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Showing posts with label Michael Yormark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Yormark. Show all posts

Friday, September 14, 2012

Will upcoming NHL owner's lockout affect the $7.7 million loan from Broward County to Florida Panthers owner Michael Yormark, which he's clearly counting on to prop him up?

Below is a slightly-edited version of an email that I sent this afternoon to Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry, along with some other links that some of you may find of use if you are NOT already up-to-speed on the issue at hand, which, long story short, is a very unsuccessful professional sports franchise getting a multi-million dollar loan from a government entity who also happens to be their landlord.

When and if I hear from Ms. Henry in the near-future with respect to some answers to my questions, I'll share here what she had to say about what's going on with Michael R. Yormark and the Florida Panthers at the newly-renamed BB&T Center in suburban Sunrise, far from most of South Florida, out near The Everglades.

The reason I decided to even write the email and post it here is because of the continuing popularity in South Florida and other NHL cities of a February post of mine about some eye-opening video of Florida Panthers CEO Michael Yormark dodging some very reasonable questions by Channel 10's Bob Norman 
at the Broward County Govt. Center moments after the County Commission meeting, which I watched online.

Some of you who pay attention to such things may well say, correctly, that this video presages the amazing video weeks later in the same building of Broward attorney, flack and lobbyist Bernie Friedman revealing his true nature, and thinking somehow that his clever remarks have more weight than video of what he is doing and saying. 

Yes, the infamous elevator kerfuffle which played out exactly as these things so often do, with the predictable 'kill the messenger ' waterfall of words in the readers comments from staunch liberal Democratic activist and lobbyist Seth Platt, where he posted at least 8 separate posts, as if somehow seven was not enough.

Well, now we now all over again that "Eight is Enough," with Seth Platt in the Grant Goodeve role. Like a certain political commissar here in HB, reading Platt is like water torture. 
Platt seems to be the "Tokyo Rose" of Broward County political social media, at once both everywhere, but also with nothing of substance to say that you're really interested in, instead, also the very picture of a tone-deaf self-promoter.   

If you have not see those two videos, they're really 'must-see' in every respect, and I can tell you with certainty that if Channel 10 embedded their news segments, they'd have been anchors on this blog within minutes of them first airing.
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Will the upcoming NHL owners lockout affect the $7.7 million loan from Broward County to Florida Panthers owner Michael Yormark, which he's clearly counting on to prop him up?


Dear Ms. Henry:



Are the Florida Panthers and Michael Yormark still legally entitled to the $7.7 million loan from Broward County if, legally, they're NOT a going concern as of the start of the NHL season on October 13th?

During the upcoming strike, which is, of course, more properly called an owner's "lockout," since Mr. Yormark's company will NOT be offering the public a product, service or benefit -or honoring tickets already sold to ticket holders (taxpayers) of this county- if those funds have NOT already been disbursed, wouldn't it be prudent to place them in an escrow account now so that they can't be used to stanch the expected financial bleeding in Plantation once the season comes with no games
being played?

If you have some time this weekend, you might want to peruse his Twitter feed.

Do you want to know a name that rarely if ever appears on his Twitter feed? 
It's "Broward."
Yes, it's true.

Also rarely appearing there: Ft. Lauderdale or Plantation, where the team plays...
In fact, none of those names have so much as appeared once since July if then.
I stopped looking when they weren't mentioned since at least July 31st.  

When you read it you see rather quickly that his is a lifestyle that's full of trips on private luxury jets and expensive steak houses and reading books on business leadership, as if reading about it was a substitute for doing it.

All this after he asks for a handout of over $7 million from taxpayer's elected officials that in my opinion could have been MUCH better used. 
Say, well, for something that visiting tourists to Broward County would actually benefit from, and tell their friends about so they'd come down for a visit, too.

Look at me and my old-fashioned notions about how tourist bed taxes ought to be used!
No wonder I'm not flying on private jets these days and chowing-down at expensive steak houses in LA, NY and Vegas like Yormark and deducting it as a business expense.

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Perhaps you were one of the persons in South Florida who got this email from me seven months ago... All links still work.


Date: Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 2:53 AM
Subject: FYI re WPLG-TV/Miami video: The BankAtlantic shuffle: Florida Panthers president doesn't
want to answer questions about $7.7 million sweetheart loan from Broward County

This video from the Thursday night 6 pm newscast is the perfect follow-up to my previous emails
on this subject, 

My favorite take away is from the last one:

Broward County has gotten the short end of the stick in its financial deal with the Florida Panthers, and a proposed loan would only tip the scales further, the county's auditor charges.
To date, the county has paid more than $90 million for the arena that serves as the Panthers' home, and gotten back just $331,000 in profit-sharing.
The Panthers side of the scoreboard is far brighter, according to county records. Since the doors at BankAtlantic Center opened 13 years ago, Arena Operating Co., the Panthers' sister company that runs the arena, has rung up a reported $117.4 million in profits. That's more than 353 times what the county has banked.

This absurd loan to the Florida Panthers, which is opposed by the Greater Ft. Lauderdale hospitality
industry, a preening, self-important and self-serving group to be sure, but one who has a much better
idea about what tourists do and do not want to do when they visit than the county commission, and
going to a Panthers game on the outskirts of The Everglades near nothing but a huge shopping mall
is NOT one of them.

But first, here's the Florida Panthers' tone-deaf Michael Yormark in a video from Forbes;
Yormark's the clown who who won't answer questions below.

The Channel 10 video, and the antics of the people shown, speaks for itself.
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/The-BankAtlantic-shuffle/-/3223354/8582968/-/i3du6wz/-/

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Also see my post of early February, one of the most-popular of the year:
Bob Norman's must-see video of Florida Panthers president, who DOESN'T want to answer questions about $7.7 million sweetheart loan from Broward County"
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/bob-normans-must-see-video-of-florida.html

as well as these two pieces from Channel 10

Florida Panthers hockey prez a Twitter twit?
By Bob Norman
Published On: Apr 25 2012 08:28:07 AM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/Florida-Panthers-hockey-prez-a-Twitter-twit/-/3223354/11810974/-/xg164e/-/index.html

WPLG Editorial: Fla. Panthers' Pres. rantings
Author: Dave Boylan, VP and General Manager of WPLG.
Published On: Apr 26 2012 11:59:27 AM EDT  
Updated On: Apr 26 2012 12:16:46 PM EDT
http://www.local10.com/station/WPLG-Editorial-Fla-Panthers-Pres-rantings/-/1716906/11983462/-/6r7i0rz/-/index.html

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Panthers skate on, despite uncertain labor future
By TIM REYNOLDS (AP Sports Writer)
September 14, 2012

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/panthers-skate-despite-uncertain-labor-172909851--nhl.html

http://nhl-red-light.si.com/

Friday, February 3, 2012

Bob Norman's must-see video of Florida Panthers president, who DOESN'T want to answer questions about $7.7 million sweetheart loan from Broward County

The must-see Bob Norman investigative video I have for you at the bottom of this post, from Thursday night's Channel 10 six o'clock newscast, is the perfect follow-up to my recent emails to some of you out there in the blogosphere on the never-ending subject of the NHL's Florida Panthers asking the Broward County Commissioners, their landlord at the Bank Atlantic Center, for a multi-million dollar loan, an egregious example of crony capitalism.


It's a subject that I first raised here on the blog in a November 6, 2011 post titled, The Florida Panthers hockey team's owners & mgmt. are about to get a cold dose of economic reality falling on their head -no taxpayer money for you!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/florida-panthers-hockey-teams-owners.html


I was wrong about the "no taxpayer money for you" part, though, as on Tuesday afternoon, the Commission caved-in to specious reasoning by a vote of 6-2.


It was the worst sort of crony capitalism, as instead of just picking winners and losers, and in this case, one where one party will profit much sooner at the expense of the other -as so often has happened the past ten years in my own city of Hallandale Beach with CRA loans under the direction of Mayor Joy Cooper- the County Commission was given financial information days before the vote by County Auditor Evan Lukic that the deal as reconfigured from November would make taxpayers 'The Biggest Loser,' they went ahead and voted for it, anyway.


The most recent South Florida Sun-Sentinel articles on this anti-taxpayer vote:

Panthers deal enriches arena operator, not Broward, county auditor charges
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
January 17, 2012  9:26 p.m.
Florida Panthers back at table with new loan request, $7.7 million Broward vote Tuesday
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
January 31, 2012  4:10 a.m. EST, 

Broward Politics blog
Lobbyist Watch: Milledge says county shouldn't be looking for profit from Panthers
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel 
January 31, 2012  02:56 PM
Broward says yes to Florida Panthers $7.7 million loan
By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel
January 31, 2012  6:55 p.m. EST

My favorite take away is from the first one from January 21st:

Broward County has gotten the short end of the stick in its financial deal with the Florida Panthers, and a proposed loan would only tip the scales further, the county's auditor charges.

To date, the county has paid more than $90 million for the arena that serves as the Panthers' home, and gotten back just $331,000 in profit-sharing.

The Panthers side of the scoreboard is far brighter, according to county records. Since the doors at BankAtlantic Center opened 13 years ago, Arena Operating Co., the Panthers' sister company that runs the arena, has rung up a reported $117.4 million in profits. That's more than 353 times what the county has banked.

This absurd loan to the Florida Panthers, via the use of the county's hotel bed tax,
is opposed by the Greater Ft. Lauderdale hospitality industry, a preening, self-important and self-serving group to be sure, but one which most people would agree has a much better idea about what tourists do and do not want to do when they visit Broward than the County Commission, and going to a Panthers game on the outskirts of The Everglades near nothing but a huge shopping mall -Sawgrass Millsis NOT one of them.

My last bit of context for you to absorb before watching Bob Norman's eye-opening video is this Forbes.com video featuring the Florida Panthers' smug and tone-deaf president Michael Yormark.


Yormark won't answer reasonable questions from an actual reporter from the area like Bob Norman, someone who WONT feed him marshmallow questions like Forbes.com's Executive Editor Mike Ozanian does.



Forbes.com video:, Winning Panthers Look To Cash In. January 11, 2012.
http://youtu.be/wCld3dhT3V0


SPORTSMONEY 
January 12, 2012 @ 3:12PM
Panthers Skate Towards More Revenue

Article at: 


The Channel 10 video, and the antics of the people shown, speaks for itself.



WPLG-TV
Bob Norman's Blog
The BankAtlantic shuffle
Published On: Feb 02 2012 08:03:45 AM EST  
Updated On: Feb 02 2012 08:26:55 AM EST

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/The-BankAtlantic-shuffle/-/3223354/8582968/-/i3du6wz/-/

Coming tonight on Channel 10's 11 p.m. newscast, Bob Norman asks, Where are the profits?

Sunday, November 6, 2011

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

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

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

-----

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

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


View Larger Map


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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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Friday June 17th, 2011

Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Hallandale Beach Blog

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

Read the article at: