Bad journalism is STILL happening in plain sight in South Florida: Why are Herald and Sun-Sentinel beat reporters ignoring campaign finance disclosure violations story re Broward County PBA in Hollywood? Violations that appear quite deliberate. On this, as with so many other dozens of stories that the public wants to know MORE about, these reporters and their editors are sleepwalking

Bad journalism is STILL happening in plain sight in South Florida: Why are the Herald and Sun-Sentinel beat reporters ignoring campaign finance disclosure violations story re Broward County PBA in Hollywood? Violations that appear quite deliberate. On this, as with so many other dozens of stories that the public wants to know MORE about, these reporters and their editors are sleepwalking

Once again, for about the millionth time since they've had the Hollywood and Hallandale Beach reporting beats for their newspapers, the Miami Herald's Carli Teproff and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Tonya Alanez are NOT reporting news they know about.

Why in the world is there a time-delay in reporting news to readers that happened WEEKS ago?

In most large cities not located in Florida, especially Northeastern and Midwestern cities that still have pretensions to being 'newspaper towns,' the information would've been in the newspaper the very next day, and the local TV stations, as per usual, would've suddenly gotten interested in the story, too, and gone to work that day in either ferreting out some real answers, or at least making their viewers know what the basic facts were and who the parties involved were. 
But here, it's weeks later and there's still nothing about it.

What are they, reporters, publicists or spin doctors?

It's a very familiar refrain to news-hungry residents of this part of Broward County.

My fact-filled blog post on this matter is coming this week, and I'll very likely take aim at some of the most egregious apologists for both the union and the reporters.
And I'll have some of the questions that we should've already seen posed weeks ago to the people involved at the PBA.

Csaba Kulin gets the Miami Herald's whitewash treatment: McClatchy's Co.'s Herald practices the opposite of giving credit where credit is due, editing out the name of the one person in South Florida most-responsible for finding out why and how 3 former Hallandale Beach City Managers will soon be multi-millionaires with taxpayer dollars; a story that Miami Herald reporters, editors and management have completely ignored for years!

Where did all the taxpayer money go? Good question! Csaba Kulin knows some of the answers. Imagine if we had City Commissioners here like him and Michele Lazarow who'd actually take their oversight  responsibilities for taxpayers seriously, and ask probing questions instead of just sitting on the dais and playing the role of rubber stamps for the mayor. Hmmm... October 24, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Csaba Kulin gets the Miami Herald's whitewash treatment: McClatchy's Co.'s Herald practices the opposite of giving credit where credit is due, editing out the name of the one person in South Florida most-responsible for finding out why and how 3 former Hallandale Beach City Managers will soon be multi-millionaires with taxpayer dollars; a story that Miami Herald reporters, editors and management have completely ignored for years!

It's a damn shame that the Miami Herald's editors have once again shown their infamous tin ear for Broward County news, their terra incognita,.

In this case, by editing-out the name from their version of this past week's latest embarrassing story about Hallandale Beach in the Broward Bulldog, written by Bill Gjebre, of the one person in South Florida most-responsible for finding out why and how 3 former Hallandale Beach City Managers and other highly-paid officials will soon be multi-millionaires with taxpayer dollars.

In doing so, they do a serious dis-service to someone whose diligent unpaid hard work for two years first turned-up evidence of financial self-service by Hallandale Beach's three most-recent City Managers, ripping-off Hallandale Beach taxpayers while producing sub-standard results that we can all see around us in this small ocean-side city, HB civic activist and City Commission candidate, Csaba Kulin.

Pension plan pays off big for ex-Hallandale Beach city managers  

Hallandale Beach’s former top managers collect fat pensions from a retirement plan they pushed a decade ago

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/23/v-fullstory/3063859/pension-plan-pays-off-big-for.html  

(FYI: The above story will disappear from Herald website in a few days, unlike Broward Bulldog's website.)

Seriously, folks, whom exactly did you think gave the reams and reams of information with copious notes to the Bulldog's Bill Gjebre in the first place, to get him fully-acquainted with all the pertinent facts and figures, Joy Cooper, the notoriously thin-skinned and ethically-challenged longtime autocrat of a mayor, under whose "leadership" the city's budget has nearly doubled the past 6-8 years, with hardly anything tangible for put-upon citizen taxpayers to point to except a Wastewater Treatment facility? 

Hardly!

And it's certainly not former HB City Manager R.J. Intindola, one of the central parties under-the microscope in the article.

As I've mentioned here previously, Intindola is the smug and poison pen online blogger who lives in Georgia, far from what's actually going on here, but who acts like he's a real player in what happens here. 

He not only isn't, of course, but his name now provokes laughs in people who know that he's been spinning a spiffy PR story about himself for many, many years that is now finally getting the genuine scrutiny it deserved many years ago, and best of all, using the city's own documents.

As we say in France, touché monsieur!

Hallandale’s ex-top managers collect fat pensions from retirement plan they pushed a decade ago

By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org

October 22, 2012 at 6:23 AM

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/10/hallandales-top-managers-collect-fat-pensions-from-retirement-plan-they-pushed-a-decade-ago/

Some of you regular readers of the blog may recall this story from five months ago, in my blog post of May 19th:

Csaba Kulin exposes the multi-million dollar bill to be borne by Hallandale Beach taxpayers for having a disconnected City Commission that was -and is- NOT interested in paying close attention to detail or in asking tough questions. That's how and why former City Managers Intindola and Good have made out like bank robbers

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/csaba-kulin-exposes-multi-million.html

Which was followed-up by a large email and subsequent blog post here on Tuesday:

Thanks to Csaba Kulin's many months of diligently digging thru city records to find the truth -only some of which city had- we now know what the real cost to Hallandale Beach taxpayers has been for having an inattentive City Commission for so many years: Millions and millions of dollars for Intindola, Good & Antonio's pensions!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/as-predicted-here-months-ago-thanks-to.html

And here's the real kicker -Csaba Kulin already has the proof of the city's embarrassing "smoking gun" that kicks this story up several notches from what's written here. 

The sort that, IF Broward County had a solid and dependable local prosecutor, leads to real investigations, real grand juries and real legal consequences.

A fact that the Miami Herald seems determined to find out about -after-the-fact.

And I happen to know it, too, thanks to months of listening to Csaba connect-the-dots.

Not that the Herald's beat reporter for Hallandale Beach, Carli Teproff, ever thought to look into any of this, even though I've sent her some of the information that positively connects-the-dots, months ago, just as I sent it to the Sun-Sentinel's Tonya Alanez.

Nope, they just couldn't be bothered.

And neither could anyone else in South Florida's deservedly-maligned press corps -except Bill Gjebre of the online Broward Bulldog.

Why?

You'd have to ask Teproff and Alanez for that answer, but I have my own suspicions.

No, seriously, why don't you ask them why they weren't interested in a news story involving a city they covered that involved millions of dollars?

If I was their editor, you can be damn sure I'd be asking, but then I wouldn't work for either news paper, now would I?

Nope.

One, the Sun-Sentinel, with a pay-wall that is suffocating the newspaper and making it even more irrelevant, and the other, the Herald that plans on erecting one soon that will only hasten its likely demise. 
Not that their reflexive geographical myopia helps them any! 

(But lure existing and new customers and eyeballs to pay for what new and original content? Ah, there's the rub! What do they have to offer people dis-satisfied with the current product, more of what they dislike?)

Csaba has done what the smartest prosecutors presenting a case before a jury do -letting people hang themselves with their own words.

In this case, Csaba not only has used their own words to help paint a story, but has also used the documents these folks created, the city's own documents, to show what has been going on for years below-the-surface of Mayor Joy Cooper's economic facade on S. Federal Highway.

A city which, if you didn't already know, has a rapidly declining Reserve fund because of its continual use to balance the city's books on everyday expenses, as well as Cooper's craven crony capitalism, an economic theory that treats the city's CRA funds like an ATM for her friends and supporters.

Especially for her loyal supporters in Northwest Hallandale Beach, where do-nothing Comm. Anthony A. Sanders happily plays the role of bank teller with citizen's tax dollars or CRA funds that are supposed to end blight.

Except Sanders acts like it's his money, not ours, and he wants to be thanked for it at the ballot box in ten days. 
No, I won't be thanking you for squandering money and refusing to face HB concerned citizens in person for over three years.
Sanders & Co. needs to get the heave-ho but quick come Election Day...

Csaba penned some words on Thursday that I have included below that spell it out pretty well for all to see and chew-on, especially the very bitter supporters of Cooper, as well as longtime Commissioners Bill Julian, Dotty Ross and Sanders.

This claque of aggressively loud-mouthed and high-strung supporters, whom, as you might imagine, don't much want to let the real facts and bad judgment of their heroes interfere with their preferred alternative-version of reality, where Cooper, Julian, Ross and Sanders are just super, just like the state of the city, and it's people like myself, Csaba, Mike Butler, Keith London and others interested in reform and transparency who are keeping the city down.

Yes, the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's collection of sycophants, oddballs and ne'er do-wells, with their grand sense of entitlement, who, in order to prove their worth to their heroes, almost routinely engage in the most juvenile and almost laughable stunts imaginable, of which stealing others' campaign signs is but, I suppose, the most basic of initiations.

For a few of them who are just barely tethered to reality, though, that also includes making phony phone calls to the Police Dept. in order to try to embarrass and frame people they hate.

(I'll get to that in a few days.)

That so many elected officials who have so very much to be publicly held accountable for, as well as their flunkies, drive around town and act above the law, would be laughable if it weren't so damn objectionable and obvious.

I described it here in detail as recently as Wednesday, and I suggest you go back to that post if you don't get the full picture of what things are like.

And now, finally, here's Csaba Kulin with the latest news on this pension matter: 

I have researched Management Pension Plan for two years. I have all the documents made available to me by the city. I did not find anywhere the City Commission-approved the prior year of service before the pension plan actually started.

The plan started in 2001 and R J Intindola should be receiving 13 months plus 4 years of time purchased. That is a bit over 5 years, not almost 25 years. R J Intindola should receive his 401K retirement, which is a lot less generous, prior to 2001 years of service.

I have been looking for two years for the authorization to give credit for “back service” years.
I was not able to find it for one reason. There is none.

The City Commission approved the plan but NOT the “prior service years”. I have no proof YET but I suspect it was approved, without City Commission’s OK, by the then City Manager R J Intindola. As far as know, R J Intindola was the first beneficiary of his decision.

This is not the end of the story. Will Hallandale Beach try to “claw back” and stop paying out ill-gotten pension payments? Will the Broward Inspector General look at the issue? Will the Hallandale Beach City Commission just say “let us forget about the past and concentrate on the mistakes we will make in the future” or we are going to get to the bottom of this. I will tell you after November 6, 2012
Here is the “smoking gun” from the current City Manager.

Hello Mr. Kulin,

I apologize for the delayed response but I wanted to be 100% sure that this information as correct. The city does not have an item that speaks directly to the credit of back time. I have attached for you all the documentation associated with formal actions adopting the management pension plan for your review.

Renee C. Crichton
City Manager
City of Hallandale Beach

-----

So I ask you, in a City Manager-style form of government like Hallandale Beach has had, who do you suppose made that crucial and expensive decision years ago regarding back time?

Teaser Alert -it wasn't the cute blonde beach lifeguard from Ft. Wayne.

Think much, much higher on the food chain.

Yes, just more reasons to vote for Keith London for mayor and Csaba Kulin and Michele Lazarow for city commission instead of the faces of unethical behavior and inadequate oversight and financial accountability, who desperately want to be on the dais a month from now -Cooper, Sanders and Julian.

http://kulin2012.com/

http://michelelazarow.com/

http://keithlondon.com/

Long-term financials at Hollywood and Hallandale Beach City Halls are likely shakier than they appear; 'Mayor Joy Cooper: "I don’t want to adversely affect our services.” 'Since when has she concerned herself with quality of services? Quite the opposite!

“We would like [the tax rate] to be lower, but we have a lot of expenses this year,” said Mayor Joy Cooper after the commission tentatively approved the tax rate this week. “I don’t want to adversely affect our services.”

As quoted in the Miami Herald over the weekend.

To which I can only say, since when has she concerned herself with quality of services? 

Quite the opposite!

The evidence is all around you that you are NOT getting what you've paid for.

Miami Herald

Hallandale Beach residents likely will pay more in taxes  

Hallandale Beach leaders approve a tentative tax rate, which will help pay for additional city services.

By Carli Teproff

Posted June 23, 2012

With two new parks facilities and a push to increase code enforcement and maintenance, Hallandale Beach will have a lot of expenses in the coming year.

And most residents can expect to pay a little bit more in taxes to pay for it all.

So far, the City Commission is leaning toward keeping the tax rate the same as it was this year — $5.90 per $1,000 of assessed property — but with property values going up, that amounts to homeowners paying more.

For a home valued at $200,000, taking the standard $50,000 homestead exemption, the tax bill would be $885, not including school and other taxes.

The city expects to generate about $21.5 million in the 2012-2013 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. That’s up $700,000, or 3.37 percent, from this year.

“We would like [the tax rate] to be lower, but we have a lot of expenses this year,” said Mayor Joy Cooper after the commission tentatively approved the tax rate this week. “I don’t want to adversely affect our services.”

Costs are up because two new facilities, a city marina and Foster Park will come online this year, said City Manager Renee Crichton. Running the park will up costs for staff and maintenance, she said.

“The city is an excellent position financially, but we still have some challenges we are going to face long-term,” said Crichton.

Commissioner Keith London, who is running against Cooper for mayor, said he thinks the city needs to rein in its spending.

“I think the budget is too high,” said London. “I don’t think we get the value for our dollar.”

City staff has been working on a proposed budget for months now, and the work will continue through the summer. There will be two public hearings in September before the commission votes on a final tax rate.

In the meantime, commissioners said, the staff should look for ways to save money.

Also at the meeting, the commission agreed to raise fire fees by $20 to $145. By raising the fees, the city would see an additional $900,000.

-----

Earlier today, the Balance Sheet Blog in next-door Hollywood, run by Sara Case and Laurie Schecter, posted a thoughtful and important new entry that has an interesting take on the not-so-rosy long-term financial situation in Hollywood, in that despite the positive changes that were made in response to Hollywood voters overwhelmingly passing last September's referendum on city pensions, Larry Legg, an experienced and savvy CPA who's looked at all the docs you can think of, still states that the "city is still at a moderate to high level of risk of bankruptcy and/or austerity measures." 

It's well worth reading!

PENSION REFORM

July 2, 2012, 12:52 PM 

http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/pension-reform/

Did you notice that line about Unfunded Pension costs?

That particular number here in Hallandale Beach is one that you never hear mentioned or discussed, much, esp. with respect to how to dig out of that hole, but I know someone who does know exactly what those numbers are, esp. with respect to the largest share of that problem, the Police and Fire/Rescue pensions.

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you know who that person is, too: Csaba Kulin.

Trust me, I've seen the numbers myself and it will make your head explode when you see them laid bare here on the blog very soon.

In a somewhat similar vein, based on the Teproff article at the top from the Herald and the everyday experiences of Hallandale Beach taxpayers and business owners, year-after-year, here's a reasonable question for Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper that Teproff and Tonya Alanez of the Sun-Sentinel might want to ask and actually follow-up on with some examples: How many years in a row has HB used the city's reserve fund simply to balance the city's budget?

Not for legitimate unexpected emergencies, but just to balance the budget, crammed with goodies for some, esp. the professional crony capitalism class here in our small city.

Cooper and her apologists at City Hall and all over town do not want to answer that question for a very good reason.

Because the truth is NOT her friend, and neither is spreading the truth.

Later today I'm heading over to North Beach for my final photo recon for my post on a matter that I had wanted to post Friday morning, Mark A. Antonio's last day as City Manager, but which will now probably run later in the week, now that I've blown past my own deadline.

It concerns the REAL reason that the City of Hallandale Beach's Parks Master Plan meeting on South Beach wasn't held at the North Beach Community Bldg. on May 31st, despite the fact that in a normal city, one where common sense and logic do intersect once in a while, that's where it would have been held for all sorts of patently obvious reasons.

If you guess that the reason probably has something to do with the city's infamous and cumbersome bureaucracy that has consistently shown no idea what's it's actually doing, its trademark inefficiency under Good and Antonio, you'd be right.

Not so much the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing as much as the right hand NOT knowing that it actually has a left hand.

Trust me, it's yet another embarrassing, only-in-Hallandale Beach screw-up, with its usual complete disregard for the taxpayers and citizens of the community.

Yes, just like Antonio's continual disregard for us by insisting that he'd do things his way -the wrong way- even after it was made clear over-and-over in regard to all manner of policy and financial matters that the community felt 100% differently than him.

His complete inability to adapt and evolve was always his most obvious weakness since I've been living here for over eight years.

I had been planned on toasting Antonio's departure on Friday, but absent someone to capture the moment, decided that the best thing I could do was to continue to document how genuinely feckless, ineffective and disconnected to our reality he was 'til the very end.

Incompetency for which he will be rewarded with a pension the size and scope of which will shock people here when they finally see the true figures, though I have a very good idea of it now.

By the way, there's a new Public Records policy in the city.

Guess where it's NOT mentioned? 

Yes, the city's own website.

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?NID=87

So, remind me again how come the city's IT Dept. head Ted Lamott still has a job after so many years of ineffectiveness?

Without giving too much away here, the next four months are going to be VERY BUMPY for individual City of HB Dept. heads, so very used to flying below-the-radar publicly, as I and others publicly discuss and analyze what they have done and mostly haven't done with the funds and resources they've been given, with so little oversight by our feckless Commissioners and the departing City Manager, who has been counting the hours he could leave since January 1st.

All with little tangible results to show HB taxpayers for the city's budget having nearly doubled the past six years under Mayor Cooper, the woman with so very little genuine concern about the actual quality of services delivered to taxpayers and business owners.

Yes, on miserably hot days like today, Cooper must surely be thinking a lot about her Colorado

home-away-from-home. 

I aim to do all I can the next few months to help make THAT her primary residence after November, but the real question is whether or not all the pro-reform candidates running for HB City Commission will do the same.

And if they do, will the voters here actually reject the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's eye-rolling antics, odd disconnect from reality and financial bumbling, and actually vote with their heads?
Actually give pro-reform candidates the opportunity they need to properly reform this city thru meaningful financial accountability, greater transparency and an injection of plain old common sense to get it out of its current funk?

We'll all know the answer 18 weeks from tomorrow.

Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's old threats & lawsuits re-emerge as Hollywood's Beach One Resort sues over its access to the beach, the latest shoe to drop in The Related Group's Beachwalk project that'd make HB's North Beach a de facto private beach for The Related Group's properties, NOT a public beach for HB residents

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Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's old threats & lawsuits re-emerge as Hollywood's Beach One Resort sues over its access to the beach, the latest shoe to drop in The Related Group's Beachwalk project that'd make HB's North Beach a de facto private beach for The Related Group's properties, NOT a public beach for HB residents

We all knew that it was only a matter of time before we got more facts about this heretofore mysterious lawsuit regarding access to the beach that was obliquely referred to last week around town and at the City Commission meeting on The Related Group's Beachwalk proposal, didn't we? 

And now the South Florida's Sun-Sentinel's Tonya Alanez has assembled some of the latest relevant facts to better connect-the-dots that should cause quite a ripple when you look at the big picture...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-hallandale-beach-access-lawsuit-20120613,0,4101185.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Beach One Resort's newest buyer sues Hallandale over beach access

By Tonya Alanez, Sun Sentinel

7:34 p.m. EDT, June 13, 2012

HALLANDALE BEACH—

The city has never embraced Hollywood's proposed Beach One Resort on Hallandale's northern border and has twice sued over congestion the project would bring to a high-rise heavy section of A1A.

Now, it's Hallandale's turn to be sued over the 41-story hotel/condo.

The dispute, this time, revolves around beach access.

Although the plot of land for the proposed Beach One Resort at 4111 S. Ocean Drive is in Hollywood, the beach directly in front of it is part of Hallandale's North Beach Park.

Because a Hallandale park-improvement plan would eliminate an existing 20-foot right of way dedicated to beach access, developer — Mazal Tov 11, LLC — which is buying the resort property for $15 million is suing Hallandale and the former developer.

Beach access for the 477-room hotel/condo is "an essential term of the contract" and the spat is hanging up a planned June 15 closing on the property, according to a lawsuit filed May 30 in Broward Circuit Court.

"The seller [Beach One Resort, LLLP] possessed actual knowledge, or should have known, that the city of Hallandale Beachintended to close beach access to the property, but misrepresented and concealed this fact to the seller," the lawsuit says." The buyer would not have entered into the contract or made [$2.2 million in] payments if it knew that the property did not have beach access."

A Mazal Tov spokesman, Marc Schmulian, indicated that a resolution may be in the works.

"We're working very hard to get this thing resolved as quickly and amicably as possible," Schmulian said Wednesday.

The Hallandale City Commission met in executive session June 7 to discuss the lawsuit.

Hallandale officials, through city spokesman Peter Dobens, declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Olga De Los Santos, corporate counsel for Beach One Resort, didn't have much more to say: "We are under strict orders not to comment on pending litigation. Regretfully, we can't comment."

Beach One Resort, slated for a 1.6-acre lot at the northeast corner of South Ocean Drive and Hallandale Beach Boulevard, has long been a source of tension between Hallandale and Hollywood.

Hallandale Mayor Joy Cooper attended an October 2008 Hollywood commission meeting to complain that the project would bring problematic congestion to an area already dense with high-rise condos and luxury hotels, especially in front of an adjacent Hallandale fire station.

At that meeting, Hollywood city commissioners unanimously approved zoning changes to allow the developer to move forward with the project, which is expected to generate $1.2 million a year for the city.

Hallandale officials hurriedly filed two lawsuits against Hollywood and the developer, objecting to the project, the effects its traffic would have on the fire station and claiming some Hollywood commissioners were biased against Hallandale Beach.

One of the lawsuits was dismissed by a judge and the other was settled when Hallandale and the original developer agreed on a valet-parking plan.

Mazal Tov is also suing over that valet agreement, saying the seller "actively concealed" it. Had it been disclosed, Mazal Tov would not have entered into the contract because it "burdened the property in perpetuity," the lawsuit says.

That agreement calls for Beach One Resort to provide mandatory valet parking when its holds special events drawing 400 or more guests; its purpose was to ensure that event traffic would not spill onto A1A or impact the neighboring fire station.

Construction has yet to begin on the project which is designed to include a restaurant and lounge, fitness facility and meeting space.

"The concerns raised by Hallandale, we have sought to address and the developer has sought to address, and, we believe, has been resolved," Hollywood spokeswoman Raelin Storey said Wednesday.

"I think we're past that issue now, and we hope that the developer and Hallandale could work out any other issues that remain."

My previous posts on the Beach One Resort project from 2008 are below.

Yes, back in the days when Mayor Joy Cooper was making her wild threats against the City of Hollywood and was threatening to charge an entrance fee to access the public beach -North Beach- near the Beach One Resort property, something she has neither the legal power or authority to do, of course under the Florida Constitution.

Is there nothing Mayor Cooper won't say or do or threaten in order to get her way?

For the record, since facts really do matter, esp. in this case, at the 2008 Hollywood City Commission meeting where the plan was unanimously approved, the public meeting where 

a.) Mayor Cooper, then-City Manager Mike Good, then-City Attorney David Jove & Company arrived having completely failed to do their basic homework, and actually know the relevant rules that applied next door in Hollywood. Yes, Jove being Jove!

Foolishly, this crew thought they'd just show-up and be given preferential treatment and be given special rights at the meeting that actual Hollywood citizens didn't enjoy -to speak for fifteen minutes instead of the three minutes allowed during public comments- until Mayor Bober set them straight on the rules, and

b.) the meeting where I publicly spoke in favor of the Beach One Resort project, having attended most of the previous public meetings on the issue, where both the developers and the city staff were friendly, forthcoming and professional, something that can't really be said here in HB the past few years, where the city has attempted to keep public information from the public about development issues until the last possible moment.

It was at this 2008 meeting that a very interesting and telling fact emerged that was NEVER publicly mentioned again at Hallandale Beach City Hall.

And a most delicious and telling fact it is, too.

When the clueless HB crew were clearly losing their cool and their argument, they complained that Fire Chief Sullivan never received some pertinent documents from Hollywood to look over, but without missing a beat, it was quickly pointed out that the docs in question had in fact been sent to Good, who had, in fact, received them.

You see, it really wasn't the City of Hollywood's problem that then-City Manager Mike Good, the person in charge, never gave those particular docs to Chief Sullivan.

He had them, but for whatever reason, he chose not to share them with Sullivan.

Yes, incredibly, the Cooper Crew actually wanted to complain about something that the City of Hollywood had absolutely no control over, and then fumed about it.

Really.

Tell me truthfully, is that not THE perfect fact to explain to people who don't live here how things are routinely done at Hallandale Beach City Hall?

Not just poorly and unprofessionally, but incompetently and sometimes, as we've previously, discussed, perhaps even illegally as well.

Naming Names Herald-style -Beach One Resort Hotel in Hollywood Passes Round One

Oct. 3, 2008: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/naming-names-herald-style-beach-one.html

Beach One Resort's Approval in Hollywood Provokes Wrath and Harsh Words at Hallandale Beach City Commission

Oct. 18, 2008: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/beach-one-resorts-approval-in-hollywood.html

Cleavage Grows Larger b/w City of Hallandale Beach and Hollywood After Beach One Resort Approved

Oct. 21, 2008 http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/cleavage-grows-larger-bw-city-of.html

If Mayor Cooper, former City Manager Mike Good, Fire Chief Sullivan -and then Asst. City Manager Antonio- were genuinely so concerned and serious about the public safety of HB residents and visitors when saying that the Beach One Resort shouldn't have been approved by the City of Hollywood for that site next-door to the iconic HB Water Tower and the HB Fire/Rescue station below it, then how come they, the so-called leaders of the City of Hallandale Beach, NEVER made arrangements to erect even a single Fire Truck warning sign, like the one above -commonplace in all parts of this country!- placed ANYWHERE on State Road A1A/Ocean Drive and east-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd./State Road 858 as you approach the Fire/Rescue Station in question, to warn drivers and pedestrians?

You know, as is done everywhere else in this country routinely?

So much for their genuine concern about public safety and attention to detail! 

Then and now!

Folks, they never erected one prior to that 2008 Hollywood City Commission meeting and four years later, nothing has changed at that intersection and immediate area -there's still NO WARNING SIGNS there of any kind!

Yes, actions really DO speak louder than words, and by that measure, it's yet another example of the City of Hallandale Beach saying one thing and doing quite another.

Above, another classic 2008 photo of mine highlighting the city's inability to do something right and their lack of attention to detail -this is the city's first "warning" sign that you see about surveillance cameras at the beach. 

It's on the back of a a west-bound Stop sign that's on the opposite side of the street as you are driving east. And as you can see is frequently obstructed by palm fronds.

But of course, courts have already ruled that if the public can't see a posted warning or road signs, they're really NOT posted. 

Yes, that so-called "warning" is still there, and the city has never posted any other more-visible warning signs at the entrance.

It's one of dozens of facts and problems about the beach and this city that I told HB Assistant City Managers Jennifer Frastai and Franklin Heileman about four year ago, over the course of nearly an hour, in the conference room of the City Manager's office at City Hall.

Frastai has NEVER done anything about any of the dozens of matters I brought to her attention that day, including the ones related to public safety, most of which are still all around us today. 


Frastai also NEVER followed-up with me as she said she would, despite my giving her multiple email addresses and phone numbers she could reach me at. 

As almost everyone in this city who is paying attention knows, I'm one of the easiest persons to reach in this city, but somehow, she couldn't be bothered.

Which is why Jennifer Frastai simply can't be trusted -there's no logical follow-up.

Above, in this July 2008 photo of mine, you can see one of two kids playing on top of the OLD dirt mound on the Beach One Resort property. 

Given how often it rains here, I guess it's a good thing he didn't get swallowed up by any sand that wanted to channel quicksand, huh?

But what about the dirt mound that's there NOW?

The present dirt pile on The Beach One Resort property at at 4101 S. Ocean Drive in Hollywood. May 11, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The present dirt pile on The Beach One Resort property at at 4101 S. Ocean Drive in Hollywood. May 30, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Above, a June 2008 photo of mine from near the Hollywood-HB border on the beach, looking south. What do you know, there's one of the filthy and rusty pipes that the HB Dept. of Public Works has left in the middle of the public beach for years!

Yes, Mayor Cooper, her Rubber Stamp Crew and City Manager Antonio sure have a very strange and unusual way of showing HB taxpayers and visitors to the area how much they really care about the public's beach, don't they?

Yes, four years later, they're still there: both the rusty pipes and the very people responsible for being so careless and callous about an invaluable resource -the public's beach.

Above and below, both from June 2, 2012: At top, my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Csaba Kulin, at a place that ought to be one of the city's crown jewels and a natural meeting place for the whole community -but isn't: the City of Hallandale Beach's very poorly-maintained North Beach park, with the iconic HB Water Tower and The Beach Club condo towers to his right. 

Below, with The Apogee development in Hollywood right behind him, currently under construction.

Above and below, proving the maxim that rust never sleeps. 

But at the City of Hallandale Beach's poorly-maintained and dirty North Beach, it also never moves. May 30, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The public beach, especially in a city that is as small as ours, is an invaluable natural resource to this city's present and future residents.

Unfortunately, it's a resource that Mayor Cooper has already clearly indicated thru both her words and deeds that she's perfectly willing to cede de facto control over to a developer for mere peanuts, in order to get The Beachwalk project approved next Wednesday night.

FYI: On Saturday I'll finally be posting "Part 2 of 2 re The Beachwalk project in Hallandale Beach -Initial comments & ruminations on Wednesday night's HB City Comm. meeting; calling out Carole Pumpian, crony capitalism mercenary"