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Showing posts with label Scott Travis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scott Travis. Show all posts

Monday, September 16, 2024

Now is the time to make up for the lost opportunity of the past decade to make sure that the Broward Public Schools are firmly under the Broward Inspector General's purview, to root out unethical and corrupt behavior

Above: The hulking octop[us-like presence at 600 SE Third Avenue, Fort Lauderdale that serves as the multi-armed and entangled HQ for the Broward County Public Schools and the governing Broward County School Board


Originally posted Monday September 16th, 2024, 
Updated Saturday September 21st, 2024 

Most of you who know me even reasonably well, whether from any of the hundreds and hundreds of public meetings, civic association meetings or forums I've attended in South Florida over the past 20 years since returning from the Washington, D.C. area, largely from here on my humble blog, via my popular Twitter feed, or via my fact-filled observational and strategic emails over the years -IF you are on my mailing list- know one thing about me.
I have been focused like a laser-beam on ethics in local government and public policy in South Florida since long before I created this blog 17 years ago. Probably since my family first moved here in the summer of 1968, me, aged 7 years old, but a very curious and precocious seven year-old to be sure.
And, a kid quite positive that South Florida did NOT make sense the way other places so often did, however imperfectly. That clearly hasn't changed.

Back when the Broward County Office of Inspector General was originally proposed by the Broward County Commission, in large part because of increasing public outcry and the heroic efforts of my own district County Commissioner, Sue Gunzburger, YEARS after such an office was desperately needed, I had the somewhat unique distinction(!) of often being the only member of the public -in all of Broward County!- who actually attended the appointed Advisory Board's meetings.

Meetings that were at 8 a.m. sharp at the County HQ on Andrews Avenue, maybe a mile walk from the photo up above. 
Me being me, the type of person who enjoys having hard evidence of what I saw and heard when I'm making the argument for or against an idea or public policy -and to guard against occasional moments of boredom or even almost falling asleep in a large county room- I brought along my fully-charged video cameras and lightweight tripod.
And I recorded what was said -and by who- no matter how inspired or banal. and made contemporaneous notes on who was in the room, who they were communicating with, and what they were otherwise doing. Sh-h-h... lobbyists!

Yes, despite the fact that the meetings were deemed something important in the larger scheme of the county's efforts to regain the public's trust after so many scandals over the years, someone made the conscious choice NOT to have the meetings in the County Commission chambers that were already equipped with TV cameras, to make everything easy.
Instead, they were held in a much-smaller room. 
Without any cameras.

And, so, was NOT recorded by the County, just me.
I was always VERY aware of the fact that I was usually the only member of the public in the room, AND and that I had some pretty quality video of the BTS workings of government that nobody else in South Florida had, whether the local news media or other interested parties, like local elected officials.

To be kind, the Advisory Board meetings were very much a Poor Man's version of the Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia, but with air conditioning and so-so coffee in the back of the room.
It was there, right near the county-provided coffee, where I parked myself at every meeting I attended to make myself available for quick chats with the members in attendance. 
I almost always brought bagels + donuts along from home to keep myself fully awake and full of enough energy to pounce or text on my telephone at the first sign of mischief.
There, not so much holding court as guarding the waterfront, along with a thermos of hazelnut coffee I'd brewed beforehand at home, I took copious notes. 

Over a period of several months, I came to know these appointed members like the back of my hand: I knew who was always diligent about being properly prepared from the start and ready to push for stricter ethical standards in the county, and, of course, who was, well, generally unprepared, winging-it, and always looking at their watch, ready to throw in the towel if that had a quorum. 
And there were a LOT of times I thought that the latter was going to happen! 

From Day One, I was always mindful of the fact that the only thing preventing the members from giving up was the sure knowledge that the appointees definitley did NOT want to publicly embarrass their political patrons by making it seem like ethics u. Do no harm! 😠 

 Before she eventually moved up to Lutz from Hollywood, my good friend and well-known South Florida civic activist Charlotte Greenbarg also appeared at times early in the AM, speaking for both common sense and with a deep and genuine appreciation for understanding human behavior in such a weird political dynamic.
One, where many members of the Advisory Board not only didn't want to embarrass the person who'd selected them for the position over others vying for it, but also because I knew for a fact that many of them clearly had their eyes on running for elective office some time in the near-future, IF they weren't already an elected somewhere in the county, or an important person at some interest group in Broward used to flexing their muscles. 

Charlotte had years of first-hand experience dealing with the all-too-frequent and frustrating incompetency and failures of the Broward School system by virtue of being the much-respected head of its Audit Committee, and so had an insight into the realities of School Board's operation and (often pointless) direction that none of the Advisory Board members could hope to match. 

Charlotte and I were folks in the community at the time who were willing to actually show up in-person to publicly support the much-needed IG Office, and consistently spoke under Public Comments asking that the office be sure to include the Broward School system. 
The reason, of course, is obvious, because everyone who knew anything about how things REALLY work/works in the county, knew that some of the worst financial/patronage excesses and rampant, endemic ethical corruption and misbehavior was located there. 
Often, as we know from numerous investigations, hiding in plain sight. 

But nobody was willing to do the right thing, least of all, in the Broward SAO. 

 Unfortunately, most of the people selected by the county commissioners at the time to represent them on the board had very different priorities, and were NOT particularly interested in seeing the Broward School system be included, as well as see that the office cover lots of other things in the county that were common with such IG offices around the country. 
Naturally, me being me, before the first meeting, I'd spent a lot of time researching just those very things, so that as often as possible, I'd speak to the members before and after meetings about what could be done to make the office even more effective. 

Here's me in 2014, when there was a push to expand the Broward IG Office's areas of concern and responsibility.

 But as I learned years ago in electoral politics at the national and state level -and trust me, the people selected to the IG Advisory Board were VERY political- the #1 rule in politics is... to know your universe. 

People who didn't even think the office should exist were very vocal on the Advisory Board, so pulling THEM in the right direction was, alas, a losing battle. 
Now, the public in Broward finally has the opportunity to make up for that lost time! 

Sun Sentinel
Voters could expand watchdog role - Initiative asks whether Broward County inspector general's responsibilities should include the school district
Scott Travis South Florida Sun Sentinel
September 14, 2024

School Board elections are over, but Broward voters can still decide in November whether they want some new oversight to help the district root out waste, fraud and corruption.

A ballot initiative will ask those voting in the general election Nov. 5 to say yes or no to expanding the role of the Broward County inspector general to include the Broward School District.

Read the rest of the article at:





WSVN-7 News
Proposed amendment would expand authority of Broward Inspector General to include independent oversight of school board operations


Dave













David Bruce Smith 

Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog: http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/ 




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Monday, March 21, 2022

Shameful! South Florida Business Journal, showing no regard for ethics, aims to give an "Achievement Award" to Keith Koenig, Robert Runcie's #1 financial backer, apologist and puppet-master, who as the front-and-center FACE of #Broward's White Biz Estab., did NOT want to know the truth abt rampant corruption, thievery, + incompetency, just wanted to ensure access to BCPS contracts! He loves the $ gravy train that is BCPS!

Shameful! South Florida Business Journal, showing no regard for ethics, aims to give an "Achievement Award" to Keith Koenig, Robert Runcie's #1 financial backer/apologist, who was the front-and-center FACE of #Broward's White Biz Estab., who did NOT want to know abt rampant corruption, thievery, + incompetency, just wanted to ensure access to BCPS contracts! He loves the $ gravy train that is BCPS!

Like so many other galling things that we've observed in the South Florida media scene of 2022, just when you think that you have a reasonably-informed understanding of just how low low really is, there's someone or a platform who by sheer dent of their sheer imbecility, takes your breath away with their brazen disregard for the known facts and the history of the area.

Someone who will act as if all the evidence of unethical behavior and conduct you see all around you is really not there. It's all just our imagination we are told. Or, possibly a frame-up.

But what are we to make of all the self-evident fingerprints belonging to people whose names are well-known to us, and whose alibis, excuses and explanations for why they looked the other way fails every smell test?

And so it is that with these questions In mind that I share the rather shocking news with you today that I have just learned that the South Florida Business Journal, despite having plenty of time to vet and choose someone worthy, aims to go ahead and reward Keith Koenig, the CEO of City Furniture, with their 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony in April. 

Koenig is the person who was the safe, White face of Broward's Business Establishment for most of the recent past during the ruinous cult-like reign of Robert Runcie as Broward Schools Superintendent, that only ended recently. Koenig is someone who continually defended someone in great authority who was charged with lying to a grand jury, even while other charges were not brought that should have been.

Keith Koenig is someone who could not be bothered to answer any questions from the South Florida news media at any point over the last few years about his personal role in any of these matters, to say nothing of his personally paying for an attempted public whitewash via $ to Smith-Knibbs PR.

Which, fortunately, failed.

Here's the thread that brought us to today's incredible news... with more information below it that connects-the-dots!

















































Video above of so-called press conference where no questions from media were allowed is at: https://youtu.be/y0EuPhn2FDo

The folks behind it? The Usual Suspects: 


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Puppet-master Keith Koenig's role in this sordid story is below in red. I'm printing this Sun Sentinel editorial and Scott Travis article in its entirety here, so that you will know exactly what was said and written last year, which was easily searchable by the SFBJ if they really cared about... facts.

And optics.

When you reward the people who were in a unique position to demand much better of elected officials and government functionaries but who instead, FOR YEARS, looked the other way, as rampant corruption, incompetency and inefficiency that harmed all the kids in Broward and in many cases kept them in unsafe schools with moldy walls and missing roofs.

All of that, even while lots of honest and forthright people in this community -including me- have been sharing all the known facts about what was going on and didn't blanch from the unpleasant reality. 

Koenig and his gaggle of behind-the-scenes puppet-masters at The Broward Workshop as well as his  many allies in the crony capitalism pay-for-play scene of Broward that is SO dependent on government largesse, teat money, in this case, taxpayer money controlled by Broward Schools and the all-female, all-Democratic Broward School Board, are as morally responsible for the continuing mess that is the Broward Schools as Robert Runcie and former School attorney Barbara Myrick and Schools mouthpiece Kathy Koch.

South Florida Sun Sentinel
Editorial
Here's more evidence of why Runcie has to go
July 21, 2021

Like every school superintendent, Broward County's Robert Runcie says that it's all about the kids.

Whenever a crisis came, however, it was all about Robert Runcie.

Kathy Koch supposedly serves as the school district's chief communications officer. As the Sun Sentinel reported Sunday, however, Koch considers herself to be keeper of the Runcie flame.

After Runcie's April 21 arrest for allegedly lying to a grand jury, Koch secretly organized a rally for the superintendent two days later. To the public, it was to look spontaneous. It was anything but.

Koch worked with such Runcie fans as Keith Koenig, the Broward Workshop chairman and City Furniture CEO, to turn out a friendly crowd. Koch arranged for the school district's TV station to cover the event. As for herself, Koch said, "I would remain invisible."

With the school board set to debate Runcie's status four days later, Koch and others surely hoped that the staged event would save the superintendent's job. It didn't. Runcie had lost majority support and announced that he would resign.

Perhaps Koch hoped that in saving Runcie's job, she could save hers. It's a cushy gig. Koch makes $168,000 from the district and gets to remain as president of Ambit Advertising and Public Relations in Fort Lauderdale.

Barbara Myrick, the school board's former attorney and another Runcie acolyte, ruled that Koch could moonlight. More about Myrick in a moment.

Runcie's fans cite academic progress during his decade running the district. Whatever good Runcie did, however, is outweighed by his record since the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shooting.

District officials lost track of and mishandled the shooter. Runcie and Myrick sought to cover up that culpability by sanitizing the district's report.

The Sun Sentinel won a Pulitzer Prize for publishing the truth. It made Runcie look bad, but the public deserved - and needed - to hear it.

A technological mistake allowed Sun Sentinel reporters to see blacked-out portions of the report. When the reporters used that blunder to inform the public, Myrick tried to have them arrested.

Damaging news continued. Two statewide grand juries criticized Broward County for its poor record on enforcing school safety laws that the Legislature passed after the Parkland shooting.

Runcie dismissed such criticism as blithely as Gov. DeSantis ignores rising COVID-19 numbers. Runcie's board enablers forgave him, as they forgave him for bungling the school construction bond that they praised him for getting voters to pass.

Sunday's story made clear again that Koch's priority had become Runcie. Koch tried to defend her actions by saying that she was on personal time. In fact, she was exploiting her professional role and trying to keep the public from knowing about it.

This is a terrible time for any school district in Florida to be looking for a superintendent. Record numbers of them are retiring or switching jobs.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the grind of distance learning is the main factor. But superintendents face unprecedented pressure, especially in this state.

This year, the Legislature again expanded the school voucher program. Republicans in Tallahassee remain focused on privatizing public education.

Meanwhile, DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran offered almost no help to school districts on how to reopen safely last year, as the pandemic raged. Corcoran threatened to withhold money from districts where students stayed home for the second half of the year.

This year, seeking to stoke his presidential campaign, DeSantis falsely accused districts of teaching critical race theory. The Board of Education approved a rule supposedly to prevent indoctrination of students.

Last week, Sarasota County Superintendent Brennan Asplen reiterated that the district teaches to Florida standards and does not use critical race theory. A speaker responded, "You can tell me all year long, 'We're not doing it, we're not doing it.' And I don't believe you."

But Runcie has to go, even if Rosalind Osgood, his chief enabler on the board, seemingly tried to orchestrate as expensive a severance as she could. Runcie had created a cultlike atmosphere. It was Runcie above all.

Myrick already resigned after her own indictment linked to that grand jury. Other top administrators have left. So one early sign of whether Runcie's successor has changed the culture will be whether Kathy Koch keeps her job.

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South Florida Sun Sentinel

Director: 'This is where we get off the rails' - Schools PR chief set up secret effort to save Runcie's job

Scott Travis, South Florida Sun Sentinel
July 18, 2021

The communications chief for Broward Schools orchestrated an aggressive but secret operation to try to save the job of Superintendent Robert Runcie within hours after he was arrested on a perjury charge, newly released documents show.

Amid calls for Runcie to step down or be fired after his arrest April 21, Kathy Koch, a veteran public relations professional, hurriedly organized a pro-Runcie rally on school district property.

She helped some of the county's most prominent business leaders craft their remarks for the event April 23, but she carefully tried to distance herself from the effort, according to emails obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

"I would remain invisible in the conversation," she wrote in her notes.

Koch's campaign failed to save Runcie's job. His last day will be Aug. 10.

Koch, 72, has worked for the district since 2018 and makes $168,000 a year. She said she organized the rally on her own personal time.

"I support the work of this District and its dedicated employees. In my personal time, I have the same rights as all others to use that time as I choose," Koch said in an email to

the Sun Sentinel. "I have supported Mr. Runcie in his role as superintendent."

But critics, including several School Board members, say she's misused her position, putting her boss's interests ahead of Broward County students, parents, employees and taxpayers.

"It is simply NOT the job of the communications department to be a superintendent's personal promotional machine," School Board member Nora Rupert said in a text after the Sun Sentinel asked for comment.

One document that especially raised concerns is two pages of typed notes Koch wrote detailing the many steps she took to organize the April 23 rally, which happened during work hours outside the front entrance of the district's K.C. Wright administrative building in Fort Lauderdale. Runcie had been arrested two days earlier, accused of lying to a statewide grand jury.

The Sun Sentinel obtained the notes, attached to an email Koch sent to herself the morning of the rally, through a public records request.

The notes describe her contacting business leaders, arranging speakers and confirming security in the 48 hours before the rally.

Koch got approval from Runcie on April 21, the Wednesday he was arrested, to hold the rally that Friday, her notes say. Runcie did not respond to a request for comment about this story.

Over the next day, Koch reached out to about a dozen Runcie allies in the business and nonprofit community, edited a letter of support from County Commissioner Dale Holness, wrote a news release for the event, sent the release and her media contact list to an outside public relations firm and organized logistics with district staff and the PR firm, her notes say.

But Koch didn't want the public to know any of this, her notes suggest, so she asked for help from Runcie ally Keith Koenig, CEO of City Furniture and president of the Broward Workshop, a business group that has been one of Runcie's staunchest defenders.

"Spoke with Keith. Agreed he would present it to the Workshop Executive Committee. I would remain invisible in the conversation," she wrote.

Later, she wrote: "Keith presented to Executive Committee. Called him after with plan. He did not want his staff to help and he agreed if I would plan and execute the event, he would pay his PR firm to distribute the press release I wrote to media, and to have someone attend this morning's event."

Koenig said in a text Saturday that he felt Runcie had been unfairly targeted, especially by the Sun Sentinel.

"I supported Bob as a citizen and asked a PR friend to help organize it," Koenig said. "Many of us came together and Bob was grateful."

Koenig added: "As I remember, the event was my idea and I hired the firm that did all the work. ... My recollection was that Kathy did not want to be involved."

Koch's notes show she confirmed the rally speakers with Koenig's PR firm April 22 and asked the company to invite the Broward PTA, the Broward League of Cities and local chambers of commerce.

"I think we should expect anti-RR people to show up," she wrote, referring to Runcie's critics.

About 50 religious, political, business and nonprofit leaders attended.

While planning the event, Koch asked district Safety Chief Brian Katz to alert Fort Lauderdale police, her notes say. She also alerted Juan Ruperez, who manages operations of the K.C. Wright building "to give him heads up."

"However [it] was clear this is not our event," Koch wrote. "In fact, there is a generator being brought so that they are not using our electricity."

Koch's role in the event raises concerns, School Board member Debbi Hixon said.

"I do not think it's appropriate for [district] staff to organize personal events on district time in the context of their district job," she said.

Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals and Assistants Association, said she found Koch's efforts contrary to the job of a government communications chief and a public servant.

"It is imperative that people believe that there is neutrality, that information is simply factual and is not intended to sway opinion or generate an outcome to a specific event - in this case, the protection of the superintendent," Maxwell said. "This is where we get off the rails."

Maxwell said Koch's notes are "probably the clearest example I have ever seen where this has just gone off the rails."

Koch started with the district in November 2018, beating out 158 other applicants. She owns the firm Ambit Advertising & Public Relations, which has been a member of the Broward Workshop and was a strong advocate for Runcie even before she took the district job.

Koch maintained her private firm after she joined the district. Although Runcie initially said she would turn over her Ambit client list to the district's procurement department to ensure there were no conflicts of interest, she declined to do that after then-General Counsel Barbara Myrick told her in 2019 it was unnecessary, emails show.

Koch did not respond to whether she plans to remain with the district after Runcie leaves Aug. 10. She and Runcie have faced frequent accusations that she focuses her PR efforts on the superintendent, not the district.

Former board member Robin Bartleman wrote in Runcie's 2019 evaluation, "Press releases and social media links consistently have [Runcie's] image as opposed to students, teachers, staff or even our logo."

However, board Chairwoman Rosalind Osgood praised Koch's work.

"Kathy Koch is a valued part of the District's team. The Public Relations Office has improved the District's communication to the community tremendously under Ms. Koch's leadership," Osgood wrote in a text message to the Sun Sentinel. "As a Board Member, I have no way of governing what any employee does with their personal time."

Koch's campaign happened during a busy time for her office staff, as they received dozens of media requests from around the country seeking interviews and information about Runcie's arrest, emails show.

Koch tried to avoid any interaction with the media during the April 23 rally, her notes show.

"I will be in [K.C. Wright] and am meeting PR firm early, but do not want to be visible in any form at the event itself - to school board members or to media, which might ask me about Mr. Runcie," Koch wrote.

A Sun Sentinel reporter ran into Koch inside the building and asked her why BECON, the district-run TV station that Koch supervises, had a camera crew at the rally if the event wasn't sponsored by the district.

"They're a TV station and it's an event on our property," Koch responded.

BECON was used again on April 26 to benefit Runcie as he recorded a video saying he would be vindicated from the criminal charge.

'Your team did a great job, and I appreciate everyone staying late last night," Koch wrote in an April 27 email to Eric Powell, production manager at BECON.

The video was widely distributed to media, employees and parents on the morning of April 27, hours before the School Board was scheduled to discuss Runcie's future.

At that meeting, board member Sarah Leonardi said she found the use of BECON inappropriate. "Those cameras should have been focused on students and educators."

Runcie realized at the meeting he didn't have the support to stay on long term as superintendent. A majority of School Board members wanted to either fire him or place him on leave. He offered to resign.

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Friday, March 15, 2019

Culture of Corruption & Incompetency by Feckless Broward School Board, General Counsel Barbara J. Myrick & Supt. Robert Runcie in a Nutshell

Culture of Corruption & Incompetency by Feckless Broward School Board, General Counsel Barbara J. Myrick & Supt. Robert Runcie in a Nutshell.

 re The special Grand Jury impaneled by the Florida Supreme Court via Gov. Ron DeSantis investigating feckless Broward County Schools & its School Board: 
Broward education activists & taxpayers want you to make sure that Broward Schools General Counsel Barbara J. Myrick is one of first persons grilled. 
She has a LOT to publicly account for, as does nearly every School Board member



"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
- Winston Churchill

 So, as to that part above about having "enemies"... For those of you who are newcomers to the blog, I've been writing fact-filled, analytical blog posts about the serial corruption, incompetency and fecklessness by the Broward School Board on a whole array of issues for the past twelve years.
And, I've also written about them with regularity as welll on my popular South Florida Twitter handle, @hbbtruth, since October of 2013. 
There I often buttress some other person's good point with facts they might not be aware of, or, necessarily throw some cold water and cold hard facts on someone saying something that's contrary to reality that can't be believed by anyone with common sense who knows anything about human behavior. 
There is an awfully LOT of that on Twitter from Broward County, especially among supporters of Supt. Runcie and the business Establishment who can't even do their own independent investigating, relying almost entirely for their numbers and talking points on the very people in charge and who've been elected who aren't getting the job done right.

Trust me, there's a good reason that so many activists, personalities, elected officials and members of the South Florida or Florida press corps, people that you know and trust, are Following me on Twitter and reading my latest post on this blog, which, depending upon the subjects du jour, can net anywhere between 30,000 and 90,000 page views a month.
(For the record, I'll be picking up the pace and be posting more posts per week now that I'll not be traveling quite as extensively as have since early last August.)

 That means not just accepting whole what is written in South Florida newspapers or on websites or seen on TV, but of my actually going to meetings all over Broward County -and especially in Hollywood and Hallandale Beach- and meeting other concerned and curious Broward citizens and taxpayers who wonder about the same things I do: ethics, accountability, public oversight, conflicts-of-interest and power plays by certain parties and groups within the Broward education Establishment and the people who support it in the Broward business community.
The latter being people who make extraordinary amounts of money on the Broward school system as contractors and vendors for projects, whether they're needed or completely wasteful.
So, all that said, I have seen, first-hand, the incriminating reports and the damning photos and the files that have been so much in the news since 2007 surrounding the culture of corruption.

Above and below, July 13, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier, looking south at the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. 
©Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved




















Above, Supt. Robert Runcie after a public meeting of his Listening Tour at the City of Hollywood's  Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center, which was the second time I'd heard him speak in-person, having previously heard him in March at Hollywood Hills High School, also in Hollywood. May 14, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. 
©Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

For more on the situation above with my friend Catherine, who has since moved to Las Vegas, please see parts 1 and 2 of my February 2012 blog post titled, 
Ann Murray -she's a phony, a bigot and a no-show. Consistently. That's what voters have seen of her tenure on Broward School Board so far -she needs to go!; update on projects at Hallandale High School

 https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-1-of-2-ann-murray-shes-phony-bigot.html
https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-2-of-2-ann-murray-shes-phony-bigot.html

 It speaks volumes about what has been allowed to go on in Broward County for YEARS without any of the know-it-all "geniuses" in the Broward business Establishment finally saying "Enough!"
It also says a lot about the bad reporting the past ten years in South Florida that with the exception of the Florida (Broward) Bulldog, no other media outlet in South Florida reported on this story that explains so much of what happens here.

As you might imagine, that sort of consistent public questioning of elected officials and administrators and a willingness to publicly challenge people personally to substantiate and back up what they say leads to lots of things.
On the one hand, it means that many people throughout Broward who make education one of their chief concerns -regular citizens, public officials as well as many local print/TV reporters and columnists- know from personal experience that when I say something, that I not only know of what I speak, but can also personally produce the incriminating evidence, or, know the very people who can produce it so that the public finds out the truth.

 That sort of effort over a dozen years also creates all sort of friction with people who are supposed to be working FOR the public, including numerous past and current elected Broward School Board members, administrators and their staffs who don't like seeing the truth being publicly discussed in a logical and reasonable way, and even worse, discussed in print where anyone can see the facts and not have to accept their own particular spin on things.
So that kind of effort is why I was on the Top Ten list of people whom the Broward School system has been BLOCKING on Twitter since 2016, as the Angela Greben tweet above makes clear.
Yes, I wear their BLOCKING of me like a gold medal, and proudly so.











In watching last week's important Broward County School Board meeting with an agenda item regarding the firing of Supt. Robert W. Runcie -whom I was an early fan of until two years later it was clear there was NOT going to any any of the required change in culture or direction- while I was traveling, I was so upset by what I saw and heard that despite promising myself that I would be calm and not LIVE TWEET responses to what I was seeing, I felt obliged to ignore that intuition and drop some knowledge on the Twitterverse, including some folks at the meeting or who were commenting upon it who didn't have the institutional knowledge that I had of many of the characters and charlatans who spoke on behalf of retaining Supt. Runcie.














































































































Proving yet again why = 4-letter word in : passive aggressive att'y makes deals WITHOUT knowledge of clients, elected officials, who are her BOSS, not the other way around. Another Barbara J. Myrick success story! 🤨


Hardly surprising that att'y Barbara J. Myrick, woman who thinks her clients work for her, wld decided that @ public meetings, she gets to make up rules to suit her moods

Of course, the public didn't vote 4 att'y Barbara J. Myrick, but she feels free to tell elected officials who ARE making policy what they shld do -ignore findings of past Grand Juries bec facts are a funny thing. WTF? 🤨

att'y Barbara J. Myrick, the runaway lawyer, continues to take advantage of her clients and use that to advance her own personal & professional interests. But nobody in voted for her! 🤨

att'y Barbara J. Myrick still acts like she's their boss: " was interrogated by Gen. Counsel Barbara Myrick last week on why she voted against new security chief & was told her reason was unacceptable." 🤨

“LoriAlhadeff has...helped us see that ’s is trending toward a rubber stamp... , that rules & laws need to be re-evaluated,... how Runcie and Myrick treat board members like subordinates, when they work for them.” 🙄🤨🤔

RT "Hasn’t Lori been through enough without having to put up with this? Myrick needs to be investigated by the grand jury not as an accessory but as a primary player and strategist for the BCSB Corruption Cartel. Florida Bar, are you listening?" 🤨🤔

When she says "they" she means "me." 🙄🤨🤔 MT att'y Barbara J. Myrick said SchoolBoard was not consulted before they took legal action to hold reporters in contempt of court. Said it was considered emergency decision.

Runaway lawyer's mea culpa, Aug 7, 2018 MT att'y Barbara J. Myrick said Supt. was not part of decision to hold reporters in contempt. "If you have anyone to blame, it's me. I take full responsibility for what occurred."

Suing reporters MT att'y Barbara J. Myrick compared the district’s actions to “leaving cars unlocked and someone comes and steals it and saying it’s not the thief’s problem that you left the door unlocked.” 🙄

MT Not meeting requirements of job description shld not disqualify 2 staffers fm high paid jobs, att'y Myrick said. But does disqualify candidate w/a PhD & MBA fm becoming a secretary, she previously said. 🤨

This is normal where, exactly? 🙄🤨🤔 MT member tried to vote against a job candidate over concerns w/process. att'y Barbara J. Myrick told her she’s not allowed.

Updated February 14, 2019 by Scott Travis of the South Florida Sun Sentinel

MT att'y Myrick makes Lori Alhadeff state reason why she was voting against Brian Katz. Alhadeff said bec some qualified applicants weren't interviewed/she had issues w/ process. Myrick said that's not an allowable reason. 🙄

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