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!

Above, City of Hallandale Beach City Hall: where genuine accountability and financial oversight have been missing for so many years, which is why there is so little tangible improvement to show taxpayers in a city whose budget has nearly doubled the past 6-8 years. October 15, 2012. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

As predicted here months ago, 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!

Broward Bulldog

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

By Bill Gjebre

October 20, 2012

A short-lived, perk-laden retirement plan has paid off big for some top Hallandale Beach officials who helped set it up a decade ago – but today it’s costing city taxpayers extra millions of dollars.

Read the rest of the article at:

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

And who's running for office here in two weeks who voted to approve this financial debacle?

Yes, William "Bill" Julian, shown below on his large campaign signs on the properties of some of Julian's strongest financial campaign supporters, all real estate developers.
I think you may've heard of them!

First, a sign on the parcel owned by real estate developer Richard Shan of Shanco. This is looking north/northwest off of Old Dixie Highway between S.E. 7th and 8th Streets, across the street from the city's largest park, Bluesten Park, about three blocks south of Hallandale Beach City Hall, and two long blocks west of The Village of Gulfstream Park retail complex
on U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway.

    

Second, the Raanan Katz family behind Sunny Isles-based commercial real estate developers R.K. Centers, at multiple locations on their huge retail complexes on both sides of Hallandale Beach Blvd. east of NE 14th Avenue. 
They have lots of Julian signs all over the place.

In this example, a sign as you look north near the Layne Blvd. entrance on the north property, off of Hallandale Beach Blvd., home of Winn Dixie, Boston Market, Panera Bread, Big Lots, Starbucks, Las Vegas Cuban restaurant, et al. 
That's The Duo condo towers in the background, on the south side of the Diplomat Golf Course and Resort.

Please be sure to read my May 19th, 2012 blog post on this subject full of more specific financial numbers and context on the topic of the inattentive Joy Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew and their willful ignorance of the looming pension disaster on the horizon:

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

Yes, more reasons to vote for Csaba for City Commission two weeks from today...
http://kulin2012.com/

Long-term financials at Hollywood and Hallandale Beach City Halls are likely shakier than they appear; 'Mayor Joy Cooper: "I don’t want to adversely affect our services.” 'Since when has she concerned herself with quality of services? Quite the opposite!

“We would like [the tax rate] to be lower, but we have a lot of expenses this year,” said Mayor Joy Cooper after the commission tentatively approved the tax rate this week. “I don’t want to adversely affect our services.”

As quoted in the Miami Herald over the weekend.

To which I can only say, since when has she concerned herself with quality of services? 

Quite the opposite!

The evidence is all around you that you are NOT getting what you've paid for.

Miami Herald

Hallandale Beach residents likely will pay more in taxes  

Hallandale Beach leaders approve a tentative tax rate, which will help pay for additional city services.

By Carli Teproff

Posted June 23, 2012

With two new parks facilities and a push to increase code enforcement and maintenance, Hallandale Beach will have a lot of expenses in the coming year.

And most residents can expect to pay a little bit more in taxes to pay for it all.

So far, the City Commission is leaning toward keeping the tax rate the same as it was this year — $5.90 per $1,000 of assessed property — but with property values going up, that amounts to homeowners paying more.

For a home valued at $200,000, taking the standard $50,000 homestead exemption, the tax bill would be $885, not including school and other taxes.

The city expects to generate about $21.5 million in the 2012-2013 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. That’s up $700,000, or 3.37 percent, from this year.

“We would like [the tax rate] to be lower, but we have a lot of expenses this year,” said Mayor Joy Cooper after the commission tentatively approved the tax rate this week. “I don’t want to adversely affect our services.”

Costs are up because two new facilities, a city marina and Foster Park will come online this year, said City Manager Renee Crichton. Running the park will up costs for staff and maintenance, she said.

“The city is an excellent position financially, but we still have some challenges we are going to face long-term,” said Crichton.

Commissioner Keith London, who is running against Cooper for mayor, said he thinks the city needs to rein in its spending.

“I think the budget is too high,” said London. “I don’t think we get the value for our dollar.”

City staff has been working on a proposed budget for months now, and the work will continue through the summer. There will be two public hearings in September before the commission votes on a final tax rate.

In the meantime, commissioners said, the staff should look for ways to save money.

Also at the meeting, the commission agreed to raise fire fees by $20 to $145. By raising the fees, the city would see an additional $900,000.

-----

Earlier today, the Balance Sheet Blog in next-door Hollywood, run by Sara Case and Laurie Schecter, posted a thoughtful and important new entry that has an interesting take on the not-so-rosy long-term financial situation in Hollywood, in that despite the positive changes that were made in response to Hollywood voters overwhelmingly passing last September's referendum on city pensions, Larry Legg, an experienced and savvy CPA who's looked at all the docs you can think of, still states that the "city is still at a moderate to high level of risk of bankruptcy and/or austerity measures." 

It's well worth reading!

PENSION REFORM

July 2, 2012, 12:52 PM 

http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/pension-reform/

Did you notice that line about Unfunded Pension costs?

That particular number here in Hallandale Beach is one that you never hear mentioned or discussed, much, esp. with respect to how to dig out of that hole, but I know someone who does know exactly what those numbers are, esp. with respect to the largest share of that problem, the Police and Fire/Rescue pensions.

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you know who that person is, too: Csaba Kulin.

Trust me, I've seen the numbers myself and it will make your head explode when you see them laid bare here on the blog very soon.

In a somewhat similar vein, based on the Teproff article at the top from the Herald and the everyday experiences of Hallandale Beach taxpayers and business owners, year-after-year, here's a reasonable question for Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper that Teproff and Tonya Alanez of the Sun-Sentinel might want to ask and actually follow-up on with some examples: How many years in a row has HB used the city's reserve fund simply to balance the city's budget?

Not for legitimate unexpected emergencies, but just to balance the budget, crammed with goodies for some, esp. the professional crony capitalism class here in our small city.

Cooper and her apologists at City Hall and all over town do not want to answer that question for a very good reason.

Because the truth is NOT her friend, and neither is spreading the truth.

Later today I'm heading over to North Beach for my final photo recon for my post on a matter that I had wanted to post Friday morning, Mark A. Antonio's last day as City Manager, but which will now probably run later in the week, now that I've blown past my own deadline.

It concerns the REAL reason that the City of Hallandale Beach's Parks Master Plan meeting on South Beach wasn't held at the North Beach Community Bldg. on May 31st, despite the fact that in a normal city, one where common sense and logic do intersect once in a while, that's where it would have been held for all sorts of patently obvious reasons.

If you guess that the reason probably has something to do with the city's infamous and cumbersome bureaucracy that has consistently shown no idea what's it's actually doing, its trademark inefficiency under Good and Antonio, you'd be right.

Not so much the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing as much as the right hand NOT knowing that it actually has a left hand.

Trust me, it's yet another embarrassing, only-in-Hallandale Beach screw-up, with its usual complete disregard for the taxpayers and citizens of the community.

Yes, just like Antonio's continual disregard for us by insisting that he'd do things his way -the wrong way- even after it was made clear over-and-over in regard to all manner of policy and financial matters that the community felt 100% differently than him.

His complete inability to adapt and evolve was always his most obvious weakness since I've been living here for over eight years.

I had been planned on toasting Antonio's departure on Friday, but absent someone to capture the moment, decided that the best thing I could do was to continue to document how genuinely feckless, ineffective and disconnected to our reality he was 'til the very end.

Incompetency for which he will be rewarded with a pension the size and scope of which will shock people here when they finally see the true figures, though I have a very good idea of it now.

By the way, there's a new Public Records policy in the city.

Guess where it's NOT mentioned? 

Yes, the city's own website.

http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?NID=87

So, remind me again how come the city's IT Dept. head Ted Lamott still has a job after so many years of ineffectiveness?

Without giving too much away here, the next four months are going to be VERY BUMPY for individual City of HB Dept. heads, so very used to flying below-the-radar publicly, as I and others publicly discuss and analyze what they have done and mostly haven't done with the funds and resources they've been given, with so little oversight by our feckless Commissioners and the departing City Manager, who has been counting the hours he could leave since January 1st.

All with little tangible results to show HB taxpayers for the city's budget having nearly doubled the past six years under Mayor Cooper, the woman with so very little genuine concern about the actual quality of services delivered to taxpayers and business owners.

Yes, on miserably hot days like today, Cooper must surely be thinking a lot about her Colorado

home-away-from-home. 

I aim to do all I can the next few months to help make THAT her primary residence after November, but the real question is whether or not all the pro-reform candidates running for HB City Commission will do the same.

And if they do, will the voters here actually reject the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's eye-rolling antics, odd disconnect from reality and financial bumbling, and actually vote with their heads?
Actually give pro-reform candidates the opportunity they need to properly reform this city thru meaningful financial accountability, greater transparency and an injection of plain old common sense to get it out of its current funk?

We'll all know the answer 18 weeks from tomorrow.

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

Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Complex monument, Hallandale Beach, FL. May 15, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier

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 


Most regular readers of this blog might recall that a few weeks ago I promised that I'd soon have some pretty jaw-dropping evidence to share about what's really been going on in this ocean-side city for years, thanks to consistently having the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time.


Now, thanks to the diligent hard work and research of my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist, Csaba Kulin, the taxpayers of this city and anyone else truly interested in good government -or the lack of it- can finally wrap their heads around these galling and unbelievable numbers.


Csaba details for you in very stark terms what the true cost has been the past ten years for having elected officials in Hallandale Beach who did NOT pay close attention to detail, and who did NOT demand a reasonable level of scrutiny of public policy proposals or changes in personnel policy. 


The true costs of having so many inattentive and easily-distracted City Commissioners who did NOT ask probing questions, or make the financial well-being of this city and its taxpayers their first priority.
Instead, we've had people who were just happy to sit on the dais and almost eager to act as mere Rubber Stamps, lest they be required to do any real thinking.




Csaba and I have been talking and meeting about this particular pension change matter for many, many months.


Which is to say that even as former HB City Manager R.J. Intindola, up in Georgia, and his one-man peanut gallery in HB, Andrew Markoff, have continually sought to publicly malign and attack, in both print and at HB City Commission meetings, myself, Comm. Keith London, 
Change Hallandale's Michael Butler and many other HB residents who desperately want genuine reform, transparency and accountability in this city, I've kept quiet.


Why?
Because I had the satisfaction of already knowing that the cold hard facts were going to come out eventually, and rain hard on the three of them and Dotty Ross, Joy Cooper and William "Bill" Julian.


The truth that would show that even while South Florida's incurious news media has largely snoozed the past ten years on what was happening in Hallandale Beach, with the Miami Herald not even regularly covering public meetings in-person, facts would come out that showed how self-righteous and self-serving former City Managers Intindola and Good were.



(My Sept. 28, 2011 post titled, Holding a mirror to R.J. Intindola - May be time soon to publicly open-up on know-it-all ex-HB CM, and reveal 'inconvenient' facts he avoids really raised the hackles of former City Manager Intindola, since he doesn't like public criticism of any kind, so he accused me in print of being a liar, and thought he would embarrass me. But as you read the facts stated by Csaba below, you'll see that I was right and also see why Intindola's so sensitive -he's got a lot to be defensive about. And a lot to be embarrassed about!  

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/holding-mirror-to-rj-intindola-may-be.html )


Facts that would also show what a complete dupe Markoff was for continually singing the praises of someone like Intindola, who aggressively pushed a pension change to the City Commission one year before he retired himself, a change that he stands to personally benefit from to the tune of an extra $2.1 Million from HB taxpayers.


To paraphrase what I wrote last month on April 11th about former HB Commissioner and 2012 candidate William "Bill" Julian, "Ten years of NOT just being being wrong on the issues and facts that were important for Hallandale Beach's beleaguered  taxpayers and residents who wanted to see their city improved, but ten years of being stubbornly foolish and myopic in their bad judgment."
30 Weeks until Election Day, and candidate William "Bill" Julian STILL shows no remorse over his years of myopia, incompetency, apathy and bad votes that hurt HB taxpayers and made the city a laughingstock. Just like Comm. Sanders!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/30-weeks-until-election-day-and.html



It's taken much longer to post here than I originally planned, but I believe the wait was worth it to get the true facts out to the public who'll actually be footing this bill for decades to come.
And who will be voting in November.


-----
May 18, 2012



Dear Friends:


For a number of years, I have been very critical of the management and administration of our city of Hallandale Beach.
The Mayor and the City Commission, prompted by the City Manager, have made many terrible policy decisions over the past ten years that have put this city's residents and businesses on edge -and on the hook.


Today, I'm going to share with you a little of what I've learned and expose one of worst decisions ever made at City Hall, a decision that will continue to negatively affect the City’s finances and policy choices for the next 8-10 years.


Prior to September 30, 2001, the City of Hallandale Beach employed a 401K type pension plan for its Professional/Management employees.
On August 8, 2001, encouraged by then-City Manager R. J. Intindola, the City Manager voted to freeze the 401K retirement plan and institute a new DEFINED BENEFIT (DB) plan for the Professional/Management employees.
This policy change was entirely OPPOSITE of the direction that most entities were moving towards ten years ago.


The most damaging part of this particular conversion, not easily found in the supporting documents that were provided to me, was in the “fine print” of these ten-year old records, and here's why it's so damaging to Hallandale Beach's taxpayers and why perhaps the city has NOT made these documents so easy to access.
As they entered the new DB plan, this class of city employees kept their accumulated 401K balances.
When you start a new DB pension plan, it's generally the case that every employee starts out like a “new” employee, with ZERO years of “PRIOR YEARS SERVICE.”
Plain and simple -a new plan, ZERO years of prior service.


But NOT in Hallandale Beach!


In Hallandale Beach, every one of these professional employee started out the new DB plan not with zero, but rather with the number of years of “PRIOR YEARS SERVICE” they'd worked for the City prior to the new plan.


This one item, as best I can determine, has cost the City about $3,602,389 at its start, and the costs have only escalated over the years.
Let me illustrate the unfair and devastating financial effects of this last point by using two well-known employees as examples -former City Managers R.J. Intindola, who was the mastermind behind the new DB plan, and Mike Good.
They were two of the approximately forty (40) employees who were the major beneficiaries of this conversion.


(As an interesting side-note, the incoming HB City Manager, Renee Crichton, served as R.J. Intindola’s Assistant City Manager during the conversion period. Given her position at the time, she clearly had some degree of involvement in the entire process, but nobody on the City Commission inquired into the exact details of her involvement prior to her selection as City Manager. It was yet another missed opportunity for the HB City Commission to get the facts out to the public about the true state of its finances.)


But despite the City Commission agreeing to the very unusual step of counting past service from the start, instead of starting off with ZERO, it was not quite enough of a “gift” to the Professional/Management Employees.


Soon after the new pension plan started, “to improve morale and help recruitment”, and with the full support of City Manager Intindola, the Professional/Management employees asked the HB City Commission to improve their own pension benefits so that they matched those of the Hallandale Beach Police/Firefighters, which would mean granting full retirement benefits at age 52 for all Professional and Management Employees at City Hall.


Despite the preposterous idea of comparing working indoors at HB City Hall with the myriad duties and often risky job responsibilities performed by Police Officers or Firefighters, the HB City Commission agreed to the proposal.


R.J. Intindola worked for the City of Hallandale Beach for 20.67 years, but only one (1) year and one (1) month was under the new DB plan.
When he retired on November 9, 2002, he retired with 20.67 years of service, plus 4 years of “service buy-back”, for a total of 24.67 years of service.


With his average salary of $9,990 per month, due to these changes that he supported and which the City Commission approved, R.J. Intindola now receives $8,107 per month or $97,284 per year that he would not have otherwise received.
That includes the $200 “additional benefit” and $400 “contractual increase” per month, for good measure, until the end of his life.


He retired at age 52 and his life expectancy is 30 more years, therefore Hallandale Beach taxpayers can expect to pay him $2,918,520 (30 times $97.284).


Not too shabby for 13 months of work under the new DB pension plan he managed to shepherd thru the 2001 City Commission, which then consisted of Mayor Dotty Ross and Commissioners Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Francine Schiller.


Now you may wonder, how much would R.J. Intindola have been entitled to if he did receive that 20 years of prior service years?
He would have been entitled to one (1) year of service plus 4 years of service buy-back equal to five years of service.


The 3.2% per year multiplier would have given him $1,598 per month, plus the $600 additional per month, which comes to $26,380 per year.
That total payout is $791,424 over his lifetime, but that is still $2,127,296 less than what Intindola is now scheduled to receive because the HB City Commission approved the changes without fully considering the long-term consequences of its vote in 2001.


Mike Good worked for the City for 20 years, but when he entered the DROP program on April 1, 2005, he had only 3.5 years under the new DB plan.
He purchased 5 years of service “buyback” to get to his 25 years maximum benefit of $8,672 a month.


Let me help you with the math: that's $104,064 per year, or $3,121,920 over the next 30 years.


Three Million, One Hundred and Twenty-One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Twenty Dollars.


Mike Good should have received 3.5 plus 5, for a total of 8.5 years of prior service.
His average salary was $10,840 a month, therefore he is entitled to $2,948 a month, $35,376 per year.
That is $1,061,280 over his lifetime but is actually $2,060,640 less than what Good is actually scheduled to receive now because of the City Commission votes.


So let's do the math.


These two city employees will cost the City of Hallandale Beach and its taxpayers $4,187,936 more than than they would have cost if our 2001 City Commission of Ross, Cooper, Julian and Schiller would have been smart enough to recognize the terrible misrepresentations of City Manager R.J. Intindola and his paid co-conspirator, consultant Rocky Joiner of The Segal Company, and voted NO.


(City taxpayers paid Mr. Joiner $15,000 for this marvelous retirement option for the very people who recommended him.)


If you were to analyze the rest of the employees covered by the same Defined Benefit pension plan, including our current City Manager Mark A. Antonio, you would be amazed to see the cost of that one obscure little clause in the pension documents.


The total unearned excess cost will be well over Ten Million Dollars.


As we have all watched with increasing dismay and genuine concern what has been taking place at HB City Hall over the past few years, we've all talked many times about the law of “unintended consequences” with respect to actions and votes by the City Commission.


But in my opinion, it was NOT simply an “unintended consequence,” rather it was the intention of the direct beneficiaries of the change -former City Manager R.J.Intindola and his then-assistants- to greatly benefit themselves at the expense of all the taxpayers of Hallandale Beach.


The recent special audit performed by Marcum LLP uncovered some 260 exceptions, mostly in the CRA, but as I have often stated publicly, in my opinion, we desperately need to have an “audit” done of the City Manager’s office.
In the past ten years alone, there have been so many “exceptions” made there that one could write a book about them.


My limited look at personnel decisions made by the City Manager's Office have raised a lot of troubling questions in my own mind, and I happen to be someone who firmly believes that HB taxpayers are entitled to have honest answers to those questions, since the HB City Commission, as presently constructed, is NOT interested in providing reasonable and logical answers to taxpayer's financial questions.


Whether answers to questions about why over-sized raises were given to “special” employees, or what precisely was behind a decision to make a $400,000 settlement with a former city employee to “make someone whole” at retirement time, or many others we still do not know the full answer to.


That's NOT by accident.


Many of us in Hallandale Beach know from personal experience that getting "public" information we're legally entitled to from HB city employees -and City Hall- is like pulling teeth. And it's equally true that unless you know ahead of time precisely what it is you want, very little information is voluntarily offered.
As if that weren't frustrating enough, it frequently seems as if the city intentionally misunderstands or misdirects your questions to further frustrate you.


Though I wish that it weren't true, because it's clearly contrary to this community's best interests, I am confident that the “word” comes down from the very “top” to keep information away from the public like it's a “nuclear secret.”


Csaba Kulin

Years of Service Prior to 10-1-2001

R.J. Intindola     19.67

Mike Good        16.50

Years of Service After 10-1-2001

R.J. Intindola     1.00

Mike Good        3.50

Years of Service Purchased

R.J. Intindola     4.00

Mike Good        5.00

Total Years of Service

R.J. Intindola     24.67

Mike Good        25.00

Average Monthly Compensation

R.J. Intindola     9,989.97

Mike Good        10,840.37

Monthly Benefit (years x average compensation)

R.J. Intindola     7,886.48

Mike Godd        8,672.30

Additional Benefit

R.J. Intindola     200.00

Sub Total

R.J. Intindola     8,086.48

Mike Good        8,672.30

Pre-retirement death benefit reduction

R.J. Intindola     7,965.18

Optional form of conversion rate

R.J. Intindola     7,706.93

Contractual Increase

R.J. Intindola     400.00

Current Total Monthly Benefits

R.J. Intindola     8,106.93

Mike Good        8,672.30

Current Total Annual Benefits

R.J. Intindola     97,283.16

Mike Good        104,067.55

Current Lifetime Benefits (30 year)

R.J. Intindola     2,918,494.80

Mike Good        3,122,026.56

Corrected Monthly Benefit Should Be

R.J. Intindola     1,598.40

Mike Good        2,948.58

Additional benefits

R.J. Intindola     600.00

Total Monthly Benefits

R.J. Intindola     2,198.40

Mike Good        2,948.58

Total Annual Benefits

R.J. Intindola     26,380.74

Mike Good        35,382.97

Lifetime Benefits Should Be

R.J. Intindola     791,422.27

Mike Good        1,061,489.03

TOTAL LIFETIME OVERPAYMENT

R.J. Intindola     2,127,072.53

Mike Good        2,060,537.53

Hollywood civic activist Sara Case's spot-on take on the latest move by Eleanor Sobel, Munilytics, and the need for meaningful audits; Margaritaville

Above, looking west at Hollywood City Hall. September 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Hollywood civic activist Sara Case's spot-on take on the latest move by Eleanor Sobel, Munilytics, and the need for meaningful audits; Margaritaville

As a follow-up to my blog post of Monday titled, Pol who wanted -and got- Hollywood taxpayers to pay $30k for her new FL State Senate office in 2009 now asks FL legislature for audit of Hollywood!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/pol-who-wanted-and-got-hollywood.html

I strongly suggest you read Sara's perspective on the rather-sudden concern shown by FL State Sen. Eleanor Sobel -who represents me as well in Tallahassee- on city spending and expenditures at Hollywood City Hall.

Sara also explains what the much-discussed Munilytics report did and DIDN'T say, since there seems to be a great deal of not only genuine confusion by some Hollywood residents about its representations, but also, sadly, some intentional misrepresentation being floated about by supporters of the Hollywood Police, Fire/Rescue Dept. union members who are SORE LOSERS about Hollywood voters rejecting their arguments in last month's referendum on government pensions.

They keep wanting to fight the battle but the war is over -they lost.

I know because many of these same people have written me angry emails, thinking that I'd post whatever they said about the Hollywood CRA and its spending and legality, regardless of what sort of mis-information they attempted to peddle, perhaps assuming that I didn't know the facts.

That was their mistake.

I've been to more Hollywood CRA meetings and workshops than 99.99% of Hollywood residents.

Hell, I not only posted the information about the pre-bid information workshops here on the blog but also posted the city's public notices here so that more residents and concerned people would show-up for the meetings and get educated about what was and was not happening.

I even wrote here about who some of the candidates were to be the new CRA chief under the newly-restructured organizational chart when the Herald, Sun-Sentinel and local TV stations were completely ignoring it.

(In case you didn't know, Jorge Camejo is the CRA Executive Director.)

I not only took notes but videotaped the meetings to make sure that my notes were correct and so that I was ready in case somebody said or did something of note, good or bad, whether Mayor Bober, the City Commissioners, city staff, the public or the competing developers for the six-acre Johnson Street project at Hollywood Beach and The Broadwalk, that was ultimately won by the Jimmy Buffett-themed Margaritaville, despite my own preference for The Hard Rock proposal as a concept and tourism magnet, however imperfect that was.

I didn't stop attending once Margaritaville's won the bid unanimously despite my own reservations about it.

Yet despite this, I received emails from people who clearly DIDN'T do their homework and thought I'd just pass along their nonsense that failed both the common sense and smell test.

Sorry, no sale.

-----

Balance Sheet Blog

STATE SENATOR’S AUDIT

October 4, 2011, 2:33 PM

Filed under: Budget, City Commission

State Senator Sobel – who in 2009 sought and was granted a $30,000 interest-free, non-recourse loan from the City of Hollywood to renovate 5,000 square feet of office space for her use – has suddenly expressed great concern with the City’s finances. She’s requested that the State of Florida audit Hollywood’s finances and her request has been granted.

Read the rest of Sara's post at:

http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/state-senators-audit/

For more examples of that often-inaccurate, anti-Hollywood CRA mis-information being pushed that I noted above, see some of the reader comments to this article:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Margaritaville resort brings optimism to Hollywood Beach

By Carli Teproff, The Miami Herald

12:00 a.m. EDT, October 5, 2011

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-margaritaville-resort-hollywood-20111005,0,3194149.story

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/04/2437130/future-resort-brings-optimism.html

On the eve of Hollywood's referendum on city pensions, everyone thinks they're entitled to their own facts, esp. the city's Union employees

On the eve of Hollywood's referendum on city employee pensions, contrary to what former diplomat, Harvard professor and U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, everyone around here really DOES think that they're entitled to their own facts, and that's no more so the case then with the City of Hollywood's many embittered Police and Fire employees.

Yes, the very same folks who've nursed a variety of petty grudges for years and who firmly believe that Hollywood's beleaguered taxpayers DON'T properly understand them or appreciate them enough -or pay them enough.

And if you didn't already know it, not only are many of them high-maintenance, but a sizable percentage of them have a grand sense of entitlement, or, alternatively, live in a warped version of reality that borders on over-the-top.

Sorry, you're NOT Pullman train porters getting the shaft from the big-wigs!

Speaking of over-the-top, to say nothing of creepy, one policewoman in particular, Hollywood Police Detective Stephanie Szeto, shows very clear signs of suffering a persecution complex.
That is, if we can believe what SHE SAYS HERSELF.

But not every taxpayer in this part of southeast Broward County is rolling-over for the Hollywood cops and firemen and their tales of financial woe.
Some people can STILL distinguish fact and fiction.

That is, if this excerpt of a communication I had with an upset Hollywood resident and blog reader a week ago is any guide.
As if speaking to these very same City of Hollywood employees, he stated,

"My wife and I don't go to work in the morning so that Hollywood city employees like you can retire before you're age 50, and leave us on the hook for another 30 years. Sorry, we're just not.
You're going to have to work longer and harder before you buy that second home in North Carolina. Or, start making better investments..."

A few weeks ago in one of her articles on the upcoming referendum -actually, to be factual, I believe it was written before it was a definite thing- the Miami Herald's Carli Teproff made what I thought at the time was a real blunder, the sort of blunder that is not uncommon after reporters take over new beats, and want to give the impression they are up to to speed on what's going on, and sometimes, that includes their repeating what they have heard elsewhere, assuming it's true.

Teproff took over the City of Hollywood beat after largely but not exclusively covering K-12 education.

(Teproff previously covered North Miami Beach -NMB- the city my two younger sisters and I largely grew-up in. As I've written here previously, she wrote some pretty devastating pieces on the rampant corruption and ethical minefield there on N.E. 19th Avenue/Victory Park, a place I lived just south of in 1969, age eight, when that part of NMB was very different then now. That was one year pre-Don Shula for those of you who need a better time approximation.)

In that article, without citing any specifics or sources, she stated that because the percentage of voters participating was likely to be low -which is true- Hollywood city employees living in the city could very well tip the final vote.
But she did so in a way that seemed to imply that Hollywood actually has more city employees living there than the average South Florida city does, even while providing no hard numbers or percentages.

It was stated as if it was just common knowledge, but among people I know and trust in Hollywood, who know the city's political history and context better than me, they also found that an odd thing to say without any support.

But is Hollywood really the home of city employees to a larger extent than other Broward cities, save perhaps Ft. Lauderdale, the largest city?
I think not.

For your edification on the employee pension issue being decided Tuesday, I'd like you to compare and contrast the difference in tone between two recent Hollywood-based blog postings I've read. It's rather instructive.
Some, like me, would even say "Night-and-Day" as Hoosier-native Cole Porter might as well -and did.

The first blog post, at Balance Sheet Blog, http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/, written and edited by Sara Case and Laurie Schecter, gets the benefit of the doubt from most well-informed people in the community -including myself- because it's been observing the goings-on at Hollywood City Hall in-person for years, writing about what's going on there -good and bad- appropriately critiquing/complaining long-and-loud when it was necessary, and doing so with great specificity and a reliance on facts about bad public policy, insular thinking, questionable votes, et al.

Last Monday, they posted this:

Balance Sheet Online
Pension Referendum – Sept. 13
September 5, 2011, 9:24 PM

HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL ELECTION – IMPORTANT – SAVE JOBS!

WHAT: Pension Referendum
WHEN: Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011

This is no time for voter apathy. Our city has a budget crisis that could lead to bankruptcy. As a partial solution, the referendum proposes reducing future pension benefits for members of each of the three unions in city government: General Employees, Police, and Firefighters. These reductions would save the City some $8.5 million and set the City on a more sustainable course for the future.

Note: the referendum would not touch any pension benefits employees
have earned to date; only future benefits would be subject to new
rules if the referendum passes.

The second post on Tuesday's referendum appeared Monday morning at a newer blog that never existed until last month called City of Hollywood Whistle Blower, subtitled, "Drawing a line in the sand."
I have no idea who or what is behind it because they never identify themselves.

I draw your attention to the fact that many of the reader comments are directed against the one elected official in the city who was sounding an alarm many years ago for city taxpayers about Police and Fire pensions eating up a disproportionate share of city spending, spending that would only increase unless modified: Hollywood Comm. Beam Furr, a high school teacher.

It's hardly a secret that the Hollywood Police and Fire unions -i.e Jeff Marano and Daniel Martinez respectively- have had it out for Comm. Furr for many years, seemingly, since I moved back to South Florida from the D.C. area in 2003.

This animus by the Police and Fire unions against Furr is so well-known that, well, yes, even the Miami Herald has been forced to publicly mention the subject time-after-time on the front page of their awful State & Local section, including mentioning the unions' attempts to embarrass school teacher Furr on the issue of ethics.

If I recall correctly, and I could be slightly off, they were upset that Furr used one of his school sick days or vacation days on an Election Day campaigning.
Yeah, not exactly scintillating, hard-boiled film noir material.

As IF no union employee in Hollywood had ever taken advantage of his or her accrued days for a reason like going to a Miami Heat playoff game or Miami Dolphin Monday Night Football game or a day-trip to The Bahamas.
Please!

Yes, this call for an investigation came from the same union crews that have long defended and tolerated the tactics and hot-headed behavior of some of the worst rogue cops in all of Florida, whose nefarious and mendacious exploits the people in Hollywood and South Florida have all seen and read about in the newspaper and on TV newscasts after they were finally arrested.

Or, in case you forgot, tried to frame an innocent woman for something that was actually the fault of one of their fellow officers.
Oh, you thought I forgot that?
Hardly.

http://cohblwr.blogspot.com/2011/09/we-would-like-to-thank-our-residents.html#comments

In particular, I draw your attention to the absurd comments of Stephanie Szeto, a Hollywood Police detective -a fact not mentioned in her comments but easily discovered- who manges to show what an insensitive dumb-ass she is by comparing herself to a victim of physical abuse.
This, despite our forever hearing and reading about and being lectured by the news media on the dangers of fanciful exaggerations diminishing the real meaning of certain words and phrases.

(You know, like Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper foolishly saying that she felt like her privacy was "raped" because someone -my friend Michael Butler of Change Hallandale- did a public records request on her email records, which was the story behind this November 2009 column by the Sun-Sentinel's Michael Mayo.)

For your consideration, from the upside-down mind of Hollywood Police Detective Stephanie Szeto:

I am sorry that we residents have had to accept this outright intimidation from these people. They have met the criminal definitions of thieves and blackmailers. I hate to ask what is next. Sadly I have to take the cuts as an employee and the tax hikes as a resident.

I feel like a victim in a violent and abusive relationship...

Then, as if she realizes that her example is as over-the-line as it sounds on its face, Szeto allows as how "I've investigated many domestic violence cases."

Oh, then I guess it's okay for you to equate your status as a city employee in the year 2011 to a woman who has been beaten black-and-blue in a criminal act.

Hey, Keystone Kop Szeto, didn't you understand the part where you could always just quit your job?

Do whatever the hell you wanted?
Quit without being hunted down?

Note to self: if Szeto is fired as a result of this referendum going down, make sure that the City of Hallandale Beach Police Dept. does NOT hire her.
They already have more than enough morale and management problems of their own -and how!- without adding someone with a persecution complex.

And I end this blog post of mine with more sheer nonsense from Szesto, who concluded her dalliance in public therapy-cum-political theater in that blog today:

I think I must begin to find a way out of this abusive relationship and
seek shelter and a way to end this relationship for my own health and well being.

To which I simply say, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out the door!