Showing posts with label Maria Sachs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maria Sachs. Show all posts

Thursday, July 18, 2013

How is Broward County Democratic Party chair Mitch Caesar NOT like a Mother Bear? Unlike this video of a Mother Bear at Brooks Falls in Alaska protecting her young cubs, Caesar has NOT been seen publicly trying to save his six Dem legislators who may be (illegally) living outside the districts they're supposed to represent, and who may well get prosecuted for violating the FL Constitution: Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz. Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs, Perry Thurston; What was the greater societal good that Caesar thought was accomplished by them drawing a salary for a job that they may NOT have been legally qualified for?


http://explore.org/#!/videos/player/mother-protects-her-cubs-at-brooks-falls

Brooks Falls Bearcamhttp://www.nps.gov/katm/photosmultimedia/brooks-falls-bearcam.htm

Unlike this amusing video of a Mother Bear at Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park in Alaska protecting her young cubs, Broward Democratic Party Chair Mitch Caesar has NOT been seen trying to save his six Dem legislators who may be illegally living outside the districts they're supposed to represent, and who may well get prosecuted for violating the Florida Constitution and breaking the trusts of the voters: Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz, Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs and Perry Thurston.

But that doesn't fully explain away the complete failure of ANY reporters at the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, CBS4, NBC-6, 7 News and Local10 to even attempt to interview Caesar and ask him on-camera why this wink-wink acceptance of it has been allowed to go on for years in Broward County under the one-hand-washes-the-other brand of political cronyism, wherein Broward lobbyists are in far too many instances the chief campaign fundraising link for pols whom they'll later be appearing before.

It's a system that completely disadvantages the public interest and non-profits and unduly rewards a handful of already-powerful lawyer/lobbyists in downtown Fort Lauderdale what is an overwhelmingly Democratic County -with too few powerful Independent-minded pols who refuse to play that game and will push back hard, a gaping weakness in the political culture here that usually exists even in the smallest counties around the country.

In short, people who are used to always getting what they want, or indirectly threatening elected officials and their pals and sycophants with turning off the campaign cash spigot.

Mitch Caesar has been the Broward County Dem Party chair the entire time many of these pols have been in their current office, committing fraud, so he has a lot to account for personally. 
But he doesn't seem to be held responsible for anything by the current press corps in South Florida.
With the exception of a handful of reporters, the press here acts like Caesar is just like you and me -watching from a distance and finding out from TV and the newspaper and blogs like mine.
But he's NOT like you and me -he's at the center of everything in Broward County.

How come he was fine for so many years with so many hundreds of thousands of Broward voters being lied to, intentionally?

And even more importantly, what exactly was the greater societal good that Mitch Caeser personally believed was being accomplished by the six of them drawing a salary for years for a job that they may've NOT legally been qualified for under the Florida Constitution?
Name one. 
Name two.

It's because we all know implicitly that he can't give even one good reason to such a simple question that I've assembled the Top Ten Reasons It's So Important to Broward County Residents... to have such unremarkable and even thoroughly mediocre legislators in office like Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz, Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs and Perry Thurston, even if they have to intentionally violate the Florida Constitution to do it:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Above, the complete list.
What do you know, there's not a single valid reason.

Or are you one of those people, outliers, who believe that rank mediocrity should always be rewarded at election-time, since that would explain a lot in Hallandale Beach and other cities in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Friday, July 12, 2013

More from Local10's Bob Norrman on the epidemic in Broward County of elected officials living outside districts they represent, contrary to the FL Constitution; FL state Senator Jack Latvala, Chair of Senate's Ethics & Elections Comm., will NOT tolerate this blatant corruption and wants investigations launched into these illegal actions right now!; And let's not forget FL state Rep. Joe Gibbons' strange views on raising a family -putting an elective office ABOVE living full-time with your own kids!


Local10 video: Senator calls for criminal investigation of elected officials' residencies
Perry Thurston, Jared Moskowitz, Maria Sachs appear to live outside districts they represent
Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published On: Jul 10 2013 02:42:24 PM EDT
Updated On: Jul 10 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT
-----
More from Local10 investigative reporter Bob Norrman on the epidemic in Broward County of elected officials living outside districts they represent, contrary to the FL Constitution; FL state Senator Jack Latvala, Chair of Senate's Ethics & Elections Comm. -and a recent recipient of my emails about whats' really going on in Hallandale Beachwill NOT tolerate this blatant corruption and wants investigations launched into these illegal actions right now!; And let's not forget FL state Rep. Joe Gibbons' strange views on raising a family -putting an elective office ABOVE living full-time with your own kids!
Updated at 2:45 p.m.

This is but the latest chapter of several sordid chapters in the serial criminal misrepresentation I have written about here at HBB over the past year or so on candidates and elected officials who do NOT live in the legislative districts they want to represent or do currently represent.
But somehow, the pols involved can never answer a simple question face-to-face, "Why do you refuse to live with the very citizens you say you want to represent?"

This longtime scandal has been exposed in a major way over the past few months thanks to the diligent hard work and resourcefulness of Local10's Bob Norman, Tom Lauder of Media Trackers Florida -who is also Red Broward- and my friend Stephanie Kienzle of VotersOpinion.com, the very enthusiastic blog that covers the Northeast Miami-Dade cities of North Miami Beach and North Miami -a.k.a. my old 'stomping grounds' for those of you out there who remember the wonderfully delicious days of Figaro's Pizza and the Lum's on N.E. 167th Street in NMB, and Marcella's Italian Restaurant on W. Dixie Highway in North Miami..

My last two blog posts on this sore subject, full of facts and videos, were:

JULY 5, 2013 

More on Broward County politicians' residency ruse: Is intentionally violating & evading the Florida Constitution 'the new normal' for ethical standards in the Sunshine State? Latest facts & chronology regarding at least 5 Florida legislators from Broward -and one Broward Commissioner- who DON'T live full-time in the districts they were elected to represent
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/more-on-broward-county-politicians.html

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





The three of them have been positively ingenious and patient about observing our local pols and pol-wannabe's in their natural state of obfuscation and mis-representation, and in Stephanie's case, highlighting the almost-comical situation where a woman who lives in Miramar in Broward County, wanted to run for City Commission in North Miami Beach in Miami-Dade County, and who almost got away with it if not for Stephanie's dedicated zeal to prevent yet another repeat of what the video up top represents.

Correct, as if they were all just running At-Large from South Florida

Speaking of being At-Large, I realized last night that in my many previous posts about FL state Rep. Joe Gibbons and his very questionable residency situation, which for so many years, to my great, great frustration, only Bob Norman and myself seemed to care a whit about, I neglected to include a link to a short-but-pithy post I'd written on him last year that dealt publicly with his very strange family living situation, which he prefers not to talk about publicly because of how selfish and self-serving he comes out in the tale.

It's my June 17, 2012 post titled, Today, on Father's Day, where are FL Rep. Joseph "Joe" Gibbons' children celebrating with him? Likely up in the Jacksonville area where they all live, NOT in Broward County where he pretends he lives full-time

By the way, now that I think about it, WTF, Channel 10
How is it that Channel 10 is NOT tweeting these video reports of gold by Bob Norman on their own Twitter feed while tweeting all sorts of the usual blather we associate with TV station twitter feed product?

The only reference to Bob Norman's Wednesday's story on Twitter with his name attached was by a citizen from FTL named Marcelo Medina, but who didn't include the Channel 10 link to the story.



and then this today...



I don't blame the Fort Lauderdale resident, whom I'd never heard of, and who doesn't appear to be a member of Broward's massive Govt./Politics/Lobbying Industrial Complex, instead I blame the management and staff at Channel 10 who clearly aren't paying more attention to what's right in front of them that's captured everyone's attention, since most reasonable people, regardless of ideology, think it's NOT too much to ask that people running for elective office actually live where the voters do.

The station needs to actually start thinking outside-the-box, and by the way, is there not a single intern at the station who could be doing that necessary tweeting?

(I've written about this previously on the blog but that was a while back, so for you more recent readers here's a story about me and Channel 10
Many years ago, 1981 to be exact, I was supposed to be a summer intern at Channel 10 while home for the summer from IU, back when their studios were still down on Biscayne Blvd. and N.E. 39th Street. 

Long story short: despite earning the job thru a great cover letter and excellent follow-up interview at the station, the Chair of the Telecommunications Dept. at IU would NOT allow me to accept the position because he said the Dept. needed all their students who were Seniors-to-be to get gigs like that, not Juniors-to-be like me.

I explained to them that while I understood their position, not only was Channel 10 the top-ranked TV news station in Florida, but that it was a Post-Newsweek station, which meant that if I did a very good job, it might help me nab an internship the following summer in D.C., either at the Washington Post or Newsweek magazine's D.C. HQ

And besides, there were no other IU students who were Juniors seeking the job, just me, and I was the only person the station's Personnel Director wanted for the job.
But it didn't matter. What opportunity giveth, IU tookth away. #stillangry)

Obviously, I haven't spoken to Bob Norman about it so have no idea if he'd even be interested, but why is there no discussion at all of the idea of giving him his own half-hour TV show on the weekends that deal with the intersection of Broward government and politics, with reporters, columnists and bloggers on as guests, but with elected officials, lobbyists, sycophants and PR apple polishers not regularly allowed on the show?

A show that would deal with larger issues like ethics and why smart policies and certain issues are not given the time of day, while bad ideas like The Wave streetcar in Fort Lauderdale, a boondoggle in the waiting, DO get approved, despite the facts staring at the City of Fort Lauderdale -their residents don't want it.

But the downtown Fort Lauderdale business crowd does want it, for perfectly selfish reasons, even though there's nothing to do downtown during the day save the Art Museum, as I will be writing about this weekend.

Yes, something very much along the lines of the weekly DC Politics Hour show that I have written about here previously, one of the things that I desperately missed once coming back to South Florida, even though I could hear it online.
(It just wasn't the same once I got out of The Beltway and could anticipate the stories they'd be talking about and already knew the context for the ones that did come up.) 

Much of Greater Washington listened to it religiously every Friday at Noon on WAMU-FM, the NPR station at American University that was the talk/public policy center of the radio universe in D.C., with co-hosts Derek McGinty and Mark Plotkin and then Kojo Nmadi after Derek left for CBS-TV in 1998 after doing some excellent freelance reporting work with Bryant Gumbel on cable.

And to make a good thing better, they'd have the Maryland or Virginia Politics Hour once a month in the second hour at 1 p.m., and often had the governor on to take calls from listeners that were anything-but-friendly and who'd level the governor under a tsunami of logical facts that the guest reporters from Annapolis, Charlottesville, Baltimore, Richmond or the Wash. Post  beat reporters of the state capitol couldn't do anything but sit back and watch the fun.
To quote myself, there's NOTHING even remotely like that anywhere in South Florida on Tv or radio.

It was great, and it's not just that everyone I knew, plus official Washington, listened to that show, but how from even a pure numbers point-of-view, it was the only real competition that the Rush Limbaugh Show on AM talk powerhouse WMAL ever had in the Washington market at noon.

It was fun, informative and there was always something interesting or perplexing that you heard that left you excited, puzzled or even downright scared at who was actually representing you in government as the weekend approached.
As if the retro Soviet-style bureaucracy at Arlington County HQ that looked upon citizen taxpayers like me as as, alternately, cash cows or guinea pigs, wasn't bad enough!

In those pre-Internet, pre-blog days, that radio show was the best forum in all of Greater Washington for regularly zeroing-in on all the mountains of unsatisfactory performances and illegal and ethically-troubling behavior going on by city, county and state officials, which kept the jails busy.

If I were the News Director at Channel 10, I'd do that ASAP and have it ready to roll come September, especially since there are hours and hours and hours of nothing but infomercials on Channel 10 after Noon on Saturday and Sundays, which I find pretty embarrassing, frankly.

Obviously that completely changes for Saturdays once college football season starts up late next month so why not have such a needed program at 10 a.m. on Sundays as the lead-in to This Week With George Stephanopoulos, followed-up by Michael Putney with his excellent This Week in South Florida?
A nice two-hour bloc of serious news in an area that is literally starving for more serious news coverage and analysis.

-----
Sen. Jack Latvala's webpage on Florida Senate website:
http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/s20

As you can see from the video above, Sen. Latvala's already shown he's more than a little upset and is keen on getting the ball moving rapidly towards formal investigations and prosecutions, but let him know that you, too, are fed-up and won't tolerate any more of the despicable business-as-usual/wink-wink attitude in South Florida of the Florida Constitution.
You can reach him at "Latvala, Sen. Jack"  <latvala.jack.web@flsenate.gov>

Friday, July 5, 2013

More on Broward County politicians' residency ruse: Is intentionally violating & evading the Florida Constitution 'the new normal' for ethical standards in the Sunshine State? Latest facts & chronology regarding at least 5 Florida legislators from Broward -and one Broward Commissioner- who DON'T live full-time in the districts they were elected to represent

More on Broward County politicians' residency ruse: Is intentionally violating & evading the Florida Constitution 'the new normal' for ethical standards in the Sunshine State? Latest facts & chronology regarding at least 5 Florida legislators from Broward -and one Broward Commissioner- who DON'T live full-time in the districts they were elected to represent
Why would you expect an individual who values power more than integrity and who doesn't really live full-time where they do, to care as much about the actual day-to-day Quality of Life and problems of those constituents and small business owners as someone who does?
It's part of why it's called representative democracy.

It's supposed to be a lot more than just any old job you drive to from somewhere else.
Sometimes, things are exactly what they look like.
This is just such a time.


























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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 June 26, 2013 04:45:07 PM EDT



















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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 June 25, 2013 03:07:21 PM EDT
Updated June 25, 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT, 
Related article at: 
http://www.local10.com/news/more-elected-officials-living-outside-districts/-/1717324/20709398/-/pok1gcz/-/index.html





Media Trackers Florida
City Commissioner in Florida Resigns Under Residency Questions
By Tom Lauder
June 21, 2013

Local10 News video: 
Florida Democratic leader caught living outside district
Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published June, 12 2013 03:34:55 PM EDT, 

Media Trackers Florida
Florida State Rep. Joseph Gibbons Avoided Making Residency Claims Under Oath
By Tom Lauder
May 3, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Residency Games Are A Family Affair for Florida State Rep. Joseph Gibbons
By Tom Lauder
May 2, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Rep. Joseph Gibbons Appears to Violate Constitution's Residency Requirements
By Tom Lauder
April 16, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida State Rep. Hazelle Rogers Flaunts Constitution's Residency Requirements
By Tom Lauder 
April 15, 2013

-Related ethical problem
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
State attorney probed Gibbons' campaign funds
By Brittany Wallman
11:14 a.m. EDT, April 15, 2013
Office of Broward State's Attorney closeout document re Joe Gibbons commingling campaign funds and personal funds, where he blamed his staff for all the problems.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
County Commission candidate's ties to Broward questioned
Gibbons' wife, young kids live elsewhere
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
April 12, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida House Minority Leader Claims to Live With Felon to Meet Residency Requirement
By Tom Lauder
April 11, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Senator Maria Sachs Thumbs Nose at Residency Law
By Tom Lauder
April 4, 2013

Media Trackers Florida
Florida Legislator Claims to Live Separately from His Wife to Meet Residency Law
By Tom Lauder
April 1, 2013

-Related ethical problem
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Ethics commission: Rep. Gibbons cleared
By Brittany Wallman
11:05 a.m. EST, February 7, 2013 

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, 
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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

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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
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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 

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Calling all Carpetbaggers! Repeat after me, "Requirements, what residency requirements?" Carpetbaggers in South Florida have it easy compared to their cousins in Calif. due to the lack of serious reporters here, but in both places, carpetbagging and ethnic identity politics often go hand-in-hand; LA Times: "Does this man live in San Gabriel or not? A residency challenge prompts council members to hold their own hearing -with sworn witnesses- to decide if the No. 2 vote-getter should be seated"; Is that a preview of things to come in North Miami Beach, where a Miramar resident named Dargenson is running for NMB City Commission, and thinks she'll win -largely because she's Haitian-American?

Calling all Carpetbaggers! Repeat after me, "Requirements, what residency requirements?" Carpetbaggers in South Florida have it easy compared to their cousins in Calif., but in both places, carpetbagging and ethnic identity politics often go hand-in-hand; LA Times: "Does this man live in San Gabriel or not? A residency challenge prompts council members to hold their own hearing -with sworn witnesses- to decide if the No. 2 vote-getter should be seated"; Is that a preview of things to come in North Miami Beach, where a Miramar resident is running for NMB City Commission and thinks she'll win -largely because she's Haitian-American?
If you ask me, it's too bad for South Florida's continually-beleaguered citizenry that FL state House Reps Frank Artiles, Joe Gibbons and Perry Thurston and FL state Senator Maria Sachs have never been forced by the powers-that-be in Tallahassee to publicly explain themselves and their very curious living situations.
Under oath 
In public.

Unlike Council candidate Chin Ho Liao in San Gabriel, CA, who was actually elected but not seated.
Oh, the great questions we'd all have all loved to have peppered our local political miscreants under oath with!

Speaking of carpetbaggers, if you haven't already been reading what straight-talking blogger Stephanie Kienzle has been saying with real vigor and much-deserved anger the past few weeks about North Miami Beach's faux City Commission candidate, Yvenoline “Yves” Dargenson -a woman who lives in Miramar, i.e. Broward County!- please do yourself a big favor and do so today via her blog, http://www.votersopinion.com/

You won't regret it because Stephanie gives you a very clear look at the corruption and illegality that passes for "normal" in South Florida politics and government these days, where far too many candidates and elected officials can seemingly break clear-cut rules about their prescribed conduct and behavior with relative impunity.

And the existing legal institutions that are supposed to keep people within the clearly-defined parameters of the law, instead, seem content to just shrug their shoulders and to let THEM dictate what the rules are to the public, putting everything upside-down.

Dargenson is the Broward County resident who running for a City Commission seat in a Miami-Dade city, and to both Stephanie and myself, she's someone who has a lot to to answer for publicly after the M-D Supervisor of Elections ruled that she lives in the City of Miramar.

But but based on what I'm hearing and reading, a Miami-Dade judge, Darrin P. Gayles, did
what M-D circuit court judges have been doing a lot of ever since my family first moved to Miami in 1968 -making bad decisions for the community and letting guilty parties walk.
Or, in this case with Dargenson, run for office in a county she does NOT live in.
No, it seems to have very little to do with upholding the state's laws or with getting justice for NMB's voters, to say nothing of actually adhering to Florida's Constitution.

Even more than usual, Stephanie has lots of great nuggets in her recent blog posts about the longstanding culture of corruption in NMB and North Miami, and actually makes the case that it's actually threatening to grow exponentially in NMB as a result of all the unethical goings-on in next-door North Miami that local and state law enforcement have been ignoring.

Ignoring it, it seems to me, in part at least, because so many of the people engaging in this
unethical political behavior in Northeast Dade are Haitian-Americans, a rapidly-growing voter bloc now compared to Non-Hispanic Whites in Miami-Dade County, and a demographic that is courted by candidates in ways that were not imaginable even thirty years ago, just a few years after I graduated from NMB High School, followed three years later bv my sister.

Perhaps nobody exemplified this cultural change as much as North Miami's oft-charged but never-convicted-thus-far incumbent mayor, Andre Pierre, though there are others on both sides of the border who are nearly as brazen.

Seriously, did you really expect the political crooks and their cronies in NMB not to notice the fact that nobody was being prosecuted in North Miami for what they do, no matter how self-evident?

Out in San Gabriel, California, you have the cancers of ethnic identity politics and carpetbagging at work, but with a Chinese-American patina, and a town that wants to go old-style New England and make the person accused of wrong-doing convince them that they have not broken the spirit and letter of the law.

Meanwhile in North Miami and North Miami Beach you just have... oh, right -the same things, just with Haitian-Americanss, instead.
Plus, thinly-disguised Black racism and grievance politics as both the facts-on-the-ground and reader comments to this piece make clear.

Los Angeles Times
San Gabriel council deems itself judge over election results
By Frank Shyong, Los Angeles Times
April 27, 2013, 8:45 p.m.
San Gabriel Councilman-elect Chin Ho Liao was the second highest vote-getter in the city's March elections, but his first time on the council dais last week was as a witness under cross-examination.
The City Council voted not to seat Liao after resident Fred Paine filed a complaint alleging that Liao's true residence is outside of the city's borders. Though Liao has filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court to contest the council's vote, the city has also created its own hearing process to determine Liao's residency.
Read the rest of the article at:

I can't help but wonder if this is what the good residents of North Miami Beach can look forward to dealing with in the coming weeks if a sufficient number of Haitian-American voters there are prepared to simply cast common sense and the facts aside, and vote for a woman who doesn't even live in their city, simply because Dargenson is Haitian-American, too.

Well, it's not like local Miami TV stations have spent any real time covering what's been going on there, now is it?
No, today, two days before the May 7th election, CBS4, NBC6, 7News and Local10 are all guilty of NOT doing a single story on Yvenoline Dargenson.

Seriously, given what this woman is attempting to do by blowing a hole in even the most basic requirement for candidate eligibility, how can that be so?
How can every single English-language TV station news operation in Miami just ignore this?
That, my friends, is the low level to which South Florida journalism has sunk to -a complete lack of curiosity.

It's as if they're waiting for her to win before covering it, no?

For more on the very curious and perhaps even unethical living arrangements of FL House Reps Gibbons and Thurston and FL state Senator Sachs, please see an archive of Tom Lauder's recent pieces on residency requirements at Florida Media Trackers
http://florida.mediatrackers.org/author/toml/

It makes for interesting reading, and the fact that the Broward County Property Appraiser's Office has gotten involved so many times in these cases -esp. with Gibbbons, who clearly didn't comply with the law- only shows how egregious the lack of serious reporting on this subject has been in South Florida over the years.
These pols have positively dared reporters to say what is right in front of us.

I'm sorry to say it, but it also appears from the all the available evidence that some local African-American reporters, columnists and editors down here have been very easy on both Gibbons and Thurston for reasons that have nothing to do with journalism, but everything to do with either shared political ideology or friendship.
(Whatever happened to the proscribed arms-length relationship between reporters and subjects?)

I've commented on it here before, because otherwise, how do you reasonably explain the fact that the Sun-Sentinel's Douglas Lyons has scrupulously avoided mentioning this obvious residency issue for years, despite how often he has mentioned Thurston and Gibbons, quoted them and interviewed them?
What is his excuse, anyway?

Trust me, despite whatever it says on their resumes, Lyons and other reporters at the Sun-Sentinel and the Herald  don't think they have to answer to readers, and I know about him because I've given him plenty of opportunities over the past few years and all he's done is nothing but sit there like a bump on a log.
That's who he is, you shouldn't count on suddenly getting any candor from him that you can have any faith in.
Lyons considers his refusal to ask reasonable questions, esp. of them, a dead issue.

Just another reason that I hope the Sun-Sentinel is sold very soon and that there's a great house-cleaning/bloodletting there to make that newspaper something it hasn't been in years -relevant and worth reading.