Looks like Broward County is finally serious about recouping the millions in CRA funds that cities like Hallandale Beach have mishandled and squandered via incompetency and crony capitalism. Couldn't be clearer that HB City Manager Renee C. Miller still wants to keep stonewalling taxpayers!

Looks like Broward County is finally serious about recouping the millions in CRA funds that cities like Hallandale Beach have mishandled and squandered via incompetency and crony capitalism. Couldn't be clearer that HB City Manager Renee C. Miller still wants to keep stonewalling taxpayers!

A slightly-expanded version of an email that I sent out Wednesday afternoon to my In-Crowd
of concerned residents and taxpayers in Hallandale Beach and throughout Broward County as well as concerned civic activists around the Sunshine State, along with cc's to people in our state capital of Tallahassee whom I've communicated with in the past year, ostensibly, because they more than most people in the legistlature have a strong interest in this matter of CRAs, and Florida cities continually using them for purposes for which the enabling legislation was NOT intended, as my many previous blog posts on this subject and audits have made crystal clear.

Among the lucky recipients this time were: Florida CFO Jeff Atwater, outgoing FL Senate President  Don Gaetz, powerful FL state Sen. Jack  Latvala, and FL state Rep. Lake Ray, who is Chair of the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee.
-----
More soon on the blog on the subject of the scandal-plagued Hallandale Beach CRA, along with the EXCESS MILLIONS of tax dollars that have been and will be paid to a small number of the City of Hallandale Beach's highest-paid employees in pensions -including the past 3 City Managers: Mark A, Antonio, Mike Good & R.J. Intindola- which current City Manager Renee Miller still can't explain with a straight face.

Yes, more than TWO YEARS after Miller personally promised community activist Csaba Kulin in-person that she would give him the docs he sought from the city via Public Records Request provisions of Florida's Sunshine Laws, after the city had refused to fully comply with the law, just like the CRA funds issue, City Manager Miller can't and won't tell the truth and has refused to turn the germane public documents over.

Documents that would show who at HB City Hall made the decision on who would and would not be in the managament pension plan, and who decided that they'd be paid at a much-higher rate than they were scheduled to receive.

Or as it was then-described in the Broward Bulldog, "authorize the granting of retroactive retirement credit."

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/10/two-hallandale-officials-who-voted-for-generous-pension-plan-say-they-werent-told-true-costs/

Hallandale’s ex-top managers collect fat pensions from retirement plan they pushed a decade ago

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/10/hallandales-top-managers-collect-fat-pensions-from-retirement-plan-they-pushed-a-decade-ago/

Altered rules let ex-Hallandale city manager’s son-in-law join lucrative pension plan

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/02/altered-rules-let-ex-hallandale-city-managers-son-in-law-join-lucrative-pension-plan/

The city even had the audacity to claim to Csaba that it didn't even know who was a part of the pension plan! Really.

But then this is the same city that in 2011 had its CRA purchase land for use as a park at a price that was higher than it was really worth, but then this year, we were told repeatedly by Miller that having CRA funds used to fix/modernize the city's very poorly-maintained parks within the CRA district was NOT a good thing, and that citizens needed to vote in November for a Parks Bond issue instead.

This despite the fact that the HB City Commission has written the question so that any funds approved by voters in November could, in fact, be used for whatever purpose the City Commission wanted.

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2011/10/hallandale-beach%E2%80%99s-purchase-of-ex-congressman-deutschs-school-site-comes-with-hefty-repair-bill/

Which is to say, NOT used exclusively for Parks, as I have long argued was necessary in order to give HB taxpayers some degree of confidence that a yes vote would indeed be for what citizens at the ballot box intended. 

In essence, HB City Hall wants the Bond issue approved so they can create a new slush fund for themselves to continue their years of arrogant crony capitalism.

And, of course, as I've have commented upon many times over the 18 months since it was released, it speaks volumes about her lack of transparancy and accountability that Renee Miller still refuses to place the Broward IG's damning report of the city accusing it of "gross mismanagement" on the city's website -or even post the city's own response.

Yes, the "response" that HB taxpayers and the CRA had to pay for that was nothing but a complete whitewash of responsibility.

-----

HallandaleBeachBlog ‏@hbbtruth  

#HallandaleBeach still lying abt. its (invisible) oversight/accountability of $12.6M in CRA funds it mishandled :-( http://www.browardbulldog.org/2014/09/broward-to-seek-return-of-cra-tax-dollars-mishandled-by-cities-millions-at-stake/ … …

2:26 PM - 10 Sep 2014 · Details

Broward Bulldog

Broward to seek return of CRA tax dollars mishandled by cities; Millions at stake

By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 

September 4, 2014 AT 6:35 AM

Broward will seek the return of county property tax dollars from city community redevelopment agencies that hoarded that money instead of spending it on projects to fight slum and blight that are ready to get underway, according to County Administrator Bertha Henry.

The county’s toughened stand follows recent findings by Broward’s Inspector General that Margate deliberately mishandled $2.7 million in CRA funds. It also comes amid fresh criticism about the way Hallandale Beach allegedly handled its community redevelopment funds.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2014/09/broward-to-seek-return-of-cra-tax-dollars-mishandled-by-cities-millions-at-stake/

Is Chicago becoming the next Detroit? Everyone's asking the same question and one of the main reasons why is unfunded pension costs, which the NY Times gave front page prominence to on Tuesday; Glenn Reynolds' spot-on take on this issue and Chicago as an early battleground in the fight pitting Democrat elected officials vs. Democratic-leaning govt. unions -govt. pensions vs. reducing municipal services and personnel. Pundits are paying VERY CLOSE attention to what Rahm Emanuel & The Democratic Machine will do, with William M. Daley running for governor next year talking tough about reforming pension plans

Fox News Channel video: Chicago the next Detroit? Pension problems raising alarm bells. America LIVE host Jamie Colby speaks to Fox Business Channel's Stuart Varney on the similarities and differences between Detroit and Chicago. Aired August 6, 2013. http://video.foxnews.com/v/2589585215001/chicago-the-next-detroit/

A-Rod, WaPo stories are intriguing...but this is the story we'll be grappling with across the country for years... http://t.co/X7sSaK3tMJ
— Jeff Greenfield (@greenfield64) August 6, 2013

Glenn Reynolds' spot-on take on Chicago as an early battleground in the unfunded govt. pension costs vs. taxpayers fight, and the prospect of Democrat elected officials fighting Democratic-leaning govt. employee unions. Pundits everywhere are paying VERY CLOSE attention to what Rahm Emanuel & The Daley Machine will do, with William M. Daley running for governor of Illinois next year

After having read the original predicate article in the New York Times a few times and even sent links of it to friends around the country, I decided I wanted to also share it and the spot-on comments of University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds on this important issue and the New York Times' decision to give the issue the front page treatment on Tuesday at his terrific and much-read InstaPundit blog, which I've been reading since I was living and working in Washington, D.C. over ten years ago.
It continues to inform, educate and amuse in just the right proportions.

As we've discussed here previously, the editors at the New York Times know that their decision to give their story a push and place it on the front page suddenly gives the story "legs" in other parts of the country in ways that it simply wouldn't have if it had run on page 17A.
Nothing is on the front page of the New York Times by mistake or without the logical consequences of doing so having already been thought about and discussed.

You can't say the same with South Florida's newspapers since there often seems to be no rhyme or reason other than sheer shallowness or brazen bias or a desire to be seen as hip to certain advertisers.

New York Times

Chicago Sees Pension Crisis Drawing Near

By Monica Davey and Mary Williams Walsh

August 5, 2013 

CHICAGO — Corporations are moving in, and housing prices are looking better across the region. There has been a slight uptick in population. But a crushing problem lurks beneath the signs of economic recovery in Chicago: one of the most poorly funded pension systems among the nation’s major cities. Its plight threatens to upend the finances of President Obama’s hometown, now run by his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

The pension fund for retired Chicago teachers stands at risk of collapse. The city’s four funds for other retired city workers are short by $19.5 billion. At least one of the funds is in peril of running out of money in less than a decade. And starting in 2015, the city will be required by the state to make far larger contributions to the funds, which could leave it hundreds of millions of dollars in the red — as much as it would cost to pay 4,300 police officers to patrol the streets for a year.

Read the rest of the article at

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/chicago-sees-pension-crisis-drawing-near.html

#understatement: Unions remain angry at the mayor, who was at the helm during the teachers’ strike in 2012.


CHICAGO’S PENSION CRISIS IN BLACK AND WHITE
August 6, 2013
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/173724/

NYT: Chicago The Next Detroit
August 6, 2013
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/08/06/chicagos-pensions-crisis-in-black-and-white/

Former L.A. mayor @RichardJRiordan calls on POTUS to propose national public employee pension reform in today's NYT: http://t.co/UtOZzNhgET
— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) August 5, 2013

New York Times

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS

A Plan to Avert the Pension Crisis

By Richard J. Riordan and Tim Rutten

Published August 4, 2013 

LOS ANGELES — It isn’t politically feasible for Washington to bail out Detroit, but President Obama and Congress must step in to avert the worst fiscal collapse in urban American history.

They must intervene, because symptoms of the municipal illness that made Detroit, with an estimated $18 billion in liabilities, the largest city in American history to declare bankruptcy are showing up in other cities.

Read the rest at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/opinion/a-plan-to-avert-the-pension-crisis.html

Follow-up email to FL Gov. Rick Scott about MILLION$ more down the drain at Hallandale Beach City Hall. MORE of what we already knew and always suspected and now it's Q.E.D. yet again -Bill Gjebre in Broward Bulldog: "Hallandale city managers erased millions in code violation fines with little oversight"; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy

Palm tree obstructing the sun's powerful rays  at Hallandale Beach City Hall. And if there's any City Hall in Florida that needs more sunshine and scrutiny, it's Hallandale Beach's. May 28, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Below is a a copy of my Tuesday morning email to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, with copies to various Florida Legislative leaders and other public officials and interested parties throughout the Sunshine State, about the latest details to come out on what's been happening in one of the most unethical, incompetent and anti-taxpayer outposts in Florida, Hallandale Beach.
There's even less financial accountability and management oversight than we thought, and we didn't think there was very much to begin with.
And the shoes just keep dropping...

For some of you newcomers to this blog, in case you forgot whom I'm referring to in paragraph six regarding the very curious pensions changes that were made by someone at HB City Hall that netted million$ more to certain high-ranking people, by someone that HB City Hall won't name, it's former City Managers Mark A. Antonio, Mike Good, R.J. Intindola and former City Attorney David Jove. 

They're among the handful of people that this city's most well-informed and active citizens personally blame for the tens of millions of dollars that have been wasted and squandered the past 5-6 years, and whom logic and reason dictate should receive the highest degree of scrutiny by by public officials and law enforcement personnel in Tallahassee and at the Broward County Courthouse.
I've deleted the email addresses for obvious reasons.

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

To: Gov. Rick Scott cc: FL Attorney General Pam Bondi, FL CFO Jeff Atwater, Sen. Don Gaetz, Sen. Jack Latvala, Sen. John Thrasher, Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, Dominic Calabro of Florida Tax Watch, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott and Tim Donnelly of the Broward State Attorney's Office
April 3, 2013 Dear Governor Scott: Tens of million$ of tax dollar$ squandered here, tens of million$ of CRA dollar$ squandered there, pretty soon you're talking about real money. Sadly in the case of the city I've lived in the past nine years, Hallandale Beach, citizens have seen tens of millions of dollars continually squandered with no genuine accountability or oversight by either elected officials, or, highly-paid but incompetent city officials, despite all of them having a moral and fiduciary responsibility. And now we saw yesterday, via one of the articles below, that our well-founded suspicions have been confirmed as fact with even millions of dollars having been given away as party favors by the current City Manager and her two predecessors in forgiven fines. I'm sure you won't be too surprised to learn that the current City Manger doesn't want to end her power to play Santa Claus, saying that actually having the elected City Commission make the decisions about waiving fines over $50,000 would slow down the bureaucracy! Governor Scott, it's this city's longstanding incompetent bureaucracy, fiefdoms and mis-management that's responsible for literally ruining this city's current morale and future Quality of Life in the first place, by saddling current and future taxpayers with exorbitant bills for services that are NOT rendered: clean competent government.    And even now, three former City Managers, a former City Attorney, and a couple of dozen highly-paid former and current city employees are now laughing all the way to the bank, courtesy of beleaguered Hallandale Beach taxpayers, thanks to a very mysterious decision made over ten years ago regarding pension payments that were changed to exclusively benefit about 40 highly-paid city employees. And almost as if they needed to square the circle on their own jaw-dropping incompetency, many months after it was first requested, the City of Hallandale Beach STILL can't produce contemporaneous documents that say who the individual was at HB City Hall who decided, without City Commission approval, that these particular city employees would get their prior years of service paid-out to them at a MUCH-HIGHER rate than they actually earned at the time. In fact, HB City Hall STILL claims it doesn't have the full list of these former and current city employees who have benefited enormously from this mysterious decision by this mysterious official that will cost HB taxpayers millions and millions more than it should. What does all of this tell you about the scope of HB City Hall's lack of accountability to residents, taxpayers and small business owners? And the crazy part is that we still have in place many of the very same individuals legally and morally entrusted to do right by the citizens of this city, but who were and are so irresponsible about fulfilling their responsibilities that they didn't ever bother to verify any information submitted to the city for city/CRA grants or loans, before or after the funds were handed over to so-called non-profits, at least some of whom were actually NOT legally considered non-profits at the time by the IRS. Not that this salient legal distinction prevented City Hall from giving the money away to their cronies anyway, because as the city's very own documents have shown, there was never any appropriate follow-up to ensure that the funds were being spent properly or even as they were intended. Really. Do you see the unmistakable fact pattern that's present here, year-after-year? Governor Scott, THAT self-evident fact pattern of illegality, incompetency and gross mis-management is our daily reality in this city. Where's the cavalry? Broward Bulldog Hallandale city managers erased millions in code violation fines with little oversight By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org  APRIL 2, 2013 AT 6:23 AM http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/04/6915/ Broward Bulldog Split Hallandale commission votes to give Miami developer Tibor Hollo big break on fines By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org  MARCH 22, 2013 AT 6:13 AM http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/03/split-hallandale-commission-votes-to-give-miami-developer-tibor-hollo-big-break-on-fines/ And just a reminder, sir, it's all true and verifiable! Sincerely, DBS ----- Tuesday's email was the logical follow-up to my March 14th, 2013 email to Governor Scott about longstanding unethical behavior and corruption at Hallandale Beach City Hall, My open letter to Florida Governor Rick Scott about the longstanding corruption and incompetency at Hallandale Beach City Hall and environs re the HB CRA: More shocking proof of what I've written you several times in the past: Serial malfeasance and millions of dollars squandered by public officials as State laws/ethics were ignored, and with little genuine public oversight or transparency. Broward Inspector General Scott assails Hallandale Beach for past and continuing "gross mismanagement" -possible "criminal misconduct"; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-open-letter-to-florida-governor-rick.html It started out like this... and got even better... FYI: Some follow-up to my March 7th email to you about longstanding culture  of corruption and incompetency at Hallandale Beach City Hall:  Broward Bulldog Hallandale mayor, ex-city managers defend millions in suspect spending to county agents By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org  MARCH 14, 2013 AT 6:10 AM http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/03/hallandale-mayor-ex-city-managers-defend-millions-in-suspect-cra-spending-to-county-agents/ And the pull-quote? Probably this: City records regarding payments to non-profit groups were so lacking, the report said, that investigators were “unable to reliably assess the amount of possible losses suffered by the CRA as a result of ‘misapplication of funding by non-profits.” Florida law does not permit the CRA to fund charitable donations to non-profits, the report said.

Self-serving Eleanor Sobel shows again why she remains Broward County's poster child for political expediency. Given a choice, as this SaintPetersBlog post makes clear, Eleanor Sobel prefers carrying the water of the govt. unions that endorsed her -and their pensions- to the long-term interests of S.E. Broward-area taxpayers who will have to pay the bill. Eleanor Sobel is exactly what she looks like -a crass opportunist of the worst sort

Self-serving Eleanor Sobel shows again why she remains Broward County's poster child for political expediency. Given a choice, as this SaintPetersBlog post makes clear, Eleanor Sobel prefers carrying the water of the govt. unions that endorsed her -and their pensions- to the long-term interests of S.E. Broward-area taxpayers who will have to pay the bill. 
Why DOES she always think that's more more important than S.E. Broward taxpayers' fiscal future, anyhow?

Why won't people ever learn their lesson with Eleanor Sobel and stop thinking she'll change her spots someday? 
Eleanor Sobel is exactly what she looks like -a crass opportunist of the worst sort.
Those of you who are keen to have a better class of politicians around South Broward and if possible, some politicians and government officials with some more old-fashioned notions of hard-work and ethics who don't make you cringe every time you hear their name, need to stop making excuses for her and her minions and her votes and her countless squandering of opportunities to make this area better, merely because she has such a high opinion of herself.

Job creation, a balanced economy that isn't so overly-dependent on the hospitality industry, an improved infrastructure that puts drivers and riders over contractors and engineers first? Stopping government waste and being aggressive about going after those who cause it?

Those are the sorts of issues that people in Broward will tell you we need someone fighting for.
But those issues are all boring issues to Sobel, and are the issues she leaves to others in Tallahassee to deal with and do the heavy lifting for why she worls on boutique issues like teens and tanning salons.

She wants to be a social justice (Union/Doctor's) superhero in Tallahassee, and be beloved by the Usual Suspects who fund Democratic Party candidates and staff their cvampaigns.
She is but how is that helping the tens of thousands of constituents in her district?
If we had a better class of reporters in this area like other parts of the country we'd see these sorts of matters dealt with in a forthright fashion in print or TV, but instead we have press sycophancy and schmoozing instead, where most reporters pull their punches instead. 

She much prefers to be amongst the crowd that always say "Gimme, gimme, gimme!"
That sort of things used to be called "playing to the cheap seats" before most Americans stopped going to movie theaters or live theater at least once a week.
(Why DOES she think that's more more important than S.E. Broward taxpayers' fiscal future, anyhow?)

But after all these years of doing it, Eleanor Sobel just calls this behavior Second Nature.

SaintPetersBlog

Pension battle set up as Senate bill goes to floor

By Peter Schorsch

March 28, 2013

A pension bill headed toward the Senate floor could spark a confrontation with House leaders over the future of the retirement system, though senators say they’re confident they can come up with a compromise.

 On a nearly party-line vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent the measure (SB 1392) to the Senate floor. Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, joined 13 Republicans on the panel in supporting the bill; the other five Democrats opposed it.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.saintpetersblog.com/pension-battle-set-up-as-senate-bill-goes-to-floor

My last two posts on self-serving Sen. Eleanor Sobel, who is supposed to represent me in Tallahassee but who rarely does so with any kind of distinction, were

February 16, 2013

My fact-filled email to a Sun-Sentinel reporter sheds long-overdue light on the behavior of both Florida state Sen. Eleanor Sobel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's sloppy and incurious brand of journalism, and how both negatively affect Broward residents; After today, I give up on the Sun-Sentinel until the Tribune Co. sell it off to someone savvy enough to give beleaguered Broward residents the quality newspaper they deserve, not more of the same old unsatisfactory status quo that is so galling

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/my-fact-filled-email-to-sun-sentinel.html

September 20, 2012 

A perfect end to a perfect Wednesday night thinking about ethics: Jennifer Gottlieb and Eleanor Sobel FINALLY get exposed; hot pizza, cold Heineken beer, '80's fave Lisa Whelchel on "Survivor," and reading some of the fascinating Grand Jury testimony re Beachside Montessori Village; Miami Herald: Records in Broward schools investigation reveal affairs; #BeachsideMontessoriVillage

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-perfect-end-to-perfect-wednesday.html

That last post has been actively searched for and read over 770 times, to say nothing of the number of people who saw it and read it that day,when it was the most recent post on the blog.
That's not by accident

Contradictions! If Hallandale Beach's budget can nearly double in 6-8 years under Joy Cooper, with little tangible to show for it for taxpayers, why can't taxpayers at least have city employees who earn their salaries thru diligence, performance and attention to detail -instead of none of those? Like having a safe, well-lit area for Early Voters outside the city's Cultural Center for the first day of an event that's been known for SEVERAL MONTHS?; @MayorCooper

Butler1Mike YouTube Channel video: Hallandale Beach Mayor Cooper contradicts herself, saying that she didn't vote for the city's overly-generous pension plan in 2001 that lasted for many years, but then defends the pension plan that the city had that has (or will) make multi-millionaires out of several employees, including three former City Managers, as entirely appropriate for a city so small. Yes, here as she has so many times over the nine years that she has been mayor, Joy Cooper shows herself to be one enormous ball of contradictions, which is why there is never an intersection of logic and reason and genuine taxpayer accountability in her city. Just her doing whatever she wanted, saying whatever she wanted, and flying by the seat of your pants! Uploaded October 31, 2012. http://youtu.be/xhlnEezjZGU
http://www.youtube.com/user/Butler1Mike


No Broward city let's you down more consistently and more predictably when it comes to attention to detail than...

For those of you who were there last Saturday morning at 6:45 a.m. like me, how awesome was it to see all the hustle-and-bustle and nervous energy of so many voters, candidates and their friends milling around the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center, the only site in the city for Early Voting, and just as about any of us could've predicted, about half of the city's parking lot lights and safety lights around the Center were NOT working.

When it was near pitch-black.

Just like last week, last month and last year.

Just like 2008's Early Voting!

Like it always is!

All October 27, 2012 photos below by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

The light above in the foreground is from my camera's flash, otherwise none of the signs would be legible to you.

Again, without my flash, you'd see no shadowy figure crossing at the designated place. You know, without lights that actually work, those security cameras aren't nearly as effective.
Looks like the lights on the access route from S.E. 3rd Street were out, of course!
Not that the police or the police chief who drive on it constantly ever notice and do something about it. 
Nope!

Yes, you'd never know by the appearance of so very much neglected maintenance that the city's Police Dept. HQ was just steps away, given how very lax the city has been for so many years about basic safety and common sense and liability issues.

"Liability," what's that?

If you're like me, how funny was it to see the myriad candidates and their devoted friends and family members handing-out their campaign palm cards to voters lined-up on a median strip in the parking lot, south of the Cultural Center -and outside of the "no campaigning zone"- waiting patiently for a Broward Supervisor of Elections official to come out and have the first few people come inside to exercise their right to vote, and yet the folks at the end of the line could NOT even read the palm cards they were handed because they were so far from a working light and it was so very dark?

Yes, good times, indeed!

What could be better than lots of senior citizens parking and walking around in poorly-lit parking lots early in the morning? What could possibly go wrong? 

So, do you see all the dozens of Early Voters lined-up at 6:57 a.m.?

Who needs city Dept. heads and employees who actually show a little foresight once in a while, and who earn their salary thru hard work and attention to detail, when you can, instead, have SO MANY of the sort that we seem to have been blessed with here in Hallandale Beach?

Government employees who have a larger sense of entitlement -and a seeming chip-on-their-shoulders- than would seem normal based on the constant sub-par look of the city, both aesthetically and maintenance-wise.

City employees who, for whatever reason, perhaps tradition, think that their performance is NOT Job One, but rather an abstract idea that they never have to actually reach, just pretend to aspire to at Dept. meetings.

After all, if we've learned anything in nine years of living here, it's that there are absolutely no consequences to employees' continued poor performance or chronic bad attitude or perpetual surliness to taxpayers, the real bosses, of course.

(I sometimes wonder what it's like in the cities where all those City of HB employees live, since so few Dept. heads and regular employees actually live here, otherwise perhaps they'd take more pride in their job. Clearly, not, though.)

Yes, the fact that it's been known for several months now that this location would be the City of Hallandale Beach's ONLY site for Early Voting made it entirely predictable that on the first day, many voters would think they'd beat the rush by showing-up to vote first thing at 7 a.m.

And for those of you reading this far from these shores, yes, even here in sunny South Florida, at this time of the year, it's very dark at 6:45 in the morning.

Of course, most of these voters, unlike most of us who regularly attend civic meetings or City Commission meetings at or around Hallandale Beach City Hall, and thus, who already know how bad things are safety-wise around City Hall and Bluesten Park two blocks away when the sun is NOT out, could't have planned for how very poorly prepared the city was.

I guess it was a good thing, after all, that there were no surprise guests from the Romney-Ryan team showing-up as some had been saying via the grapevine and some emails I received the night before, since even with the TV camera lights, with so many city lights out, it would've been hard to do anything that would've looked good on TV, either LIVE or recorded for airing later in the day.

Yes, I'd gone there early that morning after getting no sleep overnight to lend some encouragement to some friends who are running for office as pro-reform candidates -Keith London for mayor, and Csaba Kulin, Michele Lazarow and Gerald Dean for City Commission- observe a bit and and snap some photos and video of the activities.

But instead, even while doing those things, I walked into what was yet another discouraging reminder of how poorly-run this city has been under Mayor Cooper the past nine years, and how consistently poor performance has no consequences for employees, no matter who they are or how much money they make.

Changing that pernicious culture of entitlement, bad attitudes and sleepwalking performance at HB City Hall, of making sure that Hallandale Beach taxpayers REALLY DO receive a dollar's worth of work and services for a dollar's worth of taxes, and, finally having real consequences for city employees who are NOT performing up to the public's expectations, no matter who they are, is why I'm voting the way I am on Tuesday.

If you live here and really care about what sort of future this city will have, of what kind of quality of life you and your family can enjoy, I strongly suggest you do the same.

Vote London, Kulin, Lazarow & Dean, YES for City Charter Question #5, and NO to all the other HB Charter questions.

It's now five days and counting 'till the day you can finally reclaim your city back from the very people who have taken you and your neighbors for granted, have constantly tried to squelch your rights whenever they could, and who have made an art of wasting your tax dollars in ways that would be laughable if they weren't so painful and expensive.

There are four candidates in this city who have stood-up when it counted -including right now.
You already know their names - I just said them

Not perfect people, of course, but people much like yourself who genuinely care about this city's future, and who fervently believe that this city's residents deserve -at a minimum- to be properly respected once again by a Mayor and City Commission that doesn't continually embarrass them thru their repeated poor judgment and ethical lapses.
Imagine that?

Actually represented by a Mayor and City Commission with some genuine integrity, and represented by people who are properly-prepared for public meetings, and who aren't afraid of the hard work and heavy-lifting that will surely be required to get this city out of its current slide into irrelevancy.

You've said for years that you wanted honest and hard-working people in charge at City Hall who would fight for real reform and financial accountability, and finally clean-up this city's poor image.
Well, now it's up to you to actually show-up and vote for it and the candidates who will make it a reality.

What sort of city do you want to wake-up to next Wednesday morning?
THAT'S the question you as a voter have to answer positively when you get the chance.

http://kulin2012.com/

http://michelelazarow.com/

http://keithlondon.com/

Csaba Kulin gets the Miami Herald's whitewash treatment: McClatchy's Co.'s Herald practices the opposite of giving credit where credit is due, editing out the name of the one person in South Florida most-responsible for finding out why and how 3 former Hallandale Beach City Managers will soon be multi-millionaires with taxpayer dollars; a story that Miami Herald reporters, editors and management have completely ignored for years!

Where did all the taxpayer money go? Good question! Csaba Kulin knows some of the answers. Imagine if we had City Commissioners here like him and Michele Lazarow who'd actually take their oversight  responsibilities for taxpayers seriously, and ask probing questions instead of just sitting on the dais and playing the role of rubber stamps for the mayor. Hmmm... October 24, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Csaba Kulin gets the Miami Herald's whitewash treatment: McClatchy's Co.'s Herald practices the opposite of giving credit where credit is due, editing out the name of the one person in South Florida most-responsible for finding out why and how 3 former Hallandale Beach City Managers will soon be multi-millionaires with taxpayer dollars; a story that Miami Herald reporters, editors and management have completely ignored for years!

It's a damn shame that the Miami Herald's editors have once again shown their infamous tin ear for Broward County news, their terra incognita,.

In this case, by editing-out the name from their version of this past week's latest embarrassing story about Hallandale Beach in the Broward Bulldog, written by Bill Gjebre, of the one person in South Florida most-responsible for finding out why and how 3 former Hallandale Beach City Managers and other highly-paid officials will soon be multi-millionaires with taxpayer dollars.

In doing so, they do a serious dis-service to someone whose diligent unpaid hard work for two years first turned-up evidence of financial self-service by Hallandale Beach's three most-recent City Managers, ripping-off Hallandale Beach taxpayers while producing sub-standard results that we can all see around us in this small ocean-side city, HB civic activist and City Commission candidate, Csaba Kulin.

Pension plan pays off big for ex-Hallandale Beach city managers  

Hallandale Beach’s former top managers collect fat pensions from a retirement plan they pushed a decade ago

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/23/v-fullstory/3063859/pension-plan-pays-off-big-for.html  

(FYI: The above story will disappear from Herald website in a few days, unlike Broward Bulldog's website.)

Seriously, folks, whom exactly did you think gave the reams and reams of information with copious notes to the Bulldog's Bill Gjebre in the first place, to get him fully-acquainted with all the pertinent facts and figures, Joy Cooper, the notoriously thin-skinned and ethically-challenged longtime autocrat of a mayor, under whose "leadership" the city's budget has nearly doubled the past 6-8 years, with hardly anything tangible for put-upon citizen taxpayers to point to except a Wastewater Treatment facility? 

Hardly!

And it's certainly not former HB City Manager R.J. Intindola, one of the central parties under-the microscope in the article.

As I've mentioned here previously, Intindola is the smug and poison pen online blogger who lives in Georgia, far from what's actually going on here, but who acts like he's a real player in what happens here. 

He not only isn't, of course, but his name now provokes laughs in people who know that he's been spinning a spiffy PR story about himself for many, many years that is now finally getting the genuine scrutiny it deserved many years ago, and best of all, using the city's own documents.

As we say in France, touché monsieur!

Hallandale’s ex-top managers collect fat pensions from retirement plan they pushed a decade ago

By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org

October 22, 2012 at 6:23 AM

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/10/hallandales-top-managers-collect-fat-pensions-from-retirement-plan-they-pushed-a-decade-ago/

Some of you regular readers of the blog may recall this story from five months ago, in my blog post of May 19th:

Csaba Kulin exposes the multi-million dollar bill to be borne by Hallandale Beach taxpayers for having a disconnected City Commission that was -and is- NOT interested in paying close attention to detail or in asking tough questions. That's how and why former City Managers Intindola and Good have made out like bank robbers

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/csaba-kulin-exposes-multi-million.html

Which was followed-up by a large email and subsequent blog post here on Tuesday:

Thanks to Csaba Kulin's many months of diligently digging thru city records to find the truth -only some of which city had- we now know what the real cost to Hallandale Beach taxpayers has been for having an inattentive City Commission for so many years: Millions and millions of dollars for Intindola, Good & Antonio's pensions!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/as-predicted-here-months-ago-thanks-to.html

And here's the real kicker -Csaba Kulin already has the proof of the city's embarrassing "smoking gun" that kicks this story up several notches from what's written here. 

The sort that, IF Broward County had a solid and dependable local prosecutor, leads to real investigations, real grand juries and real legal consequences.

A fact that the Miami Herald seems determined to find out about -after-the-fact.

And I happen to know it, too, thanks to months of listening to Csaba connect-the-dots.

Not that the Herald's beat reporter for Hallandale Beach, Carli Teproff, ever thought to look into any of this, even though I've sent her some of the information that positively connects-the-dots, months ago, just as I sent it to the Sun-Sentinel's Tonya Alanez.

Nope, they just couldn't be bothered.

And neither could anyone else in South Florida's deservedly-maligned press corps -except Bill Gjebre of the online Broward Bulldog.

Why?

You'd have to ask Teproff and Alanez for that answer, but I have my own suspicions.

No, seriously, why don't you ask them why they weren't interested in a news story involving a city they covered that involved millions of dollars?

If I was their editor, you can be damn sure I'd be asking, but then I wouldn't work for either news paper, now would I?

Nope.

One, the Sun-Sentinel, with a pay-wall that is suffocating the newspaper and making it even more irrelevant, and the other, the Herald that plans on erecting one soon that will only hasten its likely demise. 
Not that their reflexive geographical myopia helps them any! 

(But lure existing and new customers and eyeballs to pay for what new and original content? Ah, there's the rub! What do they have to offer people dis-satisfied with the current product, more of what they dislike?)

Csaba has done what the smartest prosecutors presenting a case before a jury do -letting people hang themselves with their own words.

In this case, Csaba not only has used their own words to help paint a story, but has also used the documents these folks created, the city's own documents, to show what has been going on for years below-the-surface of Mayor Joy Cooper's economic facade on S. Federal Highway.

A city which, if you didn't already know, has a rapidly declining Reserve fund because of its continual use to balance the city's books on everyday expenses, as well as Cooper's craven crony capitalism, an economic theory that treats the city's CRA funds like an ATM for her friends and supporters.

Especially for her loyal supporters in Northwest Hallandale Beach, where do-nothing Comm. Anthony A. Sanders happily plays the role of bank teller with citizen's tax dollars or CRA funds that are supposed to end blight.

Except Sanders acts like it's his money, not ours, and he wants to be thanked for it at the ballot box in ten days. 
No, I won't be thanking you for squandering money and refusing to face HB concerned citizens in person for over three years.
Sanders & Co. needs to get the heave-ho but quick come Election Day...

Csaba penned some words on Thursday that I have included below that spell it out pretty well for all to see and chew-on, especially the very bitter supporters of Cooper, as well as longtime Commissioners Bill Julian, Dotty Ross and Sanders.

This claque of aggressively loud-mouthed and high-strung supporters, whom, as you might imagine, don't much want to let the real facts and bad judgment of their heroes interfere with their preferred alternative-version of reality, where Cooper, Julian, Ross and Sanders are just super, just like the state of the city, and it's people like myself, Csaba, Mike Butler, Keith London and others interested in reform and transparency who are keeping the city down.

Yes, the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's collection of sycophants, oddballs and ne'er do-wells, with their grand sense of entitlement, who, in order to prove their worth to their heroes, almost routinely engage in the most juvenile and almost laughable stunts imaginable, of which stealing others' campaign signs is but, I suppose, the most basic of initiations.

For a few of them who are just barely tethered to reality, though, that also includes making phony phone calls to the Police Dept. in order to try to embarrass and frame people they hate.

(I'll get to that in a few days.)

That so many elected officials who have so very much to be publicly held accountable for, as well as their flunkies, drive around town and act above the law, would be laughable if it weren't so damn objectionable and obvious.

I described it here in detail as recently as Wednesday, and I suggest you go back to that post if you don't get the full picture of what things are like.

And now, finally, here's Csaba Kulin with the latest news on this pension matter: 

I have researched Management Pension Plan for two years. I have all the documents made available to me by the city. I did not find anywhere the City Commission-approved the prior year of service before the pension plan actually started.

The plan started in 2001 and R J Intindola should be receiving 13 months plus 4 years of time purchased. That is a bit over 5 years, not almost 25 years. R J Intindola should receive his 401K retirement, which is a lot less generous, prior to 2001 years of service.

I have been looking for two years for the authorization to give credit for “back service” years.
I was not able to find it for one reason. There is none.

The City Commission approved the plan but NOT the “prior service years”. I have no proof YET but I suspect it was approved, without City Commission’s OK, by the then City Manager R J Intindola. As far as know, R J Intindola was the first beneficiary of his decision.

This is not the end of the story. Will Hallandale Beach try to “claw back” and stop paying out ill-gotten pension payments? Will the Broward Inspector General look at the issue? Will the Hallandale Beach City Commission just say “let us forget about the past and concentrate on the mistakes we will make in the future” or we are going to get to the bottom of this. I will tell you after November 6, 2012
Here is the “smoking gun” from the current City Manager.

Hello Mr. Kulin,

I apologize for the delayed response but I wanted to be 100% sure that this information as correct. The city does not have an item that speaks directly to the credit of back time. I have attached for you all the documentation associated with formal actions adopting the management pension plan for your review.

Renee C. Crichton
City Manager
City of Hallandale Beach

-----

So I ask you, in a City Manager-style form of government like Hallandale Beach has had, who do you suppose made that crucial and expensive decision years ago regarding back time?

Teaser Alert -it wasn't the cute blonde beach lifeguard from Ft. Wayne.

Think much, much higher on the food chain.

Yes, just more reasons to vote for Keith London for mayor and Csaba Kulin and Michele Lazarow for city commission instead of the faces of unethical behavior and inadequate oversight and financial accountability, who desperately want to be on the dais a month from now -Cooper, Sanders and Julian.

http://kulin2012.com/

http://michelelazarow.com/

http://keithlondon.com/