FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
Showing posts with label Joe Abruzzo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Abruzzo. Show all posts

Friday, April 25, 2014

Dan Krassner of Integrity Florida re signs of positive momentum for ethics reform/anti-corruption solutions in Florida; Are revanchist elements of Broward County Commission -like Lois Wexler & Barbara Sharief- going to succeed in weakening County's hard-earned ethics code that County & municipal officials (and Broward/Florida League of Cities) have fought hard against for years because they found serious ethics rules incompatible to their personal behavior & lifestyle?; @IntegrityFL

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief appears before ethics commission 
Commission agrees to move forward with allegations Sharief broke the law submitting financial forms filled with mistakes  
Reporter; Carlos Suarez, csuarez@local10.com 
Aired April 25 2014 

 Uh, oh!
I guess it's a good thing that the appearance of impropriety doesn't matter in Broward County!!!




This afternoon my overflowing email transom included the following bit of good news from Dan Krassner of Integrity Florida, while below it, I have some well-chosen comments of my own regarding the latest efforts by the revanchist element at the Broward County Commission and Broward League of Cities to fight meaningful accountability for "public servants" in this corrupt county:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dan Krassner <dan@integrityfl.org>
Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM
Subject: Momentum for anti-corruption solutions


Having trouble viewing this email? Click here


Momentum for Anti-Corruption Solutions

   

The Florida Senate has now passed three major ethics reform bills and the Florida House of Representatives has passed one major ethics reform bill during the 2014 legislative session. Both chambers are expected to take further action in the remaining days of the legislative session, that concludes on May 2, to complete their work on the following anti-corruption measures:

1) SB 846 - Governmental Ethics

On March 26, the Florida Senate passed SB 846 by Senator Jack Latvala unanimously by a vote of 38-0.  The bill was amended by a House committee and is ready for a floor vote in the House, currently on the 2nd reading calendar.  If the House passes the amended SB 846, it would need another vote in the Senate to go to the governor.  If the Senate amends the current House language on SB 846, then the House would need to take an additional vote on the bill if it has new language before it would go to the governor.  There is no House companion bill but House Ethics and Elections Subcommittee Chair Representative Kathleen Passidomo and State Affairs Committee Chair Representative Jim Boyd are driving this initiative in the House.  
SB 846 contains the following:

*    Allows the Florida Commission on Ethics to independently begin investigations when officials fail to file financial disclosure reports;
*    Requires lobbyist disclosure at the state's water management districts;
*    Requires annual ethics training for elected city officials; and
*    Applies portions of the state ethics code to Enterprise Florida and Citizens Property Insurance.

2) SB 602 and HB 571 Residency Requirements for Local and State Candidates and Public Officers

Today, the Florida Senate passed SB 602 by Senator Jack Latvala unanimously by a vote of 39-0.  The bill includes new residency requirements for local and state candidates and public officials.  The House would need to take action on this measure next and the House companion is HB 571 by Representative Ray Rodrigues. 

3) SB 1632 and HB 1237 Ethics Code for Special Districts


Today, the Florida Senate passed SB 1632 by Senator Kelli Stargel unanimously by a vote of 38-0.  The legislation amends the definition of agency in the state code of ethics to specifically include special districts.  Under the bill, special districts would be required annually to disclose online their ethics codes, budgets, taxes assessed and audits.  The House companion is HB 1237 by Representative Larry Metz and that bill is on today's Special Order Calendar in the House.

4) SB 1328 and HB 1385 Independence of Inspectors General

On April 23, the Florida House of Representatives passed HB 1385 by Representative Dan Raulerson unanimously by a vote of 114-0.  Presently, agency heads are able to appoint and remove their own inspectors general, which creates built-in conflicts of interest.  Under the bill, the agency inspectors general, under jurisdiction of the governor, would report to the governor's chief inspector general.  The state senate would have new oversight to confirm the governor's chief inspector general.  The chief inspector general would make the appointment and removal (only for cause) decisions for the agency inspectors general.  The bill's Senate companion is SB 1328 by Senator Jack Latvala and that measure passed its final Senate committee on April 22.  The full Senate has received SB 1328 for consideration.  HB 1385 is in Senate messages.


As lawmakers enter the final week of the legislative session, Integrity Florida encourages Senate President Don Gaetz, House Speaker Will Weatherford and their colleagues of both political parties to continue to strengthen our state's ethics laws. Now is the time for bold anti-corruption solutions. Integrity Florida remains optimistic that our legislative leaders will deliver on their ethics reform promises.
Sincerely,   



Dan Krassner
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Integrity Florida


Ben Wilcox
Research Director
Integrity Florida

 
Integrity Florida is a nonpartisan research institute and government watchdog whose mission is to promote integrity in government and expose public corruption.  More information at www.integrityflorida.org. 
STAY CONNECTED

Like us on Facebook   Follow us on Twitter   View our profile on LinkedIn

Integrity Florida Institute, Inc. | 850.321.0432 | 715 North Calhoun Street, #4 | Tallahassee | FL | 32303
-----
Below, my hastily-written email of yesterday, which has been slightly edited from what I originally sent out:

 There's nothing in this Sun-Sentinel article about the fact that Broward County Comm. Lois Wexler and her longstanding campaign of crocodile tears about her getting hungry or thirsty at post-election Broward Elections canvassing meetings, and not being able to get some taxpayer-paid for freebies like donuts and some coffee as is often done for the lower-paid staff who have be present during their non-work hours. 

 As I've stated before, this dilettante of a career politician who is paid $92,000 a years in salary needs only to stop at a retail store or restaurant beforehand and PAY for her own water, soft drink, coffee or food and bring it with her to the site of something that she doesn't even have to be at if she doesn't really want to be.

 Wexler's own lack of planning beforehand and being hungry or thirsty at somepoint while sitting down in a chair in some County warehouse facility is HER problem, not OURS, and certainly not one that needs to be resolved by weakening hard-earned laws that, to me, are not so accurately described below as much as 
broadly hinted at.

 Instead, Wexler's pathetic and never-ending cri-de-coeur for goodies has become the Trojan Horse that has allowed other interested parties in this very corrupt county to attempt to get their nose in the door and get things they want specifically excluded.

 For instance, Comm. Barbara Sharief thinking that she shouldn't have to publicly explain/disclose who her own relatives are and the positions they hold that may bear upon some public policy or vote.
In short, she doesn't want to have to publicly report some potential conflicts that having her relatives on the public dime might entail.

 It's galling to me that after all these years, there has not been a single reporter in South Florida who has gotten the "mayor" to publicly say why she persists in this childish and selfish effort of hers on this particular issue.
Perhaps it's because she realizes full well how badly and off-putting it will sound to the public -and to voters- so instead she just hints and sighs loudly at meetings about the unfairness of it all.

 Sharief never ever gets drilled on this question by a reporter like she would in most parts of the country by a journalist who's willing to pin her down and force her to explain herself. 
Instead, she prefers to pout and infer that she's misunderstood. 

 No, when she consciously refuses to account for herself, that's not a simple misunderstanding, that's HER own conscious refusal to publicly enunciate HER own position.
That's HER fault, not the public's!

 Why does nobody ask her why she thinks elected officials' families deserve to escape appropriate scrutiny?
Talk about someone who has publicly taken a nosedive because she's betrayed many local resident's hopes that she'd be a reformer.
Instead, Sharief's own words and actions have spoken volumes -all you have to do is look right in front of you.

 But then many of you already know that because I was highlighting Sharief's abject failure the past two years, esp. on the issue of the HB CRA, per those frank emails of mine that many of you received, as well as my blog posts of a few months ago while the South Florida media was completely ignoring the fact that the very Broward County commissioner who actually represents that part of the HB community on whose behalf tens of millions of dollars in CRA funds were, effectively, burned -with no tangible results to show for it- had actually been a hindrance to HB citizens like me and many of you who wanted an independent audit by JLAC that would scrupulously investigate where the money had really gone.
Commissioner Barbara Sharief was NOT someone who was helping us.

 It's very simple: IF you're not actually helping to increase reasonable public scrutiny, oversight and accountability of government, you're hurting the effort to do so.
Comm. Barbara Sharief has made her choice and it's NOT the side she ought to be on -the taxpayers side.

 -----
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Ethics law declared too strict - Elected officials seek to loosen gift ban, other rules in law demanded by voters
Brittany Wallman, Staff writer
April 23, 2014
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-broward-ethics-code-20140422,0,6390406.story




































































In case you're new to my blog and don't know yet what sort of city Hallandale Beach is, I think this answers that question:

"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."
-New York Times, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"
-Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 HB City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission, on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters had overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission had yet to live up to its legalresponsibility. 
That's why!

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, October 18, 2013

Where has the Hallandale Beach CRA spent $80 Million? Keith London on urgent need for Florida JLAC to authorize Florida Auditor General to audit the Halladale Beach CRA

My friend and former Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Keith London sent out the following email alert recently to the people of this southeast Broward County community, largely because he knows they share his deep and abiding concern about the troubling financial status of (and operation of) the Hallandale Beach CRA, the controversial subject of dozens of past blog posts here over the years, including some this past week.

If you are a Florida resident, whether you live in Hallandale Beach or not, I strongly urge you to read Keith's words and to follow-up in the coming days by contacting the very people in Tallahassee on the JLAC who will be deciding whether or not to authorize Florida Auditor General to audit the Hallandale Beach CRA.

As most of you know from my emails, blog posts and tweets of the past few days,
there are powerful forces involved in this fight, both locally and up in Tallahassee, who desperately want to prevent an audit and prevent the true facts and figures from ever seeing the light of day, and they will do anything they can to accomplish this.

THAT is why it's so important that you spend a few minutes to contact them and ask them to give the residents, taxpayers and small business owners of this beleaguered community the opportunity they've always wanted: to FINALLY get the answers they are owed about where all the CRA money went while everyone in charge looked the other way -or looked-on approvingly.

Answers they have never gotten from the powers-that-be in this city, who have much to fear from genuine transparency and real accountability and oversight, three things they often preach but never practice themselves.

Which, of course, is a large part of why the HB CRA is in the current position it's in, and why nobody who pays close attention to things in this city trusts Hallandale Beach City Hall.

-----



Everyone,
Act today to protect your tax dollars! Email or call the Florida Legislature's Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) to request that the Florida Auditor General audit the Halladale CRA.
I spoke to outgoing JLAC Chairman Senator Abruzzo last week and he explained the agenda is being set this month for the legislative session. It is now or never!
Only JLAC has the purview and the legal ability to order the Florida Auditor General to audit the Hallandale CRA. But if they do nothing now, they will set a precedent that will haunt future attempts to ensure tax dollars are spent properly. Please take the opportunity to make sure your voice is heard!  Here are links to all committee members’ emails and phone numbers
Senator Joseph Abruzzo Chairman
Representative Lake Ray Incoming Chairman
If you choose to include them in your email or call, here are a few facts.
In the JLAC's June 4th 2013 letter to the Hallandale Beach CRA, they requested the following.
·         The CRA follow the Attorney General opinion 2010-40
·         Request a new AG opinion and then abide by the decision 
·         Explain and justify the Specific Improper and Questionable CRA Expenditures , totaling $2,168,598 identified as misspent by the Broward Office  of Inspector General (OIG) in their report titled “Gross Mismanagement of Public Funds by the Hallandale CRA”

The CRA Board of Directors (BOD) voted 3:2 to reject JLAC inquiries daring JLAC to take action.
This was done at a Special Meeting held in the July where 40 residents attended requesting further scrutiny and transparency.

We need JLAC's help to get answers. Where has the CRA spent $80 Million? How can $12.5 million in “pooled cash” be wire transferred from a city account into the CRA account without ever being voted on by the CRA BOD or Commission?
Your actions and support are necessary to ensure your tax dollars are being spent appropriately and our local government is representing its citizens!
See the attached letter from the OIG attorney and remind JLAC members that the OIG looks poised to start another investigation of the Hallandale Beach CRA.
Please contact everyone on JLAC by phone or email today.

Keith S. London
www.KeithLondon.com 
http://www.facebook.com/KeithSLondon

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Instead of looking-out for you and your Hallandale Beach neighbors, HB's craven state legislators (Sobel, Gibbons, Jones & Braynon) are doing Mayor Joy Cooper's dirty work in Tallahassee, making excuses for her ten years of oversight/policy failures with the HB CRA; #JLAC

Today I'm delivering into your hands more proof of what I've hinted at for many months about who in this community was working hard to help the people of Hallandale Beach,
and who was ACTIVELY working against us and our collective long-term best interests. 
The name is hardly a surprise.

For your inspection, via this email and later this morning on my blog, I've got what I consider to be the Smoking Gun that shows how Mayor Cooper's network of cronies
around the state is working behind-the-scenes (and unremarked upon by the local 
news media) to run interference for her, obfuscate, and in general, do their best to 
prevent the truth from coming out about what has been going on here for years with her
in charge, and with millions of dollars going out the door with little to show for it.

That Smoking Gun comes in the form of a smarmy and incriminating letter that Mayor
Cooper's good pal, state Sen Eleanor Sobel, and state Sen Oscar Braynon II, sent to the Joint Legislative Auditing  Comm. (JLAC) in Tallahassee, asking them NOT to investigate the incompetent and maybe even illegal activities of the HB CRA while the Mayor has been in charge of the CRA Board and NOT to perform an audit so that HB citizens will finally know the truth. 
As I could've predicted.
As we ALL could've predicted, because that's who she is.

As you read the attached letter, what's noticeable by its absence is the same exact thing that has been completely absent from public conversation the entire time that Eleanor Sobel has been in the state Senate, supposedly representing us, and in particular, missing the past two years while so much public scrutiny has attached to the HB CRA while it was
FINALLY being investigated by the Broward Inspector General's Office -anything by Eleanor Sobel remotely resembling genuine concern about getting to the truth of things, and actually finding out what happened to all those millions that were supposed to eliminate blight and create jobs within the CRA district, but which were instead used as part of a crony capitalism racket based on politics, with the CRA loan to the fake newspaper being but the most obvious example of that.

There's a very logical reason that there are ZERO newspaper articles or TV news videos
available of Sobel saying that she wants to get to the bottom of the whole sordid CRA mess.
She doesn't want to!

She wants to ignore the issue completely and does NOT want the South Florida 
news media asking her to publicly explain why she has been so invisible in HB 
for so many years, and on this troublesome issue in particular.
Just like state Representatives Joe Gibbons and Shevrin Jones, who have also been completely invisible on this matter and who want to stay on the mayor's good side. 

In her letter, Sobel fundamentally misrepresents what happened because she has to have the Mayor's back on this issue -or else.
Same reason that useless Gibbons and clueless Jones didn't do the right thing for HB citizens, taxpayers and small business owners, esp. the ones who live and work within that district, which is most of the city, including me.

With these three people, being a friend of Joy Cooper is far much-more important than 
actually doing their job responsibly and looking-out for the best long-term interests of HB's 
citizens, their own constituents.
In my opinion, they flat out sold us out

Rather than signing the letter herself, though, Sobel shows her true nature and somehow 
has managed to make things even worse.
She uses the cover of a co-signing African-American legislator like Braynon on this letter,
-someone who, literally, has NO IDEA what's been going on here with the HB CRA 
and that I have NEVER seen at any meeting or event, never even heard his name 
mentioned once- in her attempt to perform PR spin for the mayor and the city among her
colleagues.
It's perfectly despicable.

That Sobel has managed to get this guy who literally has no idea who anyone in this city
is, to simply roll over for her in her attempt to publicly protect her friend Joy Cooper, says 
as much about her as it does for his really poor judgement in letting us know with certainty
how truly disconnected he is to our community.
And just in case you forgot, most of the CRA corruption took place in HIS legislative district, too. http://maps.flsenate.gov/de1/map.html?plan=s016s9030&district=36


Yes, just more of Eleanor Sobel being Eleanor Sobel.
Again, a point that ought to be hammered home as often as necessary.

Fecklessness all around us in Hallandale Beach.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

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
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Csaba Kulin and I on the future path for Hallandale Beach taxpayers to get overdue accountability on the HB CRA from JLAC, since Comm. Anthony A. Sanders has once again refused to do the right thing by taxpayers, just like he has dozens of times the past few years, where he's actively worked against HB residents/taxpayers best interests, esp. re CRA oversight and accountability


The following is a letter that my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach and Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin and I have been working on the last week or so.

-----

Last week, some of you finally got the opportunity to see Csaba's e-mail to Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders about the important July 10th meeting of the CRA Board of Directors.

 When Csaba was walking up and down the streets of the west side of town last Fall, and bore witness to the angry comments of Hallandale Beach taxpayers and voters, more than once he told me that he wished he'd had a camera crew following him so they could record some of the things he heard residents express to him as he asked for their vote and told them about his position on the issues facing this city that has been so poorly run.

 One frustrated Hallandale Beach resident after another said something along the lines of, “We don't see any visible changes as a result of the $70 million spent by the CRA”

Many of those same residents said “all the CRA money is spent on the east side of the city.”

 You'd hardly be surprised to discover that residents on the east side of town did NOT see any signs of CRA-funded improvements, either.

In our opinion, considering how very poorly and incompetently the HB CRA has been handled for so many years by the HB Commissioners acting as the HB CRA Board, which we have made a point of saying out-loud at meetings, the changes that Commissioners Julian and Lazarow asked for regarding the report -which HB City Manager Miller, City Attorney Whitfield and CRA Attorney Zelkowitz co-wrote, that had to be sent to the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, the JLAC- were extremely reasonable and logical from the perspective of ALL of the city's residents.

But unfortunately, despite being given a golden opportunity to do the right thing, yet again, Comm. Sanders failed to step up to the plate and do the right thing by the community so they could get the truth that has long been denied them.

His failure on July 10th, to NOT support the common sense motion made by Julian and seconded by Lazarow, has once again shown him to be someone who is completely tone-deaf to the best interests of the entire community, which is bad for everyone concerned, though he seems not to realize it.

 To us, Comm. Sanders seems genuinely in the dark about the true level of his unpopularity across town, and seems to have mastered the art of actually making things worse, and he did just that again last Wednesday night.

 Here is what we believe we as a community need to do: 

1.) Ask the JLAC to perform a complete audit of the HB CRA. The residents of our city, especially residents of the CRA district, have a right to know, once and for all, where did the $70 million go? Do you agree?

Dave has already been busy sending certain members of that Committee information about what has been routinely going on here for years, especially the two Co-Chairman, Rep. Ray and Sen. Abruzzo from Palm Beach, as well as Sen. Jeremy Ring, who is from northern Broward.
They are fact-filled emails that really do make the case for JLAC to do an audit that HB residents can all trust.

Dave also believes that HB residents need to take the initiative and should be writing members of JLAC directly, not only about the need for a CRA audit, but also for them to strongly consider the possibility of the Comm. having a "field hearing" here in Hallandale Beach in the coming weeks, like September.

That way, the members can see for themselves how badly things have been done so contrary to what is supposed to be happening, and hear directly from HB residents themselves. 
The Committee members know from what they see and hear around the state that if they don't get ahead of this issue now of what is and isn't appropriate, they will have lots of requests from other CRAs in the future, so better to deal with it now while they can.

Here are the names of the committee members, which is equal parts Democrat and Republican, Senators and Representatives:

2.) Ask the office of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for an opinion as to what type of expenditures are appropriate for a CRA, especially one for a city our size and with the amount of money we have. We are NOT Orlando or Miami Beach or Gainesville and what we do here should be logical and sensible for this community, not just copying what other larger cities do.

Chapter 163 is the Florida Statute that covers CRAs, so don’t we want to hear what the FL Attorney General has to say?

Mayor Cooper has an opinion, but we're convinced like so many other residents that her's is based almost entirely on her own political self-interest and ego, so that she can brag to her mayoral friends and Florida League of Cities pals around the state about what "her" city is doing. It's always about her.

Meanwhile, the mayor’s hired guns at City Hall have an opinion, but to nobody's surprise, it's the same as her's.

Is it really too much to ask that we get another legal opinion, one that's free of bias and that is also free of charge? 

"What's the harm?" 

That's exactly what Comm. Sanders should've realized and said in voting for the Julian motion but didn't Wednesday night.

3.) Commissioners Julian and Lazarow wanted the City to do the right thing and pay back to the CRA Trust Fund some $400,000 that was specifically identified by the Broward Office of Inspector General (OIG) as NOT being CRA obligations. 

They didn't make it up out of thin air, they got it directly from the report that was so critical of the city's abysmal management controls.

Don’t we want to ensure that every penny illegally spent by the City from the CRA Trust Fund be properly refunded to the CRA for its future use? 

On that count alone, you'd think Comm. Sanders would support the Julian motion, but Comm. Sanders didn't and didn't seem to care what the logical result of that would be.

How many times can we watch him make one bad judgment after another, one bad vote after another, which does real harm to this entire community?

Csaba didn't know who exactly was at the meeting in the Chambers since he was watching via his computer up in Strongsville, but he figured that since this was a chance to make things right for both the CRA and the community at large, and since the above proposals were so obviously beneficial to the CRA district, even Comm. Sanders would be able to see it and support common sense.
Csaba told me the next morning on the phone that like many of you, he, sheepishly, admits that he was wrong -again- in thinking that Sanders would finally do the right thing.

Well, trust us, that's a mistake that nobody in this town will ever make again -assume Comm. Sanders will actually do the right thing by the residents and taxpayers of this city.

While we've run into yet another easily-avoided roadblock to fundamentally reform this community and make it more responsive and transparent to all its residents and business owners, the cause endures and the hope will never die that one day, some day, we'll finally have a government in this city that's truly responsive, honest and fair to its own residents.

But it's going to take a lot of hard work from a lot of serious-minded people, because the people in charge at HB City Hall right now have no plans on changing their ways, and every incentive of trying to keep real reform as far away from City Hall as long as possible.

Please let us now what you think.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)