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

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

Originally posted Monday September 16th, 2024, 

Updated Saturday September 21st, 2024 

Most of you who know me even reasonably well, whether from any of the hundreds and hundreds of public meetings, civic association meetings or forums I've attended in South Florida over the past 20 years since returning from the Washington, D.C. area, largely from here on my humble blog, via my popular Twitter feed, or via my fact-filled observational and strategic emails over the years -IF you are on my mailing list- know one thing about me.

I have been focused like a laser-beam on ethics in local government and public policy in South Florida since long before I created this blog 17 years ago. Probably since my family first moved here in the summer of 1968, me, aged 7 years old, but a very curious and precocious seven year-old to be sure.

And, a kid quite positive that South Florida did NOT make sense the way other places so often did, however imperfectly. That clearly hasn't changed.

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

Meetings that were at 8 a.m. sharp at the County HQ on Andrews Avenue, maybe a mile walk from the photo up above. 

Me being me, the type of person who enjoys having hard evidence of what I saw and heard when I'm making the argument for or against an idea or public policy -and to guard against occasional moments of boredom or even almost falling asleep in a large county room- I brought along my fully-charged video cameras and lightweight tripod.

And I recorded what was said -and by who- no matter how inspired or banal. and made contemporaneous notes on who was in the room, who they were communicating with, and what they were otherwise doing. Sh-h-h... lobbyists!

Yes, despite the fact that the meetings were deemed something important in the larger scheme of the county's efforts to regain the public's trust after so many scandals over the years, someone made the conscious choice NOT to have the meetings in the County Commission chambers that were already equipped with TV cameras, to make everything easy.

Instead, they were held in a much-smaller room. 

Without any cameras.

And, so, was NOT recorded by the County, just me.

I was always VERY aware of the fact that I was usually the only member of the public in the room, AND and that I had some pretty quality video of the BTS workings of government that nobody else in South Florida had, whether the local news media or other interested parties, like local elected officials.

To be kind, the Advisory Board meetings were very much a Poor Man's version of the Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia, but with air conditioning and so-so coffee in the back of the room.

It was there, right near the county-provided coffee, where I parked myself at every meeting I attended to make myself available for quick chats with the members in attendance. 

I almost always brought bagels + donuts along from home to keep myself fully awake and full of enough energy to pounce or text on my telephone at the first sign of mischief.

There, not so much holding court as guarding the waterfront, along with a thermos of hazelnut coffee I'd brewed beforehand at home, I took copious notes. 

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

And there were a LOT of times I thought that the latter was going to happen! 

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

 Before she eventually moved up to Lutz from Hollywood, my good friend and well-known South Florida civic activist Charlotte Greenbarg also appeared at times early in the AM, speaking for both common sense and with a deep and genuine appreciation for understanding human behavior in such a weird political dynamic.

One, where many members of the Advisory Board not only didn't want to embarrass the person who'd selected them for the position over others vying for it, but also because I knew for a fact that many of them clearly had their eyes on running for elective office some time in the near-future, IF they weren't already an elected somewhere in the county, or an important person at some interest group in Broward used to flexing their muscles. 

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

Charlotte and I were folks in the community at the time who were willing to actually show up in-person to publicly support the much-needed IG Office, and consistently spoke under Public Comments asking that the office be sure to include the Broward School system. 

The reason, of course, is obvious, because everyone who knew anything about how things REALLY work/works in the county, knew that some of the worst financial/patronage excesses and rampant, endemic ethical corruption and misbehavior was located there. 

Often, as we know from numerous investigations, hiding in plain sight. 

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

 Unfortunately, most of the people selected by the county commissioners at the time to represent them on the board had very different priorities, and were NOT particularly interested in seeing the Broward School system be included, as well as see that the office cover lots of other things in the county that were common with such IG offices around the country. 

Naturally, me being me, before the first meeting, I'd spent a lot of time researching just those very things, so that as often as possible, I'd speak to the members before and after meetings about what could be done to make the office even more effective. 

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

https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/robert-wechsler-analyzes-it-cityethics.html 

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

People who didn't even think the office should exist were very vocal on the Advisory Board, so pulling THEM in the right direction was, alas, a losing battle. 

Now, the public in Broward finally has the opportunity to make up for that lost time! 

Sun Sentinel

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

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

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

Read the rest of the article at:

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/09/14/broward-voters-to-decide-whether-to-expand-watchdog-role-to-school-district/ 

WSVN-7 News

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

By Chantal Cook, Vanessa Medina
September 10, 2024
https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/proposed-amendment-would-expand-authority-of-broward-inspector-general-to-include-independent-oversight-of-school-board-operations/

Dave

David Bruce Smith 

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

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-bruce-smith-b945b376/ 

Instagram: @hbbtruth https://www.instagram.com/hbbtruth/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidSmith0215 

#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

Because #Ethics still matter to some of us in Broward County; re upcoming December 4th meeting of the Oversight Committee for Office of the Broward Inspector General

#Broward Co. Comm. @SueGunzburger "I am most proud of leading the long and successful fight to adopt the much-needed County Ethics Code. 1/2
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 17, 2014

#Broward Co. Comm. @SueGunzburger "I am most proud of leading the long and successful fight to adopt the much-needed County Ethics Code. 1/2
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 17, 2014

In last message 2 constituents -like me- @SueGunzburger reminds me how glad I was 2 be repped by such a class act :-) http://t.co/KoVTwcvMp8
— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 17, 2014

-----
"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."
-New York Times editorial, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"

-Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 HB City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission,on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters had overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission had yet to live up to its legal responsibility. 

That's why!

-----
Below is a long-overdue email that I finally remembered to send out Monday afternoon to Broward County Government HQ in Fort Lauderdale, via Kevin Kelleher, the County's Director of Human Resources

November 17, 2014

Dear Mr. Kelleher:

I'm writing to you today in your capacity as liaison to the Oversight Committee for the Office of Broward Inspector General.

I would like to know when and where this year's meeting will take place so that I can make sure that my voice, as well as the voices of other concerned residents of Broward County, have the opportunity to continue to push-back and call-out the stealthy, frequently anti-democratic and very antagonistic actions taken by so many elected public officials, who for some reason persist in thinking that they are beyond the reach of both the law and society's norms.

At last year's annual meeting of the Broward IG Oversight Committee, I spoke in some detail about some of the matters that I was most concerned with involving the evolving structure, operations and public outreach responsibilities of the Broward IG's office. 
I noted specific areas that I believed the office was deficient in and called for much-needed improvement in those areas IF it wanted to truly satisfy Broward County's much-beleaguered citizenry's very strong interest in seeing unethical behavior investigated, pulled-out by the roots and 

fully-prosecuted.

I said that in my opinion, IF the Broward IG's Office wanted to continue to maintain the public's trust, the area that most-needed tangible improvement was the allocation of adequate resources and personnel to public outreach in cities that were being formally investigated, so that the public would 

know with certainty just what WAS and was NOT being investigated, and how the public could best assist the office with respect to perhaps gathering additional relevant facts and evidence, to say nothing of context.

The latter was something that, to my astonishment, was NEVER done in Hallandale Beach in 2012 and 2013 when the Broward IG was investigating the longstanding Hallandale Beach CRA scandal involving tens of millions of dollars, since in my opinion, it would have produced a LOT more useful information and context for the IG's Office to peruse and consider.

In my opinion, they barely saw the the tip of the iceberg.

As someone who was frequently the only member of the public attending those early morning meetings years ago of the appointed Broward County Ethics Committee, someone who actually videotaped many of them so that I could later describe in accurate detail what had transpired in those 

meetings, esp. with respect to which appointed member was consistently voting FOR meaningful ethical standards and thresholds and which appointed members had consistently tried to obfuscate, misdirect or otherwise water-down any serious effort to hold people with power, influence and 

opportunity to account, I take what happens with the Office of Broward IG very seriously.

I don't think I or others need to apologize for wanting to make sure that the will and best interests of the Broward citizenry is represented as often as possible, NOT pushed to the side of the road by self-interested politicans, government employees and outside groups, esp. ones with zero public oversight like the Broward League of Cities, a group that STILL clearly wants its member cities and officials to have as low a threshold as possible, to meet and carve-out exceptions to common sense -as if common sense was something that we'd been enjoying too much of over the years, instead of its opposite. 

Obviously, many of these individuals and groups would very much like to keep their perks and the trappings of the pay-to-play culture that had long flourished in Broward, and want to un-do the very small, positive things that have FINALLY taken place.

Sorry, that ship has sailed! 

Despite my fact-filled warnings and anecdotes last year to the IG Oversight Committe and the public attending that meeting about the reality on-the-ground at Hallandale Beach City Hall, that same corrosive attitude and anti-citizen culture I described then persists from top-to-bottom at HB City Hall.

There has been no let-up by Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Renee Miller since either the April 2013 issuance of the IG's damning report on the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal that involved tens of millions of dollars, or, even since Mr. Scott and the Chief Counsel's own descriptions last year of the sorts of foolish and entirely self-serving gambits and attempts at misrepresentations engaged in by those women and the city.

Right down to Mayor Cooper intentionally sending her inaccurate letter and account of the facts to everyone scheduled to attend last year's IG Oversight Comm. meeting 

That is, everyone BUT the IG's Office itself.

Yes, it was hard not to see that desperate and pathetic effort for precisely what it was.

A shameful effort to obfuscate and blame others for their own unethical behavior and lack of proper governance, due diligence and meaningful oversight for SO MANY YEARS, which is just how I described it last year since that's precisely how the majority of Hallandale Beach's best-informed residents and Small Business owners see it

I look forward to hearing from you soon about that upcoming meeting.

-----

Mr. Smith,   

The next Inspector General Selection and Oversight Committee Meeting is currently scheduled for Thursday, December 4 at 2:00pm in Room 422 of the Broward County Governmental Center, 115 South Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale Florida 33301.   
Should you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.   

Kevin

Questions, questions and more questions about Tuesday's important Broward County Commission meeting re possible audit of controversial Hallandale Beach CRA; Meeting now has an added feature: City Manager Miller and CRA Attorney Zelkowitz who publicly argued that the Broward IG didn't have legal authority over the HB CRA, will now be speaking and playing the role of Wiley E. Coyote before the boulder falls on them. Must-see TV! HB citizens want the truth, not more stonewalling, finger-pointing and spin from city's elected officials and city employees

October 13, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

While I hope that as many of you reading this as possible make an earnest effort to try to attend the meeting in-person on Tuesday morning to be supportive of the effort to finally get a meaningful audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA and where all the millions went, which will be made in-person by Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former HB Commissioner Keith London, it will be available by webcast: agenda item #87, at http://broward.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=5

I'll be there to not only watch the proceedings and see who shows up in the chambers, but also to record it for posterity and later uploading to my YouTube Channel at some point.

You need to keep in mind, though, that while there's a lot of consent agenda at the beginning of the meeting, the question of when the item will actually come up is entirely up to the various whims of the Commission, depending upon what gets pulled or moved around.

Which is to say that your concept and my concept of time and space are NOT always the same as their's, so you may need to turn the volume of your computer down a bit lest you become hypnotized by all the talk about RFP's, advisory boards and an alphabet city of environmental groups having something or another to do with the airport and some very bad stuff under the ground there.
In other words, stay caffeinated!

And in case you forgot where you lived, here's a photo of the HQ of a place where you have never been able to find anything meaningful or truthful about what was going on with the HB CRA or the scandal involving it: the CRA-subsidized faux newspaper.

The faux newspaper that serves as a propaganda arm to Hallandale Beach City Hall, which was specifically cited in the Broward Inspector General's final report. April 17, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Below, following the meeting info, is my email of late this afternoon to Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief and many other interested parties throughout the Sunshine State, especially here in Hallandale Beach and Broward County.
Lots of good facts there, especially for those of you who have not been following the story closely.

Full agenda is at: http://205.166.161.204/agenda_publish.cfm?id=&mt=ALL&get_month=6&get_year=2013&dsp=ag&seq=351

MEETING OF JUNE 4, 2013
(Meeting will convene at 10 a.m.)

Agenda Item 87.
DELEGATION:  Keith London and Hallandale Beach City Commissioner, Michelle Lazarow

Attachments
Exhibit 1 - Delegation Request

-----
In case the links above don't work for you, they are at
http://205.166.161.204/agenda_publish.cfm?id=&mt=ALL&get_month=6&get_year=2013&dsp=agm&seq=14253&rev=0&ag=351&ln=60577&nseq=&nrev=&pseq=14386&prev=0#
and 
http://205.166.161.204/docs/2013/CCCM/20130604_353/14253_Exhibit%201%20-%20Keith%20London%20031213.pdf

-----

June 3rd, 2013

4:45 p.m.

Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

I just heard the good news this afternoon that Hallandale Beach City Manager Renee Miller and HB CRA Attorney Steven Zelkowitz have formally requested an opportunity to speak in-person before the entire Commission on Tuesday in response to this agenda item.

I couldn't be more pleased.

I'm particularly interested in hearing the comments of Ms. Miller, who assured me last summer in-person when we spoke for about ten minutes or so that she was indeed a "reformer," and wanted very much to end what was publicly perceived as the culture of deceit and misinformation that has long existed at Hallandale Beach City Hall as de facto policy, and instead, bring more public transparency to it so that citizens would have more confidence in what was being said and done in their behalf.

These comments of hers to me followed her speaking for at least 30 minutes to dozens of very-concerned and well-informed HB residents who posed tough questions to her, wherein she closed by asking everyone in the room for a fair chance to be judged based on her own record, not their assumptions, which is not at all an unreasonable request.

As a longtime critic of the consistent way things have been done in such egregiously unprofessional, incompetent and aggressive ways at HB City Hall, where logic and reason seldom if ever intersected, I hoped for the best and was  prepared to believe her once she'd become more familiar with the city and its many problems and had some time to initiate these changes she spoke about, though in more vague terms than I'd have liked.

I say "interested" in hearing her comments because the truth is that by any reasonable standard, using her own track record, Ms. Miller has been anything but a "reformer" since then, and has engaged in precisely the sort of stealthy, unsavory and below-the-radar conduct and behavior that not only completely contradicts everything she said last summer, but which is identical to the very problems SHE was supposed to rectify when she was hired last year.

But isn't, of course.

Under her "leadership" the city was scheduled to hold a public meeting that was advertised as being the latest occasional Visioning meeting to discuss the city's future.

Well, they planned to do so, but that meeting was postponed and re-scheduled.

But on the very day the public meeting was scheduled to be held -held NOT at HB City Hall but in a city park building- the meeting did NOT appear on the city's own website calendar, and the public that showed-up was NOT allowed to speak or ask questions or even correct the record when "facts" were stated that were anything but facts.

Which would've made great TV for anyone in HB watching at home on cable TV except for the fact that the city, which is to say Ms. Miller, chose NOT to allow TV cameras inside to either broadcast the public meeting LIVE or to record it for viewing on cable TV or viewing on the city's website later, as has happened in the past.

I mean it's only the city's future, right?

So with that in mind, here are some assorted thoughts, facts and questions you may want to ponder as this agenda item is discussed and Mr. Zelkowitz and Ms.Miller try their best to defend the indefensible and keep HB taxpayers in the dark about what really has been happening for years to all that money with zero accountability and responsible follow-up by city employees, despite their job titles and salaries.

After all the many months this scandal has consumed in wasted time, energy and taxpayer dollars, here's what we know as of now for facts.

The City of Hallandale Beach still has NOT placed a copy of the Broward IG Report on their own website NOR have they publicly posted their official response.

That very same city website that all these months since he was hired, still doesn't list the public email address of the CRA Director, Daniel Rosemond, the man brought in by Ms. Miller from the city she used to work for last year.

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?NID=82

Mr. Rosemond is here to do something for the CRA, though what that something actually is is not at all entirely clear based on his record thus far, since he seems to have already forgotten that we don't work for him, he works for us, the residents of this city.

You see, as if the HB CRA didn't have enough problems with public trust and confidence -that is to say, the public's complete lack of trust and confidence in them and their policies- Mr. Rosemond had no problem in showing-up at a public event in March where neither Ms. Miller or any members of the City Commission were present, and within a matter of minutes

was repeatedly telling the assembled HB citizens that he was supposed to be reassuring, that he had "no obligation" to meet with them.

So, this is the new guy brought in by Ms. Miller to change the culture of corruption and incompetency that has NOT been properly held accountable?

An arrogant person who insults taxpayers and small business owners who know far more about the problems with the CRA than HE does from first-hand experience?

For at least ten weeks, as I've written you previously, the city was in violation of Florida law and the city's own ordinance by NOT publicly disclosing the Lobbyist and Visitor logs, meaning that even as the city in the form of Ms. Miller was publicly saying the IG had no authority and then later said the report was wrong, the city was violating the law. Period

And who was directly involved in some of these meetings with a developer that were NOT being properly disclosed when it was supposed to be?

The new CRA Director.

Oops!!!

This fact is already known to both the Broward IG's Office and the Broward State Attorney's Office, not that they've done anything about it publicly yet, which raises its own questions for dumbfounded HB residents, who wonder why the latter in particular seems SO very disinterested in paying attention to what has been going on here for years in plain sight.

1.) How much money in attorney fees and personnel costs has the City of Hallandale Beach spent in defending their myriad legal positions that are clearly in opposition to the best long-term interests of its citizen taxpayers since the Broward IG's Office first began their investigation of the city?

2.) How much of that came AFTER the preliminary report was issued that the city was asked to respond to, neither of which were posted on the city's website?

3.) Lest you doubt the veracity of what I've written here, here's what the City of Hallandale Beach has on its own website as of 4:30 p.m. today about the Broward Inspector General's preliminary report and the final report, as well as the city's official public response to them

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/Search/Results?searchPhrase=%22Inspector%20General%22&page=1&perPage=10

Nothing.

Really.

Teaser Alert: That's not by accident.

It's simply not enough to say that you want to change things for the better, you actually have to follow-thru and make good on them.

I truly hope that you will both be very firm in your questioning of Ms. Miller and press her to answer reasonable questions that she has refused to answer publicly for many months as she has engaged in finger-pointing and stonewalling.

In my opinion, thru her own words and actions, Ms. Miller has already lost the trust and confidence of HB citizens who closely follow what's really going on in this city

As more and more HB citizens open their eyes and slowly find out the truth about what has been allowed to take place with her in charge, that disapproval and distrust of her will only grow.

It's unfortunate, but the buck ultimately stops with Ms. Miller.

Please vote to give HB taxpayers the truth they were owed years ago but prevented from finding-out by the very people who were supposed to be working FOR them -their elected officials and city administrators.

Given the longstanding mismanagement and corruption involving MILLIONS of dollars at Hallandale Beach CRA, why has Broward's independent Office of Inspector General refused to hold a single outreach mtg. with citizens in Hallandale Beach, while OIG has met with other Broward civic groups? It's very perplexing and counterintuitive to getting cold hard facts out into the sunshine and the public realm

Above, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott at a Broward League of Women Voters event in Coconut Creek, FL on January 24, 2013. Below, four of the five Hallandale Beach citizens who found time on a busy weekday afternoon to drive up to Coconut Creek in northwest Broward County to listen to and ask some questions of Mr. Scott. Pictured left-to-right are Keith S. London, Dr. Robert Selz, Dr. Judy Selz, and Csaba Kulin. Not pictured: me! January 24, 2013 photos by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Below is a copy of my email this afternoon to Hallandale Beach's two reps on the Broward County Commission, Sue Gunzburger and Barbara Sharief, about the independent Broward Office of Inspector General relative to an issue that I've previously mentioned here on the blog and in numerous emails around the area, almost of which have elicited the same perplexed and unhappy reaction among concerned citizens upon first learning of it.
The email speaks for itself.

I should mention here that as of 8:00 p.m. tonight, in advance of Tuesday's important County Commission meeting in Fort Lauderdale with an agenda item re an audit of the HB CRA by the County Auditor's office, Comm. Sharief has not publicly made her opinion known, while Comm. Gunzburger has made clear to everyone that she is going to fight very hard for it.
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/05/broward-auditor-looks-at-hallandale-beach-cra-with-eye-toward-recovering-misspent-funds/

I sincerely hope that Comm. Sharief will show the same good judgement and pro-citizen sentiment that she's consistently shown the past few years on many issues, including the controversial red-light camera issue, where she has been one of the very few bright spots among all of Broward's pols, city officials and public policy pundits. 

Comm. Sharief has been a consistent opponent of the overwhelmingly pro-RLC County Commission and Broward Legislative Delegation's knee-jerk votes on this issue, the very same people who have been so VERY quiet the past few weeks about the #shortyellow issue in Florida, where the Florida Dept. of Transportation lowered the required length of the yellow traffic light below the Federal standard of 4.5 seconds, without contacting the Florida Legislature and its leadership, in order to capture more cars on camera and generate more revenue for Florida cities.

That's entirely in keeping with the long-time strategy of the taxpayer-supported Florida League of Cities, many of whose individual members received considerable campaign contributions last year from the companies engaged in this so-called service, which is exactly what happened here in Hallandale Beach.

As you regular readers of the blog will recall, Arizona-based  American Traffic Solutions and Mayor Joy Cooper have become the best of friends the past few years after she and the City Commission forced this on city residents a years ago despite their consistent opposition, in order to generate more funds for the city.

The mayor received thousands of dollars in campaign funds from ATS after writing a pro-RLC essay in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and it's largely because of her that Hallandale Beach has became so infamous around the state on this issue.

While I'm hoping for the best since it seems like such an obvious thing to vote YES given the damning IG report on the HB CRA, personally, I believe that a vote against an audit by Comm. Sharief on Tuesday would do long-lasting damage to her public standing in Hallandale Beach, especially among its more well-informed and most-concerned residents, all of whom are super-voters.

But its her vote, so she's going to do whatever she's going to do, and if she votes NO, she will have to live with the resulting negative consequences.

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Given the longstanding mismanagement and corruption involving millions of dollars at the HB CRA, why has Broward IG's Office refused to hold a single public outreach mtg. with citizens in Hallandale Beach, while meeting with other Broward groups?

May 31, 2013

3:30 p.m.

RE: Given the longstanding mismanagement and corruption involving millions of dollars at the HB CRA, why has Broward IG's Office refused to hold a single public outreach mtg. with citizens in Hallandale Beach, while meeting with other Broward groups that were NOT directly affected?

Dear Commissioners Gunzburger and Sharief:

Since the question of whether or not the Broward County Commission should authorize the Office of Broward County Auditor Evan Lukic to perform a thorough audit of the Hallandale Beach Beach CRA will be coming-up at Tuesday's meeting, given the city's longstanding failure 

to have normal and effective operating quality controls over millions of dollars in place, or even pretend to have actual public accountability and thorough follow-up to ensure that  public funds were spent for their intended if ill-founded purposes, a motion that I support 100%, due to the HB City Commission/CRA Board's longstanding refusal to have a thorough audit of the entire HB CRA, i.e themselves, I'd like to bring to your  attention a related issue involving the Office of the Broward Inspector General.

Since The Commission authorized the creation of that Office a few years ago, you won't be surprised to hear that it has held several public meetings with various civic groups, affinity and social groups throughout Broward County to get their "message" out.

It's actually entirely what you'd expect.

Included among those meetings was one that was hosted in late January by the Broward League of Women Voters in Coconut Creek featuring IG John W. Scott.

I and four other very-concerned Hallandale Beach citizens actually attended that get-together at a condominium, despite its lack of proximity to HB.

But despite my personally having provided the IG's Office with a LOT of verifiable information regarding unethical and illegal conduct and behavior involving individuals in this community, esp. regarding the HB CRA, and Mr. Scott's own publicly declarations that he believes getting his office's message out is an important function -and it being brought-up at that very meeting- his office have refused to hold a single public community meeting with citizens of Hallandale Beach since his office initiated its investigation of the City of Hallandale Beach involving its missing-in-action supervision under former HB City Managers Mike Good and Mark A. Antonio involving so much mis-spent millions and missing documents, to say nothing of the missing professionalism HB taxpayers had a reasonable right to expect but never received. Despite the fact that this city's residents and taxpayers have been personally affected by what has happened.

I have personally written to Mr. Scott on several occasions and have brought up the issues of his Office showing some good faith to this community by actually following-up on his OWN public declarations and do so for all of the most-obvious reasons.

That includes a written request to him over a week ago, yet his office has been completely, and rather curiously, non-responsive on this matter.

I strongly urge the two of you as representatives on the County Commission of this community's beleaguered citizens to contact the IG's office and remind them that they have a logical AND moral duty to speak directly and publicly with the citizens of this directly-affected city.

A duty that is at least as strong as it is to all of the many Broward groups that the IG's Office has already spoken to that are NOT directly affected at all.