Showing posts with label Patricia Mazzei. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patricia Mazzei. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

The very dangerous precedent for the future that the Hollywood and Miami Beach City Commissions are making by showing thru both word and deed, that their own land use ordinances mean nothing when The Related Group comes calling


Residents and stakeholders of #HollywoodFL and #MiamiBeach are quite rightfully fearful of the very dangerous precedents their two respective City Commissions are clearly making by showing thru both words and deeds, that their own land use ordinances mean nothing when The Related Group comes calling. 

Mean nothing, that is, IF there are deep-pocketed real estate developers interested in doing something the clear majority of the community is opposed to, but the firm is willing to ignore existing public sentiment against it because they have the resources not to care about the optics to others of ignoring the community's desires.

I've been meaning for the last few months to share my thoughts regarding this New York Times story by former Miami Herald reporter Patricia Mazzei, at bottom, involving The Deauville Hotel

The Deauville is a historic Miami Beach property and also is one that I had occasion to go to several times over the years while growing-up in South Florida from 1968-1979, before I left for college and the cream and crimson of Indiana University, Bloomington.

I hasten to add, in my case, I was always going to The Deauville to see people visiting from out-of-town, NOT to stay overnight and make myself known to room service. 

For me at least, the story on The Deauville, below, serves as a timely reminder that the worst thing about The Related Group's incompatible plan for 1301 S. Ocean Drive on Hollywood Beach isn't merely that Mayor Josh Levy's snarky, passive-aggressive, and decidedly anti-transparent approach led to approximately ZERO of the REQUIRED public in-person COMMUNITY meetings taking place. either before (or since) the first public Hollywood City Commission meeting, when the Hollywood public was NOT even allowed inside Hollywood City Hall to directly confront the very people trying to change the charm and ambiance of that part of Hollywood Beach. The most natural part of Hollywood Beach that remains..

FTszzsgXsAIZdpW.jpg

Nor was it even the City's thin-skinned Communications Dept. peevishly and repeatedly attacking and demeaning people like my friend, Cat Uden and I online in our individual efforts to let the larger Hollywood and South Florida community know via the South Florida news media what was REALLY taking place. 

That includes the continuing lack of good faith the City's elected officials had shown Hollywood's citizens and stakeholders, whom THEY work for.

As it happens, Cat and I both have strong backbones and thick skins, plus, we have the advantage of having the facts on our side, and if you didn't already know it, the City's elected officials and Communications Dept. really, really hate... facts.
So this discrepancy, this ability to use their own information against them, really burns them, as does our success in getting the facts out to the larger public and the local, state and national news media.
Especially self-evident facts that can be wholly substantiated by both contemporaneous photographs and video.

No, it's not even the fact that supposed nature-lover, water sports-loving Josh Levy would, if successful, destroy, FOREVER, for nothing more than money, a place with a certain and unique ambiance that the community places a very high value on maintaining for future generations - THE most natural part of Hollywood Beach.
FSLP8uDX0AA-Uw3.jpg 
vs.
 FTszzsgWUAE4Abf.jpg

It isn't even that both proposed projects are -coincidentally- the handiwork of The Related Group. That almost was predictable, given the landscape of real estate development in Florida in 2022.

No, what's the worst thing of all in the case of the Hollywood Beach project is the terrible precedent it sets for the future, since it would likely set in motion a constant game of musical chairs on the beach, as local Mom and Pop hospitality businesses owning smaller properties decide that if the city's elected officials are publicly declaring by both their words and their deeds that the city's own rules and ordinances don't mean anything -since Related wants to build a luxury condo tower there for multi-millionaires that's 5-7x's larger than what's currently allowed on that part of the beach- why should they stay on the sidelines and be played for suckers?

If you understand anything at all about human behavior and how things have traditionally operated in South Florida when it comes to real estate, then you know that I'm right.
The reason is simple.
Because, suddenly, as a result of what Hollywood City Hall will have done, there will be no incentive at all for the smaller and successful property owners to invest more of their money and time to improve their current low-scale site.
They'll simply wait the neighborhood out until someone comes in with such a huge offer for their property that they decide to seell.

When that happens, goodbye Hollywood Beach ambiance and charm.
Forever.


If you didn't know it or may've forgotten it, The Deauville is where The Beatles, famously,  stayed and performed in February of 1964 on CBS-TV's Sunday night blockbuster, The Ed Sullivan Showhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEzPROIIlk4

One last thing, and it's a sign of the times about journalism as it's practiced in South Florida these days. You know what I could not find?

A single local story where Cuban-American Alex Meruelo, owner of the Meruelo Group, the owner of The Deauville, was/is actually asked why he allowed the property to become so run-down that it was deemed unsafe by the City of Miami Beach. 
How do you explain that?
Exactly.
"Today, the Deauville is shuttered, enclosed by an ugly chain-link fence. Soon, it is likely to be demolished. Preservationists fear the hotel’s slow demise will set a troubling precedent in their efforts to protect South Florida’s history."


 

Miami Beach owes its iconic status in no small part to the preservation of its Art Deco district, known the world over for the string of pastel-colored boutique hotels. But it has not always been easy to preserve buildings elsewhere in South Florida.
In its heyday, the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach hosted the likes of The Beatles, Sammy Davis Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. Soon, the hotel is likely to be demolished, which historic preservationists fear will set a troubling precedent.
“Miami is a place where the land has always been more valuable than the building...There’s no shared history, and when you have no shared history and no shared culture, you have no shared commitment to maintaining that history or that culture.”
"The four-acre property, valued some years ago at $100 million, is owned by a corporate entity registered to the Meruelo family, which runs other hotels and casinos and also works in construction."

New York Times
A Grand Miami Beach Hotel, and Its History, Might Be Torn Down.
The Deauville Beach Resort played host to the Beatles, Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy. But it has been deemed unsafe after years of neglect.

By Patricia Mazzei
Published Jan. 17, 2022, 
Updated Jan. 20, 2022


FYI: "In the event of a total demolition, Miami Beach would be legally entitled to limit future construction to the Deauville’s same size."

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Censorship? Guilty as charged! What do Miami Herald's Sergio Bustos, Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas, Toluse Olorunnipa, Erika Bolstad, Patricia Mazzei and Amy Sherman all have in common? Of shirking their responsibilities as reporters! They have ignored all negative stories about Marco Rubio and immigration reform this week, and feign ignorance of what everyone else in the country is talking about -and reporting on: Ryan Lizza re #RubiosFolly

Censorship? Guilty as charged! What do Miami Herald's Sergio Bustos, Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas, Toluse Olorunnipa, Erika Bolstad, Patricia Mazzei and Amy Sherman all have in common? Of shirking their responsibilities as reporters! 
They have ignored all negative stories about Marco Rubio and immigration reform this week, and feign ignorance of what everyone else in the country is talking about -and reporting on: Ryan Lizza re #RubiosFolly


Each one is a complicit member of the Hear No Evil/See No Evil/Speak No Evil reporting crew at the Miami Herald's feeble third-tier political blog, Naked Politics, that has completely ignored anything and everything over the past week about the furor erupting from Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill, S.744, i.e. Rubio's Folly



The influential piece which featured Rubio aide Alex Conant saying something controversial that won't win him any friends in Northwest Miami, and which has been discussed and analyzed in hundreds of national websites and blogs, but NOT in the main newspaper or political blog of the city where Rubio is from and the state that he represents in Washington. 
Not sure how I can make that any simpler for those of you who are late arrivals to the blog on this story.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/


Conant doesn't mention that he's in the center of the storm:
https://twitter.com/AlexConant
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/us/politics/stealth-campaign-from-the-white-house-for-an-immigration-bill.html

As of 4 p.m. today, as these links prove, there NADA for the sixth day in a row in the Herald.
How do you simply ignore the story and pretend that nobody is noticing what you're doing?
http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Marco+Rubio%22

And as for Rubio's new penchant for continually talking but never actually explaining, nothing has changed at his Twitter account since I mentioned this matter on Wednesday
There's still nothing new there since June 7th about anything, and nothing in over a month on immigration.
Hmm-m...



There's a very good reason why I've hardly ever mentioned that blog on these pages, and it has everything to do with them ignoring so much news everyday that would be news in others cities, that Naked Politics is perhaps the least important media political blog on the entire East Coast of the United States.
Really.

Even in Miami, with its traditionally low standards for performance and competency, they don't give awards to professional reporters who go out of their way to ignore timely and relevant news about important public policy issues. 
But that's exactly what has taken place the past six days.

In fact, the Tampa Bay Times broke their own news blackout on the Lizza & Rubio story on Tuesday by running something by Alex Leary on their far-superior but-still very liberal political blog, The Buzz, which I mentioned her the other day and linked to.

But despite the fact that most of the best blog pieces on the Herald's site are from the West Coast, the Herald editors have consciously chosen NOT to post that story even though it's the most-important one of the week.
The same way they buried the Jeb Bush appearance that fell flat earlier in the week

The next time that you are somewhere in Florida and spot one one these reporters or Herald Executive Editor Aminda Marques or Managing Editor Rick Hirsch, walk right up to them and ask them why they were so afraid of printing the truth, and were content being seen as stooges.

With all the amazing technology in the world that makes it easier than ever before for a reporter to do their job well, these particular Herald reporters are ostriches who put their heads firmly in the sand and wait for it all the uproar to be over.

And then, MAYBE, just maybe, Marc Caputo will write another one of his famous after-the-fact pieces that are painfully defensive in nature, and totally unpersuasive on the facts, which here, could not be more clear that the herald has shirked their responsibilities.
Yes, if they gave a Pulitzer Prize for THAT, Caputo and the Herald would be standing pretty every year..

The Schumer-Rubio merit-based immigration farce
http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-schumer-rubio-merit-based-immigration-farce/article/2532223

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Marco+Rubio%22




Thursday, August 18, 2011

For the record, his name is Mitch Kraft, or, how one story reveals the larger journalism problems in South Florida, esp. the Miami Herald's

For the record, his name is Mitch Kraft, or, how one small new story that's little remembered today by 99.9% of you, offers a peek into the much-larger reporting, editing and management problems with South Florida news outlets, and in my opinion, the Miami Herald in general and Herald reporter Patricia Mazzei in particular.

I originally wrote parts of this as an email to friends and my Circle of Trust on May 24th, 2010, but post excerpts of it now to prove a point or two about some of the self-evident lazy reporting in South Florida that too many people are consciously ignoring.
For months, practically the entire 19-month time period since the following news story first appeared in print in the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel, I've used it as instructive example of how glaring the problem is.

Though this was originally written in January of 2010, when Broward School Board member Stephanie Kraft's departure was a current issue, even now it's an insightful reminder of how basic aspects of news reporting and journalism that newspaper readers and TV viewers are entitled to expect, have been completely Missing-In-Action in South Florida for years.

This is just the first in a number of future pieces focusing on the recent past that will appear here before the end of the year on that sore subject, which has only gotten worse with time.
Much worse!

But first, the article that was the predicate to all of this.
Much of this will be familiar to many of you who are regular readers of the blog, less so to others.
And there's been huge news regarding all the principals mentioned here, but those changes are NOT the focus of this post.
Today, the errors of omissions are the problem -the information that was NOT conveyed to readers

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Patricia Mazzei of the Miami Herald writes, "Kraft's announcement, which was not unexpected..."
It's all down-hill from there!!!


Miami Herald
BROWARD SCHOOL BOARD
Stephanie Kraft won't seek fourth term on Broward School Board
A School Board member announced she won't run for a fourth term -- and a parent activist filed for her seat.
By Patricia Mazzei
January 13, 2010

Broward School Board member Stephanie Kraft will not seek reelection to her seat, she said Tuesday, shortly before Coral Springs parent and school district volunteer Shelly Solomon Heller filed to run for the post.

Kraft's announcement, which was not unexpected, throws open the race for her Northwest Broward seat. It may be the only one of five School Board contests on the August ballot that will not have an incumbent running for reelection.

For now, Heller, a mother of four and an attorney who helped craft the district's anti-bullying policy, will face Dave Thomas, a history and psychology teacher at J.P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs who filed last year. There is still time for more candidates to file.

Three other School Board members have put in papers for reelection: Jennifer Gottlieb, Phyllis Hope and Ann Murray. Hope faces a challenger, Weston parent Laurie Rich Levinson.

Bob Parks has not yet filed for reelection to his Northeast Broward post, though he is expected to run.

Kraft, a lawyer and one of the most tenured members on the board, is known for her ability to discuss at length the finer points of policy issues. She cited her daughter's graduation from a public high school in June as her main reason for stepping aside.

``If you don't have children in the system, you just don't understand a lot of the issues that the parents are dealing with,'' particularly in a district with many young families, she said.

Kraft said when she was sworn in to her third term in 2006 that it would be her last four years in office, but she had not officially announced whether she would seek reelection.

On Tuesday, Kraft said she waited until she knew other people were interested in running for her seat before making a final decision.

Heller has served as Kraft's appointee on several school system committees.

Kraft said the arrest of suspended School Board member Beverly Gallagher in a federal corruption sting in September did not influence her decision to not seek reelection.

``I've been saying this for years,'' she said.

Kraft drew scrutiny since revealing -- after Gallagher's arrest -- that her husband worked for board lobbyist Neil Sterling. Federal authorities familiar with Gallagher's case said they were probing Sterling's influence on the School Board.

Kraft's husband, an attorney, did work for a Sterling company that does not do business with the district, Kraft has said. The relationship prompted the school system to tighten its lobbyist rules so lobbyists must declare any conflicts of interest with board members' families.

More questions were raised about Kraft after district records showed developer Bruce Chait told school system staffers that he retained Kraft's husband while negotiating a $500,000 break in fees from the School Board in 2007. Neither Kraft nor her husband, Mitch Kraft, have publicly addressed Chait's claim.

Chait, president of Prestige Homes, and his son, Shawn Chait, were arrested last month after former Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion told prosecutors he accepted $25,000 in cash and a golf membership from the Chaits in exchange for his votes.

Stephanie Kraft said Tuesday she has not been contacted by prosecutors on the Chait case -- and that as far as she knows, she is not being investigated for criminal misconduct. A state ethics complaint against her is pending.

Kraft said she does not have a job lined up and has no plans to run for county or statewide office, though she left the door open to seeking higher office.

``There's always a possibility of filing in the future,'' she said.
Actually, contrary to what was written above and below, if you relied solely on the Herald or Sun-Sentinel for your non-TV news information, Stephanie Kraft's departure WAS unexpected ONLY in that none of the local print reporters covering education issues had ever bothered to publicly hint or write that Kraft was on the way out, however that might happen.
The reporters covering Kraft were the only ones who were caught unaware.
It was common knowledge to people actually paying close attention.
There's a big difference.

But that's far from the only problem.
Let's try an experiment.
See if you can spot the recurring pattern below, which is lifted word-for-word from Patricia Mazzei's article:

Kraft drew scrutiny since revealing -- after Gallagher's arrest -- that her husband worked for board lobbyist Neil Sterling. Federal authorities familiar with Gallagher's case said they were probing Sterling's influence on the School Board.
Kraft's husband, an attorney, did work for a Sterling company that does not do business with the district, Kraft has said. The relationship prompted the school system to tighten its lobbyist rules so lobbyists must declare any conflicts of interest with board members' families.
More questions were raised about Kraft after district records showed developer Bruce Chait told school system staffers that he retained Kraft's husband while negotiating a $500,000 break in fees from the School Board in 2007. Neither Kraft nor her husband, Mitch Kraft, have publicly addressed Chait's claim.

It's not until the fourth time he's mentioned -her husband, an attorney, Kraft's husband, her husband- that Mazzei finally spits out his name. What's the big mystery?

Jesus, say it the first time and be done with this teeth-pulling and faux mystery!

That's to say nothing of the inexact way that Mazzei and other Herald reporters who now or formerly have written about education in South Florida, have consistently failed to mention how individual School Board members actually voted on the particular agenda items that have come up, which are, after all, the reasons the reporter is there in the first place.
It's as if they can't be bothered with something so simple as the actual vote.

But that's true of 99.5% of all the Herald reporters, as I wrote about several times here about articles about the Broward County Charter Review Commission in 2008, it's just that with other legislative bodies, it's easier for citizens to find out who voted which way.
Even today, the Broward School Board does NOT have that basic voting info on their website for quite some time.
But when Congress is in session, I can find out in seconds how a congressman in Montana voted today or yesterday or even send him or her an email.

Perhaps if the Herald actually had an Education blog in January of 2010, that news about Kraft and her attempts to o hand-pick her successor might've come up before.
In the year 2011, the Herald might want to consider getting around to that since they have so many other blogs that, to be kind, are nothing but fluff or issue advocacy.

Since it's not reasonable to expect that all, most or even half of Herald readers know who was on the Broward School Board before they moved here, much less, who is on it now -esp. since in Ann Murray's case now, she's seldom if ever present publicly in the Hallandale Beach portion of her district- Fort Lauderdale businessman/lobbyist Neil Sterling was a member of the Broward School Board from November 1984 until he resigned in January of 1991.
Gov. Lawton Chiles replaced him by selecting Miriam Oliphant.

I mention this since Neil Stirling's past experience as a Broward School Board member before becoming a lobbyist is NOT mentioned in the Mazzei article.
It's called historical context

"Oh, now I get it!"

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Good for the goose, good for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Why is the name of Stephanie Alma Kraft's husband's so TOP SECRET?
His name is Mitch Kraft.

Why is this simple fact NOT mentioned in this Sun-Sentinel article?
Instead, he is referred to below, as I have emphasized, as, a.) "her husband's" b.) "her husband"
Why is his name the one that is not spoken?
Or, apparently, written down, so that readers know who the hell you're talking about?

Does it have something to do with casting a spell?
Or is it like 'the Danish play"?

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
KRAFT WON'T SEEK NEW SCHOOL BOARD TERM - RECENT CONTROVERSIES NOT A FACTOR SHE SAYS
By Kathy Bushouse Staff Writer
January 13, 2010

Broward School Board member Stephanie Kraft announced Tuesday she won't seek re-election in August, but she said it had nothing to do with the recent ethics complaint against her or speculation she is the latest Broward politician under scrutiny by federal and state prosecutors.

She has no job lined up, she said, and doesn't dismiss an eventual return to public office. Her decision to give up the northwest Broward seat she has held for 12 years came in part because her daughter had graduated from the Broward school district, she said.

"I just think it's better to be able to relate to the people in this particular district when your kids are going through the same thing," said Kraft, 53, an attorney. "And honestly, after 12 years, I think it's time to have some new blood."

Kraft has a reputation for asking multiple, pointed questions of the district staff and for her love of school arts and music programs. She is credited with leading the charge in 2006 to fire then-Superintendent Frank Till, saying she had no confidence in him.

But she has been under fire since October, when she disclosed her husband's business ties to School Board lobbyist Neil Sterling, who also lobbied for Vista Healthplan. Kraft led the advisory committee that chose Vista to be the district's sole health insurance provider. This year, Vista upset district employees by raising premiums for their children by 46 percent.

In addition, Kraft is being investigated by the Florida Commission on Ethics over allegations she misused her position to help Prestige Homes developer Bruce Chait and failed to disclose that her husband was working for Chait's company.

She has long known she would not run again, Kraft said, but she was going to hold off on a formal announcement until the ethics complaint against her was resolved. She said she changed her mind "in deference to people who wanted to start their campaign ... so there's no question that the seat's going to be available for people to run."

By the end of the day Tuesday, two candidates were in the race to fill her seat: J.P. Taravella High School teacher David "Dave" Thomas, of Coral Springs, and Coral Springs parent volunteer Shelly Heller.

When asked whether she had been contacted recently by the FBI or state or federal prosecutors, Kraft said she hasn't "heard a word since the day that Bev [Gallagher] was arrested and I got interviewed."

Gallagher, who has been suspended from the School Board, was arrested Sept. 23 on federal corruption charges, including bribery, extortion and honest services fraud. She was accused of taking money to steer school construction contracts to favored companies.

Several board members took time at the end of Tuesday's school board meeting to praise Kraft.

"Truthfully, some of us knew way back when that you were thinking about retiring," said board member Bob Parks. "We are really gonna miss you."

Board member Maureen Dinnen said while the two didn't always agree, she appreciated Kraft's attention to detail "and the passion that you bring to those arguments."

There will be five School Board seats up for election Aug. 24. So far, board members Jennifer Gottlieb, Phyllis Hope and Ann Murray have filed papers to seek re-election; Parks still has not filed but said he will run again.

Kraft said she's "accomplished pretty much everything I wanted to accomplish on the board," and will keep working "until my time is up."

She said she won't run for anything in November because "right now there are no elected offices that are open in my district."

She mentioned the Florida Senate seat currently held by Jeremy Ring and the Broward County Commission seat held by Stacy Ritter but added, "I certainly wouldn't run against an incumbent in my district for anything."

"I'm just going to keep myself open," Kraft said. "I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason, and they happen when they're supposed to happen. I think between now and next November something will be revealed. I just don't know what it's going to be yet."


INFORMATIONAL BOX:

Stephanie Kraft: Key dates in her School Board career

May 6, 1998: Filed papers to run in District 4 against 16-year incumbent Donald Samuels. The Broward Teachers Union didn't even bother to interview her.

Sept. 1, 1998: Wins District 4 seat.

Nov. 16, 2004: Board elects Kraft chairwoman.

Feb. 25, 2005: Joins elected officials from across Broward County to urge voters to reject slot machine gambling.

2006: Received $2,000 in campaign contributions from Vista Healthplan and its affiliates. Kraft served as chairwoman of the School Superintendent's Insurance Advisory Committee, which screens plan proposals. Her husband, Mitch Kraft, ran for Coral Springs City Commission but lost. Vista Healthplan and its affiliates donated the maximum allowed by law to his campaign.

Oct. 17, 2006: School Board fires Superintendent Frank Till. Kraft led the push to oust Till.

August 30, 2007: Vista Healthplan wins the $1.7 billion contract to be the sole health insurance carrier for 6,000 eligible Broward County employees beginning in 2008.

2008: Vista uses an adjustment provision to dramatically raise rates for dependents.

Oct. 13, 2009: Kraft discloses that her husband had worked as an independent contractor since late 2007 for SRG Technology LLC, a company owned by Neil Sterling, one of the school district's biggest lobbyists who represent a number of companies that do business with the district, including Vista Healthplan.

Oct. 20, 2009: Sun Sentinel reports that Prestige Homes, a Tamarac developer, won a $500,000 break in fees to the Broward School District after hiring Kraft's husband, Mitch.

Oct. 31, 2009: Philip Sweeting, former deputy police chief of Boca Raton, filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Ethics against Kraft.

Nov. 24, 2009: School Board unanimously agrees to eliminate the health insurance advisory committee's three board member positions held by Bob Parks, Kraft and Robin Bartleman.

Dec. 3, 2009: Teachers union files a lawsuit against the School Board, seeking to prevent Vista Healthplan from increasing rates by 46 percent for dependent coverage, pending the outcome of a state ethics complaint filed against Kraft.

Compiled by Barbara Hijek, news researcher
Sources: Sun Sentinel archives, Broward School Board, Miami Herald

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Days before Miami-Dade's mayoral election, nobody cares who Kendrick Meek supports, and the Herald's Patricia Mazzei ignores Robaina's snub of NE Dade

Miami-Dade County mayoral candidate Carlos Gimenez talking about the taxpayer-built Florida Marlins stadium in Little Havana, Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami
http://youtu.be/2pSc09_FupM
Days before Miami-Dade's mayoral election, nobody cares who Kendrick Meek supports and the Herald's Patricia Mazzei ignores Julio Robaina's snub of N.E. Miami-Dade, especially the affluent, well-informed and habitual voters in Aventura.

Five days before the Miami-Dade mayoral election that nobody but Norman Braman could've predicted a year ago, nobody-but-nobody cares who former Miami congressman and 2010 Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek supports in this important election, including the Miami Herald that endorsed him last year.

Meek has literally fallen off a cliff not only politically but in terms of being taken seriously, which as dutiful readers of this blog will recall, was always a problem of his that I have been writing and noting here in thsi space, since I'm as sure as sure can be that he STILL hasn't read the Obamacare legislation he voted for in the U.S. House.

Meek's inherent lack of gravitas is why so many Democrats, locally and nationally, felt completely comfortable abandoning him in droves last year for the false candidacy of Charlie Crist, a pig in a poke.
And it's also why so many of us consciously voted against Alex Sink last year, too.

Seriously, try to think of a well-known elected official in one of the country's largest states who has gone from being a U.S. Senate nominee to a nobody in less time. than Meek.
They haven't mentioned him in a serious article since...

And yet somehow, last year, the Mainstream Media, the beloved MSM, especially the Miami Herald, wanted us to honestly believe that Meek was a serious and viable candidate for the august U.S. Senate.
And seven months later, he's a complete non-factor in his base.
Just saying....


And speaking of being in the dark, why in the world is the poorly-edited Miami Herald, or more particularly, their biased reportorial loose cannon, Patricia Mazzei, whom I have rightly criticized here so often, showing her bad news judgment yet again on an important subject.
Of missing both the tree AND the forest.

I recently mentioned -exclusively here on the blog- how I'd discovered from Comm. Sally Heyman's office that former Hialeah mayor Julio Robaina wanted to have no part of any of THREE debates or forums to be held in northeast Miami-Dade County.
And those were just the ones they knew about Robaina ducking.
Perhaps there were more.

And yet, THOSE facts got repeated where exactly, besides among people who come to the blog and whom I emailed the news?

Yet now, all of a sudden, because former M-D commissioner Carlos Gimenez -whom I support- has consciously chosen NOT to debate Robaina at previously agreed-upon sites while he retains a lead over Robaina, the news that he won't be speaking before a largely Latin audience is now being treated as important news.
Really?

So why the obvious disparity in news coverage, David Landberg?

Is it that longstanding problem of the Herald's geographic editorial bias that I've alluded to many times before in this space, in describing how certain parts of South Florida get an excessive amount of news coverage from the Herald relative to what actually happens there, while other areas, say, Broward County, get a sliver of what they deserve, especially seeing as how it's 45% of the local market, and yet far too frequently gets zero coverage on weekends.

(The Herald's repeated ignoring of Broward-related news is a matter that will be the subject of a future blog post here with ample evidence to prove my point.
And then some!)

Especially when everyone knows that SO MANY -the majority?- of the debates and forums that have taken place have been held in venues and parts of the county where the audience was overwhelmingly Hispanic.
Yet not a peep from the Herald about the election debate redlining.

Hundreds of thousands of people who live in NE Miami-Dade never even got a chance to speak about their issues to the two candidates, issues that had nothing to do with residents of Westchester or Sweetwater or Doral or Hialeah or... yes, the Latin Builders Association.

The REAL STORY is not that one of the two mayoral candidates in an important election would consciously choose to limit his chances of screwing-up in the latter days of the campaign by eschewing debates, since that was entirely predictable and has happened too many times to count by any reasonable measure, the REAL STORY is that one candidate, Robaina, claimed he wanted to be mayor of the entire county and yet when he had the chance, had no interest in ever appearing in a large part of it and listening to the legitimate concerns of its residents.
There's your REAL STORY!

You know, in other parts of the country where I have lived, and probably many of you as well, THAT sort of deliberate action by a candidate to IGNORE an entire swath of the area would definitely count as news, and would've been written about and broadcast on local newscasts for days as it was happening, and hard-edged questions would've been asked of the party choosing
to duck an entire part of the voting area.

Yet here in South Florida, the Miami Herald and the rest of the local print and TV press corps have completely ignored it.
Like they have so many hundreds of stories and trends in the past.

Which is part of the reason I decided to start this blog in the first place, right?
To correct that oversight among people who have great resources at their fingertips and yet who STILL can't see what is right in front of them.


Thank goodness for Michael Putney, whom, if he didn't exist, we'd have to make-up out of whole cloth, since he remains the public policy/social conscience of the community, since on this past Sunday's This Week in South Florida with Michael Putney on Channel 10/WPLG-TV, featured a heated discussion of the issues between Carlos Gimenez and Julio Robaina.

TWISF can be seen here in its entirety:
http://www.local10.com/video/28297806/index.html

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Miami Herald
Gimenez withdraws from remaining mayoral debates
By Patricia Mazzei
Published June 20, 2011 20:36:59 EDT

Saying he wants to spend the last week of the campaign meeting voters, Miami-Dade mayoral hopeful Carlos Gimenez has pulled out of debates scheduled this week against rival Julio Robaina.

Political debate season is apparently over for Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Carlos Gimenez.
After the former county commissioner was a no-show at a face-off Monday, his campaign canceled Gimenez’s appearances in a series of events scheduled this week against opponent Julio Robaina.

The surprise move came after Gimenez pulled ahead of Robaina in the race for the June 28 runoff election, according to a poll conducted last week for The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald by Bendixen & Amandi International.

As front runner, Gimenez appears to be adopting the political mindset that more debates may not help him — and may perhaps only give him more chances to make a costly mistake days before the election. While candidates often engage in posturing before agreeing to debates, it is unusual for them to cancel once they have agreed to take part.

Gimenez said the new strategy is intended to put him directly before voters.

“I’ve done 26 debates. Julio Robaina has missed more than half of them,” Gimenez said. “I may do one or two more. But the people are voting, you know. We need to get out on the street.”

The change of plans gave Robaina an opportunity to pounce on Monday, charging Gimenez with being afraid to face voters. “It’s shameful and disrespectful that we would not both be here today,” Robaina told several dozen county employees assembled at downtown Miami’s main library Monday afternoon as part of a debate arranged by the Hispanic Association of Public Administrators.

For dramatic effect, Robaina pulled out a red empty chair to represent Gimenez, who had backed out of the event a few hours earlier — shortly before Robaina unveiled a six-page county economic development plan.

Gimenez’s campaign also canceled a Wednesday debate organized by Miami Dade College and Miami’s Downtown Development Authority, and a Tuesday forum hosted by the Cuban-American Association of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Miami-Dade County Architects and Engineering Society.

“We are very upset,” said Carlos Gil, president of the Cuban-American civil engineers. Gil said his organization found out about the change of plans only after it called Gimenez to confirm details about whether the candidate would also be joining the groups for lunch.

“It was a total disrespect to the entire engineering community,” said Gil, adding that the organizations paid several thousand dollars to put the forum together. The forum, expected to draw about a hundred people, will still take place, he added, but only with Robaina.

The Wednesday debate has been scrapped completely, said Kelly Penton, a spokeswoman for the Downtown Development Authority.

“The DDA, as the lead agency for advocacy for the downtown area, thought it would be important to put together an event where the last two candidates would talk about what their plans are for the future of downtown,” she said.

One scheduled Spanish-language face-off, on América TeVe, may also move forward with only Robaina. The fate of another planned debate in Spanish, hosted by radio station WQBA-AM (1140) and the Latin Builders Association, is unclear.

Robaina spokeswoman Ana Carbonell said Gimenez’s absence from events will demonstrate “a profound lack of leadership.”

“If Mr. Gimenez is not willing to be accountable to the voters now as a candidate, how will be he accountable as mayor, and endure the multiple pressures that come with the job?” she said. “Gimenez has been claiming to be transparent, now he shows that means invisible.”

Gimenez’s campaign argued the opposite, justifying the about-face on the debates as a strategic effort to get Gimenez to early-voting sites to shake hands.

“We can’t afford to take our foot off the gas,” spokesman Tomas Martinelli said. “And if it means missing some debates, then so be it. I think people throughout this whole campaign have seen the differences between both candidates and are ready to make up their minds.”

Gimenez spent much of Monday visiting the Coral Gables Library early-voting site and calling donors in a final push before the campaign’s fundraising deadline. He noted that he appeared with Robaina in three televised debates over the weekend.

“I can’t continue to do this pace,” Gimenez said, adding that some early voters are still undecided and he could try to persuade Robaina voters to change their minds. “I can probably change some over.”

Gimenez still plans to attend a taping later this week for WFOR-CBS 4’s Saturday morning show News & Views with Eliot Rodriguez, but that appearance is not currently on Robaina’s schedule.

“We’re going to continue to work on our campaign,” Gimenez said.
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Once upon a time... last year.

The Miami Herald recommends
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

At one time, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, 43, seemed to have the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate sewed up. That changed suddenly with the emergence of candidate Jeff Greene, 55, turning this race into a real contest dominated by the political slugfest between an eight-year congressional incumbent and a populist outsider with unlimited funds to promote his candidacy.
That's a plus for voters. Democracy works best when they have choices. A third notable candidate is former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre, 75, whose vast experience in government outshines both Rep. Meek and Mr. Greene, who has never held public office. Mr. Ferre is a serious candidate, but his under-funded campaign has failed to catch fire with voters.
The irony in the increasingly bitter race between Rep. Meek and Mr. Greene is that they generally share the same views on major policy issues. Both emphatically support the Obama administration's healthcare reform, and both believe Bush-era tax cuts should be allowed to expire to bring in more revenue and balance the budget. They both support the trade embargo against Cuba.
The campaign has thus far been dominated by personal attacks. Mr. Greene made a fortune by betting against the housing bubble, which has made him vulnerable to accusations that he profited from the misery of others. That seems unfair. He was able to take advantage of the foolishness on Wall Street. Where's the shame in that?
The charge that he is a carpetbagger has more substance, and his boast of being a proven job creator in the private sector is, as a Miami Herald headline declared on July 15, ``hard to determine.''
Mr. Greene's candidacy cannot be discarded, but there is little to indicate he had any interest in politics up to now. That raises questions about his commitment to public service.
Mr. Meek's involvement with indicted developer Dennis Stackhouse, amply covered in this newspaper, is troubling, but generally a lapse in an otherwise honorable record of public service.
He has been a diligent representative, using his position on the Ways and Means Committee to fund community projects. He has also been a leading voice for Haitian Americans and was one of the first elected U.S. officials to set foot in Haiti following this year's devastating earthquake.
One significant difference between Rep. Meek and Mr. Greene involves their approach to ``earmarks,'' special-purpose appropriations for local districts. Mr. Meek boasts of a long list of appropriations -- including $600,000 for the Overtown Youth Center and $500,000 for a cancer screening program. Mr. Greene, on the other hand, recently pledged to end earmarks ``once and for all.''
Our choice in this race is for Mr. Meek, largely on the basis of his experience as a former state police trooper, state legislator and member of Congress.
In the race for the U.S. Senate, Democratic primary, The Miami Herald recommends KENDRICK MEEK.

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See also:

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Contrary to contention of MSM, DNC & DWS, latest Rasmussen poll shows 61% of U.S. favor state laws that shut down 'repeat offenders hiring illegals


CNS News video:Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz denounced Republicans last week for believing illegal immigration "should in fact be a crime."

Related article at:

While I'm generally not a fan of polls conducted among Likely Voters -as opposed to habitual Voters- contrary to the U.S. Mainstream Media, the Democratic National Committee's army of apparatchiks on the blogosphere and their sycophants across the country in TV news rooms and newspaper editorial boards, not to mention, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz -who represents part of Hallandale Beach, and NO, it's NOT the blue-collar neighborhoods!- the latest Rasmussen Reports poll on immigration policy comes as absolutely no surprise to those of us with at least one foot anchored in reality.

In fact, it's
precisely what your own common sense and sense of fairness would tell you about Americans even before you saw the results -61% of the U.S. favors state laws that shut down 'repeat offenders hiring illegals.
Because, simply put, most Americans believe that everyone should have to abide by the rules and laws of THIS country.


Locally, n
o amount of biased, one-sided Miami Herald editorials or fact-free 'news articles' by Alfonso Chardy and Patricia Mazzei can change that.

These Herald articles all have something in common -they almost never publicly state that the position advocated by the very people the reporters seek to paint as sympathetically as possible, is, nevertheless, overwhelmingly opposed by the majority of the people living in this this country and this state, and they never reveal just how low that level of support is.


Amnesty for illegal immigrants does not and will not ever enjoy the popular support of the American people, and no amount of public demonizing by La Raza and the professional Latino advocacy/self-interest community will make it so.

Since their argument is not supported by either logic or reason or the 'numbers,' the reporters just ignore those inconvenient facts, and instead, write paens to the foreign-born parents who broke the law, intentionally overstayed their visa, never showed-up in court for their legal hearings, and in many cases, never learned much in the way of English in their 15-20 years in the United States, even as their foreign-born kids turned out to have figured it out.

Or, alternately, the Herald reporters try to make modern Peru or Colombia seem like a veritable hell-hole that no reasonable person would want to live in, even though the Herald itself, of course LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Latin America.

So which is it?
Emerging vibrant democracy or hell-hole?
It depends on what public image the Herald's editors want to convey to readers in their "news articles," doesn't it?

As I've stated in this space before a time or two, it's very, very curious that whenever they cover U.S. Naturalization ceremonies in South Florida, craving that money shot of the cute little kid waving the American flag, South Florida TV and print reporters -but ESPECIALLY the Miami Herald- NEVER EVER ask the new Americans who came thru the system LEGALLY after following the rules and doing the things required of them over a number of YEARS, whether they believe that immigrants who came to the United States illegally should benefit from breaking the law and get the same benefits as THEY now do.

No, that is a question that is NEVER EVER EVER asked by the South Florida news media.
And everyone knows why.

It's because the answers from the new Americans would NOT conform to the pro-amnesty bias of the reporters themselves and the media organizations that employ them. PERIOD.

They're so afraid of the truth and the power of that message being uttered by immigrants who followed the law, that the question never gets asked.
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Rasmussen Reports
61% Favor A State Law That Would Shut Down Repeat Offenders Who Hire Illegal Immigrants
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The U.S. Supreme Court late last week upheld the legality of an Arizona law cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and most voters support having a similar law in their own state.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a law in their state that would shut down companies that knowingly and repeatedly hire illegal immigrants. Just 21% oppose such a law, and another 18% are undecided.

Read the rest of the story at:


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See also:

Washington Post

Supreme Court upholds Ariz. law punishing companies that hire illegal immigrants
By Robert Barnes
May 26, 2011

Arizona, the state at the forefront of efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, may revoke the business licenses of companies that knowingly employ undocumented workers, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a 5 to 3 vote, the court rejected arguments that control over illegal immigration is solely a federal responsibility and endorsed narrowly drawn state efforts to regulate the employment of those in the country illegally. Eight other states — Colorado, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — have passed similar laws that would punish companies for hiring undocumented workers.Link
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ariz-law-punishing-companies-that-hire-illegal-immigrants/2011/05/26/AGhHG2BH_story.html

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Fox News Channel video: President Obama's Border Speech Falls Short
http://youtu.be/yJcCQ5FthcM


For U.S. Government Accountability Office information on
Criminal Alien Statistics: Information on Incarcerations, Arrests, and Costs for Criminal Alien Statistics, see http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-187


Federation for American Immigration Reform YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fairfederation