Showing posts with label electronic surveillance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electronic surveillance. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Hallandale Beach's latest scandal grows by the day. Fact update, with new info re #HallandaleBeach's corrupt and unethical govt./political sensibility. Long past time for Alex Lewy to answer some hard questions from public & press about what he knows or has any involvement in the electronic surveillance scandal

Hallandale Beach's latest scandal grows by the day. Fact update, with new info re #HallandaleBeach's corrupt and unethical govt./political sensibility. 
Long past time for Alex Lewy to answer some hard questions from public & press about what he knows or has any involvement in the electronic surveillance scandal


This is an important update to my last post, of October 21, 2016, Unethical and corrupt political & govt. culture of Hallandale Beach City Hall being exposed for what it is tonight on Local10 News, via Bob Norman; So what have Alex Lewy and Joy Cooper been commiserating about recently? Their mutual Keith London & Michele Lazarow obsession!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2016/10/unethical-and-corrupt-political-govt.html

Necessarily, I'll be incorporating much of what I wrote then into this piece so I'm going to try to join them together so that you have a much better understanding of what's been going on in Hallandale Beach for many, many years with the current incompetent Joy Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew holding the reins of power, while the vast majority of South Florida's press corps looked on, drolly, saying and reporting precious-little-to-nothing.

So, I have received quite a lot of responses from my email and blog post of late Friday afternoon, most of it, though not all, positive.



State criminally investigating Hallandale Beach political spying case
Politicians say they discovered illegal tracking devices attached to their cars

By Bob Norman - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 7:00 PM, October 21, 2016
Updated: 7:18 PM, October 21, 2016
http://www.local10.com/news/local-10-investigates/state-criminally-investigating-hallandale-beach-political-spying-case






Plot thickens in hallandale beach political spying case
By Bob Norman - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 5:59 PM, October 24, 2016








First, what I heard from you, and then what I realized I neglected to mention yesterday 
in the email that might've better helped your understanding of the facts. 
To wit, some useful context and nuance.
I was pressed for time as it neared six o'clock but in retrospect, I wish I'd have waited 
that extra minute or two to get it in...

I've edited some of this to make it clearer, since some of you might not be as familiar 
with the pertinent facts as others.

"David, How come you did not mention that as a HB Commissioner, Alex Lewy 
voted for the 2000 S. Ocean Drive project that allowed a 36-story building be built,
practically in the ocean, and much closer to the actual shoreline than other HB 
buildings, thus ignoring not only global warming concerns, but also approving
the variance without the developer meeting the City of Hallandale Beach's OWN 
criteria for going past the Florida Coastal Construction Line, CCL?
The direct result of this move was tBLOCK the views of roughly 250 condominium 
owners to the ocean, even though 95% of the HB residents who actually took the 
time to attend and speak at the HB City Commission meetings on the project clearly
and publicly OPPOSED it?"

Some of you will recall that this was the very same development project that involved 
former HB City Commissioner and state Rep. Joe Gibbons, that I wrote about several 
times via emails, tweets and blog posts, raising questions whether he had, in fact, 
followed the city's rules requiring him to register as a lobbyist on the matter, and the 
potential he had to make up to $200,000 if he succeeded.

See: 

As to the link of Alexander Lewy that I included yesterday that was the original tweet 
that Mayor Joy Cooper was responding to on September 20th when she wrote
can't think without him !! Pitiful

https://twitter.com/AlexLewy/status/779777131199037440
Lewy's twitter feed has been changed to private very recently. I wonder why. 
He was always so keen to tell everyone just what he thought.

Endlessly...


Now when some of you went to Lewy's initial tweet, it showed nothing but the news that his Twitter handle was now PRIVATE, after being public for many years. 
Nothing was ever too personal for him to not share and reveal it.
So what happened?

When Alex Lewy first posted this specific tweet and I first saw it -and Mayor Cooper 
as well- what he had uploaded to his Twitter feed were strange-looking photos of Hallandale Beach City Commissioners Keith London and Michele Lazarow outside of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel building, where they were being interviewed that day as part of the newspaper's candidate vetting process, such as it is.

(Notwithstanding their recent endorsements in Hallandale Beach, 
@SunSentinel To change decorum and direction, choose Anabelle Taub 
and Michele Lazarow in Hallandale Beach http://sunsent.nl/2ePhNdh 
for many years I have been very critical of the Sun-Sentinel's coverage of Hallandale 
Beach and the Editorial Board consistently ignoring controversial issues in HB for many, many years that if they happened almost anywhere else in Broward County, would have likely been the subject of a series of blistering editorials, most especially re the HB CRA scandal and the millions of CRA dollars that went... 
somewhere

One of the many reasons for that opinion of mine was that it's clear from people who were physically present in the room during past interviews that that the people on the Editorial Board asking questions, themselves, frequently did NOT know basic 
facts that most HB voters and residents already knew and were considering, or even quite angry about.
Not that the paper wrote about that particular anger or why it existed.

Like, for instance, how many people were running for the seats or why HB voters were recently NOT allowed to vote for a candidate for each open seat, and instead, could only vote for two people, with the candidate coming in third being elected as well. 
Who voted to make it that way for voters? 
Cooper, Lewy & Sanders.

Another reason for that opinion is the case of one person involved in the endorsement process showing overt favoritism for Comm. Sanders in ways that seemed particularly egregious, and the Editorial Board not directly challenging Sanders on any of the MANY controversial and unethical things he has done since being appointed to the Commission in an anti-democratic fashion in August of 2008, rather than the Mayor simply following the city's written rules for filling a Commission vacancy. 
Instead, Cooper demanded a vote many weeks BEFORE it was necessary -or there even, legally, WAS a vacancy- and never allowed the public to speak that night.

The Editorial Board has never asked Comm. Sanders how he could justify voting for every single development project that has come before him at City Hall. 
Not 85% or 90% as might be common in most cities over such a period of time, but 100%. 
Really, 100%? Yes. :-( )

To be honest, my initial thought upon seeing the photos of London and Lazarow were that they looked exactly like photos that a private investigator might take if he was tailing someone for a client.
Which, quite naturally, makes me -and perhaps you as well- wonder who took the photos that Lewy posted publicly in an obvious attempt to infer something sinister, when it also could be seen by most people, much less, people who live in HB and who know them, to be seen as two friends who happen to be candidates, talking outside of a place where they were there to talk about their candidacies with other people who could actually play a role in THEIR futures.
Frankly, it would be weird for them to not be talking, given that they are friends. 

That Lewy was foolish enough to post it should not be surprising to anyone who kept their eyes focused on him and noticed the sorts of curious things that always seemed to be going on around him, including his often-messy personal melodrama that some of you have been privvy to.

There's a sound and compelling reason why I first started calling Alexander Lewy "Lewy the Liarmany years ago on my blog after I saw and experienced first-hand his phony, self-serving nature. In fact, I coined that nickname six years ago this past weekend:

Lewy has clearly thought for quite some time that he could (and perhaps even had) fooled nearly everyone hereabouts, including the press corps, and made his over-weaning personal ambition and personal nastiness fairly well disguised as public service to fool most people, but it hasn't worked for most of the city's well-informed citizenry, including many of you.
Most of you know exactly who and what kind of person Alex Lewy is.

Whether this city's well-informed citizenry actually constitutes a majority of HB voters is the question that will be decided on Election Day.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Even while here in warm & rainy South Florida, I'm already thinking cool thoughts about our talented U.S. Olympic teams competing in Sochi, Russia in February, as these great WSJ vids shows how the Moguls, Bobsled and Biathlon teams practice without snow or ice up at Lake Placid. Plus, a classic iJustine video of our favorite vlogger in Norway climbing a glacier. Cool thoughts, indeed!: @USOlympic, #GoTeamUSA, @JeremyCota, @eamslider24, @tb_burke, @Lowellcbailey, @ijustine, @NBCOlympics


Even while here in warm & rainy South Florida, I'm already thinking cool thoughts about our talented U.S. Olympic team competing in Sochi, Russia in February, as these great WSJ vids shows us all how the Moguls, Bobsled and Biathlon teams practice without snow or ice at Lake Placid. Plus, a classic iJustine video of our favorite vlogger in Norway climbing a glacier. Cool thoughts, indeed!: @USOlympic, #GoTeamUSA, @JeremyCota, @eamslider24, @tb_burke, @Lowellcbailey, @ijustine, @NBCOlympics

WSJDigitalNetwork YouTube Channel video: Winter Olympics Training Without Snow: Moguls. "For Olympics-bound freestyle skiers, snow-free summer months don't mean a break from training. WSJ visited the Olympic Training Facility in Lake Placid, New York, where skiers utilized three ramps and a deep swimming pool to prep for Sochi. Freestyle moguls skier Jeremy Cota explains how the water training works." Uploaded October 7, 2013. http://youtu.be/aIVyxtpH_Kg




YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/cota3090/


WSJDigitalNetwork YouTube Channel video: Winter Olympics Training Without Snow: Bobsled. U.S. bronze medalist Elana Meyers explains how the dry bobsled training works at the Olympic Training Facility in Lake Placid. Uploaded October 7, 2013. 
http://youtu.be/Ex-U79MX5PA

























Elana's blog: http://www.elanameyers.blogspot.com/


WSJDigitalNetwork YouTube Channel video: Winter Olympics Training Without Snow: Biathlon. "The biathlon combines long-distance cross country skiing with precise .22 caliber target shooting. But for the U.S. Biathlon Team, Olympic training can't stop for the summer. WSJ video spent time with biathletes Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey to learn how they train for the Olympics when there is no snow in sight."
Uploaded October 3, 2013. http://youtu.be/5nFeYC0neT4





































Meanwhile, over in Germany, they've got some major fashion issues to deal with for the next four months...




Not even a German figure skater who looked like Elisha Cuthbert could look good wearing this gear, even with a Gold Medal around her neck.

And as everyone has seen for themselves the past few months, the paranoid, delusional and dis-connected people that run the Russian government these days are totally playing to old stereotypes and outsider's worst fears about the New Russian by seeming to do everything in their power to create a negative vibe around the Winter Olympics months in advance for athletes, officials, spectators and TV viewers.
Teaser Alert: NOT too many Americans are going to Sochi in February.





The Olympic Flame going out twice this past week is just part of the wave of bad karma for the Russians in Sochi. Plus, we're getting all their hard workers:
Ahead of Sochi, Former Russian Olympians become US citizens 
Michele Richinick, @mrich1201 10:47 PM on 08/16/2013
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/08/16/months-before-winter-games-fmr-russian-olympians-become-us-citizens/

The Guardian

Russia to monitor 'all communications' at Winter Olympics in Sochi 
Exclusive: Investigation uncovers FSB surveillance system – branded 'Prism on steroids' – to listen to all athletes and visitors 
Shaun Walker in Moscow The Guardian, 
Sunday 6 October 2013 10.31 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/russia-monitor-communications-sochi-winter-olympics

Speaking of cool thoughts and cool doings far from the sub-tropical heat and humidity of South Florida, with three more weeks to go in the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane season, here's a classic video set in Norway featuring iJustine, Justine Ezarik, cited and featured in so many blog posts here over the past six years, as well as lots of permanent 'anchors' on the blog for years, including this video.




iJustine YouTube Channel video: EPIC GLACIER HIKE! (In Norway). Uploaded October 27, 2011. http://youtu.be/pD0xXf9-_lI
Clips that didn't make final cut but worth seeing are at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5JAIrd8IFI and a good photo, too: http://followgram.me/i/276131095


Of all of her MANY videos, the ones she filmed in Norway in 2011 are my favorite, with this one being the best of them. 
While I realize that these sort of opportunities don't present themselves every week or month, compared to the tech exhibits/forums she's so frequently at, I wish that Justine could make more vids like this one showing her willing to go outside of her own comfort zone, because to me, she never seems more honest & appealing than when she's in these sorts of situations. #Norge

And why-oh-why isn't she and one of her sisters participating on CBS' The Amazing Race?

I'm convinced she'd be great and become a real breakout media star if she went more than a 4-5 weeks without being eliminated. 
Just saying... 

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Illusion of safety in HB is not the same thing as real safety!; Red Light Cameras not only example of technology that City of Hallandale Beach is using poorly

My comments are below the story. 
________________________________________ 
 South Florida Sun-Sentinel 
Security cameras may be required at late-night businesses in Hallandale 
By Thomas Monnay January 10, 2008 
 HALLANDALE BEACH 

Late-night establishments soon may be required to have surveillance cameras both inside and outside to help deter and solve crimes. The proposal, discussed by city commissioners on Wednesday, would affect 24-hour businesses and those with permits to operate after 2 a.m. It is scheduled for a formal public hearing on Jan. 22. Vice Mayor Bill Julian said cameras could have helped police determine who shot and killed Broward Sheriff's Office Sgt. Chris Reyka in August in the parking lot of a 24-hour Walgreens in Pompano Beach. "If there were cameras outside the Walgreens, wouldn't they catch the picture of the person who killed the deputy?" Julian said. "We have the technology. We should use it to give an edge to police." Mayor Joy Cooper called security cameras "a strong tool" against crime. Commissioners Dorothy Ross and Fran Schiller also support the proposal. But Commissioner Keith London was opposed, saying businesses could hire security guards and the city has police to protect residents. "I am almost never for cameras," he said. "If I have to surrender my freedom for safety, then I don't believe in being safe." Julian said most of the city's gas stations, convenience stores and the city's two racetracks already have cameras. City Manager Mike Good said police would work with business owners to determine whether they need cameras. He said those with financial hardship would be allowed to file an appeal, and the city might help them financially. "I happen to support this very much," Good said. The proposal coincides with the city's plan for a $374,371 digital camera system to monitor its municipal complex, fire station, water plant, beach parking garage and park and recreation facilities. 
 Thomas Monnay can be reached at tmonnay@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7924. 
 _________________________________________________ 

Generally speaking, I wouldn't comment here on my blog about what someone else has written on one of these Sun-Sentinel reader comment forums, or any media forum for that matter. The reason is a simple one. My experience in looking at reader's comments on newspaper sites is that, more often than not, they're either incredibly inspid, off-topic or mean-spirited snarky just for the sake of being mean-spirited and snarky.

(As opposed to informative yet humorously snarky!) In short, seldom enlightening. While perhaps amusing when recounting the exact context in a car with your friends, otherwise just like a case of hitting low-hanging fruit with an ICBM, otherwise, and therefore just a waste of time. More the sort of thing some mean-spirited office drone does on his computer while on a lunch-break, killing time in between bites of a sandwich, so very pleased with himself and the pseudonym he's chosen. But I did want to specifically bring to your attention comment #12, written by someone who seems to be a William Julian supporter, to help illustrate the small minds a person of his particular qualifications needs to get re-elected in a city the size of a postage stamp. A city which many informed people think would be much better off having someone else in that seat, someone who doesn't suffer such comic bouts of grandeur, witness last year's illegal pay raise grab in the dark that he led, wherein he famously compared himself to a corporate executive. Or, if you prefer, his continued bad judgment by forcing himself into murky ethical situations that reasonably bright high school-age kids with common sense could've resolved. Not that Julian's the only one on the city commission who's like a dead battery, once useful but now merely ballast. One of the truest of all cliches in sports is "addition by subtraction." Used in this context, Hallandale Beach Blog believes the people of Hallandale Beach, and the city's future as a whole, would greatly benefit from William Julian's exit from the city commission. Let him get that executive job he feels is currently being denied him. 

  Here's the comment exactly as it appears on the Sun-Sentinel's website, as of today at 1p.m.: 
Golden Isles Resident AOL 
Thursday Jan 10 
Thank you Commissioner Bill Julian for taking the lead in protecting you city's residents. 
What does Commissioner London fear? Maybe something the voters should know about? 
The truth will come out. We are watching you K.L. 

Frankly, it's exactly the kind of feeble and shrill spewing of venom that you'd expect from a Julian supporter, given the ones I've spoken to over the years. While sometimes semi-pleasant, they fundamentally mistake his length of time in town as effectiveness. 
One clearly has nothing to do with the other. As it happens, that low opinion is very much what TV and print reporters who've covered the city have told me they think of when they think of Julian, to the extent that they think of him at all -which is rarely
The Sun-Sentinel reader comment then is a snapshot in time of the kind of person who's currently supportive of a William Julian, yet to my mind, the sort of people who clearly are part of the problem, not part of the solution
___________________________________________ 

My thoughts on the story itself: I don't know how I can make this any clearer -the illusion of safety is not the same thing as actual safety. Once again, almost too predictably for words, the powers-that-be in the City of Hallandale Beach have reached for the safety blanket of illusion, rather than opening their eyes and taking a serious look at the manifest safety problems in the city. And doing something serious about it. THAT is something which has greatly troubled me since I returned to the area from the Washington, D.C. area, and is one of the principal reasons that I started this particular blog in the first place. It's a large part of what keeps me motivated to continue doing it. The city's longstanding and almost cowardly refusal to confront what's directly in front of it, like a person afraid of their own image in a mirror, because it doesn't match the illusion they've created in their mind, is the worst possible kind of governance, given the changing dynamics and demographics of the city now. A great example of this is the scarecrow police squad car left at the beach near the perfectly dreadful Beachside Cafe, a William Julian hangout. No police are EVER actually over there, which the city-contracted lifeguards are the first to point out to you, if you merely ask them. Or the frequent bach goers that I've come to recognize from my hundreds of trips over there on weekends, to read the papers, listen to ballgames and write down some thoughts. It's worse than an ostrich with its head in the sand -it's an ostrich which has done that same move by rote so often that it can't physically get its head out of the sand. That's the City of Hallandale Beach today. Public safety is a matter which should rightly concern anyone living in the city -or near it, like Hollywood or Aventura- who has two eyes that work, and who can clearly see what the city looks like for themself. Anyone who knows me or who has made any kind of serious effort to read more than a handful of my posts here, knows exactly what I consider to be the leading bête noires in any public safety discussion of the City of Hallandale Beach. Ones which are both longstanding and entirely self-evident on any night, especially on U.S.-1, A1A or Hallandale Beach Blvd., yet which are paradoxically among the easiest to actually resolve. These include but are not limited to: 1.) The very poorly maintained condition of streetlights and illuminated street signs. This includes, among others, those right next to HB's own City Hall and Police Dept. HQ, which have been out for well over two years! For over two years, Mayor Joy Cooper, the four members of the HB City Commission and City Manager Mike Good -and his staff- have driven right past those signs every time they leave City Hall chambers following an evening meeting. But still they never see what's right in front of them, less than a bloc away from their own office. 2.) the universally piss-poor condition of public parking lots along Hallandale Beach Blvd. in the city NOT owned by R.K. To cite but the most obvious examples from a long list: a.) the front sidewalk entrance lights and parking lot lights of the Premier Building, which has a gym that lots of people attend at night. (It's also a building where everyone loves to park in the No Parking Fire Lane in front and the 15 Minute Parking Zones set aside for deliveries, too.) These are the same geniuses who after Hurricane Wilma knocked out and broke their plastic identification sign in front of their property, placed the remaining parts of it and all the many downed palm fronds, on the sidewalk in front of an adjoining bus shelter, rather than disposing of them properly. Somehow, yet again, HB's Code Compliance office was blind to this though it could hardly have been more obvious, since they were there for months. (This is not unlike the way the city's Code Compliance turned a blind eye last year to the William Julian campaign sign and wooden support stand that stayed up for so long on north-bound U.S.-1, alongside the east-side sidewalk near the bus shelter on S.E. 9th Street. If I can find it, I have a photo of that sign and support a number of weeks after the election, which I'll post here in the future for illumination. Perhaps I should see if it's still there!) Later, someone from the building placed the large jagged plastic pieces behind sidewalk shrubs, thinking that, somehow, they'd magically take care of themself. They didn't! Just how bad is the street lighting situation along that street, the busiest in the city? Well, consider that a few months ago, having made some mental notes about it after months of noticing it on my walks to and from the beach, I took some photos of the area near the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce. As I write this, the two street lights closest to it have been out for well over 6-8 months, if not longer. If not for the bank across the street having parking lot lights, it'd be a black hole. Even the small auxiliary building lights on the CoC bldg., next to their front door, as well as some of the adjoining offices, were out for months at a time. *I'll leave 'till another time the larger discussion I've had for months in my head -and with lots of concerned Hallandale Beach citizens- on the perfectly preposterous reality that there are currently no directional signs of any kind on U.S.-1, A1A or even on their 0wn street, Hallandale Beach Blvd., directing visitors/residents to the Chamber of Commerce, as would be common sense and practice in even the smallest of hick towns, much less, in a smart and tourist-oriented town like Charlottesville, VA. That's a wonderful city I've been to numerous times, because of all the great historical sites there, as well as UVA, and the annual Virginia Film Festival. Regardless of how you get there, it's virtually impossible to miss the plethora of signs directing you to their Chamber of Commerce/Tourist Office, where people are super-friendly, engaging and accommodating, and have updated information to dispense. Encore performance? It's possible that for the first time since early 2004, when I took a microphone in hand at the HB City Hall chambers and spent about 5-10 minutes absolutely ripping FDOT, their contractors, the mayor, the city manager, the city commission and the city as a whole, for utterly failing to give HB's citizens anything like what they were entitled to -and had already paid for- regarding the U.S.-1 road construction project, that I'll be taking a microphone in hand at meeting tonight to point out the obvious about the cameras. It wouldn't be necessary, though, if the HB city employees we're already paying were doing their job better, which includes the HB Police Department and their camera-loving police chief. The evidence that they're doing a poor job is all around the city, especially alongside the main roads and at over the public beach. At that 2004 meeting, I criticized everyone on the dais and in the front rows of the chamber for the self-congratulatory nature of the public meeting, rather than seriously addressing the numerous self-evident shortcomings and failures of the project, many of which could be seen just steps away from city hall, as I said at the time. Even on the night of that public meeting, there were still lots of streets in the city with large volumes of gravel and rocks on streets that were supposedly finished, including right in front of city hall itself, on the street between it and the U.S. Post Office, S.E. 5th Street. A street that was missing a STOP sign as it hits U.S.-1!!! And let's not forget all the missing bicycle lane signs and the painted "Bike Lane" in the lanes themself, and the... Next time you're at the Hallandale Beach City Hall complex at night, look up at the parking lot light closest to the security camera, pointing northeast towards U.S.-1. The one that's been out for weeks!!! The security camera that doesn't have a posted sign nearby, as required by law? Yes, that one, just like the signage situation at the Publix on HBB, which I've spoken to their manager about many times. (We'll soon see how Publix HQ in Lakeland feels about the apathy in following the law.) Those camera were put in right before their liquor store opened for obvious reasons. Less obvious is why RK and Publix can't or won''t comply with the law Signs must be posted. It's not optional. How long have the cameras at HB City Hall been up without the required posted warning signs? Why don't you ask the city manager, Mike Good, next time you see him, since he's in favor of expanding the concept. Should someone who can't manage their own affairs really being telling others what to do? I think not.