county a lot about the Diplomat LAC proposal,
which, as I constantly remind everyone I speak
to about it, Hallandale Beach City Hall only placed
on the city's website for citizens to read 28 hours
before the first vote in mid-December.
One of the sub-plots that's come up is how this
may affect former Dania mayor and current
interim Broward Commissioner Albert C. Jones'
political future, if any, as he seeks to get elected
to a position he was appointed to by Gov. Crist.
There are some larger issues for people all over
the county to contemplate.
If, by virtue of his YES vote on March 23rd,
he believes that it is perfectly acceptable for
25-30 story residential buildings to be located
adjacent to single-family residential areas,
some only 25 feet away, will he also be voting
this same way for future development applications
in the rest of Broward County, including
the cities of Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines,
Hollywood, Coral Springs, Miramar, Plantation,
Sunrise and Davie, as well as the entirety of the
Broward Commission District he hopes to
represent in the future as an elected
Commissioner?
If not, why then is he forcing Hallandale Beach
and nearby Hollywood citizens to bear this
particular burden when they are opposed to it,
and are already physically hamstrung by not
only having geographical barriers, but also
among the single worst traffic to be currently
found in all of South Florida?
How is it that he imagines having thousands
more residents in that area will not directly
affect the ability of people to evacuate when
the sites in question are ALL mandatory
hurricane evacuation areas?
There are many questions you could ask him,
but this might be the first
Please explain your rationale for your
March 23rd vote and why Broward residents
should not expect you to vote similarly for
future applications if you are elected.
Or, do you plan to make exceptions for other
cities, but not in this particular case with respect
to Hallandale Beach and Hollywood residents?
Another question to ponder is why would
politically-active Broward residents who live
outside of the 9th District currently represented
by Jones, especially in Hollywood or Hallandale
Beach, consider making small campaign
contribution to him if he is a solid vote FOR
developers' out-of-scale plans of a sort that
caused the Broward Planning Council's
professional staff to recommend DENIAL
of the proposal?
Well, they wouldn't if he votes for the Diplomat
on April 27th whereas they might consider it
if he votes against it.
Hmm-m-m...
Then again, if he votes for the Diplomat,
it's highly likely that they and their law firms,
lobbyists and consultants will show him
some love with campaign contributions
while those very same politically-active
residents of the county will contribute to
one of his many opponents.
That's politics: votes matter.
I personally think that April 12th or so is
plenty of time for him to have decided what
he's going to do, one way or the other on
the second go-round with this.
If he appears set on rejecting the community
again, as far as I'm concerned, that's it for
him and I personally plan to go to Plan B
with Comm. Jones.
That's the plan where his opponents
start asking these questions publicly
themselves, and he doesn't get elected.
According to the website of the Broward County
Supervisor of Elections (SOE) Jones still
does NOT appear on the official candidates list.
http://www.browardsoe.org/electioncandidates.aspx?eid=89
That same website notes that as of today,
the registered voters here break down as follows:
Democrat: 544,329
Republican: 243,802
Other: 240,806
Total: 1,028,937
Nobody here but us scorpions:
For what it's worth, if anyone out there was
thinking of whom they could contact on the
Commission to try to prevent this proposal
from going thru, I believe that any time
and energy directed at Ilene Lieberman or
Stacey Ritter is completely wasted.
That's especially the case after many people
from around the county who have dealt with
them in the past, inc. elected officials,
have contacted me and said that after hearing
and reading what's already transpired, they
agree with me that Lieberman and Ritter
literally can't help themselves.
You know, like the scorpion and the frog.
Except in this case, they're both scorpions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
These two still imagine themselves able to
pick and choose economic winners and losers
throughout the county based on whom they
know or who is involved in a project, i.e.
crony capitalism, the preferred method
employed at Hallandale Beach City Hall
to dispense taxpayer and CRA funds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
The Rodstrom Factor:
The fact that we never heard any specifics about
why some people in Broward thought Comm.
John Rodstrom would abstain last Tuesday
-just a feeling?- and still can't say, is sufficient
proof to me that Rodstrom is also a lost cause.
Rodstrom is also involved with the Margaritaville
bid in Hollywood's Johnson Street RFP that
I personally find so unattractive and objectionable,
and may will be at Hollywood City Hall on April 7th
at 4 p.m., when the entire City Commission sees
the presentations and formally asks questions for
the first time.
I'll be there also, of course.
To me, for better or worse, the entire fight for
the Diplomat LAC proposal lies with Comm.
Albert C. Jones.
Period.
It would be great if someone could convince
Jones that what is really going on in HB, with
Sanders & Co. seemingly trying to benefit either
financially or professionally -or both- from every
single proposed project in HB, thru so-called
'job programs' -regardless of how many
actual jobs are created, and to the apparent
exclusion of other groups involvement-
is not our opinion, it's a verifiable fact.
But you have to be willing to admit that
seeing is believing.
Some well-informed people throughout the county
tell me that just as is true with Comm. Diana
Wasserman-Rubin, Comm. Jones does NOT
really want to ask too many questions about HB
Comm. Anthony Sanders.
You know, like the entire South Florida news media,
save Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo?
Whether about the curious sale of his family property
to the city for far more than its appraised value
-for purposes that are still not at all clear-
or ask why so many of his associates and pals
seem to be getting sweetheart deals from the city
that seem absurd on their face and unpopular
with taxpayers.
For instance, City Manager Good deciding on
his own, without any input from the elected City
Commission, to give $25,000 to someone for
a summer camp that is not a non-profit.
Something that elected city commissioners only
found out about a week after the fact.
So, does anyone out there have any idea of how
much money in grants or loans that brother-and-sister
act Deborah Brown and John Brown have
separately received from the City of HB over
the past few years?
She's the woman, of course, who got the $25k
last year without the public or elected officials
knowing about it 'till it was too late.
See http://www.corporationwiki.
Until a few weeks ago, I just assumed that Zamar
was a non-profit, but since it's incorporated,
it's clearly not, so why did they get the money
instead of someone else?
Better yet, if you have nothing to hide, why was
this kept from the public?
The fact that the city's CRA has been used as
an ATM for so long by HB City Hall for their friends,
and more recently, by Sanders' myriad acolytes,
without actually alleviating poverty or blight,
is going to come out sooner rather than later.
Comm. Jones needs to decide if he supports
the empty promises of the Diplomat and their
apologists like Sanders, or concrete results.
It's time for him to be a Profile in Courage
and do the right thing, or seal his fate with
Broward voters. Late this afternoon I was
informed that: Comm. Sanders was STILL
going around town, esp. churches, saying
the Diplomat LAC is good for "their community,"
but people who know the true facts are downright
insulted by the drop-in-the-bucket proposal
for Affordable Housing, and the Diplomat's
clear preference to not have the affordable
housing actually be at their actual site.
Naturally, they want to export it off-site just like
Gulfstream Park, Magna and Forest City did.
So, who profits from this, exactly?
Despite what you may have heard elsewhere.
the Palms Coalition decided not to support
the Diplomat LAC proposal as a group.
I'll bet that even Diana Wasserman-Rubin
knows this, but will she actually show-up at
the NW quadrant meeting on Monday at
6:30 p.m., at the city's Hepburn Center,
to see what the community actually thinks
about this?
It should be interesting to see what sort of
turn-out they get from their paid puppets,
or even whether the South Florida news media,
esp. TV, continues their apparent boycott of
this compelling story.
In fact, perhaps because it is scheduled for NW,
the news media will show-up, albeit, like the
much-needed military support that was too late
getting to Custer.
One thing you can count on though is that
the Diplomat's interests will be employing
a full-court press at this meeting to try to
spin it their way, with the same invisible faces
we never see at City Commission or CRA
meetings suddenly popping-up and telling
us how much they want it.
Some people will always put their own financial
interests ahead of the community's greater good,
and that's exactly what we'll see on Monday night.
I'll tell you who those people are.
