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Showing posts with label Kristin Jacobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kristin Jacobs. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Is Kristin Jacobs poised to become 'the last straw' and the cynical face for voters of the ever-expanding Broward candidate residency scandal? Yet MORE residency problems in Broward County per Media Tracker Florida: Jacobs wants to run for FL House 96 while living in House 93, even while convincing evidence suggests that at least 5 current members of the Broward Legislative Delegation may be knowingly breaking state law, practically daring Broward State's Attorney Mike Satz & Co. to actually do something; Videos by Local10 investigative reporter Bob Norman show he's NOT afraid to go after South Florida's unethical pols and ask the hard questions



Is Kristin Jacobs poised to become 'the last straw' and the cynical face for voters of the ever-expanding Broward candidate residency scandal? Yet MORE residency problems in Broward County per Media Tracker Florida: Jacobs wants to run for FL House 96 while living in House 93, even while convincing evidence suggests that at least 5 current members of the Broward Legislative Delegation may be knowingly breaking state law, practically daring Broward State's Attorney Mike Satz & Co. to actually do something; Videos by Local10 investigative reporter Bob Norman show he's NOT afraid to go after South Florida's unethical pols and ask the hard questions 
Could Kristen Jacobs really be dumb enough to think that she can get away with it, too?
Yes.


Media Tracker Florida
Florida House Candidate Kristin Jacobs Tries to Hide Residency Problems
By Tom Lauder 
July 1, 2013
House of Representatives District 96 candidate Kristin Jacobs asked state election officials to hide her address from the public in the wake of new evidence that suggests she lives outside District 96.
In an affidavit filed with the State of Florida, Jacobs asked state elections officials to redact her home address. The Florida elections website shows Jacobs’ paperwork for the District 96 seat, but her address is blacked out. Jacobs filed for the District 96 seat, but numerous public records show Jacobs actually lives in District 93, which is represented by George Moraitis (R-Fort Lauderdale).
Read the rest of the post at:

Anyone want to guess how many Broward state legislators actually LIVE full-time in the district they were elected to? Anyone?

 It's another one of Broward State's Attorney Mike Satz's lasting legacies to all of us as Broward citizens that he and his crew are unwilling to make an example out of someone breaking the law he is sworn to enforce and prosecute lawbreakers.

Maybe if Sazt & Company had actually gone hammer-and-tong after one of these legislative miscreants a few years ago who thought they could pull the rug over voters' eyes and knowingly violate the Florida Constitution -and told Broward County Commissioners that he'd 'no longer accept their wink-wink residency, too- and abandoned their See No Evil/Hear No Evil/Speak No Evil mindset, the problem wouldn't have mushroomed to the extent that it clearly has while he has been in charge and done NOTHING.

 Yes, Black & White carpetbaggers everywhere you look in Broward!

Unethical politicians hiding in plain-sight are Bob Norman's favorite kind of people to bring the hammer down on: Joe Gibbons, Perry Thurston, Jared Moskowitz, Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs...

 Local10 News video: 
 Broward Commissioner's residency claims don't hold up, 
North Miami mayor sued over city's residency rule
Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published On: Jun 25 2013 03:07:21 PM EDT   Updated On: Jun 25 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT, 
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player, 
Related article at: http://www.local10.com/news/more-elected-officials-living-outside-districts/-/1717324/20709398/-/pok1gcz/-/index.html


Local10 News video: 
Florida Democratic leader caught living outside district
Author: Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com

Published On: Jun 12 2013 03:34:55 PM EDT   Updated On: Jun 12 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

 Related article: http://www.local10.com/news/investigation-finds-elected-officials-with-houses-outside-their-districts/-/1717324/20516720/-/bwp40jz/-/index.html

Local10 News video: 
Senator caught on video staying outside district, Maria Sachs has home in Boca Raton, claims to reside in Lauderdale condo
Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published On: Jun 26 2013 04:45:07 PM EDT   Updated On: Jun 26 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
Related article at http://www.local10.com/news/south-floridabased-state-senators-residency-debated/-/1717324/20726464/-/r2lhe4z/-/index.html








And as if there weren't already serious ethical issues involving her, Florida state Senator Maria Sachs sets a now LOW in unethical behavior among South Florida pols.
 Democrat Sachs, who defeated Ellyn Bogdanoff in 2012 and who was endorsed by the Miami Herald, is so lazy & unethical that she even failed to disclose her legislative salary on her required disclosure forms three years in a row.

Palm Beach Post

Editorial: Sachs case shows why ethics laws remain too lax.

Posted: 4:33 p.m. Sunday, June 16, 2013
BY ANDREW MARRA - PALM BEACH POST STAFF WRITER

For three years, state Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, skirted state law by failing to publicly disclose all of her financial assets on mandatory state disclosure forms. When questions were raised before her election last year, she brushed them off as “negative campaigning” and said she had not even bothered to go back and look at the reports.

The Florida Commission on Ethics was not so dismissive. Last week, it announced that it had found probable cause that Sen. Sachs had violated Florida’s disclosure rules for elected officials by not properly reporting her net worth or her ownership of a Tallahassee condo. According to the commission, she failed even to disclose her legislative salary.

These transgressions occurred from 2008 to 2010, and by 2011 Sen. Sachs had begun including the omitted information in her new financial reports. After the ethics commission began an investigation, Sen. Sachs also filed amended forms for the years in question. As a result, the ethics commission said it will not seek to impose fines or take further action.

The senator has said the omissions were unintentional. Accidental or not, she is hardly the first elected official to fail to properly disclose her finances as required by law. Indeed, last week the ethics commission faulted four other current and former legislators for similar failings.

Questions about Sen. Sachs’ financial disclosures were raised last October by Sid Dinerstein, then the chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. His complaint to the ethics commission was baldly political, but Sen. Sachs was wrong to dismiss it out of hand. The requirement that candidates and elected officials disclose their assets reveals to voters any agendas that otherwise would be hidden, and is so fundamental a concept that it is included in the state’s constitution.

The Legislature passed a sweeping ethics reform package this year. But the bill actually makes it easier for officials to correct flawed financial disclosure reports without penalties, and it failed to give the ethics commission the much-needed ability to initiate its own investigations, even into disclosure reports that are obviously flawed. Until that authority is granted, one of the few ways for it to investigate omissions like Sen. Sachs’ will be politically motivated complaints.

Andrew Marra for The Post Editorial Board

-----
After her victory, 
"State Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith sent out a statement congratulating Sachs on her campaign and called her a "rising star" in the state Democratic Party."


 The news directors at CBS4, NBC-6 and 7News and the editors at the Miami Herald need to wake-up from their summer coma and admit that they've been completely asleep on this scandal from the very beginning, and need to acknowledge that there are LOTS of people all over South Florida who HAVE noticed this failure.
And also noticed their complete failure to make a serious effort to catch-up.
Why?

 Why so much resistance to doing hard news?
Of pushing back against elected officials and putting them in their place?
Why are you in your job if you don't want to cover and investigate what people are genuinely interested in that is also important to society?

 And don't think we forgot about you down in Miami-Dade, Frank Artiles, and the way blogger Elaine de Valle caught you a few years ago still living at the home you said you would move out of if you got elected.
My April 21, 20111 blog post on this subject was titled, Elaine de Valle's Political Cortadito blog channels Sherlock Holmes and catches the crook red-handed: FL Rep. Frank Artiles. Blogger 1, Lying Pol 0
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/elaine-de-valles-political-cortadito.html

 Speaking of how many of Broward's legislators live elsewhere, why is it that the website of the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators is managed by a company located in Spain? http://fcbsl.org/  http://www.arsys.es/
When you go to a list of members, on my computer Google Translate pops-up and asks you if you want to translate Spanish. http://www.fcbsl.com/#!/members 
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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Broward's present/future problems in a nutshell: Not enough leadership, too much Kristin Jacobs-like behavior -Fighting over scraps: a meaningless job

Broward's present/future problems in a nutshell: Not enough leadership, too much Kristin Jacobs-like behavior -Fighting over scraps: a meaningless job that nobody respects.

No, not fighting over important ideas, a principle or even an issue that nobody else is willing to stand up for that demands some public illumination and a degree of long-overdue oversight,
or even fighting for something supported by her campaign donation friends, but rather a fight over a dubious position that nobody outside S. Andrews Avenue knows about, cares about or respects.
You know, just because you buy a $6.99 Captain's hat you come across at Marshall's doesn't make you a real captain or mean that Broward citizens have to salute you.

Though some will, apparently, like lobbyist Seth Platt, who Tweeted,
Seth Platt
Grats to John Rodstrom as the New #Broward County Mayor &@Kristin_Jacobs as the New Vice-Mayor
15 Nov
The same prescient Seth Platt the lobbyist who said in 2010, when polls showed Allen West doing well in FL-22, "POLLS DON”T MEAN SQUAT"?
Yes, that one.

Well, for those of us NOT dependent upon the kindness of Broward Commissioners to survive or make a living, this is yet the latest in a series of HBR Case Studies of why, in large part, Broward County government is in the mess and funk it's in.
Yes, the intersection of Dysfunction Junction, just like its colleagues at the Broward School Board.
They're in the same boat, but all paddling in different directions.
So where's the surprise that they're drifting?

Really, all this Sturm und Drang over a position as vice-mayor of Broward County that was not decided by actual Broward voters, but, like the so-called mayor's position -yes, I use lower-case for undemocratic titles- voted upon by less people than who will decide who's homecoming king and queen at any high school any of you can think of?
Decided by less people than the ones who decided who would be in charge of Rush at the Chi Omega house at FSU? (And to be honest, one less important than the latter...)

Just because nine people think something is important does not mean that I and other Broward residents who are paying attention have to agree to the pretense and say that it's important, too.
I reject the premise.

Peruse and decide for yourself - in chronological order:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Broward's Kristin Jacobs digs in heels for vice mayor post
By Brittany Wallman
November 15, 2011 12:38 PM

Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs is the vice mayor now, and the vote was unanimous., But that eventual result didn't come easily for her.

Jacobs had to fight for that title, even forcing her colleagues one by one to announce whether they supported her bid.

Read the rest of the post at:

BrowardBeat
Commissioners Squabble Over Meaningless Job: Vice Mayor
By Buddy Nevins
November 15, 2011

Does Goody Two Shoes, known to most of us as Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, have some mud on her soles after today’s divisive vote on who will be the next Broward Vice Mayor?
Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/kristin-jacobs-fights-for-meaningless-job-vice-mayor/


South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
The ugly fight for the Broward vice mayor title: behind the scenes
By Brittany Wallman
November 16, 2011 11:04 AM

A lot of backroom deal-making, threatening and vote-gathering led up to Tuesday's Broward County Commission vote on who would be vice mayor, observers told me afterwards.

Read the rest of the post at:

Voting for a county-wide Broward Mayor who'll either show vision and leadership -or not- who's voted directly by -and held accountable by- Broward voters, is a long overdue idea and reality that has once again been dismissed by the status quo crowd on S. Andrews Avenue.
Not that it has ever really gotten a fair shake in this county since I returned to South Florida eight years ago, given who comprised the Broward Charter Review Commission.

Lots of apologists for the way things are now, save Ted Mena and Michael Buckner among a few CRC members who deigned to show any foresight and gumption for the public's right to decide those things themselves.

Though I don't know them very well, I'd vote for either one tomorrow for County Mayor before I let Broward's lobbyist crowd foist one of their longtime pals upon us as a stalking horse.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Broward commish kills countywide mayor proposal, again
By Brittany Wallman November 2, 2011 08:09 AM

And yet for this dubious position of vice-mayor, to read the accounts, Kristen Jacobs is like a wild hog going after a bone, and woe onto anyone or anything getting in her way.

Go ahead, keep your bone, but don't be surprised when we ask publicly over the next year why of all the things that possibly could've taken the time and energy of nine elected officials, these table scraps are what YOU fought over.
No, we won't be forgetting.

Yes, Broward Comm. Kristin Jacobs, the very same woman whose staff tried to take me to task last year because I wrote on this blog that, in my opinion, she was unfit to be on the Broward County MPO -another mess of a group that gets little public or press attention that I've gone after here on the blog a few times- after she never once attended a single public Transportation forum in Broward of the many I've attended over the years, prior to July, even while hundreds and hundreds of Broward citizens could find the time and energy do so over the same time-frame.
Even on Saturday mornings at the Broward Convention Center.

You won't be surprised to discover that among this interested group of concerned Broward residents, people DID notice who were no-shows, besides anyone from the Miami Herald.

From the looks of things -my own observations and emails from others- Jacobs couldn't even be bothered to show-up and feign interest, even while officials and experts from Tallahassee, Atlanta and Vancouver showed-up at one forum in particular to inform and educate.

They didn't take it well when I told them that the word "transportation" wasn't even on her county bio website at the time, yet she was suddenly on the Board that sets policy.
Now THAT'S Broward County in a snapshot!

I hung up on her office the third time they called me with a bad attitude.
Later she/they sent a letter, one I never opened.
Seriously, how many unimpressive women politicians can one county possibly bear to have at one time.

From north near Palm Beach County to the south near me, just north of the Miami-Dade line, Broward County has some of the most unethical, unsavory, and undemocratic, to say nothing of venal female politicians in the country: this Rogue's gallery includes the duplicitous Joy Cooper, now convicted Sylvia Poitier, anti-democratic Lori Moseley, and Debby Eisinger, the latter of whom voted with members of the majority of the appointed Broward CRC against allowing Broward citizens to vote on whether or not to have an elected Broward County mayor in November of 2008.

How does an elected public official justify voting against elections that allow citizens to determine their own form of govt. structure?
Exactly, but that's just what Cooper City Mayor Debby Eisinger did.
The same woman who fought against tougher ethical standards for Broward municipal officials
It's why she's on that list that goes on and on...

They make me glad that there is some hope out there. that is if by there, you mean NOT here.
I do.

Because of what I've read and seen of her, her unwillingness to play the fool and swallow spin from the wealthy and the well-connected or political parties, her unwillingness to play pretend and accept illusions or fantasy for real solutions to problems, unless something unexpected happens -either to her or to me- if Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs runs for governor of Florida in 2014, I'll support her.
She's a real MAYOR, elected by real VOTERS, winning a run-off 68%-32%, despite being out fund-raised 2-1.

And best of all, Teresa Jacobs has smarts, hubris and moxie, something that can't be said about the majority of the pols in Broward or South Florida.
Just saying...

-----
For more information on this issue, see"

Broward Charter Review Comm. discussion re county-wide elected mayor and composition of County Commission, April 9, 2008, pp 68-126
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Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Florida Panthers hockey team's owners & mgmt. are about to get a cold dose of economic reality falling on their head -no taxpayer money for you!

In my opinion, the Florida Panthers hockey team's owners and management are about to get a cold dose of economic reality falling on their head -no taxpayer money for you!
And that lesson may well come as soon as the Broward County Commission meeting I'll be attending on Tuesday when agenda item #31 comes up.

-----
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Florida Panthers asking Broward commissioners for $7.7 million loan
By Brittany Wallman
November 5, 2011 09:57 PM
The company that operates Broward County’s hockey arena in Sunrise and owns the Florida Panthers who play there wants a $7.7 million loan from the county to renovate the facility.

-----

I wrote to Broward County Comm. Sue Gunzburger -the presiding official here- and Comm. Chip LaMarca in June about the original $14.4 million request the Panthers asked for, and they responded quite reasonably that given the poor state of the economy in Broward County -and the sorts of belt-tightening that has taken place here, where salaries have been cut and job openings have gone unfilled- they will NOT support that request.

Given that, I can't imagine that Commissioners Gunzburger and LaMarca will change their minds for even for half that amount NOW, especially given that 99% of Broward County's resident taxpayers never utilize the BankAtlantic Center in a typical year, given what I and most reasonable people believe is its inconvenient location in Sunrise.


View Larger Map


Personally, I love NHL hockey -as has been stated here previously with my post on Les Habs, see the two links below- and exponentially prefer it to the NBA, but the best thing the Florida Panthers could do for all concerned is move to Kansas City after this season and end the pretense that they will ever be more than a largely-ignored novelty here in South Florida.



The number-one rule of politics and marketing is know your "universe."
In my opinion, the Panthers never learned that when it would've actually mattered, with completely with predictable results.

Below is the most recent list of myriad Panthers/Yormark/Sunrise Sports officials and lobbyists calling upon Broward County Commissioners, though given the apparent limitations of the county's website, and the all-too-obvious spelling mistakes, I'm sure there are likely more: http://webapps.broward.org/Lobbyist/VisitorContactList.aspx

I've re-arranged the info below to make it more legible as the columns on the county's website played havoc with the blog.

Michael Yormark
Principal/Employer: Sunrise Sports & Entertainment Center
Client:
Meeting-Other - provide specific detail
Improvements at Sunrise Sports Complex
Visited Comm. Kristin D. Jacobs on 10/13/2011 at 4:18 PM

William D. Rubin
Principal/Employer: The RubinGroup, Inc.
Client: Sunrise Sports & Entertainment
Meeting-Other Improvements at Sunrise Sorts Center
Visited Comm. Kristin D. Jacobs on 10/13/2011 at 4:17 PM

Heather L. Turnbull
Principal/Employer:The Rubin Group, Inc.
Client: Sunrise Sports & Entertainment
Meeting-Other Sunrise Sports stadium improvements and meetings with staff
Visited Comm. Kristin D. Jacobs on 10/13/2011 at 3:37 PM

John M. Milledge
Principal/Employer: John M. Milledge PA
Client: Sunrise Sports & Entertainment, LLP
Meeting -Other - provide specific detail
Improvements to the Sunrise arena
Visited Comm. Ilene Lieberman on 09/06/2011 at 3:21 PM

Here's the information on Agenda item #31 as it currently appears on the county's website:



Below is 99% of the the original email I sent to Comm. Sue Gunzburger and Comm. Barbara Sharief, both of whom represent Hallandale Beach on the commission, and which I later sent Comm. Chip LaMarca as well.
Much as I'd like to, I can't provide links to the Bob Norman segments on Channel 10 involving the Florida Panthers owners that I reference below, who continue their attempts to get their hands on Broward taxpayer's money, because the TV station is currently re-doing their website and the story links I have aren't working.
(Wonder if they'll lose the archives of stories he's done since he moved over there from the BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes?)

-----
Friday June 17th, 2011

Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

As I suspect you both recall from my previous conversations and emails with you both, I'm a big sports fan, always have been, but personally, I'm completely against this proposed BankAtlantic Center bailout -regardless of what the Panthers officials might prefer to call it- as long as Broward County taxpayers are paying more than 60% of the total costs involved.
They NEED to do more of the heavy-lifting.

Given that this snake-bit, poorly-run organization has already received a loan from the county, which hasn't been paid back in full yet, it seems an especially ill-conceived idea to me for them to expect the public to buy-in to the abstract idea of making the product better, esp. when the ultimate product is wins and losses (and excitement) on the ice, something which the Panthers have been woeful at demonstrating to the public for well over ten years.

Especially when they haven't tried to engage the public first in a meaningful way BEFORE coming to speak to you all about it.
Talk about the cart before the horse...
That's a real disconnect for me!

I saw the Channel 10 interview by Bob Norman earlier this afternoon, having missed it when it first aired, and think he framed the narrative quite fairly and accurately.
That the Panthers refused the opportunity to say anything to him about the story, even if just another self-serving bit of tripe, only makes them look more confused and desperate, and makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better for everyone if they didn't just move to Kansas City.

As it happens, as both a sports fan and a Broward taxpayer, per the LA Times story below from this morning, if the LA Coliseum Comm. can turn down USC, with all their history, I definitely think you all can turn down the Florida Panthers if they aren't willing to pay 60% of the renovation costs at the arena.

Growing-up in NMB, I always planned on attending USC, and didn't finally decide to go to IU until I received my financial aid package statement back from LA -I was devastated...

I mention this tidbit only as a way of mentioning to you that despite the ubiquity of you all usually seeing me wearing this cap whenever we've run into each other and spoken somewhere in the county,


Hallandale Beach Blog

it well could've been this instead.
Nike USC Trojans Cardinal Wool Classic Hat
It's the difference between calling red 'crimson' and calling it "cardinal' and
calling Home Sweet Home, Bloomington or Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Times
L.A. Coliseum officials tell USC they can't afford $60 million in renovations
The Coliseum Commission can't keep its promise to USC to make $60 million in renovations at the aging stadium. The university has several options under its contract.
June 17, 2011

Read the article at:
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Meanwhile, back in my former home, Arlington County (VA), Extravagant Local Govt. Spending Central, similarities to So. Florida abound

Oh dear!
Somebody is using someone else's wallet, purse, debit and credit cards to do some early Christmas Shopping for all kinds of un-necessary things, and one of the suspects is a member of the Usual Suspects in Northern Virgina.

That person's name is Chris Zimmerman, the very self-involved Arlington County Board and WMATA Board member who went ballistic when average citizens -and Boy Scouts- wanted to start post-9/11 Arlington County Commission meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance.

It's all-too-true: One of the main reasons that people leave Arlington County, VA is Comm. Chris Zimmerman, a condescending, know-it-all liberal bureaucrat with a tin ear and yen for raising taxes for pet projects.

Arlington Yupette, the sensible, dependable and common sense blog friend of all well-informed and discerning citizen taxpayers in Arlington County (VA) -where your faithful blogger Dave lived from 1989 to 2003- along with her observant, hyper-vigilant but still severely put-upon readers, are literally breathing fire after the latest examples of illogical upside-down, run-amok government spending priorities among Zimmerman and the Arlington County government and the Arlington School Board, the twin pillars that compose Arlington's sprawling Extravagant Govt. Spending Central colossus.
http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/

That refrain sounds familiar, can you hum a few bars?
I can definitely name that song in two notes!
And it definitely smells familiar, too.

The only difference from Broward County is the absence -so far- of photos of FBI agents arresting Arlington elected officials.
Christmas in October continues this evening at the County Board meeting. Items on the agenda include gifts for the Artisphere, the Washington Golf and Country Club, and an $82 million pot of gold from establishing a special tax district encompassing Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Potomac Yards for the County's Board's pet vanity projects (Fisette's Aquatic Center, Zimmerman's light rail, etc).

The Arlington Sun Gazette slammed both Sally Baird and the Arlington School System today, providing a laundry list of serious problems and failures ranging from extravagant unnecessary spending to a drop-out rate that's a "barely-concealed scandal".

The current mendacious shell games up there in Arlington, especially with the special taxing districts, Business Improvements Districts, (BIDs), which have been so successful in Washington, D.C. after some early problems, recalls the 'funny business' I've written about here in the past per Charles Rabin's excellent coverage in the Miami Herald of the the multiple CRAs in the City of Miami, which have former White Knight Marc Sarnoff's fingerprints all over them.

'Funny business' that is, if by 'funny business,' you mean barely-concealed personal agendas being played-out with taxpayer/business money.
I do!
My July 30th post on this subject was: It can't be said better than this - Howard Troxler in 7/29/10 St. Pete Times: St. Petersburg's cynical plan to thwart Amendment 4 (redux)
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/it-cant-be-said-better-than-this-howard.html

Comm. Sarnoff's fairly rapid descent into meddling mediocrity and curious, not-to-say questionable policy/ethical choices and words, has led many Miami-area civic activists and reporters and columnists I know and trust, who once regarded him as a breath of fresh air, to privately admit that Sarnoff is the latest South Florida pol to "go over to the Dark Side."

Just like Broward County Comm. Kristen Jacobs up here, which I wrote about the day before the August primary election.
That August 23rd post was Broward political insider wisely intones the truth: "Kristin Jacobs has gone over to the Dark Side."
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/broward-political-insider-wisely.html

For more on Chris Zimmerman, see this,
http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/2010/06/please-help-chris-zimmerman.html and then David Alpert's excellent piece from last Sept. 29th,
Innovation resistance at Metro, part 1: The value of "bottom-up"
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3655

His piece appears on his excellent public policy blog GreaterGreaterWashington, which lacks a mirror site of similar scope and quality in South Florida, though to be 100% honest, his site often fails to take into account the role of the average DC-area taxpayer, who doesn't want to keep paying for transportation experiments that benefit a very small number of people.
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/

You can be very pro-transit like me, but also accept the fact that some transportation or public policy projects pushed for funding are either turkeys or white elephants to be.
Being pro-transit doesn't mean having to also be intellectually dishonest, though that sometimes was the case in Arlington, just as it is here in South Florida.
Like I need to tell you, dear readers.

Another couple of things on Chris Zimmerman from an email I sent to Transit Miami founder Gabriel Lopez-Bernal in 2008. http://www.transitmiami.com/


The Washington Post
Hired Riders to Assess Metro
Critics See Waste, Say There's No Mystery to Poor Service
By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 25, 2008; B01

The Metro board yesterday approved spending as much as $1 million over five years to hire professional "mystery riders" to assess the quality of service on trains and buses.
But some rider advocates questioned the expense and said the transit agency could get equally valuable information from its riders, who already bombard Metro with more than 3,000 complaints a month.

Much like the mystery shoppers of retail, the undercover Metro riders would take trips on Metrorail and Metrobus. Armed with a checklist of criteria that includes cleanliness and on-time performance, the mystery riders would travel on nearly all routes, evaluate the service from a customer's perspective and provide feedback to Metro, officials said. The information would be used to help Metro identify and correct problems.

"We want to know what works and doesn't work, and what can be made better," said Metro board Chairman Chris Zimmerman, who represents Arlington County and pushed for the program as part of Metro's goal to improve service.

Metro already hears from many customers about what does not work. The agency receives between 3,000 and 4,000 complaints a month, according to agency reports. The most common complaints are late buses, rude and discourteous behavior, and a lack of reliability for MetroAccess, the paratransit service. More than 1.2 million trips are taken systemwide on an average weekday.

Zimmerman said the mystery-rider program is needed because "we can't afford to wait until there's a complaint" to improve service.

The board authorized the agency to hire a company to assess 95 percent of Metrorail and Metrobus service, according to Donna Murray, Metro's manager of consumer research. Metro would pay $175,000 for the first year's work, according to the board resolution. The $1 million budget covers three years, plus two one-year options to renew the deal. The program could begin by late August, she said.

Murray said she could not provide an estimate of how many mystery riders would be deployed.

Metro had a similar program several years ago that used trained volunteers. Maryland board member Peter Benjamin asked why the agency needed to spend money to hire professionals.
The earlier program produced unreliable results skewed by riders' subjectivity, said Sara Wilson, Metro's assistant general manager for corporate strategy. "We'd only get the results of the person who rode the X2 every day."

The new proposal drew a mixed reaction from rider groups.

Nancy Iacomini, who chairs the Metro-appointed Riders' Advisory Council, said it was a "great idea" to have "people deployed in an organized fashion to every bus line and train line at different times of the day." Relying on customer complaints as feedback provides only part of the picture, she said.

But Jack Corbett, of MetroRiders. org, urged the agency to "listen to its own riders with its own staff and use the million dollars for something that would benefit the riders."
He added, "You don't need a professional to determine that lights aren't lit, or that the air conditioning isn't working, or that the trains are 30 minutes late."

The larger issue, he said, is that the amount of feedback Metro receives -- whether from real riders or hired ones -- is irrelevant if the agency does not use it. The agency is making critical decisions about rail and bus service as it drafts next year's budget, but riders' opinions are not being taken into consideration, Corbett said.

Reader comments are at:

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Saturday April 26th, 2008

Dear Gabriel:

Given what I know about some of your upcoming career choices, from your emails, I thought you'd find Richard Florida's appearance on C-SPAN's Book TV this weekend of some value.
He's a really interesting guy to listen to.

Florida's book was "Who's Your City: How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life"

As for my own thoughts about this WaPo transit story, which I found amusing because of my own heavy daily use of the Metro for 15 years, plus the occasional bus ride during heavy snow, here's a couple of things to consider as you ponder whether or not it makes sense to use the
$1 Million towards professional surveying/inspection vs. simply relying on rider comments
and complaints, assuming those actually made it to their rightful place in the food chain:

The Chris Zimmerman referenced above was already an Arlington County Commissioner while I lived there, and is/was a first-rate JERK!

(Just as is the case in the City of Hallandale Beach, where I live, an incumbent like Zimmerman benefits from the fact that though it's a very liberal place, all members of the Arlington County Board are elected at-large, and there are no term limits.)

While he was Chairman of the County Board, he tried to actively prevent the Board from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before the meetings started, even after 9/11.

Things came to a crescendo in March of 2002, before a packed room and TV cameras present from every Washington-area TV station, he was made an object of ridicule by the entire area, after numerous Washington Post editorials and attacks on him during prior Board resident's comment periods.

That happened when a vocal critic of the Board's refusal to say the Pledge stood up in the Board auditorium and started reciting it before the meeting, and, like energized marionettes, the County Board jumped up and followed suit with the recitation, which the public was already doing.

Now usually I really wouldn't care about that sort of issue, but sometimes small issues highlight a much larger perception problem an elected official has, a blind spot if you will.
Such was the case here with Chris Zimmerman.

If they stumble over something so small due to sheer petty ego and personal pique, how can you really trust their judgment on something important?

Zimmerman made such a point of saying that it shouldn't be necessary for County Board members to say the Pledge at the beginning of their own meetings, that it proved terribly embarrassing later -and showed him for the creepy hypocrite I always thought he was- when he was on various appointed boards and commissions, like with METRO, the Northern Virgina Transportation Comm. and VIRGINIA RAILWAY EXPRESS, and what's the first thing they do at every single meeting?
Exactly!

(If you can believe it, the NVTC's website is www.thinkoutsidethecar.org )

So, Zimmerman had no problem reciting the Pledge publicly while on a Board that he was appointed to, he just had his personal/political/philosophical reservations about doing the same thing for a Board that he was actually elected to by Arlington County voters.

It was a hard slap in the face to Arlington's residents and a valuable lesson I'll never forgot in judging elected officials' behavior and hypocrisy.

And this is the great genius behind the $1 million decision in Washington.

Honestly, in all my myriad experiences in Washington, over 15 years, even when I disagreed with people on an issue, I always tried my best to keep things civil -and classy!

Frankly, I actually enjoyed the company of some people who disagreed with me on public policy issues more than some who agreed, esp. if they liked sports or film, not surprisingly.
But, that being said, Zimmerman was the closest thing to a 1930's Stalinist government
goon/henchman as I ever met.
Really.

That he was smart and should've known better only made it worse, not unlike the situation with State Sen. Steve Geller, who chooses to use his talents and abilities to help Steve Geller, not to help under-served segments of society who could use his help and influence to get a fair shake and see their causes given a seat at the table, like older Foster Kids who'll soon be on their own, Haitian-American social services groups, et al.

That's one of the principal reasons I so detest Geller.

He's so damn self-serving, almost as if it's very transparency made it funny or amusing.
It's not.

Zimmerman acted like he could do pretty much whatever he liked and residents just had to lump it, because the board was all Democrats and they couldn't deny him.

Well, I was a (moderate) Democrat, too, like most of the County, but I wanted diversity of ideas on the County Board, too, to generate outside-the-box thinking about the problems where I lived, not a choir singing songs pre-approved by Zimmerman.

(Photos and info on my old neighborhood in Arlington:

Did you ever see my old South beach Hoosier blog post where I mentioned that my old townhouse was where President Ford's daughter Susan lived, while he was President?
When I left, it still had the old Secret Service-installed communications system throughout.)
Frankly, as I later explained it to some people, Zimmerman sometimes acted like Arlington County taxpayers were merely guinea pigs in some Pol. Sci. experiment he needed to do in order to earn his PhD. dissertation at U-W in Madison.

His creepy and diabolical personality were such that I knew quite a few folks who were deeply involved in the Arlington community -people I wish we had dozens of clones of, down here!- who were popular and well-respected, but who made no secret to me of their hate for him.

If current blog technology had existed back then, Zimmerman would have been my Arlington-based blog's favorite political pinata!
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