Showing posts with label Lois Wexler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lois Wexler. Show all posts

Friday, April 25, 2014

Dan Krassner of Integrity Florida re signs of positive momentum for ethics reform/anti-corruption solutions in Florida; Are revanchist elements of Broward County Commission -like Lois Wexler & Barbara Sharief- going to succeed in weakening County's hard-earned ethics code that County & municipal officials (and Broward/Florida League of Cities) have fought hard against for years because they found serious ethics rules incompatible to their personal behavior & lifestyle?; @IntegrityFL

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief appears before ethics commission 
Commission agrees to move forward with allegations Sharief broke the law submitting financial forms filled with mistakes  
Reporter; Carlos Suarez, csuarez@local10.com 
Aired April 25 2014 

Uh, oh!
I guess it's a good thing that the appearance of impropriety doesn't matter in Broward County!!!




This afternoon my overflowing email transom included the following bit of good news from Dan Krassner of Integrity Florida, while below it, I have some well-chosen comments of my own regarding the latest efforts by the revanchist element at the Broward County Commission and Broward League of Cities to fight meaningful accountability for "public servants" in this corrupt county:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dan Krassner <dan@integrityfl.org>
Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM
Subject: Momentum for anti-corruption solutions


Having trouble viewing this email? Click here


Momentum for Anti-Corruption Solutions

   

The Florida Senate has now passed three major ethics reform bills and the Florida House of Representatives has passed one major ethics reform bill during the 2014 legislative session. Both chambers are expected to take further action in the remaining days of the legislative session, that concludes on May 2, to complete their work on the following anti-corruption measures:

1) SB 846 - Governmental Ethics

On March 26, the Florida Senate passed SB 846 by Senator Jack Latvala unanimously by a vote of 38-0.  The bill was amended by a House committee and is ready for a floor vote in the House, currently on the 2nd reading calendar.  If the House passes the amended SB 846, it would need another vote in the Senate to go to the governor.  If the Senate amends the current House language on SB 846, then the House would need to take an additional vote on the bill if it has new language before it would go to the governor.  There is no House companion bill but House Ethics and Elections Subcommittee Chair Representative Kathleen Passidomo and State Affairs Committee Chair Representative Jim Boyd are driving this initiative in the House.  
SB 846 contains the following:

*    Allows the Florida Commission on Ethics to independently begin investigations when officials fail to file financial disclosure reports;
*    Requires lobbyist disclosure at the state's water management districts;
*    Requires annual ethics training for elected city officials; and
*    Applies portions of the state ethics code to Enterprise Florida and Citizens Property Insurance.

2) SB 602 and HB 571 Residency Requirements for Local and State Candidates and Public Officers

Today
, the Florida Senate passed SB 602 by Senator Jack Latvala unanimously by a vote of 39-0.  The bill includes new residency requirements for local and state candidates and public officials.  The House would need to take action on this measure next and the House companion is HB 571 by Representative Ray Rodrigues. 

3) SB 1632 and HB 1237 Ethics Code for Special Districts


Today, the Florida Senate passed SB 1632 by Senator Kelli Stargel unanimously by a vote of 38-0.  The legislation amends the definition of agency in the state code of ethics to specifically include special districts.  Under the bill, special districts would be required annually to disclose online their ethics codes, budgets, taxes assessed and audits.  The House companion is HB 1237 by Representative Larry Metz and that bill is on today's Special Order Calendar in the House.

4) SB 1328 and HB 1385 Independence of Inspectors General

On April 23, the Florida House of Representatives passed HB 1385 by Representative Dan Raulerson unanimously by a vote of 114-0.  Presently, agency heads are able to appoint and remove their own inspectors general, which creates built-in conflicts of interest.  Under the bill, the agency inspectors general, under jurisdiction of the governor, would report to the governor's chief inspector general.  The state senate would have new oversight to confirm the governor's chief inspector general.  The chief inspector general would make the appointment and removal (only for cause) decisions for the agency inspectors general.  The bill's Senate companion is SB 1328 by Senator Jack Latvala and that measure passed its final Senate committee on April 22.  The full Senate has received SB 1328 for consideration.  HB 1385 is in Senate messages.


As lawmakers enter the final week of the legislative session, Integrity Florida encourages Senate President Don Gaetz, House Speaker Will Weatherford and their colleagues of both political parties to continue to strengthen our state's ethics laws. Now is the time for bold anti-corruption solutions. Integrity Florida remains optimistic that our legislative leaders will deliver on their ethics reform promises.
Sincerely,   



Dan Krassner
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Integrity Florida


Ben Wilcox
Research Director
Integrity Florida

 
Integrity Florida is a nonpartisan research institute and government watchdog whose mission is to promote integrity in government and expose public corruption.  More information at www.integrityflorida.org
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Integrity Florida Institute, Inc. | 850.321.0432 | 715 North Calhoun Street, #4 | Tallahassee | FL | 32303
-----
Below, my hastily-written email of yesterday, which has been slightly edited from what I originally sent out:

There's nothing in this Sun-Sentinel article about the fact that Broward County Comm. Lois Wexler and her longstanding campaign of crocodile tears about her getting hungry or thirsty at post-election Broward Elections canvassing meetings, and not being able to get some taxpayer-paid for freebies like donuts and some coffee as is often done for the lower-paid staff who have be present during their non-work hours. 

As I've stated before, this dilettante of a career politician who is paid $92,000 a years in salary needs only to stop at a retail store or restaurant beforehand and PAY for her own water, soft drink, coffee or food and bring it with her to the site of something that she doesn't even have to be at if she doesn't really want to be.

Wexler's own lack of planning beforehand and being hungry or thirsty at somepoint while sitting down in a chair in some County warehouse facility is HER problem, not OURS, and certainly not one that needs to be resolved by weakening hard-earned laws that, to me, are not so accurately described below as much as 
broadly hinted at.

Instead, Wexler's pathetic and never-ending cri-de-coeur for goodies has become the Trojan Horse that has allowed other interested parties in this very corrupt county to attempt to get their nose in the door and get things they want specifically excluded.

For instance, Comm. Barbara Sharief thinking that she shouldn't have to publicly explain/disclose who her own relatives are and the positions they hold that may bear upon some public policy or vote.
In short, she doesn't want to have to publicly report some potential conflicts that having her relatives on the public dime might entail.

It's galling to me that after all these years, there has not been a single reporter in South Florida who has gotten the "mayor" to publicly say why she persists in this childish and selfish effort of hers on this particular issue.
Perhaps it's because she realizes full well how badly and off-putting it will sound to the public -and to voters- so instead she just hints and sighs loudly at meetings about the unfairness of it all.

Sharief never ever gets drilled on this question by a reporter like she would in most parts of the country by a journalist who's willing to pin her down and force her to explain herself. 
Instead, she prefers to pout and infer that she's misunderstood. 

No, when she consciously refuses to account for herself, that's not a simple misunderstanding, that's HER own conscious refusal to publicly enunciate HER own position.
That's HER fault, not the public's!

Why does nobody ask her why she thinks elected officials' families deserve to escape appropriate scrutiny?
Talk about someone who has publicly taken a nosedive because she's betrayed many local resident's hopes that she'd be a reformer.
Instead, Sharief's own words and actions have spoken volumes -all you have to do is look right in front of you.

But then many of you already know that because I was highlighting Sharief's abject failure the past two years, esp. on the issue of the HB CRA, per those frank emails of mine that many of you received, as well as my blog posts of a few months ago while the South Florida media was completely ignoring the fact that the very Broward County commissioner who actually represents that part of the HB community on whose behalf tens of millions of dollars in CRA funds were, effectively, burned -with no tangible results to show for it- had actually been a hindrance to HB citizens like me and many of you who wanted an independent audit by JLAC that would scrupulously investigate where the money had really gone.
Commissioner Barbara Sharief was NOT someone who was helping us.

It's very simple: IF you're not actually helping to increase reasonable public scrutiny, oversight and accountability of government, you're hurting the effort to do so.
Comm. Barbara Sharief has made her choice and it's NOT the side she ought to be on -the taxpayers side.

-----
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Ethics law declared too strict - Elected officials seek to loosen gift ban, other rules in law demanded by voters
Brittany Wallman, Staff writer
April 23, 2014
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-broward-ethics-code-20140422,0,6390406.story






































































In case you're new to my blog and don't know yet what sort of city Hallandale Beach is, I think this answers that question:

"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."
-New York Times, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"
-Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 HB City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission, on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters had overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission had yet to live up to its legalresponsibility. 
That's why!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie to visit Hallandale Beach City Hall Thursday night; Bob Norman on latest news re public corruption at Broward School Board; Does Hallandale High School have a long-term future?


Above and below, July 13, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier, looking south at the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. 

© 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved





















If you have not already seen it, I strongly encourage you to read Channel 10's Bob Norman's latest blog piece regarding  public corruption at the Broward School Board, which concerns Broward County Comm. Lois Wexler's forthright and damning testimony to the statewide Grand Jury.

Report: Lobbyist 'controlled' school board
By Bob Norman
Published On: Sep 26 2012 08:15:08 AM EDT  
Updated On: Sep 26 2012 12:24:48 PM EDT
Below is the recently released report from the grand jury after an interview of Broward County Commissioner Lois Wexler, a former school board member.
In it Wexler describes how lobbyist Neil Sterling "controlled" the school board and how he sold software to the board -- called Riverdeep -- that was faulty and wasted millions of dollars for the district (she says it wasn't, as the report says, "hundreds of millions").
Read the rest of the post at: 
And be sure to read the reader's comments!

Well, it turns out that all the negative things you ever heard about the truly craven nature of former School Board members Bob Parks and Stephanie Kraft are all true -and then some!

The "CCC" referred to in the article that got former School Board counsel Ed Marko so upset directly concerned the Broward County School Board and Hallandale High School and serious allegations of racial discrimination, which later resulted in the Board signing a consent decree.

In related news, Broward Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie will be at Hallandale Beach City Hall Thursday at 6:30 p.m. to discuss a number of matters.



Above, Supt. Robert Runcie after a public meeting of his Listening Tour at the City of Hollywood's  Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center, which was the second time I'd heard him speak in-person, having previously heard him in March at Hollywood Hills High School, also in Hollywood.  
May 14, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
Some well-informed people in this county who follow these things more closely than me seriously wonder if there's a real future for Hallandale High or not, which ought to be a concern of everyone here who wants this city on the countyline to have a higher quality of life.
The one we ought to have now.

It will be very interesting to see whether or not School Board chair Ann Murrayour ethically and morally-challenged representative, actually shows her face publicly after continually refusing to show-up here, year-after-year, including at the impressive education forum put together by my good friend, Catherine Kim Owensin June of last year, when both Murray and At-Large member Jennifer Gottlieb, both Hollywood residents, refused to make the short drive down the street, even while Board member Robin Bartleman, from Weston, could summon forth the time and energy to actually get here.

I remind you again that in the nearly nine years that I have lived here in Hallandale
Beach, Mayor Joy Cooper and the HB City Commission have never once shown the intelligence or gumption to convene a long-overdue city-wide meeting or forum on education in HB and what was really going on here.

That longstanding failure to be smart and thorough about this city's educational choices and options created a vacuum, one that Peter Deutsch and Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School thought to exploit, even while they verbally sought to intimidate and bad-mouth the city, the NE 8th Avenue neighborhood and all residents of this city in the process, with nary a word of public criticism about THAT from Joy CooperAnthony Sanders or Alexander Lewy.
Just something to think about tomorrow night...

So what's happened since the city over-paid for that property from Peter Deutsch & Co.?


Hallandale city manager calls in special auditor to review property bought from ex-congressman
By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
September 18, 2012 AT 6:17 AM

Correct, nothing positive.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Managed lanes: Broward MPO & FHA up to patronizing mischief on Thursday that'll cost you $$$ to drive on primary roads -the ones YOU already paid for

My answer to the Broward MPO's outlandish proposal to consider charging me and other Broward taxpayers and visitors to use roads that taxpayers have already paid for, is to call their bluff and to instruct them to make the first experimental pay roads in the area, Andrews Avenue and Las Olas Blvd. in downtown Fort Lauderdale, roads with businesses where elected officials, lobbyists and mouthpieces congregate, even while tourists stay away in droves.

To quote Matt Damon as Will in Goodwill Hunting, "How do you like those apples?

February 10th Broward MPO agenda at:
http://www.browardmpo.org/mpo/tpi01507.pdf

***TIME CERTAIN – 11:00AM – MPO MANAGED LANES REGIONAL BRIEFING***
I guess they put that in red on the website so that members of South Florida's news media, esp. those with a penchant for showing-up late, will know what's going down and when.
(Unlike the Hallandale Beach City Commission meetings where time certain items rarely come up on time and the meetings just go on forever and ever...)


Later that same day, the Broward MPO and the Federal Highway Administration are hosting a workshop on expanding toll lanes to Broward County’s arterial roads.

You know, the roads that you use most?
Since space is limited, of course, you need to RSVP to attend the workshop, which is scheduled to go from 1:30-5 p.m. at the Broward MPO Board Room, Trade Centre South, 100 West Cypress Creek Road, Suite 850, Fort Lauderdale.
This is right next to the Cypress Creek Tri-Rail station.
Christopher Ryan of Broward MPO is the contact person: (954) 876-0036 or ryanc@browardmpo.org

Look at this video produced for the Broward MPO's on the 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan. http://www.youtube.com/user/jacobsproductions1


Their homepage is at
http://www.browardmpo.org/mpo/2035lrtp/index.html

Do you see any 2009 PUBLIC meetings scheduled in Hollywood or Hallandale Beach?No, there weren't ANY in all of southeast Broward County.

Check for yourself on the website above and you'll see that I'm right:
Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, Davie, Pompano Beach.
Satisfied?

Really, no meetings in southeast Broward County, nothing east of I-95 and south of the
airport, that's your idea of community outreach?

Richard Blattner, a Hollywood City Commissioner, is the current Vice Chair of the Broward MPO. You might want to ask him how it came to be that IF he were doing such a great bang-up job, there not only wasn't a meeting in Hollywood, one of the five biggest cities in the county, but not a single one in SE Broward.

That's NOT exactly my idea of vision, leadership or a solid performance on the MPO.

Seems more like he's sleepwalking.
Blattner's
city commission info:
Telephone: (954) 921-3321
Email: rblattner@hollywoodfl.org

http://www.hollywoodfl.org/city_commission/district4.htm

And while you're talking to Blattner, whose transportation expertise and prowess seems to me to be more media-generated than genuine, you might want to ask him whether or not he will actually be around when the City of Hollywood finally has covered bus shelters for riders at Young Circle, instead of slabs, since it's the busiest stop in all of SE Broward.
Looking north on East Young Circle/U.S.-1 in Hollywood, FL, just east of the ArtsPark, at the bus stop at the strip mall owned by Equity One, featuring Publix and Walgreen's. February 5, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.


The ArtsPark at Young Circle was finished four years ago, so what's the big hold-up on getting the appropriate sized shelters that bring in revenue thru advertising and keep mass transit riders out of the rain and sunshine?
That's a reasonable question he and his colleagues should've been asked and forced to answer in public a long time ago!

Looking west on Tyler Street in Hollywood, FL, just northeast of the ArtsPark, at the bus stop north of the strip mall owned by Equity One, featuring Publix and Walgreen's. That's The Radius condo in middle of photo, which has a Starbucks on ground floor.
February 5, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.


Actually, I did ask that question aloud at the County's transportation meeting a few years ago at the Convention Center, the meeting where Broward Commissioner Lois Wexler refererred to me as "the young man in the back" when I got off a litany of self-evident but largely-ignored transportation problems in Broward, not all of which were the responsibility of BCT.
(Another current transportation problem in SE Broward that is being completely ignored is coming to the blog within the next week to ten days, complete with embarrassing photos.)


This, famously, was the same transportation summit I've written about previously on the blog where Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper came up to me after and started making excuses for why well over 90% of all the bus shelters in Hallandale Beach on the city's three main streets had lights that been out at night for YEARS, as I had told everyone assembled.

Her first response was how much she hated Clear Channel, the advertising company that the city had a contract with that generated revenue for them.

Fix the problem!


It took YEARS, and there are now dozens of them on main roads like U.S.-1 that have been out for 6-9 months, in front of the Steak & Shake restaurant opposite Gulfstream Park, for instance, near the cityline with Aventura.

Where's the public oversight Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew are responsible for?

Missing in action!

Well, they've been MIA for so long they are presumed brain dead.


As I said, Blattner is the Vice Chair, but some woman I've never heard of named
Rae Carole Armstrong, the mayor of Plantation, is the MPO Chair.
I don't know her from Eve, but if she has any common sense, she will wise-up in the coming days and realize that this absurd anti-democratic, top-down policy proposal going forward will be a political noose around any and all elected officials on the MPO who vote to approve this.
I will personally work to ensure that.


And Armstrong, personally, better be prepared to answer some tough questions from citizens about costs and why if this group of her's is SO professional, a very big if, why there are barely more than a handful of people in ALL of South Florida who even know about these two Thursday meetings.

A case could be made that the Broward MPO is the single most dysfunctional public policy group in all of South Florida, given their paltry results and public awareness versus their salary costs.


For instance, look at how many people have seen the county's MPO's video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps8U2RuM98c

Really, 156 views in almost 20 months, two of them, me?

That's pathetic and epic failure.
Elsewhere, that's the sort of piss-poor response rate that gets people fired from their jobs.

Nice going geniuses.


I'd love to know how much it costs taxpayers to put this together, since it really gives you some insight into how totally screwed-up transportation policy is here!
And look at the pathetic In the News section of the 2035 homepage, where you'd expect to find accounts of news stories.
http://www.browardmpo.org/mpo/2035lrtp/inthenews.html

The most recent thing there is from January 23rd, 2009.
That's right, the most recent thing is from over TWO YEARS ago, which means that none of the so-called public meetings ever so much as made a dent in the Miami Herald or Sun-Sentinel news coverage, or local TV stations, because you know that they would have it there if it had seen the light of day in print.
Smells like failure to me.


The MPO has a so-called blog on their web page
http://www.browardmpo.org/mpo/2035lrtp/comments.html Here's what it says:


Post your comments on the Broward MPO 2035 LRTP Blog
The discussion is open to the public and people are able to respond to others comments.
Some topics of discussion include overall Broward County Transportation Issues and innovative transportation solutions.
*Comments posted here are visible to the public.
Guess what happens when you go there to look at the public's questions and comments?There Are NO Questions or Comments.
What does THAT tell you about what sort of job they're doing?


Here's the list of MPO members along with contact information. http://publicforum.broward2035lrtp.com/mpo/boardmembers.htm and here's the staffers info, http://publicforum.broward2035lrtp.com/mpo/mpostaff.htm

You might want to consider adding MPO head honcho Greg Stuart as a cc in any of your queries. For more on Greg Stuart and what's been going on with him in charge, see this post of mine from May of 2010, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/brittany-wallman-is-on-top-of-broward.html and this Broward Bulldog piece from September of 2010, one of a series on very curious doings at the Broward MPO,
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2010/09/whistleblower-probes-expose-bad-blood-behind-county-mpo-split/
I will be at the meetings Thursday and you can pretty much guess what I'm going to be talking about.
By the way -surprise!- there has not been a single mention in the Herald or Sun-Sentinel about Thursday's two meetings.
Or anything on local TV newscasts.


I just double-checked.
As IF I really needed to!
-----

See also: http://browardnetonline.com/2011/02/fha-to-discu-expre-lane-expansion-on-all-roads-warning/

Friday, January 14, 2011

Touché! "Dear Lois" adroitly zeroes-in on Lois Wexler's defense of lobbyist Ron Book and blindsides her something silly over her pal, Judy Stern

Touché! "Dear Lois" adroitly zeroes-in on Lois Wexler's defense of Ron Book and blindsides her something silly over Judy Stern

For weeks, I've been sitting on an already-written blog post after engaging in some candid conversations with Broward County community activists and elected officials throughout the county that have taken me to places that are NOT usually part of my routine.

But live and learn...


The subject of these conversations was the very curious (and disturbing) public stance towards effective enforcement of strengthened ethics laws and standards in Broward County by someone that, until two years ago, I had generally assumed was one of the more dutiful and well-grounded public servants in South Florida.

And who is this mysterious person at the center of this discussion? Broward County District 5 Commissioner Lois Wexler.
http://www.broward.org/Commission/District5/Pages/Default.aspx

A woman that Daily Pulp blogger
Bob Norman painted to a 'T' in an October 2, 2008 post titled Billed for Bull, Broward County Commissioners want you to pay for their pet projects, writing in part:
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2008-10-02/news/billed-for-bull-broward-county-commissioners-want-you-to-pay-for-their-pet-projects/
The fun part was listening to county Mayor Lois Wexler defend the money drain. Wexler has slowly transformed herself into a human version of spackling paste, helping to hold together the commission's longstanding culture of waste and mismanagement.
For whatever reason -boredom, tenure, general antsiness- the formerly-astute Wexler increasingly seems tone-deaf to things that once upon a time...
Well, let's just say that I'm far from the only person in this county with 20/15 vision who's noticed the slide towards the slippery side of the slope.

I will have that post here on the blog in the not-too-distant future -Operation Mentos- but until then, I wanted to share with you all the delicious and spot-on lacerating wit of Dear Lois, who has quite properly put Wexler back in her place today on the Sun-Sentinel's Broward Politics blog in a way that just causes me to simply step back and admire it from a distance.
I salute you.

Game, set, match, "Dear Lois."

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics

Broward's Wexler defends lobbyist Ron Book
By Brittany Wallman

January 14, 2011 03:35 PM


As Broward County commissioners weigh what to do about a prominent lobbyist who represents the county and the county's political foe on a huge issue, one person who came to the lobbyist's defense is County Commissioner Lois Wexler.


At issue is lobbyist Ron Book's work for the county and for the Miami Dolphins.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/01/browards_wexler_defends_lobbyi.html#comments

See also:
Mentions of lobbyist Judy Stern in the
BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index?keywords=%22Judy+Stern%22&x=10&y=10
and of lobbyist Ron Book:
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index?keywords=%22Ron+Book%22&x=0&y=0

Are you sure you don't have a Mentos?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdTe9AuqoT8



The Coke Zero & Mentos Rocket Car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-hXcRtbj1Y

http://www.youtube.com/user/EepyBird