BBC News' Siobhan Courtney on 'planned attack' resulting in Pornographic videos flooding YouTube

I came across this disturbing story on the BBC's website this afternoon after watching the Manchester United-Fulham match at Craven Cottage that resulted in a thrilling 2-2 tie.

I'd gone to the BBC's website to see if there was anything new on the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, and there was, though nothing I can embed here yet as I'd hoped.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11050737

As of 2 p.m. today, there is not a single American media reference to this story on Google News, even though the BBC reported this on Thursday, and yes, I know that Google owns YouTube.

Seriously, are there really that many newspaper editors and TV producers on vacation right now that this story could slip through without being ever being mentioned in this country?

Of late, the American news media has needed no prompting to do a story on YouTube regarding whatever the latest sensation is, the stupider the better so it seems, but this story that parents ought to know about is being smothered.

I never really thought of myself as old-fashioned, per se, but my sense of things is that now as in the past, nobody wants a watchdog that doesn't bark.

-----

BBC-TV

Pornographic videos flood YouTube

By Siobhan Courtney Interactive reporter, BBC News

Page last updated at 17:09 GMT, Thursday, 21 May 2009 18:09 UK

The BBC's Interactive reporter Siobhan Courtney talks about the investigation into the 'video attack'.

Video-sharing website YouTube has removed hundreds of pornographic videos which were uploaded in what is believed to be a planned attack.

The material was uploaded under names of famous teenage celebrities such as Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers.

Many started with footage of children's videos before groups of adults performing graphic sex acts appeared on screen.

YouTube owner Google said it was aware and addressing the problem.

Read the rest of the story and see news video here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8061979.stm?ls

--------

The Daily Mail

YouTube deletes hundreds of porn clips disguised as Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers videos http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1305218/YouTube-deletes-hundreds-pornographic-clips-disguised-Hannah-Montana-Jonas-Brothers-videos.html

The Kessel Chronicles, The Story Thus Far -Now with YouTube!

Friday April 9th, 2010 


An email that I sent out this afternoon said...

Over the past few days I've been playing around with the videotapes I recorded of the Feb. 25th Broward Planning Council meeting and the March 23rd Broward County Commission meeting on the Diplomat LAC proposal, trying to edit out the dead time before and after each speaker commented, with special attention given to Joe Kessel testifying without declaring his particular status as an agent of HB City Hall.

Unfortunately, I can't share them here as I'd like to because Gmail's limit on attachments
is 25MB and they're 139 MB, so please go to my YouTube page where I have -FINALLY-uploaded the first of many dozens of videos to come on this issue, and the many others

I've written about in the past: meetings of the Broward Ethics Comm., Broward
Legislative Delegation, Johnson Street RFP for Hollywood Beach, the Hollywood
and HB City Commission/CRA meetings, et al.
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

Trust me, when you see how professional and thorough the recent Hollywood Citizen Budget meeting I attended was, with Dept. Heads, not the City Manager, discussing their dept.in great detail and showing all the pertinent facts and figures, including number of
employees, and answering citizens questions in an honest and forthright fashion, and compare it to the woefully inexact and dismissive solo performances we've seen of HB City Manager Mike Good in the recent HB Quadrant Dog & Pony shows, you'll see a glimpse of how things ought to be done here: Professionally.

Henceforth, Hallandale Beach City Hall will no longer be able to deny the existence of
longstanding problems that you and I and everyone else in the world -but them!- can see clearly: serial apathy, incompetency, rude and unprofessional behavior and self- evident corruption at 400 S. Federal Highway.

The whole world will be watching.
Well, at least the part in our corner of the world that cares or is curious about good government and checks and balances!

The reporters and editors who've heretofore commiserated but never actually done
anything to bring to light publicly the many matters that we've had to deal with for years,
will now find themselves in a most familiar place: on the outside looking in.
Where they already are now.

They will be standing there with all the other South Florida reporters and editors whoNEVER could be bothered to actually show-up and see for themselves how systematically anti-democratic and corrupt the crew at HB City Hall is.

Never bothered to respond to any of the myriad emails or phone calls that you and I have sent over the years about what was going on.

Never seem inclined to find out how an entrenched culture of corruption could develop here where HB city employees would think it's normal or appropriate to try to physically prevent citizens like me from attending a publicly-noticed meeting at City Hall for 15 minutes, until they canceled it right before yours truly finally got there -thanks to the assistance of Comm. London- as happened to me just last month?

Did Assistant City Manager Mark Antonio, he of the $150k-plus salary, and a member
of the Evaluation Committee that was meeting that day try to explain to me when he saw me
there, why the meeting was suddenly canceled once they knew I was trying to get to the meeting? 
More to the point, did he even attempt to explain why I, the only citizen trying to attend the meeting, was physically prevented by city employees from getting to the meeting?
No, he did not.

Instead, Antonio just scurried back to his office like a petulant child, actually yelling at
Comm. London, as he hurried to his bunkerof an office, safe from the reasonable questions
of a citizen taxpayer.

That my friends, is the low moral and professional caliber of people currently working at Hallandale Beach City Hall -and he's one of the persons in charge.
Now multiply that unprofessional attitude dozens of times.
It explains an awful lot here, doesn't it?

But it turns out, for the most part, with the exception of a few individual reporters who've
taken the time to try to understand the context and nuance of the upside-down world of HB,
we don't really need print and TV reporters to validate our legitimate concerns, after all.

We knew that all the time, of course, but it needs to be said publicly, so you can get used to it.
When you can independently make the information public and widely-known to those who are actually concerned, who needs the South Florida media gatekeepers?
Not me.
I'm no longer going to jump through their hoops or send up a flare to try to get their attention
about what's going on here.

With video and photos of the problems at your own fingertips, if you feel like it, you can share them with all your well-informed and concerned friends and ask them what they think, and make your concerns or comments public.

Chances are, your friends noticed the problem, too -last week or last month or last year- just like you.
And like you and me, wondered why HB City Hall, once again, consciously chooses to ignore it or not fix it correctly, as if it would somehow fix itself.

(Some of you have already commented to me previously that my getting my YouTube Channel up-and-running is NOT good news for anti-reform and anti-transparency City Commission candidates William "Bill" Julian and Alexander Lewy, since both are deathly afraid of facts and sunshine. 
Yes, that's true, as you'll soon see, or for that matter, any candidate in this area who puts their personal ambitions above the interests of the greater community.)

True story: Last Thursday, April 1st, I went over to HB City Hall to look at the Public
Notice board to see if they were trying to sneak something thru like what I mentioned earlier. 
Naturally, I looked at the printed calendar of advisory board meetings.

The calendar posted was for March, so I mentioned it to a city employee there and
suggested they put up the one for April.
Late yesterday afternoon, April 8th, I wentover there again.
Guess which month they had posted?
Correct -March 2010.
Like you expected differently?

I'll have the photos and video up later on my blog.

Not surprisingly, given what I'd been hinting for weeks in my emails and what has now become common knowledge, in part thru Thomas Francis' posts in his popular Juice blog at the NewTimes, my first uploaded video is of Joe Kessel, in this case before the Broward Planning Council on February 25th.
In his mind, Kessel's going to Carolina...
See also:
Open Government: idling in the drivewayhttp://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2010/04/08/open-government-idling-in-the-driveway/

Blog posts from The Juice are in chronological order

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/04/hallandale_mike_good_joe_kessel_consulting_contract.php

Broward

Hallandale City Manager Under Fire for Payments to Real Estate Agent

By Thomas Francis, Monday, Apr. 5 2010 @ 11:12AM

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/04/hallandale_mayor_cooper_kessel_contract.php#more
Broward

Hallandale Mayor Knew of City's Controversial Contract With Real Estate Agent

By Thomas Francis, Tuesday, Apr. 6 2010 @ 2:33PM

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/04/hallandale_digital_outernet_joe_kessel_jenna_jameson.php
Broward

Realtor Being Paid by Hallandale May Have Had Role in Controversial Loan to Pornographer

By Thomas Francis, Thursday, Apr. 8 2010 @ 4:50PM

March odds & ends about Broward Schools: audits, personnel cuts and School Board lobbyists who are leaving -or are they?

Last week I asked whether anyone else had seen
Broward School Superintendent James Notter's
appearance on CNN.
http://www.browardschools.com/

Well, it looks like I struck-out and it was beamed
only to my home in a super-secret location near
stately Wayne Manor.

There's no video of the appearance but here's
a transcript of the March 10th appearance.
http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1003/10/cnr.04.html

The Sun-Sentinel's Education Blog now has
a YouTube page that you may find worth
checking out.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SSEducationNews
which I joined as a subscriber early this A.M.
becoming, apparently, their first subscriber,
so if you have an interest in things ABC,
you might want to consider joining as well.

As I've previously mentioned thru emails and
here on my blog, I'm somewhat frustrated
and confused by the newspaper's use of
their FLIP camera(s).
http://www.theflip.com/en-us?gclid=CI2M_Zz2xaACFY2F7QodqnYHfA
Not to play TV News Director or newspaper
Editorial Director or anything, but... well, I am.

To me, the cameras seem to be used too much
on covering the doings up on Andrews Avenue,
a few blocks north of the County Govt HQ,
at Fort Lauderdale City Commission meetings
and anything involving mayor Jack Seiler,
since I've never seen the camera in use at any
of the many Broward Ethics Commission,
Broward Legislative Delegation or Planning
Council meetings I've attended (and recorded)
since last September.

Personally, you'd think there'd be more general
interest in those topics than the routine City
of Fort Lauderdale meetings, though at some
of the Ethics meetings, I was the only member
of the Broward public present for more than
an hour or so at a time, so my use of the word
"interest" is used advisedly.

Frankly, why doesn't the Sun-Sentinel send
an intern to those meetings, which they must
deem a Junior Varsity event if a regular
Sun-Sentinel reporter can't cover it.
The interns can set-up the camera on tripod,
play cameraman and take notes so that the
other reporters/columnists can benefit from
seeing what's what at a later time.

Plus, the best parts, such as they are,
can be edited and put uploaded to their own
YouTube page where they can attempt to
grow their online presence.
That's what I'd do if I had anything to do
with it, which I don't, of course.

See video of Notter and Broward School Board
Chair Jennifer Gottlieb -running for re-election-
speaking to the Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board;
video was posted on Feb. 23rd.

As of today, the Miami Herald still lacks an
Education blog and what I deem to be their
VERY mediocre politics blog, Naked Politics,
still has no online video component

In fact, they run stories about Lauren Book's possible
candidacy for Broward School Board there since they
have no blog:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/

http://www.youtube.com/user/BrowardPolitics
http://www.youtube.com/user/adamsptimes1
http://www.youtube.com/user/actsofsedition

That ticking you hear is the Herald's future winding-down...
if they don't get relevant and hyper-local toute-de-suite.


South Florida Sun-Sentinel
www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-school-construction-audit-20100318,0,7378161.story
Overpayments won’t be tolerated, Broward schools construction chief says

By Akilah Johnson, Sun Sentinel
March 18, 2010

After a blistering audit that detailed unauthorized work and overpayments to contractors, the Broward School District's interim construction chief said Thursday he has warned staffers such practices will not be tolerated.

"As long as we have a culture that doesn't hold these people accountable, you will continue to have audits like this one," said Tom Lindener, acting deputy superintendent of facilities and construction.

The 51-page report described a department that ignores or skirts policies, laws and contracts. It claimed overpayments cost taxpayers almost $1 million and that two employees earned $93,000 in overtime in the past two years without documenting when, where or what work they did.

The report went to the district's audit committee Thursday and goes before the School Board on April 20.

Lindener told the audit committee he has already demanded that Pavarini Construction Co. refund the district $290,683 paid for work done without a contract. He said he met with at least two other contractors identified as owing the district money.

And he now requires project managers to use picture IDs at schools to document when they arrive and leave.

His only disagreement with the audit centers on a recommendation to create new policies. The problem isn't that rules aren't there, he said, it's that they're not being followed.

"I will hold people accountable, and, in fact, have already started calling people into my office," Lindener said.

He said he has issued four oral reprimands and two letters of reprimand for mismanagement and personal accountability issues since taking over in January.

He noted that part of the culture change must involve a safety net for employees to do what's right or document that they were following the orders of a superior, including School Board members who "have reached down into middle management, project managers," without fear of retribution.

Superintendent James Notter said he intends to address this issue during the board's May workshop on ethics.

"I see a spirit of cooperation that we haven't seen before," said Henry W. "Hank" Mack, the committee's chairman emeritus. "What makes me feel particularly good is to get a response to an audit that is positive and not designed to make the auditor look like they don't know what they are talking about."

Chief Auditor Patrick Reilly said more construction audits are in the works.

Reader comments at:
http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-school-construction-audit-20100318/10





Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/19/1536770/audit-finds-building-funds-misspent.html
Audit finds Broward school building funds misspent
By Patricia Mazzei
March 19, 2010

A scathing internal audit has found that the Broward school district's construction department overpaid hundreds of thousands of dollars to contractors, allowed unauthorized projects to move forward and kept sloppy employee overtime, attendance and mileage records.

Among the most troubling items:

• Paying more than $1 million for bleachers for a high school because a contractor was paid twice.

• Paying nearly $400,000 for drawings of middle school classroom additions before the projects had been approved.

• Paying employees overtime without specifying what extra work was done.

The report expands on problems with Broward's construction practices raised since the September arrest of former School Board member Beverly Gallagher, who pleaded guilty Wednesday to accepting bribes from undercover FBI agents posing as consultants for contractors.

But in a striking departure from thorny reports in the past, members of the district's watchdog audit group praised Broward's acting construction chief, on the job since January, for agreeing with the criticism -- in some cases, bringing forth problems himself -- and promising to turn his department around.

"The culture, I think, is changing,'' said Tom Lindner, who was appointed to head construction after the Dec. 31 retirement of department chief Michael Garretson.

He said his goal is to enforce rules already in place and reprimand employees who don't stick to them.

"As long as we have a culture that does not hold those people accountable, you will have audits like this one,'' he said.

Lindner said he has sent letters to the overpaid contractors to try to get money back. He has also met with two contractors to sort out what work they did and did not do.

The report says a project to build 2,500 bleachers at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale cost more than $1 million -- after being budgeted for about $500,000 -- because a subcontractor, Seating Constructors USA, was paid twice.

The district is referring the case to law enforcement to see if "criminal negligence or fraud'' took place.

Three contractors began doing the same work because the district mismanaged the project, the audit says. Seating was paid by both the district and the project's general contractor, Grace & Naeem Uddin, Inc. -- though the building permit was issued to a third firm, Florida Blacktop.

"Internal controls do exist and were ignored,'' Lindner wrote in his response to the audit's findings.

Grace & Naeem Uddin, Inc. has since sued Seating and the district over the project, the audit says.

PROJECT CALLED OFF

In a separate instance, the district overpaid contractor Pavarini Construction $290,683 to design a classroom addition at Westglades Middle in Parkland that has been postponed indefinitely due to budget cuts.

Design work began without School Board approval and the district agreed to pay before the architect had turned in design drawings.

Lindner said the school system's attorney has gotten involved in the case.

The Westglades project was bid in April 2008 and work began in May of that year -- though funding was not set aside for the project until August 2008, and board members did not approve it until April of last year, according to the audit.

District records had previously shown facilities auditor Dave Rhodes refused to sign off on the project in January 2008 because the Parkland area didn't need the extra space.

According to this week's audit, the project moved forward ``based on informal approval'' from Garretson, the former construction chief, and his staff, even after a project manager had questioned whether the new classrooms were needed. Coral Springs Middle, two miles from Westglades, had 359 empty seats at the time, the report says.

With projections showing that Broward will have about 33,000 more seats than students by the 2013-14 school year, the state has ordered the district to stop building new classrooms.

In November, Garretson said he had urged his staff to get projects put to bid quickly knowing a state-imposed halt to construction was coming.

Separately in the audit, the district overpaid a third contractor, James A. Cummings Construction Inc., twice for design work: once $22,225.08 for a classroom addition at Seminole Middle in Plantation and a second time $79,025.08 for three classroom additions at Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach and Sunrise middles.

Both times the board had not authorized work to begin on the projects. The overpayment happened because the original scope of the additions was reduced.

The audit also found that some employees did not complete daily attendance sheets, padded their mileage for reimbursement, left vacation and leave request forms unsigned and did not get approval for overtime or compensatory time.

In a particularly egregious example, two employees routinely received two hours of overtime a day starting in 2005. In the last two years, that amounted to $93,000 in extra pay for those employees.

Lindner said he put a stop to those overtime payments. Auditors had pointed to overtime problems elsewhere in the district in a June report that found Broward has been paying employees who have two jobs within the school system overtime for their higher-paying primary job -- even if the overtime work was done in the second, lesser-paying position.

REPRIMANDS

Auditors plan to present a second part of their review of the construction department in May. In the meantime, Lindner said he has verbally reprimanded four employees and written letters of reprimand to two others.

"It certainly showed some material weaknesses,'' Superintendent Jim Notter said Thursday. "How does a division pay overtime and not necessarily document the hours that they were working? That's clearly not right.''

Still, members of the audit committee, which is made up of experts not employed by the district, were happy with Lindner's response.

"What makes me feel particularly good is to get a response to an audit that is positive and not designed to make the auditors [seem] like they don't know what they're talking about,'' said Henry Mack, the committee's chairman emeritus.

"And I see a spirit of cooperation . . . that we haven't seen before.''

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/19/1536770/audit-finds-building-funds-misspent.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1 ------

Broward Beat
Another Browardbeat First: Key Lobbyists Drop School Board Registration
By Buddy Nevins

Two of the school system’s leading lobbyists, both connected to disgraced School Board member Bev Gallagher, are no longer registered to work at the school system.

It’s the end of an era.

Not able to represent clients at the School Board because they are not registered are Barbara Miller and Neil Sterling – who once were the go-to lobbyists at the school system.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/end-of-an-era-key-lobbyists-drop-school-board-registration/

-----

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
South Florida Schools blog
Parents lobby to save Broward elementary school specials

Posted by Kathy Bushouse
March 17, 2010 11:16 AM

Ever since news broke last week that the Broward School District is considering cutting elementary school specials, parents are writing letters, going to meetings and starting Facebook groups in hopes that they'll be able to save art, music, P.E. and media classes.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/2010/03/parents_lobby_to_save_broward_elementary_school_specials.html

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
South Florida Schools blog
Broward Schools Superintendent on facilities audit

Posted by Akilah Johnson
March 17, 2010 04:55 PM

Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter stopped by the Sun Sentinel to talk about an audit that says -- and I’m loosely quoting Hamlet here -- something’s rotten in the state of school construction.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/2010/03/broward_schools_superintendent_5.html

Here's something to consider, which explains
a lot of what passes for logic locally with the
Broward School system. The South Adminstrative
HQ that deals with schools in Hallandale Beach
and Hollywood is 14.6 miles from Hallandale
High School.


View Larger Map


But the distance from Hallandale High School
to the School system's Main Office in downtown
Fort Lauderdale, home of the School Board
600 S.E. Third Avenue, is 10.6 miles.
Yes, the South office is both north and farther
away from the school than the Main Office.


View Larger Map

On muting the message and shooting the (YouTube) messenger from Down Under

Sorry to say but I discovered over the weekend that
the very compelling p.s.a. video that was the focus of
my advertising industry-related blog post of July 10th,
TAC-SWAP -which I've gotten a lot of positive
email about, esp. from overseas visitors to
Hallandale Beach Blog- has, for now at least,
been rendered invisible on YouTube as a result of
a copyright claim by the very people in Australia
whom you'd think would want the message they
paid for to be seen by as many people as possible,
the Transportation Accident Commission.

You don't have to have read every one of world-renown
Northwestern marketing professor Philip Kotler's
many great books on marketing strategies, or sat in
on his Kellogg classes in Evanston, to know what
a very bad decision that will likely turn out to be in
retrospect.
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/bio/Kotler.htm
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Faculty/Blogroll/All-Blogs.aspx
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Faculty/Books_By_Faculty/Marketing.aspx


Looking northeast towards the main part of
Northwestern's campus and Lake Michigan.
Until you've been there, you can't imagine
how beautiful the Evanston campus is.
It's not quite in IU's class in terms of beauty,
but it's much beter than 95% of this country's
college campuses.

Here they have precisely the sort of great interest
in their awareness campaign that you'd want, and
they not only don't have a means for sharing it
from their own website, but they've actually now
clamped down on the one-and-only way most people
will ever hear about it, including similarly-situated
groups around the world, who, it might be hoped,
might get the kick-in-the-pants they need to start
being as realistic and compelling on their home
turf as this and the preceding TAC ads have been.

(To see previous Grey Melbourne advertising
and marketing campaigns, go to
http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/search/?q=Grey%20Melbourne )


Just imagine if overnight, Miami-Dade County and
Broward County governments were forced to pay for
ads on local TV this realistic, to induce citizens to
call anonymously to report govt. graft and abuse,
kick-backs, contract chicanery or ethical funny
business by elected officials or govt. employees?

That would be great to see on TV, and the sort of thing
that the Broward County Ethics Commission
really ought to be pushing hard, if you ask me.
http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/welcome.htm

So, with all that said, here is the only legally-sanctioned
website where you can actually see the SWAP p.s.a.,
although a few places around the world still have it up
until the Australians force them to pull it down
-like at Sostav in Moscow,
http://www.sostav.ru/news/2009/07/10/cod3/ -
albeit without the benefit of a large screen.

To see the campaign:
http://www.tac.vic.gov.au/jsp/content/NavigationController.do?areaID=23&tierID=1&navID=63CC12CD7F00000101A5D19311EC6AC2&navLink=null&pageID=1847

Kudos to the people at Grey Melbourne who made
this great ad possible, which hasn't gone un-noticed:
creative director Nigel Dawson;
executive creative director Ant Shannon;
writer Nigel Dawson;
art director Pete Becker;
agency producer Jess Smith,
account director Claudia McInerney,
TV Director Sean Meehan,
film company Soma Films;
client Emma Mulholland and John Thompson;
Media Mitchells.

Giving Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper her just due

More than two weeks later...

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

Miami Herald

April 6, 2009

YouTube videos unflattering to Doral mayor

Three videos have popped up on YouTube that point

to turbulent times at Doral City Hall.

Posted by CrazyPoliticians on March 23, the videos

show Doral Mayor Juan Carlos Bermudez in action.

The recordings from three council meetings -- one

from last month and two from 2007 -- have picked

up nearly 1,000 combined views.

In one titled ''City of Doral Mayor insults Chief

of Police,'' Bermudez calls Doral Police Chief Ricky

Gomez a ''big mouth'' and mocks him, noting his

"infinite wisdom.''

In ''Mayor of Doral Loses Control,'' Bermudez

pounds the gavel during a discussion on the

color of police decals, turns to then-Vice Mayor

Pete Cabrera and says while pointing,

"This is not your meeting. You're not the mayor.''

In an interview, Bermudez calls the videos ''sleazy

politics'' and says they have been taken out of

context. ''This is about outside interests who want

to discredit me and the city,'' he said. "The voters

of Doral understand my character, my integrity

and the person who I am.''

Unlike some fellow fledgling cities marred by

constant infighting, the 5-year-old city had,

until now, been seemingly calm. But tensions

have simmered behind the scenes.

Last month, an outburst between Bermudez

and former ally, now foe, Cabrera erupted

at a meeting during a contract debate.

A video of the exchange where Bermudez

threatens to remove Cabrera, warning him,

''I'm the chair,'' was posted Friday.

That night, Cabrera likened Bermudez to a

dictator. Cabrera, who requested a copy of

the 2007 tapes, said he did not post the

recordings. ''Now everybody can make their

own opinion,'' he said.

-- YUDY PINEIRO

Reader comments at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/986143.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=6225937#Comments_Container

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

In case the links in the box above are

dead, Doral vidos are at:

Mayor of Doral threatens councilman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKeX6MmIObU

Mayor of Doral loses control

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nICdOg9xsnk

City of Doral mayor insults chief of police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orhUt3NTAcs

Below is a slightly edited version of an email I sent

out the day after this story originally ran in the

Miami Herald two weeks ago, to many reform-minded

citizens of Hallandale Beach and others in South

Florida with an avid interest in seeing it becoming

a functioning, democratic 21st Century city that

complies with all extant federal, state and county

laws, not an ethical outlier as currently the case.

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

Tomorrow I plan on posting something about this

on my blog with something along the lines of

"Nice try Mayor Bermudez, you've certainly

worked on your A-game, but sorry, the

evidence clearly shows that you're no

Joy Cooper."

And then I'll detail just a few of the things we

already know she's done to limit the free flow

of information in this city to its citizen taxpayers,

business owners and visitors alike.

a.) Like creating absurd rules that prevent publicly

elected members of the HB City Commission from

using their laptops on the dais during a meeting,

in order to preclude them from being able to prove

that City Manager Mike Good's office or some

city Director or employee is arguing something

and using information that either isn't either true

or factual, or hasn't met one of their own deadlines.

As happened not so long ago when Comm. Keith

Londonwas able to pull up the exact information

on the three appraisals of Comm. Anthony A.

Sanders' property to be purchased by the city

for more than seems reasonable. given the real

estate market's present course.

This effort on London's part caused the City

Manager to immediately get-up from his seat

and walk over to behind London to see what

he had on his laptop.

What London had accessed was simply factual

information in the city's own computer files,

which as an elected city official representing

the people -as opposed to the un-elected

Good and city employees- he ought to have

direct access to, as part of his sworn obligation

to residents to provide oversight.

He shouldn't have to ask for permission from

the City Manager and his staff to get access

to something that's public -not private or

part of some legal communication.

As is usually the case, I was an eyewitness

to that bit of classic Hallandale Beach

theatre-in-the-round.

It probably won't come as a surprise to you

that the logical reason that Joy Cooper

nd Mike Good decided soon afterwards

that they wanted rules that would

prevent London and the other elected

commissioners from accessing the laptops,

is because they want to keep the

information for themselves, and parcel

it out as they see best, though that's

clearly contrary to both the democratic

process and what the public's interest is.

(Sort of makes you wonder what's

to become of the laptops, eh?)

This cast of characters wants to have total

and exclusive control of all information,

lest some truth actually get out into the

atmosphere, where it can have tangible

effects.

This sort of over-the-top effort is perhaps

the best example I can think of that

demonstrates Joy Cooper's control-freak

tendencies.

If the city were actually as well run,

efficient or just plain smart about things

as a town like Coral Springs, which

annually wins awards that actually have

merit, that would be a whole lot easier

to take, but we know that it's just the

opposite here, which is why she grates

on me and so many other Hallandale

Beach citizens.

The only people she's fooling are those

who want to be fooled and keep their

eyes closed to what's self-evident.

In fact, thanks to the diligent work and

research of Change Hallandale,

http://www.changehallandale.com/

we know what a well-run city like

Coral Springs is only too happy

to put in their Annual Budget,

Fiscal Year 2009:

facts and direct comparison

to other cities, including

Hallandale Beach.

See page 47

http://www.coralsprings.org/publications/Budget_FY2009/FY2009AnnualBudgetAdopted.pdf

b.) Cooper created arbitrary rules

to limit the number of times -and

the amount oftime- the city

commissioners can ask questions,

as if she were on some sort of flight

schedule, or that every subject

deserves the same amount of time

and discussion, which it doesn't.

Plus, she makes no allowance for

information that emerges from

the discussion, either, which then

needs to be actively pursued, if

necessary.

Yet this is the same JoyCooper

who thinks nothing of taking an

entire hour to do 3-4 ceremonial

proclamations, but we all already

know thatEVERY single City

Commission meeting starts late,

often 10-15 minutes late or more,

often because Comm. Dorothy Ross

or City Manager Good aren't even

in the building, yet she'll often blame

the delay on technical problems with

the TV cameras.

Frankly, without sounding too cynical,

it's actually hard to know when she's

actually telling the truth, because she

so often mis-states the self-evident

facts and circumstances in order to

obfuscate.

Those damn disruptive cameras,

always causing trouble!

(Now that's chutzpah!

Too bad the City Manager

doesn't have a timecard so

that HB taxpayers can actually

see how often he's around

City Hall, since, apparently,

that isn't nearly as much as

you'd think for the $422k man.)

c.) Cooper and her Rubber Stamp

Crew routinely violate the spirit and

letter of this state's Sunshine Laws

by insisting that she can and will

continue to hold meetings in a

second-floor room at City Hall with

no TV cameras to record the

ommission's activities, knowing

full well that the Minutes of that

won't be made public for 6-9 months

-and good luck in getting them

promptly!

Those items she brings up in that

room are -surprise!- issues she

personally supports that aren't

properly/legally noticed to the

public, aren't on the printed

agendas distributed by the City

Clerk's office, et al.

Speaking of videos, in case you

haven't gone to it recently,

Change Hallandale has the

following videos of some antics

at HB City Hall at their informative

website,

http://www.changehallandale.com/

Joy_loses_control_-_Clip.mp4

Commission_comments_re_Fran_resignation_Aug_8_08_1008_AM.mp4

Fran_Resigns_Aug_8_08_1008_AM.mp4

Hallandale Beach Commissioner Dotty Ross discusses qualifications she considers essential for a commissioner

Hallandale Beach City Manager notes that the City's reserves are depleted

Hallandale Beach City Manager takes offense to a Commissioner questioning him on the budget

Hallandale Beach discussion of City Commission meetings

Hallandale Beach City Manager on curbside recycling

Hallandale Beach City Manager on sanitation costs

Hallandale Beach City Manager on water costs

Hallandale Beach City Manager on City millage rate

Hallandale Beach City Manager on the City's water, sewer, and trash fees

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The comments that I left on the

Herald's website were short and

to the point:

Nice try Doral, you've certainly

worked on your A-game, but sorry,

the evidence clearly shows

that you're no Hallandale Beach.

Our mayor, Joy Cooper, has a much

stronger game than you, but then

she practices her tricks more than

your mayor.

Did you bill taxpayers $3,700 for

the city to build you a new office

at City Hall, even though there was

NOTHING physically wrong with

your old one?

Have you created absurd new

rules that PREVENT elected

members of the City Commission

from using their laptops on the

dais during a meeting, in order

to preclude them from being

able to access them and prove

that the City Manager or another

city official is arguing something

or using information that isn't

either true or factual, or hasn't

met one of his own previous

deadlines?

Do you ROUTINELY violate

the spirit and letter of this state's

Sunshine Laws by insisting that

you can hold meetings in another

City Hall room with no TV

cameras to record the commission

voting on items NOT on the

public agenda?