Mendacious Peter Deutsch & Ben Gamla Charter get caught red-handed on YouTube and pull their video before more people can see the truth for themselves

Below, for your edification, is a copy of an email that I sent out just before midnight to some South Florida reporters, columnists and editors for their perusal Wednesday morning in their office, while I'm over at the Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting.

Given what I have written here on the blog in the past on the subject of former Congressman Peter Deutsch's proposed Ben Gamla Charter School in Hallandale Beach -which I have strongly opposed from the very beginning- this post almost writes itself, but this time, a new development has emerged since I last wrote about the subject.
A shoe has dropped.

An embarrassing, smelly mess of a shoe that has left fingerprints for us to examine.
It shows Peter Deutsch for what he truly is, and typically -and I could hardly have dreamed this next part up!- his clumsiness in attempting to erase the truth has only drawn more attention to his impudent mendacity and gall.
Peter Deutsch being Peter Deutsch.

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Lost in Translation.
That's an excellent name for the well-thought out and fact-filled essay below penned by www.savehallandale.wordpress.com that I decided to share with you tonight, on the chance you haven't already received it.

It's point is clear and one that I have often written myself, namely that sometimes, things are EXACTLY what they seem.

In this specific case, it's nice of Peter Deutsch & Co. to be so obvious about his mendacity and actually use YouTube to spread his message of... well, it's NOT exactly a celebration of diversity in Hallandale Beach and the actual school kids who already live HERE, is it?

No, Peter Deutsch & Co. are exactly whom I and the other concerned citizens of this city thought they were when he personally said over a year ago -at one of HB Comm. Keith London's monthly Resident Forum meetings with HB citizens- that there was absolutely nothing that anyone in this city could do to stop him from getting what HE wanted. No citizen, no elected official -NOBODY.

This latest piece of the puzzle described so accurately by savehallandale seems like what some people with old-fashioned notions of serious journalism actually call NEWS.
I'm one of them.

It would be nice for a change to actually see this story treated in the serious fashion that it has long deserved, say, sometime before that HB City Commission meeting in two weeks, on the 18th, at 6 p.m.

But perhaps you think differently.
I guess we'll all see what South Florida media outlets really think is news.
Or not.

In any case, regardless of what you do, this will be the last time you hear from me on the unpopular Ben Gamla Charter School, a development proposal that any reasonable person can see doesn't just ignore the genuine needs of school kids in THIS city, but threatens to turn a largely single-family neighborhood in NE HB into a perpetual parking lot, courtesy of parents who live in distant Broward and Miami-Dade cities that are NOT named Hallandale Beach.

The savehallandale post in question is at:
http://savehallandale.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/lost-in-translation/

My previous blog posts on Ben Gamla are at:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Ben%20Gamla%20Hebrew%20Charter%20School

SaveHallandale.com deconstructs the myth of the might of Peter Deutsch's Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School and reveals its true purpose

Today, SaveHallandale.com deconstructs the myth of the might of the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School political machine that employs whatever tactics it needs to get what IT wants, whether by self-evident intimidation, threats or the very worst sort of pandering and condescension, regardless of what the people of Hallandale Beach want, especially the parents of HB school kids.

Yes, creepy and impudent Peter Deutsch & Co. are finally starting to get the kind of public opprobrium they've richly earned thru their own noxious words and actions, and I have to tell you, it fits them like a glove!

As I've often remarked on this subject here on the blog over the past two years, it's a pity that the South Florida news media was asleep at the wheel all year, and never bothered to notice this issue in a serious way, even while they did a decent job of covering the charter school trying to shoe-horn their way into one particular incompatible neighborhood in Coral Gables, a compelling story I posted here.

Actually, I seem to recall that it was mostly Carli Teproff of the Miami Herald, alone, since I never once saw a story on Miami TV newscasts about it.

But being a resident of Hallandale Beach means the South Florida new media looks at you -and what happens here- askance, as they generally ignore what happens here unless it creates problem of some sort for others living outside of this small community.

More often than not, that consists solely of something awful happening on1-95, the western border of the city, that stops traffic, like Wednesday's high speed police chase from Miami that ended there.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/18/1931294/police-chase-in-miami-ends-with.html

But if you prick us, do we not bleed?
Aye, there's the rub!

We do, but the sleepwalking South Florida news media merely ignore it.

To them, it's an inconvenient fact, another story among so many that they'll ignore and toss into that ever-growing of stories that were worthwhile but ignored nonetheless.

To many though certainly not all people opposed to the Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School -a high school, mind you- trying to shoe-horn itself into a single-family middle/upper-class residential neighborhood in northeast HB, is NOT all that different than developers who want to put huge condo towers on the perimeter of an existing golf course, and not only ruin the views and neighborhood, but also ruin the quality of life in the immediate area which already has F-rated roads as measured by FDOT.

We saw that effort with the Diplomat LAC fail for many similar reasons, not the least of which was that they could NEVER ever male a solid argument that it would do both the neighborhood and the greater HB community any good.
But it would make them a LOT of MONEY.

And so it is with Peter Deutsch and the Ben Gamla folks, who can make an argument for why it's good for them, but not for the neighborhood that ALREADY LIVES THERE, and the rest of the city.

The kind of sheer arrogance that HB citizen taxpayers have suffered under Peter Deutsch and his Not-So-Merry and equally arrogant BG parents the past two years is the sort that Once Upon a Time in the West, got you and your family exiled, and banned from proceeding further on a large wagon trail traveling West thru hostile Indian Territory.

You were left with whatever you brought -and maybe some additional supplies if someone had some pity for you- and were told in no uncertain terms that you were on your own.

You no longer had the backing and protection of the larger assembled community. You were judged an outlier because your behavior and words were judged so egregiously anti-social and harmful that the society that existed amongst the families headed West wanted nothing to do with you.

Well, 2010 Hallandale Beach isn't exactly 1850's Nebraska, Kansas or Colorado in the wintertime, and Peter Deutsch actually lives most of the month in Israel with his wife and family, NOT in South Florida, so the metaphor, admittedly, isn't a perfect one.

Still, it gets the point across: prickly Peter Deutsch and his brood of self-righteous parents need to get the sort of social ostracism they've richly earned.

Towards that end, in the near future, I will likely be posting some of the video I've shot of them the past two years at the two required 'Community Meetings' that Peter Deutsch had the nerve to publicly admit that he would NEVER have held if the city didn't require it.

Fortunately for all involved, he WAS required, and he did us the honor of telling the truth that one time so that we all knew what sort of character we were actually dealing with.

You see, despite all the evidence to the contrary, because of who he was and still is, some South Florida media folks -and perhaps even some of you blog readers out there- evinced an attitude that all but said that residents of HB were exaggerating what was actually happening. Nope, we didn't need to, the reality was bad enough.
Seeing was believing.

But the news media couldn't even show up, other than Sergy Odiduro of the Sun-Sentinel whose article on this controversy I ran here recently.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/another-piece-of-deutschs-ben-gamla-in.html

That Deutsch actually showed us his true lack of character -again- by doing as little as possible to actually engage the Hallandale Beach community, only proved the larger point about what sort of person wants to have some say-so about what sorts of educational opportunities Hallandale Beach kids will have -a loathsome person who threatens city residents in public.
I guess that's just not considered news in South Florida in the year 2010.

Yes, at times it's almost like Deutsch thinks he's won the lottery, and has big plans on collecting some of his winnings in person in Hallandale Beach by way of using one of our nice quiet family neighborhoods as a warehouse for kids from outside of Hallandale Beach, since 90% of them will live outside of this community by his own admission.
He has a very funny way of defining 'community school,' don't you think?

That Deutsch is perfectly willing to do whatever he has to do in order to get his way, regardless of what the people in this community want, whether by threats and intimidation, is no longer subject to question- he will.

But in his efforts thus far, the only convincing argument he's made is that Peter Deutsch is nothing but a self-aggrandizing bully, plain and simple, and the worst sort of bully at that.
One who lacks both the hubris and self-awareness to acknowledge that he is his own worst witness.
Every time he talks, he makes our argument for us.

Naturally, I'm only too happy to lend a hand in painting that public opprobrium on Deutsch and his fellows, and today, I do so by sharing with you the spot-on words of the folks at a newly developed civic group in Hallandale Beach.

SaveHallandale.com is a group that won't lay down for the Peter Deutsches of the world, nor for the anti-democratic and self-serving Hallandale Beach City Hall Crew run by mayor Joy Cooper, or even the rapacious real estate developers and self-serving corporate pimps with legal eagles, who want to steal us blind by putting their hands into the HB till or making life around here even more difficult.

And like me, they are NOT afraid of helping launch a recall of certain City Commissioners, either, for reasons that have already been discussed here at length previously.

SaveHallandale.com has been sending out informed and pointed fact-filled emails now for a few months and has just created a blog, so today I am going to give those folks a bit of a boost in getting some public awareness by running the entire email I received earler this evening, and trust you readers to have the good sense to frequently go to their sites in the future to keep yourselves inside the information loop.

I will, of course, link to them in the future when it's appropriate, but otherwise, this ought to be the only time I run one of their letters in its entirety.

With a blog and website, it's now much easier than ever to give you a head's up on what SaveHallandale is saying and doing.

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Visit our blog @ http://savehallandale.wordpress.com/. All prior emails are there and you can start leaving your comments for other people (besides us) to view.

Word on the street is that the Ben Gamla school application has been pulled again; perhaps Peter Deutsch had a chance to read the latest article by Diane Ravitch, (http://www.dianeravitch.com/vita.html) called “The Myth of Charter Schools” http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?page=1.

In HB that article would be titled “Myth: The Proposed Ben Gemla Hebrew School Is Good For the Local Community". The myth being that the proposed Ben Gamla Hebrew School is a positive for the local community, that it doesn't cater to a small and very specific demographic and that Ben Gamla folks actually care about the non Jewish students currently attending Hallandale schools.

Interestingly, there is an inkling that Mayor Joy Cooper may actually care about the students in which Ben Gamla pushers have no interest.

The Diane Ravitch article discusses the myth of charter school superiority, citing “the idea that teachers are the most important factor determining student achievement” and that there is a relative consensus (that) teachers statistically account for around 10–20 percent of achievement outcomes…..

But the same body of research shows that nonschool factors matter even more than teachers. 60 percent of achievement is explained by nonschool factors, such as family income. So while teachers are the most important factor within schools, their effects pale in comparison with those of students’ backgrounds, families, and other factors beyond the control of schools and teachers.”

The article continues “charter schools were created mainly at the instigation of Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997. Shanker had the idea in 1988 that a group of public school teachers would ask their colleagues for permission to create a small school that would focus on the neediest students, those who had dropped out and those who were disengaged from school and likely to drop out. He sold the idea as a way to open schools that would collaborate with public schools and help motivate disengaged students. In 1993, Shanker turned against the charter school idea when he realized that for-profit organizations saw it as a business opportunity and were advancing an agenda of school privatization.”

Let’s connect these dots shall we?

• Ben Gamla is a Hebrew charter school whose founder has gone on record that the school was started to serve a very small and specific demographic but we are led to believe it is intended to serve the general community. In fact, by Peter Deutsch’s own admission, less than 10% of the students would be from the local community.

• Ben Gamla pushers promote the superiority of their teachers as a plus to the less than 10% of community children that might attend but it’s a fact that teacher efforts “pale in comparison with those of students’ backgrounds, families, and other factors beyond the control of schools and teachers”.

• Mayor Cooper seems to recognize the need to address at risk schools in Hallandale as evidenced by her request that the school district consider spending money “on improving eastern (Broward) schools”. In a letter to School Board Chair Maureen Dinnen, Mayor Cooper stated “We would request that …the eastern (Broward) schools be guaranteed no school closure…” but her vote for Ben Gamla would in fact, result in less students attending local schools which would jeopardize them further. http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/parents/

• The Ben Gamla model is in direct opposition to the original intent of charter schools as envisioned by their creator, Albert Shanker.

Additionally, a study by the Center for Public Education “finds that rather than encouraging a race to the top, charter school competition in fact promotes a race to the bottom in the traditional public school system.” The new study evaluates the record of charter schools in terms of academic achievement, racial and economic segregation, and their competitive impact on traditional public schools….“Rather than being a solution to the educational problems faced by low-income students and students of color, charter schools are deepening these problems.”

Table 5: Average charter school performance relative to traditional public schools by state

Source: CREDO (2009)

The study goes on to say “similar to other studies….varied performance results based on students’ location. In relation to their peers in traditional schools, the average performance of charter school students in reading was significantly positive in Arkansas, California, Colorado (Denver), Louisiana, Missouri, and North Carolina. In the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois (Chicago) and Ohio, there essentially was no difference between charter students and their traditional public school peers. In Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas, charter school students underperformed when compared with students in traditional public schools.

The math data were similarly varied. Charter students did better than their counterparts in Arkansas, Colorado (Denver), Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana, and Missouri. There was no significant difference in the District of Columbia. In Arizona, California, Florida,Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, charter school students did not perform as well as their virtual twins from traditional public schools.

http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lvIXIiN0JwE&b=5868191&ct=8101759&notoc=1

So what does the promotion of this MYTH mean for HB residents?

It means that the proposed charter school will do absolutely nothing for local residents and their children. It means that all the propaganda put forth by advocates of the school is just that – self serving propaganda.

And it means that rather than be able to rest assured that city commissioners will vote against the school on the very solid grounds that the local infrastructure and the Master Plan do not support it, HB residents must point out all the misinformation and lies people spread in the interest of getting what they want.

Maybe commissioners already realize approving Ben Gamla is political suicide AND bad for the area in general but maybe not. It’s unlikely any of them realizes the political respect that comes with making an easy decision based on facts and then standing by it with conviction but our commissioners don't inspire much faith, do they? Not one fact points to the proposed Ben Gamla Hebrew School being good for this community; NOT ONE.

Hold your elected officials accountable; all over the country people are looking at facts and forcing politicians to change their ways by forcing them out.

Remember to forward this to your friends and neighbors and encourage them to visit the blog at

The study goes on to say “similar to other studies….varied performance results based on students’ location. In relation to their peers in traditional schools, the average performance of charter school students in reading was significantly positive in Arkansas, California, Colorado (Denver), Louisiana, Missouri, and North Carolina. In the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois (Chicago) and Ohio, there essentially was no difference between charter students and their traditional public school peers. In Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas, charter school students underperformed when compared with students in traditional public schools.

The math data were similarly varied. Charter students did better than their counterparts in Arkansas, Colorado (Denver), Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana, and Missouri. There was no significant difference in the District of Columbia. In Arizona, California, Florida,Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, charter school students did not perform as well as their virtual twins from traditional public schools.



http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lvIXIiN0JwE&b=5868191&ct=8101759&notoc=1

So what does the promotion of this MYTH mean for HB residents?

It means that the proposed charter school will do absolutely nothing for local residents and their children. It means that all the propaganda put forth by advocates of the school is just that – self serving propaganda.

And it means that rather than be able to rest assured that city commissioners will vote against the school on the very solid grounds that the local infrastructure and the Master Plan do not support it, HB residents must point out all the misinformation and lies people spread in the interest of getting what they want.

Maybe commissioners already realize approving Ben Gamla is political suicide AND bad for the area in general but maybe not. It’s unlikely any of them realizes the political respect that comes with making an easy decision based on facts and then standing by it with conviction but our commissioners don't inspire much faith, do they? Not one fact points to the proposed Ben Gamla Hebrew School being good for this community; NOT ONE.

Hold your elected officials accountable; all over the country people are looking at facts and forcing politicians to change their ways by forcing them out.

Remember to forward this to your friends and neighbors and encourage them to visit the blog at http://savehallandale.worpdress.com.

Another piece of Deutsch's Ben Gamla in HB puzzle -Keep costs low and give enough people outside HB what they want so you can laugh at HB residents

This post below, on the website of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, was among Sunday's Google Alerts for "Ben Gamla" that I received.

Similar to dozens of others in thought and scope that I've seen and received the past two years in that they put the lie to Peter Deutsch's contention that he is not trying to go after the religious schools.

He is, he just realizes that he doesn't have to actually say it himself, since the parents will come to this realization by themselves, when they see something education-wise they can live with.

Just think how very different the tenor would be here now if Deutsch, rather than adopt the bullying, scorched earth approach he's used here, where he openly castigates and maligns HB citizens and publicly dares the city's elected officials to stop him, he'd come to the community 2 years ago and said simply,

"What would YOU like to see in Hallandale Beach in the way of educational alternatives to help HB kids?
In an area that could use an economic jolt?"

But that's not his style or personality, either now or while he was in Congress.
After all, he once famously hired a Harvard college student as his Chief of Staff for his Washington office.
Not a Harvard graduate, a Harvard student.

(That this fact has been completely forgotten by the South Florida news media bringing up Allen West's here-and-gone choice for Chief-of-Staff this week, surprises me... not at all.)

His move really riled Floridians living and working up in D.C. -esp. on the Hill, at the law firms and at Think Tanks- like someone taking a baseball bat to a bee hive, and then standing around to admire what they did, knowing that someone would notice.
That it was a dumb move hardly mattered.

I know this because I was living and working in Washington at the time, and not surprisingly, knew lots of people from all parts of Florida with all sorts of positions in town, high and low, Democratic and Republican.

You won't be shocked to hear that they all thought this hiring of his did nothing to improve his longstanding rep for stand-offishness and grandstanding of a sort that embarrasses, yes, even other pols.
Deutsch didn't care what others thought, not even his own constituents.

Then as now, Deutsch dares and he bluffs and calculates that nobody will call him on it , or put real resources or money into the fight, whatever the fight happens to be about.
That's how he's gotten to this point.

And from his p.o.v., why should he change now for the sensibilities of Hallandale Beach residents who, rightly, feel angry, dis-respected and ignored even BEFORE a final decision is made by the City Commission?

I've said what seems like a million times before, here in emails and on my blog, that Peter Deutsch doesn't care what you think or feel or say.
Now, people actually see that's true.

He thinks, quite naturally, that this Ben Gamla plan of his is a ridiculous franchise idea whose time has finally come, just like McDonald's.
(Except he and his colleagues own all the franchises.)

Keep your costs low and give enough people whaty they want that you can laugh at all the others.
Laugh all the way to the bank.

Like Henry Ford and his 'Model T' -he'd give you any color you wanted as long as you wanted black- Deutsch realizes that he genuinely DOESN'T have to be either reasonable or fair-minded, he just has to be determined to be stubborn, which, in his case, comes naturally.

Peter Deutsch fully expects the HB City Commission to cave-in to his demands, and really, given what everyone here has seen of them, why shouldn't he think this?
Profiles in Courage they aren't.
Backbones are, indeed, at a premium.

That's our community's collective tragedy, but Peter Deutsch's business opportunity.

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Charter Schools Can Reinvigorate the Movement

by Rabbi Paul Plotkin

There is a joke that asks what is the most effective form of birth control in the observant Jewish world.

The answer? Day school tuition.

The cost of raising a family seriously committed to a Jewish life is becoming prohibitive. Jewish day schools report declining enrollments and increased requests for financial assistance; in some communities three children in grammar school can cost more than $60,000 a year. Then there are synagogue dues, JCC dues, tzedakah donations, and Jewish summer camp fees. We are in danger of allowing Judaism to become available only to the wealthy.

Read the rest at:

http://www.uscj.org/Charter_Schools_Can_8504.html

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel

www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-cn-bengamla-1114-20101113,0,2837479.story

Proposed charter school divides the community

By Sergy Odiduro, Forum Publishing Group

November 13, 2010

More traffic, more noise, more pollution in a small neighborhood with an already-strained infrastructure.

Some Hallandale Beach residents say that's exactly what they are expecting if the city approves Ben Gamla, a proposed Hebrew-English charter school.

They voiced their opinions at a recent community meeting at the city's Cultural Community Center to discuss the project, alongside others who think the school would be a welcome addition.

Margaret Schorr said there are limited educational opportunities in the city.

"A school like this in the area can only enhance Hallandale," she said.

The school, slated to serve 600 students in grades 7-12, would operate out of the Hallandale Jewish Center, 416 NE Eighth Ave.

Peter Deutsch, a former U.S. congressman, founded the first Ben Gamla site in 2007 amid controversy over whether it would be a religious school.

School district officials approved the courses, and Deutsch has moved on with expansion plans that include locations in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Deutsch said city staff has concluded that there is capacity on Eighth Avenue for this project, and traffic should not be a concern.

Some residents were skeptical, however.

"This is a rainy afternoon," Cynthia Cabrera said as she held up a large photo of a flooded street. "Why are you pushing so hard to have a school on a street where the infrastructure is so poor?"

Some at the meeting questioned whether those who spoke out in favor were actually from the neighborhood.

"How many parents are receiving volunteer hours for attending this meeting?" asked Josephine Alongi, who smiled when several people raised their hands.

Sharon Miller, principal at the school's Hollywood location, confirmed that some parents will receive volunteer hours for attending.

"Meetings that parents can earn volunteer hours include PTO, student advisory committee and monthly parent workshops," she said. "If there are meetings that pertain to our school, and the high school pertains to the growth of our organization, parents will receive volunteer hours for their attendance."

Mitchel Levin, who supports the school, said it could be a boon to the area.

"Don't close your mind to this," he said. "Six-hundred families will be spending their money here."

Barbara Southwick, who serves on the city's education advisory board, was opposed.

"The nature of Ben Gamla will not draw our most financially, educationally and environmentally deprived, which was the original concept of charter schools," she said. "Since schools are paid through your taxes per pupil, our public schools suffer when we fund such a specialized school."

Catherine Kim Owens, who also serves on the board, cited the small percentage of black students at Ben Gamla's Hollywood location.

"Obviously, this is not an inclusive school for all of the community," she said.

Deutsch refuted that categorization.

"We make an effort to recruit [a diverse student body]," he said. "We reach out to political leaders and church leaders. We advertise in Creole and Spanish. We make an effort, but we can't make someone come to our school."

Owens said residents would continue to fight the proposal.

"They told me the Diplomat [hotel expansion proposal] was a done deal, but this community showed those powerful lobbyists and politicians what grassroots movement voters can do," she said. "This Ben Gamla school is another example of a powerful ex-politician and well-heeled friends trying to shoehorn into a tiny area an over-the-top development at the expense of 10- to 50-year residents."

Reminder: Hallandale Beach P&Z meeting on Peter Deutsch's Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School is Wednesday the 27th at 1:30 p.m.

Above, looking east at the entrance of the Hallandale Jewish Center at 416 N.E. 8th Avenue, Hallandale Beach, FL. October 3, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Important Reminder:

The next formal step in Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School founder Peter Deutsch's attempt to cram a Middle School & High School version of Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School into a single-family residential neighborhood in NE Hallandale Beach will be the Hallandale Beach P&Z meeting on Wednesday October 27 at 1:30 p.m. in the Hallandale Beach City Hall Commission Chambers.

Get there early, since the Ben Gamla parents from Tamarac, Sunrise, Plantation, Fort Lauderdale, Weston, Pembroke Pines and the rest of the county will descend en masse, yet again, to tell HB residents one more time what we HAVE to do.

Yes, they do rather love to lecture us, don't they, that is, when they aren't patronizing us or maligning the schools in this city?

That Peter Deutsch & Co. will make millions a year is beside the point we're told, just like the fact that less than 10% of any kids there will actually be from this city.
You know, where they want to locate the school.

Which means it's not really a community school, is it?

Given his past, often-repetitive comments about opportunity, you'd think that just on principle alone, that would make HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders quite angry, and very eager to see that ANY charter schools in this city accurately reflect the demographic reality of THIS city's school children.

In this city, given the still-large but decreasing number of retirees, that's African-American and Hispanic kids. Everyone knows this.

But on this issue, as has been the case with him on so many over the past two years, where is Sanders, knowing as well as we ALL do that there are plenty of vacant, larger places in HB -or elsewhere- better-suited for this proposal, than this family neighborhood on a secondary street that consistently floods when a cloud comes over it?

When he first ran for City Commission two years ago, after he was hand-picked and installed as interim commissioner by Mayor Joy Cooper in a completely un-democratic process that was completely counter to the already-established process the city had used to fill short-term vacancies -the very one that led to Keith London becoming a commissioner in the first place- Sanders often said that he was going to be a "voice" for positive change, not an echo of the status quo, remember?

That's what Sanders said and that's what the editorial boards of the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel implied (and desperately wanted to believe) in their surprising election endorsements of him, which many of us strongly questioned, then and now.

Frankly, it's almost as if they liked the abstract idea of Sanders more than the actual candidate.
Well, it hasn't quite happened as they predicted, has it?
No it hasn't.

In fact, if anything, Sanders has been quieter on the dais than he ever was when he simply appeared at city meetings as a regular citizen, regardless of the merits of what he was saying.

Why is he SO mute and SO unwilling to do his homework as a commissioner and ask genuine questions to get responsive answers, instead of his non-sequiturs?

It's embarrassing, just like with book-ends Dotty Ross and Bill Julian, whose intellectual laziness and utter lack of curiosity on the dais as commissioners are both BIG parts of the longstanding problem in this town.

Those traits are also why they are NOT part of any logical solutions to turning this city around in a tangible manner so that residents and business owners can have some degree of satisfaction that someone besides Comm. London is looking after their best long-term interests.
But London is only one vote.

To say that Ross and Julian are totally disconnected from reality is an understatement, and this is proven time-and-again as they evince complete surprise at hearing information that is
common knowledge among HB residents and business owners alike, as well as anyone paying attention.

In fact, sometimes this weakness reveals itself in especially cringe-worthy fashion as Comm. Ross reminded us of all over again last night, when the word "annually" was uttered in a discussion of the city manager's new contract, which is for $213,000 a year by the way.
Her comment, which I have on videotape, was something along the lines of "Annually? You mean like every year?"
Yes, that kind of annually!

You'll recall that I mentioned on my blog last year that Sanders left the Ben Gamla's "Community Meeting" of last year about 45 minutes into its two hours.
Yes, the very community meetings that Peter Deutsch publicly admitted a number of times last week that he'd NEVER have held if he wasn't required to by the city, since he doesn't care what the HB community thinks.

As it happens, Sanders appears to have been a no-show for last week's meeting, as nobody saw him there, including me -and I was looking.

If you want to share your thoughts with Comm. Anthony Sanders on this issue, his City Hall
phone number is (954) 457-1319.

We already know from past experience that Wednesday will be quite a chaotic and emotional scene and that HB City Hall will once again handle it poorly, not bothering to have a TV available in the City Hall lobby for overflow crowds -as they'd have at Hollywood City Hall- so if you want to see it for yourself, and actually speak your mind, you have to be there.

Today, six days before the meeting, despite numerous inquiries -or simply doing it because it's the fair thing to do- the City of Hallandale Beach has still refused to put Ben Gamla's entire formal application on the city's website for the public's examination, despite the fact that they have had the documents since June -over four months.

Meet the New city manager, Mark Antonio, same as the old city manager, Mike Good.

See for yourself at http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?nid=648
and see my recent posts about the Ben Gamla situation,
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Ben%20Gamla%20Hebrew%20Charter%20School

No doubt they are planning on repeating their pathetic anti-democratic template from December, when they didn't place the Diplomat LAC proposal docs on the city's website until 28 hours before the P&Z meeting.
28 HOURS.

A system where all the insiders, the lobbyists and the lawyers get to know what's going on -but not the taxpayers who have to live with the results.

That's a pertinent fact that I reminded the Broward County Commission of when I spoke before them when the proposal came before them earlier this year -TWICE- much to the chagrin of the mayor's pals and cronies in attendance, who had all spoken in favor of it.
While the County Commission and their staff had WEEKS to make sense of the many docs.

Why are Hallandale Beach taxpayers who are paying thousands of dollars a month for a third-rate, universally-reviled website, consistently the last ones to find out?

Some HB residents say those documents should have been on the city's awful website within 72 hours of being received.
Or a week.
Or a month.

But here we are, four months later, and there's still NOTHING for taxpayers to look at -FOUR MONTHS.
That's not by accident, that's by design.

Like so many other things in this poorly-run city that are intentionally done with stealth, deception and mendacity, that's the way that Mayor Cooper and the three-member Rubber Stamp Crew want it, otherwise, they'd direct City Manager Mark Antonio to change it.
They haven't done that, have they?

There's your story.

-----

If you want to personally call Mark Antonio and ask him why the Ben Gamla application and associated documents STILL aren't on the taxpayer-funded website for the citizen taxpayers of this city to examine, his City Hall phone number is (954) 457-1300

The City Hall phone number for Development Services director Richard Cannone is (954) 457-1375.

Ask them why they and the mayor seem so afraid of a level playing field on PUBLIC information.

Unlike Ann Murray & Jennifer Gottlieb, repeat no-shows at contentious Ben Gamla mtg. in HB Tuesday, Michelle Rhee will show up in public

Above, Ann Murray, our completely unreliable elected representative to the Broward School Board.
Her devotion to her constituents -us- like her time priorities, are completely upside-down and unacceptable.
She works for us, not the other way around, yet she seems to be unaware of this particular working arrangement.
Perhaps she needs to be "educated."


To quote the ever-observant Mark Ambinder of The Atlantic Online, below, in his essay on D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who resigned this week after Mayor Adrian Fenty was defeated in his re-election bid:

"And -- she was accessible. She did not cloister herself, nor did she shy away from town hall meetings. She showed up and made her case. Parents could talk to her, although they might not have liked what she had to say."

Well, at least Ben Gamla founder Peter Deutsch publicly admitted -a few times- to the SRO crowd of about 200-250 people at the HB Cultural Center Tuesday night what we in opposition to his proposed site in a single-family HB neighborhood have long suspected but heretofore been unable to prove.

If the City of hallandale Beach didn't require Deutsch to hold a "Community Meeting," he wouldn't hold one or talk to city residents.

Repeat after me - " He just doesn't care what YOU think."
If by YOU, I mean Hallandale Beach Residents.
I do.

Among the elected No-Shows at this meeting: Broward School Board members Ann Murray of District One, School Board Chair and At-Large member Jennifer Gottlieb, HB mayor Joy Cooper, and HB City Commissioners William "Bill" Julian, Anthony A. Sanders and Keith London.

London at least was next door, across the hallway, holding one of his regularly-scheduled monthly Resident Forum meetings with residents and interested guests, and had the event planned for that date long before Deutsch asked for that date, too.
(His next public meeting is Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the HB Cultural Center.)

London's the only HB commissioner who has regularly-scheduled monthly meetings with HB city residents and outsiders like Greenberg Traurig's Debbie Orshefsky have attended in the past, though her appearances were mostly for recon purposes in support of her client, the incompatible Diplomat LAC proposal which was later voted down by the Broward County
Commission.

And as anyone who has ever attended one knows, Mayor Cooper frequently crashes London's meetings too, -or sends her not-too-clever and transparent spies- when she feels like it, the most recent instance being the one held in mid-Sept. that City Manager Mark Antonio was at for about an hour, listening and answering questions about problems in the city
that the mayor foolishly insists don't exist, despite the fact that they are both numerous and self-evident to anyone paying the slightest attention.

That mid-September meeting was the one where Cooper reacted with a audible gasp when London responded cleverly in response to a resident's query about campaign contributions, as he spoke about the upcoming election, for which he is running for re-election -after Antonio left the room.

Cooper's gasp, which you can hear on the videotape I made of the meeting -which, for the record, are done largely so I don't forget something and don't have to write everything down and can just relax like everyone else- came when he mentioned that another HB city commission candidate, Cooper pet Alexander Lewy, who was sitting in the front row, just five feet away, had received contributions from both Cooper's husband and son-in-law.
About $1,500 between the two of them as I recall it now.

I will try to post that video here soon if I can, since the lighting in the small rooms is not always so great for recording purposes.

I am unable to go to the Broward School Board today for their 1 p.m. Ethics Policy Comm. meeting as I had originally planned, but I am going to find out in the next few days from the Broward Dept. of Elections how long we'd have to wait before, hypothetically, initiating a recall of Ann Murray, our dependably undependable No-Show of a School Board member, who acts like the HB part of her district is terra incognita, despite the fact that she lives in next-door Hollywood.
That's completely unacceptable.

I'll soon be filing a public records request at Broward School Board HQ to get Ann Murray's records and work schedule since getting into office, to see if, as everyone agrees, she has NEVER been at a public HB event that wasn't political or a fundraiser.

Like the meeting we made a point of being at on Tuesday night.

Murray not only couldn't bother, but never even responded to reminder emails sent to her last week about it by both Etty Sims and Csaba Kulin, the latter of whom's letter I ran here a few days ago.
Ann Murray just doesn't get it.

In a few months, we may well need to stage an intervention and help make Ann Murray's public invisibility act a permanent one, so that HB residents have a fully-functioning rep on the Broward School Board who is responsive and forthcoming, NOT impudent and thoroughly anti-social.

------

I subscribe to Marc Ambinder's daily dispatches from The Atlantic Monthly Online in large part because he seems much more prescient than 99% of the political observers around.
I urge you to consider subscribing, too.

I was actually a subscriber to The Atlantic magazine for most of the 15 years I lived in Arlington County, VA, a little over three miles west of Georgetown, and kept the past issues stored in my garage in carefully labeled faux-wood paneled cardboard Banker Boxes.

Keeping The Atlantic company in the garage archives -with current ones upstairs- were, if I can remember the list: Harper's, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Maxim, The Washington Monthly, Esquire, The New Yorker, National Geographic Traveler, Conde Naste Traveler, Vanity Fair, Variety, Premiere, The Wilson Quarterly and some political, film and marketing trade journals that I received because of either my own personal interests or because some friends were involved with them as writers, editors or management.

Plus, of course, my favorite read, a newspaper, The New York Observer. which I first became familiar with in 1989, when I was up in New York City for my sister's wedding, and I discovered it while taking some personal time away from the family that weekend and walked on The West Side. I was immediately hooked -and still am. http://www.observer.com/

Make of that varied reading mix what you will, since it gives you some sense of my personality and interests, but the best part was that my part of the garage was -generally- like a pretty well-ordered and deep-pocketed law firm's library, with everything in its place.
You know, in case something unfortunate happened to the Newspaper and Current Periodicals Room at Library of Congress, long one of my haunts!

http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/
http://www.loc.gov/index.html

Marc Ambinder is the politics editor of The Atlantic. He has covered Washington for ABC News and the Hotline, and he is chief political consultant to CBS News.
Follow him on Twitter @marcambinder

Bio | All Posts

What's Next for Michelle Rhee?
Posted: 13 Oct 2010 02:01 PM PDT

Michelle Rhee has a plan.

Hours after she stepped out of the maelstrom that is the D.C. public schools system, her patron, Mayor Adrian Fenty, having been bounced out of office, she launched a Twitter feed and a website, teasing would-be followers to find out what she'll be doing next.

Rhee is a Grade-A edu-lebrity, and she's the perfect bureaucrat for the Reality Show age, when personal brands matter as much as ideas. Or when, at the very least, ideas don't succeed unless they've got good brands behind them.

Rhee is well-liked by the major educational philanthropy organizations, and though I Tweeted last night that she's probably headed to the Obama administration or to another school district, she could just as well become the public face of a major, well-funded campaign to promote her ideas about teachers, merit pay, and reform.

Read the rest of Ambinder's spot-on post at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/whats-next-for-michelle-rhee/64517/

Uh-oh! Peter Deutsch lets it slip that most of students at proposed Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter in HB will be Sr. High and Jr. High age, NOT les enfants!

Above, Hallandale Beach's invisible representative to the Broward School Board, District One member Ann Murray. http://www.browardschools.com/schoolboard/

Uh-oh!
Peter Deutsch let it slip out this afternoon at the Hallandale Beach Education Advisory Committee monthly meeting that most of the students at his proposed Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School in Hallandale Beach in 2011 will be Senior High and Jr. High kids, NOT les enfants!

This would seem to cast some serious doubts on their already-submitted traffic and parking studies since, presumably, few of the Elementary School kids would be driving themselves to school.

Not that you can see the plans now on the city's website, since the city refuses to post these public documents there until two days before the HB Planning & Zoning Board meeting, now scheduled for the 27th at 1:30 p.m.

I also heard that the attorney with Deutsch was a real hit with the education advisory board with his very sarcastic put-downs of Hallandale Beach and the schools located here, like we have anything to do with that.

I'm told by someone who was also there that this pompous jerk is Ben Gamla's "parent of the year," so presumably he'll be at the Community meeting tomorrow night and perhaps I will snap his mug for posterity -and the blog.

Speaking of the meeting... the city-required public community meeting on Ben Gamla, hosted by Deutsch, is scheduled for Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center, located behind HB City Hall.

Personally, I'm a longtime supporter of the idea and principle of Charter Schools but I recognize that in this area, the Broward School Board members that represent us, Ann Murray and Jennifer Gottlieb, are NOT going to publicly say anything against them, esp. when someone like Peter Deutsch is connected to them.

For them, that's a loser and a fight they don't need to get into.

As a well-informed friend with a sense of historical perspective reminded me over the weekend:

"The School Board doesn't have much say over charter schools. If they deny the application, the charter school operators go to the state to appeal and usually win. They can speak about the inappropriate placement of a school."

My concern as far as the School Board members go has always been more on their attendance at education-related happenings here in their district from the p.o.v. of their obligations to their own constituency, but even if they show up, and I doubt they will tomorrow night, I'm not expecting Murray or Gottlieb to be anything more than a "potted plant" in the room, to use that Oliver North congressional hearing-generated metaphor.

In my opinion, as far as Murray goes, that would be a nice start after more than two years in her current position -completely invisible in Hallandale Beach.

Towards that end, my friend, Hallandale Beach civic activist Csaba Kulin has sent Murray an email -below- that's much more to the point about HB residents' feelings about her heretofore invisible presence here having been duly noted, and letting her know that part of the reason some people want her to be present is so that she can see how completely one-sided this Peter Deutsch-led meeting will be on Tuesday night.
Just like last year's cringe-worthy fiasco.

There's hearing second-hand that something is one-sided, and then there's actually seeing it for yourself.

Like reporters coming to HB City Hall for the first time and seeing what the mayor is really like at a public meeting with their own eyes.

All of a sudden, everything clicks and they see that if anything, what they've read or heard previously hardly begins to describe the absurdity of the situation.

Csaba also asks specific questions about the number of students planned for the size of the property and asks Murray to simply consider how lacking in common sense some of Ben Gamla's plans are.

Kids being forced to eat outside for meals, then what do you do when it rains or there's a strong thunderstorm, bring all the kids in and cancel classes?
Which is it?

There's their great plan to save money, and then there's their plan actually running head-on into a very predictable reality, since there's nothing more predictable in South Florida than thunderstorms.
Except traffic.

But Peter Deutsch doesn't care about any of that, he just cares about the general idea of himself being the White Knight for many Jewish parents throughout the region who are currently dis-satisfied with public schools, for whatever the particular reason, reasonable or otherwise, and the profit he and his partners can make from their discomfort, which is millions.

Deutsch doesn't see why he should care what the neighborhood, city or community thinks because he knows that having gone thru this process before, and gotten his share of bruises, no elected official is going to lift a finger to call him out on his plan's self-evident lack of common sense in shoehorning a school of that size into that small an area in a single-family residential neighborhood.

He's NOT suddenly going to negotiate against himself if he can get everything he wants by playing hardball.

Not that anyone seems to remember, but my biggest problem with Deutsch has always been the central fact that he NEVER approached the HB community and asked what IT wanted to see in this city in the way of educational alternatives. He only offered one flavor.
Oh right, plus his giant sense of entitlement, a holdover from his days in Congress.

Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper has only exacerbated the problem by NEVER having a single forum on education, even though that's clearly one of the key considerations that families moving here think about.
Just ask Broward realtors!

But the mayor acts like that predictable conversation NEVER takes place, and she sees no upside to her challenging someone with influence and powerful friends like Deutsch, so she just acts like there's nothing she can do, unlike the approach taken by people in Coral Gables with regard to charter schools.

Peter Deutsch is merely a saleman trying to peddle his product, and he only wants to sell that one flavor in Hallandale Beach.
He's merely a 7/11 owner, NOT an education trail-blazer.

And if you believe Ben Gamla's own numbers and projections, 10% or less of the students going there would actually be from Hallandale Beach.
That's laughable!

I don't know about you, but that DOESN'T sound to me like my idea of a community school, or
a common sense prescription for what ails this area's educational problems, one of which clearly is "educational White Flight."

I meant what I wrote the other day about the need to push back, and push back HARD at Murray to shake her from her sleepwalking stupor, and, if need be, to make a public example out of her and her completely unacceptable serial apathy and neglect of the HB community, despite her being our elected representative to the Broward County School Board.

If Murray chooses not to attend, despite adequate notice and plenty of first-hand knowledge that there's more than enough reasons for her to be in attendance, I will make sure that there is an empty chair at Tuesday's meeting with her name on it, and, possibly, At-Large member Jennifer Gottlieb's name as well.
They both work for you and me, and they need to actually show up at public meetings in this city about education issues of interest to everyone.
Without having to be reminded over-and-over
Period.

IF they choose not to attend Tuesday night, trust me, it will NOT be a secret throughout Broward County or among the South Florida news media down here that really matter.

Meanwhile, up in Arlington County (VA) where I used to live until returning to South Florida, just like HB, life is far from perfect... as The Arlington Yuppette reports
http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/

Archive of Bob Norman's Daily Pulp columns on Ann Murray:
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index?keywords=%22Ann+Murray%22&x=17&y=15
---------

The email below was sent to Broward School Board member Ann Murray on Saturday October 9th at 10:52 a.m.
As of 8:30 p.m. on Monday October 11th, there had been NO REPLY.
Surprise!

-----

Dear Ms. Murray,

You are our representative on the Broward County School Board and as such you must make every effort to appear and speak about the detrimental effect charter schools have on our regular public schools. We in Hallandale Beach are in danger of closing some our public schools if the Broward Board of Education allows students and money to be syphoned off to pseudo public schools like charter schools.

On a more personal note, we the voters would like to see our elected officials personally appear among us more often than at election time.

On October 12, 2010 at 6:00 PM, at the Hallandale Beach cultural center there will be a community meeting about the Ben Gamla charter school. They would like to convince the residents why it would be beneficial to them, a single family residential neighborhood, to have 600 K to 12 students attend school there coming from all over Broward County.

White the current meeting is about a Hallandale Beach "conditional use permit", we need you to come and explain to our residents the requirements of a 600 student school should have as to cafeteria, recreational area, class room sizes and other amenities concerned. How 1.9 acres of land compares to other similar size school's land area? We are concerned about forcing a 600 student campus into 1.9 acres of land. I am very familiar with what a 600 student school should look like. Football field, tennis courts, outside assembly area just to mention a few, and sufficient separation from the surronding residents to avoid noise and light concerns. That location fails on all of these points.

You need to explain to us why there were no other alternate sites considered for this school? We in Hallandale Beach have a school on the North West side closed. Would that be a better location for Ben Gamla?

So, please before you try to find an excuse to not to appear, recognize that facing the public is a necessary part of public service and accept our invitation.

Csaba Kulin

President, Fairways North, Inc.

Vice President, United Condominium Associations of Hallandale Beach