Showing posts with label Joe Gibbons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Gibbons. Show all posts

Friday, November 29, 2013

Sandbagged! Independent audit of Hallandale Beach CRA was in offing by Florida JLAC, but Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens/taxpayers get stabbed in the back by Eleanor Sobel, Oscar Braynon II, Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief. Why? To help HB mayor Joy Cooper preserve her facade that everything here is okay; @mayorcooper

Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex, November 19, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved 

Sandbagged! Independent audit of Hallandale Beach CRA was in offing by Florida JLAC, but Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens/taxpayers get stabbed in the back by FL state Senators Eleanor Sobel & Oscar Braynon III, FL state Reps. Joe Gibbons & Shevrin Jones and Broward County Comm. Barbara Sharief.

Why? To help Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper preserve her facade that everything her is okay, @MayorCooper. 
You know, the mayor with the twitter account that is nothing but her, her, her, her -plus mindless govt. press releases, including many that have nothing to do with this city or county or state. 
See for yourself: https://twitter.com/MayorCooper 

 They put a higher price on protecting Mayor Joy Cooper's political flank than actually helping the community -their constituents- find out where and how the $80 Million REALLY was spent. 
The very Hallandale Beach CRA that Broward IG labeled guilty of "gross mismanagement" with Joy Cooper in charge. 

Thanks to the five of these useless elected officials, we may never know. 
But we WON'T FORGET their betrayal of Hallandale Beach's residents, taxpayers and small business owners when next elections roll around next august and November.
No, we definitely WON'T forget and we will make sure that the public and the press forget, either. 
And no, this Thanksgiving weekend, we are NOT thankful for these turkeys.

More below the articles. 
Two senators short-circuit Legislature’s plan to audit troubled Hallandale Beach CRA 
By Willliam Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
November 26, 2013 AT 6:13 AM
A Florida Legislature’s joint auditing committee is dropping its inquiry of Hallandale Beach’s questionable use of local redevelopment funds at the urging of two area state senators, one a long-time acquaintance of Mayor Joy Cooper.
Democratic Senators Eleanor Sobel and Oscar Braynon II, representing portions of Hallandale Beach, could not be reached for comment, despite repeated calls, to elaborate on a letter they signed recommending against a state audit or any action related to the controversial city spending of Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) funds.
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/11/two-senators-short-circuit-legislatures-plan-to-audit-troubled-hallandale-beach-cra/

As for the below, who even knew that turkeys like our mayor could dream, much less, of ghosts? 

 South Florida Sun-Sentinel  
"Ghost' of Keith London haunts Mayor Cooper  
By Brittany Wallman  
November 26, 2013 2:14 PM EST
sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-commissioner-lazarow-mayor-cooper-mix-it-up-20131126,0,7873057.story 

Not mentioned above but equally as guilty of denying citizens the honesty they deserve is Broward County District 8 Commissioner Barbara Sharief.

Map showing how HB is divided at FEC Railroad tracks, with everything west of Dixie Highway in Sharief's District 8 and everything east in Sue Gunzburger's District 6.
http://bcgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=c7f7450dc0b147d4b4b9526d9b1f93e7

WHERE exactly has she been the past two years on this very important issue to all of us?
A woman who is supposed to represent Hallandale Beach's residents' best interests but who has done just about everything but the past three years?

The very woman whose Broward County Comm. district was the HOME of the majority of the corruption, incompetency and unethical behavior directly tied to the HB CRA, where there was no accountability at HB City Hall under Mayor Cooper and her high-paid minions? 

 Where was Comm. Barbara Sharief resolve to do the right thing?
Missing-in-action, just like Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones, Sobel & Braynon.

Barbara Sharief was and continues to be in hiding on this issue, refusing to respond to public calls for her to say or do something -anything.

I know this from first-hand experience because she and her staff have ignored my emails about this issue for the past two years, though I actually know much more about the HB CRA situation than she or her staff did -or Gibbons or Jones or Braynon- and knew things that as many of you regular readers know, that even the Broward IG hadn't yet learned at the time.

A continued willingness to suspend reality and ignore inconvenient and troubling facts and the people who will tell you the truth is NOT a good sign in an elected official, and is actually proof that Barbara Sharief is NOT a genuine leader by any stretch of the imagination as most of us know the word.

Well, when you know that Sharief didn't even show-up at the June 4th County Commission meeting where the issue was brought-up, you could see that she wanted no part of being on the right side of financial accountability and ethics.
Months later, given her own financial and ethical situation, we see the double irony of that and wonder if her absence was even more revealing than we first thought.

Trust me, those inconvenient facts WON'T be forgotten as she runs for re-election next year, having to explain to the news media and area residents and voters why she so completely and willingly abandoned her own constituents, just like the power-craven and egotistical Sobel, the useless and high-living Jones, and the completely-invisible-in-HB Braynon, whom nobody has ever seen or knows from Adam.

As for Joe Gibbons, District 100 state rep. and former HB city commissioner of no particular distinction, who actually has the gall to run to replace term-limited Sue Gunzburger on the Broward County Commission for District 8 despite his sub-par performance and the fact that his wife and kids have NEVER lived here since he was married, the truth about Gibbons with respect to many ethical and policy issues has been known for years, despite the media's chronic inattention to detail.

Gibbons is only fooling himself if he thinks his recent stunt of showing-up at a HB City Comm. meeting for a few minutes when some kids are making a presentation -with their parents in the Chambers- and then splitting after they left, impressed anyone.
Gibbons can't change his stripes.
(And Gibbons is now so typecast by his abysmal track record in office that even the name, position and caliber of his supporters -and what they represent- are actually a big plus, almost a paid commercial for his opponent, former Hollywood City Comm. Beam Furr, who didn't run for re-election last year.)

Gibbons is both ineffectual and a carpetbagger, and a longtime apologist for the corrupt and incompetent status quo at HB City Hall that so thoroughly mis-served the public.
The very place he did nothing positive to change while he was there.
He is a knee-jerk in every respect that matters.

In case you those earlier recent blog posts of mine laying out the case or the predicate for better understanding these four characters ignoring what was happening with the millions miss-spent at the HB CRA, here they are for you in chron order:

 Nov. 2:  http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/latest-news-re-hallandale-beach-cra.html

On Sunday at some point, I'll have much more here on the blog to say in detail about Comm. Barbara Sharief's own failure to lead on an issue of great and urgent concern to this 
often-neglected community, and look out for the best-interests of HB residents -me and my neighbors.

But I will tell you one thing right now and that is that based on my conversations with people around town and the county, I believe Sharief has not only long since lost the benefit of the doubt of any concerned and well-informed HB or Broward citizen who cares about the true facts and wants a better-run county, she has no chance of ever recapturing it.
That's gone for good.

I'll also have some news and facts about her that may surprise many of you.
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Saturday, November 2, 2013

Latest news re Hallandale Beach CRA: Where are Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief hiding? They're NOT adequately representing HB citizens who want to find out where the $80 Million in CRA funds has really gone; Response of JLAC re my inquiry re legislator's letters re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

Latest news re Hallandale Beach CRA: Where are Joe Gibbons, Shevrin Jones and Barbara Sharief hiding? They're NOT adequately representing HB citizens who want to find out where the $80 Million in CRA funds has really gone; Response of JLAC re my inquiry re legislator's letters re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC

 November 1st, 2013

If any FL state legislator you have recently spoken to has told you, either flat-out or strongly implied, that they have made clear their desire for there to be a JLAC-authorized audit of the HB CRA, as the official response I received from Tallahassee Thursday afternoon makes clear, those state legislators are NOT being honest with you.

There are 140 elected state legislators in Florida and not a single legislator among the bunch has had either the backbone or initiative to directly contact JLAC's office and publicly declare their public support for this community's desire to find out where the $80 Million in CRA funds has really gone the past ten years.

So you might ask, where ARE the four state legislators that represent Hallandale Beach in Tallahassee, and why are they still in hiding on this issue, and not stepping-up to represent their constituents and get the facts on such an important issue?

Well, since you asked, as you'll recall from my previous email on this matter, state Sen. Eleanor Sobel and state Sen. Oscar Braynon II have lined-up firmly on the side of protecting the flank of the very woman who is most directly-responsible for the mess that combines the very worst aspects of corruption, crony capitalism, incompetency, indefensible public policy and consistent lack of oversight and accountability, Mayor Joy Cooper. 

As for Braynon, well, my sense of things in talking to the people who are the most-involved in this community is that Braynon is so little known and seen in this city that he is far more rumor than reality, a fact that should not go unnoticed or unremarked upon by others.

As for state Rep. Joe Gibbons and state Rep. Shevrin Jones, well, like members of an Old West bank-robbing gang, they are currently hiding in plain sight from their own constituents within the safe confines of the hip pocket of Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper and her lobbyist pal, Judy Stern.
To be brought out whenever these two women find it convenient and serve as props that insulate them from any moral or legal responsibility and incoming fire from legislators, the media and the public.

Sorry to say it, folks, but there's your late-2013 snapshot of the 'Profiles In Courage' of your members of the Florida legislature. They are exactly what they appear to be.

And after you've finished pondering that question, that is, how we can be represented by so many people who show so little concern about such an important issue, ponder something else: Where is Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief?

The handful of times I've personally interacted with her she's always been friendly, engaged and willing to speak honestly about what she thought about a particular issue or situation, even if it was an unpopular opinion.
Which is all to the good I think.

But here's the thing.
I've probably sent Comm. Sharief and her staff a few dozen emails over the past two years re the HB CRA, each one full of facts, first-hand anecdotes and the city's very own troubling and inexplicable words and docs that painted the picture of the longstanding mess it's been in, doing little public good while greatly profiting a small handful of people with connections to HB City Hall.
Even if only because of those emails I sent her, Comm. Sharief knows -or should know- much more than most of the reporters who've written about this subject, the few who have

I would argue that my sending those emails to her was entirely appropriate given that most of the incompetency, corruption, and general shadiness with the HB CRA took place in -wait for it- her District.

So given all that, what has Comm. Sharief actually said or done the past two years to show that she's actually looking out for HB taxpayers and small business owners on this matter involving, I remind you, tens of millions of dollars?

Comm. Sharief and her staff have NEVER responded to any fact-filled email of mine that specifically dealt with the HB CRA over the past two years.
Comm. Sharief was NOT present at the Broward County Commission meeting in June when former HB Commissioner Keith London and current Comm. Michele Lazarow spoke honestly and plainly about the longstanding need for this community to finally have an honest and thorough audit.

Yes, an honest accounting for what has taken place in the past that will assure HB residents.
To no avail.

Despite having the better part of two years to say or do something that was in any way supportive of the effort for the people of Hallandale Beach to finally get the truth, Comm. Barbara Sharief has said and done nothing.
Period.

Are HB residents, taxpayers, small business owners -and voters- supposed to ignore that inescapable fact?
I think not.

Why are local TV/print reporters and other bloggers NOT directly asking the five of  them to explain themselves on this issue, and say why they are sticking it to the people of this community, and, frankly, actually seem to be supporting the very people who are directly responsible for this financial scandal, as Sen. Sobel and Sen. Braynon have made clear for everyone with their condescending tone in their letter to JLAC telling them NO AUDIT.

If you feel inclined, here's how you reach them:

Braynon's District Office: 606 NW 183rd Street Miami Gardens, FL 33169 (305) 654-7150

Sobel's District Office: The "Old" Library First Floor 2600 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, FL 33020 (954) 924-3693

Gibbons' District Office  Suite 203, Pembroke Park Town Hall  3150 SW 52nd Avenue Pembroke Park, FL 33023-5413  (954) 893-5006

Jones' District Office  1965 South State Road 7  West Park, FL 33023-6733 
(954) 893-5010

Sharief doesn't list a district office on her website, only her main office at the Broward County Governmental Center, 115 S. Andrews Ave., Room 410 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 
954-357-7008

Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) is physically located at 876 Pepper Building,
but their mailing address is 111 W. Madison Street Tallahassee, FL 32399-1400 
(850) 487-4110  jlac@leg.state.fl.us

Those are the facts as of 2:00 p.m. on November 1st, 2013.
It's up to you to change the dynamic now or we will never find out where that $80 Million in CRA funds really went.

On a happier note, there are still lots of very talented people in this world whom you have never of -until now- who have bright futures ahead of them, and one of those persons is Miriam Bryant 


Steve Layton YouTube Channel:  Miriam Bryant sings the DuBose Heyward/George Gershwin classic from Porgy & Bess, "Summertime" on the August 10th, 2013 broadcast of SVT's "Sommarkväll" at The River Cafe, Göteborg, Sweden.
http://youtu.be/5cVr9VKmmdo
As seen in my October 30th, 2013 blog post re Miriam,
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/just-like-swedish-summers-short-sweet.html

Hallandale Beach is on both the ocean and on the Intracoastal, so why in the year 2013 do we NOT have even one restaurant like the one shown in Miriam's video, The River Cafe in Göteborg, Sweden?

Good question.
That's why there are elections that carry genuine consequences.
Something similar-but-smaller in scale that allows the public to actually be able to see and feel the water should already be in the works on the south side of the Intracoastal bridge, next to where The Related Group's project The Beachwalk is being built now.
But it isn't, is it? Nope.
Another missed opportunity for Hallandale Beach.

-----
I've removed the email addresses below for obvious reasons and replaced by name with initials.

The Committee has not received any written requests, either for or against an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA, since the September letter from Senators Sobel and Braynon.

Kathy DuBose, Coordinator
Joint Legislative Auditing Committee 
(850) 487-4110 


From: JLAC 
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 1:44 PM
To: Dubose, Kathy; White, Deborah
Subject: FW: Attn: Kathy DuBose -re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC


From: DBS
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 1:00 PM
To: JLAC

Cc: DBS
Subject: Attn: Kathy DuBose -re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: DBS
Date: Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 1:00 PM
Subject: Attn: Kathy DuBose -re prospective audit of Hallandale Beach CRA by JLAC
To: Joint Legislative Auditing Committee
Cc: DBS


October 30th, 2013
12:55 p.m.

Dear Ms. DuBose:

Just wanted to follow-up on my previous email of two months ago and your response of Sept. 9th regarding the possible audit by JLAC of what I and so many other Hallandale Beach citizens believe has been an ineffectual and poorly-managed Hallandale Beach CRA for
so many years.

To date, has the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee received a request FOR or AGAINST an audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA from any member of the Legislature, other than the September 16th letter AGAINST an audit co-written by Sen. Eleanor Sobel and Sen. Oscar
Braynon II?

There have been no media reports in South Florida of any kind the past six weeks on this issue, to say nothing of anything publicly from the two state senators who are supposed to represent the citizens of this community, who have borne witness to the millions of CRA dollars that have gone out  the door with nothing tangible to show for them, not the very people directly responsible for doing so.

I just wanted to know what the scoreboard is looking like as of this afternoon.
Thank you in advance for your assistance!

 ----
I've added these links to earlier Broward Bulldog articles to give any new readers of the blog some sense of perspective that's not written by me:

 "Hallandale finds allies amid aggressive response to county’s request for CRA documents." I'll have a lot more on this matter and our angry and vindictive Mayor Cooper soon.




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




 Hallandale Mayor sends multiple texts to Lobbyist during Broward Commission meeting




 Defiant Hallandale commissioners reject call for new legal opinion on CRA spending




 Hallandale may seek Attorney General opinion on CRA spending; statewide impact seen




 Hallandale diverts millions from CRA’s budget to pay for non-redevelopment programs




 Hallandale Mayor & Commissioners fail to document contacts w/ lobbyist Judy Stern




 Unhappy Broward commissioners want more control over city CRAs




 Lobbyist Judy Stern uses texts to thwart Hallandale CRA investigation




 Legislature asks Hallandale for answers about CRA spending; Subpoenas land at city hall




 A problematic model: Hallandale Beach CRA under city manager’s thumb




 Broward Auditor looks at Hallandale Beach CRA with eye toward recovering misspent funds
By William Gjebre* BrowardBulldog.org 
The Broward County Auditor’s Office has begun looking into whether Hallandale Beach should be required to repay some of the millions in tax dollars allegedly misspent due to “gross mismanagement” by city officials.



Broward Inspector General: Hallandale leaders don’t know what they’re talking about, By William Gjebre* BrowardBulldog.org. The Broward Inspector General’s final report on the “gross mismanagement” of millions in tax dollars by Hallandale Beach is sharply critical of city leaders it says have shown a “basic misunderstanding” of what’s gone wrong.





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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.


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Friday, September 13, 2013

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 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

---------- 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,
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 19th, but neither of us recalls seeing it before.

Kathy

Kathy DuBose, Coordinator
Joint Legislative Auditing Committee 
___ 
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! 
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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
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