Showing posts with label Liza Torres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liza Torres. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Part I: Investigating the continuing dysfunction, lack of appropriate disclosure of public information and the generally imperious anti-citizen attitude at Hallandale Beach City Hall under Mayor Joy Cooper; Matters that anyone could see if they just looked -I looked and here's what I found in late February 2013

This email was the first of two emails sent to City of Hallandale Beach (COHB) officials and employees at Hallandale Beach City Hall in the last week of February regarding longstanding problems that citizens continue to experience with the lack of timely public disclosure of public information, proper legal public noticing of scheduled public meetings, and the continuing problems with the city's clunky website, to say nothing of very curious choices about what is and is NOT placed on the city website by city officials.

It's instructive to note that any Hallandale Beach resident or visitor going to the city's website would've found the very same things that I did when I was looking. 

My only advantage, if you can call it that, was being familiar enough with how poorly-constructed the city's website is and how decidedly non-user friendly it is, with almost no intuitive feel to it at all.

And, of course, the common sense borne of experience to actually notice what was missing and to be able to double-check other places on the website to see if it'd been placed there by either mistake or on purpose, or was simply MIA.

For the tens of millions of dollars the City of Hallandale Beach annually spends, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me and many other concerned residents and small business owners in this city to expect that a current city employee drawing a paycheck actually engages in some degree of quality control and checks things once in a while, to see if everything is where it is supposed to be, and to aggressively fix problems when they encounter them, something which is NOT happening now.

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

A reasonable person might think that the head of the city's IT Dept, Ted Lamott, or the city's public spokesperson, Peter Dobens, might be the two people who by title are the ones that ought to be doing that as part of their job already.

That it wouldn't actually be necessary to mention it to them.

Yes, because that is more or less what they're already being paid for, isn't it, public communication.

And yet we STILL have a website that is not well-organized enough, one that lacks even a basic directory that is properly constructed.

Instead, when searching for information, even when you use the proper name or subject fields, relevant and germane information does NOT appear.
And much of the information placed on the website is placed there in a format that is NOT searchable.

Why would you consciously chose to do that unless what you want to do is make the search query more difficult for users instead of easier?

Lamott and Dobens are paid to make information available to the people who need it, including taxpayers and residents, but nobody I know in this city thinks they're getting their money's worth from either one of them, and that includes yours truly.

Two years ago, I spoke in minute detail to Lamott following a City Commission meeting he had spoken at, after which I spoke for three minutes under public comments about the longstanding website problems that continued to be ignored by him and the city.


We spoke outside the Commission Chambers in the City Hall breezeway and I told him with one glaring example after another that taxpayers were fed-up with problems never being resolved to their satisfaction.
I gave him my contact information and told him that i expected him to get cracking on fixing the problems.

Well, this being where we are, I'm sure that regular readers of the blog will not be surprised to discover that none of the specific website problems I told him about were ever dealt with, and Lamott never contacted me, despite having proclaimed how much he wanted feedback.


Yes, the same exact situation that has occurred so many times in the past with me and others I know in dealing with HB city employees.

They say they want to know but when you tell them what the problems are, you never hear from them again, i.e the Jennifer Frastai Rule.

This email was sent on February 26th, 2013 to the following people:

Sheena James, City Clerk, COHB; Ted Lamott, Director of IT, COHB; Renee C. Miller, City 
Manager, COHB; V. Lynn Whitfield; City Attorney, COHB; Liza Torres, CRA Director, COHB;
Michele Lazarow, Commissioner, COHB -just elected in November and someone I voted for.

-----
Why isn't today's Hallandale Beach Planning & Zoning meeting listed on the city's website calendar?

Last month's CRA Advisory Board meeting, a meeting mandated by the City Commission in December, as well as the eventual Visioning meeting, were also NOT listed on the city website's calendar.

Additionally, that CRA Advisory Board meeting was NOT posted on City Hall's public notice bulletin board near the elevator, even as the meeting was starting.

Why in the year 2013 is getting accurate and timely PUBLIC information onto the city's own website SUCH a difficult and continuing problem for the city?

And shouldn't making sure that public information is actually made public quickly something that logically Peter Dobens should be responsible for, given not only what his position is in the city, Title: Public Relations / Public Information http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/directory.aspx?eid=165 but former City Manager Mark Antonio's tortured rationale for why the city would hire yet another employee in the first place to perform such tasks?

Before Dobens was hired, Antonio was very adamant at public meetings about that and yet taxpayers and residents continue to see the city fail or unable to do very simple tasks with regard to making public information "public" that other cities seem to be able to do quite easily.

Why in the year 2013 is the city sometimes using Micro Office Word 97 for the P&Z agenda instead of PDF, as is the case today?

Who, specifically, decided to change the format of the HB P&Z meeting Minutes from Verbatim to Action Minutes, given that those meetings are held during the day when few people can attend, instead of at night as they ought to be, or, as I'd prefer, Saturday mornings at 10 a.m. when the largest number of Hallandale Beach residents can attend and participate?

On complicated or controversial matters, someone who was did not physically attend the meeting would have a very hard time following just how it came to be that decisions were made the way they were, if one were to rely solely on the new Minutes format.

Context is important and under a new system that eliminates context, a HB resident or interested party is left with few choices other than to try to find someone who attended the  meeting and have them explain what happened and why.

As someone who has been VERY critical publicly of the city's website for many years at public meetings for self-evident reasons, what are taxpayers to make of the fact that on the website now, in Docs  under "General Announcements," there has been nothing added there since January of 2012?

Thirteen months without any additions of any kind?
Really?

This has the cumulative effect of making me and other residents think that a.) a lot of relevant material is completely missing and was never uploaded when it was supposed to be, and should still be now, and, b.) that the whole category needs to be completely re-imagined and re-configured to be made more accurate and timely so that residents can find information more easily.

There should also be a parameter on that category, if it is kept, that allows a customer to pull either up "Most Recent" or "Most Popular" or both, so you don't have to swim thru ALL the listed documents while looking for something specific.

Frankly, the current category and layout has the practical effect of making you forget what you are actually looking for about halfway thru wading thru the list.

Why are Mayor Cooper's so-called (South Florida Sun-Times) "columns" posted on the city's website?

I would appreciate it if you could please forward to me the name and contact information for the CRA Advisory Board's attorney, as they are not listed on the city's website. 

As it happens, there's nothing current or accurate on the city's website about when the CRA Advisory Board will have their next meeting, or even whether they still need members, and if so, for what categories. http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/?nid=50#HBCRA

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Future of Hallandale Beach's Fashion Row Arts District on N.E. First Avenue to be discussed at an important 5:30 p.m. meeting on Wednesday at Dekka; What, if any, are insurance executive and developer Stephen L. Riemer's strategic plans for the future of the N.E. First Avenue area, alongside the F.E.C. tracks?; More cases of déjà vu on Hallandale Beach's woeful website


Above from June 19, 2012 

March 12, 2013

One day before an important 5:30 meeting at Dekka about the future of NE First Avenue and HB City Hall's willingness to actually live up to their past promises after years of eyerolling obfuscation and rhetoric -with only one Fashion Row banner still flying above the street that took the city over ONE YEAR to actually order and then erect onto First Avenue street light fixtures, in Dec. of 2011- and less than one week before next Monday night's HB CRA meeting on that matter, weeks after being hired, new CRA Director Daniel Rosemond's email address STILL does NOT appear on the city's own website. 

And can anyone plausibly explain why Liza Torres' contact info is NOT also located on the same webpage?

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?NID=82


Why is it SO consistently hard over several years for the city to actually construct a normal, accurate and intuitive hierarchical directory on the city website that lists who's in charge of what, and their contact info?
It's like pulling teeth to get them to act like a normal city!

For some of you reading this, these words ring very, very familiar.
But it wasn't yesterday, it was four year ago.
In fact, it was March 8, 2009 when I wrote and posted this...
-----------------

Mayor Joy Cooper's so-called column in The South Florida Sun-Times had this headline for her most recent column: It was a very busy week around the community

Her 9th paragraph begins: 
   We continued the first meeting of the month with the public works update. Director William Brandt reported
on the many ongoing construction projects. Many were in the final stages of completion. West Hallandale Beach
Blvd is almost fully completed with punch list items and final signalization test. This included the intersection at
8th Ave., which was implemented jointly with our city. Staff continues to evaluate the continued erosion along 
Shafer Canal and is looking to work with Broward County Erosion Control and the South Florida Water Management
District. We are looking at the possibility of a grant or loan program to assist in repairs. 
   One other project that was highlighted was the bridge rehabilitation project which has already commenced.
It will continue over the next few months with a projected completion date of November 1. This project includes
the beautification and lighting enhancements on the bridges located SW 7th St, Paradise Isles Blvd. and the
seven bridges within the single family residential area.
   After his report Mr. Brandt introduced the new Director of Public Works Department.
   Bill Brandt will remain as Director of Utilities and Engineering. Our utilities infrastructure continues to create a
high demand with many necessary on going projects . These include; sewer line rehabilitation, lift station replacement,
water plant operations, water main line improvements and daily crew operations and maintenance. 
All these projects include extensive engineering and planning.
   In order to expedite many of our construction programs and projects City Manager Mike Good recommended the
department be split between utilities and public works. Mr. John Chidsey was introduced as our new Director of 
Public Works. His duties will include but are not limited to; construction planning and supervision, facility maintenance,
sanitation, fleet management, street maintenance and transportation. Mr. Chidsey has over 30 years of supervisory
experience in construction, mechanical repair and maintenance. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Business from Nova,
is a State Certified contractor having built over 100,000 million dollars in construction and holds a Broward County
Engineering 3G Certificate.
   The combined expertise of both these gentlemen will provide much better service to our community. Keeping with
our goal not to increase costs and provide the same quality or improved services this staff change will create no
additional costs. Recently Frank Hilemen Legislative Analyst/Grant Specialist left the city for a job with a  private firm.
This position was not filled in the city manager's department but transferred to create the new public works position.
   After the introduction I took an opportunity to thank Director Brant on a job well done in repairing the water main
break that occurred on Hallandale Beach Boulevard. at Golden Isles Drive.  During these trying financial times I
have been approach many times with the question.  “Why we are not laying off people and going out to contract
service to save money?” This is one of the prime examples. Our staff was able to mobilize instantly and insure
that our water services were up and running within 24 hours for thousands of residents. If we had to wait to call in
an out side contractor the job would have taken much longer and would have cost much more to complete.

I guess I hardly need tell you that as far as the city's own website goes, as of today, after typing his name in the
search function, it shows that there is no person -with or without quotation marks- named "Chidsey" working
for the City of Hallandale Beach, as you can see below.

Not surprisingly, as of today, the city's website, http://www.hallandalebeach.org/Directory.asp?EID=67
also still shows Mr. Brant as DPW Director
You are here: Home > Staff Directory

William Brant 
Department of Public Works
Title: Director of Public Works
Phone: 954-457-1611


Return to Staff Directory


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-------

No, four years ago, I had to send Mr. Chidsey an email thru other city Dept. heads in order to let him know that the only reason he wasn't already hearing from citizens completely disgusted and dismayed with the continuing unsatisfactory performance of DPW at public parks and the beach was simple -his city email address was still missing from the city's website several MONTHS after he'd been put in charge of the Dept.
Yes, as always, the past is prologue in Hallandale Beach.

Like many of you, I think it will be very interesting to see if insurance executive and real estate developer Stephen L Riemer attends Wednesday's meeting, given all the properties that he owns or is associated with in the immediate area.

All properties in Hallandale Beach currently owned by Stephen L. Riemer or Riemer Brothers LLChttp://riemerinsurance.com/  http://www.riemerbrothers.com/

We have located more than one record for the information you entered.
Directions: Click the folio number to see property details.
 Sort By Folio Number      Sort By Name      Sort By Address
50 Records Found
Folio NumberOwner NameProperty Address
514227070090 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC NE 1 STREET  
514227270050 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC NE 3 AVENUE  
514227300090 RIEMER BROTHERS L L C 101 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227290220 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 105 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227300080 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 105 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227300200 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 106 NE 2 TERRACE  
514227300071 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 107 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227290240 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 109 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227300320 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 109 NE 2 TERRACE  
514227300070 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 109 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227290260 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 113 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227270011 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 114 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227300040 RIEMER BROTHERS L L C 115 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227290100 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 116 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227290280 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 117 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227290110 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 118 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227300250 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 118 NE 2 TERRACE  
514227290120 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 120 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227290130 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 122 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227300160 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 20 NE 2 TERRACE  
514227110120 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 201 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227290330 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 203 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227290340 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 205 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227110170 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 207 NE 2 STREET  
514227300110 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 21 NE 3 AVENUE  
514227110160 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 211 NE 2 STREET  
514227110150 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 215 NE 2 STREET  
514227300150 RIEMER,STEPHEN L 217 E HALLANDALE BEACH BOULEVARD  
514227110140 RIEMER BROTHERS L L C 217 NE 2 STREET  
514227300140 RIEMER,STEPHEN L 219 E HALLANDALE BEACH BOULEVARD  
514227300170 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 22 NE 2 TERRACE  
514227300130 RIEMER,STEPHEN L 221 E HALLANDALE BEACH BOULEVARD  
514227300120 RIEMER,STEPHEN L 221 NE 3 AVENUE  
514222310130 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 224 NE 4 STREET  
514227300360 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 23 NE 2 TERRACE  
514227070070 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 25 NE 4 AVENUE  
514227070010 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 301 E HALLANDALE BEACH BOULEVARD  
514227270010 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 308 NE 2 STREET  
514227070111 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 309 NE 1 STREET  
514227070100 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 314 NE 1 STREET  
514222340130 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 316 NE 4 COURT  
514227270030 RIEMER BROTHERS L L C 320 NE 1 COURT  
514227070080 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 320 NE 1 STREET  
514222340030 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 321 NE 4 STREET  
514227270014 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 328 NE 2 STREET  
514227110320 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 329 NE 2 STREET  
514227270020 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 330 NE 1 COURT  
514227080040 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 34 SE 3 AVENUE  
514222120110 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 408 NE 2 AVENUE  
514227010570 RIEMER BROTHERS LLC 410 NE 2 STREET  


I say that in light of all the many below-the-radar comments that have been heard around town about him and his purported desire to essentially take over the street, and build a high-density building there, perhaps a mixed-use development with residential on top of first-floor retail.

Of course, if Mr. Riemer or one of his associates is there in-person, they need to be prepared to be asked reasonable questions by the public and small business owners about the specifics of Riemer's strategic plan for N.E. First Avenue.

If those comments I've heard are, in fact, true, personally, I don't think his keeping the entire community in the dark on his plans would work to his advantage.
Quite to the contrary.

I guess we'll all see what happens and who plays their cards tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.
Make plans to be there!

Dekka is located at 139 N.E. 1st Avenue, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Public corruption & incompetency hiding in plain sight - The Hallandale Beach CRA and its Exec. Director, Alvin Jackson, along with CRA "Directors" like Alexander Lewy, show their true colors -yet again! One thinks he's above the law and the other one wants to ignore the law on how CRAs operate; Broward Bulldog: Broward IG says Hallandale made “immense” gaffe in overseeing $12.7 million in city bonds; @AlexLewy, @SandersHB

The following information and anecdotes about some of the the inner-workings of the Hallandale Beach CRA comes mostly from an email of mine that went out over the transom on November 23rd to about 250-300 interested parties in the area.
I've been keeping it in cold storage until an opportune time like today came to post it on the blog, given that the city's final CRA meeting of the year is coming up Monday night at 6 p.m., including the final determination over how much certain groups will receive from the city.
------

After first reading this bit of news when it first came out a few days ago, I consciously decided NOT to ruin everyone's Thanksgiving Day mood by sharing it then.
But today's another day, so I'm sharing it now so that you're aware of what's really been happening here in Hallandale Beach with city-controlled funds that are supposed to be used to eliminate blight and create jobs, but instead are being used to... well, there's the problem in a nutshell.

Broward Bulldog: Broward IG says Hallandale made “immense” gaffe in overseeing $12.7 million in city bonds
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/11/broward-ig-says-hallandale-made-immense-gaffe-in-overseeing-12-7-million-in-city-bonds/

As dumbfounding as it may sound to all of us who closely follow what happens in this city, it looks like the Hallandale Beach CRA and its Director, Alvin Jackson, have once again shown their true colors -yet again!
Another black eye for Hallandale Beach -to add to the growing collection.

At some point, after all the highly questionable things that Dr. Jackson has said and done and approved the past two years to make clear that he will only give lip service to the notions of genuine transparency and honesty in govt. that we all want in this city -for instance, Dr. Jackson illegally giving himself bonus that was NOT legally authorized by the elected City Commission, and then, them finding out about it after-the-fact!- those of you who naively cling to the faint hope that he will prove to be a reformer, and wants only what is best for this city's residents, taxpayers and small business owners, will have to accept the fact that by any reasonable and objective measure, the preponderance of evidence to date suggests  that he's NOT a reformer.

That evidence shows that he will do little to stop the CRA from continuing to be used as a handy ATM by the Hallandale Beach City Commission to siphon away funds for the use of their connected friends and pals via crony capitalism.

That is to say, their well-connected friends and associates in the community, who then produce few tangible results with those funds for the community's benefit or which reduce blight.
And yet unsatisfactory performance doesn't seem to prevent them from being given funds all over again, does it? 

As I've stated for many months, including via letters to Dr. Jackson himself, letters that I've shared with many of you and have posted onto my blog for all  to see, the reality for us here in Hallandale Beach is that we continue to see groups receive the city's CRA money with few positive results to point to, and just as bad, with little in the way of either genuine transparency or public explanation from these groups to the citizens of this community about how that money is really being spent.

Furthermore, as I stated to Dr. Jackson in those letters then and re-state to you now via this email, the best example of this continues to be The Palms Community Action Coalition, run by Jessica Sanders, wife of Comm. Anthony A. Sanders, wherein she is the only non city employee with an office anywhere in the city, over at the Hepburn Center.
And yet month after month the city's CRA's officials seem to be unable to summon the honesty or courage to tell her that she is NOT performing up to standards when it comes to keeping the public informed about what is happening with their dollards once she gets her hands on them. 

This particular group asks us as Hallandale Beach residents, taxpayers and small business owners to take them seriously, though nowhere on their own  website do they actually state with any specificity what they actually do.
Shouldn't we actually know what that is by now?

The sad truth is that if you read the city's own documents, as I have, it seems that group's main function is to be a public cheerleading squad for HB City Hall.
How exactly does that reduce blight? 

We are told on the Coalition's website that the best way to keep up with them is to look at their website's calendar of activities, but what do you see when you do just that?
Yes, you see the very same thing I told you about many months ago during the summer.
Their own website's calendar of activities is for June of 2011 -almost exactly 18 months ago.
Hmm-m...

The Broward Bulldog article I link to below only proves how very true and sordid our reality continues to STILL be with respect to both Dr. Jackson ignoring what is right in front of him -and all of us- and the behavior and conduct of the HB City Commission in their separate role as the CRA's Board of Directors.

That said, don't think that people who matter haven't already picked up on the fact that the HB City Commission is unrepentant for its past illegal actions and sins while wearing those Director hats at the CRA.
That message is sort of hard to miss when we've witnessed the City Commission collectively, and via individual members, directly challenge the legal authority of the Broward County Inspector General.

And we are given new evidence everyday, witness Comm. Alexander Lewy's continual denunciation of the independent auditor that the city hired to find out what really happened with over a million dollars that were to be spent on the Peter Deutsch land purchase on NE 8th Avenue for a city park, given that the city itself COULDN'T explain it (or why no one involved with the deal at City Hall was appropriately punished), as well as Comm. Lewy's repeated ridiculous public assertions that all funds from the city's CRA should be spent
ONLY in NW Hallandale Beach, not within the entire CRA district as legally proscribed, which encompasses several other parts of this city which are to receive funds to end blight and create jobs.

You don't have to be a legal expert to know that when the Florida legislature initially drew-up its enabling CRA legislation years ago that allowed communities to set up CRAs, it didn't intend for collected funds to be used only in one part of the CRA, nor for it to be used like a slush fund for the politically-favored.

Comm. Lewy's comments are both appalling and yet typical of the small-minded parochialism that he has repeatedly shown andn injected into the CRA -don't forget Lewy's post-Midnight attempt at a 2011 City Commission meeting to funnel over $200,000 to Comm. Sanders and his wife's Eagle's Wings organization, without Lewy saying the group's name publicly!- and deserve to receive the sort of public ridicule and contempt that such foolishness and contempt for taxpayers and common sense deserve.

(But Lewy is unconcerned about your indignant scorn, he's busy looking out for #1.
He does this by nakedly attempting to use his control over CRA funds to garner support for himself, and votes in NW HB for himself in 2014.)

Why should small businesses in other parts of the affected CRA not simply sue Lewy and the city and get court order requiring city to follow state law or risk losing control of the CRA entirely by naming trustees?


If we want genuine financial accountability and fidelity to the Florida constitution in this city, we are going to have to publicly stand up and ask for it from some law enforcement professionals who really want to enforce the laws, not continue to ignore them.
We already know who the latter are -they've long since proven their uselessness to the citizens of this community.

Next week, I'll be making that visit to the FBI field office in North Miami Beach that I originally mentioned to some of you recently, since it couldn't be clearer to me and so many of you that the Broward State's Attorney's office is NOT going to stop their longstanding and destructive sleepwalking routine.
A routine of indifference that has caused all of us years of unnecessary problems by allowing state, county and city laws to be broken with both regularity and impunity at Hallandale Beach City Hall.

I'll be posting this to my blog on Saturday morning, since at this point, it's important that everyone in the community who's the least bit curious, know full well that in Hallandale Beach, we STILL have highly-paid city employees as well as elected officials who are so disconnected from reality as to believe that they are above the law.
Me, I think they're NOT.


-----
As it turns out, of course, I didn't post the email then, but I'm posting it now because Monday night is the Hallandale Beach CRA's annual shell game of ranking groups, per the CRA meeting at 6 pm. 
Talk about history repeating itself...
make sure you make plans to be here to watch this spectacle


6 pm Agenda at:

Item#9.A. - Community Grants Partnership Ranking & Recommended Funding from the HBCRA Citizens Advisory Committee

One of the usual targets of my ire on this blog, and for good and justified reasons, has been Zamar, Inc.
The leading Philanthropic oversight group Guidestar's page on Zamar states that their exempt status was automatically revoked by the IRS in 2010 for failure to file a Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-N, or 990-PF for 3 consecutive years, so why does the city still treat Zamar like it's tax exempt?

Here's the IRS doc report re Zamar and the Automatic Revocation of Exemption Information:


On the fourth page of this document, Document 11 - Exhibit 11 of the Zamar School of Performing Arts application to the city, they use a copy of the 2003 IRS form that is no longer valid about this organization.
And what, nobody at the CRA said anything about this????

Where does Dr. Deborah Brown get off thinking that she can fool taxpayers by including invalid docs from the IRS to try to scrounge up $50,000 from the city, yet again? 
Or by using docs from the Florida Dept. of State that appear to be seven years old and not current?

Where exactly is their current, properly filled-out 990 Form?

Why is that such a big mystery if they have nothing to hide?

There seems to be no end in sight for this woman getting tens of thousands of dollars from Hallandale Beach taxpayers every year despite consistently being less than honest or transparent with them.

And why, despite all the money involved is all this CRA loan information copied and managed
in such a consistently self-evident half-assed fashion that it can NOT be searched for on the
city's website?

Yes, it's hard to shake the impression that Dr. Jackson and Liza Torres of the CRA office want Hallandale Beach taxpayers, their real bosses, to be in the dark and NOT be able to simply look at easy to understand information so they can connect-the-dots and draw their own conclusions.

How can there be not one but two city employees at the CRA making over $100,000 a year -Jackson and Torresinvolved in this sorry spectacle of an effort, and yet this is what they present to HB taxpayers with a straight face, as if we should all be grateful?
With documents missing basic information?

Don't hold your breath thinking the beat reporters from the Herald or the Sun-Sentinel will look into any of this.
Like asking Dr. Brown for an interview so she can finally explain straight away just what taxpayers of this city have to show for all the money they've given her.

No, that sort of basic reporting is not their style, and answering questions is not Dr. Brown's, who last time I heard her name, was getting into a fight on Election Day over the polls at Ingalls Parks that required the Police to send a police car to break it up.