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
KCAL-9-TV News video: Turf War? Glendale Bans Fake Grass. November 17, 2011 12:49 AM
When local govt. over-reaches: When asked why fake grass would continue to be allowed in backyards, but not in the front?, "officials had no answer"
Because that would affect people who 'putter' around?
IU grad and former WPLG-TV/Channel 10 weekend anchor Rob Schmitt has the details on this curious zoning decision re sustainable gardening from the belly of the beast out in Cali -Glendale, California. That's a city that gave us one of the first real S&L/Thrift debacles, an
investigation I worked on in Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles Times
LA Now blog
Glendale residents ordered to remove fake grass from front yards
November 16, 2011, 2:17 pm
Some cities offer rebates for residents who install water-saving artificial lawns in their front yard. But in Glendale, city leaders approved a ban on the faux grass and have begun issuing warnings to violators.
*My personal experience is that the LA Now breaking news blog of the LA Times is very informative and often provides a perspective that the MSM doesn't provide to LA-based stories that I hear about elsewhere.
KCAL-9 News video: Reporter Dave Lopez details the background behind the indictments against the "Bell 8" brought by LA County DA Steve Cooley. Reporter Stephanie Abrams covers the jubilation among Bell residents following the arrests. September 21, 2010. http://youtu.be/ap7LQbGwlv0
It's not very much consolation for those of us living in corrupt and crony capitalism capital South Florida -and the city of Hallandale Beach in particular- where we daily face 'the slings and arrows' of outrageous government fortune and chronic ineptitude, to know that there are actually towns in this country in the year 2011 where things are actually MUCH WORSE.
Yes, it's the latest news with the home of the "Bell 8" out in Los Angeles County and the town residents that were left to pick up the pieces after the elected city officials looted it.
And here's something we'd all recognize in South Florida -a deliberate policy of misinformation as part of their daily handiwork: police chiefs, city clerks, town administrators, city council members...
Bell 8: City clerk testifies she was following orders in giving out false salary information
And today we read in the LA Times that one of the ticking time bombs left for the beleaguered taxpayers of Bell was a huge property tax hike for promises that were never delivered.
Los Angeles Times
Bell's former leaders are gone, but their legacy lingers
The new council says it can't legally stop a looming property tax hike. The revenue will go to pay back $50 million in bonds, much of which was already squandered, for a park that won't be built.
By Ruben Vives, Los Angeles Times
August 30, 2011, 7:17 a.m.
Bell's residents already pay one of the highest property tax rates in Los Angeles County despite being one of its poorest cities. Now, homeowners are discovering that their taxes are about to go up again to pay for a park that will never be built.
It's one more legacy of the Robert Rizzo era, even though residents thought they had turned a page when the former city administrator was taken away in handcuffs, the last of those accused in a sweeping public corruption scandal were voted out of City Hall, and a new City Council was sworn in.
So, do you recall who signed-off on the sweetheart deal for former Hallandale Beach City Manager Mike Good deal last year, who, when he wasn't late, often stopped showing-up for work at City Hall and couldn't be found by phone?
That is, after Comm. Ross finally showed-up at a HB City Commission meeting and stopped hiding in her office upstairs, which caused one important City Commission meeting to be postponed for lack of a quorum!
For the sweetheart deal that left HB civic activists and taxpayers slack-jawed: Joy Cooper, Dorothy "Dotty" Ross, William "Bill" Julian, Anthony A. Sanders.
Opposed to the deal and interested in pursuing litigation against Mike Good: Keith London.
Among Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew, Ross is NOT running for re-election next year, Comm. Sanders is, ex-Comm. Julian is running to get back on it, while Mayor Cooper, in office now for ten years, is seeking re-election, too.
Hmm-m-m... three Commission seats up and possibly, a fourth, if Keith London runs against Cooper in the mayoral race.
