Showing posts with label Ken Gottlieb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ken Gottlieb. Show all posts

Saturday, May 12, 2012

BrowardBeat's Buddy Nevins' reminder of the recent past in Broward County with respect to shadowy third-parties in Tallahassee carpet-bombing us with fake facts and specious lies, serves as a sobering warning of what we can expect in Hallandale Beach in the Joy Cooper vs. Keith London mayoral showdown this Fall




actsofsedition video: WPLG-TV/Miami's story on the first reading of the proposed puppy mill ordinance on April 4, 2012. Contrary to what is stated here, the ordinance was actually passed weeks later after the second reading. 

BrowardBeat's Buddy Nevins' reminder of the recent past in Broward County with respect to shadowy third-parties in Tallahassee carpet-bombing us with fake facts and specious lies, serves as a sobering warning of what we can expect in Hallandale Beach in the Joy Cooper vs. Keith London mayoral showdown this Fall
In my opinion, this particular post of Buddy Nevins is one of the most important that he's written since I started reading his blog, so I urge you to not only read it and understand the larger point, but send it along to others you know who care about what happens in upcoming South Florida elections, and who don't want shadowy third-parties -Electioneering Campaign Organizationscarpet-bombing us with fake facts and specious lies to actually succeed with their misrepresentation.

BrowardBeat
Just What The Doctor Didn’t Order: Tim Ryan
By Buddy Nevins  
May 11, 2012
If an apple-a-day keeps the doctor away, Broward County Commission candidate Tim Ryan better get a bushel.  
Angry over Ryan’s three-year old lawsuit against a shadowy political committee funded by the Florida Medical Association, state doctors are preparing to throw money against him in his commission race.  
Read the rest of the post at:

As it happens, I wrote about former FL State Rep. Tim Ryan's lawsuit on my blog when it first started, following that 2008 State Senate primary election won by Eleanor Sobel over Ryan and former State Rep. -and now Broward Judge- Ken Gottlieb, but the Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and local Miami-area TV stations, to the dismay of this area's most-concerned and active citizens, almost COMPLETELY STOPPED covering it on a daily basis after about the second week. 
(See the July 2009 South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald articles on the lawsuit at bottom.)

I know that because I've checked their archives many times in the interim and have copies of the few articles that actually were written.
More recently, I've re-checked them yet again when Ryan -responsible for that rarest of bills, a bill toughening ethics that actually passed the Florida legislature- announced a few weeks ago that he was formally running for the Broward County Comm. seat now held by term-limited John Rodstrom, District 7.

All of us who follow these things closely in Hallandale Beach, as well as the much-larger number of activists and concerned citizens who follow the activities of Broward County's public policy and government, know that it's only a matter of time before Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's pals and cronies in Tallahassee start a similar deceitful effort against Hallandale Beach City Comm. Keith London and those of us who want reform in this city.

It serves to reason that these Cooper cronies will likely use the same basic template that Sobel's supporters in Tallahassee used against  Ryan and Gottlieb, and it's even possible that it will be the very same people doing political hit-piece mailings against Keith London that did the ones that appeared in 2010, when he ran for re-election the first time 

For instance, the one by Roger A. Pennington's Committee to Protect Florida that implicitly supported City Comm. candidate Alexander Lewy, given that candidate William  "Bill" Julian, then a sitting HB City Commissioner, said at the time that he didn't have anything to do with it, and didn't know who was behind the direct mail -one of the few times I ever believed him.

After all, you didn't really think Mayor Cooper would be running for re-election on HER feeble record, did you?

No, objectively, Joy Cooper's resume as mayor of Hallandale Beach the past ten years is clear: of perpetually attacking and maligning her own citizens at public meetings, both City Commission and CRA; of often preventing citizens from being able to speak, esp. on important matters; of failing to even follow the city's very own rules of procedures in all sorts of crucial ways during these meetings; and of intentionally moving important City Commission agenda items, esp. those dealing with land use and development, to the end of the night.


Mayor Cooper does this because she knows from experience that if the most-important agenda items are not heard until after 10 p.m., it WILL discourage HB citizens and other interested parties wishing to speak, from actually participating in important decisions that they and every other HB resident will have to live with forever.

This has the practical effect of meaning that HB citizens interested in participating in their own city's public policy know in advance that they may have to wait 3-4 hours on a Wednesday night to have their say, since Mayor Cooper incessant talking -before, after and during other people's comments- only adds to the length of the far-too-long meetings. 

Far too often, Mayor Cooper's behavior at public meetings resembles nothing so much as a one-woman filibuster against American democracy and public participation.




Clip from the April 4, 2012 Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting, part of which was used by Channel 10 at top.  http://youtu.be/SSfVppptAm0 
See also:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2012/04/joy_cooper_puppy_store_vote.php


(FYI: If after reading the article above you haven't already figured it out, reader "Drew" is Andrew Markoff. Who else in this area would think to write 38 sentences via three separate comments to what was just an 18-sentence story? And then, merely to criticize the public and defend the mayor? Yes, defend Mayor Cooper, the very person who appointed him to the HB Charter Review Comm., where he was a minority of one in writing the dissenting view.)

And, of course, as we can hardly forget, Mayor Cooper has been the person in charge as the city's budget has nearly DOUBLED in the past six years, with little tangible evidence to show for it in the eyes of most HB taxpayers, who have seen neighboring communities in Hollywood and Aventura make noticeable changes that positively improve not only the look of their cities, but also improve their residents' Quality-of-Life.
No, that resume of Mayor Cooper's reads more like a bill of indictment, which is why she wants the coming election to be about everything but HER own record in office as mayor.

That's also why the mayor is deathly afraid of partipating with Comm. London in a genuine candidate debate or forum run by objective third-parties she can't control, like the Broward League of Women Voters, Broward Urban League, et al.
It's also explains why the Cooper-cronies at the HB Chamber of Commerce won't ever sponsor a debate or forum, as happens in thousands of other normal cities across America in election years, perhaps over breakfast for a small donation, with the money going to some local charity. 
She can't defend the indefensible.

Cooper's ten years of providing invisible oversight and imaginary accountability over millions of tax dollars -yet attacking those of us in the community who wanted genuine accountability and oversight- of her preferring to have a system of crony capitalism with respect to HB CRA monies that are supposed to help end blight, instead be used to keep benefiting he same cadre of people, has gotten us precisely to the shaky point we are now  -the breaking point.

This week's recent William Gjebre piece in BrowardBulldog, titled, Hallandale’s generous loans to private surgery center raise more questions about city program, is that same Joy Cooper attitude in a nut-shell.

It all sounds so very depressingly familiar doesn't it?
Once again, taxpayers are left to consider more instances of questionable or poor decision-making, city monies going out the door, and missing paperwork.
And Joy Cooper assuring us that it's all okay.

That's no way to run a city.
The past is prologue.
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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/sfl-ryan-lawsuit-eco-b072609,0,108230.story
Broward County candidate who lost state Senate race sues over attack ads he says were false
By Jon Burstein, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
July 25, 2009

FORT LAUDERDALE - The last-minute attack ads were damning. They accused the state Senate candidate of a "shady" land deal that had taxpayers shelling out $12 million for a $1-million piece of property his family owned in Davie.

The ads were wrong--the real estate had been appraised at $15.5 million. But they may have worked: the candidate finished last in a tight three-way Democratic primary last August.

Now Tim Ryan, a onetime member of the state House, wants the people responsible for the ad campaign against him to answer for their claims. He's pursuing a lawsuit that alleges not only that he was defamed by the group, People for a Better Florida Fund Inc., but that its creators lied as part of a conspiracy to keep him out of the state Senate district 31 seat, which represents a chunk of southern Broward County.

The case is one of the first of its kind in the state--a losing political candidate using the courts to go after what's known in the jargon of campaign law as an electioneering communications organization. Such groups, also called 527s after the section of the U.S. tax code that regulates them, are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money to make claims about candidates and issues, but are barred from telling people how to vote.

These groups--many with vague, often innocuous names including words like truth and justice-- have become players in Florida politics, spending more than $16 million in last fall's election. On the national level, they have been factors in recent races for the White House, most notably Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which assailed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry and his service record in Vietnam in 2004.

"(527s) are important because we have a lot of people new to Florida who don't know much about the candidates and are dependent on television and newspapers for what they hear about candidates," said Lance deHaven-Smith, a Florida State University political science professor.

The attacks on Ryan came in the waning weeks of his bare-knuckles election battle with two other former state House members-- Eleanor Sobel and Ken Gottlieb. Sobel emerged narrowly victorious, with 36 percent of the primary vote, then trounced a write-in rival in the general election.

"I'm taking this step (the lawsuit) because it's the only way to hold these outside special interest groups accountable," Ryan said. "(These groups) hijack the public process by spreading half-truths and sometimes just plain lies about people running for office."

In his lawsuit filed in Broward Circuit Court in October, he is seeking an unspecified amount of monetary damages from People for a Better Florida Fund Inc. and five men tied to it.

According to Ryan's lawyer, former state Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, it's been learned in the early stages of the litigation that the 527 group spent about $700,000 on television advertisements and mailings in the local race. That would be almost double what Ryan raised --$351,235.

Why the 527 spent so lavishly on the contest for a legislative seat in South Floirida is unclear. The group did not respond to requests from the SunSentinel for an explanation. Campbell said he believes the group targeted Ryan, as well as Gottlieb, because they are lawyers, while Sobel, a former Broward School Board member, is the wife of a physician.

Formed in 2006, People for a Better Florida Fund Inc. is largely financed by the Florida Medical Association's political action committee or association members, and has raised $1.16 million since January 2008. The fund's registered agent--and one of the defendants in Ryan's lawsuit--is Timothy Stapleton, the FMA's executive vice president. The other four defendants are doctors or members of the FMA.

Martin Reeder, attorney for People for a Better Florida Fund Inc., said the group hired outside vendors to do research and prepare the ads. The ads were signed off on by an attorney and approved by Stapleton, he said.

"All of the statements published that relate to the land deal were to the best of our knowledge accurate in all material respects and to the extent that there are any technical inaccuracies in the publication, there was certainly no actual malice," he said.

Because Ryan is a public figure, to win in court, he must prove the group knowingly spread false information in an attempt to harm him, said Mark Herron, an elections law specialist in Tallahassee.

The claims made by the 527 revolved around 54 acres of open space that had been in Ryan's family. A national nonprofit land conservation group organized a $12.4-million deal in November 2006 in which the town of Davie bought the property using a combination of state and county grants and municipal bond proceeds.

An outside appraiser--hired by the conservation group--valued the property at $15.5 million.

But in a mass mailing, People for a Better Florida Fund Inc. wrote that "Taxpayers paid $12 million for the land--that's $11 million more than what the property was worth!"

Sobel, the ultimate beneficiary of the group's ad campaign, did not return repeated phone calls to her office and cell phone.

Gottlieb said People for a Better Florida Fund Inc. had a "big influence" on the race and was able to overwhelm his message with inaccurate ads. He said he was wrongly portrayed as beholden to "Republican special interests."

"They should be held accountable like everyone else and one of the problems with these ECOs is they are not and hopefully this lawsuit will do that," Gottlieb said.
-----
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Hollywood ophthalmologist fought hard for Sobel’s Senate victory
By Brittany Wallman July 30, 2009 04:09 PM
Staff writer Jon Burstein reports:
In Eleanor Sobel’s winning bid for a state Senate seat last year, she had no bigger supporter than a politically-connected Hollywood ophthalmologist who once served on Gov. Charlie Crist’s transition team, new court records show.
Alan Mendelsohn, then treasurer of the Florida Medical Association’s political action committee, aggressively raised money for Sobel and hailed her Aug. 26 victory in the Democratic primary as the FMA flexing its might, according to a string of e-mails.
Read the rest of the post at:

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*Alan Mendelsohn later pleaded guilty in June of 2011 to one count of conspiracy for, among other things, trying to hide $82,000 in political contributions to former State Sen. Mandy Dawson, and was sentenced to four years in prison, which he began serving in January.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-01-06/news/fl-alan-mendelsohn-goes-to-prison-20120106_1_mendelsohn-prison-officials-tax-evasion


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Miami Herald
Campaign, attack ads linked
By Amy Sherman
July 30, 2009

When a secretive electioneering group attacked Eleanor Sobel's political opponents in a Broward state Senate race last year alleging "shady land deals," Sobel vowed she had nothing to do with it. 


"I have no control over those groups," Sobel told The Miami Herald in August as People for a Better Florida Fund filled mailboxes with last-minute missives just before she defeated Tim Ryan and Ken Gottlieb. 


But new court documents provide clear links between Sobel's campaign and the attack ads. 


Sobel's political consultant was also a paid consultant for an affiliate of People for a Better Florida Fund and helped coordinate the attacks and plot strategy, according to e-mails and a deposition taken in a defamation suit Ryan filed against the group. Another campaign vendor also was paid in the effort. 


Ryan contends the group unfairly alleged improprieties. People for a Better Florida Fund denies the claim. Sen. Sobel would not return repeated calls for comment. 


Though Ryan's lawsuit is in its infancy, the case is already providing a rare glimpse into the world of shadowy political groups and the big money that special interests spend to ensure they have a supportive vote in the state Legislature. 


People for a Better Florida Fund is closely linked to the Florida Medical Association, with the address listed for the group on the state's election website matching the doctors' organization. Sobel, the wife of a dermatologist, drew much of her financial support from the medical field. While a state representative, she was among a handful of Democrats to side with the medical industry on medical malpractice legislation. 


Ryan and Gottlieb, also former state representatives, have at times sided with the political enemies of the doctor lobby: the trial lawyers. 


"Eleanor Sobel was someone who had a better voting record on issues that concerned our contributors," Tim Stapleton, People for a Better Florida Fund's deputy treasurer, said in a deposition July 20. Stapleton is executive vice president of the FMA. 


While Sobel spent about $400,000 in the entire campaign, Stapleton testified that his group spent about $600,000 to help Sobel in the primary. 


"That is the cost of doing business," Stapleton said. "We had a clear friend running, someone who understood the issues that we care about. So we wanted to help that person." 


CONSULTANT 
Stapleton testified that his group's "point of contact" with Sobel's campaign was her consultant, Steve Vancore. He said the consultant's firm, VancoreJones Communications Inc., conducted the research that gathered material for the campaign ads. 


Vancore was paid about $19,000 through People for a Better Florida Inc., the affiliated group. Sobel's campaign paid him more than $230,000. 


Vancore said in an interview Wednesday he did not talk to Sobel about the group's activities, though she knew he was a consultant to it. "We said, 'We're not showing Eleanor,' " Vancore said, citing the Ryan mailers. "She knew we were working together." 


Stapleton testified that the group's mail vendor, Dylan Sumner, was also a mail vendor for "the campaign." 


The group attacked both Ryan and Gottlieb, with each ad depicting the candidates surrounded by a pile of money. The Gottlieb ad targeted a failed redevelopment project in Hollywood. 


The Ryan flier said taxpayers paid $12 million for Davie land worth $1 million. 


RYAN'S RESPONSE 
Ryan contends an appraisal actually showed the land's value at $15 million. The $1 million figure refers to the assessed value on one slice of the property, say Ryan and his attorney, former state Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, a veteran trial lawyer. 


The group stands by the gist of its ad. 


"People for a Better Florida Fund went out and hired highly qualified consultants to obtain accurate information to educate the voters -- and that's what they did," said L. Martin Reeder, attorney for the defendants. "What was published we believe was accurate in all material respects." 


Although there were "some technical discrepancies" by Vancore's firm assuming that one parcel was the whole site, the ad's message -- that Ryan sold it for higher than what the property appraiser listed it at -- was true, Reeder said. 


The day after Sobel won the August primary, Stapleton sent an e-mail to supporters declaring Sobel's win "one of the most significant, and most rewarding victories for FMA PAC in the last 10 years!" 


Sobel then sailed to victory in November to represent the Broward district, which stretches from Hallandale Beach and Hollywood to parts of Plantation. 


Ryan sued in October. He said the negative pieces not only helped Sobel win but spread false information. 


While it is too early to tell which side will prevail, the Ryan lawsuit is shedding light on ECOs, or electioneering communication organizations, third-party groups that can sidestep contribution limits and have played a major role in recent elections. 


The groups are highly secretive and powerful because they can raise huge sums, often have vague names and send attack ads close to election day, making it difficult for voters to discern who is behind them. 


That could become even tougher now that a federal judge recently declared that Florida's regulation of the groups was unconstitutional. 


In the Ryan case, Sobel is not named as a defendant and, by law, could have had contact with an ECO attacking her opponents. 


But the Stapleton deposition raises the question: If voters knew some members of her campaign team were actively involved in last-minute attack ads, would it have made a difference? 


"The e-mails did indicate that she did have communication with those consultants that were working with this group," Ryan said. "So it's really for Eleanor to explain what her involvement was with this group." 


Attempts to reach Sobel through her cell phone, offices in Hollywood and Tallahassee and her Senate e-mail were all unsuccessful. 


As Ryan's lawsuit -- which seeks unspecified damages but does not seek to overturn the election results -- progresses, Campbell said he plans to depose Sobel, among others. 


ANTI-SOBEL ADS 
To be sure, Sobel faced campaign attacks too. 


Another ECO -- the Integrity Counts Committee, run by political consultant Russ Oster -- sent mailers targeting her 2006 promise involving the School Board. 


When running for the School Board, Sobel told a reporter: "I'm going to commit four years to the School Board." Nine months after taking office, she announced her Senate bid, saying she felt she could do more for the district as a state senator. 


In one flier, a girl writes "I will not tell a lie" on a chalkboard. "Our Kids Learn To Tell The Truth, Shouldn't WE EXPECT BETTER From ELEANOR SOBEL?" it asked. 


"Lies, lies and more lies," Sobel said at the time. 


Miami Herald staff writer Marc Caputo contributed to this report. 



Read these to see what's what

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President Obama motorcade Hallandale Beach, Florida

Monday, July 26, 2010

Weeks later, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel & Miami TV newscasts STILL consciously ignoring Bob Norman's spot-on story re School Board's Jennifer Gottlieb

Weeks after Bob Norman perhaps fatally exposed Broward School Board Chair Jennifer Gottlieb's very poor judgment in devastating detail in his must-read Daily Pulp blog at the BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes, the reporters, columnists and editors of the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, as well as the various so-called "Business Journals" and TV news operations in Miami are STILL consciously ignoring that unflattering story about a powerful person because... well, they can.

BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Daily Pulp blog
Emails Reveal School Board Chairwoman Romanced Schools' Banker
By Bob Norman, Fri., Jul. 2 2010 @ 8:48AM -

She was a second-year elected school board member at a political conference in Tampa, getting quite literally wined and dined by high-rolling bankers at Citigroup, enjoying the "luxury" of a night out in a town that didn't know who she was.

He was one of those bankers, working the deals behind what has become $2 billion in Broward School Board debt. Both were married with young children.

And after meeting and flirting at an all-you-can-eat lobster and steak dinner put on by Citigroup for elected officials at The Palm restaurant in Tampa, romance blossomed between current Broward County School Board Chairwoman Jennifer Gottlieb and Citigroup finance manager Rick Patterson.

Read the rest of the post at: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/07/school_board_chairwoman_jennifer_gottlieb.php


That post from July 2nd currently has 499 comments as of 4 p.m. today, which shows that despite the local MSM's attempt to bury this story, people who actually pay attention to what's going on in the community, regardless of their opinion, are talking about it, anyway.


This foolish attempt to bury the story only makes the old traditional media in South Florida seem more irrelevant and ridiculous than ever, and it's not like they are that relevant anymore to begin with, since there are clearly many reporters on local Miami TV who ought to be in smaller TV markets, but are here, warts and all.
(That will be a topic of future posts.)


And seriously, when was the last time you read a lengthy and well-written story in the
Herald about the goings-on at local Miami TV news operations the way that once was fairly common in the 1970's and '80's?


Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and things are exactly what they seem, and in this case, there clearly seems to be a conspiracy of silence among the South Florida news media and chattering class about the personal and professional behavior of
Jennifer Gottlieb.


But then as we are constantly at pains to remind ourselves, this is South Florida, an outlier more often than not in the best of times when journalism is either hard-hitting or popular, and this is hardly the first time since my family moved here in 1968 that a perfectly valid and compelling news story was ignored by the then-extant
MSM on account of... well, whatever the popular excuse offered up at the time at One Herald Plaza or over at the old Channel 4 studio in downtown Miami was.

Usually, when pressed, the answer was always "lack of column inches" in the newspaper or available time on a newscast.


Try to imagine a current local TV anchor publicly going after a local pol like
Demetrio Perez Jr. the way that anchor/news director Ralph Renick does here in 1982?
It's inconceivable in the current era of sycophancy, and our great loss.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyuJGHrjbRY


1982 Ralph Renick editorial on WTVJ on political efforts in Miami to prevent Scarface from being filmed in Miami due to concerns of negative portrayal of Miami and its Cuban-American population.




The local TV and print reporters whom we've grown accustomed to seeing report regularly on the latest education funding/scandal/crisis/antics involving School Board Superintendents Alberto Carvalho in Miami-Dade and James Notter in Broward, overwhelmingly female reporters, are quite simply, NOT doing their job by ignoring this story.

They've collectively taken a pass on mentioning something embarrassing about an elected official in Broward County that should be of great concern to every Broward County taxpayer, especially those with children in the public school system.

Why?

And is part of the reason that there is such great reluctance among South Florida's news media to face this issue head-on precisely because the person involved is female? As I've stated previously in writing about other neglected education issues, I personally think the answer is YES.

There is a palpable dis-connect and obvious sense of hypocrisy among South Florida's news media in how they report on the foibles and legal problems of male and female elected officials, so it should hardly be surprising that once again, they just swallow their hypocrisy whole because this case involves a female.

If this had involved a male School Board chair, though, we all know that this same story would've made the front page of the Miami Herald, albeit, with lots of quotes from supportive friends
and work colleagues.


My own experience in corporate life from working with large nationally-known law firms on big cases, as well as from being involved at a high level in presidential political campaigns, plus my own personal relationships with people in South Florida, Chicago and Washington, D.C., is that people who have particularly bad habits tend to have those traits throughout the day, regardless of whether they are at home or not.

There's no OFF switch they hit.

People who are consistently NOT punctual, NOT properly prepared and who are generally untrustworthy, who can't keep a confidential secret about a client from others, tend NOT to be able to do the exact opposite when they are away from the office.


I've personally gotten lots of very smart and talented people re-assigned or fired from firms or political campaigns because of the above issues, and I had no qualms in doing so because I've found that personal recklessness almost always reveals itself at the worst possible time.

Just like a film director,
I need to know that people around me on a project or campaign are on top of things and focused on the matter at hand, not worrying about extraneous matters, esp. involving romance.

If you see people consistently making poor decisions and exhibit carelessness in their job, are
you really supposed to believe that their judgment is any sounder and grounded when you don't see them?


That said, this personal issue Bob Norman writes about so thoroughly doesn't make Jennifer Gottlieb a bad person, just human.

But it does indicate to me that she should be somewhere else, and NOT making important decisions.


http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index?keywords=Jennifer+Gottlieb&x=0&y=0


Because Jennifer Gottlieb is running for re-election as an At-Large Broward School Board candidate, every registered voter in Broward County can and should vote against her and give her the time she clearly needs to get her personal life together, however that shakes out.

Having said that, on Saturday afternoon at the Hallandale Beach Parks Master Plan meeting,
while I was setting up my camera tripod in the back of the A1A Community Center, I saw her husband Ken, the former State Rep. who's running for Circuit Court Judge.

I felt both sorry for him but also very uncomfortable, since he doesn't know whether or not people he runs into have read the story
Norman wrote, which in my opinion was extremely fair.

Two years ago, I voted for Tim Ryan for State Senate to succeed Steve Geller when Ryan, Gottlieb and Eleanor Sobel ran for the seat that Sobel eventually won after a VERY NASTY primary race that left a very bad taste in Southeast Broward voters mouths, due to the influence of secretive groups affiliated with Sobel that ran untruthful TV attack ads and mail that savaged both Gottlieb and Ryan.

(Ryan later took Sobel to court
about the groups' efforts, but after an initial flurry of stories about the trial, the press coverage completely disappeared. Shocker!
That's the current state of South Florida journalism in a nutshell: here one minute, gone another! Just like the summer rain!)


Unlike some people I know in the Broward political/citizen activist community who swear by the guy, I'm lukewarm to Ken Gottlieb, but I will acknowledge that he does seem like a genuinely earnest and hard-working guy who puts everything into his efforts, which makes him somewhat unusual in these parts, where coasting on the job and letting staff do all the work is the norm.


Personally, though, I'm just not crazy about the idea of enthusiastic activist pols becoming judges because I don't think people can fight that part of their nature.

I believe that the personal qualities that people clearly liked and admired about him in one job, State Rep., are not the same ones required to be a fair-minded judge that all parties can have full confidence in.

Frankly, if his wife Jennifer wasn't already on the Broward School Board, though I haven't put too much time into thinking this through to its logical conclusion, I'd much prefer him or Tim Ryan as Broward State's Attorney in two years against incumbent Michael Satz, who seems energy-deficient in the extreme.

Natural enthusiasm in a D.A. is much better than in a judge, especially in such a target-rich environment like corrupt Broward County.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

When do Jennifer Gottlieb apologists admit she's part of the problem, not part of the solution? She's squandered ANOTHER chance to do the right thing!

Two current popular South Florida blog posts on the absolutely insane and despicable unethical behavior taking place at the Broward School Board under Chair Jennifer Gottlieb bear special mention today, largely because each draws attention in their own unique way to the criminally dysfunctional education system in Broward County, one that seems more like a giant bank robbery caper to transfer taxpayers dollars into the pockets, purses and wallets of family and friends with connections, than it is a functioning "educational system" for producing well-informed and well-rounded students who have a ghost of a chance of competing in an international economy.

As is always the case, no matter where you go, the smart ambitious kids who are curious, pay close attention and have parents who make a minimum of effort, will probably do okay, despite the self-evident middling mediocrity of the school system they find themselves in, but what about the mediocre-to-average kids?

The very kids whose consistently poor performances help make the high-achievers performance so very much easier than it might've been 20-30 years ago, regardless of how many kids may actually be in an AP class.

You know, like when I was in high school in North Miami Beach in the late '70's, and just about everyone in my four AP classes was getting the hell out of Florida for college as soon as possible: Princeton, UVA, Colorado, Northwestern, Michigan, Georgia Tech... and Indiana.

The basic stupidity and general sense of clueless-ness of kids I run into all around southern Broward County, despite all the advantages of technology they've been given, is perfectly shocking -and scary as hell.

Especially compared to the high standards I'm used to in Northern Virginia, where even the dumb kids there would be considered prized scholars here.

I've written many negative things about Jennifer Gottlieb in this space before, all of which were true, though she has her team of loyal apologists who hit the popular blogs after an article has appeared, trying their best to clean-up her mess and point fingers in other directions.
Trust me, I'm far from the only person in Broward who has noticed this phenomena.

Frankly, I've often shook my head over why Gottlieb continues to get what can only be described as fawning media attention, esp. on TV, despite what everyone with decent eyesight can clearly see for themselves: Her house is on fire but she and her pals want to select which firefighters get to put the fire out!
And we're paying for it in more ways than one.

To repeat a perennial comment here, one whispered in what passes for polite society hereabouts, to what extent is this true because the education beat here is one completely dominated by female reporters?
Are female reporters reluctant to draw blood of female office holders?
I personally think the accumulated evidence suggests that is, in fact, the case, but that's a topic for another time...

I should mention that despite the largely positive media coverage Gottlieb receives, she is not that popular with many well-informed and concerned citizens in Broward County who are closely following what's going on, and that's particularly true among the crowd in Hollywood and Hallandale Beach who have contributed to her campaign and have voted for her in the past, but who have now reached their saturation point with the flimsy excuses and finger-pointing.

Today, after some related comments, I only need to get out of the way and let Buddy Nevins and Bob Norman paint the picture of a woman proving the Peter Principle right before us.

Sticking with the subject of the Gottlieb's for a minute, over the past week, I've come to wonder if others see the same similarities in legitimate questions about Elena Kagan's lack of a judicial background that I do, most of which could also be accurately applied to former State Rep. and Hollywood commissioner Ken Gottlieb, Jennifer's husband, who is running for Broward County judge.

Most of the well-informed people I know in Broward would describe him as a very smart,
enthusiastic and zealous advocate for issues he championed, which are among the reasons that they gave me for why they had voted for him for REPRESENTATIVE and then State Senate in 2008.

(I voted for Tim Ryan in the 2008 State Senate primary, someone I'd like to see as Broward States Attorney or the Broward Ethics IG.)

But where is the evidence that Gottlieb can,
suddenly, become impartial and completely import a judicial temperament, completely ignoring his own personal feelings and many years of publicly taking sides on important public policy issues?
Personally, I haven't seen it.

That doesn't make him a bad guy, of course, just someone perhaps not
suited to be a judge, and who'd better help the community in another capacity altogether.

And just a reminder, Jennifer Gottlieb is an At-Large member of the Broward School Board, which means that you can vote for or against her regardless of where you live in Broward County.
Personally, I'm NOT in favor of dual-elected couples.

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Some helpful information from http://www.browardsoe.org/electioncandidates.aspx?eid=89

School Board, Dist. 1 Ann Murray Filed
School Board, Dist. 1 Gary Plancher Filed
School Board, Dist. 2 Patricia Good Filed
School Board, Dist. 2 Kevin Tynan Filed
School Board, Dist. 4 Shelly Solomon Heller Withdrew
School Board, Dist. 4 Jaemi Levine Filed
School Board, Dist. 4 Penny McArthur Madden Filed
School Board, Dist. 4 Donald Samuels Filed
School Board, Dist. 4 David "Dave" Thomas Filed
School Board, Dist. 4 Stewart "Stew" Jackson Webster Filed
School Board, Dist. 6 Phyllis C. Hope Filed
School Board, Dist. 6 Laurie Rich Levinson Filed
School Board, Dist. 7 Robert D. Parks Filed
School Board, Dist. 7 Nora Rupert Filed
School Board, Dist. 8 Jennifer Leonard Gottlieb Filed

County Court Judge, Grp. 20
Kenneth "Ken" Gottlieb Qualified
County Court Judge, Grp. 20 Mark W. Rickard Withdrew
County Court Judge, Grp. 20 Steven A. Schaet Qualified

Two stories below

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Broward Beat
Broke School System Never Considered Selling Naming Right; Instead They Name Track For Parks
By Buddy Nevins
May 18, 2010

The School Board today voted to name a track at Coconut Creek High for member Bob Parks after admitting that nobody even bothered to consider selling the naming rights.

“Was the school going to use this as a revenue producing facility?” asked member Stephanie Kraft. “Right now with our financial situation being what it is, I’m reluctant to give up (any) money.”

“We never considered it,” said David Jones, the Coconut Creek principal. “…We hadn’t thought about the money.”

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/coconut-creek-well-protest-parks-name-on-track/


BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes

Dysfunction Junction: The Broward School Board Story
By Bob Norman
Wednesday, May. 19 2010 @ 9:29AM


The Broward School Board sold our children's future out to their lobbyist and construction-company friends, overspent hundreds of millions of dollars, and dug the district $2 billion in debt.


The board remains under federal investigation. One former member, Beverly Gallagher, is heading to prison after taking bribes from undercover FBI agents posing as construction lobbyists. The financial debacle they've created is now affecting employees, who are being laid off, and children, who are losing electives like art, music, and PE.


So are the board members on their knees begging for forgiveness? No, they're naming stadiums after themselves.


Read the rest of the post at:

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/05/broward_county_school_board_dysfunction.php