to be aware of.

They are pro-active, NOT reactive and slothful and full of excuses as they are in Hallandale Beach. 

That public sentiment is often an early indicator of the residents' collective feeling about the town itself, since when resident taxpayers feel that a place as high-profile as the beach is going downhill, and not being properly looked after, it's only natural that they suspect that other things in the city they can't see are falling apart, too.

It's only human nature, but it's something the City of Hallandale Beach has been in utter denial about for years, as one problem after another has been left to fester there.Yet when confronted with the reality, they've instead put their heads in the sand.The evidence is all around you.

So, I was at North Beach on Saturday for well over an hour, checking things out, and as usual, it was fine as long as you only saw it thru the prism of the palm trees along Surf Road.

Yes, from there, everything always looks fine!

 Above, July 26, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

But once you've parked in the garage (the one that the mayor seems perfectly willing to give away) and were actually standing on the beach, you could tell that it was as filthy and unappealing as ever, though to be fair, for once, I didn't find any condoms or liquor bottles over near the rusty pipes that have been on the beach for years...

Snapshot of a poorly-maintained public beach: Finding a used condom near one of the only two park benches at 4 p.m., on a Friday holiday afternoon on a beach full of families. January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

It could hardly be clearer that HB City Hall and their DPW leadership STILL won't accept ownership of the longstanding problems there.

They act like residents who pay taxes for that beach to be properly maintained CAN'T see what has been in front of us for years and we don't know who is responsible.

They're wrong -we do.

We know EXACTLY who is responsible!

The very problems I telephoned DPW about two weeks ago -FROM the beach- which they said they'd take care of.

Among other things, that included the city's Beach sponsorship signs that we've seen there for the past few years, were still lying on the ground, not properly erected.

And were far from where they were supposed to be.

Like last time we were there.

And the week before that...

And the month before that...

According to the life guards, the sign on South Beach has been under the lifeguard stand -that STILL has graffiti on it- for easily 3 or 4 months, waiting for DPW to do the job they're paid to do -basic maintenance.

It's only further proof to me that, as I've been stating for years, the look and care of the public beaches has fallen so far below what is acceptable, that we should immediately take it away from a clearly-ineffective and dis-interested DPW, and privatize the function, just like the beach life guards are actually contractors for Jeff Ellis, not city employees.

A firm given the money that was previously appropriated to DPW for beach maintenance, and which has properly maintaining an attractive and safe beach as their only function, knowing that if they fail they'll be replaced.

I believe that almost anyone we choose would do a MUCH-SUPERIOR job by us as taxpayers then continuing to expect a dog that clearly won't hunt, like DPW, to suddenly learn to hunt.

Obviously if this happens, there also needs to be a commensurate cut in personnel numbers for DPW, since I'm certainly NOT going to reward DPW for doing a terrible job by letting them keep the same number of employees, since actions and consistent poor performance must have consequences, and that should include some for Hector Castro himself, the DPW Director.

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?nid=19

So where exactly is Hector Castro on this matter, and WHY is it that he is never grilled about this longstanding failure at HB City Hall, when it's clearly a big enough and obvious enough problem that even Joy Cooper apologists were mentioning it at the June 6th City Commission meeting?

And why was his immediate predecessor or Antonio or Good never grilled, either?

Where is the personal and professional accountability at HB City Hall?

By the way, the life guards stands we have on the beach are NOT properly "grounded" for lightning strikes, which is both a liability issue and a maintenance issue.

Rather than have the city hand-over de facto control of the public beach called North Beach, so The Related Group can make it a boutique beach that caters largely to their residents and hotel clients for their three properties within four blocks of that location at the Hollywood-

Hallandale Beach city-line, and also maintain control of the public parking garage, too -both for thirty years- we should tell the City Commission to tell TRG, thanks but no thanks.

But do go ahead and build the hotel you can already build, because that is something that nearly everyone in the community agrees we need.

But build it WITHOUT the condo units, and WITHOUT tossing the North Beach parcel in as a sweetener -to a real estate corporation!

Then, we vote in November for a mayor and city commissioners who take their job as public representatives seriously, who actually DO their homework, read the background documents  fully and who actually show-up for HB City Commission meetings ready, willing and able  to ask tough, probing questions of city staff and applicants, for the benefit of this city's taxpayers, NOT for the benefit of developers or a certain group of people in town used to having their way.

And after those sort of people get elected in November -and they are NOT named Joy Cooper or members of her Rubber Stamp Crew named Anthony A. Sanders and William "Bill" Julian-  they can instruct our new City Manager, Renee Crichton, that owing to the longstanding neglect of the city's public beaches for years, fixing the public beaches is now deemed a HIGH PRIORITY, and she needs to come back to them within thirty days with some realistic proposals to make that a reality -ASAP!

One that also includes the possibility of the city privatizing the maintenance of the beach so that it properly reflects the fact that 13 years ago, the people of this community overwhelmingly voted to "put the beach back into Hallandale Beach."