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

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/local-fl-news-coverage-that-is-making.html

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:

The $3.4M ECC building is leased 10 years for $1.00. http://t.co/8Gn5ZnBH69
— Chaz Stevens (@TweetsByMAOS) October 6, 2013

MAOS blog

THE $3.4M ECC BUILDING IS LEASED 10 YEARS FOR $1.00

By Chaz Stevens 10/06/2013 

http://www.myactsofsedition.com/2013/10/06/the-3-4m-ecc-building-is-leased-10-years-for-1-00/

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..."

In Broward County, CRA numbers just don't add up - Broward Bulldog has latest news re Broward County Inspector General's office opening a broad line of inquiry into misuse of property tax dollars by CRAs, including Hallandale Beach's, "with millions at stake"; #audit, #stonecoldfacts, @MayorCooper

Above and below, northbound U.S.-1/Federal Highway as City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County becomes City of Hallandale Beach and Broward County, alongside Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex. August 28, 2013 photos by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

In Broward County, CRA numbers just don't add up - Broward Bulldog has latest news re Broward County Inspector General's office opening a broad line of inquiry into misuse of property tax dollars by CRAs, including Hallandale Beach's, "with millions at stake"; #audit, #stonecoldfacts, @MayorCooper

Sent out this email this morning to all Friends of the Blog and "all the ships at sea" in Hallandale Beach, Broward County, and in Tallahassee, Florida Governor Rick Scott and FL CFO Jeff Atwater, certain select Florida state Senators and members of the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee...

CRA numbers that just don't add up -FYI re Broward Bulldog: Broward opens broad inquiry into misuse of property tax dollars by CRAs; millions at stake

Yes, it seems like only yesterday that I'd been up half the night penning one in a series of emails to Governor Scott about what's been going on for YEARS at Hallandale Beach City Hall with the CRA Board and its very highly-paid, tone-deaf staffers repeatedly taking advantage of this city's taxpayers and small business owners to further crony capitalism and pure political patronage as best they could, using the cover of fighting social ills like "blight," the word that you never ever hear uttered at HB City Hall.

Yes, the very same characters at HB City Hall who have an annual Visioning meeting to discuss their individual and collective thoughts and strategies towards the spending of taxes and CRA funds, not that facts matter a great deal.

They call it a public meeting, but they prefer a public that is seen and not heard, since in this city, the public can't ask questions or ask for clarification or even make suggestions at it, forcing citizens to just sit and observe for hours on end while reality takes a long holiday.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/visioning-and-public-participation.html

But in this case I'm thinking of, my email to Gov. Scott wasn't from yesterday, it was March, six months ago:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-open-letter-to-florida-governor-rick.html

The next time you hear someone in Broward County, like one of the usual "experts" or pundits or maybe a self-interested lobbyist like Mayor Joy Cooper's supercilious pal, Broward lobbyist Judy Stern repeat the Conventional Wisdom in this county that nobody really cares about ethical behavior, transparency and accountability in Broward cities, except a handful of people, just keep this in mind.

As of Friday September 13th at 2:55 a.m., in the 48 weeks since I first wrote my October 15th 2012 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" it's been seen 51,134 times at  
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/ethics-not-for-us-follow-up-to-my-post.html

Yes, that's more than a thousand page views a week and more than the total population of this city, even during "the season."
Imagine that! 

That total doesn't even include the number of people who saw it the day it was first posted, when it was the default post of the blog. 
That's a lot of people who now know a lot more facts about the truth regarding the corruption, unethical conduct and plain old incompetency that have been commonplace in Hallandale Beach all these years while Broward State's Attorney Mike Satz and his staff did NOTHING to help us.
Just saying...

And now on to today's featured attraction...
-----

Broward opens broad inquiry into misuse of property tax dollars by CRAs; millions at stake http://t.co/bl39juxy0D
— Broward Bulldog (@BrowardBulldog) September 12, 2013

Broward Bulldog

Broward opens broad inquiry into misuse of property tax dollars by CRAs; millions at stake

By William Gjebre and Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org

September 12, 2013 AT 6:29 AM

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/09/broward-opens-broad-inquiry-into-misuse-of-property-tax-dollars-by-cras-millions-at-stake/

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

Date: Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 1:33 AM
Subject: FYI re Latest news re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC
Cc: "Scott, John W." <InspectorGeneral@broward.org>

Well, after making a phone call this afternoon to JLAC's office up in

Tallahassee,

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&File=index_css.html&Tab=committees

I received the response below.

Now we at least have some documentation proving who this community's real friends in Tallahassee are -and aren't- these days, and who's just been feeding us lip service about rallying to the cause of giving Hallandale Beach citizens their long overdue accounting of where the HB CRA millions were really going for years, while nobody at HB City Hall was performing

anything close to the level of genuine oversight and scrutiny that was demanded -or which HB taxpayers, residents and business owners had a reasonable right to expect.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: JLAC <jlac@leg.state.fl.us>
Date: Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 4:04 PM
Subject: RE: re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

Mr. Smith:

To date, the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee has not received a request for an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA from any member of the Legislature.

I apologize for the slow response. After your call today, Debbie mentioned your email on August 19^th, but neither of us recalls seeing it before.

Kathy

Kathy DuBose, Coordinator

Joint Legislative Auditing Committee 

(850) 487-4110 

___ 

Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 12:34 PM

To: JLAC

Subject: re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

Monday August 19th, 2013

12:30 p.m.

To Whom It May Concern:

As of this morning, has the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Commission received any correspondence from the following state legislators formally requesting that JLAC perform an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA: Sen. Eleanor Sobel, Rep. Joe Gibbons and Rep. Shevrin Jones?

Living here, and being very involved in the effort to get your Committee to do one so that

citizens of this community can finally get the financial answers that we have long been

denied, I can tell you that there are no media reports of any of the three of them doing so,

thus far, so I just want to get confirmation of that fact.

Thank you for your assistance! 

Latest news re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee: Now HB residents know for sure who their real friends in Tallahassee are -and aren't- and they are NOT named Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons or Shevrin Jones. But this merely confirms what we've already known and long suspected -Hallandale Beach's 3 state legislators are NOT representing us well in Tallahassee and are putting personal politics and relationships above their duty to us. Now we know for sure!

My short and to-the-point email of Monday afternoon to dozens of concerned people throughout Southeast Broward, Tallahassee and certain TV stations, websites and blogs, went something like this:

Well, after making a phone call this afternoon to JLAC's office up in Tallahassee,
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&File=index_css.html&Tab=committees
I received the response below.

Now we at least have some documentation proving who this community's real friends in Tallahassee are -and aren't- these days, and who's just been feeding us lip service about rallying to the cause of giving Hallandale Beach citizens their long overdue accounting of where the HB CRA millions were really going for years, while nobody at HB City Hall was performing anything close to the level of genuine oversight and scrutiny that was demanded -or which HB taxpayers, residents and business owners had a reasonable right to expect.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: JLAC
Date: Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 4:04 PM
Subject: RE: re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

Mr. Smith:

To date, the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee has not received a request for an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA from any member of the Legislature.

I apologize for the slow response. After your call today, Debbie mentioned your email on August 19th, but neither of us recalls seeing it before.

Kathy

Kathy DuBose, Coordinator

Joint Legislative Auditing Committee

(850) 487-4110

___

Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 12:34 PM
To: JLAC

Subject: re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

Monday August 19th, 2013
12:30 p.m.

To Whom It May Concern:

As of this morning, has the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Commission received any correspondence from the following state legislators formally requesting that JLAC perform an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA: Sen. Eleanor Sobel, Rep.  Joe Gibbons and Rep. Shevrin Jones?

Living here, and being very involved in the effort to get your Committee to do one so that citizens of this community can finally get the financial answers that we have long been denied, I can tell you that there are no media reports of any of the three of them doing so, thus far, so I just want to get confirmation of that fact.

Thank you for your assistance!

DBS, Nine-year Hallandale Beach resident

Complete lack of concern shown by Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons and Shevrin Jones for their Hallandale Beach constituents re wasted HB CRA $$$ is galling -and is noticed by LOTS of voters and reporters; Have HB's state legislators said or done a single thing re the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal, or done anything to help get a thorough audit of it by the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Comm., so that HB residents can finally get the long-overdue financial accountability that HB Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew of Lewy & Sanders have fought? So far, the answer is a big fat NO

My short and to-the-point email of Monday to the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee in Tallahassee, jlac@leg.state.fl.us
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&File=index_css.html&Tab=committees
regarding a matter of great public concern in the city I live in.

Monday August 19th, 2013

12:30 p.m.

To Whom It May Concern:

As of this morning, has the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee received 

any correspondence from the following state legislators formally requesting that JLAC 

perform an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA: Sen. Eleanor Sobel, Rep.  Joe Gibbons

and Rep. Shevrin Jones?

Living here, and being very involved in the effort to get your Committee to do one so that

citizens of this community can finally get the financial answers that we have long been

denied, I can tell you that there are no media reports of any of the three of them doing so,

thus far, so I just want to get confirmation of that fact.

Thank you for your assistance!

-----

For those of you who don't know, state Rep. Shervin Jones represents the part of Hallandale Beach west of the FEC Railroad tracks and Dixie Highway.
In my opinion, he is also a career-politician-in-training just like like Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Alexander Lewy, and obviously I mean that as a big warning sign for anyone who cares about common sense and actually solving problems, instead of relying on tried, tired and unproven ideas that come from liberal orthodoxy.

Jones has recently been brought up short by his caviar dreams and his West Park reality, the reality that gave him a gerrymandered seat for all practical purposes. But in a state like Florida with term limits, even a gerrymandered seat promising no competitive races doesn't seem as fun a sinecure as it once did, even for an African-American pol who had no real experience of any kind, yet drew no opposition when he first ran, in part because his father is the mayor of the city he's from.
That gives you an idea of what the district is like -not a lot of civic discourse.
More like a herd mentality.

The Honorable @RepSJones101 taking notes at the @AlexLewy event in #HallandaleBeach. #team101 pic.twitter.com/4ktw0juBs7
— Nick Steffens (@Nick_Steffens) June 24, 2013

Anyway, Jones, of FL House 101, who is supporting Lewy in his effort to replace term-limited Gibbons in the FL House District 100 seat in 2014, and Gibbons in his efforts to defeat former Hollywood City Commissioner Beam Furr in the 2014 race to replace term-limited Broward County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger -who endorsed Furr many months ago- is under investigation by the Broward State's Attorney office for his curious spending habits.
Or is it his expensive eating habits so very far from home?  

Broward State Rep. living large on his campaign money http://t.co/oXuKYX3ePo
— Buddy Nevins (@Buddynevins) August 2, 2013

Broward Beat
State Rep. Likes To Eat On Lobbyist’s Dime
By Buddy Nevins
August 2, 2013

State Rep. Shevrin Jones likes to eat….well…on his campaign’s dime.

He’s basically found a way for lobbyists like Ron Book, who donated $1,000, to pay for his meals.

Jones has spent roughly $2,000 of the $9,350 he raised from lobbyists on “meetings” and “campaign meetings” in various restaurants. Lobbyists were the only ones giving to his campaign.

Jones has no opponent.

Read the rest of the post and reader comments at
http://www.browardbeat.com/state-rep-likes-to-eat-on-lobbyists-dime/

State Attorney launches probe into state rep's campaign spending on meals. http://t.co/XehiRtydZg
— Buddy Nevins (@Buddynevins) August 12, 2013

Broward Beat
State Atty Investigates State Rep’s Campaign
By Buddy Nevins
August 12, 2013

The Broward State Attorney’s Office is investigating state Rep. Shevrin Jones’ campaign expenses, a well-placed courthouse source said.

The source said a Browardbeat.com post triggered the investigation into Jones’ spending at restaurants in addition to a campaign loan repayment.

Read the rest of the post and reader comments at
http://www.browardbeat.com/state-atty-investigates-state-reps-campaign/

More troubling news re the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal and the curious conduct of Mayor Joy Cooper re FL's Sunshine Laws and public records, which further makes the case for why we need the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) to get involved and perform a thorough audit of the HB CRA ASAP

Above and below, looking north on south-bound U.S.-1/South Federal Highway towards Hallandale Beach City Hall, July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Taken within the context of a sweltering South Florida summer -above via a heat map photo- that's often robbed us of our desire to live in South Florida full-time, or at least get into our car any time after its been sitting in a parking lot under a brutal and unforgiving sun for hours on end, for fear of our skin melting, and literally having the life sucked out of us after opening the door, today is a real red letter day at the blog.

The reason for that is that we have some genuine positive news to share with you all courtesy of Tom Lauder that actually advances the narrative that is the continuing drip-drip-drip scandal of the Hallandale Beach CRA, and what has gone on in this city the past ten years.

Not just the public policy scandal of all the wasted time and squandered opportunities to actually do the right thing in this city to actually eliminate blight and improve the area economically in a way that's actually tangible, which is a scandal of sorts, of course, but the larger financial one that directly led to millions of dollars going out the door with near-zero scrutiny and oversight by the very people at Hallandale Beach City Hall who were supposed to provide it on behalf of the citizens, taxpayers and small business owners of this city.
But who didn't.
Year-after-year.

I sent the following out as an email this afternoon because it helps to tie together more information about those mysterious text messages between Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, HB City Manager Renee C. Miller and the mayor's pal and Broward lobbyist, Judy Stern, and their attempts to prevent an audit of the HB CRA from taking place via County Auditor Evan Lukic's office.
It also helps connects-the-dots more on how the city's elected officials and administrators handle public record requests that get a little too close for comfort.

Rather than name every official I sent it to like I have sometimes in the past, let's just say that this time I've sent it to a wider variety of people than usual here and up in Tallahassee -and points-in-between- as well as some of the leaders of the Florida State Senate and members of the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, the latter of whom many of us in this city are counting on to get us the truth we've long been denied.
-----

My comments are after this very timely article by Tom Lauder.

Media Trackers Florida
Hallandale Beach Mayor Fails to Report Texts to Lobbyist During Meeting
By Tom Lauder
July 31, 2013

Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper exchanged multiple text messages with controversial lobbyist Judy Stern during a June 4 government meeting but did not log the messages on a lobbyist contact report as required by state law.

Earlier this spring, Hallandale Beach residents asked the Broward County Commission for assistance after a Broward County Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation “identified numerous instances of gross mismanagement that stemmed from institutional deficiencies in the establishment, organization and function of the CRA [Community Redevelopment Agency].” Some of the residents raising concerns included Hallandale Beach Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://mediatrackers.org/florida/2013/07/31/hallandale-beach-mayor-fails-to-report-texts-to-lobbyist-during-meeting

-----
August 1, 2013

I wanted to let you all know today that since I sent a formal request to the City of Hallandale Beach six weeks ago, it is refusing to fulfill my Public Records Request and comply with Florida's Sunshine Laws in providing me with all the text messages between Broward lobbyist Judy Stern and HB Mayor Joy Cooper and HB City Manager Renee C. Miller in their lengthy efforts to prevent Hallandale Beach residents from getting the true facts.

This, even as the three of them lobbied Broward County Commissioners and staff, including County Administrator Bertha Henry on this matter, to prevent a thorough audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA via the Office of Broward Auditor Evan Lukic.
A thorough audit that HB residents desperately want so they will finally know precisely what really happened to millions of dollars.

I was told Wednesday in-person by HB City Clerk Sheena James, prior to the city's CRA Budget Workshop, that the city would be unable to comply with my request because, rather conveniently, they say their phone carrier -that is, AT&T, the carrier who is paid tens of thousands of dollars every year by Hallandale Beach taxpayers for telephone services used by Hallandale Beach elected officials and staffers-DON'T have to provide requested public records without a court order, even if the parties 'owning' the phones request them.

Personally, I think HB City Hall is laughing at the idea of their being able to successfully thwart my honest efforts to get to the truth on this matter, and get my hands on public records that I have strong reason to believe contain some very incriminating comments by the three of them, possibly, even about me.

When I brought this up during my three minutes to speak prior to the actual meeting, I specifically mentioned that HB citizens would be very interested in hearing from CRA Attorney Stephen Zelkowitz in the future on why the city doesn't simply log those messages in a timely fashion, since it seems clear to me that the city is using the carrier as a buffer to not comply with legitimate Public Records Requests, and that in any event, there will be requests by
someone at some future point for text messages, since they are public records, so the city better figure out what they were going to do to comply with the law.

After I returned to my seat, Mayor Cooper then responded in a semi-sarcastic manner that she only wishes she could get access to all those messages (Of hers!)

I was not amused, chiefly because I know the truth is that she does NOT want those messages being made public.
In any case, Mayor Cooper then went on to say, rather tellingly, that those text messages between herself, lobbyist Stern and HB City Manager Miller, regarding their efforts to thwart an audit, were "private."

No, those text messages about the City of Hallandale Beach and its CRA were and are public records that I'm legally entitled to see under Florida's Sunshine Laws.
But that callous and condescending response of hers shows you the caliber of the individual that the beleaguered citizens of this town are dealing with, in that Mayor Cooper is someone who has repeatedly shown in the past that she will use any means necessary to thwart both the spirit and the letter of  Florida's Sunshine Laws -even to the point of suing a HB citizen-
and she continues to do so today.

You may also be interested in knowing that Wednesday night at the HB CRA Budget Workshop, where city management employees out-numbered actual residents in the room by a factor of 12:1, I told the assembled CRA Board of Directors and the CRA Executive Director (City Manager), along with the city's various Dept. heads a fact I had already shared with some
Broward County Commissioners and well over a hundred other interested parties before and after that June 4th meeting mentioned in the article above.

To wit, despite the fact that the Broward Inspector General's final report was issued months ago, the city has refused to place a link to the report or the city's  own response to it on the city's website for residents, taxpayers and small business owners to read for themselves.

But because HB City Manager Renee C. Miller and CRA Attorney Stephen Zelkowitz were going to be speaking at that June 4th County Commission meeting against the request by HB Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former HB Comm. Keith London, and thought that it was important for the County Commission to be able to see and review them, they transmitted
both, so Broward County actually had links to both on their agenda for the meeting.

So, Broward County was given the information that the city has refused to provide its own citizens on the city's website, even though the city's taxpayers and the CRA paid the legal fees in the official city response, as well as for Zelkowitz to appear at the Broward County Commission.
So we can pay for all of that but we can't see it on the website that we're also paying for.
That's how things are done here, and it's not by accident.

Yes, the Broward OIG report that characterized as "gross mismanagement" the performance of the City of Hallandale Beach officials to describe what they found when funds are given to people and groups in this city without anyone actually EVER following-up and checking to see what actually happened to the CRA funds, or even whether they were actually used for the purpose they'd been proposed for in the original application.
Yes, HB City Hall operated on the honor system with all that money.

People and groups that claimed to be non-profits but who weren't according to the IRS, and who didn't file required documents, and yet who were quite content to not properly disclose all sorts of relevant basic information, even while they strongly resisted almost all attempts at basic transparency to the  citizens of this community, or to the public at large.

Now you know why the concerned residents of this city so desperately want the Florida JLAC to perform a thorough audit that will tell us the truth, since the very people at HB City Hall who are supposed to be providing responsible oversight of the HB CRA are also the people almost entirely responsible for the mess it's in, and the great loss of confidence the community has in City Hall's ability to perform even simple tasks honestly, ethically and competently.

Yet these people, like Mayor Cooper, are also the one who are trying their best to keep the public in the dark about the facts as long as possible thru intentional obfuscation, needless finger-pointing and serial misrepresentation.
And the community saw another perfect example of that very thing last night, as if we needed another reminder.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, and please DO let me know when a decision is made regarding JLAC's future intentions on this important public policy matter to Hallandale Beach's VERY frustrated citizens.