On the Joe Geller Watch! Florida state Rep. Joseph S. Geller's curious and unsavory behavior gets more noteworthy by the month. Today: rigging an election, and earning his title of "Corruptocrat Extraordinaire," coined by Stephanie Kienzle, @dwightyoakamfan

On the Joe Geller Watch! Florida state Rep. Joseph S. Geller's curious and unsavory behavior gets more noteworthy by the month. Today: rigging an election, and earning his title of "Corruptocrat Extraordinaire," coined by Stephanie Kienzle, @dwightyoakamfan  

August 26th, 2016

My savvy friend and fellow South Florida observer and blogger Stephanie Kienzle has a post today about FL state Rep. Joe Geller, who since his election to the state legislature in 2014 has represented southeast Broward County and parts of northeast Miami-Dade County.
But NOT very well in the estimation of most reasonable and objective people I talk to and hear from all around the area and up in Tallahassee, who've been carefully noting what 
Geller actually says and does, as opposed to what we would all probablyprefer he do.

You know, like leading by example?

In the year 2016, shouldn't residents of this area be able to count on someone who is an elected official, at a minimum, to NOT be so egregious about demonstrating his own remarkably consistent poor judgment in public and private with respect to ethics, propriety 
and, yes, public appearances?

Yes, we should, to answer my own question, but once again, Stephanie has news today about the latest Joe Geller antics, and as usual, it's NOT something positive for responsible people in our part of South Florida who believe in old-fashioned concepts and notions like public transparency, public accountability and fair play.

But as Stephanie cooly and accurately notes, "Who didn’t see this coming?"

Sadly, nobody who has ever taken a hard look at Joe Geller's sorry public track record.

For those of you who are new to the never-ending Joe Geller Watch, I've pasted below some past posts of Stephanie's about Geller since late last year for you to consider carefully. 

Taken individually or collectively, it all all adds up to yet more pieces of the unethical puzzle that fit the fact pattern that Geller clearly seems intent on creating for everyone to see.

Dave

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

Jason Bloch and Joe Geller team up in transparent attempt to rig an election. (Who didn’t see this coming?)

Aug.26,2016

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jason Bloch is so afraid of losing his cushy appointed-not-elected seat on the bench, he tried to have his opponent, Marcia Del Rey, eliminated from the race.
Just a few weeks before Tuesday’s upcoming election, Jason Bloch filed a lawsuit on August 10, 2016 “asking Judge Jerald Bagley to enjoin Del Rey from running in Tuesday’s judicial election after she allegedly filed incomplete financial disclosures in May,” according to an article posted yesterday in the Daily Business Review.
Judge Jerald Bagley bitched slapped Bloch and his lawyer, Joseph S. Geller, the sleazy, breezy CoverBoy of politi-corruption in Miami-Dade County.

Read more at:  http://www.votersopinion.com/2016/08/26/jason-bloch-and-joe-geller-team-up-in-transparent-attempt-to-rig-an-election-who-didnt-see-this-coming/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 3:12 PM
Subject: Franzie Watch: Sneaky Pierre and Sleazy Joe, doin’ what comes naturally

Franzie Watch: Sneaky Pierre and Sleazy Joe, doin’ what comes naturally

Apr.27, 2016
The day North Miami Beach faux-councilman Frantz Pierre and corrupt lawyer-slash-politican Joe Geller joined forces, it was a match made in heaven.
Or, I should say, in hell.
The lawsuit engineered by Frantz to take over the Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church is now in the hands of the Third District Court of Appeal.  Pending the determination of that appeal, in the form of a Petition for Writ of Prohibition filed by the Defendants, the lower court granted the Defendants an Emergency Stay of its previous Order granting the Plaintiffs a Temporary Injunction.

Read more at:  http://www.votersopinion.com/2016/04/27/franzie-watch-sneaky-pierre-and-sleazy-joe-doin-what-comes-naturally/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 12:23 PM
Subject: Copy that!

Copy that!

Apr.22, 2016
The latest issue of Le Floridien is now online, including an article about the North Miami Beach absentee ballot fraud lawsuit filed by Michael Joseph against Phyllis Smith.
In Michael Joseph Absentee Ballot Fraud Case Moving Forward; Dismissal Denied,  Le Floridien reported:

On September 21, 2015, Phillis Smith’s lawyer Joe Geller scheduled an October 6, 2015 hearing for his Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that plaintiff Michael Joseph failed to name the North Miami Beach Canvassing Board as an “indispensable party” to the lawsuit. This bogus claim was an obvious distraction to stall for time. In response, the plaintiff noted that the complaint already named the individual members of the Canvassing Board as defendants, and that “there is no statute or relevant case law” that naming the individual members, “carries any less weight than naming them collectively” as a body.

Hmmm.  That sure sounds familiar.

Read more at:  http://www.votersopinion.com/2016/04/22/copy-that/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 3:03 PM
Subject: Memo to Tallahassee #HouseClown Joe Geller: Time’s up!

Memo to Tallahassee #HouseClown Joe Geller: Time’s up!

Apr. 3, 2016
If you’re one of Joseph S. Geller’s constituents who aren’t happy that he voted FOR the right to openly carry firearms on college campuses you’ll be even more upset with his 2015 voting record.
In addition to his February 3, 2016 “yea” vote on House Bill 4001, which he claims was an accident, he made two intentional, and highly questionable, decisions during last year’s regular legislative session.
On April 24, 2015, Representative Joe Geller voted AGAINST Senate Bill 604, which requires the owners of websites to “clearly disclose” their contact information to consumers.
Apparently, Joe believes protecting the privacy of internet scammers is more important than protecting the public from fraud.
But that’s not the worst of it!

Read more at:  http://www.votersopinion.com/2016/04/03/memo-to-tallahassee-houseclown-joe-geller-times-up/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 7:56 PM
Subject: #HouseGenius. Oh, Joe. Say it isn’t so!

#HouseGenius. Oh, Joe. Say it isn’t so!

Feb. 6, 2016

Photo: Trevor Bach, Broward/Palm Beach New Times

Attorney Joseph S. Geller wants to be the City Attorney for North Miami.
Florida State Representative Joseph S. Geller can’t even figure out how to vote on the House floor.
The Miami Herald Naked Politics reported that on Wednesday State Representative Joe Geller accidentally voted “yes” on the very bill he “railed against” the night before.
He also cast a “yes” vote for his seatmate, Orlando Democrat Randolph Bracy, on a bill that will allow open carry on college campuses.  The bill passed overwhelmingly in the House, but is expected to be voted down in the Senate.
Read more at:  http://www.votersopinion.com/2016/02/06/housegenius-oh-joe-say-it-isnt-so/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 3:35 PM
Subject: Joe Geller: Lawyer, Politician, Corruptocrat Extraordinaire

Joe Geller: Lawyer, Politician, Corruptocrat Extraordinaire

Jan.11, 2016

When is a law firm not a law firm?

Apparently, it all depends on Joseph S. Geller’s definition of the word “is.”

Joe’s been scurrying around North Miami City Hall like a rat, trying to snag the position of City Attorney for his firm, Greenspoon Marder.  He’s made it perfectly clear that despite his continuous duties in Tallahassee as a Florida State Representative, his firm is chock full of lawyers who would be at the disposal of the Mayor and Council around the clock.

And yet, when it comes to defending North Miami Beach “Councilwoman” Phyllis Smith against an absentee ballot fraud lawsuit, Joe claims to be a lone wolf.

Consider the irony.

Read more at:  http://www.votersopinion.com/2016/01/11/joe-geller-lawyer-politician-corruptocrat-extraordinaire/

#SoFL - Rare win for govt #ethics! .@dwightyoakamfan on #NorthMiami's vote to torpedo Joe Geller & #GreenspoonMarder https://t.co/kV2JikhAdH

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 25, 2015

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/sofl-rare-win-for-govt-ethics.html

#SoFL - Just posted some quick personal context re #NorthMiami on my blog to complement @dwightyoakamfan's tweet: https://t.co/lkje4TdSk5

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 25, 2015

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 9:40 PM
Subject: Phyllis Smith and Joe Geller, Two Peas in a Pod!

Phyllis Smith and Joe Geller, Two Peas in a Pod!

Nov. 4, 2015

North Miami Beach “Councilwoman” Phyllis Smith and her lawyer, Joe Geller, make quite the pair.

Phyllis hired Joe to defend her against a lawsuit filed by her challenger in the last city council election.  Michael Joseph is contesting the results of the race based on very credible evidence indicating that Phyllis engaged in absentee ballot fraud.

As we are all too painfully aware, the wheels of justice in Miami-Dade County move slowly, especially when members of the politically connected class are forced to defend themselves.  Whether politicos are facing criminal charges, as in the case of North Miami Beach EX-Mayor Myron Rosner, or responding to civil charges, as in Phyllis Smith’s case, time seems to stand still for them.

No such luck for plebes like the rest of us, who could never afford to hire the likes of Ben Kuehne and friends.

Read more at:  http://www.votersopinion.com/2015/11/04/phyllis-smith-and-joe-geller-two-peas-in-a-pod/

ICYMI: #Ethics still matter to some of us in #SoFL - @dwightyoakamfan on the CURIOUS antics of state Rep. Joe Geller https://t.co/gSLwf4yJMm

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) October 1, 2015

SEPTEMBER 17, 2015 
#Ethics still matter in South Florida! Stephanie Kienzle of Votersopinion.com keeps her eyes firmly on what's going on with the VERY CURIOUS legal antics of FL state Rep. Joe Geller, even as most of South Florida's news media keeps ignoring what's right in front of us.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/ethics-still-matter-in-south-florida.html

#SoFL - Rare win for govt #ethics! .@dwightyoakamfan on North Miami's vote to torpedo #FL state Rep. Joseph S. Geller & Greenspoon Marder. Stephanie Kienzle connect-the-dots yet again, this time on what was really at stake for the public of North Miami.

#SoFL - Rare win for govt #ethics! .@dwightyoakamfan on #NorthMiami's vote to torpedo Joe Geller & #GreenspoonMarder https://t.co/kV2JikhAdH

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 25, 2015

http://www.votersopinion.com/2015/11/25/city-attorney-decision-north-miami-1-lobbyists-0/

For once, I have a blog post today that hardly needs any additional commentary or useful context from yours truly, because it's written with such care and concern by my friend, Stephanie 
Kienzle, who says everything that needs to be said -and more- about what was really at risk recently to the long-beleaguered citizenry of North Miami.
Specifically, in the way of lobbyists taking over more territory at yet one more City Hall in South Florida, and one lobbyist in particular, Evan Ross.

North Miami is a place I know intimately from growing up in next-door North Miami Beach from 1968-1979, when North Miami was not only home to some of my favorite people and place -and my barbers, the fabulous Spinelli Brothers, who used to cut my hair at their sports and show-biz memorabilia-filled shop on West Dixie Highway in the 1970's, when they still had many famous sports and show business clients who would always visit them when in Miami for a personal or business trip.
People whose faces and names you would instantly recognize today. 

(The Spinelli Brothers were even kind enough to sponsor me for Optimist football, even though I played for North Miami Beach Optimist, not North Miami, but they still received one of those very large sponsor photos of me in my uniform anyway in exhange for a donation to NMB Optimist. They hung the photo up in their shop, and trust me, when I walked in there with my Dad, it was always one of the first things I checked out upon entering, to make sure it still had its prime location!) 

North Miami was also home to some of the best though sadly, no-longer extant restaurants in all of South Florida, including Marcella's, on West Dixie Highway and N.E. 138th Street, with their legendary lip-smacking garlic rolls and amazing food smells that made both kids and adults salivate like crazy while you waited to get a table in a place that was almost always packed with happy customers.



Of course, North Miami is also home to the North Miami HS Pioneers were also the arch-rival of my school, the North Miami Beach HS Chargers, and thus the combatants in what was then an often bitter rivalry that split families, since until NMB opened in the early 1970's, North Miami High was the most northern public high school in NE Dade County.

I was personally eyewitness to many epic and hard-fought battles (and screaming matches) between fans over the years in soccer, football, basketball and even Girls gymnastics, in the years when I was the NMB Gymnastics team manager and the PA announcer for home meets, when NMB was far-and-away the best team in Florida, and had many hundreds of people attend our home meets.
We capped that my senior year by winning yet another GMAC County title, as well as a state title for our beloved coach -and amazing AP Science teacher- Pete Saponaro
That state championship was one we hosted in NMB, with me handling all the travel planning and logistics for all the invited teams from around the state, as well as media czar for the media that covered the meet. 

But even that had a North Miami angle.
"Sap" himself was a North Miami High grad before leaving for Penn State, where he was an All-American and co-captain one of the years that Penn State was the NCAA Mens Champion.

Before I was a Hoosier, I was an NMB Charger, Class of 1979.

My last blog post on the antics and activities of Florida state Rep. Joseph S. Geller was just over two months ago, on September 17th, in a post I titled, 
#Ethics still matter in South Florida! Stephanie Kienzle of Votersopinion.com keeps her eyes firmly on what's going on with the VERY CURIOUS legal antics of FL state Rep. Joe Geller, even as most of South Florida's news media keeps ignoring what's right in front of us.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/ethics-still-matter-in-south-florida.html

#Ethics still matter in South Florida! Stephanie Kienzle of Votersopinion.com keeps her eyes firmly on what's going on with the VERY CURIOUS legal antics of FL state Rep. Joe Geller, even as most of South Florida's news media keeps ignoring what's right in front of us.

According to ever-vigilant Stephanie Kienzle at VotersOpinion despite what appears to be his obviously unethical -and possibly illegal- delay tactics, it looks like Florida state Rep. Joe Geller is going have to face the music for lying to the Courts in Miami.

Geller certainly plays a mean game of four-corners defense to try to run the clock out, but then consider Geller's client: North Miami Beach City Council member Phyliss Smith, who is accused of... wait for it: absentee ballot fraud!

And it's abundantly clear that she has considerably less than a fig-leaf for a defense.

And did I mention that she refused a court order to turn over relevant records?

Is the Fat Lady about to sing? http://t.co/MkSWKYpnyo http://t.co/0Li01kaG1Z

— Stephanie Kienzle (@dwightyoakamfan) September 17, 2015

VotersOpinion blog

September 17, 2015

Despite the obviously unethical, and possibly illegal, delay tactics employed by Joseph S. Geller, Esquire, the lawsuit filed against North Miami Beach “Councilwoman” Phyllis Smith is finally moving ahead.  In a few short days, she’ll be compelled to answer the allegations of absentee ballot fraud.

Read the rest of Stephanie's fact-filled post at: http://www.votersopinion.com/2015/09/17/is-the-fat-lady-about-to-sing/

Some of you more informed readers will recall that earlier this year while wearing his legislator hat, Joe Geller tried to make logic stand on its head by offering a bill that would, as the legislature's own website put it:

"Repeals requirement that write-in candidate reside within district represented by office sought at time of qualification."

Who could possibly think this is a good idea for civic engagement, public accountability and genuine transparency? 

Joe Geller did. 

Fortunately, the bill died:

http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=54025

(For those of you reading this who don't know, Joseph S. Geller is also the former mayor of the long ethically-challenged town of North Bay Village in northern Miami-Dade County, and more recently was elected to the state House of Representatives last November as a dependable knee-jerk Liberal vote.

Thus, Geller represents those parts of southeast Broward County that are the most important parts of our "beat" on this blog: Hallandale Beach and Hollywood, and necessarily, Geller's various actions and antics in Tallahasse and locally are part of our regular focus.

Yes, he's the brother of the former state Senator for this area, lobbyist/lawyer/developer mouthpiece Steve Geller, who was the frequent subject of so many posts on this blog in the past, including when he ran for Broward County Commissioner in 2010 -BEFORE actually living within the district. 

Fortunately for everyone in this area, and common sense, his track record in office and strange sense of what he as a lawyer/lobbyist was entitled to do was found wanting, and Commissioner Sue Gunzburger was handily re-elected, with stronger ethics in Broward one of her key legacies.) 

Kudos to my friend, truth-telling Stephanie for keeping her eyes firmly on the ball while most of the South Florida news media seems to be too distracted and giddy from the return of the football season to notice that there ARE still a LOT of very unsavory things going on with pols in South Florida 

and the Sunshine State that ARE worth investigating and making public.

And worth prosecuting!

Tomorrow on my blog I'll have some interesting details and background info you may want to peruse regarding another case of an official in power in South Florida whose track record makes clear that he is an unrepentant serial abuser of the public trust.

Despite this, he remains both surprisingly aloof and intent on maintaining his very clear sense of entitlement, despite self-evident facts that would make others in his position resign out of either sheer guilt or embarrassment.

Or both!

But he remains steadfast and without remorse, making decisions that affect lots of South Florida residents everyday.

Such is the price we all pay for living in an area of the country where to our collective and continuing dismay, we have FAR MORE than our fair share of elected officials and govt. officials with more self-confidence and hubris than common sense.

Stay tuned!

Dave

Twitter: @hbbtruth,https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

More from Local10's Bob Norrman on the epidemic in Broward County of elected officials living outside districts they represent, contrary to the FL Constitution; FL state Senator Jack Latvala, Chair of Senate's Ethics & Elections Comm., will NOT tolerate this blatant corruption and wants investigations launched into these illegal actions right now!; And let's not forget FL state Rep. Joe Gibbons' strange views on raising a family -putting an elective office ABOVE living full-time with your own kids!

Local10 video: Senator calls for criminal investigation of elected officials' residencies

Perry Thurston, Jared Moskowitz, Maria Sachs appear to live outside districts they represent

Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com

Published On: Jul 10 2013 02:42:24 PM EDT

Updated On: Jul 10 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT

http://www.local10.com/news/criminal-investigation-wanted-for-elected-officials-living-outside-districts/-/1717324/20920552/-/vlbctmz/-/index.html

-----

More from Local10 investigative reporter Bob Norrman on the epidemic in Broward County of elected officials living outside districts they represent, contrary to the FL Constitution; FL state Senator Jack Latvala, Chair of Senate's Ethics & Elections Comm. -and a recent recipient of my emails about whats' really going on in Hallandale Beach- will NOT tolerate this blatant corruption and wants investigations launched into these illegal actions right now!; And let's not forget FL state Rep. Joe Gibbons' strange views on raising a family -putting an elective office ABOVE living full-time with your own kids!

Updated at 2:45 p.m.

This is but the latest chapter of several sordid chapters in the serial criminal misrepresentation I have written about here at HBB over the past year or so on candidates and elected officials who do NOT live in the legislative districts they want to represent or do currently represent.

But somehow, the pols involved can never answer a simple question face-to-face, "Why do you refuse to live with the very citizens you say you want to represent?"

This longtime scandal has been exposed in a major way over the past few months thanks to the diligent hard work and resourcefulness of Local10's Bob Norman, Tom Lauder of Media Trackers Florida -who is also Red Broward- and my friend Stephanie Kienzle of VotersOpinion.com, the very enthusiastic blog that covers the Northeast Miami-Dade cities of North Miami Beach and North Miami -a.k.a. my old 'stomping grounds' for those of you out there who remember the wonderfully delicious days of Figaro's Pizza and the Lum's on N.E. 167th Street in NMB, and Marcella's Italian Restaurant on W. Dixie Highway in North Miami..

My last two blog posts on this sore subject, full of facts and videos, were:

JULY 5, 2013 
More on Broward County politicians' residency ruse: Is intentionally violating & evading the Florida Constitution 'the new normal' for ethical standards in the Sunshine State? Latest facts & chronology regarding at least 5 Florida legislators from Broward -and one Broward Commissioner- who DON'T live full-time in the districts they were elected to represent
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/more-on-broward-county-politicians.html

JULY 2, 2013

Is Kristin Jacobs poised to become 'the last straw' and the cynical face for voters of the ever-expanding Broward candidate residency scandal? Yet MORE residency problems in Broward County per Media Tracker Florida: Jacobs wants to run for FL House 96 while living in House 93, even while convincing evidence suggests that at least 5 current members of the Broward Legislative Delegation may be knowingly breaking state law, practically daring Broward State's Attorney Mike Satz & Co. to actually do something; Videos by Local10 investigative reporter Bob Norman show he's NOT afraid to go after South Florida's unethical pols and ask the hard questions

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/is-kristin-jacobs-poised-to-become-last.html

@JackLatvala wants @FLGovScott & @willweatherford to get to bottom of dubious residency claims by @MariaSachs & Co http://t.co/jLTVNMS7T5
— MediaTrackersFL (@MediaTrackersFL) July 11, 2013

The three of them have been positively ingenious and patient about observing our local pols and pol-wannabe's in their natural state of obfuscation and mis-representation, and in Stephanie's case, highlighting the almost-comical situation where a woman who lives in Miramar in Broward County, wanted to run for City Commission in North Miami Beach in Miami-Dade County, and who almost got away with it if not for Stephanie's dedicated zeal to prevent yet another repeat of what the video up top represents.

Correct, as if they were all just running At-Large from South Florida

Speaking of being At-Large, I realized last night that in my many previous posts about FL state Rep. Joe Gibbons and his very questionable residency situation, which for so many years, to my great, great frustration, only Bob Norman and myself seemed to care a whit about, I neglected to include a link to a short-but-pithy post I'd written on him last year that dealt publicly with his very strange family living situation, which he prefers not to talk about publicly because of how selfish and self-serving he comes out in the tale.

It's my June 17, 2012 post titled, Today, on Father's Day, where are FL Rep. Joseph "Joe" Gibbons' children celebrating with him? Likely up in the Jacksonville area where they all live, NOT in Broward County where he pretends he lives full-time

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/today-on-fathers-day-where-are-fl-rep.html

By the way, now that I think about it, WTF, Channel 10? 

How is it that Channel 10 is NOT tweeting these video reports of gold by Bob Norman on their own Twitter feed while tweeting all sorts of the usual blather we associate with TV station twitter feed product?

The only reference to Bob Norman's Wednesday's story on Twitter with his name attached was by a citizen from FTL named Marcelo Medina, but who didn't include the Channel 10 link to the story.

@wplglocal10 Congratulations for the investigation about the representatives living in different counties...great job #Bob Norman
— Marcelo Medina (@mmarcelomedi) July 11, 2013

and then this today...

Hey Bob Norman--You missed Joe Gibbons !!--http://t.co/NN1vbTX8tf
— Broward Bugle (@BrowardBugle) July 12, 2013

I don't blame the Fort Lauderdale resident, whom I'd never heard of, and who doesn't appear to be a member of Broward's massive Govt./Politics/Lobbying Industrial Complex, instead I blame the management and staff at Channel 10 who clearly aren't paying more attention to what's right in front of them that's captured everyone's attention, since most reasonable people, regardless of ideology, think it's NOT too much to ask that people running for elective office actually live where the voters do.

The station needs to actually start thinking outside-the-box, and by the way, is there not a single intern at the station who could be doing that necessary tweeting?

(I've written about this previously on the blog but that was a while back, so for you more recent readers here's a story about me and Channel 10

Many years ago, 1981 to be exact, I was supposed to be a summer intern at Channel 10 while home for the summer from IU, back when their studios were still down on Biscayne Blvd. and N.E. 39th Street. 

Long story short: despite earning the job thru a great cover letter and excellent follow-up interview at the station, the Chair of the Telecommunications Dept. at IU would NOT allow me to accept the position because he said the Dept. needed all their students who were Seniors-to-be to get gigs like that, not Juniors-to-be like me.

I explained to them that while I understood their position, not only was Channel 10 the top-ranked TV news station in Florida, but that it was a Post-Newsweek station, which meant that if I did a very good job, it might help me nab an internship the following summer in D.C., either at the Washington Post or Newsweek magazine's D.C. HQ

And besides, there were no other IU students who were Juniors seeking the job, just me, and I was the only person the station's Personnel Director wanted for the job.

But it didn't matter. What opportunity giveth, IU tookth away. #stillangry)

Obviously, I haven't spoken to Bob Norman about it so have no idea if he'd even be interested, but why is there no discussion at all of the idea of giving him his own half-hour TV show on the weekends that deal with the intersection of Broward government and politics, with reporters, columnists and bloggers on as guests, but with elected officials, lobbyists, sycophants and PR apple polishers not regularly allowed on the show?

A show that would deal with larger issues like ethics and why smart policies and certain issues are not given the time of day, while bad ideas like The Wave streetcar in Fort Lauderdale, a boondoggle in the waiting, DO get approved, despite the facts staring at the City of Fort Lauderdale -their residents don't want it.

But the downtown Fort Lauderdale business crowd does want it, for perfectly selfish reasons, even though there's nothing to do downtown during the day save the Art Museum, as I will be writing about this weekend.

Yes, something very much along the lines of the weekly DC Politics Hour show that I have written about here previously, one of the things that I desperately missed once coming back to South Florida, even though I could hear it online.

(It just wasn't the same once I got out of The Beltway and could anticipate the stories they'd be talking about and already knew the context for the ones that did come up.) 

Much of Greater Washington listened to it religiously every Friday at Noon on WAMU-FM, the NPR station at American University that was the talk/public policy center of the radio universe in D.C., with co-hosts Derek McGinty and Mark Plotkin and then Kojo Nmadi after Derek left for CBS-TV in 1998 after doing some excellent freelance reporting work with Bryant Gumbel on cable.

And to make a good thing better, they'd have the Maryland or Virginia Politics Hour once a month in the second hour at 1 p.m., and often had the governor on to take calls from listeners that were anything-but-friendly and who'd level the governor under a tsunami of logical facts that the guest reporters from Annapolis, Charlottesville, Baltimore, Richmond or the Wash. Post  beat reporters of the state capitol couldn't do anything but sit back and watch the fun.

To quote myself, there's NOTHING even remotely like that anywhere in South Florida on Tv or radio.

It was great, and it's not just that everyone I knew, plus official Washington, listened to that show, but how from even a pure numbers point-of-view, it was the only real competition that the Rush Limbaugh Show on AM talk powerhouse WMAL ever had in the Washington market at noon.

It was fun, informative and there was always something interesting or perplexing that you heard that left you excited, puzzled or even downright scared at who was actually representing you in government as the weekend approached.

As if the retro Soviet-style bureaucracy at Arlington County HQ that looked upon citizen taxpayers like me as as, alternately, cash cows or guinea pigs, wasn't bad enough!

In those pre-Internet, pre-blog days, that radio show was the best forum in all of Greater Washington for regularly zeroing-in on all the mountains of unsatisfactory performances and illegal and ethically-troubling behavior going on by city, county and state officials, which kept the jails busy.

If I were the News Director at Channel 10, I'd do that ASAP and have it ready to roll come September, especially since there are hours and hours and hours of nothing but infomercials on Channel 10 after Noon on Saturday and Sundays, which I find pretty embarrassing, frankly.

Obviously that completely changes for Saturdays once college football season starts up late next month so why not have such a needed program at 10 a.m. on Sundays as the lead-in to This Week With George Stephanopoulos, followed-up by Michael Putney with his excellent This Week in South Florida?
A nice two-hour bloc of serious news in an area that is literally starving for more serious news coverage and analysis.

-----
Sen. Jack Latvala's webpage on Florida Senate website:
http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/s20

As you can see from the video above, Sen. Latvala's already shown he's more than a little upset and is keen on getting the ball moving rapidly towards formal investigations and prosecutions, but let him know that you, too, are fed-up and won't tolerate any more of the despicable business-as-usual/wink-wink attitude in South Florida of the Florida Constitution.
You can reach him at "Latvala, Sen. Jack"  <latvala.jack.web@flsenate.gov>

Calling all Carpetbaggers! Repeat after me, "Requirements, what residency requirements?" Carpetbaggers in South Florida have it easy compared to their cousins in Calif. due to the lack of serious reporters here, but in both places, carpetbagging and ethnic identity politics often go hand-in-hand; LA Times: "Does this man live in San Gabriel or not? A residency challenge prompts council members to hold their own hearing -with sworn witnesses- to decide if the No. 2 vote-getter should be seated"; Is that a preview of things to come in North Miami Beach, where a Miramar resident named Dargenson is running for NMB City Commission, and thinks she'll win -largely because she's Haitian-American?

Calling all Carpetbaggers! Repeat after me, "Requirements, what residency requirements?" Carpetbaggers in South Florida have it easy compared to their cousins in Calif., but in both places, carpetbagging and ethnic identity politics often go hand-in-hand; LA Times: "Does this man live in San Gabriel or not? A residency challenge prompts council members to hold their own hearing -with sworn witnesses- to decide if the No. 2 vote-getter should be seated"; Is that a preview of things to come in North Miami Beach, where a Miramar resident is running for NMB City Commission and thinks she'll win -largely because she's Haitian-American?

If you ask me, it's too bad for South Florida's continually-beleaguered citizenry that FL state House Reps Frank Artiles, Joe Gibbons and Perry Thurston and FL state Senator Maria Sachs have never been forced by the powers-that-be in Tallahassee to publicly explain themselves and their very curious living situations.
Under oath 
In public.

Unlike Council candidate Chin Ho Liao in San Gabriel, CA, who was actually elected but not seated.

Oh, the great questions we'd all have all loved to have peppered our local political miscreants under oath with!

Speaking of carpetbaggers, if you haven't already been reading what straight-talking blogger Stephanie Kienzle has been saying with real vigor and much-deserved anger the past few weeks about North Miami Beach's faux City Commission candidate, Yvenoline “Yves” Dargenson -a woman who lives in Miramar, i.e. Broward County!- please do yourself a big favor and do so today via her blog, http://www.votersopinion.com/

You won't regret it because Stephanie gives you a very clear look at the corruption and illegality that passes for "normal" in South Florida politics and government these days, where far too many candidates and elected officials can seemingly break clear-cut rules about their prescribed conduct and behavior with relative impunity.

And the existing legal institutions that are supposed to keep people within the clearly-defined parameters of the law, instead, seem content to just shrug their shoulders and to let THEM dictate what the rules are to the public, putting everything upside-down.

Dargenson is the Broward County resident who running for a City Commission seat in a Miami-Dade city, and to both Stephanie and myself, she's someone who has a lot to to answer for publicly after the M-D Supervisor of Elections ruled that she lives in the City of Miramar.

But but based on what I'm hearing and reading, a Miami-Dade judge, Darrin P. Gayles, did
what M-D circuit court judges have been doing a lot of ever since my family first moved to Miami in 1968 -making bad decisions for the community and letting guilty parties walk.
Or, in this case with Dargenson, run for office in a county she does NOT live in.
No, it seems to have very little to do with upholding the state's laws or with getting justice for NMB's voters, to say nothing of actually adhering to Florida's Constitution.

Even more than usual, Stephanie has lots of great nuggets in her recent blog posts about the longstanding culture of corruption in NMB and North Miami, and actually makes the case that it's actually threatening to grow exponentially in NMB as a result of all the unethical goings-on in next-door North Miami that local and state law enforcement have been ignoring.

Ignoring it, it seems to me, in part at least, because so many of the people engaging in this
unethical political behavior in Northeast Dade are Haitian-Americans, a rapidly-growing voter bloc now compared to Non-Hispanic Whites in Miami-Dade County, and a demographic that is courted by candidates in ways that were not imaginable even thirty years ago, just a few years after I graduated from NMB High School, followed three years later bv my sister.

Perhaps nobody exemplified this cultural change as much as North Miami's oft-charged but never-convicted-thus-far incumbent mayor, Andre Pierre, though there are others on both sides of the border who are nearly as brazen.

Seriously, did you really expect the political crooks and their cronies in NMB not to notice the fact that nobody was being prosecuted in North Miami for what they do, no matter how self-evident?

Out in San Gabriel, California, you have the cancers of ethnic identity politics and carpetbagging at work, but with a Chinese-American patina, and a town that wants to go old-style New England and make the person accused of wrong-doing convince them that they have not broken the spirit and letter of the law.

Meanwhile in North Miami and North Miami Beach you just have... oh, right -the same things, just with Haitian-Americanss, instead.

Plus, thinly-disguised Black racism and grievance politics as both the facts-on-the-ground and reader comments to this piece make clear.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/04/3380678/north-miamis-upcoming-city-elections.html

Los Angeles Times

San Gabriel council deems itself judge over election results

By Frank Shyong, Los Angeles Times

April 27, 2013, 8:45 p.m.

San Gabriel Councilman-elect Chin Ho Liao was the second highest vote-getter in the city's March elections, but his first time on the council dais last week was as a witness under cross-examination.

The City Council voted not to seat Liao after resident Fred Paine filed a complaint alleging that Liao's true residence is outside of the city's borders. Though Liao has filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court to contest the council's vote, the city has also created its own hearing process to determine Liao's residency.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0428-san-gabriel-20130428,0,4091862.story

I can't help but wonder if this is what the good residents of North Miami Beach can look forward to dealing with in the coming weeks if a sufficient number of Haitian-American voters there are prepared to simply cast common sense and the facts aside, and vote for a woman who doesn't even live in their city, simply because Dargenson is Haitian-American, too.

Well, it's not like local Miami TV stations have spent any real time covering what's been going on there, now is it?
No, today, two days before the May 7th election, CBS4, NBC6, 7News and Local10 are all guilty of NOT doing a single story on Yvenoline Dargenson.

Seriously, given what this woman is attempting to do by blowing a hole in even the most basic requirement for candidate eligibility, how can that be so?
How can every single English-language TV station news operation in Miami just ignore this?
That, my friends, is the low level to which South Florida journalism has sunk to -a complete lack of curiosity.

It's as if they're waiting for her to win before covering it, no?

For more on the very curious and perhaps even unethical living arrangements of FL House Reps Gibbons and Thurston and FL state Senator Sachs, please see an archive of Tom Lauder's recent pieces on residency requirements at Florida Media Trackers

http://florida.mediatrackers.org/author/toml/

It makes for interesting reading, and the fact that the Broward County Property Appraiser's Office has gotten involved so many times in these cases -esp. with Gibbbons, who clearly didn't comply with the law- only shows how egregious the lack of serious reporting on this subject has been in South Florida over the years.
These pols have positively dared reporters to say what is right in front of us.

I'm sorry to say it, but it also appears from the all the available evidence that some local African-American reporters, columnists and editors down here have been very easy on both Gibbons and Thurston for reasons that have nothing to do with journalism, but everything to do with either shared political ideology or friendship.
(Whatever happened to the proscribed arms-length relationship between reporters and subjects?)

I've commented on it here before, because otherwise, how do you reasonably explain the fact that the Sun-Sentinel's Douglas Lyons has scrupulously avoided mentioning this obvious residency issue for years, despite how often he has mentioned Thurston and Gibbons, quoted them and interviewed them?
What is his excuse, anyway?

Trust me, despite whatever it says on their resumes, Lyons and other reporters at the Sun-Sentinel and the Herald  don't think they have to answer to readers, and I know about him because I've given him plenty of opportunities over the past few years and all he's done is nothing but sit there like a bump on a log.
That's who he is, you shouldn't count on suddenly getting any candor from him that you can have any faith in.
Lyons considers his refusal to ask reasonable questions, esp. of them, a dead issue.

Just another reason that I hope the Sun-Sentinel is sold very soon and that there's a great house-cleaning/bloodletting there to make that newspaper something it hasn't been in years -relevant and worth reading.