City-sponsored 'Fashion Row' meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at Dekka in Hallandale Beach

The City of Hallandale Beach is hosting a 'Fashion Row' meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at Dekka, 139 N.E. 1st Avenue, Hallandale Beach.
It's long overdue!

To me and many other concerned residents of this southeast Broward County city, it sounds exactly like something that... well, in another city, would've already been taking place at least once a year since the Fashion Row idea started, whenever that was while I was working up in Washington, D.C.

My reason for mentioning this now, at this rather late date, is that I just recently found out about it on Tuesday night, and I want as many articulate and impassioned people as possible to make plans to show-up and demand some accountability, since the red-tape overkill and lack of clarity by Code Compliance at Hallandale Beach City Hall is literally killing businesses and jobs here.

It's something that lots of people in town are talking about more and more openly and frequently in restaurants and other meeting places, and many believe that City Hall has been guilty of being too blase about this simmering dis-satisfaction.
Well, now it's all in the open.

I don't currently own a business here in town but in talking to friends and trusted activists in HB who do, it's clear that there are far too many nonsensical sections of the code compliance manual in this city that rather than serve some self-evident public safety or building safety aspect that everyone would support, actually serve to frustrate small business owners who want to improve their property and become more competitive.
And stand out!

Their ability to survive is in question, and un-necessary permit costs and fines are the very thing that will cause them to either move or close-up shop, and there are too few big-picture minded business owners in HB as it is, we can't lose the ones we have.

Just to give you some sense of the dis-connect, as I've mentioned in this space previously, as of today, there are a couple of dozen Fashion Row directional signs still standing, but STILL ZERO of the HB Chamber of Commerce, which you can't find unless you go to City Hall, park your car in the parking lot and walk past their entrance opposite the breezeway from City Hall.
Another genius marketing move -NOT!

Echoing comments I've made here and at City Commission meetings, there's nothing about the location of the CoC anywhere in the city, not even right out front on U.S-1 despite the tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars that have flowed their way, averaging about $50,000 a year, with very little to show for it in the way of tangible results.

I wonder if their Patricia Genneti will have the nerve to show her smug face at the meeting and, ironically, face the music?
I suspect she will be a no-show, even though she is exactly the sort of character who needs to be held to account.

I can hardly wait 'til I hear the questions about the rampant and rapidly-expanding graffiti problem and the city's invisible effort to combat it, not only near the businesses along the F.E.C. railroad tracks and Hallandale Beach Blvd., but all down U.S.-1/Federal Highway, where it is on nearly single every light and traffic pole and bus shelter on U.S.-1 all the way down to Aventura Hospital, just as it was early last year on the east side before The Village at Gulfstream Park opened.

"HGS" positively owns U.S.-1!

I've been taking photos of the problem for years and the fact that the Nick's restaurant parking lot sign on 1st Avenue is completely covered with 'tags' is embarrassing in the extreme.

I'll post some of them here in the next few days when I can lay them out in a way that gives more context to you readers so it'll be clear why this news is so very troublesome.

It often seems that these sorts of Quality-of-Life issues are ignored and forgotten almost as soon as HB City Hall hears about them, as that's been my experince over the past seven years, even when I've connected-the-dots to City Hall officials in excruciating detail.
At City Hall!

Tonight's meeting should be pretty fiery and I plan on being there.


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http://maps.google.com/maps?q=139+N.E.+1st+Avenue,+Hallandale+Beach&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=139+NE+1st+Ave,+Hallandale+Beach,+Broward,+Florida+33009&gl=us&ei=4BABTc7KMIKClAeNkaDnCA&oi=geocode_result&ved=0CBMQ8gEwAA&z=16

Monday night's meeting in Hollywood on Amendment 4 and Florida Hometown Democracy

The Hollywood Council of Civic Associations will be hosting a meeting Monday night in Hollywood on what's new in Florida Hometown Democracy's efforts to get Amendment 4 passed this November, and finally put the larger community's interests on an even playing field
with well-heeled developers and their lawyer/lobbyists' contributions to elected officials who vote on their proposals.

The guest speaker will be Bett Willett, the South Florida Coordinator for Florida Hometown Democracy, and a woman who has been extremely helpful recently to Hallandale Beach and Hollywood residents in defeating the Westin Diplomat's incompatible proposal to build multiple 25-30 story condo towers near the Diplomat Country Club, in a town like Hallandale Beach that has more condos on the books than seems either logical or desirable.

And to this geographically-limited and poorly-run city they wanted to add over 800 more condos and cars on secondary roads that already lead to gridlocked roads that residents daily curse.

Not surprisingly, throughout the entire process, the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce, the tinny echo chamber of HB City Hall -which gave them $50,000 this year as they have for years- strongly supported this effort, as their head honcho Patricia Genetti spoke in favor of the Diplomat's efforts at least five times at public meetings that I've personally witnessed.

At none of those public meetings did Genetti ever make any public disclosure about how much of that $50,000 of taxpayer funds went towards HER salary.

It won't surprise you to learn that the HBCoC currently opposes Amendement 4, just like their puppet-masters next door at Hallandale Beach City Hall.
Oh, and in case you didn't know, last year, HB City Hall gave them a free office in their taxpayer-funded complex.

Monday May 17th
7:00 p.m.
Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center, Main Auditorium,
2030 Polk Street, Hollywood, Florida 33021

Meanwhile...

Broward Bulldog.org
Ex-Supreme Court chief justice approves ballot petition, gets hired by firm allied with its sponsor
28 April 2010, 5:15 am
By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org

Weeks after casting the deciding vote to approve a controversial ballot petition in December 2008, former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles T. Wells joined a law firm aligned with the petition’s sponsor.

The high court’s 4-3 ruling gave life to a push by developers and statewide business interests – led by the Florida Chamber of Commerce – to blunt a possible change in the state constitution to greatly expand citizen powers over local development.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.browardbulldog.org/?p=1181 and http://www.browardbulldog.org/?p=1199

For more information:
http://www.browardbulldog.org/
http://www.hccacentral.com/
http://www.floridahometowndemocracy.com/
http://floridahometowndemocracyamendment.blogspot.com/

Bett Willett's personal blog is called Blog by Bett
http://blogbybett.blogspot.com/-
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Thoughts on the Diplomat LAC proposal, now scheduled for April 27, and the economic threats the Westin Diplomat is now making. How low can they go?

From: Diplomat Properties, LP
Sent: Mon, Mar 29, 2010 11:24 am
Subject: Diplomat Returns to Broward County Commission for Final Vote on April 27

The Diplomat LAC will return to the Broward County Commission for a final vote in the next few weeks. This follows a 4-4 tie vote at the public hearing on March 23, with one Commissioner not present. Throughout the public review process, plans have continued to evolve in response to community and public officials' comments. Most recently, the residential buildings planned for parcel B have been reduced to 5 stories. As a supporter, you understand how crucial the residential component is to preserving the golf course. Please help us get this message out. There will be no new hotel without a residential community within the project and there may be no golf course without the LAC. We hope that you will e-mail or call the county commissioners whose no vote indicates that they don't yet appreciate this crucial linkage. Ask that they vote Yes to allow this important project to move forward. (Commissioners Jacobs, Wexler, Gunzburger and Keechl voted no; Commissioner Lieberman was not present.) We appreciate everyone's support and will let you know the new County Commission meeting date as soon as it is confirmed.

http://campaign.constantcontact.com/render?v=001AOTdCtwnZM-kEPmDeh-ar8VKcVOHca1BcHUREzwyr-E98_8Ipi2GfpQ2T5JkGjKQEb2xnzKyOREwFtCMaB9_V3iwa7S31pUHDORP104kii1pwTUvcjrXi9bKWgPJdfeciXD24y-2tURUVHm94Pjq4u0SwIcO4qj4

I've told you all in previous emails and blog
posts here that the the union that owns the
Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, as well
as the Golf Course, the Plumbers and Pipe
Fitters, as well as hospitality management
company Starwood and the high-paid
lawyers, lobbyists and myriad consultants
they've retained, would engage in serial lies
and misrepresentation in order to get their
way, and they have.
Now, you can see it for yourself, above.

"There will be no new hotel without a
residential community within the project
and there may be no golf course without
the LAC."

Yes, they'll huff and they'll puff and they'll blow
the Diplomat's golf course up if they don't
get their way.
Cue the the Three Pigs!

The next vote on the Diplomat LAC will take
place before the Broward County Commission
on April 27th at 2 p.m., not the 13th as was
stated here earlier.

So when is the South Florida news media
going to cover this story in a way that equates
to its actual importance to the community's
Quality-of-Life?

That's a good question.

After a number of conversations with people
in the area and around the county, I'll have
some thoughts to share in the next two weeks
on how we all think the Diplomat LAC proposal
-which you'll recall that Hallandale Beach
City Hall placed on the city's dreadful website
for citizens to read 28 hours before the first
vote in mid-December- may affect interim
Broward Commissioner Albert C. Jones'
political future, as he seeks to get elected
to a position he was appointed to by
Gov. Charlie Crist.
http://www.broward.org/district9/
http://gis.broward.org/maps/webPDFs/CommissionDistricts/comdist9.pdf

Jones was one of the four votes for the
Diplomat last Tuesday, yet curiously,
as of this afternoon, his name still does
not appear on the posted candidates list
of the SOE.
http://www.browardsoe.org/electioncandidates.aspx?eid=89

So am I the only one who wonders why
are there no news stories about Comm.
Diana Waseerman-Rubin, whose District
actually includes a small part of NW Hallandale
Beach, and how she barely(!) understands
what she is voting on with respect to this
matter, and why is she making no effort
to come to the actual area to see what's
at stake for local residents?

Is it because she thinks Hallandale Beach
City Comm. Anthony Sanders has magical
powers that will ensure a huge turnout for her,
assuming her name is even on the ballot?

I'm sure that Sanders political and campaign
support came up when she met Sanders
(and City Manager Good?) in person at the
city's Hepburn Center two weeks ago today,
but, days later, actually turned-down an
invitation from residents in the affected HB
neighborhood to see it from their ground-level
perspective.

She had no problem in driving east to Hallandale
Beach to meet with Comm. Sanders, but actual
HB residents, well, she made them come to her
office in West Park, one week ago today.

I guess she was afraid that if she really saw
what the residents were up against, it would
make it much harder for her to vote for the
Diplomat and against them, huh?

Better to keep their legitimate concerns as
an abstract idea, instead of real homes where
real people live.

Why isn't that curious choice of her's a
news story that serves as an entree into
the larger Diplomat story?

That's another good question.

Or what about Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper
actually telephoning Diana Wasserman-Rubin
and telling her NOT to listen to the HB residents,
saying that they were naysaying "mavericks."

"Mavericks"?
No, just citizens of a city where the domineering,
thin-skinned mayor brooks no dissent, actively
engaging in participatory democracy despite
her disapproval.

That participatory democracy thing is something
she is, herself, deadly afraid of, which is why
she's okay with a City Hall-paid spy attending
meetings throughout the community for $2-3,000
a month, and reporting back to HB City Hall.

Wow, Joy Cooper speaking poorly about
HB residents behind their back, go figure?

But then if she's willing to call political opponents
of hers "Nazis" on City Hall property, inc. me,
and calling HB Comm. Keith London "a Hitler"
just moments later, it's really not so surprising.

That's how Joy Cooper rolls, as I've only been
saying here for years...

I spent some time over the weekend editing
all the photos and hours of video I shot of the
Broward Planning Council meeting of
February, and last Tuesday's Broward County
Commission, so that I can post them online
here and my under-utilized YouTube page
over the next few days,
http://www.youtube.com/user/hallandalebeachblog
so that not only the Hallandale Beach and
Hollywood communities can see what they
missed out on, but greater South Florida as well.

Perhaps they'll even pick-up on the general tenor
of the meetings, as well as the often mis-leading
information offered-up by many of our opponents.

That's especially the case with many local folks,
some of whom claim to have a connection to the
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who said
they were SO concerned about the economic
health of HB, but most of whom you and I have
NEVER seen before, not even at Hollywood
City Commission or CRA meetings, which I
frequently attend.

I don't really mind the people supporting the
Diplomat so much as their rather transparent
attempts to buffalo us in this process in such a
very condescending way, while acting like
they were the ones looking at "the big picture."

Yes, "the big picture" that you might otherwise
recognize as your family's daily existence
hereabouts and their future.

No, actually, we were the ones doing that "big
picture" scenario, they were the local opportunists
and butt-kissers looking at self-enrichment,
which is one of the reason that I found it so easy
to take some verbal shots at some of them during
my public comments, specifically referring to them
as "water carriers" for HB CIty Hall and the
Diplomat.

That's what they were, Ann Taylor pantsuits
or not.

It was their smug attempts to seem intellectually
elevated that I found grating, especially since
you know they'd never tolerate multiple 25-30
story condo towers next to their own home in
a single family residential area.

Guess what?
A new idea is close to coming to fruition
with regard to this particular underdog effort.
After some preliminary conversations with
some well-informed citizens and civic activists
from both HB, Hollywood and beyond, who,
frankly, have grown tired of these artificial
turf friends of HB's economy speaking on
behalf of their personal greed, wallets and
purses, I've agreed to create a handy roster
here on this humble blog that will allow those
of you following this effort from the comfort
of your own home to know whom some
of the players are.

I'm going to create a list of the local people
who have spoken on behalf of the Diplomat
at government meetings and ridiculed the
legitimate concerns of the affected
neighborhood's citizens.

That list will likely include their name as well
as the name and location of their business,
if any.

If they have a business located in Hollywood,
Hallandale Beach or Aventura, I will endeavor
to take a photograph of that business so that
you all will be able to recognize it and associate
that particular business in your mind with
someone who's perfectly content for your area's
Quality-of-Life to go down the tubes.

In fact, felt so strongly about it that they said so
publicly. That's their choice.

Of course, some of these folks work in enterprises
where they are heavily-dependent on taxpayer
funds for funding.
They sure don't act like it though.

Such an example is the Hallandale Beach Chamber
of Commerce, which last year got a brand new
office at taxpayer-built HB City Hall.
It's that room next to the HB City Commission
Chambers in the breezeway at City Hall.

The group's head Patricia Genetti, whose
organization receives $50,000 of taxpayers
funds this year, much of it going towards her
salary, has been an outspoken proponent of
the Diplomat's case.

Unlike the case in many parts of the country,
where these sorts of govt. financial relationships
require public disclosure whenever compensated
individuals speak before govt. agencies,
Patricia Genetti has chosen to keep quiet about
that $50k of taxpayer loot, as she has spoken
in favor of the Diplomat LAC before the
HB Planning & Zoning meeting in mid-December,
the HB City Commission meeting the very next day,
the Broward County Planning Council meeting in
late Febraury, plus last week's important Broward
County Commission meeting that resulted in a
4-4 tie vote.

That's four separate meetings that I can think of
just off the top of my head, plus Genetti also
spoke at length at the so-called informational
public meeting the Diplomat was required to
hold at the HB Cultural Center last year, where
she also decided to keep mum about the taxpayer
money she gets while speaking against the
interests of the majority of HB's citizen taxpayers.

Some people will find this information valuable
and some will not, just as some may choose
to tell friends and family about it and decide
that they want to boycott those particular
businesses while for others, it has no practical
effect whatsoever.

It's your choice, of course, but now you'll have
the information you need to decide whether
you want to patronize those businesses or
boycott them.

You're welcome.

Year-after-year, a developer's best friend: Commissioner Dotty Ross

Where the damage is done!: Hallandale Beach City Hall.
June 8, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Quick, can you think of a single developer
that Hallandale Beach Commissioner
Dotty Ross has said no to over the past
six years?
No, you can't, because there aren't any.

Over those six-plus years I've been watching,
Ross has been, alternately, either a human
softball, a cheerleader or out-and-out apologist
for every single project brought before the
City Commission, no matter how ugly,
ill-conceived or out-of-scale for the particular
neighborhood it was.

I don't call them the Rubber Stamp Crew
for nothing!

Whether it was her recent vote in December
with Joy Cooper and Anthony A. Sanders
for the completely incompatible and over-the-top
Diplomat LAC project that goes before the
Broward Planning Council Thursday morning,
or her vote a few years ago for the Steve Geller-
pitched and hideous DOMUS project on
U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway and S.E. 8th Street,
opposite Gulfstream Park and the retail
Village of Gulfstream Park shops,
where she and three of her colleagues voted
to give the developer a needed variance
-even though they completely failed to meet
the city's Planning Dept. minimum-size
standard for a variance- though if you've been
by there over the past two years, you know there's
been not a lick of work done there, and it's been
FOR SALE for over a year- Ross has shown
her fatally-flawed consistency: terrible judgment.

Above, from May 8, 2008, looking west on U.S.-1/South
Federal Highway and S.E. 8th Street, the rendering of the
DOMUS building.
Here's what the developer proposed: A 19-story mixed use retail,
office and parking garage facility.
Approximately 13,021 square feet of retail use, 160,446 sq. ft,
of office use, and 624 parking spaces. The building will include
ground floor retail, (9) nine floors of enclosed parking and (9) nine
floors of office use. Height of the building will be 264’ 8’’;
Owner: H Development Corp. LLC;
May 8, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

So, in case you didn't know, S.E. 8th Street off
of U.S.-1 is the street that years later, still lacks
the yellow rectangular Street Hump signs parallel
to the humps, as is common in the rest of the city.
You know, like on Diplomat Parkway north
of Hallandale Beach Blvd.?

This, despite Planning Director Christy Dominguez
continually saying at the all-night public meeting
in 2007 on the DOMUS project, how terribly
concerned they all were at City Hall with road
conditions on that street and the surrounding area.
What a laugh!

In fact, I specifically mentioned it to Cooper and
Good when they came over to my seat in the
commission chambers that night during a break,
even mentioning how many times I've contacted
City Hall over the years trying to get it dealt with.
What's happened since then?
Zero!

While it may seem like a small thing, it's perfectly
illustrative of the city's longtime inability to get things
done competently, efficiently and with courtesy.
That's why THOSE sort of HB bureaucratic things
have been such a longtime bête noire of mine.

Ross has also frequently shown her disconnectedness
towards the HB community -and to reality- by
frequently uttering the most bizarre comments
at the strangest times, as well as acting like she's
entitled to get away with things that no one else can.

And by no one else, I mean anyone not associated
with HB City Hall.

Below, for instance, is a photo I snapped of Ross
on October 21st, when I attended the opening
ceremony of the city's new park, Sunrise Park,
800 N.E. 5th Street.

October 21, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

If you can believe this, there, with microphone in hand,
and not for the first time publicly, after she called Comm.
Anthony A. Sanders to address the small crowd,
she referred to him as "John Sanders" instead of Anthony.

October 21, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
That's Comm. Ross to the left of the park sign.
In retrospect, if I'd known what she was going
to say, I'd have recorded it, but I couldn't stay
for long so...
It was a bit of a drive-by event for me.

Fourteen months after she approved him as
interim commissioner and actually voted for him,
after admitting on the dais that she didn't know
who he was or anything about him, this is the
logical consequence.

Trust me, I was there and her puppet-masters
in the crowd were clearly squirming in their seats
as she flubbbed the simple hand-off.

Yes, the same Sanders that she voted to make
an interim HB commissioner in August of 2008
-thru the puppet-mastery of Joy Cooper and
Mike Good- despite publicly acknowledging
before she voted for him that she knew almost
nothing about him, and didn't even have any
paperwork in front of her detailing his particular
qualifications, if any.

You can see the video of Ross at the time on my
friend Michael Butler's popular fact-based website,
Change Hallandale Beach:
http://www.changehallandale.com/ or at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2063633124352034112&hl=en#



In case you forgot, that selection process involving
Sanders was completely contrary to the city's own
rules and past practices, but because Joy Cooper
and Mike Good wanted it, and most certainly didn't
want city residents to be able to speak about it
before they could rush the vote thru, once again,
Dotty Ross rolled-over, failed to perform her job
in a professional fashion and insulted HB residents
who knew the city's law.

Those comments by Ross raised all sorts of questions
at the time, the most obvious being that on the one hand
we're supposed to believe that lifelong Hallandale Beach
resident Sanders is a leading member of the community,
yet the woman who has been on the City Commission
longer than anyone else, and who was once mayor when
that was an appointed position, didn't really know who
he was?

Which is it?
Both can't be true.

For a Debbie Orshefsky-pitched project on U.S.-1
and N.E. 3rd Street that's since bombed, leaving
only some souvenir graffiti on a green tarp,
Ross commented in a completely Chance Gardner
fashion that -a propos of nothing- that U.S.
servicemen returning from deployments in Iraq
and Afghanistan could find reasonably-priced
housing there if the City Commission approved
it? WTF?

People were giggling in their seats and covering
their mouths after she said that, me included.

Week-after-week for many months, Dotty Ross
was a solid and consistent anti-transparency
vote against Comm. Keith London's reasonable,
common sense motion to put both the the city's
own RAC plan and the Diplomat LAC docs
on the city's website, so citizens could examine
them long before they were subject to votes before
the city's Planning & Zoning Board and the City
Commission itself.

Dotty Ross is a NO! NO! NO! to taxpayer
transparency and accountability, but a
loyal YES! YES! YES! lapdog for South
Florida developers.

Dotty Ross personally, along with Mayor
Joy Cooper, and Commissioners William
Julian and Anthony A. Sanders, are the
four reasons why citizens of this city were
NOT able to see the Diplomat LAC documents
until 28 hours before the HB P&Z actually
voted on them one Tuesday afternoon in
December, itself, the day before the HB City
Commission was to vote on it.

That's the way Mayor Cooper and City
Manager Good wanted it -rushed thru!
Without time for HB citizen taxpayers
to study it and develop reasonable questions.

And what about apologists for the Diplomat,
like Patricia Genetti, the Executive Director
of the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce?
That's the half-assed joke of a group here that does
so very little for the community, compared to other
CoCs I've personally seen in action across the
country that make a positive social and civic difference
in their communities, relying on support from genuine
Mom and Pop store owners, NOT City Hall pals
and cronies.

Well, when you receive $50,000 a year from city
taxpayers like they do, much of which goes towards
her salary, you get the results you pay for, which in
Genetti's case, was her twice speaking on behalf
of the Diplomat's position at public meetings,
all without any public disclosure by her of those funds,
or a reminder that her office is now at City Hall.
She is as much of a hand-puppet in this city as you
can be.

In Hallandale Beach, people like Genetti get either
flustered or speechless when you bring-up these
sort of facts about the Commission's actual votes
against citizen taxpayer accountability because they
are so used to having the benefit of a stacked-deck
dealt to them by City Hall.

But then this is a city that nominates Good and
a Commissioner running for re-election, Ross,
for Florida League of Cities awards of excellence.

Curiously, the story the Herald ran on those
nominations never actually mentioned the
salient fact about the city nominating itself,
not them being selected by an independent
or blue-ribbon panel.

And naturally, because they were nominated,
they all had to go up to Orlando last year for
the Florida League of Cities annual shindig,
with Hallandale Beach taxpayers footing the
bill for their fun.

That's a pretty neat trick, isn't it?

Nominating yourself for an award and then
getting to go because, after all, you were
nominated, and then getting someone else
to pay for your travel expenses?

Seriously, in this economy, how many cities
as small as Hallandale Beach, less than 5 square
miles, sent ALL of all its elected members to
that meeting in Orlando?
What do you think?

Just to show you how long Dotty Ross has been
pro-developer, since long before I returned to
South Florida six years ago from the D.C. area,
on this the eve of that important Broward Planning
Council vote up in Fort Lauderdale, here's a
nearly 12-year old story that tells the tale.

Sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it?

------

Miami Herald
HALLANDALE'S STEIN SAYS HE WON'T RUN FOR REELECTION

By Corey Dade, Herald Staff Writer

August 20, 1998

After 10 years on the Hallandale City Commission and a stint as mayor, Gil Stein has announced he will not seek re-election in 1999, signaling an open door to new voices on the dais and possibly a new direction for the city.

Despite an unsuccessful bid in 1987 for a commission seat, Stein, 77, won his first term in 1989 and won all his bids for re-election.

It was in midst of a heated commission meeting Aug. 4 that a frustrated Stein, as he and other commissioners absorbed biting comments from residents, said he would not run for office again.

More than 100 condo unit owners had packed the commission chambers that day to protest a proposed increase of building heights and density. Stein and Mayor Dorothy Ross cast the two losing votes in favor of the proposal, raising the ire of the audience.

Stein insisted the crowd had nothing to do with his decision; that it was time to step aside and clear a path for new, younger candidates.

"The city deserves younger people, not people who have been around for 21, 22 years,'' said Stein, delivering a barb to his colleague and frequent adversary Commissioner Arthur "Sonny'' Rosenberg, who has served in office since 1977. "The city has changed. We have younger families coming in.''

Speculation swirls about Stein's successor, though any number of local activists may step up. In the past year, Joy Cooper, Rosenberg's neighbor in Golden Isles, has emerged as a vocal and solid voice. As president of the Golden Isles Safe Neighborhood District, she led the fight to prevent the city from expanding the boundaries of the district to include a nearby community.

Cooper could draw from the same voting block that has returned Rosenberg to City Hall for 21 years. She has not declared her candidacy and did not return calls from The Herald. "I've been hearing that Joy Cooper might run,'' said Arthur Eckman, a Hallandale resident and longtime political activist. "She lives in the right area and she's smart. She seems to have a handle on the issues.''

Perennial also-ran David I. Marmor may consider another candidacy. The 28-year Hallandale resident has lost four times -- 1987, 1989, 1991 and 1997 -- and usually employs a platform that criticizes commissioners for being too old and out of touch with residents.

Since moving to Hallandale from New York, Stein has compiled an impressive civic service resume that includes the chairmanship of the Planning and Zoning Commission.

As the top vote-getter in 1989, he earned a four-year term and was elected mayor by a unanimous commission vote. He was a leading voice in the construction of the Hallandale Cultural Community Center and, along with his wife, Lotte, helped form the Hallandale Symphonic Pops Orchestra.

The retired owner of a textiles business said he is eager to hand the mantle of leadership to someone else.

"Ten years is enough,'' Stein said. "I voted for term limits. I think other people should have a chance to serve the community like I did.''

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Classic Chance Gardner insight:


President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]

Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.

President "Bobby": In the garden.

Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.

President "Bobby": Spring and summer.

Chance the Gardener: Yes.

President "Bobby": Then fall and winter.

Chance the Gardener: Yes.

Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.

Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!

Benjamin Rand: Hmm!

Chance the Gardener: Hmm!

President "Bobby": Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]

President "Bobby": I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.