Showing posts with label Henry Frederick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry Frederick. Show all posts

Monday, October 7, 2013

Chaz Stevens' latest blog post is a reality gut-check for the State of Florida re their lax enforcement of rules and laws re municipal CRAs, including where he lives in the Grand Duchy of Deerfield Beach, where bureaucratic self-enrichment is a tradition, not a rumor

Welcome to the Hallandale Beach CRA! The familiar, graffiti-filled view greeting visitors looking south on U.S.-1/Federal Highway near the very dumpy-looking eastern entrance to the Mardi Gras Casino and Dog Track -the former Hollywood Dog Track- just two blocks south of the Hollywood cityline on Pembroke Road. Sure, why care about how shabby things have looked for years on one of the three main roads in the city when the CRA Board isn't going to spend any CRA funds there, but only in NW Hallandale Beach -where 13% of the city lives- despite the fact that the CRA also includes residents in NE, SE and SW, covering a majority of the city, including the area where HB City Hall is located. Yes, that's how the CRA here rolls. October 2, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Chaz Stevens' latest blog post is a reality gut-check for the State of Florida re their lax enforcement of rules and laws re municipal CRAs, including where he lives in the Grand Duchy of Deerfield Beach, where bureaucratic self-enrichment is a tradition, not a rumor

And in Hallandale Beach, where pointed criticism of spending tens of millions of CRA dollars with little to show for it years later is something that City Hall and the mayor who's been in charge just shrugs off, the reality that they'll waste millions more just to score and secure political points IS staring everyone in the face. 
But who's doing anything about it? 


On Sunday Chaz painted just the latest portrait he's done over the years of Broward County CRAs in action, in this case, from his vantage point on the far north side of the county, thus proving that the City of Hallandale Beach CRA in southern Broward, under duplicitous Mayor Joy Cooper, doesn't have the market to itself on dubious nonprofit logrolling, crony capitalism and bureaucratic self-enrichment.

(Though to be sure, Cooper's fervent efforts and those of her Rubber Stamp Crew to funnel what could be millions of scarce CRA dollars onto small parcels of land located on a one-way street that DOESN'T generate much traffic -and that her own neighbors would NEVER visit no matter what is actually built there- instead of being smart and faithful to the law's original intent and actually spending those funds in a way that'd actually eliminate blight, and bring new jobs to the CRA at prime spots on main streets with lots of traffic like U.S.-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd., does bear much more public scrutiny from the local citizenry and press corps than it's gotten up to this point, requiring as it does some actual legwork and showing-up once in a while.)

And, of course, as we learn everyday, it's not just in Broward that CRAs and the elected officials who run them are ignoring the spirit and letter of the law of the original CRA enabling legislation in Tallahassee intended to eliminate blight, because there's everything -and then some- that's been going on for years in New Smyrna Beach, too, which we last chronicled here on May 1st:

Local FL news coverage that is making a positive difference: In another FL city beset with egregious examples of CRA ethical shenanigans and rampant crony capitalism, Volusia County publisher Henry Frederick takes his responsibility to the community seriously, and asks hard questions about public ethics, government accountability and journalistic credibility. His fact-based straightforward questions are blunt when necessary: Is the Daytona Beach News-Journal protecting New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer? And if so, why?; @NSBNEWSnet

So, with all that as helpful predicate and palate cleanser for our main course, here's Chaz's piece from Sunday, complete with a great photo of the scene-of-the-crime:





MAOS blog
THE $3.4M ECC BUILDING IS LEASED 10 YEARS FOR $1.00
By Chaz Stevens 10/06/2013 

So the Deerfield Beach CRA is buying property for an over-inflated price, property with no actual CRA purpose, and then leasing it back to the City? Why?
Because they have the gall to try and seemingly nobody with any real power in this state has the will and resolve to try to stop them.
So why would they stop on their own? 
They won't until someone or something stops THEM.

Anyone in the future writing the history of the endemic anti-taxpayer sentiment and municipal public corruption in South Florida of the past 30 years will have more than enough material to choose from and will necessarily have to have several chapters on an era where cities and CRAs acted like they were a combination of robber barons, 1920's Florida land speculators and Robert Moses.

But even that wasn't enough for some city's CRAs, so they proceeded to not only walk up to the line of what is permissible or justified, but then brazenly jumped that line and openly dared anyone in the state to do anything about it, including anyone in Tallahassee.
They facilitated this process by hiring only CRA attorneys who would tell them exactly what they wanted to hear, at hundreds of dollars an hour.
And some people speculate that even includes CRA attorneys trying to figure out how the CRAs could avoid having to comply with Public Records Requests under Florida's Sunshine Laws and having to disclose (embarrassing) public records, and even blaming third-parties like AT&T for the failure to comply.
Yes, CRAs acting exactly like well-connected members of an organized crime group and CRA attorneys acting like old-style mobster lawyers.

And yes, you're right, again, that sort of mentality sounds more than a little bit like exactly what has been going on for many, many years in Hallandale Beach.
And remind me again, this effort of the CRA in Deerfield Beach Chaz describes eliminates blight how, exactly?

To quote the newly-revised editions of Shakespeare: "Rotten...Denmark...CRA...Broward County...Florida..."

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Local FL news coverage that is making a positive difference: In another FL city beset with egregious examples of CRA ethical shenanigans and rampant crony capitalism, Volusia County publisher Henry Frederick takes his responsibility to the community seriously, and asks hard questions about public ethics, government accountability and journalistic credibility. His fact-based straightforward questions are blunt when necessary: Is the Daytona Beach News-Journal protecting New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer? And if so, why?; @NSBNEWSnet


nsbnews YouTube Channel video: Headline Surfer publisher Henry Frederick shows Volusia County Chairman Jason Davis film of how New Smyrna Beach CRA funds are actually being used, contrary to Florida law. Part I of 4. Uploaded April 29, 2013. http://youtu.be/RSoIXIp2OtA

In another Florida city beset with what seems to be egregious examples of CRA ethical shenanigans and rampant crony capitalism, Volusia County publisher Henry Frederick takes his responsibility to the community seriously, and asks hard questions about public ethics, government accountability and journalistic credibility in his part of The Sunshine State.


His fact-based straightforward questions are blunt when necessary, but then the facts seem to indicate that they are: Is the Daytona Beach News-Journal protecting New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer? And if so, why? 







Headline Surfer

Is the Daytona paper protecting NSB Mayor Adam Barringer?
Posted Tue, 2013-04-30 06:34
By Henry Frederick

See more on the misuse of New Smyrna Beach CRA funds and other Volusia County and Greater Daytona Beach antics/news at the nsbnews YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/nsbnews/


@NSBNEWSnet https://twitter.com/NSBNEWSnet




*Starting in the near-future, you'll start seeing videos like the one above on this blog. Some of which have already been recorded. 


Compare and contrast the effort and clearly pro-citizen tone taken above by the Headline Surfer, where wasted taxpayer dollars don't get the shrugged shoulders response it does from the Miami Herald and  South Florida Sun-Sentinel, at http://headlinesurfer.com/ with the intellectually fallow and taxpayer-subsidized faux newspaper of Hallandale Beach, which was specifically cited by the Broward Inspector General's Office in their damning report on the true costs of years and years of incompetent and almost-invisible oversight of Hallandale Beach's CRA, the myopic South Florida Sun-Times.


BROWARD INSPECTOR GENERAL FINAL REPORT RE: GROSS MISMANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS BY THE CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH AND THE HALLANDALE BEACH COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY


Please be advised that the report can take up to a minute to open due to the many exhibits. 
It took 55 seconds for me.






Above, the document that memorializes the fact that the City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes one-sided propaganda thru a grant to the FAUX newspaper.

And yes, that is the same FREE fake newspaper that gives Mayor Joy Cooper a "column" to extoll her particular brand of ill-informed nonsense and half-truths without fear that a Letter to the Editor will EVER appear that directly refutes and corrects her serial mis-statements. 

The Sun-Times not only DOESN'T run them, they DON'T print ANYTHING the slightest bit critical of Hallandale Beach City Hall, Mayor Cooper or the present and past two City Manager and their high-paid staff, who, facts seem to show, did NOT perform their jobs professionally for years, given how the CRA scandal only seemed to grow and grow, with nobody at City hall paying any attention to where the dollars went and providing any genuine accountability for taxpayers.

Just so you know, as of early 2010, HB's city manager and staff made more in salaries than the Hollywood City Manager's Office, despite the City of Hollywood being well over THREE TIMES larger in both size and population. 
Guess who'd never ever mention that salient fact during budget talks -or ever? 
Yes, the Sun-Times!

Yes, the same preposterously one-sided one about a parallel world where HB City Hall and Mayor Joy Cooper and her pals and cronies are always right, always smarter and always looking out for HB residents, taxpayers and small business-owners, when the plain truth is the exact opposite.

Cooper, who has fought so hard and for so long to keep that money flowing to Craig Farquhar and Company , himself, an unethical hypocrite and poseur who while dependent on the city's purse, can't keep his checkbook boosterism and half-truths straight, claiming on the one hand to have had no opinion on the very unpopular Diplomat LAC proposal championed by Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew a few years ago, but then all anyone had to do was check the Broward County website, and there was an email from Farquhar supporting it.
Bu-Bu... Busted!!!

(That out-of-scale development next to the Diplomat Country Club was eventually defeated by the Broward County Commission.)

Farquhar shows his support for the City Hall that feeds him by never allowing a Letter to the Editor to appear in-print, and by running a weekly so-called "column" by the mayor that in the time I have lived here, nine years, has never once read as if it was actually written by her, given her well-known spelling, syntax and metaphor problems that have been well-chronicled elsewhere.


(Lots of people in Hallandale Beach think they know who really writes those columns of hers, and based on the two names I hear the most, both attorneys, I tend to agree.)



Above, self-serving tripe served weekly! August 30, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
Above is what passes for normal here in HB, but which is more accurately called propaganda elsewhere.
The perpetually-ridiculed and taxpayer-financed faux newspaper, South Florida Sun-Times, with one of the most egregious and laughable front pages of the past few years -and that's saying something! 

From my July 25, 2012 blog post title, When Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper says "setting the record straight" in her "column" at the taxpayer-financed faux newspaper, grab your wallet or purse, and be prepared to endure self-serving, nonsensical rationalizations that fail both the logic and reality test; 

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/when-hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-cooper_25.html

Broward Bulldog
Sweet deal for owners of Hallandale newspaper that features mayor as columnist

By William Gjebre, Broward Bulldog, 
February 9, 2012


November 8, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
The taxpayer-subsidized faux newspaper that serves as the propaganda arm for Hallandale Beach City Hall and Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew - the South Florida Sun-Times

This particular vending machine was photographed in 2009 just two feet away from one of the emergency fire exits of The Flashback Diner on U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway & S.E. 3rd St. across from Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino
Where it'd been in that same position for many years! 

In a normal, well-run city, they'd never have been allowed to be placed in the direct path of a Fire Exit, but in Hallandale Beach, a trio of similar vending machines can be placed right next to an Emergency Exit in a building one block from HB City Hall -and nobody there EVER notices the self-evident safety problem/code violation! 

More often than seems humanly possible, under the present imperious mayor, and with staffers who seem not at all interested in the best long-term interests of this city's residents, Hallandale Beach City Hall is deaf, dumb and blind to everything around them.

To the great detriment of residents, taxpayers and small business-owners who desperately want the city to be normal and be MUCH-BETTER than it has been allowed to be, and for problems to really be solved, NOT just ignored by city administrators and city employees and kicked further down the road. 

October 1, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier(c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved