Showing posts with label Shevrin Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shevrin Jones. Show all posts

Monday, July 30, 2018

Why does Miami Herald write so much about eruv story in Hallandale Beach, 6 weeks later -and drop hints of anti-Semitism- but for YEARS completely ignored a more compelling story re city's CRA wasting TENS of MILLIONS of DOLLARS over several years?

I know this may sound like one of the million-and-one rhetorical questions that almost every civic-minded resident of South Florida asks him or herself every day a new edition of the Miami Herald sees the light of day but...
Why DOES the Miami Herald write so much about one story in Hallandale Beach, 6 weeks after-the-fact, but completely ignore a more important, self-evident story re the city and its CRA -composed of the elected City Commission- wasting TENS of MILLIONS of DOLLARS over several years? Public dollars.

And, just as importantly, why for years has the Miami Herald IGNORED the stark reality that would have been staring any of their reporters in the face IF they had bothered to do some basic investigating of the story I've been writing about here on this blog for years:
EVERY single African-American state Senator & state Representative and Hallandale Beach City Commissioner whose Majority-Minority district includes Hallandale Beach either looked the other way as TENS OF MILLIONS of CRA dollars were wasted, actively fought AGAINST efforts in Broward County and in Tallahassee to ensure that an accurate public audit was performed so that residents would know where that money went, or, were themselves the beneficiary of the CRA funds.
Why? Why indeed?

The four guilty parties of whom I speak:
1. former City of Hallandale Beach City Commissioner and then state Rep. Joseph Gibbons

2. current Florida state Senator Oscar Braynon II







3. current Florida state Rep. Shevrin Jones


4. former City of Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders, who resigned one year ago following a Broward Inspector General investigation that detailed how over $900,000 in CRA funds was directed by him and his family to... well, his very own version of a friends-and-family plan.
The same Anthony A. Sanders whose resignation from office was NEVER ever mentioned in a Miami Herald story, much less, the reasons for it, and what might've happened to him if he had not done so.



Not mentioned but just as curious: Where was Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief whose district also included the affected area?

Yeah, that's a good question, if I do say so myself. 
#confounding

In case you forgot or never knew, the folks at the South Broward Chabad, who are one of the two mentioned in this Miami Herald story are the same ones that have asked for some very curious special hometown deals from the City of Hallandale Beach over the years, including a few years ago when they asked for some very extraordinary consideration -a loan with different terms than usual-
and then awarded former HB Comm. Alexander Lewy, i.e. "Lewy the Liar" to you longtime regular blog readers, an award after receiving it.
Which was both convenient and curious and... mortifying.

My original plan for today was to be posting something to my blog about the very-curious and stealthy lobbying taking place re the Sky Island redevelopment matter at Hollywood's Young Circle/ArtsPark and what I'd learned the past three weeks,since letting some of you know the basics of that deal that has completely shocked many of the area's usually well-informed residents.
But once I heard about this Miami Herald article last Wednesday appearing out-of-the-blue, I decided that Sky Island would have to wait another few days.




By the way, I note for the record that this story contains 5 photos, more than any other Herald story involving Hallandale Beach in the past 15 years. 
A story that appeared SIX WEEKS  after the motion by Comm. Annabelle Lima-Taub to bring it up on the City Commission agenda in the future failed to get even a second vote on the dais out of the five elected City Commissioners.

Why so many inches in the newspaper about an issue affecting so few, and who, clearly, did such a remarkably poor job of engaging and persuading their neighbors to support them, even while persuading the Miami Herald it was a worthwhile story?
And as you read along, ask yourself why the article never states when the City Commission meeting with all the fireworks took place.
It wasn't in April, it was in June, and the public spoke in June not on an actual agenda item but under Public Comments. Seems kind of relevant, don't you think?
As does the fact that threatening public officials with lawsuits during public meetings if they don't do what you want tends not to work out so well, no matter what kind of success you've had elsewhere.

These observant Jews need a lifeline to leave their homes — but the city is ‘stonewalling’
BY REBECCA ELLIS
rellis@miamiherald.com
July 25, 2018 02:34 PM
Updated July 25, 2018 09:32 PM
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article215358415.html 




For you newcomers to the blog who may've never seen some of those earlier blog posts of mine laying out the case or the predicate for better understanding Gibbons, Braynon, Jones and Sanders behavior, that is, completely ignoring the public's desire to find out what was happening with the millions wasted at the HB CRA, here are four posts that should effectively help connect-the-dots:

Nov. 2, 2013:  http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/latest-news-re-hallandale-beach-cra.html





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Thursday, June 15, 2017

Monday's important meeting offers long-overdue opportunities for Hollywood and Hallandale Beach residents/elected officials to say critical things to local state officials who constantly work AGAINST their best-interests. Like voting against Sunshine Laws that ensure transparency and accountability.






Monday's important meeting offers long-overdue opportunities for Hollywood and Hallandale Beach residents/elected officials to say critical things to local state officials who constantly work AGAINST their best-interests. 
Like FL state Rep. Shevrin Jones voting against Florida's Sunshine Laws that ensure transparency and accountability.

As most of you know by now, I was an eyewitness two weeks ago to the very contentious meeting at Hollywood City Hall regarding the City of Hollywood's presentation to the public about their new proposed rules re vacation rentals.
A few hours later, I added some much-needed facts and context I had written in my notepad but had neglected to include in my original blog post that many of you received via an email.
If you didn't see the updated version, please see it now at 

Wed.'s veritable trainwreck of a mtg. in #HollywoodFL re a VacationRental Ordinance Amend. at City Hall.🤔

I mention this because on Monday, I was looking again at the email I received last week from Terry Cantrell, head of the HLCA -see below- and Tuesday from the City of Hollywood and noticed something that I hadn't seen before: 
the contact info for the public meeting in Hallandale Beach next Monday night with local state legislators, where the subject of vacation rentals is sure to come up and be argued over.

State Town Hall Meeting
Monday, June 19

Members of the State Legislative delegation will host a Town Hall Meeting for Hollywood and Hallandale Beach residents on Monday, June 19th at the Hallandale Beach Community Center at 410 SE 3rd Street from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. The public is invited to join State Senator Gary Farmer and State Representatives Shevrin Jones & Joseph Geller to get an update on the most recent legislative session and discuss topics related to Hollywood and Hallandale Beach including the environment, neighborhood vacation rentals, education and property insurance. Refreshments will be provided. To RSVP, please email Gottlieb.Jennifer@FLSenate.gov or call 954.467.4227.

Do you have any idea if the Jennifer Gottlieb listed here as working for the FL Senate -and presumably state Sen. Gary Farmer- is THE Jennifer Gottlieb, or simply another woman with the same name?

Since I was traveling and away from the area for two years, it's possible nearly everyone but me knows the answer to this, but none of the people I've asked so far could say so one way or the other.

I'm asking because the Jennifer Gottlieb who was formerly on the Broward School Board was NOT one of my favorite people, and was a frequent target of mine on my blog of fact-filled news regarding her latest public policy antics, attempts at misdirection, and splitting of hairs on matters involving ethics and public accountability.

Like these posts from 2010 and 2011:

No, the buck never ever stopped with her.

My fact-filled blog posts that posed inconvenient questions/facts JG and Ann Murray and their colleagues wished to ignore, and more recent ones about the awful/mendacious words and actions that the Broward School Board has done under Supt. Robert Runcie on the behalf of kids, parents and Broward taxpayers -and their and our collective future- are one of the reasons that I'm BLOCKED on Twitter from accessing and commenting on
Broward Schools and Runcie tweets. 

They prefer their fact-challenged spin to context, nuance and doses of reality.








Any insight from anyone who actually knows the answer about this JG question would be greatly appreciated.

I'll have some pointed thoughts and questions to share with you about that Monday night meeting -and its hosts- as well as remind you of some of the #facts and #issues likely to come up at it, posted on my blog on Saturday, so please check here by Noontime Saturday.

 That will likely include "correcting" some things that state Rep. Joe Geller, the subject of many posts here on the blog the past few years re his curious and troubling choice of words, actions and ethics the past few years, has already been saying things publicly in Hallandale Beach that might surprise many of you who have actually been following the news in Tallahassee and pride yourself on knowing the #facts.

I probably am not shocking you when I tell you that having seen him in action myself recently, Geller's recounting of #reality and #facts in the past Florida legislative session, to say nothing of an individual legislator's original intent with a bill,  or a member's rationale for votes or trends and the larger scheme of things in Tallahassee, is far different than yours and mine. 
And most every other Florida legislator who was actually there, too.

 Yes, for Joe Geller, as well as Shevrin Jones, facts remain a troublesome thing.


----------------

From: Hollywood Lakes Civic Assn. 
Date: Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 11:18 AM
Subject: Town Hall Meeting Upcoming



Lakes logo new
  
Lakes Residents,

There will be a Town Hall Meeting in Hallandale Beach on Monday, June 19th. See flyer below. This will be an important meeting as two critical issues that affect the Lakes neighborhood will be discussed: vacation rentals and mooring buoys. We encourage all concerned Lakes residents to attend.







HLCA



Hollywood Lakes Civic Assn., P.O. Box 223922, Hollywood, FL 33022

----


#HollywoodFL, City of Hallandale Beach, City of Hollywood (FL), FL legislature, Gary Farmer, Hollywood Lakes, Joseph S. Geller, Shevrin Jones, Terry Cantrell, Vacation Rentals, Sunshine Laws, 
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Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Where did Millions of Hallandale Beach CRA dollars go? Years later, HB taxpayers still want answers, and the #FL state legislators responsible for preventing a much-needed JLAC audit of the HB CRA at the time still DON'T want to publicly talk about it. Seems like déjà vu, no? Sobel, Braynon, Gibbons & Jones are no Profiles in Courage!

Where did Millions of Hallandale Beach CRA dollars go? Years later, HB taxpayers still want answers, and the #FL state legislators responsible for preventing a much-needed JLAC audit of the HB CRA at the time still DON'T want to publicly talk about it. Seems like déjà vu, no? Sobel, Braynon, Gibbons & Jones are no Profiles in Courage!
So now that in 2017 the Hallandale Beach City Commission has a 3-2 pro-reform majority on it, intent on undoing a lot of the serious damage that has been done to the city the past dozen years under Mayor Joy Cooper, you probably won't be too surprised to discover that quite a lot of people in Hallandale Beach, Broward County and South Florida are STILL very interested in finding out where all the millions of Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) dollars were going for years. 
Not surprisingly, that includes me and many of you readers of this blog.

 And not just because it's Hallandale Beach, but the larger issue of municipal CRA performance in Florida and whether cities have successfuly thwarted the original intent of what the state legislature meant to do when they created the enabling legislation.

In fact, the Florida Bulldog's William "Bill" Gjebre has a new fact-filled article on that very subject today that I am only too happy to highly recommend to you, and link to below.

 I've even included a few links and tweets re just some of the dozens of things I've written about the HB CRA over the past nearly-ten years this blog has been in existence to give any of you newcomers to the blog some much-needed context and nuance for understanding this newest call for some much-needed financial accountability.

 Along with Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Keith London and a few of my friends who are fellow civic activists, like Csaba "Chuck" Kulin, I've been among the most-outspoken and VOCAL critics of the operation of the city's CRA program, with me particularly liking to engage with and call-out the pathetic reporting efforts of the local South Florida news media that so often ignored the scandal that was, literally, right in front of them.

 But most could not be bothered because it was taking place in Hallandale Beach, not Pembroke Pines, Doral, Hialeah, Pinecrest, Palm Bay, Aventura or... 
Yes, that geographical discrimination that local reporters have been guilty of down here for so many years, where some stories are reported upon simply because of where they take place, not the core of the facts and the issues involved. :-(

 More specifically, how and why under Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew, and a succession of City Managers, for so many years  the Hallandale Beach CRA was allowed to operate with nothing resembling the sort of basic financial accountability and oversight that you'd expect of an entity that spent millions of dollars -on the public's behalf.
With so very little tangible to show for that money that was supposed to address the problems the CRA is tasked with solving or fixing.


Florida Bulldog
New majority on Hallandale commission wants to know: Where did CRA millions go?By William Gjebre, FloridaBulldog.org  
January 18, 2017 at 5:05 AM

The new majority on the Hallandale Beach City Commission will seek the first-ever forensic audit of all expenditures by its troubled Community Redevelopment Agency for the past five years, including finding out why $7.4 million had to be cut to balance the agency’s budget this fiscal year.

Current Vice Mayor Keith London and Commissioner Michele Lazarow had been frustrated in seeking such an audit by the previous commission majority headed by Mayor Joy Cooper.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2017/01/new-majority-on-hallandale-beach-commission-wants-to-know-where-did-money-go/

























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Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Tonight's meeting is the time to let Hallandale Beach officials and your neighbors -plus the South Florida news media- know exactly what you think about unethical Comm. Bill Julian, Simpleton Extraordinaire; Here's who WON'T be there: Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons, Oscar Braynon II and Shevrin Jones, who turned their back on public corruption at HB City Hall years ago, letting CRA scandal get worse, not resolved

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall, September 2016, as captured by me, SouthBeachHoosier, © 2016 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
Tonight's meeting is the time to let Hallandale Beach officials and your neighbors -plus the South Florida news media- know exactly what you think about unethical Comm. Bill Julian, Simpleton Extraordinaire; Here's who WON'T be there: Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons, Oscar Braynon II and Shevrin Jones, who turned their back on public corruption at HB City Hall years ago, letting CRA scandal get worse, not resolved

 Important update to my last post: #SoFL #ethics - Proving that the past is prologue, yet again, here comes ethically-challenged Commissioner Bill Julian to once again personally make Hallandale Beach a laughingstock. But this time, a NATIONAL laughingstock. 

Surprise! It involves votes on real estate development and favors in return. Here's the latest 

on the matter, along with a stark reminder of Bill Julian's previous unethical actions


 So, like many people in Broward County, we were recently surprised to wake up one morning and discover the strangest thing in in the pages of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the very newspaper that had specifically instructed its Hallandale Beach reporter to NOT report on the bribery allegations against Vice Mayor William "Bill" Julian in the context of their recent meetings.
It was an editorial about the longstanding public corruption and ethics problem at Hallandale Beach City Hall and the current one involving Commissioner Bill Julian

 Here's a reminder about that lack of media clarity and accoiuntability from the newspaper first:

POLITICO Florida
Florida newspaper kills story of local official allegedly seeking favors from developer
By Marc Caputo
08/26/16 05:33 AM EDT
The South Florida Sun Sentinel killed a news story on its website about Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Bill Julian admitting on tape that he sought developer favors in return for his vote — a move by the newspaper’s leadership that appears to be part of a pattern of censoring controversial stories, according to multiple sources inside and outside the Fort Lauderdale newsroom.

The story concerning Julian’s alleged bribe-taking was first reported by WPLG-10, where investigative reporter Bob Norman obtained a voice message that the commissioner mistakenly left after he failed to properly hang up a phone. Julian discussed voting favorably for the $450 million Diplomat Golf & Tennis Club and linked it to alleged pledges from the developer’s attorneys who allegedly promised campaign contributions and campaign volunteers as well as a new van for his favorite city charity.

Read the rest of the article at:

 That Editorial is here:
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial: Hallandale Beach running off rails

Of course, it's important to keep in mind that the Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board are the very same folks who were perfectly happy to keep quiet for YEARS about the Hallandale Beach CRA and the crimes against HB residents and Small Businesses that took place there over a period of years, which resulted in perhaps $80 Million going out the door with precious little of a tangible nature to show for it, as I so often wrote, blogged and tweeted about, with links here:

That is to say, the Sun-Sentinel ignored it for years AFTER a damning report had already been issued by the Broward County Inspector General showed that there was practically no oversight or vetting at HB City hall by anyone in a position of authority of the kind that would be expected, including from longtime Mayor Joy Cooper or the previous two City Managers.

So, where were Hallandale Beach's various state legislators when all of this was actually going on and what did they do?
State Senators Eleanor Sobel and Oscar Braynon II were actively trying to prevent a Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. audit in Tallahassee into the HB CRA -and succeeded!- while State Rep. Shevrin Jones was so clueless and uninformed about what was going on in his own district that he NEVER knew what was going on -admitting as much in a tweet to me.

Jones never publicly offered to help the public get the facts they were entitled to, even though the public in question that was most-angry and most-taken advantage of was, of course, his own constituents.
And Joe Gibbons did what he does best: saying nothing and doing nothing to help Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens and Small Business owners who had a right to expect more from all of them than endless amounts of apathy, indifference and outright obfuscation of the truth.
With help like this, who needs enemies?

And don't forget! A scheduled meeting to discuss the alleged bribery scandal surrounding 
Comm. Bill Julian will take place tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Hallandale Beach residents and interested parties who want to speak need to sign up in advance.
This is prior to the controversial vote on the Chateau Group project on US-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd.

Many if not most of you who are familiar with how things actually work at Hallandale Beach City Hall are also quite familiar with how frequently Mayor Cooper has brought up items that 
were NOT on the scheduled agenda and tried to force the Commission to vote on that matter, 
even when the staff said that they did not have any information to provide the Commission
at the time so that they could make an even vaguely-informed vote.


​
Like, above, the way in 2013 Mayor Cooper tried to have the City Commission forgive the hefty 
fines that Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino accrued from the city and state for violating 
the city's own Code Compliance rules, by starting work on huge temporary buildings before they 
had any permits. They owed the city $52,000.

Gulfstream Park first tried to pressure city employees and when that didn't work, they simply called Mayor Cooper across the street instead of following established procedures and contacting the City Manager and the rest of the Commission to inform them and the public about their self-created "problems."

I remind you that this email below is esp. important given that unlike it has always done in 
the past, even when they were held at locations other than the HB City Hall Chambers, the 
city did NOT televise -via their cable channel- or video record last month's Planning & Zoning 
meeting held at Ingalls Park re the very controversial Chateau Square project proposed for 
the SE corner of US-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd., which comes before the HB City Commission 
next Wednesday night for the first of two required readings.
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