Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens & taxpayers have a good day at meeting of Oversight Comm. of Broward's Inspector General, uniformly great actually, as Mayor Cooper's efforts at obfuscation and misdirection fall flat and backfire. Her name ends up being the one most-cited over two hours -and NOT in a good way. It was delicious!

From the p.o.v. of Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens & taxpayers, Friday morning's crucial meeting in downtown Fort Lauderdale of the Oversight Comm. of Broward's Inspector General was uniformly great, even when HB CRA Attorney Steven W. Zelkowitz spoke, since it's what Zelkowitz didn't say or couldn't admit -and that WAS mentioned by my friend and former HB Commissioner Keith London and myself- that was most telling.

Along with the comments of the Oversight Comm. members themselves and IG John Scott and his Chief Counsel, in what was the most open and fairly-run meeting I've ever been to in South Florida the past ten years.

(HB CRA Director Rosemond was also present, but did not speak publicly.)

Even though absent from the proceedings, Hallandale Beach's obnoxious, thin-skinned and anti-democratic mayor Joy Cooper was the Broward pol whose name was mentioned MOST

over a period of about two hours -and not in a good way!

Just like the name "Hallandale Beach" was repeatedly used as an example of what NOT to do in these things.

And all the negative things that were mentioned all came under the reign of Mayor Cooper.

I especially love the idea that it came out during CRA Attorney Zelkowitz's comments that Mayor Cooper sent the Oversight Comm. a letter re the Broward IG.

But guess who Mayor Cooper DIDN'T send a copy of her THREE-PAGE letter to.

Yes, the IG's Office.

When I spoke, I told everyone present that this was no mere oversight, it was entirely intentional by her, and that the mayor wanted the IG and his staff to be blindsided by it at the meeting.

Instead, though, Mayor Cooper's self-serving stunt completely backfired on her.

Not that much of the South Florida news media actually bothered to show-up to the Broward County Govt. Bldg. to report on what transpired, which was entirely in keeping with how things have been down here for years, as the Sun-Sentinel still has NOT mentioned the HB CRA scandal in an editorial, six months after the IG's inch-and-a-half thick Final Report alleging and proving "gross mismanagement" was released.

But your faithful blogger was there, and did I ever get a wheelbarrow's worth of facts and nuggets to share!

It was also NOT a good day for the anti-IG Broward League of Cities and their hardcore and permanent crew of longtime apologists and paid consultants throughout the county, who continue to want to allow themselves the freedom to continue to misrepresent what's really going on with ethics in this county and what the IG's Office is doing, but also continue using municipal taxpayer dollars to pay attorneys to tell them  what exactly they want to hear, instead of simply following the spirit and letter of the law.

Or as one of the learned members of the Oversight Comm. put it, it seems like Broward cities love using taxpayer dollars to "shield" themselves, but there's no reason for that to continue any longer.

(So, remind me again why South Florida's news media refuses to go after the Broward League of Cities and ask for meaningful transparency from them on how much they receive every year in taxpayer money from each and every Broward city, and show  from any of the many examples they could choose, just how that money is continually used in ways that are fundamentally against the best long-term interests of their own citizens, and rather FOR the benefit of career politicians, including lobbying against their own citizens? Oh, right. 

The South Florida news media doesn't want to do that.)

More details on all this will be coming out in the coming days on the blog, along with photos and video on Monday and Tuesday, including answering the question of who the unexpected people were who showed-up with Mayor Cooper when she twice had to testify under oath and answer questions from the IG's office over the past year.

The answers to that surprised members of the the Committee and left some of them -and most of the audience, even the Broward League of Cities types- shaking their heads in bewilderment at Mayor Cooper's efforts to deny, deny, deny.

In retrospect, I could NOT have scripted it better myself from the point of view of frustrated HB citizens FINALLY getting some highly-relevant and meaningful and provable facts out in the open for everyone to know, esp. among such well-known people as those on the committee.

And, of course, into the record!

If only members of the JLAC in Tallahassee could have been there to hear some of the damning testimony, and litany of inconvenient facts concerning HB's CRA and the invisible oversight of its millions by Mayor Cooper and her loyal  Rubber Stamp Crew, suddenly being uttered aloud.

C'est al vie...

But next week some time, I will send them some excerpts of what was said and let's see them try to ignore the stone cold facts uttered by people who know them like the Inspector General knows them.

The proof is in the pudding, and the case has never been more stronger that JLAC needs to come thru for citizens in our city so we can finally find out where the $80 MIllion has gone the past 10 years.

More troubling news re the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal and the curious conduct of Mayor Joy Cooper re FL's Sunshine Laws and public records, which further makes the case for why we need the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) to get involved and perform a thorough audit of the HB CRA ASAP

Above and below, looking north on south-bound U.S.-1/South Federal Highway towards Hallandale Beach City Hall, July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Taken within the context of a sweltering South Florida summer -above via a heat map photo- that's often robbed us of our desire to live in South Florida full-time, or at least get into our car any time after its been sitting in a parking lot under a brutal and unforgiving sun for hours on end, for fear of our skin melting, and literally having the life sucked out of us after opening the door, today is a real red letter day at the blog.

The reason for that is that we have some genuine positive news to share with you all courtesy of Tom Lauder that actually advances the narrative that is the continuing drip-drip-drip scandal of the Hallandale Beach CRA, and what has gone on in this city the past ten years.

Not just the public policy scandal of all the wasted time and squandered opportunities to actually do the right thing in this city to actually eliminate blight and improve the area economically in a way that's actually tangible, which is a scandal of sorts, of course, but the larger financial one that directly led to millions of dollars going out the door with near-zero scrutiny and oversight by the very people at Hallandale Beach City Hall who were supposed to provide it on behalf of the citizens, taxpayers and small business owners of this city.
But who didn't.
Year-after-year.

I sent the following out as an email this afternoon because it helps to tie together more information about those mysterious text messages between Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, HB City Manager Renee C. Miller and the mayor's pal and Broward lobbyist, Judy Stern, and their attempts to prevent an audit of the HB CRA from taking place via County Auditor Evan Lukic's office.
It also helps connects-the-dots more on how the city's elected officials and administrators handle public record requests that get a little too close for comfort.

Rather than name every official I sent it to like I have sometimes in the past, let's just say that this time I've sent it to a wider variety of people than usual here and up in Tallahassee -and points-in-between- as well as some of the leaders of the Florida State Senate and members of the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, the latter of whom many of us in this city are counting on to get us the truth we've long been denied.
-----

My comments are after this very timely article by Tom Lauder.

Media Trackers Florida
Hallandale Beach Mayor Fails to Report Texts to Lobbyist During Meeting
By Tom Lauder
July 31, 2013

Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper exchanged multiple text messages with controversial lobbyist Judy Stern during a June 4 government meeting but did not log the messages on a lobbyist contact report as required by state law.

Earlier this spring, Hallandale Beach residents asked the Broward County Commission for assistance after a Broward County Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation “identified numerous instances of gross mismanagement that stemmed from institutional deficiencies in the establishment, organization and function of the CRA [Community Redevelopment Agency].” Some of the residents raising concerns included Hallandale Beach Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://mediatrackers.org/florida/2013/07/31/hallandale-beach-mayor-fails-to-report-texts-to-lobbyist-during-meeting

-----
August 1, 2013

I wanted to let you all know today that since I sent a formal request to the City of Hallandale Beach six weeks ago, it is refusing to fulfill my Public Records Request and comply with Florida's Sunshine Laws in providing me with all the text messages between Broward lobbyist Judy Stern and HB Mayor Joy Cooper and HB City Manager Renee C. Miller in their lengthy efforts to prevent Hallandale Beach residents from getting the true facts.

This, even as the three of them lobbied Broward County Commissioners and staff, including County Administrator Bertha Henry on this matter, to prevent a thorough audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA via the Office of Broward Auditor Evan Lukic.
A thorough audit that HB residents desperately want so they will finally know precisely what really happened to millions of dollars.

I was told Wednesday in-person by HB City Clerk Sheena James, prior to the city's CRA Budget Workshop, that the city would be unable to comply with my request because, rather conveniently, they say their phone carrier -that is, AT&T, the carrier who is paid tens of thousands of dollars every year by Hallandale Beach taxpayers for telephone services used by Hallandale Beach elected officials and staffers-DON'T have to provide requested public records without a court order, even if the parties 'owning' the phones request them.

Personally, I think HB City Hall is laughing at the idea of their being able to successfully thwart my honest efforts to get to the truth on this matter, and get my hands on public records that I have strong reason to believe contain some very incriminating comments by the three of them, possibly, even about me.

When I brought this up during my three minutes to speak prior to the actual meeting, I specifically mentioned that HB citizens would be very interested in hearing from CRA Attorney Stephen Zelkowitz in the future on why the city doesn't simply log those messages in a timely fashion, since it seems clear to me that the city is using the carrier as a buffer to not comply with legitimate Public Records Requests, and that in any event, there will be requests by
someone at some future point for text messages, since they are public records, so the city better figure out what they were going to do to comply with the law.

After I returned to my seat, Mayor Cooper then responded in a semi-sarcastic manner that she only wishes she could get access to all those messages (Of hers!)

I was not amused, chiefly because I know the truth is that she does NOT want those messages being made public.
In any case, Mayor Cooper then went on to say, rather tellingly, that those text messages between herself, lobbyist Stern and HB City Manager Miller, regarding their efforts to thwart an audit, were "private."

No, those text messages about the City of Hallandale Beach and its CRA were and are public records that I'm legally entitled to see under Florida's Sunshine Laws.
But that callous and condescending response of hers shows you the caliber of the individual that the beleaguered citizens of this town are dealing with, in that Mayor Cooper is someone who has repeatedly shown in the past that she will use any means necessary to thwart both the spirit and the letter of  Florida's Sunshine Laws -even to the point of suing a HB citizen-
and she continues to do so today.

You may also be interested in knowing that Wednesday night at the HB CRA Budget Workshop, where city management employees out-numbered actual residents in the room by a factor of 12:1, I told the assembled CRA Board of Directors and the CRA Executive Director (City Manager), along with the city's various Dept. heads a fact I had already shared with some
Broward County Commissioners and well over a hundred other interested parties before and after that June 4th meeting mentioned in the article above.

To wit, despite the fact that the Broward Inspector General's final report was issued months ago, the city has refused to place a link to the report or the city's  own response to it on the city's website for residents, taxpayers and small business owners to read for themselves.

But because HB City Manager Renee C. Miller and CRA Attorney Stephen Zelkowitz were going to be speaking at that June 4th County Commission meeting against the request by HB Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former HB Comm. Keith London, and thought that it was important for the County Commission to be able to see and review them, they transmitted
both, so Broward County actually had links to both on their agenda for the meeting.

So, Broward County was given the information that the city has refused to provide its own citizens on the city's website, even though the city's taxpayers and the CRA paid the legal fees in the official city response, as well as for Zelkowitz to appear at the Broward County Commission.
So we can pay for all of that but we can't see it on the website that we're also paying for.
That's how things are done here, and it's not by accident.

Yes, the Broward OIG report that characterized as "gross mismanagement" the performance of the City of Hallandale Beach officials to describe what they found when funds are given to people and groups in this city without anyone actually EVER following-up and checking to see what actually happened to the CRA funds, or even whether they were actually used for the purpose they'd been proposed for in the original application.
Yes, HB City Hall operated on the honor system with all that money.

People and groups that claimed to be non-profits but who weren't according to the IRS, and who didn't file required documents, and yet who were quite content to not properly disclose all sorts of relevant basic information, even while they strongly resisted almost all attempts at basic transparency to the  citizens of this community, or to the public at large.

Now you know why the concerned residents of this city so desperately want the Florida JLAC to perform a thorough audit that will tell us the truth, since the very people at HB City Hall who are supposed to be providing responsible oversight of the HB CRA are also the people almost entirely responsible for the mess it's in, and the great loss of confidence the community has in City Hall's ability to perform even simple tasks honestly, ethically and competently.

Yet these people, like Mayor Cooper, are also the one who are trying their best to keep the public in the dark about the facts as long as possible thru intentional obfuscation, needless finger-pointing and serial misrepresentation.
And the community saw another perfect example of that very thing last night, as if we needed another reminder.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, and please DO let me know when a decision is made regarding JLAC's future intentions on this important public policy matter to Hallandale Beach's VERY frustrated citizens.

City of Hallandale Beach thumbs its nose at the FL Joint Legislative Auditing Comm., even as the common sense rationale for JLAC to perform a thorough audit of the entire Hallandale Beach CRA has NEVER been more overwhelming -or more desperately needed by the citizens of this community -after hearing the continued obfuscation and spin of Messrs Cooper, Lewy & Sanders after years of their personal mischief & neglect that has gotten the city's CRA in this mess in the first place. THEIR personal lack of oversight and accountability for the crony capitalism merry-go-round that they were only too happy to feed with CRA dollars. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" they yelled like small children. Meanwhile, CRA Attorney Zelikow is oblivious to the numerous conflicts-of-interests right in front of him. Oblivious, myopic, it's all the same thing when poor oversight is apparent like it is here in Hallandale Beach

 

 July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. The photo of HB City Hall above was snapped on my way into Wednesday's meeting that proved to be such a truly embarrassing debacle for long-overdue accountability and transparency for the taxpayers of this city, who are perpetually run roughshod over by Mayor Joy Cooper and her current Rubber Stamp Crew of Alexander Lewy and Anthony A. Sanders. 

The City of Hallandale Beach thumbs its nose at the FL Joint Legislative Auditing Comm., even as the common sense rationale for JLAC to perform a thorough audit of the entire Hallandale Beach CRA has NEVER been more overwhelming -or more desperately needed by the citizens of this community -after hearing the continued obfuscation and spin of Messrs Cooper, Lewy & Sanders after years of their personal mischief & neglect that has gotten the city's CRA in this mess in the first place. THEIR personal lack of oversight and accountability for the crony capitalism merry-go-round that they were only too happy to feed with CRA dollars. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" they yelled like small children. Meanwhile, CRA Attorney Zelikow is oblivious to the numerous conflicts-of-interests right in front of him. Oblivious, myopic, it's all the same thing when poor oversight is apparent like it is here in Hallandale Beach

------

Defiant Hallandale commissioners reject call for new legal opinion on CRA spending http://t.co/9FySftQ2L6
— Broward Bulldog (@BrowardBulldog) July 11, 2013

The tweet the next day in the Broward Bulldog, a genuine journalistic enterprise, unlike the faux newspaper that receives a sweetheart CRA loan and comes complete with a propaganda column by Mayor Joy Cooper.

Wednesday night the City of Hallandale Beach City Commission thumbed its nose at the bipartisan Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC), voting 3-2 to reject JLAC's formal request that the Hallandale Beach CRA Board of Directors -the five-member City Commission- get an Attorney General's Opinion from FL Attorney General Pam Bondi's office. 

Voting against the specific JLAC request: 

Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper -by phone on her vacation somewhere in the world- and HB Commissioners Alexander Lewy and Anthony A. Sanders.

Voting to comply with JLAC request: HB Commissioners Michele Lazarow and William Julian.

At one point in the frequently confounding and rambling discussion that so often willfully ignored common sense and the past ten years of history in thsi town, when HB CRA Attorney Steven W. Zelkowitz (of GrayRobinson PA) was saying why he believed the HB CRA Board should NOT accede to the JLAC's common sense request and instead listen to himself and Hallandale Beach City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield, Zelkowitz commented that FL Attorney General Pam Bondi -and presumably her office full of experienced litigators- had no more expertise in CRA law and related matters than anyone else, and that she was just a member of the Florida Bar just like him.

Essentially, Zelkowitz was telling his bosses and the people of this city that AG Bondi's opinion was due no special deference, so why bother asking for it, even though it's free?

No, don't do that, instead, better to listen to the two attorneys on the dais.
Which is not too self-serving and parochial, now is it?

July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

More than is usually the case at a meeting at HB City Hall, it's really too bad you readers could not have been present as eyewitnesses in the Commission Chambers and heard the venom and self-justifying nonsense coming from Mayor Cooper over the the poor quality public loudspeaker when she was speaking and frequently interrupting others about about how neither the Broward Inspector General's Office or the JLAC had the authority to demand anything of them, much less, make them pay back funds to the city CRA that were used for things that are (clearly) inappropriate.
Like fireworks.

In her first few months on the job last Summer, HB City Manager Renee Miller made quite a concerted effort to be seen around town in public as a genuine reformer and genuine believer in and practitioner of meaningful transparency -perhaps to curry the acceptance of the reform element of this city with which I and my friends are associated with, even in her personal conversations with them and me.

Unfortunately, in the ensuing months, Miller has, thru her own actions and words, revealed herself to be anything but that much-needed reformer for this town's frustrated citizens taxpayers.

Instead of being that much-desired breath-of-fresh-air, Miller has been no change at all from her immediate predecessors, Mike Good and Mark A. Antonio, who realized that the secret to their keeping their job was being able to count to one -and keeping Mayor Cooper happy.

Even if that meant pretty much ignoring the desires, opinions and policy choices of the other four elected members of the HB City Commission, a fact that's been obvious to anyone paying attention.

On Wednesday night, HB City Manager Miller was particularly adamant about the city NOT paying back any funds to the CRA.

The CRA that -surprise- she is the Director of.

Wednesday night was classic cocksure and autocratic Joy Cooper, constantly maligning people and groups with a different perspective and impugning the true motives of others.

Even those that weren't there in the room to defend themselves, like the JLAC, who certainly never expected that anyone who had fallen into such a financial and ethical hole like the city's CRA has has fallen into under Cooper the past ten years, would have the gall to question the bona fides and motives of the very people trying to throw her and the CRA a rope to get out of the hole.
But question and malign them she did -it's who she is.

I taped the whole meeting and at times could barely control my frustration at what I was seeing and hearing, but then that's how every meeting with Mayor Cooper goes, since logic and reason never intersect, and her aggrieved sense of pettiness, the perpetual chip on her shoulder that she parades around with, is treated like it was the same thing as immutable facts.

If many of you readers far from these shores had been there, you'd have gotten an eagle's-eye view of what sort of seriously disconnected elected officials and city administrators HB citizens have been up against for years at HB City Hall in their efforts to get to the truth about where all the money went.

Their battles to get an honest audit of the whole CRA, not the mini-audit of selected area of the CRA that the city did a few years ago, which made Marcum LLP's report a must-read whodunit, full of anonymous or ghost-like employees who must've removed all those massive amounts of files and documents they couldn't ever find, and hundreds and hundreds of exceptions to the city's very own rules.

That. of course, is to say nothing of all of the city employees approving money going out without checking for appropriate forms or approval or was even being spent for the purposes for which it was intended...

(And that was just in the small portion of the CRA that the City Commission would allow to be examined, since as the folks from Marcum LLP were always at great pains to remind everyone, what they did was NOT, technically an audit.

MARCH 9, 2012
Wednesday night's HB City Comm. mtg. re the gory details of Marcum LLP's audit of the City of Hallandale Beach and its entrenched anti-Sunshine, anti-taxpayer culture
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/wednesday-nights-hb-city-comm-mtg-re.html

MARCH 7, 2012
Csaba Kulin continues connecting-the-dots on Marcum LLP's devastating audit of Hallandale Beach, revealing how city's own rules were routinely broken and leaving taxpayers on the hook

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/csaba-kulin-continues-connecting-dots.html

MARCH 6, 2012
More on the $20 Million of Hallandale Beach city contracts that went unchecked -Csaba Kulin re Marcum LLP's limited audit of "Exceptional" Hallandale Beach City Hall and its longstanding dysfunctional practices that insult HB taxpayers
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/more-on-20-million-of-hallandale-beach.html )

After the despicable performance by Cooper, Lewy & Sanders, the common sense rationale for JLAC performing a thorough audit of the entire HB CRA has never been more overwhelming -or more desperately needed by the citizens of this community.

And what can you say about Steven Zelkowitz, the HB CRA attorney, the hired-hand from GrayRobinson PA  who doesn't realize or doesn't care that Murvin Wright of the CRA Advisory Board -appointed by Mayor Cooper!- and whose meetings Zelkowitz is supposed to attend, is a walking/talking poster boy for conflict-of-interests. 
But Zekowitz is THE expert. LOL!

Don't know what's worse, that Zelkowitz really believes what he says or that he's dumb enough or naive enough to continue to believe what he hears from the very people at HB City Hall who've been guilty of trying so hard to hide the truth and evade responsibility for their own actions for so many years.

So, what do you residents, taxpayers and small business owners of Hallandale Beach say about the possibility of having a JLAC "field hearing" in Hallandale Beach in the coming months, so that members of the Committee can come into the belly of the beast and see for themselves how millions of CRA dollars have been squandered for one thing after another over the years with no tangible positive results that HB residents can see or feel or taste.

Come see the longstanding graffiti, still highly-visible in the same places year-after-year on the city's main roads, especially on U.S.-1/Federal Highway, directly in front of and in some places ON the new and old HB City Halls.

I don't know about you, but when I see lots of graffiti, I think "blight."
And when I live in a city that doesn't do anything about it for years...

Self-evident graffiti ignored for years by the powers-that-be at HB City Hall, the Police Dept. and the CRA staff that is supposed to actually help get rid of blight, not just ignore it, as I told then-City manager Mark A. Antonio and the City Commission in 2011 at a City Commission meeting, where I publicly chastised him and the city Commission for ignoring what was right in front of the very building we were all in.
Why did Antonio and Mayor Cooper and the hundreds of HB city employees do nothing about it I asked?

Despite coming into the same building for work every weekday for over ten years, City Manager Antonio said he'd never seen any of legions of graffiti-covered signs that were and are and have been up-and-down U.S.-1/Federal Highway for many years once you head north from the City of Aventura in Miami-Dade County, despite the signs hiding-in-plain-sight right in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall -and Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex directly
across the street- courtesy of, among others, "esc" and "HGS."

July 10, 2013 photos by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. Above, directly in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall on U.S.-1/South Federal Highway. Below, directly in front of the main Hallandale Beach Post Office directly south and across the street from HB City Hall. Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex are across the street.   

Yes, a lot of people in town are slowly coming around to the idea that only this sort of shock treatment, a visit, will cure the sick patient that is the HB CRA and the people who run it so badly.

(The longstanding eyesore and firetrap that is the old HB City Hall on West Dixie Highway & S.W. 3rd Street., less than a half-mile from the present City Hall, will get an update with photos soon on the blog, where the city's neglect of what it has been to its residential neighbors across the street has long been one of my pet projects.)

The JLAC can come and hear first-hand from HB residents about how they cringe at hearing the preposterous things said routinely in this city at CRA meetings by the Directors.
Or as was the case on Wednesday night, hearing how things like expending CRA funds for fireworks are really economic measures according to the mayor and city manager, which help people within the CRA.

Hmm-m... despite the fact that fireworks actually take place in an area that is NOT in the CRA -the beach?

That's an odd argument to make, but it's just part-and-parcel of the unreality that exists here.

To those of you who've asked me recently, even before Wednesday night's debacle, I agree with you: "What a friend we have in Jesus." 
Still, I don't want to leave things strictly up to fate or karma, so I'll happily sign your petition for Recall of Comm. Sanders in a heartbeat, just tell me when and where to go, and I'll sign and help you get even more signatures. 

The number of signatures needed to trigger a recall election of Comm. Sanders is actually much lower than you think.

July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Complex on S. Federal Highway/U.S.-1, as I left Wednesday night's meeting. To remind you again, this is where attention to details and appearances has never been their strong suit in the nine-plus years I've lived here, since returning to South Florida after 15 years in the Washington, D.C. area. Thanks to the city's incompetent, myopic and poorly-managed DPW, the spotlights on the city's monument sign above, at the corner of U.S.-1 & S.E. 5th St., have NOT worked since June of 2012. Which is to say that they have NEVER worked since City Manager Renee C. Miller has been City Manager. But attention to details and appearances really DO matter when you are a government, don't they? The situation with the lights not working on this sign is but the tip of the iceberg. Seeing this sort of thing all over the city, it's hard not to imagine how badly more-complicated things that are hidden away from the public are really botched, isn't it? Exactly.

This was the first news article posted online by the only visible reporter who showed-up, though it's clearly incomplete, as we've come to expect from that newspaper, given how short their editors like pieces to be, shorn of context that explains why things happened the way they did. 
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-cra-hallandale-response-20130710,0,505886.story

Of course, that doesn't prevent their reporters from actually trying to develop independent sources of information and actually going around the city herself to speak with people who know what's going on, instead of only dealing with people at HB City Hall.

But that's NOT what they do at that newspaper.

Not now, not ever, and that's why it's so terribly unsatisfying and frustrating to the people who live here.

They know implicitly that this lack of effort by TV and print reporters and columnists to really dig below the surface, is something that Mayor Cooper counts on and has been extremely appreciative of over the years-reporters who don't independently observe and only report, when they do show-up, on what's visible, only playing the role of court transcribers and re-writer of press releases.

And that's part of why it is that Mayor Cooper's reign of ruin and malicious and willful mischief with the CRA has been allowed to continue for so long, and why people like Alexander Lewy and Anthony A. Sanders can get away with their questionable antics because nobody in the news media is paying attention, lifting a finger and holding them to account.

A bad press corps is a license to steal.

A bad press corps that doesn't even bother to show-up is... our reality in Hallandale Beach

"High Noon" in Hallandale Beach on Wednesday night? After so many months of HB City Hall intentionally stonewalling the public, the city's long-running CRA scandal and the Broward IG's damning report of the HB CRA Board, alleging "gross mismanagement" of millions of dollars, will FINALLY get a public airing on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at HB City Hall; Is the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. poised to come to the rescue of long-suffering HB residents who've longed for a complete audit of the entire CRA for many years, and want to see some punishment after years of ZERO accountability and little tangible to show for the MILLIONS that went out the door?

Above, looking north on U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway at the scene of so much of the toxic public policy problems in our small ocean-side city the past ten years, where logic, reason and integrity rarely if ever intersected, with residents, taxpayers and small business owners always taking it on the chin and the powers-that-be doing whatever they wanted with no fear of punishment: the Hallandale Beach Municipal complex, 400 S. Federal Highway. January 29, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. ©  2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

"High Noon" in Hallandale Beach on Wednesday night? After so many months of HB City Hall intentionally stonewalling the public, the city's long-running CRA scandal and the Broward IG's damning report of the HB CRA Board, alleging "gross mismanagement" of millions of dollars, will FINALLY get a public airing on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at HB City Hall; Is the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. poised to come to the rescue of long-suffering HB residents who've longed for a complete audit of the entire CRA for many years, and want to see some punishment after years of ZERO accountability and little tangible to show for the MILLIONS that went out the door?

Today's important blog post consists of two parts. The first is a group email that I sent out this morning around 8:45 a.m. to a much larger than usual number of people in South Florida and around the state, after having noticed a new and interesting post over at Broward Bulldog regarding the never-ending scandal that is the Hallandale Beach CRA, and the efforts of the powers-that-be at HB City Hall to cover-up all the financial facts for as long as possible and avoid a thorough audit by credible third-parties. It's pretty self-explanatory.

I also have something from somebody for you to peruse the insightful email that was sent out last week by former HB Commissioner Keith London regarding Wednesday night's important HB CRA Board of Director's meeting at City Hall, the very first opportunity the public has had to discuss this matter, despite the Broward Inspector General's report on the city's "gross mismanagement" having come out months ago.

Besides the usual assortment of well-informed Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Broward residents, activists and bloggers, and the handful of reliable news media members I trust, I also sent it to Florida Governor Rick Scott, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi,  Florida CFO Jeff Atwater, Florida state Senators Don Gaetz, Jack Latvala, Joseph Abruzzo and Jeremy Ring, state Rep.Lake Ray, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott and Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief, both of whom represent parts of Hallandale Beach in their district.

Sen. Gaetz is the Florida Senate President, Sen. Latvala is the Chairman of the Ethics and Elections Comm., while Rep. Ray and Sen. Abruzzo are the Co-chairmen of the important Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, which Sen. Ring is a member of.

Sen. Ring is the only state legislator receiving my email today who is actually from Broward County. 

You more regular readers of the blog who pay attention and who connect-the-dots quicker than the news media know perfectly well why contacting state Senator Eleanor Sobel and or state Rep. Joe Gibbons would've been a waste of time, reasons which I explained in a recent post about this matter.

I have previously discussed the work of the JLAC a few times before here on the blog and the important role they might have if the Broward County Commission didn't do anything last month, which is exactly what happened

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&File=index_css.html&Tab=committees

Local10 video: Hallandale Beach CRA accused of misspending $2.1 Million
Broward County Commission takes no action on audit request.
Reported by investigative reporter Bob Norman
Published On: Jun 04 2013 07:11:25 PM EDT, Updated On: Jun 05 2013 11:01:19 AM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/cra-accused-of-misspending-21m/-/1717324/20425002/-/3mpae4z/-/index.html

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Broward Bulldog

Hallandale may seek Attorney General opinion on CRA spending; statewide impact seen

By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 

July 9, 2013 AT 5:56 AM

Hallandale Beach city commissioners on Wednesday will consider asking the Florida Attorney General for a ruling on how community redevelopment funds can be spent, a decision that could have a far-reaching impact.

“This is an opinion that would affect every CRA in the state of Florida,” Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) attorney Steven Zelkowitz cautioned city commissioners at a recent meeting.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/07/hallandale-may-seek-attorney-general-opinion-on-cra-spending-wide-impact-seen/

Until I saw this article an hour ago, I was planning on sending out an email later this afternoon that I thought you'd find of great interest 

In it I'd cordially invite everyone to attend this "High Noon in Hallandale Beach" re the HB CRA scandal on Wednesday at 6 pm at HB City Hall, and come watch in awe as the city once again tried their best to obfuscate, lie and spin its way out of a hornet's nest while denying any culpability at all.

http://cohb.org/files/2013-07-10/Exported%20OV%20Docs/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202013-07-10%2018-00.htm

http://cohb.org/files/2013-07-10/Additional%20Information-%20Abruzzo-Ray%20Response%20Letter%20FINAL.pdf

And, of course, I'd have implores you of the great importance in attending this meeting so that you, too, can bear witness to what some of us concerned HB residents have been watching in plain sight for years while responsible parties did nothing but avert their eyes.

I call it "High Noon in HB" because of what's truly at stake tomorrow night:

HB City Hall's longstanding lack of ethical integrity and the CRA Board's desire to "Win friends and influence people" thru old-fashioned crony capitalism  and dollars not their own, with little-to-no public accountability, despite  lots of high-paid staff that never inspired confidence among the public and who never evinced much-if-any concern with such picayune matters as laws, norms and ethics, to say nothing of the community's long-term best interests.

Those of you who think you will hear an even semi-plausible or reasonable explanation from Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. Alexander Lewy and City Manager Renee Miller for why they have fought so hard to prevent a public meeting on the facts of this matter of great public importance, down to them publicly haranguing members of the public -and publicly haranguing other members the elected City Commission- who DID want to talk publicly

and candidly about it, and the millions of CRA dollars that have flown out the door with so little tangible to show for it, are, I'm afraid, in for a great deal of disappointment.

This is not Japan, so they will NOT apologize for their longstanding stonewalling, nor will they oblige you in trying to explain their stealthy actions and words of the past several months, just as they believe they never needed to publicly explain to you why they have fought so hard and for so long to prevent a public audit of the entire HB CRA from ever taking place.

And no, to answer another question I anticipate, you will also NOT hear any reasonable explanation tomorrow night, years-after-the-fact, for why Comm. Lewy, after midnight at a HB CRA meeting with few if any residents still in attendance, tried to funnel over $200,000 in CRA funds to a group controlled entirely by Comm. Anthony A. Sanders  and his wife, Jessica.

And to do so without ever mentioning the actual name of the group publicly, but instead, by erroneously referring to their so-called stellar track record.
A "track record" that the facts show is anything but stellar and a non-profit group which is and has been anything but transparent and accountable to the public for the money they've received for so many years from the city.

In other words, don't hold your breath waiting for battlefield conversions.

Below is the simple and common sense email from Keith London that he sent out last week to give the area an idea of what was really going on, and which I forwarded to many of you here in South Florida and around the state who are not on his email distribution list.

By the way, as of this morning, I've still NOT received all the public documents I formally requested weeks ago via a Public Records Request about Mayor Cooper, City Manager Miller and lobbyist Judy Stern and their intense lobbying efforts to prevent the Broward County Commission from voting for an audit of the HB CRA via the Broward County Auditor's office.

Surprise!!!

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NOT in my email but posted here on the blog for your information and education:

The reference above to Comm. Lewy refers to his actions and words at the public meeting of July 19, 2011, mentioned in my blog post of August 1, 2011

While you were sleeping: Comm. Alexander Lewy's budget chicanery & Liberal Guilt just cost you another $200,000-plus. For what and for whom, exactly?

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/while-you-were-sleeping-comm-alexander.html

See also:

FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013

Csaba Kulin asks Hallandale Beach City Attorney Whitfield THE question HB citizens have long wondered, esp. as the Broward IG's Office has been busy investigating the city and turning-up mountains of incriminating and jaw-dropping evidence: Who at HB City Hall is supposed to make sure that applicable laws, ordinances and rules, especially those regarding ethics and conflicts of interest, are followed and enforced fairly? Teaser Alert: You won't like her answer

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.ca/2013/05/csaba-kulin-asks-hallandale-beach-city.html

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

From: Keith London
Date: Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 10:30 AM
Subject: Finally- Hallandale's First Public Meeting to Discuss the Response to the OIG Report

Share

Everyone, This is a reminder there is a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 6:00PM of the City Commission in conjunction with the Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (HBCRA) Board of Directors to review and discuss the City's/HBCRA's Final Draft Response to the Broward County Office of the Inspector General's Investigative Report. The response to the OIG and Florida Legislature is due on 7-16-13, two weeks from today. There is NO back up material at this time. This meeting would not be taking place if not for Commissioner Lazarow making a motion seconded by Commissioner Julian and majority voted by Commissioner Sanders. Copper and Lewy voted NO to a public meeting and would still like everyone to believe nothing happened. The following are the links to the documents from the Broward OIGs office for your review: Broward County Office of the Inspector General, “Regarding Gross Mismanagement of Public Funds by the City of Hallandale Beach and the Hallandale Beach Community Redevelopment Agency: The Inspector General made various recommendations on report page 56 related to ensuring the independence of the CRA and requested a status report by July 16, 2013. We are interested in the policies and procedures that City and CRA management intend to implement to ensure compliance with the requirements of Chapter 163, Part III, F.S. Letter from the Florida Legislature Joint Legislative Auditing Committee requesting the following: Please provide documentation to support how the initial amount was determined. If any estimates were used in determining this amount, please provide an explanation of the basis for using such estimate and how the estimated amount was calculated. Also, please provide the detailed spreadsheet that Ms. Ladolcetta references in her response.   Please provide the specific authority upon which the City relied to use CRA monies for the above-noted expenditures. Absent specific authority to support the use of CRA monies for expenditures not authorized by Chapter 163, Part III, F.S., or not included in the CRA Plan, it appears that the CRA monies should be restored to the CRA Fund. In addition, to resolve the disagreement, we request that the City Council, sitting as the governing board of the CRA, request an opinion from the Attorney General regarding the specific expenditures in question. The City Council should ask the Attorney General the following question(s): (1) Is the use of the CRA funds for such expenditures allowable under Ch. 163, F.S.? and (2) if not, should the City restore the funds to the CRA? In addition, we suggest that the City Council agree to abide by the Attorney General’s Opinion. Please provide a copy of the status report to the Committee at the time it is sent to the Inspector General. Hallandale’s Staff Response to the preliminary OIG report. This is referred to as “staff’s response” because the meeting next week is the first time the OIG report is an official agenda item. To date, there has never been an official motion, resolution, vote or action by the city commission or CRA board of directors related to this important issue. The lack response and oversight of this issue by Cooper has cost the taxpayers an additional $40,000 for the CRA attorney because of the additional work necessary to appropriately respond to the OIG Report and the Joint Legislative Committee Letter. In Cooper’s and Lewy’s opinion, this issue is being appropriately handled by the City and CRA attorneys and requires no further discussion or explanation to the public; hence no transparency.  Please clickhere to listen and watch the June 17, 2013 CRA meeting: But Cooper and Lewy refuse to respect the opinion of The State of Florida Attorney General the highest attorney in the great State of Florida. Please read the opinion here. Please plan on attending this meeting and supporting open transparent government. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need additional material. Regards, Keith Keith S. London   Cell: 954-494-3182 email: keith@keithlondon.comwww.keithlondon.com

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