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Showing posts with label Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa. Show all posts

Thursday, October 18, 2018

How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz? Speculation by Buddy Nevins on whether Broward's state's attorney should run for re-election after 42 years in office gives me a chance to piggy-back and raises some questions of my own regarding Satz & Co's underwhelming performance and the state of ethics in Broward County and Hallandale Beach today, as per Joy Cooper

How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz? Speculation by Buddy Nevins on whether Broward's state's attorney should run for re-election after 42 years in office gives me a chance to piggy-back and raises some questions of my own regarding Satz & Co's underwhelming performance and the state of ethics in Broward County and Hallandale Beach today, as per Joy Cooper

 How do you solve a problem named Mike Satz?

Now there's a question...

 As veteran Broward County political observer and Broward Beat blogger Buddy Nevins writes about and speculates about some of the behind-the-scenes moves swirling around whether Broward State Attorney Michael Satz will defy common sense yet again and run for re-election after being in office since 1976, and who might or should run for the office if he doesn't, I hold a mirror up to Satz and his many past failures to act in ways that I believe he should have.

 That includes one huge lingering question that so many people in Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and other parts of South Florida routinely ask me when I'm minding my own business somewhere, regarding the arrest last December by the FBI of then-Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper on multiple felony counts: "Dave, what took Satz so long?" He sat on almost five years of audiotapes of Joy Cooper bragging about her influence to undercover FBI agents posing as real estate interests.






So, continuing on the subject of Satz, per this story and tweet below by blogger Red Broward, i.e. Tom Lauder,
Hallandale Beach Mayor Keith London Pays Disgraced Former County Commissioner With PAC Funded By Developers & Casinos
https://redbroward.com/2018/10/15/londonpac/

 First, I have known and communicated with Tom for many years. I meant to his tweet on Monday afternoon when I first saw it and read the piece.
I even meant to respond to the other day via a tweet storm but got tied up with something else before I really could.
Then, once I started, I didn't have enough time or energy to do it justice the way I wanted to... folks, real tears!
I discovered that my beloved laptop's not working properly so that what I wrote and saved as a file there on Monday night when I got home isn't available for me to write and post here now.
So, that said, I've added a smaller ad hoc version of that response of mine to Tom's story and tweet below my own tweet.

There's more at: https://twitter.com/RedBroward/with_replies

 Tom: I appreciate that you have a very different take than me re Keith London, now Hallandale beach mayor and someone that I have known for roughly 12 years, many of them when he and I spoke or saw one another 3-4 times a week at times when things were going crazy at South Florida's #1 home of chaos, Hallandale beach City hall.

 That's your right, of course, but Keith -whom I haven't spoken to for longer than 45 seconds in more than 5 years, despite so many people even now persisting in thinking that we're somehow tied to the hip like we often seemed to be years ago- has to deal with reality and one of them is that #Gaming and #Gambling interests have ALWAYS mattered in a small city with two separately-operated casinos & race tracks. (The town and this part of Broward was run by Organized Crime just a few decades ago, as any historian can tell you, and as I know you know as well.)

Not to tell you what to think or how to write your posts and tweets but... personally, I think it'd be a good idea to remind your readers when you write about people associated with Hallandale Beach's "gaming interests" who are communicating with or helping Keith with some effort of his, like it's some sort of nefarious plot, you simply need remind them to take a look at a map and see that Gulfstream Park Race track & casino and its Village at Gulfstream are, literally, across the street from Hallandale Beach City Hall.
AND it's still THE largest employer in the city, such as it is.
That explains Gulfstream Park's interest in what goes on across the street.

But that said, I also need remind you that I have personally been one of the -if not THE- biggest critics of Gulfstream Park's management and its operations in the city for the entire length of the 11 years that I have had my influential blog that LOTS of well-informed people in South Florida read to get insight and perspective they don't get elsewhere.
It's why so many people call me and write me to tell me something or even argue a point, including TV/print reporters and newspaper columnists, some of whom are outside of South Florida but who have an interest in what goes on in South Florida, good and bad, whether in Miami, Tallahassee or Washington, D.C.
It's why reporters and bloggers and other, like you, tag me in their tweets, because they know I know the score and can usually add something to what's on the table.

 At HB City Commission meetings as well as many public events and especially on my blog, I have openly laughed at and enjoyed publicly poking large holes in Gulfstream's feeble excuses for all sorts of actions they've taken over the years, including their well-known propensity in the past to use ex-mayor Joy Cooper as their personal go-to person to get everything they wanted.
Sometimes, as in 2013, that included quite justified large fines for operating against the city's own code and trying to get away with things simply because of who they are -used to calling the tune.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/gulfstream-park-race-track-casino-will.html

 Cooper, typically, loved to say she'd take care of it and tried to ram waivers of fines down the HB City Commission without any documentation or even any staff prep, and ignore their proscribed government oversight role. Cooper didn't care, but she also didn't get her way because I let the public know what was what. And one TV reporter in particular - Bob Norman of Local10.

 Local10: Mayor wants $52K fine against Gulfstream Park waived
No vote taken on waiving fine at Hallandale Beach budget meeting
By Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com, and Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com
Published On: Oct 04 2013 06:13:16 PM EDT   
Updated On: Oct 04 2013 11:51:10 PM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/mayor-wants-52k-fine-against-gulfstream-park-waived/-/1717324/22282006/-/p0vivbz/-/index.html


My intimate knowledge of the facts and not just the prevailing media or party narrative, along with some demonstrated shrewdness, plus, actual results, are why I've succeeded in getting negative stories about Gulfstream and other parties on local Miami TV newscasts when they've acted in truly egregious ways that shocked any reasonable person's idea of propriety.
In this case, Gulfstream Park was used to carrying a Big Stick -and was not afraid to use it.
But I'm not afraid of bullies.
Guess how that turned out in the end because of me?

 But all of that said -and it's easy to find on my blog's archives- it is demonstrably true that the Diplomat Hotel and its management team and crew of legal and PR mouthpieces also had a TON of influence at HB City Hall and used that influence and leverage routinely to get what THEY wanted, too, even when HB residents made clear that they were against it, including, famously, the 2009 RAC plan that called for multiple condo towers to go up around their golf course north of F-rated Hallandale Beach Blvd. that were all over twenty-five floors and would have ruined many residents quality of life, including people on Diplomat Parkway who paid thru the nose for homes with unobstructed golf course views and who did not want their home in near-perpetual shade.

 Gulfstream has tried to exploit that perception and beat them at their own game. It's that simple.

 So when writing about the amount of campaign funds that Gulfstream Park gave, be sure to mention that while Gulfstream backed both Michele Lazarow and Annabelle Taub-Lima in their pre-acrimony days vs. Diplomat-backed, ethically-flawed ex-HB Comm. William "Bill" Julian, they still got out-spent by the Diplomat and its minions desperate to get Cooper's pawn Julian back on the dais to do her bidding.
Just saying, proper context and perspective have a place in the Keith London pieces you write.
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Thursday, October 15, 2015

Salient facts and tough questions re tonight's community meeting in Hallandale Beach about the latest development proposal -gambit?- about the Diplomat Hotel & Country Club, part of the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood. What is allowed under current zoning and what is allowed under the requested new zoning?

Salient facts and tough questions re tonight's community meeting  in Hallandale Beach about the latest development proposal -gambit?- about the Diplomat Hotel & Country Club, part of the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood. What is allowed under current zoning and what is allowed under the requested new zoning?

Below is a slightly-longer and corrected version of a quick email I wrote and dispatched yesterday afternoon to about 300 people throughout South Florida, including news media, regarding tonight's important 6 pm meeting in Hallandale Beach, behind City Hall.
There's much more in this issue than a quick first look would reveal.






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

 October 14, 2015

For the record, since many of you receiving this email today were not living in the area at the time, in all the many years since the previous ill-considered Diplomat Hotel & County Club's 5-6 super-sized condo towers project was rejected by the Broward County Commission, a project that I and many of you actively fought against from the very 
beginning, on the facts, because it was so self-evidently over-the-top and INCOMPATIBLE for the residential NE neighborhood it would have been shoehorned into, did the owners and management of the Diplomat EVER once do the most-obvious things they could have (and should have already) been doing to actually improve that property's bottom line and help the local economy - advertise and market it like they really meant it -in interesting and compelling ways that would draw new customers.

That rejected development project would have negatively affected not just the Quality of Life of area residents in general, but if approved, had also placed MANY HB homeowners in almost-permanent shadows as a result of the proposed Diplomat condo towers, built but feet away from their living room and bedroom windows.

For reasons known only to the Diplomat, despite all the resources in the world they had access to, the Diplomat consciously chose to NOT do the small common sense things for the golf course they needed to do to be successful in a competitive marketplace like South Florida, especially when their golf course is widely said by experienced golfers to be both TOO EXPENSIVE and NOT very challenging or FUN to play to boot, compared to other less-expensive golf courses in South Florida.

But instead of improving the actual product and learning how to effectively market their property, they seemed content to rely on word-of-mouth from prior hotel guests, many of whom, of course, were often staying/playing at their company's expense, NOT via their own wallet/purse.
Guests who no longer visit it or play because of their concern about a perceived slip in the golf course's basic quality, value and the level of CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Over-and-over at myriad public meetings in Hallandale Beach and in Ft. Lauderdale, I made the point to public officials, the public and the the press that the Diplomat's owners and management cries that they desperately needed the multiple super-size condo towers built on residential neighborhood streets to make enough money, had yet to show they were willing to do even the most basic things that any norma business would have to do to be successful.

Public meetings which, as I would later reveal via email to many of you and on my blog, included "comments" from individuals who were paid by HB City Hall with city tax dollars, all of whom consistently hectored genuinely concerned Hallandale Beach and Hollywood residents who were against or agnostic about the proposal on the one hand, and on the other hand -SURPRISE- spoke in favor of the Diplomat's position, all without EVER publicly disclosing their $$$ relationship to the City that favored it.

Many of you even know two of them: Patricia Genetti, the duplicitous head of the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce, and, the City's former paid "spy," Joe Kessel.
And no, despite many in the local news media's words to me at the time that they would definitely follow up and publicly ask how these two people receiving tax dollars from HB City Hall for trying to influence policy were able to go before public bodies throughout Broward -as well as HB- without publicly disclosing (as legally required) that they were there as paid representatives of the City, none did. :-(

Before the final County meetings that eventually sealed their losing fate -and in all the YEARS since then!- the Diplomat's owners and management have never so much as arranged to have erected even ONE simple directional sign for their Golf Course/Resort property to let visitors know where they are and how to get there.

That's why you DON'T see any Diplomat Golf Course directional signs near I-95, on U.S.-1, State Road A1A or Hallandale Beach Blvd., while you DO see MANY such simple directional signs on those streets and all over town, even for relatively small and modest-sized churches.

Instead of showing some smarts, initiative and moxie for a change, and listening to HB residents and their own guests, the Diplomat wallowed in either self-pity or apathy, the Diplomat refused/refuses to do even the simplest thing to show that they are serious about making that property successful, something that nobody in the area is against, including me?

Why? Because then as now, the Diplomat team's whole pretext for asking for zoning variances and building is fatally and horribly flawed, especially as long as they refuse to face reality about their product and the public's perception of it.
Then as now, they continue to rely upon and posit things that are simply NOT in evidence, and eagerly misconstrue the reality of facts that are so in abundance to anyone who simply walks or drives around the area and opens their eyes.

The fact is, not once in all the many public meetings where I spoke and laid out the true facts, did the Diplomat or its representatives ever answer or rebut my simple questions that deserved an honest answer.

Not ONCE at all those meetings did the Diplomat answer the question of why they were adamantly REFUSING to do the very things that they were ALREADY legally entitled to do on that property in terms of building and improving upon it, without anyone's approval.
Things that nobody in town was publicly opposed to.

Despite having seen the questions coming so many times before, the Diplomat never tried to answer the questions publicly, low-hanging fruit in the larger scheme of things.

Honestly, shouldn't answering those sort of simple questions be the very minimum that the public should expect the Diplomat and its well-connected and well-paid team to be able to answer logically, especially when they ask the City to CHANGE zoning so that THEY can materially benefit, with the public likely to suffer in the process, unless some cooler and smarter heads prevail?

Isn't asking why the Diplomat Hotel & Golf Course's management have NOT properly marketed their golf course and resort in the past, and NOT tried to do anything to 
IMPROVE it, and build what they already legally could build there, be the starting point for questions for the Diplomat team from HB City Commissioners? 
Yes. That's the bare minimum!


Any commissioner who's afraid to ask those questions and consider what that means about the Diplomat and its vision doesn't deserve to be on the dais.

Below are two useful tools to use to help get better informed.
The first tool is the latest article from the Florida Bulldog about this very issue:

Hallandale Beach skyline to change with massive Diplomat expansion
By William Gjebre, FloridaBulldog.org
A proposal for a massive, four-tower project in Hallandale Beach featuring three hotels, 938 rooms and a 250-unit high-rise condominium under the Diplomat brand will be officially unveiled to nearby residents at a meeting Thursday in the city’s Cultural Center....


Article at: http://www.floridabulldog.org/2015/10/hallandale-beach-skyline-to-change-with-massive-diplomat-expansion/

The second tool is an informative and to-the-point email I received earlier today from my good friend and fellow civic activist, Csaba "Chuck" Kulin, about the Diplomat's proposal and tomorrow night's
important meeting.

I strongly urge you to read both -AND the attachment!- and think about the facts on the ground we can see with our very own eyes. 
But think long and hard, too, about what sort of area you want this part of SE Broward to be in the near-future, when we already have the unfortunate distinction of having some of the most gridlocked, F-rated roads in the entire state of Florida. Make plans NOW to attend tomorow's meeting -and bring a neighbor or two!


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 23:51:43 -0700
Subject: Diplomat Project Details
To: Undisclosed Recipients

Dear HB Resident,

There is going to be a very important meeting this Thursday at 6:00 P.M. Hallandale Beach Community Center about the Diplomat Hotel and Country Club development. You will hear a presentation by the developer’s attorney telling you why it is a good project and how it will improve your quality of life.

I included the current zoning of the golf course, permitted uses, standards of a golf course and accessory uses. Accessory uses are limited to 15% of the golf course and buildings may not be higher than 100 feet. Read the details bellow.

The developer is asking the City to rezone the total property to “PDD planned development district”. The purpose and intent of the PDD planned development district is to provide an optional zoning
procedure to permit site design flexibility and greater land use intensity and density. That is the way the developer hopes to build a 20, 24 and 30 story condo-hotel.

On the 5 acre land (behind City National Bank) the developer is allowed to build a 30 story office building (no residential units). If the City does not rezone the property and gift 250 “residential flex
units” to the developer it may be an office building providing hundreds of new jobs.

Please read the “Current Zoning” and “Requested Zoning” below to be better informed.

Chuck Kulin
President
Fairways North, Inc.
----

 Below is an email I received from Csaba Thursday morning:
Hallandale Beach Residents;
The Notice of Community Meeting about the Diplomat under “The applications Involve” said the following:
  • Applying the Planned Development Overlay Zoning District to the total property.
  • Rezoning a 5 acre portion of the property to CCB District.
This is the first time I saw any mention of REZONING the Diplomat Golf Course. Up to this time I believed that the Diplomat requested some variances to the current zoning. This is a major change in my opinion.
I hope the Ms. Orshefsky will answer all the question bellow but in case she will not we need to ask it ourselves.
We need a clear picture of what is allowed under current zoning and what is allowed under the requested new zoning.Here are a few questions we need to get answers to:
  • What is the current zoning of the total property?
  • What are the current permitted uses in the total property?
  • What are the current accessory use limitations of the total property?
  • What are the permitted uses in a Planned Development Overlay Zoning District?
  • What are the permitted uses in a CCB District?
Each of us may have only a few minutes to speak so please feel free to ask any of the questions not yet asked or NOT answered clearly.
Chuck Kulin

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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Csaba Kulin: Hallandale Beach taxpayers & residents want straight answers from Hallandale Beach City Hall about the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa's future plans. Please attend 6 pm meeting tonight at HB Cultural Center


My friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward civic activist Csaba "Chuck" Kulin is sounding the alarm bells today so that the city's residents, taxpayers and Small Business owners can become properly informed about development plans afoot by the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa before something else happens that the public will regret.
The Diplomat's past project, the Diplomat RAC, being a source of dozens of fact-filled blog posts here over the past 8 years, especially my effort to highlight the deliberate efforts of the not-so-fine folks at Hallandale Beach City Hall to keep the community in the dark until the last possible minute, so that their developer friends and associates can keep a lid on facts and plans.
Well, we know how that finally wound up, with me often making like Paul Revere at the time...
The community won, the developer lost.  

See also: via @trdmiami
25th new condo tower completed in South Florida this cycle At least 50 units have been recorded at Related's new Beachwalk in Hallandale Beach April 21, 2015 12:00PM
By Peter Zalewski
http://therealdeal.com/miami/blog/2015/04/21/25th-new-condo-tower-completed-in-south-florida-this-cycle/

Below, my blog post on the current news about the Diplomat Resort & Spa, but first, two helpful
reminders from early 2010, the first of which has generated 2,556 individual pageviews since then:
Sore loser Mark Kukulski & Westin Diplomat renew threats: they'll huff and puff and blow the Diplomat Golf Course down
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/sore-loser-mark-kukulski-westin.html

With friends like Gregory M. Dell, concerned citizens of Hallandale Beach don't need enemies in their battle against the
Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa's ill-conceived plans that threaten the area's Quality of Life
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/with-friends-like-gregory-m-dell.html
 -----
Friends

During the April 21, 2015 City Commission meeting there were several comments made about the Diplomat Golf Resort and the need for the City to define “condo-hotels”. Nothing definite but if you read between the lines, the Diplomat’s new owners are getting ready for something new and big.

If you remember the Diplomat in February 2007 requested to build 1,050 condominium units and 349 hotel rooms. The Planning and Zoning Board rejected that idea and the Diplomat withdrew the application.

In September 2009 the Diplomat filed a new application asking for 1,078 condominiums, 500 room hotel and 3,000 square feet of commercial space. On December 16, 2009 our City Commission approved it 3 to 2. Commissioners Julian and London voted NO. Mayor Cooper, Commissioners Sanders and Ross voted YES. The City Commission voted at 2:30 AM (yes, after midnight) in front of a “standing room only” full of residents to approve the application.

On April 27, 2010 the Broward County Commission denied the application. A bus full of residents were in attendance and many spoke in opposition to the application.

I believe that it is time to ask questions now of your elected mayor and city commissioners about the Diplomat project. What is requested? What is allowed? What is in the best interest of the residents?

An excellent place to start asking questions is tonight, April 21, 2015, at Commissioner Keith London’s monthly meeting at the City Community Center at 6:00 PM. Since it is a “Publicly Noticed” meeting, there may be more than one city commissioners in attendance.

I know it is a late notice but it is an important meeting. Please, try to attend.

Chuck Kulin
President
Fairways North, Inc.  

 
----
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Saturday, February 8, 2014

Latest news re The Hyde Beach Resort project on Hollywood Beach -the former Beach One Resort- right next to the Hallandale Beach Water Tower on State Road A1A: goes to the Hollywood Planning & Development Board on Thursday February 13th at 6 p.m.

Inline image 1

Notice that the artist's rendering of the project above, to the right, which I snapped at Hollywood's Planning Dept. this week -a plan which is completely different in design and scope from the original plan approved by the Hollywood City Comm. for the Beach One Resort, which was truly beautiful- does NOT show the Apogee right next to it 
And also does NOT show the effect of The Related Group's North Beach plans for a building where the old Beachside Cafe was located.

(Which the City of HB had ZERO renderings of at the beach for residents and visitors to see at both its groundbreaking weeks ago or at any point since then, contrary to common sense or any sense of getting the community to buy into it.)

Also NOT shown -the iconic HB Water Tower.
That's THREE neighbors NOT shown in one rendering.

 But then the rendering for Apogee wasn't so accurate back in 2012 either, were they?
Just saying.

 Below, from February 2012.
February 10, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

My previous blog posts on this very important parcel on A1A are here:
June 2008 Artist rendering of aerial view of Beach One Resort, Hollywood, FL
Carlos A. Ott, Architect from submitted documents to the City of Hollywood Development Review Board. September 11, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

October 4, 2008

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

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/naming-names-herald-style-beach-one.html and 
October 18, 2008
Beach One Resort's Approval in Hollywood Provokes Wrath and Harsh Words at Hallandale Beach City Commission
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/beach-one-resorts-approval-in-hollywood.html
October 21, 2008
Cleavage Grows Larger b/w City of Hallandale Beach and Hollywood After Beach One Resort Approved
December 5, 2008
Sue-happy Hallandale Beach vs. Hollywood re Beach One Resort
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/first-shoes-drop-sue-happy-hallandale.html


JUNE 15, 2012 
Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's old threats & lawsuits re-emerge as Hollywood's Beach One Resort sues over its access to the beach, the latest shoe to drop in The Related Group's Beachwalk project that'd make HB's North Beach a de facto private beach for The Related Group's properties, NOT a public beach for HB residents
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-coopers-old.html
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Traffic Alert for Tuesday April 10th in Hollywood & Hallandale Beach area - President Obama will be at The Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa at 3 pm





Tuesday, April 10, 2012 3:00 PM
Obama Victory Fund 2012 - Dinner with President Barack Obama at The Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa 
3555 South Ocean Drive, Hollywood, FL 33019

Above, looking north on the Intracoastal Waterway from next to the Hallandale Beach Walmart. Tallest buildings are, left-to-right/north-to-south, on the east side of State Road A1A: Trump Hollywood,  The Ocean Palms, Diplomat Oceanfront Residences and The Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa. April 8, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Trust me, you don't want to be stuck in one of the RK Plaza strip center parking lots on Hallandale Beach Blvd. because of Secret Service/FHP/HBPD & HPD traffic shutdown for the motorcade for Vice President Biden like I was last year, trapped over near the Post Office for about a half-hour after mailing something to the nieces up in Maryland.
I thought Biden was supposed to be in Coral Gables or Miami Beach, but no...

Of course, when you live in the Washington, D.C. area, and don't have nearly the same gawker effect on pedestrians or drivers,  the motorcades seem to move a lot faster, esp. the ones at night leaving The White House up 17th Street, N.W. or from the State Department.
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Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Nine months from tonight, the Rubber Stamp Crew at Hallandale Beach City Hall can be kicked-to-the-curb for good


November 13, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Nine months from tonight, the Rubber Stamp Crew at Hallandale Beach City Hall can be kicked-to-the-curb for good
Concepts like common sense, logic, reason, transparency, Sunshine in Government and living-within-your-means could finally make their long-overdue appearance at 400 S. Federal Highway.


Not to mention, new City Commissioners dedicated to providing genuine oversight of the new City Manager and city employees, and a willingness to work hard and become familiar with pertinent information BEFORE City Commission meetings, instead of continuing the current practice where the majority merely go-thru-the-motions and forever defer to un-elected staffers who may not represent the long-term best interests of the city's citizen taxpayers and business owners.


We could finally see some intelligent public policy that encourages genuine community involvement throughout the ENTIRE CITY, and NOT exclusion and stealthiness at public meetings, which leads to important decisions being made at 2:43 a.m., as happened with the vote on the Diplomat LAC in 2010.


We could finally have a city hall where a work-ethic exists among city employees that rewards those who consistently show initiative, get the community involved, create cost efficiencies and increased productivity or tangible results, and proactively cuts red-tape and spots problems ahead of time, instead of merely waiting for them to happen and then pretending you don't know anything about it.


Conversely, that new work-ethic at city hall will make clear that it will punish or replace those who cling to the outmoded and musty status quo policies that have existed here for years, a mindset which has cost this city's taxpayers so very much money with so little tangible good to show for it the past ten years -a city budget that has nearly doubled the past five years.


But this change in both attitude and direction won't be accomplished easily, or just thru collective good intentions and a few clever campaign slogans.


It'll require some hard work and diligence by those who are genuinely committed to bringing meaningful policy reform and financial accountability to this city with so much unrealized potential, so that the citizens of this community can FINALLY leave the embarrassing bad old-days in the rear-view mirror.
So, what are you prepared to do the next few months to make that a reality?


In case you're interested, if all goes as expected, I'll be posting some Alternative State of the City comments on my blog in a few days, which is to say, an alternative to Mayor Joy Cooper's likely myopic and unrealistic snapshot.


If any of you you have something you'd like to contribute, either using your own name or, well, as "Anonymous," send it to me by 8 p.m. Thursday night.
-----


Change Hallandale Beach- 
A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos. The kind of evidence that they CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais.
See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com

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Monday, October 3, 2011

October 13 Community Meeting re Beachwalk - 31-story mixed-use project at old 'Manero's' restaurant site; new gridlock-inducing plan for HB?


October 13 Community Meeting re "Beachwalk" - the 31-story residential/office/hotel/restaurant/garage planned for the old 'Manero's' restaurant site; new gridlock-inducing plan for Hallandale Beach?
Seriously, a 31-story property right across the street from the Walmart and on the west-side of the already poky, often-gridlocked Intercoastal Bridge on E. Hallandale Beach Blvd./State Road 858?
You're kidding me?

The already traffic-clogged road where out-of-town drivers (and even many locals) heading towards the beach and State Road A1A in the right/south-bound lane, CONSISTENTLY don't realize they are NOT supposed to STOP as they hit State Road A1A?
But despite the utter simplicity of the sign explaining this, STOP they do!
Oh do they ever!

That is, when they don't try to merge back into north-bound traffic at the last possible moment as they come to a stop at the red-light, often blocking both lanes.
Yes, I mean that road! Those drivers!

The only saving grace about this particular project -Beachwalk- is that it isn't that awful mess of a project called Millennium that lobbyist/lawyer and then-State Senator Steve Geller was pushing on behalf of The Related Group a few years ago that was to be located one block east at 2500 E. Hallandalle Beach Blvd.

The building and project that I've alluded to and written about here on the blog any number of times.
That's the VERY SAME building where the popular and well-regarded Padrino's restaurant is located, outside of which a horrific murder took place in February of 2006.

You'll recall that Albert Avenaim's murder was solved NOT by HB Police ingenuity or detection, but rather because but rather thru, the efforts of the alert Walmart employees at their Coral Springs location, after the guilty party, Brian Bethell, tried to use the his victim's credit cards, his second visit there.
That is, one of the credit cards of the three people Brian Bethell murdered.

You'll also recall Bethell felt so confident, he even brought along his girlfriend and her two toddlers, which, I think, tells you everything you need to know about him.,

That murder was one of the defining events that precipitated my creating this blog in the first place, and my second-biggest regret since returning from the Washington, D.C. area after 15 years up there was that I waited so long to start this blog, so that I could've done that particular story justice, given how it just disappeared from the local news media's horizon within a week or so, a fact I've mentioned on more than one occasion to many reporters down here who worked the story at the beginning.

*See more on Steve Geller and this particular murder at bottom of this post.

This one is being pushed by Greenberg Traurig's Debbie Orshefsky, who led the fight last year for the Diplomat LAC on behalf of the owners of the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, that was ultimately rejected by the Broward County Commission, as I chronicled here so many times.
Small comfort!

Info on the Beachwalk project, directly across from WalMart, and adjacent to Intercoastal Bridge is at Hallandale Beach Current Development Activities webpage:

Yes, this is the property that HB City Hall could've bought cheap for $2.92 Million to actually give this city's open land-starved residents public access to the water -but didn't, per my May 5th email to some of you out there.

This is the property to your right on east-bound HBB before you go over the bridge, i.e the old Manero's restaurant location, that Colliers Abood Wood-Fay has been trying to sell forver.

Yes, you're right, why didn't the City of HB snap it up and either make it a park and/or go into a partnership to have a nice public park and private restaurant there so that there would finally be one PUBLIC place in this city with access to water?
That's a good question for City Manager Antonio, Mayor Cooper and the rest of the City Commission.

------

South Florida Business Journal
Related Group buys waterfront site for 60% off
by Brian Bandell
Thursday, May 5, 2011, 3:42pm EDT -
Last Modified: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 4:20pm EDT

After handing over several of its condo projects to lenders, this time Jorge M. Perez and his Related Group are buying a property from a bank.

PRH-2600 Hallandale Beach LLC, an entity ultimately managed by the Miami-based developer, bought a Hallandale
Beach site along the Intracoastal Waterway from TD Bank for $2.92 million.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/05/05/related-group-buys-waterfront-site.html

----------

PRH-2600 Hallandale
Beach, LLC		Beachwalk 2600 E.
Hallandale Beach Blvd		#47-11-DB
(Major Development)
#48-11-CU
(Conditional Use)
#49-11-Z
(Rezoning)
#51-11-RV
(Road Vacation)		31-story mixed-use building with
84 residential units,
432 hotel rooms and
1,225 sq.ft restaurant		Pending resubmittal addressing DRC commentsDRC

Planning and Zoning Board

City Commission

Estimated Site Plan Approval:
December 2011		P

------
This is excerpted from some past posts here and at my other blog, South Beach Hoosier.

How do I know that Steve Geller represented Millennium?
I was one of the select few to attend a sparsely-attended public meeting that, Millennium was forced to hold in December of 2006 in Hallandale Beach Cultural Center, behind their City Hall.

I got there early, expecting some emotional fireworks because of the rather, predictable concerns about exacerbating the already bad neighborhood, traffic-flow on HBB, the completely out-of-proportion size of the plan, etc., and sat at the table next to Miami Herald reporter Jennifer Lebovich.

Once I got there and had grabbed a donut and some coffee and returned to the table I had all to myself, my biggest thought while jotting down some, thoughts in my legal pad was making sure to leave early enough so that I could get home and not miss a minute of a new episode of LOST.
Really. I'd forgotten to program my VCR.

But then, quite unexpectedly, to my great surprise, in walked Geller and his retinue with trademark showy boisterousness, with him not waiting even two beats before continuing on a rant/harangue disparaging then-Gov.-Elect Charlie Crist in tones that would've been loud enough for everyone in the room to hear if the room had been half-full -wishful thinking- say, 150-200 people.

As it was, counting his Millennium-related crew and the interested public, such as, it was, there were no more than 25 people in that room, so his voice was bouncing off the walls.
To be so self-absorbed as to publicly belittle Crist in front of people -and a, reporter- before he'd even taken the oath of office, showed me the side of Geller I'd often read and heard about, but never seen in person for myself.

But I recognized the type, since I'd had dealings with current Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel in Washington before he was anybody of note, per se, over at the DCCC, and he already had that insufferable attitude and ego thing down pat.

Geller's whole shtick was so over-the-top as to be farcical, and I debated back and forth in my head whether I ought to dispense with pleasantries and the subject at hand, and simply drop my knowledge of what hadn't transpired at 2500 HBB on Geller and Millennium, in front of reporter, Lebovich, once the presentation was over and the Q&A began in earnest.

In the end, having read most of her past articles, I just didn't trust Lebovich's ability to synthesize the narrative and connect all the dots in a way that would get all the pertinent facts out.

Given my interests and background, I've been to hundreds of these sorts of meetings over the years, but listening to the sheer obfuscation and, mis-direction coming out of Geller's mouth, his Pooh-poohing of the patently obvious traffic problems, as if a magic wand had been waved overthem, rendering them invisible, well, it was all I could do to not ask him straight out if he and his colleagues even recognized the name of, Albert Avenhaim -and then go on offense.

But it all would've been wasted on people who either didn't know or who'd already forgotten how bad the safety was there at Padrino's, with parking lot lights out for months at a time and the ones that did work were largely obscured by tree branches.

Who was responsible for the property's maintenance?
Steve Geller's client.
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