Longtime #HallandaleBeach civic activists and past supporters of Mayor #KeithLondon and Comm. #MicheleLazarow are DISMAYED and EMBARRASSED at what is taking place at City Hall now, with personal/political expediency trumping common sense and rational public discourse

Today's blog post serves as a logical follow-up to my last one regarding the long overdue arrest of longtime Hallandale Beach Mayor and despot Joy Cooper by the FBI on three felony counts and one misdemeanor count.

#schadenfreude - Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's long-overdue public comeuppance and takedown for her despotic, authoritarian and corrupt reign at HB City Hall finally comes via an arrest by the FBI. Cooper's arrest suddenly awakens the long-slumbering South Florida news media to the high level of corruption and incompetency taking place there that I told you about at the time. So where were they? #ethics

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/schadenfreude-hallandale-beach-mayor.html

I regret that this post of mine today will necessarily be about one-fifth as long as I'd like for it to be, but I have had much less time over the weekend to work on it than expected because of another big writing project of mine that's considerably more important to me and my future long-term happiness than the latest jaw-dropping antics and escapades in Hallandale Beach, so this is what will have to suffice for now until a few more days pass and I can connect all the dots for you here on the blog.

Before I get into it, I remind you that a a candidate's debate is scheduled to take place tonight at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center from 6:30 until 9 PM, featuring the five candidates running to fill the term of disgraced former HB City Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders, whose resignation was NOT his idea, after the Broward Inspector General raised public questions about his fitness for office after they reported nothing but holes in his accounts of where $800,000 of HB CRA went -and why.
I will be at the debate so if you have not seen me in a while or have thought I did in fact move out to Las Vegas afterall in early October, please come over and say hello and see for yourself that it's really me, not a clone.

Excerpt from Hallandale Beach's Monday afternoon press release:

You are cordially invited to attend a Candidates Forum on February 27, 2018 from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center located at 410 SE 3^rd Street, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009.

This forum will feature the qualified candidates for the March 13, 2018 Special Election to fill the unexpired term for Commission Seat 1. South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial page editor Rosemary O’Hara will serve as the moderator for this event.

All interested parties who plan to attend this event are encouraged to offer their questions on 3X5 cards the day of the event and/or email Ms. O’Hara in advance at rohara@sun-sentinel.com as she will be the sole judge of any and all questions asked.

A livestream of this event can be found of the City’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CityOfHallandaleBeach

As for the latest news that I can mention quickly here, with much more facts and concerns and video to come in a few days, many longtime Hallandale Beach civic activists, friends of mine and past supporters of new Hallandale Beach Mayor Keith London and Comm. Michele Lazarow are DISMAYED and EMBARRASSED about what has been taking place at HB City Hall these days with them in the majority, where personal and political expediency seem to keep trumping common sense and rational public idiscourse regarding many different issues, large and small, including eliminating one of the city's few common sense procedures.

1/ Many longtime #HallandaleBeach civic activists & past supporters of Mayor #KeithLondon & Comm. #MicheleLazarow are DISMAYED�� at what is taking place @ #CityHall now, w/personal/pol. expediency trumping rational public input re changing 1 of city's few #CommonSense procedures. pic.twitter.com/Fz0JLQoh1N

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) February 25, 2018

2/ Recent selection of Rich Dally, a complete unknown w/no public track record of being a voice for #reform #accountability or #transparancy, to become a HB Comm. @ a #HallandaleBeach CityComm mtg where the issue of selection was NOT on public agenda, is VERY troubling sign.☹️

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) February 25, 2018

3/ It's troubling precisely bec this 'bum's rush' tactic = same 1 employed years ago by #HallandaleBeach Mayor #JoyCooper in selecting unethical Anthony A. Sanders as a #Hallandalebeach Comm. at a CityComm. mtg where it was NOT on agenda, and she did not allow public to speak. ��

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) February 25, 2018

4/ Even worse, #HallandaleBeach's agreed-upon process for selecting a City Comm. in the event of a vacancy, the 1 used as recently as '14 and same 1 used that got #KeithLondon on it in '07, was tossed-out by London, Lazarow & Dally despite its popularity w/civic activists. Why?

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) February 25, 2018

The selection two weeks ago of Rich Dally as a Hallandale Beach City Commissioner, that is, a complete unknown with no tangible public track record of being a well-informed voice in the community for increased #reform #accountability and #transparency at HB City Hall, at a HB City Commission meeting where the sole issue on the written public agenda was the expected selection of then-Vice Mayor Keith London to become interim mayor until November's election because of Joy Cooper being removed from office by Governor Rick Scott, NOT a vote on filling London's seat, caused most of the people I know and respect in the city to recoil at the very idea of the current majority channeling the very worst instincts of the since departed Cooper, whose thin skin and huge ego were constantly on display for the past 15 years, no matter the issue under discussion.

What the public saw after Keith London was voted in as interim mayor on a 2-1 vote was a government action that was NOT on the public agenda, should NOT have taken place then without the proper public notice being given, and what in almost every respect, resembled the sort of thing that Joy Cooper loved doing.

That is to say, doing something not because it was the right thing to do for the community at large, or even some part of it, but rather because she thought she and what I have long called her "Rubber Stamp Crew" thought they could get away with it.

It was that simple.
For years!

Then as now, it was exactly what it looked like, and yet I would hazard to say that few people who know Keith London even a fraction as well as I do, would have expected such a cynical, self-destructive and negative thing to be his first official act as Mayor.
And yet it was.

He squndered his opportunity to look like he was up to the challenge of running things instead of being the opposition, and seemed to act petty and argumentative just for the sake of being that way, with no apologies for how things appeared to the public.

Keith London voted for Dally to sit on the five-member HB City Commission until November, someone whose name he could not even pronounce correctly, and seemed to know very, very little about, yet took Comm. Michele Lazarow's nomination and endorsement of Dally as enough proof of his qualifications despite London having publicly nominated my very good friend and confidante, Csaba Kulin, for the post. Why?

Why did Keith London's replacement on the City Commission have to be named within ten minutes of London's elevation to the mayor's seat when the seat of disgraced Comm. Sanders has stood empty since last August, six long months ago?
He couldn't say and nether could anyone else on the dais.

Not that they tried.

Nor did they explain why they would vote on the three nominated candidates -Dally, Kulin and another friend of mine, Hallandale Beach businessman Rob Raymond- alphabetically instead of polling the three members and requiring them to name whom they were for on the first ballot.
Instead, because D comes before K and R, Dally was selected 2-1 and there was no vote on Kulin and Raymond.

#bizarre

The fact that Dally did such a very poor job of explaining who he was or why anyone in the city should have any confidence in him or even why HE deserved to be selected -after he was selected!- only made things worse and more laughably embarrassing for the city in general and him personally, since at no point did Dally actually state what his legitimate qualifications or expertise was.

What we were to learn over a few minutes was that he and his girlfriend have twins, that he is a loyal Democratic functionary, serving as head of the Broward Young Democrats.His actual job was never mentioned.

In short, he appears to be nothing but Alex Lewy 2.0, someone who aims to be a career politician with nothing to personally recommend him, as the many dozens of people who have called me in disgust or written me in the days since the absurd decision was made have all complained about in angry tones.

The whole thing could have been avoided if common sense were in abundance, but in HB, common sense is a rare mineral.

It would have been very easy for Keith London, Michele Lazarow and Annabelle Taub to show some common sense at the meeting and announce that the City Commission would take nominations for the former London Commission seat at the next scheduled Commission meeting, which would allow enough time for the public to weigh-in and for people to talk with their family and friends about whether they should place themselves in harm's way or not in nominating themselves.

These continuing series of bad decisions and remarkably poor judgment at HB City Hall are VERY troubling signs for all concerned.☹️

Troubling precisely because this bum's rush tactic to get Dally on the dais is the same one employed years ago at a City Commission meeting I was present at where Mayor Cooper personally selected and insisted upon unethical Anthony A. Sanders being installed as a Commissioner at a City Commission meeting where the issue was NOT on the public agenda.
That Cooper did not allow the public to ever speak on the matter, as I wrote on the blog at the time, was a germane fact which the South Florida news media failed to ever mention in their accounts.

Hallandale Beach already has an agreed-upon process for selecting a City Commissioner in the event of a vacancy, and it's the one used as recently as 2014, and, the same one used that resulted in Keith London becoming a City Commissioner in 2007. 

But if you can believe it, having avoided using it one week, it was promptly tossed-out by London, Lazarow and Dally last week at their meeting despite its great popularity with civic activists like me and many of the people I know precisely because it requires candidates to explain their interest, their qualifications and be subject to questions from the public and the Commissioners.

None of those things took place two weeks ago with Rich Dally.

Why?

That's a very good question.

You already know the names of the three people whom you should ask about it: London, Lazarow and Taub.

I don't personally know anyone in Hallandale Beach besides Comm. Lazarow who plans on voting for Dally in November when he runs for a full term. Nobody.

Everyone who has contacted me since Dally's selection has told me that under no circumstances will he be getting their vote.

Just saying...

I honestly don't think Rich Dally has any idea of what is in store for him in the coming months. 
(Or even, perhaps, on this blog.)
It won't be pretty.

An engaged citizenry and news media are unlikely to take Rich Dally's word for anything.

Long overdue public accountability finally comes to the Broward County Commission: Broward County Commission meetings will FINALLY be available to residents, taxpayers and media online via an archive; no more having to buy DVDs!

When I was at Broward County HQ for various reasons back in February, March and April, nearly every single well-informed County employee I trust and specifically asked about County Manager Bertha Henry's refusal to make video-on-demand happen, this sort of common sense transparency change that many residents assume already exists, told me that they'd "heard" that she was putting her foot down, and would need to be dragged into implementing such a program, no matter how much the elected Commission said they wanted it done or how much concerned citizens like me said we wanted it ASAP, and, by the way, DIDN'T think it was too much to expect in the year 2014.

This didn't surprise me, per se, considering that Ms. Henry -whom I'm no fan of- had previously missed a deadline to inform the Commission and the public about what was going on with this overdue acknowledgement of the 21st Century.

(Dragged because nothing was going on or because she didn't want to appear to be publicly and directly challenging her bosses by refusing to follow their directives???) 

In any case, I was quite surprised to get this bit of positive email today, at bottom. 

Surprised, but pleased.

Take victories where you can find them!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 5:39 PM
Subject: Just another in a long line of reasons to fire her: Broward Bulldog update to Browrad County Administrator Bertha Henry's failure to meet County Comm.'s deadline for video-on-demand service for public

Bertha Henry is the same woman in charge who utterly failed to make sure that 

the Broward County Charter Review Comm.'s minutes and documents were online 

on the county's website before the November 2010 election so that residents/voters 

could actually see the accurate background information on the County's charter 

issues that appeared on the ballot; as well as find out why many others did not 

make the ballot and let the people decide, like the idea of a County-wide elected 

mayor of Broward County, just like in Miami-Dade County and Orange County, 

due to parochialism, power politics and behind-the-scenes lobbying by the Broward 

County League of Cities, and most of the county's elected crew.

Getting that information online in time for people to make informed choices is precisely 

the sort of thing that you'd take for granted if you lived in most parts of the country.

But not here.

For those of you who weren't around then, at the time, I wrote a number of blog posts 

about this issue as well as many emails to elected officials and it took forever to get 

them to do the right thing.

This same sort of thing happened with the so-called Courthouse Taskforce that was 

chaired by a Comm. who owned property in the area, and so, was emblematic of a group

of people who were appointed who only wanted a new courthouse, not anyone in favor of 

another solution.

In that matter, the County consistently failed to have the Task Force agendas and 

background documents online before the meetings they held.

Even with the case of the final meeting, that info, which ought to have been placed online 

days before, instead was placed online after midnight of the day of the meeting -hours after 

it took place.

That's how they do things with Bertha Henry in charge.

Don't hold your breath thinking that anything short of forcing her to walk the plank is going 

to get her properly motivated.

----

Broward Bulldog

Broward commissioners tell Henry to come up with a plan for video-on-demand of meetings

By William Hladky, BrowardBulldog.org 

February 5, 2014 at 8:02 p.m.

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2014/02/broward-commissioners-support-video-on-demand-of-meetings-want-a-plan-from-henry/

And now... 

From: Stapleton, Margaret
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 1:57 PM
To: Sharief, Barbara; Lamarca, Chip; Holness, Dale; Jacobs, Kristin; Wexler, Lois; Kiar, Martin; Ritter, Stacy; Gunzburger, Suzanne; Ryan, Tim; Scavron, Aaron; Flury, Barbara; Rosenberg, Eric; Fields, Gregory; Beckford, John; Bertino, John; Wesner, Kate; Hall, Kathy; Pierson, Kelly; Pauli, Kenneth; Maroe, Kimberly; Carter, Kristin; Scarlette, Lahoma; Carbonell, Launa; Lynch, Lauraine; Wolter, Margaret; Pryde, Mary; Carreras, Megan; Clark, Michael; Goldstein, Norma; Busey, Philip; Yeager, Sandra; Barrocas, Scott; Popiel, Stephen; Hirschman, William
Cc: Directors; Henry, Bertha; Hernandez, Roberto; Cepero, Monica; Cassini, Gretchen; Jefferson, Alphonso; Maroe, Kimberly
Subject: Commission Meeting Archive and Security Updates
Importance: High

Commissioners,

Broward County will formally announce today that, as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency in government, video recordings of County Commission meetings, including Public Hearings and Good and Welfare, will be posted online beginning with the August 12th meeting, and will typically be available for on-demand viewing by noon each Wednesday.  A new and improved Government website, including a new Agendas and Minutes Archive webpage, has been launched in support of the change.

View  New Government Website Landing Page

View New Agendas and Minutes Archive Webpage

Most of the information on the new website is in “responsive design.” This is a Web best practice that makes content more readily accessible across multiple mobile devices, including Apple and Android smartphones and tablets. Site visitors can:

·         Select a Commission Meeting Viewing Option (live, replay or on-demand)

·         Access New Video Recording Meeting Archive (August 12, 2014 forward) and Action Agenda and Meeting Minutes Archive (from July 23, 1915)

·         View Commission Meeting Agendas and Back-Up Material

·         Subscribe to Receive Agenda Notifications

·         View Current Commission Meeting Schedule

·         Get Information on Signing up to Speak/Requesting Communication Aids

·         Link to Commissioner Websites and/or Find Commission District

·         Access Related Links and Resources

Security Update

Facilities Management is also announcing new security measures beginning August 12^th, including the addition of a walk-through magnetometer, used for metal detection. The magnetometer will significantly enhance overall security, and as an added benefit, is expected to speed the security screening process. Room 422 will open at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Facilities Management reminds employees that while it is important for them to wear their Broward County ID during the workday, it is especially important for any staff attending the meeting or seeking access to Commission Chambers on a Commission Meeting day, to have their Broward County ID with them and prominently displayed. This helps Security readily identify Broward County employees and expedites the screening process; however, all employees and visitors will be screened.

AED (Automated External Defibrillator) equipment is located near every entrance to the Governmental Center and in the elevator lobby area on every floor. An additional unit has been installed in the Chamber. As you face the dais, it is located on the wall to your left. Security personnel and law enforcement within the building are trained on the operation of AED equipment and to perform CPR.

Margaret Stapleton, Director

Broward County Office of Public Communications

115 S. Andrews Ave., Room 506

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

Phone: 954-357-6931

Cell: 954-802-3487

broward.org

#OpenGov, #OpenData and meaningful government reform finally hits Los Angeles via Control Panel L.A., a powerful website that opens city finances to quick, easy online public scrutiny, with extensive detail on how City Hall collects and spends billions of tax dollars; Plus, there's an expanded version of CompStat to track neighborhood problems online; Dear Santa... I want THAT!

#OpenGov, #OpenData and meaningful government reform finally hits Los Angeles via Control Panel L.A., a powerful website that opens city finances to quick, easy online public scrutiny, with extensive detail on how City Hall collects and spends billions of tax dollars; Plus, there's an expanded version of CompStat to track neighborhood problems online; Dear Santa... I want THAT!

L.A. controller unveils website to make city finances more transparent http://t.co/yXWOvzbIne
— Paul Pringle LATimes (@PringleLATimes) October 24, 2013

Los Angeles financial data is now searchable online at http://t.co/gEAmMMduDR #opendata
— LA Mayor's Office (@LAMayorsOffice) October 23, 2013

Congratulations City of LA for going #OpenGov! https://t.co/eCp4YYbDrN @RonGalperin @ericgarcetti #gov20 #gov20la
— Alan W. Silberberg (@IdeaGov) October 23, 2013

Fun fact from #ControlPanelLA: 622 City of Los Angeles employees make more than @ericgarcetti's annual salary of $200,568.58 as Mayor.
— Highland Park (@HLP90042) October 23, 2013

"This isn't just about transparency, it's about revolutionizing the way our city does it's financial reporting." - @RonGalperin @atvn
— Tara Campbell (@tarapcampbell) October 23, 2013

Los Angeles Times
L.A. controller unveils website to make city finances more transparent
The website gives the public access to a huge volume of data on taxpayer expenditures for police, sanitation, street repairs and other services.
By Michael Finnegan and Ben Welsh
October 24, 2013

Los Angeles' new controller moved Wednesday to open city finances to quick and easy public scrutiny online, unveiling a website with extensive detail on how City Hall collects and spends billions of dollars.

The website, Control Panel L.A., gives users access to a huge volume of data on taxpayer expenditures for police, sanitation, street repairs and other services — information that previously would have taken weeks or months to get through formal requests for records.

Read the rest of the article at
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-1024-city-opens-books-20131024,0,3215790.story#axzz2ifPH4BOe

While Los Angeles slowly marches forward towards the digital future via their Control Panel L.A., https://controllerdata.lacity.org/ we in South Florida can only look longingly at this sort of practical and common sense tool from a great distance and sigh wistfully...

And here's another transparency effort, building upon the successful use of CompStat by LAPD that will be the first major initiative of Mayor Eric Garcetti, who took office in June, which will track progress on goals from neighborhood concerns like pot hole to streetlight repair, on a computer system that residents can check online.

Mayor Garcetti Unveils First Major Initiative: Online Accountability Plan September 26, 2013 10:41 PM

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/09/26/mayor-garcetti-unveils-first-major-initiative-online-accountability-plan/

More on the effort to gets the facts and figures into the hands of taxpayers..

caforward YouTube Channel video: L.A. City Controller's plans for a more efficient, accessible city hall

"Los Angeles is one of the oldest cities in California. The City is rich with history. A lot of that history lays within City hall, with the data and information to tell a story. The City of Angels is also the most populous city in the state, with more than 3.7 million people. You'd think a city this large and this old would be at the forefront of technology. Well it's just the opposite. California Forward had the opportunity to sit down with the newly elected L.A. City Controller, Ron Galperin. He took office on July 1, 2013, as the 20th Controller. With less than two months under his belt, the Contoller explains his big plans to transform city hall."

Two-part interview. Uploaded August 27, 2013 http://youtu.be/95GoouHZTso

One on One with Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin

Uploaded September 3, 2013. http://youtu.be/I1idK1OuwTI

http://www.cafwd.org 

See also the videos at http://gov20la.silberberginnovations.com/

Washington Post's Dan Eggen serves up a delicious slice of hypocrisy re transparency: "Pro-disclosure groups often don’t disclose themselves"

Sunlight Foundation video: Washington's Lobbyist Fix -- The Advisory Committee on Transparency. March 16, 2011. I'm posting this year-old video because Dan Eggen is a panelist on a forum on the topic of transparency.

http://youtu.be/2AEOVj0snPY

The only thing better this week than hot pizza and cold beer while watching the beginning of the NCAA basketball tourney on TV -unexpectedly being served-up some sweet hypocrisy on a silver platter!

More, please!

The Washington Post

The Influence Industry blog

Pro-disclosure groups often don’t disclose themselves

By Dan Eggen, 

Published: March 14, 2012

In a bid to limit the impact of “secret money” in the 2012 elections, a coalition of liberal-leaning groups announced a campaign this week aimed at pressuring corporations to reveal donations to political groups.

There is one complication, however: Many of the groups behind the effort also don’t disclose their donors to the public.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-influence-industry-pro-disclosure-groups-often-dont-disclose-themselves/2012/03/13/gIQAs9X9CS_story.html 

Take a look while you're at it at the WaPo's Campaign 2012 Campaign Finance Explorer chart at http://wapo.st/zESKIX

Dan Eggen archives: http://www.washingtonpost.com/dan-eggen/2011/02/28/ABg0isM_page.html

Follow Dan Eggen on Twitter at:@DanEggenWPost

Recent tweets at http://twitter.com/#!/daneggenwpost

Open Secrets blog: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/

Addition by subtraction: Richard Cannone leaving City of Hallandale Beach for PA; let's hope his replacement is more forthcoming, honest than he was

Addition by Subtraction: Richard Cannone is leaving the City of Hallandale Beach for Pennsylvania; let's hope his replacement is more forthcoming and honest than he was.
Not that doing so would be difficult, since that's such a very low threshold.

I'll be posting more on the blog in the next few days about this great news about one of the poster children for the longtime dysfunctional and citizen-unfriendly Hallandale Beach City Hall, actually leaving town.
Yes, the theory of addition by subtraction at its very best!

I'll also highlight some prime examples of Cannone's handiwork that make me very glad he's leaving as Director of Development Services, where he and his staff consistently did as little as possible to be transparent with concerned Hallandale Beach citizen taxpayers and business owners.
The very people who paid his salary and his staff's.

His last day is Friday and after that, he is no longer our collective headache and can no longer treat concerned citizens of this very poorly-run city with disdain.

So, speaking of Richard Cannone and his management skills, please explain to me again why in this city, where HB taxpayers are stuck paying thousands of dollars a month for a third-rate city website, the city staff's official documents for the city's Planning & Zoning Advisory Board meetings -and applicant's official applications and submitted documents- don't actually appear on the city website until a a measly 48 hours before the meeting, instead of many days ahead, like in neighboring Hollywood?

If you REALLY want an informed citizenry and have residents and interested parties NOT confused or mis-informed by misinformation or rumors, why do you intentionally wait to make the information public until Monday, when the information is actually complete and available on Friday afternoon?
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?nid=648

That's a simple question that Richard Cannone could never answer publicly.

Could it just be that HB City Hall wants citizens here to be in the dark and have no information? Yes!

Another simple question is why Cannone's own name doesn't even appear on the Development Services homepage?
Check for yourself at http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?nid=49

Another part of Cannone's legacy here!

Invisible and yet also leaving a bad taste.

Meanwhile, back in my former home, Arlington County (VA), Extravagant Local Govt. Spending Central, similarities to So. Florida abound

Oh dear!
Somebody is using someone else's wallet, purse, debit and credit cards to do some early Christmas Shopping for all kinds of un-necessary things, and one of the suspects is a member of the Usual Suspects in Northern Virgina.

That person's name is Chris Zimmerman, the very self-involved Arlington County Board and WMATA Board member who went ballistic when average citizens -and Boy Scouts- wanted to start post-9/11 Arlington County Commission meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance.

It's all-too-true: One of the main reasons that people leave Arlington County, VA is Comm. Chris Zimmerman, a condescending, know-it-all liberal bureaucrat with a tin ear and yen for raising taxes for pet projects.

Arlington Yupette, the sensible, dependable and common sense blog friend of all well-informed and discerning citizen taxpayers in Arlington County (VA) -where your faithful blogger Dave lived from 1989 to 2003- along with her observant, hyper-vigilant but still severely put-upon readers, are literally breathing fire after the latest examples of illogical upside-down, run-amok government spending priorities among Zimmerman and the Arlington County government and the Arlington School Board, the twin pillars that compose Arlington's sprawling Extravagant Govt. Spending Central colossus.
http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/

That refrain sounds familiar, can you hum a few bars?
I can definitely name that song in two notes!
And it definitely smells familiar, too.

The only difference from Broward County is the absence -so far- of photos of FBI agents arresting Arlington elected officials.

Christmas in October continues this evening at the County Board meeting. Items on the agenda include gifts for the Artisphere, the Washington Golf and Country Club, and an $82 million pot of gold from establishing a special tax district encompassing Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Potomac Yards for the County's Board's pet vanity projects (Fisette's Aquatic Center, Zimmerman's light rail, etc).

The Arlington Sun Gazette slammed both Sally Baird and the Arlington School System today, providing a laundry list of serious problems and failures ranging from extravagant unnecessary spending to a drop-out rate that's a "barely-concealed scandal".

The current mendacious shell games up there in Arlington, especially with the special taxing districts, Business Improvements Districts, (BIDs), which have been so successful in Washington, D.C. after some early problems, recalls the 'funny business' I've written about here in the past per Charles Rabin's excellent coverage in the Miami Herald of the the multiple CRAs in the City of Miami, which have former White Knight Marc Sarnoff's fingerprints all over them.

'Funny business' that is, if by 'funny business,' you mean barely-concealed personal agendas being played-out with taxpayer/business money.
I do!

My July 30th post on this subject was: It can't be said better than this - Howard Troxler in 7/29/10 St. Pete Times: St. Petersburg's cynical plan to thwart Amendment 4 (redux)
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/it-cant-be-said-better-than-this-howard.html

Comm. Sarnoff's fairly rapid descent into meddling mediocrity and curious, not-to-say questionable policy/ethical choices and words, has led many Miami-area civic activists and reporters and columnists I know and trust, who once regarded him as a breath of fresh air, to privately admit that Sarnoff is the latest South Florida pol to "go over to the Dark Side."

Just like Broward County Comm. Kristen Jacobs up here, which I wrote about the day before the August primary election.
That August 23rd post was Broward political insider wisely intones the truth: "Kristin Jacobs has gone over to the Dark Side."
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/broward-political-insider-wisely.html

For more on Chris Zimmerman, see this,
http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/2010/06/please-help-chris-zimmerman.html and then David Alpert's excellent piece from last Sept. 29th,
Innovation resistance at Metro, part 1: The value of "bottom-up"
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3655

His piece appears on his excellent public policy blog GreaterGreaterWashington, which lacks a mirror site of similar scope and quality in South Florida, though to be 100% honest, his site often fails to take into account the role of the average DC-area taxpayer, who doesn't want to keep paying for transportation experiments that benefit a very small number of people.
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/

You can be very pro-transit like me, but also accept the fact that some transportation or public policy projects pushed for funding are either turkeys or white elephants to be.
Being pro-transit doesn't mean having to also be intellectually dishonest, though that sometimes was the case in Arlington, just as it is here in South Florida.
Like I need to tell you, dear readers.

Another couple of things on Chris Zimmerman from an email I sent to Transit Miami founder Gabriel Lopez-Bernal in 2008. http://www.transitmiami.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403382.html

The Washington Post

Hired Riders to Assess Metro
Critics See Waste, Say There's No Mystery to Poor Service

By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 25, 2008; B01

The Metro board yesterday approved spending as much as $1 million over five years to hire professional "mystery riders" to assess the quality of service on trains and buses.

But some rider advocates questioned the expense and said the transit agency could get equally valuable information from its riders, who already bombard Metro with more than 3,000 complaints a month.

Much like the mystery shoppers of retail, the undercover Metro riders would take trips on Metrorail and Metrobus. Armed with a checklist of criteria that includes cleanliness and on-time performance, the mystery riders would travel on nearly all routes, evaluate the service from a customer's perspective and provide feedback to Metro, officials said. The information would be used to help Metro identify and correct problems.

"We want to know what works and doesn't work, and what can be made better," said Metro board Chairman Chris Zimmerman, who represents Arlington County and pushed for the program as part of Metro's goal to improve service.

Metro already hears from many customers about what does not work. The agency receives between 3,000 and 4,000 complaints a month, according to agency reports. The most common complaints are late buses, rude and discourteous behavior, and a lack of reliability for MetroAccess, the paratransit service. More than 1.2 million trips are taken systemwide on an average weekday.

Zimmerman said the mystery-rider program is needed because "we can't afford to wait until there's a complaint" to improve service.

The board authorized the agency to hire a company to assess 95 percent of Metrorail and Metrobus service, according to Donna Murray, Metro's manager of consumer research. Metro would pay $175,000 for the first year's work, according to the board resolution. The $1 million budget covers three years, plus two one-year options to renew the deal. The program could begin by late August, she said.

Murray said she could not provide an estimate of how many mystery riders would be deployed.

Metro had a similar program several years ago that used trained volunteers. Maryland board member Peter Benjamin asked why the agency needed to spend money to hire professionals.

The earlier program produced unreliable results skewed by riders' subjectivity, said Sara Wilson, Metro's assistant general manager for corporate strategy. "We'd only get the results of the person who rode the X2 every day."

The new proposal drew a mixed reaction from rider groups.

Nancy Iacomini, who chairs the Metro-appointed Riders' Advisory Council, said it was a "great idea" to have "people deployed in an organized fashion to every bus line and train line at different times of the day." Relying on customer complaints as feedback provides only part of the picture, she said.

But Jack Corbett, of MetroRiders. org, urged the agency to "listen to its own riders with its own staff and use the million dollars for something that would benefit the riders."

He added, "You don't need a professional to determine that lights aren't lit, or that the air conditioning isn't working, or that the trains are 30 minutes late."

The larger issue, he said, is that the amount of feedback Metro receives -- whether from real riders or hired ones -- is irrelevant if the agency does not use it. The agency is making critical decisions about rail and bus service as it drafts next year's budget, but riders' opinions are not being taken into consideration, Corbett said.

Reader comments are at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403382_Comments.html

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Saturday April 26th, 2008

Dear Gabriel:

Given what I know about some of your upcoming career choices, from your emails, I thought you'd find Richard Florida's appearance on C-SPAN's Book TV this weekend of some value.

He's a really interesting guy to listen to.

Florida's book was "Who's Your City: How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life"

As for my own thoughts about this WaPo transit story, which I found amusing because of my own heavy daily use of the Metro for 15 years, plus the occasional bus ride during heavy snow, here's a couple of things to consider as you ponder whether or not it makes sense to use the

$1 Million towards professional surveying/inspection vs. simply relying on rider comments
and complaints, assuming those actually made it to their rightful place in the food chain:

The Chris Zimmerman referenced above was already an Arlington County Commissioner while I lived there, and is/was a first-rate JERK!

(Just as is the case in the City of Hallandale Beach, where I live, an incumbent like Zimmerman benefits from the fact that though it's a very liberal place, all members of the Arlington County Board are elected at-large, and there are no term limits.)

While he was Chairman of the County Board, he tried to actively prevent the Board from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before the meetings started, even after 9/11.

Things came to a crescendo in March of 2002, before a packed room and TV cameras present from every Washington-area TV station, he was made an object of ridicule by the entire area, after numerous Washington Post editorials and attacks on him during prior Board resident's comment periods.

That happened when a vocal critic of the Board's refusal to say the Pledge stood up in the Board auditorium and started reciting it before the meeting, and, like energized marionettes, the County Board jumped up and followed suit with the recitation, which the public was already doing.

Now usually I really wouldn't care about that sort of issue, but sometimes small issues highlight a much larger perception problem an elected official has, a blind spot if you will.

Such was the case here with Chris Zimmerman.

If they stumble over something so small due to sheer petty ego and personal pique, how can you really trust their judgment on something important?

Zimmerman made such a point of saying that it shouldn't be necessary for County Board members to say the Pledge at the beginning of their own meetings, that it proved terribly embarrassing later -and showed him for the creepy hypocrite I always thought he was- when he was on various appointed boards and commissions, like with METRO, the Northern Virgina Transportation Comm. and VIRGINIA RAILWAY EXPRESS, and what's the first thing they do at every single meeting?

Exactly!

(If you can believe it, the NVTC's website is www.thinkoutsidethecar.org )

So, Zimmerman had no problem reciting the Pledge publicly while on a Board that he was appointed to, he just had his personal/political/philosophical reservations about doing the same thing for a Board that he was actually elected to by Arlington County voters.

It was a hard slap in the face to Arlington's residents and a valuable lesson I'll never forgot in judging elected officials' behavior and hypocrisy.

And this is the great genius behind the $1 million decision in Washington.

Honestly, in all my myriad experiences in Washington, over 15 years, even when I disagreed with people on an issue, I always tried my best to keep things civil -and classy!

Frankly, I actually enjoyed the company of some people who disagreed with me on public policy issues more than some who agreed, esp. if they liked sports or film, not surprisingly.

But, that being said, Zimmerman was the closest thing to a 1930's Stalinist government
goon/henchman as I ever met.

Really.

That he was smart and should've known better only made it worse, not unlike the situation with State Sen. Steve Geller, who chooses to use his talents and abilities to help Steve Geller, not to help under-served segments of society who could use his help and influence to get a fair shake and see their causes given a seat at the table, like older Foster Kids who'll soon be on their own, Haitian-American social services groups, et al.

That's one of the principal reasons I so detest Geller.

He's so damn self-serving, almost as if it's very transparency made it funny or amusing.
It's not.

Zimmerman acted like he could do pretty much whatever he liked and residents just had to lump it, because the board was all Democrats and they couldn't deny him.

Well, I was a (moderate) Democrat, too, like most of the County, but I wanted diversity of ideas on the County Board, too, to generate outside-the-box thinking about the problems where I lived, not a choir singing songs pre-approved by Zimmerman.

(Photos and info on my old neighborhood in Arlington:

http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/CPHD/ons/pdf/GlebeWoodFinalReport.pdf

Did you ever see my old South beach Hoosier blog post where I mentioned that my old townhouse was where President Ford's daughter Susan lived, while he was President?

When I left, it still had the old Secret Service-installed communications system throughout.)

Frankly, as I later explained it to some people, Zimmerman sometimes acted like Arlington County taxpayers were merely guinea pigs in some Pol. Sci. experiment he needed to do in order to earn his PhD. dissertation at U-W in Madison.

His creepy and diabolical personality were such that I knew quite a few folks who were deeply involved in the Arlington community -people I wish we had dozens of clones of, down here!- who were popular and well-respected, but who made no secret to me of their hate for him.

If current blog technology had existed back then, Zimmerman would have been my Arlington-based blog's favorite political pinata!