Showing posts with label Joy Cooper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joy Cooper. Show all posts

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Looking ahead at Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog to everything in 2020 that we'll be analyzing, discovering, examining and writing about with our customary nuanced and fact-filled way, including news via new platforms to better inform the public in South Florida and beyond in ways they can better use, appreciate, and share with others so that more people are in-the-know.

Looking ahead at Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog to everything in 2020 that we'll be analyzing, discovering, examining and writing about with our customary nuanced and fact-filled way, including news via new platforms to better inform the public in South Florida and beyond in ways they can better use, appreciate, and share with others so that more people are in-the-know.


My 2019 photo of the Andrew Antonaccio mural at 1900 Hollywood Blvd. in Downtown Hollywood, featuring da Vinci's Mona Lisa masterpiece. I've been using this photo at the top of my blog since the summer of 2019 to replace the by now familiar photo of the iconic rainbow-colored Hallandale Beach Water Tower on State Road A1A that I've been using on the blog since starting it in 2007.


My photo of July 6, 2019 of the Fabio Onrack mural a few blocks farther west in Downtown Hollywood at 2050 Hollywood Blvd., on S. 21st Avenue, just south of Hollywood Blvd. 
It features iconic 20th Century artists Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=83&v=jDmHyUhxu_8&feature=emb_logo

Today I'm looking ahead and talking out loud about some of the things in 2020 we'll be analyzing, covering, discovering, examining and writing about with our customary nuanced and fact-filled way.
It'll also feature news about some new-and-improved platforms to better inform the public in South Florida and beyond about some important matters of public concern in ways they can better appreciate, use and share with others.

Fortunately, many people in our area have perches that allow us to take a long (term) view and not the all-so-familiar, myopic takes on the news and events that far too much of South Florida's news media seems to prefer for reasons of their own involving either laziness, lack of due diligence, or confusion on whether they are journalists or publicists.
That's a REAL pernicious problem in South Florida, especially with reporters under the age of forty.
Too many seem to prefer shallow takes completely lacking historical context or intellectual heft that are instantly forgettable.

Like nearly everything that appears in the troubled and bias-laden Miami New Times, once actually voluminous and fun to read, to which can't seem to see straight out of its inability to treat people fairly, and not write pieces based strictly on personal/political spite or animus.
Almost everything written there reeks of indignation, much of it of the know-it-all kind that sells in places where everyone calls for diversity yet always agrees.
That's called consensus, not diversity. 




Just so you know, there will be a LOT of interesting news, commentary and insight about Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Broward govt./political/public policy doings coming the next few weeks, so don't think I've taken the holidays off. No. I've been busy writing away and putting my little nuggets of information into storage until the holidays were over and people were of a mind to start reading things that are not frivolous.

Usually, but not always, at the Panera Bread on Sheridan Road in Hollywood, not far from where I live these days, as opposed to the days I lived in Hollywood Lakes on Wiley Street and just north of Young Circle on Filmore Street, west of U.S.-1








That necessarily includes returning to the antics of Wednesday Hallandale Beach City Commission meetings at 5:30 pm due to the return and reboot of Joy Cooper to the local political scene. I anticipate some antics and melodrama, since all that time away from the passing scene has got to have built up quite a lot of need in her to show everyone what's what.
Certainly that's what the South Florida news media is expecting, so I expect they'll be more likely to actually show up when something important is going on instead of the sillier issues that drew them like flies the past 2-3 years. Which is all to the good. 

 I'll be there more often, too, to observe and report back here with what's what, including some news about an expensive financial fiasco the HB CRA is involved in that will likely explode in February unless cooler heads prevail.
Slim odds of that if you've seen who's at Hallandale Beach City Hall these days.

I hope to be able to be finished writing some positive stories I've started regarding some dynamic new entrepreneurs who have come to the area and who are making a very positive difference in the general attitude of things hereabouts as it concerns satisfying customers. 

Like my marketing-savvy friend, John Wiltsey, who worked so successfully for so many years for the fashion house Chanel, which included LOTS of traveling to fascinating luxurious places I've only read about and seen photos of but where lots of hard work goes on, too, according to him.
John's dream turned reality in Downtown Hollywood late this past summer with the opening of
Camp Cocktail Bar + Grill, on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and N. 21st Avenue, at 2051-B Hollywood Blvd.
That's the same block on the north side of Hollywood Blvd. where popular GoBistro! and it's newer brother, GoGai! is located, as well as Tasta Gelato & Cafeteria. 



2051-B Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Florida 33020
+1 (754) 263-1175
campcocktailbar@gmail.com

I first profiled Tasta Gelato and its five owners, longtime childhood friends from Italy and Sicily, back in October of 2016, over three years ago, even before they officially opened, when I was able to get a behind-the-scenes view, with lots of photos, and was able to tell how and why they chose to locate in Downtown Hollywood over many other possible sites throughout the U.S., including, naturally, South Beach.





https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2016/10/how-why-italys-tastagelatos-first.html

Other people who've made a VERY positive impression on me since I returned to Hollywood last April include Craig Avera and Rose White, the owners of Cali Coffee just north of Sheridan Road on N. 29th Avenue, west of 1-95, in front of the Holiday Inn Ft. Lauderdale-Airport. 



2650 N. 29th Aveue, Hollywood, Florida 33020
+1 (954) 251-3274
https://calicoffee.net/
https://www.instagram.com/calicoffeeofficial/
+1 (954) 251-3274
Open 5 AM – 10 PM

In the near-future you'll be reading here about how Craig and Rose's business has succeeded in ways they could not have imagined, and how that very success will lead them in 2019 to open two other Cali Coffee locations in Broward County, and what's behind that expansion. 
I know the locations, but you'll get no reveals from me right now.

Over the last few months, once fall finally got here, there has been Antonio Cao, owner of Cao Bakery & Cafe, who I had the opportunity to speak with both before he opened his new location, and during a little community sneak peak when the neighborhood and many area civic activists could get together and check it out.
The new location has their official Grand Opening next Thursday, the 23rd, at 5 pm!


Above, Hollywood Park East Civic Association President Tom Lander and Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy, with microphone, on the night of December 17th, when Cao opened for a few hours to give some members of the Hollywood community a sneak peak of things to come and food to be savored.
I made sure to sample everything that could be sampled. 
A few times!








A huge thanks to our friends and supporters, especially the people have stuck thru since the heat and humidity of last summer: Mark at Mickey Byrnes Irish Pub, and Jimmy at The Greek Joint.
I'm so appreciative for them being supportive of our efforts at Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog ever since we returned to Hollywood in late April, with the idea of continuing to get more useful and original news, information, context and informed commentary out to you, however you choose to receive it online.

 I also hope to soon be announcing some new dynamic advertisers to the blog very soon, including some new businesses in Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and throughout South Florida that have people are talking about in positive tones! Some restaurants and real estate projects and even maybe something for those of you who own pets...

2020 is going to be an amazing year in many respects, including two areas that occupy so muc of my time, sports and politics, starting off with a Super Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium in less than three weeks that will bring lots of excited and curious visitors to our area -though not as many non-game fun activities as I hoped we'd see in Hollywood- plus, a great Summer Olympics in Tokyo to look forward to, plus national, state, county and city elections.

 In case you didn't know, the Orange Bowl Committee will be hosting a Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship game next January at Hard Rock Stadium, and just like last night's game in New Orleans between Clemson and LSU, that game in 12 months in South Florida will bring tens of thousands more excited people from all over the U.S. to our perch in the world, most of whom won;t even have tickets to the game but who just want to enjoy the spectacle and the partying going on beforehand. That's what college loyalty does!

I've got a number of interesting out-of-town and even overseas trips to look forward to over the next 12 months, details of which you will be reading plenty about here in the weeks beforehand. That includes one up to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, a place that I have never visited before, despite having read about it in books and magazines and seen it in TV shows and films for many decades.

I'll be there not to see the sights so much as to see my brilliant and very talented niece Jenny play for the Yale Bulldogs Women's Lacrosse team, where she is a freshman this year after starting the past  four years for one of the top high school lacrosse programs in the U.S., where she and her Glenelg Gladiators won three Maryland state championships in their division. 
That trip to New Haven is going to be both a fun and surreal experience after everything I have ever known, read and seen in tru and fictitious films centered on Yale, 

 Plus, at North Miami Beach Senior High, I had a friend and classmate in most of my many AP classes who became our valedictorian my senior year, and he chose to get out of Dodge and away from the heat and humidity of South Florida, while I chose the Midwest and Indiana University.

And in February we'll be firing up our YouTube Channel and Instagram again in the new year after a lot of inactivity, and start sharing some very useful non-text information and news with you in some interesting ways that you'll value and want to share with your friends in the area and elsewhere.  



I should also mention that I have recently downloaded WhatsApp again, so those of you who communicate with me fairly often via my cell phoen number will now have a way of knowing what, if anything, is on my mind from any one hour to another, via checking out my WhatsApp status page.
I decided I needed to be more affirmative about what I was doing or thinking since so many people tell me after-thefact, "I wish you'd told me about THAT at the time."
Well, you now have your wish!




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

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Some things never change, like the abysmal level of #ethics in Hallandale Beach. Names change, roster of allies change, but HB determined to see itself as special and deserving of special rules, not ones the rest of world and Florida are governed by

Some things never change, like the abysmal level of #ethics in Hallandale Beach. Names change, roster of allies change, but HB determined to see itself as special and deserving of special rules, not ones the rest of world and Florida are governed by
Below are my Twitter responses to Red Broward blogger Tom Lauder's piece from last Tuesday 
about some very curious doings behind Hallandale Beach City Hall at the Cultural Center, a place where the city's self-evident political, racial and social polarization are always present during Early Voting.
 
@RedBroward BUSTED? Hallandale Beach Commissioner Caught With Illegal Voter Card Targeting African-American Churches
That polarization, especially its racial component, is something that I have personally witnessed to my amazement dozens and dozens of times the past 15 years, which was often carried-out with the help of former Mayor Joy Cooper and her campaign supporters, always so quick to help someone who can help them out when nobody is looking.
But nothing compares to the skullduggery that takes place on the actual Election Day, esp. at the neighborhood sites in Hallandale Beach, where you can be forgiven for plausibly thinking the Balkan Wars of the 1990's were still taking place.
Yes, for so long, rather than fighting over what were the best ideas or best solutions for the city's many longstanding problems, problems and imperfections that I can literally recite from memory, what you find are years-old personal and political grievances writ large never far from the surface, complete with the motley cast of characters and hangers-on always play to type and cliché, with fist-fights, calls to 911 and then the rush to cast themselves as a victim to their friends and the general public. It's all so sad and pathetic and... predictable. 

(I even recall the Election Day scene at Ingalls Park in southwestern Hallandale Beach within the past ten years, where several Hallandale Beach police cars were forced to respond to a call about an actual fight involving involving Dr. Deborah Brown herself, where about 6-8 HB cops were positioned afterwards in the area to keep Brown and her Cooper-supporters from trying to physically intimidate or verbally harass supporters of pro-reform candidates at Ingalls Park that I knew. Yet another low in a sea of so many head-shaking things under Cooper's reign of ruin.)

Most of you know will know nothing at all about this matter below, but on the chance that you have been thinking about things other than elections today, five days before the real Election Day, it's a sad reminder that so many of the things that I and so many of you have fought against for many years, namely, against unethical behavior, doesn't just exist but THRIVE in a city of less than 5 square miles.
A city where it should actually be quite easy to reach residents, Small Business owners and voters if you were serious about communicating your concerns and solutions.
By the way, please don't sleep on the #scoop that I mention below regarding what former HB Mayor Joy Cooper did when contacted by the Office of the Broward Inspector General and the Broward state's attorney regarding the only arrest made in the entire years-long HB CRA scandal that wasted tens of millions of dollars.
http://www.broward.org/InspectorGeneral/Documents/20130418OIG11020FinalReport.pdf

http://www.broward.org/InspectorGeneral/PublicationsPress/Documents/OIG11020-201405219-BrownMemo.pdf

--------
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2014-05-20-fl-hallandale-band-director-arrest-20140520-story.html
School director charged with stealing city funds
Robert Nolin, Sun Sentinel

The director of a private arts school in Hallandale Beach — and onetime recipient of a city humanitarian award — has been charged with bilking thousands in city funds earmarked for a student trip.

Deborah Brown, 52, Hallandale Beach, surrendered herself to Broward Sheriff's investigators Monday on a charge of grand theft. A warrant had been issued for her arrest last week with bond set at $1,000.

Brown, band leader for Gulfstream Middle School in Hallandale Beach, is also director of the Palms Center for the Arts, a nonprofit school for drama, dance and music. In March 2010, she received a $5,000 grant from the city's Community Redevelopment Agency for a class trip to Washington, D.C.

According to police reports, Brown only spent $323 on the trip. The remainder she diverted for private use: $2,000 in cash withdrawals for herself and her brother; $683 for a payment to an Orlando resort timeshare; $258 for a rental car; and $200 in cellphone costs.

The fund diversion was uncovered during an audit of the city's CRA by the county's inspector general.

In January 2010, two months before the alleged theft, Brown received Hallandale Beach's Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award for 25 years of community service.

City spokesman Peter Dobens said Brown was never a city employee and only received grant money for her after-school music program. "We haven't had a relationship with her for a couple of years," he said.

Despite the arrest, Brown will retain her band leader job. Under School Board policy, employees charged criminally will not be disciplined until their case is concluded. "It doesn't affect her current job status," district spokeswoman Nadine Drew said of the arrest.

Mayor Joy Cooper said Brown's educational work has benefitted the community. "Dr. Brown has helped many needy children through PCA's art programs," she said.

rnolin@tribune.com or 954-356-4525

----
"The Broward County Inspector General’s Office has launched another inquiry into Hallandale Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency, three years after finding the city “grossly mismanaged” millions of dollars in CRA funds."
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2016/06/browards-inspector-general/

Joy Cooper did this WITHOUT ever telling the elected HB City Commission about the letter she received from law enforcement, never asking them what they thought should be done, or even having a recorded vote on the matter.
Instead, Cooper wrote back that her good friend, the convicted Dr. Brown, did NOT have to pay back the thousands of dollars she stole that, according to her own CRA application, was supposed to help kids, a fact that she took full advantage of when she was using the money to buy cosmetics or help pay for her condo.
Just as she had done previously dozens of times, Joy Cooper just decided she would nudge the elected City Commission out of the way and substitute her own very bad judgment.
Predictably.
So yes, you are right, I have provided you with a bit of a scoop, since I first heard about it when it took place, but I ask you, how come the South Florida news media has STILL never reported on this fact, despite it taking place LAST YEAR?
Why didn't they mention it?
   
@RedBroward BUSTED? Hallandale Beach Commissioner Caught With Illegal Voter Card Targeting African-American Churches






















More tomorrow re the ethical scandal behind the ethical scandal at Hallandale Beach City Hall that the South Florida news media has slept on the past 18 months.
Even if you think you know how thin-skinned, self-referential and flat-out LOW former Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper was prepared to go in order to hold onto power, you just won't believe the level of chutzpah Joy Cooper can show, even to law enforcement officials.
Really!
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, October 18, 2018

How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz? Speculation by Buddy Nevins on whether Broward's state's attorney should run for re-election after 42 years in office gives me a chance to piggy-back and raises some questions of my own regarding Satz & Co's underwhelming performance and the state of ethics in Broward County and Hallandale Beach today, as per Joy Cooper

How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz? Speculation by Buddy Nevins on whether Broward's state's attorney should run for re-election after 42 years in office gives me a chance to piggy-back and raises some questions of my own regarding Satz & Co's underwhelming performance and the state of ethics in Broward County and Hallandale Beach today, as per Joy Cooper

 How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz?

Now there's a question...

 As veteran Broward County political observer and Broward Beat blogger Buddy Nevins writes about and speculates about some of the behind-the-scenes moves swirling around whether Broward State Attorney Michael Satz will defy common sense yet again and run for re-election after being in office since 1976, and who might or should run for the office if he doesn't, I hold a mirror up to Satz and his many past failures to act in ways that I believe he should have.

 That includes one huge lingering question that so many people in Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and other parts of South Florida routinely ask me when I'm minding my own business somewhere, regarding the arrest last December by the FBI of then-Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper on multiple felony counts: "Dave, what took Satz so long?" He sat on almost five years of audiotapes of Joy Cooper bragging about her influence to undercover FBI agents posing as real estate interests.






So, continuing on the subject of Satz, per this story and tweet below by blogger Red Broward, i.e. Tom Lauder,
Hallandale Beach Mayor Keith London Pays Disgraced Former County Commissioner With PAC Funded By Developers & Casinos
https://redbroward.com/2018/10/15/londonpac/

 First, I have known and communicated with Tom for many years. I meant to his tweet on Monday afternoon when I first saw it and read the piece.
I even meant to respond to the other day via a tweet storm but got tied up with something else before I really could.
Then, once I started, I didn't have enough time or energy to do it justice the way I wanted to... folks, real tears!
I discovered that my beloved laptop's not working properly so that what I wrote and saved as a file there on Monday night when I got home isn't available for me to write and post here now.
So, that said, I've added a smaller ad hoc version of that response of mine to Tom's story and tweet below my own tweet.

There's more at: https://twitter.com/RedBroward/with_replies

 Tom: I appreciate that you have a very different take than me re Keith London, now Hallandale beach mayor and someone that I have known for roughly 12 years, many of them when he and I spoke or saw one another 3-4 times a week at times when things were going crazy at South Florida's #1 home of chaos, Hallandale beach City hall.

 That's your right, of course, but Keith -whom I haven't spoken to for longer than 45 seconds in more than 5 years, despite so many people even now persisting in thinking that we're somehow tied to the hip like we often seemed to be years ago- has to deal with reality and one of them is that #Gaming and #Gambling interests have ALWAYS mattered in a small city with two separately-operated casinos & race tracks. (The town and this part of Broward was run by Organized Crime just a few decades ago, as any historian can tell you, and as I know you know as well.)

Not to tell you what to think or how to write your posts and tweets but... personally, I think it'd be a good idea to remind your readers when you write about people associated with Hallandale Beach's "gaming interests" who are communicating with or helping Keith with some effort of his, like it's some sort of nefarious plot, you simply need remind them to take a look at a map and see that Gulfstream Park Race track & casino and its Village at Gulfstream are, literally, across the street from Hallandale Beach City Hall.
AND it's still THE largest employer in the city, such as it is.
That explains Gulfstream Park's interest in what goes on across the street.

But that said, I also need remind you that I have personally been one of the -if not THE- biggest critics of Gulfstream Park's management and its operations in the city for the entire length of the 11 years that I have had my influential blog that LOTS of well-informed people in South Florida read to get insight and perspective they don't get elsewhere.
It's why so many people call me and write me to tell me something or even argue a point, including TV/print reporters and newspaper columnists, some of whom are outside of South Florida but who have an interest in what goes on in South Florida, good and bad, whether in Miami, Tallahassee or Washington, D.C.
It's why reporters and bloggers and other, like you, tag me in their tweets, because they know I know the score and can usually add something to what's on the table.

 At HB City Commission meetings as well as many public events and especially on my blog, I have openly laughed at and enjoyed publicly poking large holes in Gulfstream's feeble excuses for all sorts of actions they've taken over the years, including their well-known propensity in the past to use ex-mayor Joy Cooper as their personal go-to person to get everything they wanted.
Sometimes, as in 2013, that included quite justified large fines for operating against the city's own code and trying to get away with things simply because of who they are -used to calling the tune.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/gulfstream-park-race-track-casino-will.html

 Cooper, typically, loved to say she'd take care of it and tried to ram waivers of fines down the HB City Commission without any documentation or even any staff prep, and ignore their proscribed government oversight role. Cooper didn't care, but she also didn't get her way because I let the public know what was what. And one TV reporter in particular - Bob Norman of Local10.

 Local10: Mayor wants $52K fine against Gulfstream Park waived
No vote taken on waiving fine at Hallandale Beach budget meeting
By Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com, and Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com
Published On: Oct 04 2013 06:13:16 PM EDT   
Updated On: Oct 04 2013 11:51:10 PM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/mayor-wants-52k-fine-against-gulfstream-park-waived/-/1717324/22282006/-/p0vivbz/-/index.html


My intimate knowledge of the facts and not just the prevailing media or party narrative, along with some demonstrated shrewdness, plus, actual results, are why I've succeeded in getting negative stories about Gulfstream and other parties on local Miami TV newscasts when they've acted in truly egregious ways that shocked any reasonable person's idea of propriety.
In this case, Gulfstream Park was used to carrying a Big Stick -and was not afraid to use it.
But I'm not afraid of bullies.
Guess how that turned out in the end because of me?

 But all of that said -and it's easy to find on my blog's archives- it is demonstrably true that the Diplomat Hotel and its management team and crew of legal and PR mouthpieces also had a TON of influence at HB City Hall and used that influence and leverage routinely to get what THEY wanted, too, even when HB residents made clear that they were against it, including, famously, the 2009 RAC plan that called for multiple condo towers to go up around their golf course north of F-rated Hallandale Beach Blvd. that were all over twenty-five floors and would have ruined many residents quality of life, including people on Diplomat Parkway who paid thru the nose for homes with unobstructed golf course views and who did not want their home in near-perpetual shade.

 Gulfstream has tried to exploit that perception and beat them at their own game. It's that simple.

 So when writing about the amount of campaign funds that Gulfstream Park gave, be sure to mention that while Gulfstream backed both Michele Lazarow and Annabelle Taub-Lima in their pre-acrimony days vs. Diplomat-backed, ethically-flawed ex-HB Comm. William "Bill" Julian, they still got out-spent by the Diplomat and its minions desperate to get Cooper's pawn Julian back on the dais to do her bidding.
Just saying, proper context and perspective have a place in the Keith London pieces you write.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)