Csaba Kulin's common sense take on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach that gobbles up taxpayer funds, the South Florida Sun Times

It's hard to imagine a more ridiculous, self-serving and un-true headline than this one from August 13, 2009 in the faux community newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Times: AHEAD OF THE GAME: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper continues to do the job residents elected her to do -once again!

Like the exclamation point at the end of the headline doesn't just prove the point that I've been making here for years about the pernicious and mendacious nature of both the mayor and the faux newspaper that takes Hallandale Beach taxpayer's money by the barrel-full, with nothing positive to show for it.

The letter below from my friend, Hallandale Beach civic activist Csaba Kulin, is a 'teaser' for what is to come in this space regarding the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach that gobbles up taxpayer funds, the South Florida Sun Times.

On Friday, I sent that upcoming post as an email to a couple of dozen concerned people in South Florida, as well as a number of reporters and columnists, to re-focus their attention on this issue that highlights the sort of blatant cronyism and quid pro quo in HB government that has existed for years.

Yesterday, Csaba emailed this missive to the Hallandale Beach City Commission, the City Manager and the City Attorney.

I will provide the link to the 2003 article Csaba refers to below in my upcoming post on the subject, so that you can read it for yourself and add it to the accumulated mountain of evidence on how this city really operates.

It paints a very grim picture of what happens to democracy and civics when multiple members of the HB City Commission continuously FAIL to pay attention to what goes on right in front of them, in this particular 2003 case, current sitting Commission members Dotty Ross and William "Bill" Julian.
Correct, hardly Breaking News.

Trust me, the 2003 article and my post are both jaw-dropping and eye-opening, and provides an inside look at Joy Cooper's longtime modus operandi.
And yes, I really do mean jaw-dropping and eye-opening.

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Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor and Members of the City Commission,

I have spoken against the $100,000.00 plus subsidy to the South Florida SunTimes newspaper during your September 29, 2009 Budget Meeting.

I have no problem with community newspapers, including this one if they serve public, to receive subsidy from the City. But our newspaper stopped serving our community some time ago. The only articles I see in the paper is the Mayor's column and an occasional historical piece by the Vice Mayor. I and others have tried to write letters to the editor without any success. Any information not flattering to the current administration is ignored and suppressed. I had to pay to get any information about an extremely important issue like the Diplomat to get in the paper while the Mayor had all the ink she wanted in the paper in favor of her views.

The South Florida Sun Times had been bought and paid for by the City using the our tax money. That is why it has no credibility in our city and loosing readership. That is why I do not support giving any money to them until they change their editorial philosophy and provide access to everyone in our city regardless of their views about our city government.

The South Florida Sun Times was not always the mouthpiece of the "official line" at city hall. For your information I attached an article by your good friend, Mr. Tony Musto written in December 4, 2004. It is certainly an eye opening article of how our city got where it is today. It should be required reading of every citizen of our city. It still appeared in South Florida Sun Times. Please look at the very end of the article where the editor invites residents of the community write a "feedback" column or "letter to the editor". What a novel idea? I wonder if the invitation still open?
I guess not.

Now I ask all of you stand in front of a mirror and ask yourself "what happened in the past 8 years" to get us where we are now?
If you know the answer, get up at the next commission meeting and change it.

Sincerely,

Csaba Kulin

President, Fairways North, Inc.

VP, United Condominium Associations of Hallandale Beach

"The 2,100 gun salute" is about to begin. The shells start firing on Hallandale Beach City Hall on Wednesday.

Above, September 15, 2010 photo of Hallandale Beach City Hall by South Beach Hoosier.

See 2,100 gun salute at
http://www.myactsofsedition.com/my_acts_of_sedition/2010/10/2100-game-salute.html

Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper's own version of the Battle of Waterloo -the last of the battles of the Waterloo Campaign of 1815- is about to begin this week, with her self-cast as the Little Napoleon of our area, thanks to her towering ego, overweening ambition and juvenile intransigence in the face of ALL of the known facts and FL STATE LAW.

Not to mention, Weiss Serota's curious legal advice, which you and I and all Hallandale Beach taxpayers are already paying for in order for Cooper to continue to defy the STATE LAW -and common sense.
Her ego, our tax dollars!

Me, well, this week, I'm channeling one of the Duke of Wellington's top generals -and I have a very strong intuition about how it all will end.

See more prior recent posts about Hallandale Beach City Hall senselessly fighting against both the spirit and letter of the Florida Constitution at Chaz Stevens' blog: http://www.myactsofsedition.com/

There is plenty there about Hallandale Beach to make your jaw drop, and wonder exactly what Mayor Cooper thinks she is accomplishing, other than to continue to embarrass the citizens of this community and make the outside counsel happy to have the City of Hallandale Beach as a very dopey client.

Plain and simple, Joy Cooper is NOT above the law.
Period.

See also: http://fsne.org/news/sunshine-sunday/sunshine-sunday-2010/

While Russia tries to stop govt. corruption, Broward Comm. Ilene Lieberman wants to water down the new Ethics rules. Shocker!

Below, some facinating comments by Russia Today correspondent Jacob Greaves informing the Prime Time Russia studio crew in Moscow about the Duma capping ALL govt. officials and civil servants personal spending at 120% of total income to prevent corruption.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's government wants to go after the "big fish" to make examples out of them, before going after the minnows, and towards that end, using power he was given earlier this year, sacked a high-ranking general at the Ministry of Defense for failing to comply with the income declaration requirements.

You might recall that old chestnut about actions having consequences. Well, in most of the world, even in Russia, that still remains true, for both good and ill.

Meanwhile, here in Broward County, some "people" already in a position of power want to start nibbling away at the new County Ethics rules so that they can play belle-of-the-ball.

And by some "people" I specifically mean Broward County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman, whom we have discussed previously in this space 'till we're blue in the face for her brazen oleaginous ways.

Lieberman has proven herself to be no friend of genuine reform in this county, nor of meaningful ethics legislation with predictable dire consequences for contemptuous offenders -like that general in Russia- or even financial accountability or prescience, and the sooner she is gone from the passing scene in Broward, the better your future suddenly becomes.

If Lieberman really were the redoubtable legal eagle she imagines herself to be, echoed by so many pliant sycophants in the South Florida press, she'd have long since run for judge.
She hasn't.

Instead, she has remained and participated up to her elbows in the county's tarnished way of transacting business with a wink, a nod and a campaign check from lobbyists.
She has proven to be a mere puppet-master, not a voice that made a positive tangible difference for Broward's citizen taxpayers.
It's too late for her.

Even here, as bad as things are and have been, they DON'T actually build statues to people like her, since it would necessarily have to include the caption, "friend to the lobbyists, thru thick and thin."
No doubt the pigeons would have great fun with that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RX2sgsiizo



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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
Broward's new Code of Ethics might get its first amendment soon

By Brittany Wallman
September 29, 2010 08:00 AM

Commissioner Ilene Lieberman wants her colleagues to soften the gift ban in the new ethics code.

Broward commissioners argued Tuesday and then postponed making a decision on whether to do it. It would be the first change of any kind to the brand new Code of Ethics.

The new ethics code says commissioners cannot accept a gift from a lobbyist or a vendor who does business with the county. It also says that commissioners can take a gift from someone else, but only if it's not worth more than $50. Lieberman is president of the Florida Association of Counties, and argues that she should be able to accept food, travel and lodging from that organization when she goes to its events and conferences.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/09/browards_new_code_of_ethics_to_1.html

------

http://rt.com/

Prime Time Russia — the first TV show for an English-speaking audience in Russia. Weekdays from 8-9 p.m. msk on RT (Russia Today) channel and online
at http://rt.com/prime-time.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/primetimeru

Second Broward County 2011 budget meetingTuesday afternoon at 5 p.m.; Broward budget watch: Brittany Wallman in Broward Politics blog: Find the fat!

Above, January 26, 2010 photo of Broward County Government Center, 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL by South Beach Hoosier

2011 Fiscal Year budget meeting

Tuesday September 28 at 5:01 p.m.

Public testimony in Room 422 in the Broward Governmental Center, 115 S. Andrews Ave., Fort Lauderdale.

The hearing will be Webcast live on www.broward.org/video but you have to use Internet Explorer. Budget documents, including the County Administrator’s recommended budget
reductions, are posted online at http://broward.org/budget.

Before you walk into the Broward Government Center, be sure to walk to the SW corner of Broward Blvd. & Andrews Avenue and look at the County's so-called Personnel Building.

Back on March 12th, I first wrote about this disgraceful example of local government apathy and incompetency squared, here at http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/errant-drivers-crash-highlights.html but I had first noticed it last year, dumb-founded that less than one block from the County HQ, literally, in the building next door, a govt. bldg. was allowed to become a public nuisance.

After years of being one of the most unsightly govt. eyesores in all of South Florida, have the folks running things finally figured out that having a county building caked in dirt is NOT the sort of thing give taxpayers any confidence in the management iof this county?

As I remarked at the time, "It's almost like Broward County is channeling the management geniuses at Hallandale Beach City Hall! And by geniuses, of course, I mean the motley crew of incompetents who make our city a laughing-stock."

January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier


Same building a month later. February 25, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier


January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier


February 25, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Our collective guiding principle for cutting government services and employees should be the same as the one that was mentioned by Victoria Derbyshire on her always excellent program on BBC Radio's 5 live this morning on the funding levels of British quangos, many of which are being killed outright: Is it nice to do or essential?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tw8ms
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/#two
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/connect/index.shtml#comments

What has a quango ever done for you?

This morning, we're going to take a look at quangos, or quasi autonomous non-government organisations, to give them their full title.

Last week, we learned that 180 taxpayer-funded groups will be scrapped, and a further 180 will either be reformed or have their budgets cut. It's all part of the Chancellor's, plan to cut six hundred million pounds in a "bonfire of quangoes".

It's estimated they cost somewhere between 34 and 60 billion pounds a year. They employ more than 100 thousand people, and 68 quango chiefs earn more than the Prime Minister, with some salaries as high as £624,000.

We want you to tell us what they've ever done for you.

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Be sure to take a look at the Florida Taxwatch website, even though they are incorrect in opposing Amendment 4: http://www.floridataxwatch.org/

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Broward Politics
Broward budget watch: Find the fat!
By Brittany Wallman
September 27, 2010 08:00 AM

This is another tough year for Broward County government. Commissioners are standing over the budget with carving knives. Do any of you know where there's fat to be found in the county's $4 billion budget?

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/09/browards_budget_find_the_fat.html

City of Hallandale Beach 2011 Budget Workshops begin Wednesday afternoon at City Hall at 4 p.m.

Like many people in Hallandale Beach with an abiding interest in the future of this city, I received a copy of this email from Comm. Keith London on Monday regarding the city's public budget workshops that begin this afternoon at City Hall at 4 p.m.. As it happens, I happen to agree with what he says.

If anything, Comm. London is being charitable about what has been going on here, especially about the favored few getting their hands on taxpayer dollars too frequently without much -if any- genuine scrutiny, public accountability or transparency.

For a city with so many self-evident, longstanding problems that have merely been kicked down the road each and every year, without much if any serious attempt to address the root cause, there was far too much back-scratching with certain people the City Manager seemed determined to cultivate for reasons that still remain unclear.

That these people made out like bandits, even as the city commissioners and the public continually were forced to find out after-the-fact about tens of thousands of dollars going out the back door to people and groups that seemed to have undue influence already, only further raises the stakes now, and puts the the public skepticism of the City Manager and his employees' honesty and professionalism right on the table for discussion.

Having attended these workshops for the past few years, they offer the rare opportunity to ask tough questions of the city commissioners and staff -to literally kick the tires and check under the hood- I can tell you that they can often be eye-raising and troubling for all sorts of reasons.

Recently, the best questions were ones never asked by the City Commission because they were afraid to know the answer, since that would require a commensurate action take place that they were reluctant to take while Mike Good was City Manager -remind him that they were his boss, and that they were the elected policy-makers, not him.

If you come to this blog even fairly often, I'm sure this last point has been made crystal clear to you by now, as the number of times that four of the five commissioners have voted no on a proposal over the past year can be counted on one hand.

But how will the City Commission act at these budget workshops in the post-Good era, with two seats up in November and so much public anger and antagonism towards them for failing to be the proper custodians of the city's funds the public expected?
Well, that's where the curiosity factor comes in...

See also: http://www.changehallandale.com/

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Everyone,

Please plan on attending the City of Hallandale Beach Budget Workshops scheduled for this Wednesday, July 28, 2010 and Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 4:00 PM at city hall. The workshops will include a review of our millage rate and property taxes. This is your opportunity to voice your concerns.

For too long, the elected officials in Hallandale Beach have provided residents and business owners their “spin” on the city’s budget.

While calling themselves fiscal conservatives, our elected officials have allowed the city’s budget to increase by $46.6 million over the last five years, a 48% increase!

During the same time, vital services have been cut, while fees and assessments have increased. And our property taxes continue to increase. Last year alone, Hallandale’s millage rate increase, on a percentage basis, was the highest increase in Broward County.

In the past five years, the city’s property value has increased by $1 billion, but instead of seeing tax decreases, the residents and business owners have seen increases in their taxes and fees.

It is time to stop the unnecessary spending, and reduce the city’s inflated budget.

Tell your City Commissioner’s to stop wasting your tax dollars. As your commissioner, and as I have done in previous years, I will vote NO on the budget if I see continued waste in our budget.

Tell your City Commissioner’s not to raise the millage rate, and to realize that the taxpayer is not an endless stream of money to be wasted by them. I will vote NO if the millage rate is raised.

The following are just a few examples of waste and abuse of your tax dollars:

• Charitable contributions should be made only to organizations providing essentials, like food and shelter. Strict accountability must be attached to every dollar so the taxpayers know their money is being used wisely.
• Stop spending taxpayer’s money on needless visits to Washington DC and Tallahassee.
• Stop buying band uniforms for charitable organizations.
• With people struggling, and even some losing their homes, its time to reduce taxes and let taxpayers choose to whom they want to make charitable donations!
• I will vote NO on charitable contributions if there are donations that go beyond the basic necessities.
• Hallandale currently pays the Sun Times over $50,000 a year for advertising, FIVE times what the city spent with them just a few years ago. Who is benefiting from this unnecessary expenditure? And why was it never voted on by the city commission?
• I will vote NO for the budget if there is money for the Sun Times.
• Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) loans made with NO collateral in direct conflict with our policy and rules. Our city attorney did nothing to prevent our own rules from being broken. This breach of the public’s trust cost “our” city $75,000 last year.
• This vote was 4:1 I was the only NO
• Spending tax dollars to end a contract with former city manager Mike Good, despite him being “FIRED” for not coming to work. The city attorney and mayor signed this contract each year since 2003. Due to our city attorney’s failure to address severe contract deficiencies, and the Mayor’s refusal to address them, the taxpayers must now pay:
• Nine months severance
• Health insurance for him and his family for the next 19 years
• All costs to earn a masters degree
• This vote was 4:1 I was the only NO vote
• This year, the city must spend $100,000 for the City Attorney’s pension plan
• The City Attorney earns over $200,000 annually
• The City Attorney outsourced over $350,000 to outside council in order to avoid political heat from the mayor
• “Our” city attorney is more concerned with keeping his job than following the law.

2010 Summer swelter budget blues, NYC's ballooning pension costs and cutting-back elected officials perks

KNVB -Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond

Sunday July 11th, 2010
Just biding my time waiting for The Netherlands to beat Spain 4-2 in today's World Cup final.

Per the spot-on New York Post article below, City taxpayers foot 90% of municipal pensions, it'd be nice to see a South Florida news media organization that could produce a reliable chart indicating what those pension numbers are for South Florida's myriad cities and counties. Don't hold your breath!
It's summer after all.

In two weeks here in Hallandale Beach, the city's staff will have their public budget workshops with the City Commission that they could've actually conducted weeks ago when more of the city's populace was actually still here, and hadn't fled the summer swelter, so they'd have had more time to go over the staff's numbers and projections in devising questions of their own.

In case you forgot, that was yet another motion made by Comm. Keith London that lost 4-1.

But that's fine... now I and many other concerned residents just plan on spending more time asking LOTS of specific questions for Comm. Ross, Sanders and Julian to personally answer about what specific city programs they want to cut or pare-down, as well as explain why should the community trust their judgment given how reluctant they've been to fully carrying out their legal oversight role of the City Manager's Office and keep an eye on the the Depts of this city, almost all of whom believe they are princely kingdoms of which there can be no criticism.

Though I'm not opposed to it in the abstract, since there's something to be said for attending conventions, a very good place to start cutting the city's budget is the city's travel expense account.

Can you name another city in South Florida, much less, one as small as Hallandale Beach, that routinely sends ALL of its City Commissioners to the Florida League of Cities' convention in Orlando, usually noted for its anti-taxpayer agitprop and propaganda?
http://www.floridaleagueofcities.com/

But that's what happens here every year, as if it's an entitlement written in the city's charter.
Why do they ALL have to go at our expense?
It's pretty ridiculous when you think about it.

It's like rewarding people who don't pay attention to their own city, and telling them they can take a travel junket to a place where nobody knows what a truly abysmal job they do.
Actually, it's not "like" that, it's exactly our reality.

At least this year's event is at the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, from August 19-21, right before the primary election, so there will doubtless be lots of statewide candidates milling about, eager to talk to anyone who will listen.

Can't be sure but I'm guessing that considering FLOC's bluster on this and so many other public policy issues, there will be at least a few hours of one day spent debating(!) the question,
Will Amendment 4 really destroy Florida like we said it will, or are we just angry that FL citizens will no longer defer to our infinite wisdom as elected officials?

And what about HB instituting a prohibition like many other South Florida cities on city taxpayers paying the hotel expenses for any city employee or elected official attending an event, forum or convention in Miami-Dade or Broward County -and something with real teeth?

I'd be in favor of forcing HB City Hall to put all taxpayer-paid travel expenses for city employees and elected officials on a designated page on the city's website within 72 hours, with name, title, total costs and description of event.

Why do I think this?
Perhaps you forgot about this telling story about HB Mayor Joy Cooper from 18 months ago:
My mayor went to the Inaugural but all I got was the bill and her imperious attitude!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-mayor-went-to-inaugural-but-all-i.html

New York Post
City taxpayers foot 90% of municipal pensions
By Susan Edelman
Last Updated: 10:31 AM, July 11, 2010
Posted: 2:10 AM, July 11, 2010

Taxpayers kick in an average $8.60 for every dollar that city employees contribute to their pensions, a sweet deal costing the Big Apple a bundle.

Even though their own retirements are less secure, as private businesses have shifted from traditional pensions to riskier savings plans like 401(k)s, taxpayers' support for rock-solid public employee pension plans is growing. That's because pension funds are guaranteed to grow 8 percent a year -- and taxpayers have to make up the difference if they don't.

Taxpayers' share of city pension costs has skyrocketed more than 900 percent in the last decade -- from $703.1 million in 2000 to $6.5 billion in 2009, according to the city comptroller's annual reports.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/you_pay_the_price_hNooJsBk9MtO67HvinglHP

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss -the apple doesn't fall far from the Mike Good tree in Mark Antonio; Hallandale Beach NEEDS an outsider as CM

Three-quarters of the 2010 Hallandale Beach Rubber Stamp Crew that have made this dysfunctional ocean-side South Florida community a perennial laughing-stock, in large part by keeping its own citizen taxpayers in the dark and on the outside looking in, while Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good did whatever they pleased.
Above, as they appeared in a 2008 campaign flyer, left-to-right: William Julian, Dotty Ross and Joy Cooper.
Missing Rubber Stamp: Anthony A. Sanders.

The predicates for my blog post today have been evident for days now, but on the chance that you haven't seen them all yet, they are the following:

Hallandale Beach to take another look at city manager
By Amy Sherman,The Miami Herald
May 6, 2010
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-hallandale-city-manager-20100505,0,3707930.story

Hallandale Beach city commissioners voted Wednesday to bring back an item in two weeks that could lead to firing City Manager Mike Good.

Commissioners said Good has been unresponsive and preoccupied with personal problems that Mayor Joy Cooper said included "back problems, cancer, a daughter falling victim to easy access to pain clinics, an ailing grandmother . . . and of course the continued stress of dealing with the antics of Commissioner London."

Commissioner Keith London is the pony-tailed commissioner who has challenged the status quo and often been at odds with Cooper and Good.

Good told commissioners that his family issues had been resolved, and suggested that commissioners evaluate him again in six months.

"The mayor is right in the fact that I have had a lot of issues," Good said.

Under his contract, Good, who is 49, would get nine months of severance pay and health insurance for himself and his family until he is eligible for Medicare.

Commissioner Dorothy Ross was the only member to vote against the motion.

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Hallandale Beach firing chronically absent city manager
By Jennifer Gollan, Sun Sentinel
May 20, 2010
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-hallandale-firing-20100520,0,3480334.story

Longtime Hallandale Beach City Manager Mike Good is being fired after failing to show up for work off and on since January. He is entitled to a severance package that could cost taxpayers $306,893, according to the city.

City commissioners cited chronic absences, an uncommunicative work style and questionable contracts as reasons for his dismissal.

Good, 48, could not be reached for comment despite three messages left at his home and office.

"It is long overdue," said Commissioner Keith London on Thursday. "The untold secret all around town is that guy does not show up for work."

Indeed, Mayor Joy Cooper said Good's ouster was somewhat delayed because he refused to schedule it for commission discussion over the last six weeks.

City commissioners on Wednesday night suspended Good for 45 days. He has five days to request a public hearing to appeal the decision. If he does not respond, the commission will likely move to fire Good in the next 30 days.

Assistant City Manager Mark Antonio was named interim city manager. The city is working out how much he will earn as part of a new contract.

Good joined the city in March 1985 as a welder and rose through the ranks, becoming city manager in November 2002. His total compensation last year for salary, pension, health benefits and other insurance and car allowance was roughly $275,139.

He drew stiff criticism in December 2008 when he grossed $422,373 in salary and benefits. That sum included $176,054 in accrued vacation and sick time he collected after he resigned, only to be re-hired days later. At the time, the city reasoned it would save money by halting contributions to his pension plan, which promised retirees a set benefit.

Commissioners on Wednesday offered Good five months of severance worth roughly $88,547. He is also entitled to health insurance for him and his family until he is eligible for Medicare at 62, and tuition and books so he can complete his masters degree in public administration.

Good is not owed any money for unused sick and vacation time, Antonio said, adding that it is not clear how many unpaid days Good took.

The deal is still pending Good's approval.

In a telephone interview, Cooper said Good stopped consistently turning up for work in January and then he took family medical leave for two weeks, using sick and vacation time. His attendance failed to improve, leading commissioners to take preliminary steps to fire him Wednesday.

London said he was also troubled by some of Good's actions. For example, he said Good approved a yearlong contract worth at least $36,000 with consultant Joseph Kessel but failed to inform the commission. City rules require the city manager to report such expenditures to commissioners each month.

"The city manager's obligation is to report to us when he uses his spending authority," London said. "He is breaking the city ordinance. This is city taxpayer money."

The July 2008 contract calls for Kessel, a Realtor with Keller Williams, to assist the city manager with finances, public relations, growth management, and strategic planning.

Prior to becoming a Realtor, Kessel was a chief operating officer for Esat Corporation, a Melbourne-based healthcare technology company that went bankrupt in the dot com bust; and an executive vice president at Sequoia Corporation, a healthcare technology company bought by Fort Lauderdale-based Citrix Systems, Inc.

London said he had asked Good for documents showing how much Kessel has earned, but never received them.

Cooper said she had "no issue" with the contract.

"I was aware that Joe Kessel was doing work under contract," Cooper said. "He was contracted with the city manager to work on the purchase of a property for Sunset Park a year and a half ago. And he also worked on redoing the Golden Isles Tennis Center."

Cooper said she could not explain why other commissioners did not know about the contract, not could she provide details on how Kessel helped clinch either deal.

In an interview, Kessel said he received only $4,200 around the end of 2008.

"I don't know what the big to-do is," said Kessel, who also serves on the Hallandale Beach Area Chamber of Commerce board.

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Mayo on the Side blog of columnist Michael Mayo
Hallandale Beach city manager Good on chopping block
Posted by Michael Mayo on May 19, 2010 09:07 AM

The Hallandale Beach city commission is poised to fire longtime city manager Mike Good.

A resolution to be considered at a 7:30 p.m. meeting tonight cites Good's "repeated and ongoing failure to report to work during normal business hours, failure to maintain communication with the city commission and city staff, and his resulting failure to adequately perform his duties and responsibilities as city manager."

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/mayo/blog/2010/05/hallandale_beach_city_manager.html

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BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Broward
Handsomely Paid Hallandale City Manager Had 50 Percent Attendance
By Thomas Francis, Thursday, May. 20 2010 @ 10:14AM

During last night's Hallandale Beach Commission meeting, Vice Mayor Bill Julian cited documents indicating that over the past six months, City Manager Mike Good came to city hall on only about half the work days.

That spotty attendance record made it hard to meet with city staff, business owners and other members of the community. Julian said it was one of the primary reasons he reversed his past support of Good and voted to continue moving toward terminating Good's employment.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/05/mike_good_hallandale_beach_attendance_missed_work.php

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BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Broward
Hallandale Vice Mayor Speaks About Firing His "Friend," the City Manager By Thomas Francis, Thursday, May. 20 2010 @ 2:32PM

Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Bill Julian says that he considers Mike Good a "friend" but that the city manager's absenteeism made it necessary for the commission to find another person for the job.

At the meeting yesterday, Julian pointed to documents that showed that in 2010, Good only made it to work roughly half the time.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/05/hallandale_vice_mayor_speaks_a.php

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Hallandale Beach's proposed exit deal for Mike Good
7:02 PM EDT, May 20, 2010
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-hallandale-firing-box-20100520,0,3956290.story


Total annual compensation: $275,139

Base salary: $212,972

City contribution to 401(k): $30,754

Health, life, dental and disability insurance: $19,413

Car allowance: $12,000

City's exit offer: $306,893

Severance: $88,740

Health insurance: $16,554 a year until age 62, for a total of $215,000.

Tuition and books to finish masters degree in public administration (he has nine credits left): $3,153

SOURCE: City of Hallandale Beach

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BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
If a City Manager Is Hit by Scandal and the Dailies Don't Report It, Did It Really Happen?
By Thomas Francis, Friday, May. 21 2010 @ 9:07AM

Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Bill Julian says he was "not concerned" about reports of an ethically dubious contract between City Manager Mike Good and a local real estate agent because those reports did not appear in the Miami Herald or Sun-Sentinel. They appeared here in Juice and in a print edition of New Times.

The city is finalizing its termination of Good, but Julian's remarks illustrate the difficulty that the region's major newspapers have in performing watchdog duties, given their dwindling resources and economically frail condition. If they cannot, the question is how that affects local government.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/05/hallandale_city_manager_firing_julian_cooper_good.php

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A couple of things for you to consider after reading the above:

First, addition-by-subtraction works in local government as well as it does in sports, and this situation proves that, since people can actually imagine a future where information is not kept by the hired help (staff) from both the elected officials and the citizens of this community.

Second, the next few months are going to be VERY DIFFICULT for quite a lot of people in this community who have become quite accustomed to taking a lot of things here for granted, not least, in some cases, their job at HB City Hall, whether elected or otherwise.
This is all for the -wait for it- GOOD.

Many of my friends and I plan on having a lot to do with that.

People who have supported and winked at the ruinous Mike Good & Joy Cooper Regime without question for years without ever uttering a single independent thought are going to find themselves under the microscope.

I won't name them all here, but some of them are named Alexander Lewy, Patricia Genetti, Joe Kessell and the Brown family, the latter of whom seems to have been the lucky recipient of more HB taxpayer grants and CRA loans than seems either reasonable, logical or desirable.

Their condescending words and brazen behavior, along with their complete unwillingness to deal straight-forwardly with the citizen taxpayers of this community, plus the generally questionable -and perhaps even illegal- way things have been done for years at HB City Hall under Good & Cooper and the city staff, leads me to state publicly here what I've already expressed in emails around the region over the past year: these particular people, along with their many pals, clones and acolytes around town, should be prepared for their words and behavior to get the full-airing before the community its long deserved but heretofore avoided.
Me, I'm happy to help make that a reality!

As some of you who communicate with me fairly often already know, the two HB City Hall apologists who have the most to fear most immediately from Hallandale Beach voters knowing what their real words and behavior are like are Alexander Lewy and William Julian., both candidates for City Commission in November.

This summer, their own foolish and condescending words and brazen behavior will be like a hanging noose they self-administer, while the rest of us just watch.

Trust me, the more you know about these two, the more that you will see why they are like poison for this community: TOXIC!


Are the beleaguered citizens of Hallandale Beach honestly supposed to believe that all this dysfunctionalism at HB City Hall was going on for years without ANY other Broward elected officials noticing what was happening on U.S-1, when it was patently obvious that everything that happened there happened ONLY with the direct approval of Mike Good and Joy Cooper?

So nobody at the Broward County Commission, the Broward League of Cities, the Broward MPO or the South Florida Regional Planning Council had any idea?
Really?

Of course, in the recent past, as she has always been so quick to remind everyone without any prompting, Joy Cooper was the head of the Broward League of Cities, so perhaps that explains why the elected officials over at that not particularly taxpayer-friendly group looked the other way.

Do you think that Joy Cooper being in charge at the LOC is the reason that she told Mike Good in 2008 to get some money together and build her a brand new office up on the second floor of City Hall, even though there was nothing physically wrong with her old office?

Other than her being the city's presiding officer at meetings and being able to call emergency Commission meetings, under the city's charter, Cooper has no more power that any other elected commissioner.

So why is it that more than 16 months after Cooper got her brand new office, her name does NOT actually appear anywhere on the building's directory downstairs when you first walk into the building?

That's taking government stealthiness to a new low, but then that's what Hallandale Beach City Hall specializes in.

Are there other City Halls in South Florida that don't actually mention where the mayor's office is located on a bldg. directory?
Me, I get around the area and keep my ears open, but I'm not aware of another one.

At consecutive meetings over a few months this Spring to decide the future of the Westin Diplomat's incompatible LAC proposal, I reminded the Broward Planning Council and the Broward County Commission that Mike Good, Joy Cooper and Commissioners William Julian, Dotty Ross and Anthony A. Sanders had consistently rejected calls by the community to put the developer's documents on the city's third-rate website for citizens to read them and see what was in them, as they consistently refused to second Comm. Keith London's common sense motion to do so.
Mike Good and Joy Cooper didn't like that idea, so it died, over-and-over.

The logical result of this thoroughly anti-democratic, anti-transparency behavior was that HB citizens could only see the public docs on the city's website 28 hours before the first vote in the city took place, before the HB Planning & Zoning Advisory Board.
And the very next day, the City Commission voted.

That's Mike Good and Joy Cooper's view of government transparency in a nut-shell: keep relevant public documents away from citizen taxpayers until the last possible minute, even while meeting and speaking constantly with the developers, lawyers and lobbyists who already knew everything in them.

While the Broward Planning Council, Broward County Commission and their staffs had weeks to examine the docs, 4/5ths of the city's elected officials and the City Manager who is SUPPOSED to work for them decided that they didn't want the people they work for to know what was in those documents.

That wasn't by accident, that was THEIR plan from the beginning to help the developer get the project approved over the wishes of the majority of the community.

The larger question of public officials looking the other way while something wicked or creepy was happening right in front of them is an especially uncomfortable question for people who have actually had an office located in Hallandale Beach City Hall while Mike Good has been City Manager and Joy Cooper has been Mayor -people like Joe Gibbons and Steve Geller and Eleanor Sobel.

Their complete silence for YEARS about what's been going on at HB City Hall will definitely have some negative consequences for them in the near-future, as they fully should expect well-informed citizens to ask some hard questions about their rather convenient laissez-faire attitude towards incompetency and sleazy corruption on the taxpayer's dime.

For instance, can you name one city in the State of Florida besides Hallandale Beach wherein the City Commission has hired their City Manager, Police Chief and Fire Chief WITHOUT that action ever:
a.) being placed on a public agenda in advance of the meeting,
b.) being approved without ANY citizens being present to discuss the matter, and
c.) taking place in a room where the vote was not videotaped?

That doesn't happen by accident, that's intentional.
That's THEIR plan.
Keep Hallandale Beach taxpayers in the dark and on the outside looking in.

As to the ethical fitness of interim HB City Manager, Mark A. Antonio, who already makes just under $200,000 a year in salary and benefits as an Assistant City Manager for this small ocean-side city of under 4.5 square miles, the apple doesn't fall far from the Mike Good tree.

For more info on Antonio's less-than-transparent management style, please see these previous posts:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/latest-unethical-lowlight-at-hallandale.html
and
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/kessel-chronicles-story-thus-far-now.html.
It speaks for itself.

Hallandale Beach's pro-reform citizens desperately want an outsider brought in as City Manager who will work diligently and cooperatively with the community to make it the prosperous city it ought to be in fact.
An outsider who'll uphold the spirit and letter of the state's Sunshine Laws and who will fire city employees who evade it.

Because Hallandale Beach City Hall needs cleaning from top-to-bottom, Hallandale Beach's pro-reform citizens DON'T want to recycle one of the city's high-paid apologists for the ancien régime.
Mark A. Antonio is NOT part of the solution, he's a systemic part of the larger problem.

Jake Brewer on The Sunlight Foundation's support for the Public Online Information Act

The communication center at Hallandale Beach Blog received this very positive bit of news about government transparency and accountability this afternoon via an email from Jake Brewer and our hard-working friends in D.C. at the at The Sunlight Foundation about some far-reaching efforts by Sen. John Tester of Montana and Rep. Steve Israel of New York (Long Island).

www.sunlightfoundation.com
http://sunlightfoundation.com/people/jbrewer/
http://www.youtube.com/user/SunlightFoundation

I forwarded it to like-minded friends from coast-to-coast and am happy to share the news with you all today.

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From: Jake Brewer
Date: Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:21 PM Subject: An easy fix

We're really moving.

Seriously.

We spend a lot of time talking about what government should do to become more open and transparent, and in this past week there's real movement in Congress on one of the things that we need to happen.

It's an easy fix to our current system which would simply make government work better.

Specifically, Senator Jon Tester has introduced the Senate version of the Public Online Information Act, which would revolutionize how the public can gain access to government information. And though we're going to have to build much more clout to actually pass the bill in the House and Senate, the introduction of this bill is a big step.

Keep the momentum strong by signing the Public=Online pledge and sharing it.

http://PublicEqualsOnline.com/Pledge

Numbers are one of the things that Congress listens to most, and we need to be as loud as possible. Thus, our goal is to get 25,000 pledge signatures in the next 6 weeks.

At the end of June, we'll take the Public=Online pledge to Capitol Hill and present it to the co-sponsors of the bill. This will show them that we not only support the Public Online Information Act, but that there are citizens everywhere demanding Congressional action on it.

They're waiting to hear from us, but we need to let them know what we want. By signing the Public=Online pledge, we're doing that.

We're just about to reach 4,000 signers. When we get to 5,000 we'll start making phone calls as well.

Much more to come in the months ahead. Thanks for all your support!

The Sunlight Team

PS If you want to see a short explanation of why the Public Online Information Act matters, check out this short video and other helpful resources from Sunlight's policy team which explain what the legislation does http://thePOIA.org

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See also: Tester behind measure for open records

By Ledyard King, Tribune Washington Bureau, May 7, 2010

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20105070301

Washington Times
Editorial: Obama fails the transparency test
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/07/obama-fails-the-transparency-test/

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama made the bold promise that his administration would be more transparent than his predecessor's. More than a year into his presidency, however, not much has changed. The list of complaints about openness is topped by the well-known failure to negotiate Obamacare in public. The president's new deficit-reduction commission has followed the same lead and is conducting most of its deliberations behind closed doors.

Written documents also are closely guarded. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. refuses to release information about which of the Justice Department's attorneys did private legal work for Guantanamo Bay detainees and which have (or have not) been recused from such issues because of conflicts of interest. The administration also is holding back the names of released Guantanamo detainees who have returned to terrorist activities. Rep. Frank Wolf, Virginia Republican, meanwhile, is among those complaining that the department still has not adequately answered his questions about why it dropped or reduced serious voter-intimidation charges against affiliates of the New Black Panther Party. Freedom of Information requests from The Washington Times on the same topic also have been shunted aside.

Sen. Jon Tester, Montana Democrat, and Rep. Steve Israel, New York Democrat, want to force the executive branch to open up. On Thursday, they introduced the Public Online Information Act (POIA), which would require government-held public information to be posted online. Classified information and private deliberations still would be protected, but the bill would give citizens access to documents without the red tape imposed by the current process.

The nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation applauded the bill because it would make a number of important reports available online for the first time. These include lobbying disclosure reports filed by government contractors and grantees, the already-required financial disclosures of high-ranking political appointees and disclosures of third-party payments for the travel of executive-branch officials.

The more Americans know about the workings of their government, the better equipped they will be to make the right choices on Election Day. Until President Obama takes his promises seriously and opens up his administration, placing existing printed material online is a step in the right direction.

ProPublica: Check Out the Obama Team’s Financial Filings

Great very interesting news today from the fine folks at

ProPublica.com, Journalism in the Public Interest:

financial disclosure information on the Best and Brightest

of 44.

H-m-m-m...

I wonder how City of Miami mayor Manny Diaz would've

explained that whole curious restaurant deal of his on

these forms if he'd been named to the Obama Administration,

as the Herald kept suggesting for months?

Guess we'll never know now.

And good thing, too!

The idea of a mayor who governs a sleepwalking downtown

and a city without even one general interest bookstore,

being someone in charge of Urban Affairs, was laughable on

its face, and would've likely have been the most laugh-filled

congressional confirmation hearing in years.

At least since Sally Adams was confirmed as U.S.

Ambassador to Lichtenburg.

And we all recall how that ended, don't we?

The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce really dodged

a PR bullet with Diaz being over-looked!

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http://www.propublica.org/article/check-out-the-obama-teams-financial-filings-408

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Check Out the Obama Team’s Financial Filings

by Christopher Weaver, ProPublica - April 8, 2009 1:30 pm EDT

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Administration officials and high-ranking executive branch employees are required to disclose the intimate details of their financial lives. The disclosures made include stock holdings, previous salaries and even book deals, such as Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan Krueger's advance of at least $180,000 (plus royalties) from MacMillan, the publisher of his textbook, "Explorations in Economics." ProPublica is collecting these disclosures, and today, we're sharing what we've got.

We've flipped through the disclosures of 179 officials, ranging from the White House social secretary to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the documents are rich with interesting details. Help us parse the disclosures and post your discoveries in the comments section below.

Here's an example of what we've found so far: On paper, Susan Rice looks like she belongs at the Treasury, rather than the State Department. The new United Nations ambassador's disclosure lists 10 individual stock holdings, largely in Canadian companies, that total at least $4.25 million.

The disclosures are a matter of public record. But the government insists on giving them out by request only. We’re cutting out the middleman: Dig into the documents yourself.

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Last link above is at: http://www.propublica.org/special/the-obama-teams-disclosure-documents-407