Prologue to Hallandale Beach City Comm.'s meeting re FY 2011-12 budget; HB Charter Review Comm. is dog-chasing-its-tail at its worst: SNAFU

Below is an email I wrote early Monday morning to my common sense friend and fellow concerned Hallandale Beach activist Csaba Kulin, with bcc's to the usual collection of about 75 or so well-informed people and news media in Hallandale Beach and Broward County, with not a single fan of Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper among them.

As you know, they're mutually exclusive -well-informed Hallandale Beach citizen taxpayers and supporters of Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew of Ross, Sanders & Lewy.

It largely concerns what passes for normal in Hallandale Beach -SNAFU- some preliminary thoughts of mine on the city's political near-future, and a link to a very useful article on Florida's Sunshine Laws and attorney-client exemptions to it.

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Dear Csaba:

Re your question about Hallandale Beach City Commission's Monday night meeting re, the city's FY 2011-12 budget NOT being on city's website with the appropriate required, agenda info -less than 24 hours before the meeting- see the article below that was, written by Comm. London's appointment to the HB City Attorney Selection Committee.

It's after your original email.

This is the ad the city ran in the Miami Herald a week ago:

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Mark Goldstein is a partner in the Miami law firm of Wolfe & Goldstein, P.A. He practices in the field of local government litigation. Prior to entering private practice Mr. Goldstein served as the city attorney of the City of Hallandale Beach from 2000-2003, and as a senior assistant city attorney for the City of Miami Beach. He received his B.A. from Yeshiva University in New York City and his J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law.

In case you forgot, the other members of the HB City Attorney Selection Committee are, hard as it is to believe, Commissioner Lewy – Rachel Alters, Esquire, Commissioner Ross – Bill Julian, Vice-Mayor Sanders – Murvin Wright, Mayor Cooper – Eudyce Steinberg.

Yes, despite everything that he personally did for years to make this city a perennial, laughingstock, and being kicked-out of office last year, Bill Julian is on both this AND the Charter Review Comm., who, as you and I have been discussing for weeks, despite being half-way thru their life cycle, has yet to place a single bit of the information that has been presented to them, the past few months on the city's website, despite City Manager Mark Antonio's specific promise to the community at the very first meeting back in July -where Keith London and I were the only members of the public in the room- that HB taxpayers would be able to see the information and actually be able to follow along.

*Blog readers, see for yourself how pathetic this is:

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/Search.aspx

(That was also my LAST meeting of theirs! They should've taken my suggestion, of meetings every other Saturday 10 a.m.-Noon if they wanted people to, show up in the summer.)

That the CRC foolishly refuses to read your informed letters into the record, even, when you are the ONLY person who has written them, speaks volumes about what a typical HB farce it is.

Some good people got suckered into that.

As you and I and so many others in the city who are interested in reform and genuine financial accountability at HB City Hall have informally discussed for months, I definitely believe that a voter-initiated, signature campaign effort to get pro-reform, pro-taxpayer issues directly before the voters via referendum in the spring -before everyone leaves for the summer- perhaps in conjunction with the recall effort previously discussed by various people -thereby bypassing the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew on the HB City Commission- makes more and more sense, given how the current dog-chasing-its tail CRC operation in HB is going.

I checked the webpage on the city's website at 1:30 a.m. Monday morning, and you, are 100% correct, Csaba.,

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?nid=-404&badlink=/files/00368/Exported%20OV%20Docs/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202011-09-26%2018-00.htm

The legally-required required information is NOT there.

Surprise!

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From: Csaba Kulin

Date: Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 10:58 PM

Subject: Agenda for 9/26/2011 CC Meeting.

To: Mark Antonio , Cc: Mayor Joy Cooper , Commissioner Alexander Lewy , Commissioner Keith London ,

Dear Mr. Antonio.

In preparation for tomorrow's CC meeting I was going to read the Agenda and look at the supporting documents. Below is the message I found on my computer when I tried to look at it.

Is it legal to conduct a meeting without proper notification of the public of the Agenda? Please check with your City Attorney?

While you are looking at the City's web site, please look at the sorry state of the Charter Review Commission web site also.

The IS department is asking for about a half a million dollars next year. Do you think we should expect a bit better service?

Sincerely,

Csaba Kulin

We're sorry, but there is not a web page matching your entry.

You entered: www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/00368/Exported OV Docs/Agenda Outline for 2011-09-26 18-00.htm

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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6367/is_4_78/ai_n29083643/?tag=mantle_skin;content

Florida Bar Journal

April, 2004,

Shade meetings: overview, pitfalls, and recommended changes

by Mark Goldstein