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Showing posts with label South-Florida Sun Sentinel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South-Florida Sun Sentinel. Show all posts

Monday, August 14, 2017

Now that #HallandaleBeach Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders has resigned in disgrace for misconduct in office, what's next for HB? Some thoughts on what's happened and what's to come











Now that #HallandaleBeach Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders has resigned in disgrace for misconduct in office, what's next for HB? Some thoughts on what's happened and what's to come

Make no mistake about it.
What the residents and Small Business owners of Hallandale Beach have had to endure 
for so many long and bitter years while the city was under the firm-but-incompetent and unethical thumb of the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew, led by Mayor Joy Cooper, who has been Mayor since 2000, is unlike anything any South Florida community has had to put up with.

That long-running horror show at Hallandale Beach City Hall on US-1 a softball toss across the street from Gulfstream Race Track & Casino co-starred Comm. Anthony A. Sanders as the guy on the dais who never learned a lesson that he could sucessfuly carry over and put into practice at the next meeting.
The guy who never learned to expand his knowledge base or his frame of reference to make himself better understood by the community at large.
The guy who consistently refused to meet with concerned homeowners in NE Hallandale Beach when they wanted to express their adamant opposition to the Diplomat RAC a few years ago, and would not even deign to return residents phone or email messages. 

 The guy who (has still) never learned to accept that sometimes, other people who live in HB or who have an interest in it, really DID/DO have better ideas and public policy prescriptions than what he and his cronies thought at the time or think now is best and have decided, no matter how unpopular their ideas and policies are with the city at large, to unleash those bad ideas on the city.
Wanna guess what will happen?
Very, very bad things -constantly.

And that's been the all-too-true reality with Sanders ever since 2007.

The guy on the dais in a multicultual Broward city who takes much, if not most, of the longstanding public criticism of his own words and actions in public office as nothing less than racism, and seems to encourage his small band of fervent supporters to defend him in public not by offering facts and persuasive arguments, but rather by attacking others as racists.

















































And see this Twitter thread to Florida state Senator Gary Farmer that concludes with this




 Whether Senator Farmer now fully grasps these simple facts, I couldn't tell you. Perhaps you should ask him the next time you see him.
But he doesn't seem to be in HB very often, though, does he?
Perhaps you might want to speak to him about that situation, too!


































For roughly ten-plus years, most reasonable people in Hallandale Beach, regardless of race. age, class, gender or geographical location within the city, waited and waited to see a flash of recognition by Comm. Sanders that he needed to change his small-minded and intractable way of doing things,and actually evolve.
But they never saw it, and now we know that the very troubling things that I have told you all for years in-person, via emails and on my blog about Comm. Sanders and his associates were, factually, T-R-U-E.



@Florida_Bulldog  
Broward Inspector General report: Hallandale Beach commissioner Anthony Sanders “engaged in pattern of misconduct”

 And now, actions -finally!- have consequences in Hallandale Beach:

My response to @Florida_Bulldog - Hallandale freezes payments for city development, jobs programs citing waste, fraud





And now, actions -finally!- have consequences in Hallandale Beach:
@Florida_Bulldog - Hallandale freezes payments for city development, jobs programs citing waste, fraud

And since I started writing this post early last week, there's been more news:


































Per a previous email that many of you reading this no doubt received from me, you'll notice that neither the South Florida Sun Sentinel or the Miami Herald have yet to write any Op-Eds about this matter involving ethics and character. or rather, the lack of them.


Why do you suppose that is?


Some of you know who did -and who did not- predict this very thing last month.
And already, rumors are flying, albeit, under-the-radar, about who in the larger HB community will make a move soon to publicly announce for the Sanders seat.

You can already imagine how Mayor Joy Cooper is going to try to use this to her own benefit politically, and encourage one of her many female cronies and apologists in town to run, with her usual cast of characters to help finance the effort.

As of today, there are Three Competing Schools of Thought:

1.) If Sanders resigns, some people  in HB might try to become and serve as an interim Commissioner only as a civic responsibility, just  to help the city deal with budget related matters until a special election is held. not as a prelude for them to compete in an upcoming campaign.

* Reminder of irony: city's existing written rules for replacing members were the very rules Mayor Joy Cooper did NOT follow in selecting Sanders in 2007.

2.) Others in HB may well see their best chance of ever becoming a City Commissioner by trying to be appointed by 4 members of City Commission, with the intent to run for that seat in upcoming weeks as well, and try to translate their words and actions into an election victory months from now.

3. ) A third and distinct group may well decide to forego trying to be appointed and instead make a public declaration of their intent to run and try to mobilize support within this very chaotic and fragmented community.

In this group, I think you should expect to see many of the faces of the same unqualified 
people who never are seen at public meetings in Hallandale Beach and never publicly share their own policy POV and prescriptions, who put themselves forward before the debacle that led to Leo Grachow.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/observations-re-leo-grachows-selection.html

You should expect to be be snowed in the coming weeks by people you have never heard of or seen, with amazing tales from this group about their "community service" that, well, nobody actually has ever actually seen.
More in the next few days!






Dave 

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Thursday, October 20, 2016

Some news/thoughts re Editorial @SunSentinel - "To change decorum and direction, choose Anabelle Taub and Michele Lazarow in Hallandale Beach"; Hollywood candidate forum tonight at Summit Towers condo



South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Editorial
October 18, 2016 
9:09 PM

Anabelle Taub, Michelle Lazarow are picks in Hallandale Beach

Citizens deserve so much better than what they're getting from today's five-member Hallandale Beach City Commission, which has divided into camps like two high school cliques.
Arbitrary time limits squelch discussion on big issues, shouting matches break out and police have been called to remove certain commissioners. Relationships have gotten so bad that a parliamentarian had to be hired to enforce Roberts Rules of Order.
Neither side looks good in this 3-2 commission split. Both have attitude, mud stains and investigations into backroom shenanigans, one worse than others. Something has got to give. The Nov. 8 election offers that opportunity.
October 20th, 2016 
4:55 PM

I expect to have some more interesting news for you on Friday about what's REALLY going on at Hallandale Beach City Hall these days. If you haven't been by the newly-renovated HB City Hall yet, as I was again this afternoon, it could hardly be made more clear that the citizens of Hallandale Beach REMAIN the very last priority of the crew running things there, compared to the comfort and care of city staff. Surprise!

The place may've gotten a new paint job and some new walls and furniture, but the endemic culture of incompetency and corruption remains!
Tomorrow, photographic proof of just that. 
Seeing is believing.

That email and blog post will also likely include some carefully chosen thoughts about bungling and ethically-challenged HB Comm. Bill Julian, especially about all the articles about his #ethics that you are NOT seeing publicly, including at the faux newspaper, the South Florida Sun Times, @SFSunTimes, which for so many years has been so deeply intertwined with so much of the longstanding corruption and cronyism at HB City Hall while it received sweetheart deals, year-after-year, thanks to Mayor Cooper & 
Commissioners Julian and Anthony A. Sanders via their votes on the HB CRA.
In exchange, it has faithfully served as Mayor Cooper and the city's propaganda sheet, rather than simply serving the citizens and business community by showing up on time at public events and fairly and accurately reporting the facts about what was/is being said and happening in plain view of everyone.

Tonight I'll be in Hollywood at the Summit Towers condo candidate forum at 7 pm, which will feature Hollywood Mayoral and District 1 City Commission candidates.
That's at 1201 S. Ocean Drive, with overflow parking available at the nearby public parking lot on Azalea Terrace near the Hollywood Beach Community Center.

Hope to see some of you there! 

Inline image 1



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Monday, October 20, 2014

Ten days after story emerges about criminal allegations, why is South Florida's news media continuing to sleep on story about Hallandale Beach Comm/candidate Leo Grachow 2 weeks before election? Especially the South-Florida Sun Sentinel?

Last Friday I wrote this and it was 100% true at the time:



Here's an email I penned and sent on Sunday morning before the Dolphins-Bears game to a couple of hundred concerned people throughout Hallandale Beach, Broward County and South Florida.
That includes sending it to many members of the sleepwalking South Florida news media, who to their great dis-credit, are once again letting readers and viewers down two weeks before an election. Why?

 Sunday October 19, 2014

You know, you find the most-interesting things on the Internet when you spend a few minutes on a lazy Sunday morning trying to find out more information so you can make better sense of what you already do know.
And often you think of questions you hadn't thought to ask before.

For instance, how and why is it that TEN DAYS after the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's initial story ran online re criminal allegations against interim HB City Commissioner and candidate Leo Grachow being investigated by the BSO -a story that hours later was then pulled and wiped clean from their website- not a single new fact-based bit of information has emerged in the South Florida news media -print or electronic- to either support the initial allegations or discredit them?
(Original article at bottom)

With all the reporters available to work the story and the amazing technology around now to better help explain it to readers or viewers, how can it then be true that nobody in South Florida's press corps has reported ANYTHING new in ten days?
And how is it that the Sun-Sentinel, typically, instead of being open and transparent, is shooting themsleves in the foot and making themselves even more irrelevant than usual by remaining mum, and NOT explaning what they're doing or why they pulled the story from their website?
Well, consider where we live.

If this same story weeks before an important election that would determine the majority on the city commission had taken place in Coral Gables, Hialeah or in the City of Miami, it's likely there'd have been Miami Herald and Sun-Sentiel reporters sitting outside someone's home overnight, somebody from all four Miami-area English language TV stations already busy working the streets trying to ferret-out more info, while others worked the phones to try to come up with a new angle on the story and the individuals involved.
But because this story happened in Hallandale Beach, there's... nothing at all.


Not even so much as an explanation from the newspaper that started the whole ball rolling in the first place.
-----

Original story of October 9th, 2014:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/hallandale/fl-grachow-hallandale-sauna-20141009-story.html
Woman accuses Hallandale commissioner of indecent exposure in condo sauna
By Susannah Bryan,Sun Sentinel

The Broward State Attorney's Office is looking into an accusation of
indecent exposure that's been lodged against Commissioner Leo Grachow.

Grachow, who is running in a commission race against Keith London,
denies the claim that he had his pants down in a sauna at his condo
gym.

"She obviously thinks she saw something, but it wasn't me," Grachow
said of his accuser. "I could have been in the sauna. But I wasn't
doing what I've been accused of."

Alessandra Martinez, 27, says she and Grachow, 66, were the only ones
in the condo's gym shortly before 8 p.m. Aug. 14.

Martinez says she was on a mat doing crunches. Her back was to the
sauna, but she was facing a mirror. In the mirror, she says could see
Grachow standing close to the glass door inside the sauna, watching
her.

Suspicious, she says she got up after about five minutes and walked
toward a nearby water fountain to see what he was doing.

"His pants were down to his knees," she said. "I kind of freaked out and froze."

When a couple walked into the gym, Martinez said, she turned to tell
them what she'd seen and moments later noticed Grachow exiting the
gym.

Martinez, whose father is a Broward Sheriff's deputy and stepmother is
a Fort Lauderdale Police detective, says she called Hallandale Beach
Police that night to report the incident.

An officer came to the condo to take a report, but did not make an arrest.

When Martinez met with Sgt. Edward Diaz five days later, she says he
tried to talk her out of filing charges.

Hallandale spokesman Peter Dobens said the city had no comment on the
allegation or investigation.

Six weeks after incident, Hallandale Beach police turned the case over
to the Broward State Attorney's Office.

The Public Corruption Unit is now investigating the allegations, said
Ron Ishoy, spokesman for the State Attorney's Office.

"There's no merit or meat to this," said Marc Zee, an attorney
representing Grachow. "Sgt. Diaz said he was going to forward to the
State Attorney's Office because that's the policy. I'm pretty
confident they will decide not to file charges."

Martinez said Hallandale police have declined to give her a copy of
the police report despite repeated requests.

Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said it's
highly unusual for a police agency to withhold a report from an
alleged victim.

"Police departments routinely release police reports every day, unless
there is a confidential informant involved or if by releasing the
report you will compromise the investigation," Jarvis said. "As soon
as you write a police report, it's supposed to be public record."

After three requests from the Sun Sentinel for a copy of the police
report, Hallandale Beach City Attorney Lynn Whitfield emailed a copy
of the first page to the newspaper this week. The names of both
parties along with all other identifying information were blacked out.

The report gives the address of the condo, 200 Leslie Drive and lists
the allegation — indecent exposure.

"This criminal investigation is still active and under review by the
State Attorney's Office to determine whether or not any criminal
charges will be filed," Whitfield wrote.

The State Attorney's Office has declined three requests by the Sun
Sentinel for a copy of the report, citing the open investigation.
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