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Showing posts with label Sunshine Laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sunshine Laws. Show all posts

Monday, September 19, 2022

Completely contrary to common sense, logic and Florida's Sunshine Laws, Hollywood city officials, including the city's soon-to-be-resigning Planning Director, Leslie Del Monte, allowed several representatives of The Related Group to speak today for 25 minutes at the city's PACO meeting re their very unpopular 1301 S. Ocean Dr. project

 



Updated Sept. 22, 2022 at 1:00 a.m.

A VERY reliable and well-informed person -and upset- called me late this afternoon to tell me that, completely contrary to Florida's Sunshine Laws, Hollywood city officials, including the city's soon-to-be-resigning Planning Director, Leslie Del Monte, allowed several representatives of The Related Group to speak this afternoon for 25 minutes at the city's PACO meeting re their very unpopular 1301 S. Ocean Dr. project.
A project that continues going forward despite a lack of support among the community AND The Related Group NOT having the REQUIRED community meeting with the public as the city's own rules mandate.

It's the city's own requirement, NOT a suggestion.

And again, what happened today took place despite 1301 NOT being listed by the city as an agenda item on the city's website or any printed agenda.

I'm also told that it was a VERY, VERY chummy 25 minutes, too, like a bunch of old friends just talking about things amongst themselves like they always do when nobody outside their small inner circle knowing anything about it.

I'm further informed by this same trusted source that several City of Hollywood Commissioners were/are blindsided by this news, and had no idea that The Related Group was going to be allowed -encouraged?- to participate at the meeting by city officials
WITHOUT any public awareness or ability by the public to engage or protest what was taking place.

Yes, more than ever, as I've said before, "Special rules for special people" should be the City of Hollywood's official slogan.

By the way, WHERE exactly are the links to any 2022 PACO meetings on the city's own 
website? http://fl-hollywood.civicplus.com/Archive.aspx?AMID=105

Zip. Nada. Nothing. Goose Egg.
No PACO meetings have been posted on the city's website since February of 2021.

Don't kid yourself, things like this do NOT all happen by accident!

FYI, I tweeted about this around 5:15 pm on my way back to Hollywood.

If you aren't currently Following me on my Twitter feed or regularly visiting my blog on your own every few days, you might want to strongly consider doing both going forward so you have a better context for understanding just what is taking place right in front of all of us at Hollywood City Hall.

Not by accident, but, rather as part of someone's plan.








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Thursday, June 15, 2017

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






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

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

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

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

State Town Hall Meeting
Monday, June 19

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

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

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

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

Like these posts from 2010 and 2011:

No, the buck never ever stopped with her.

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

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








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

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

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

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

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


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

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



Lakes logo new
  
Lakes Residents,

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







HLCA



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

----


#HollywoodFL, City of Hallandale Beach, City of Hollywood (FL), FL legislature, Gary Farmer, Hollywood Lakes, Joseph S. Geller, Shevrin Jones, Terry Cantrell, Vacation Rentals, Sunshine Laws, 
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Friday, April 1, 2016

How the latest ethical outrage in Hallandale Beach -captured by Local10's Terrell Forney- showing innocent people being taken advantage of, roils us and reminds us why an increasing number of people are choosing to leave South Florida

IF you ever wondered why so many otherwise normal and relatively contented people who have lived in South Florida for quite some time eventually packed-up and left, well, there are, of course, 1001 reasons that combine varying degrees of logic and common sense, and not simply foolish whims followed upon. 

 That's especially the case when people choose to make life decisions on one of the deadly hot days of July in South Florida, when the life and energy can literally be sucked out of your body for doing nothing more physically demanding or complicated than simply getting out of your car and walking into an air conditioned store.  
Inescapable Fact: Air conditioning explains South Florida's growth and history so much more than geography ever possibly could plausibly explain.

 Often, some reasons for leaving the area are better than others, and one non-personal reason is that you simply get tired of living somewhere where the general idea of NOT taking of advantage of other people is not the outlier, but rather the exception to the rule.
And so it goes in Hallandale Beach, with a company that I'd never heard of before called 400 Broward Inc., which owns property on Foster Road in the Northwest part of the city. 
This company apparently thought nothing of renting out its apartments to people without properly informing them that the building was in foreclosure, and which based on the Local10 video below, has owners who seem keen to keep their tenants security deposits, to boot. 

 Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London recently penned an email that explained his own take on the situation affecting at least 26 HB residents, which has been handled so badly by so many parties, including some information explaining how, according to Comm. London, the HB CRA fits in to the equation, or blame if you will. 
Comm. London states in his email that as of now, "The CRA has NO defined plan for this building or the vacant land," which is located right near a new planned Hallandale Beach Fire Station and the new HBFD HQ.

 Well, this sort of non-sensical and half-assed approach to public policy and taxpayer funds by the HB CRA will NOT surprise longtime readers of this blog, since for nine years, one of the running ethical and journalistic themes of this blog, quite literally, the subject of dozens of posts here, has been the circumstances and fall-out of the grossly-under-reported story of what actually took place in 2007, when a small plot of land in NW Hallandale Beach -with an extant building- belonging to City of HB Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders and his wife Jessica was purchased by the HB CRA.  
Purchased for more than it was worth!

 This purchase was made despite there being... yes, no written, agreed-upon or voted-upon plan for how that specific land would be used for the betterment of the HB community in fulfilling the stated aims and intentions of rules and language establishing CRAs by the State of Florida.
That Comm. Sanders was allowed to vote on the deal at the time and did NOT choose to (or be asked to) recuse himself -facts which were NOT publicly reported at the time or after except by myself- is typical for how common sense public policy and issues involving ethics, Sunshine Laws, propriety and notions of govt. oversight have been handled in HB for so long under a series of City Attorneys and City Commissions under Mayor Joy Cooper.

 That is to say, with no public push-back by any responsible law enforcement or ethical group to investigate the circumstances at the time, or afterwards.
In fact, under the property deal that the city negotiated with Anthony and Jessica Sanders, as I've mentioned numerous here previously on the blog -and which most people in South Florida who know me personally also know- I personally told the Office of the Broward Inspector General that Comm. Sanders was even allowed to continue to use the building for FREE AFTER it was purchased. 
Now THAT is a sweetheart of a deal.

http://keithlondon.com/hallandale_beach/index.php/2-uncategorised/339-commissioner-london-fights-to-have-city-help-relocate-tenants

 

More than almost any recent South Florida-centric story I can think of, this recent news report by Local10 reporter Terrell Forney spoke volumes about what life in South Florida has increasingly become for residents of South Florida, even for lots of well-to-do and resourceful people I know who previously thought they'd live here for the rest of their lives. 
Which is to say, way past #frustrating.

 They see something like this outrage in HB happen that should NOT ever happen and ask how things like it can KEEP happening here. To little or no public outrage.

 Some people manage to deal with it by only being around South Florida for part of the year, which has increasingly become the chief coping mechanism for many people I know with longtime connections, homes or relatives back in Ohio and North Carolina.  
But for others, well, unless they get out of the area for a bit every now and then to recharge themselves, they get emotionally beaten down and burned-out by the daily assault on their conscience of so much chronic apathy, gross official/govt.  incompetency/myopia, and lack of resolve by society at large to publicly hold irresponsible and unethical people and businesses accountable for their actions.
It weighs on them in visible ways, and you can only imagine how it is for people with less resources at their disposal.

 As of today, there has been no organized public outcry against the company behind this self-evident unethical housing melodrama, which is typical of how public life and society in South Florida operate unless a well-funded individual or influential group with some backbone and resolve decides to finally wade in and get directly involved.
And start calling people and groups out with a vengeance.

 See my tweets below the Local10 video to be reminded of an important underlying issue regarding the proposed new Hallandale Beach Fire Station and Fire Dept. HQ, a matter I have written about previously on the blog many times before, with various degrees of shock and amazement, as the powers-that-be at Hallandale Beach City Hall continually sought to foolishly place a valuable tool and resource in the worst possible location for it and the public's safety -because they can!

 It's another example of the longstanding nonsensical public policy notions that have been percolating inside Hallandale Beach City Hall disguised as economic development, when it's really nothing more than the marriage of the city's longstanding practice of crony capitalism and an Edifice Complex under longtime Mayor Joy Cooper.

 Local 10 News, Miami
Hallandale Beach apartment residents forced from homes after building goes into foreclosure
Commissioner fights to have city help relocate tenants
By Terrell Forney - Reporter
Posted: 6:04 PM, March 23, 2016
Updated: 6:08 PM, March 23, 201
http://www.local10.com/news/local-10-investigates/hallandale-beach-apartment-residents-forced-from-homes-after-building-goes-into-foreclosure#

 In reverse chronological order:

















Want more specific info about the many shady and unethical antecedents in HB I cite above? 
Just contact me!

 Dave

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