Showing posts with label public records requests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public records requests. Show all posts

Thursday, August 1, 2013

More troubling news re the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal and the curious conduct of Mayor Joy Cooper re FL's Sunshine Laws and public records, which further makes the case for why we need the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) to get involved and perform a thorough audit of the HB CRA ASAP

Above and below, looking north on south-bound U.S.-1/South Federal Highway towards Hallandale Beach City Hall, July 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.


Taken within the context of a sweltering South Florida summer -above via a heat map photo- that's often robbed us of our desire to live in South Florida full-time, or at least get into our car any time after its been sitting in a parking lot under a brutal and unforgiving sun for hours on end, for fear of our skin melting, and literally having the life sucked out of us after opening the door, today is a real red letter day at the blog.

The reason for that is that we have some genuine positive news to share with you all courtesy of Tom Lauder that actually advances the narrative that is the continuing drip-drip-drip scandal of the Hallandale Beach CRA, and what has gone on in this city the past ten years.

Not just the public policy scandal of all the wasted time and squandered opportunities to actually do the right thing in this city to actually eliminate blight and improve the area economically in a way that's actually tangible, which is a scandal of sorts, of course, but the larger financial one that directly led to millions of dollars going out the door with near-zero scrutiny and oversight by the very people at Hallandale Beach City Hall who were supposed to provide it on behalf of the citizens, taxpayers and small business owners of this city.
But who didn't.
Year-after-year.

I sent the following out as an email this afternoon because it helps to tie together more information about those mysterious text messages between Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, HB City Manager Renee C. Miller and the mayor's pal and Broward lobbyist, Judy Stern, and their attempts to prevent an audit of the HB CRA from taking place via County Auditor Evan Lukic's office.
It also helps connects-the-dots more on how the city's elected officials and administrators handle public record requests that get a little too close for comfort.

Rather than name every official I sent it to like I have sometimes in the past, let's just say that this time I've sent it to a wider variety of people than usual here and up in Tallahassee -and points-in-between- as well as some of the leaders of the Florida State Senate and members of the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, the latter of whom many of us in this city are counting on to get us the truth we've long been denied.
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My comments are after this very timely article by Tom Lauder.

Media Trackers Florida
Hallandale Beach Mayor Fails to Report Texts to Lobbyist During Meeting
By Tom Lauder
July 31, 2013
Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper exchanged multiple text messages with controversial lobbyist Judy Stern during a June 4 government meeting but did not log the messages on a lobbyist contact report as required by state law.
Earlier this spring, Hallandale Beach residents asked the Broward County Commission for assistance after a Broward County Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation “identified numerous instances of gross mismanagement that stemmed from institutional deficiencies in the establishment, organization and function of the CRA [Community Redevelopment Agency].” Some of the residents raising concerns included Hallandale Beach Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://mediatrackers.org/florida/2013/07/31/hallandale-beach-mayor-fails-to-report-texts-to-lobbyist-during-meeting

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August 1, 2013

I wanted to let you all know today that since I sent a formal request to the City of Hallandale Beach six weeks ago, it is refusing to fulfill my Public Records Request and comply with Florida's Sunshine Laws in providing me with all the text messages between Broward lobbyist Judy Stern and HB Mayor Joy Cooper and HB City Manager Renee C. Miller in their lengthy efforts to prevent Hallandale Beach residents from getting the true facts.

This, even as the three of them lobbied Broward County Commissioners and staff, including County Administrator Bertha Henry on this matter, to prevent a thorough audit of the Hallandale Beach CRA via the Office of Broward Auditor Evan Lukic.
A thorough audit that HB residents desperately want so they will finally know precisely what really happened to millions of dollars.

I was told Wednesday in-person by HB City Clerk Sheena James, prior to the city's CRA Budget Workshop, that the city would be unable to comply with my request because, rather conveniently, they say their phone carrier -that is, AT&T, the carrier who is paid tens of thousands of dollars every year by Hallandale Beach taxpayers for telephone services used by Hallandale Beach elected officials and staffers-DON'T have to provide requested public records without a court order, even if the parties 'owning' the phones request them.

Personally, I think HB City Hall is laughing at the idea of their being able to successfully thwart my honest efforts to get to the truth on this matter, and get my hands on public records that I have strong reason to believe contain some very incriminating comments by the three of them, possibly, even about me.

When I brought this up during my three minutes to speak prior to the actual meeting, I specifically mentioned that HB citizens would be very interested in hearing from CRA Attorney Stephen Zelkowitz in the future on why the city doesn't simply log those messages in a timely fashion, since it seems clear to me that the city is using the carrier as a buffer to not comply with legitimate Public Records Requests, and that in any event, there will be requests by
someone at some future point for text messages, since they are public records, so the city better figure out what they were going to do to comply with the law.

After I returned to my seat, Mayor Cooper then responded in a semi-sarcastic manner that she only wishes she could get access to all those messages (Of hers!)

I was not amused, chiefly because I know the truth is that she does NOT want those messages being made public.
In any case, Mayor Cooper then went on to say, rather tellingly, that those text messages between herself, lobbyist Stern and HB City Manager Miller, regarding their efforts to thwart an audit, were "private."

No, those text messages about the City of Hallandale Beach and its CRA were and are public records that I'm legally entitled to see under Florida's Sunshine Laws.
But that callous and condescending response of hers shows you the caliber of the individual that the beleaguered citizens of this town are dealing with, in that Mayor Cooper is someone who has repeatedly shown in the past that she will use any means necessary to thwart both the spirit and the letter of  Florida's Sunshine Laws -even to the point of suing a HB citizen-
and she continues to do so today.

You may also be interested in knowing that Wednesday night at the HB CRA Budget Workshop, where city management employees out-numbered actual residents in the room by a factor of 12:1, I told the assembled CRA Board of Directors and the CRA Executive Director (City Manager), along with the city's various Dept. heads a fact I had already shared with some
Broward County Commissioners and well over a hundred other interested parties before and after that June 4th meeting mentioned in the article above.

To wit, despite the fact that the Broward Inspector General's final report was issued months ago, the city has refused to place a link to the report or the city's  own response to it on the city's website for residents, taxpayers and small business owners to read for themselves.

But because HB City Manager Renee C. Miller and CRA Attorney Stephen Zelkowitz were going to be speaking at that June 4th County Commission meeting against the request by HB Commissioner Michele Lazarow and former HB Comm. Keith London, and thought that it was important for the County Commission to be able to see and review them, they transmitted
both, so Broward County actually had links to both on their agenda for the meeting.

So, Broward County was given the information that the city has refused to provide its own citizens on the city's website, even though the city's taxpayers and the CRA paid the legal fees in the official city response, as well as for Zelkowitz to appear at the Broward County Commission.
So we can pay for all of that but we can't see it on the website that we're also paying for.
That's how things are done here, and it's not by accident.

Yes, the Broward OIG report that characterized as "gross mismanagementthe performance of the City of Hallandale Beach officials to describe what they found when funds are given to people and groups in this city without anyone actually EVER following-up and checking to see what actually happened to the CRA funds, or even whether they were actually used for the purpose they'd been proposed for in the original application.
Yes, HB City Hall operated on the honor system with all that money.

People and groups that claimed to be non-profits but who weren't according to the IRS, and who didn't file required documents, and yet who were quite content to not properly disclose all sorts of relevant basic information, even while they strongly resisted almost all attempts at basic transparency to the  citizens of this community, or to the public at large.

Now you know why the concerned residents of this city so desperately want the Florida JLAC to perform a thorough audit that will tell us the truth, since the very people at HB City Hall who are supposed to be providing responsible oversight of the HB CRA are also the people almost entirely responsible for the mess it's in, and the great loss of confidence the community has in City Hall's ability to perform even simple tasks honestly, ethically and competently.

Yet these people, like Mayor Cooper, are also the one who are trying their best to keep the public in the dark about the facts as long as possible thru intentional obfuscation, needless finger-pointing and serial misrepresentation.
And the community saw another perfect example of that very thing last night, as if we needed another reminder.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, and please DO let me know when a decision is made regarding JLAC's future intentions on this important public policy matter to Hallandale Beach's VERY frustrated citizens.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Broward Judge Patti Englander Henning strikes YET again! Same judge who foolishly took Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's side in her/city's lawsuit against Michael Butler over his Public Records requests; the Oral Brown case


View Larger Map
Broward County Courthouse, 201 S.E. 6th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Broward Circuit Couty Judge Patti Englander Henning strikes YET again! Same judge who took Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's side in her/city's lawsuit against Michael Butler over Public Records requests
In case you forgot, Greater Ft. Lauderdale Convention & Vistors Bureau Director Nicki Grossman's sister, Patti Englander Henning, is the Broward judge who ruled that HB Mayor Joy Cooper's use of private email to conduct city business was a-okay, contrary to both common sense and Florida's Constitution.
She's nothing if not consistent in her approach to justice, as this new story makes quite clear.


Earlier Tuesday night, in an email about this very matter, I wrote that the judge would be on the ballot for retention in November, but I later came to find out that she is on the bench until 2015.
Damn the luck!


Please read this first before reading the South Florida Times story from last week, which I only came across Tuesday night:


BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Judge Patti Henning Strikes Again
By Bob Norman 
October 27 2009 at 3:21 PM
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/10/judge_patti_henning_and_mayor_joy_cooper.php




South Florida Times
JUDGE’S ROLE IN MAN’S "HOG-TYING" DEATH CASE CRITICIZED
Written by Elgin Jones  
Friday, 13 April 2012
FORT LAUDERDALE — A lawsuit over the death of a Lauderhill motorist more than 10 years ago at the hands of Broward Sheriff’s deputies and paramedics remains active in the courts and the actions of a judge in the case are being called into question.
Read the rest of the article at: 
http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9707&Itemid=331


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For those of you who are somewhat new to the blog and who never read this excellent Bob Norman piece in the NewTimes when it first came out in 2007, or when I have linked to it here, I suggest you take a hard look and get some more insight into Mayor Cooper's volatile temperament, constant desire to get her way and willingness to use the city's resources to get what she wants for her part of the city, as opposed to what's best for the whole community, and to get a sense of the judge's apparent tendency to ignore the state's laws in order to rule how she wants -they're like twins!- read this:


BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Storming the Castle
Hallandale Beach and a Broward judge are trying to drive a man from his home
By Bob Norman
August 23, 2007

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2007-08-23/news/storming-the-castle/

Friday, March 30, 2012

Michael Mayo offers up latest proof that while Broward State Attorney Mike Satz continues sleeping on the job, Florida's Sunshine Laws are meaningless for Florida's citizens; Keith Poliakoff makes like Icarus -nose-dive!



Michael Mayo offers up latest proof that while Broward State Attorney Mike Satz continues sleeping on the job, Florida's Sunshine Laws are meaningless for Florida's citizens; Keith Poliakoff makes like Icarus -power-dive!

How completely unsurprising to discover that the heavy-hand in this ridiculous matter belongs to Keith Poliakoff. Someone, perhaps a family member or friend I suppose, once thought he was so important, so very important, that 'someone' created an entry for him on Wikipedia.

Now even if you are reading this from somewhere in South Florida, much less, somewhere else in the U.S or overseas, you're probably asking yourself, "Why would a Broward County-based lobbyist and mouthpiece for land developers, and the city attorney of insignificant SW Ranches, a town that 99% of South Florida would never have a reason to visit, merit an entry in Wikipedia?"
Why indeed!

Well, it turns out that he didn't merit one, because they yanked that entry after someone paying close attention to what goes on around Broward County, invoked a Wiki rule that the entry "Doesn't indicate importance or significance of a real person."

Whoever you are who sent up that flare so that Keith Poliakoff, like Icarus, could be brought back down to earth with a thud, thank you on behalf of people who are on the front-lines of Florida's Sunshine Laws, even while most of the people drawing a government salary who are supposed to be helping us are sleeping on the job!
Tack sa mycket!


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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Southwest Ranches shouldn't be rewarded for thwarting Sunshine Law
Activist's attempt to photograph records turns into $17,000 legal headache
Michael Mayo, Sun Sentinel Columnist
7:54 PM EDT, March 28, 2012

How's this for outrageous: A town violates a citizen's rights and Florida's public records law, then goes after the victim for $17,000 in legal costs after a judge dismisses the aggrieved citizen's lawsuit.

It's a chilling tale, one that should concern anyone who cares about freedom and good government.

"We're gonna lose our country if this stuff is allowed to stand," Southwest Ranches resident Bill Di Scipio told me.

Much coverage has focused on the pittance Di Scipio sued for: $1.25, the amount he grudgingly paid for eight photocopies after his lawful bid to snap his own iPhone photos of public records was halted by the town clerk last October. Florida's public records law clearly allows files that are open for inspection to be photographed.

Thus Di Scipio's lawsuit, filed in November. He had formed a group opposing a proposed federal immigration detention center in his small town on Broward's western fringe. He said he's encountered roadblocks and delays trying to gather information. Like many activists, he can be passionate and pushy.

This month, Broward Circuit Judge John Murphy dismissed the lawsuit. Di Scipio said he plans to appeal. The town argued the clerk's actions became moot when it belatedly agreed that Di Scipio could photograph the records.

A few weeks ago, town attorney Keith Poliakoff said Southwest Ranches would seek to recover $20,000 in legal fees from Di Scipio. Poliakoff said in this case the prevailing side can bill the loser for costs.

"It should serve as a lesson: don't sue unless you have a case," Poliakoff said.

But to me, the town seems to be delivering a more sinister message: If you dare fight city hall, you might have to pay dearly.

"It's harassment and intimidation," said John McKnight, Di Scipio's attorney.

On Wednesday, Poliakoff said the amount might be around $17,000, with a "few thousand" in hard costs like filing fees and court reporters, but he didn't provide a detailed breakdown. The final amount will be set by the judge.

I'm still scratching my head how there's such a big bill on a small case that never went to trial. It took me less than an hour to read the case file; the town's dismissal motion was seven pages. Poliakoff said his lawyers spent a lot of time reading Di Scipio's website.

I requested a fee breakdown from Poliakoff, but didn't hear back. The town took depositions from Di Scipio's wife and another activist. An attorney for Corrections Corp. of America, which wants to build the detention center, sat in on one deposition.

"They were asking for things that had nothing to do with my case — they wanted the source code for our website," Di Scipio said. "They were raping us for information."

Said Poliakoff: "That's what discovery is — a fishing expedition for anything we can use in a defense. He's the one who sued."

Di Scipio said he sued so the town would "stop playing games" with public records law. Poliakoff said the town didn't violate anyone's rights and called the suit "frivolous."

I call the outcome dangerous. Southwest Ranches initially thwarted the law. It shouldn't be rewarded for it.

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The Official Anti-Mike Satz website: http://www.mikesatz.com/

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Csaba Kulin on City of Hallandale Beach's upside-down understanding of FL's Sunshine Laws, their pattern of intimidation re Public Records Requests; the city's abject failure in providing timely info on CRC meetings for the ENTIRETY of its existence -6 months

Csaba Kulin on City of Hallandale Beach's upside-down understanding of FL's Sunshine Laws, their pattern of intimidation re Public Records Requests; the city's abject failure to provide timely info on CRC  meetings for the ENTIRETY of its existence -6 months!
Below is an especially useful email from my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach and Broward activist Csaba Kulin which he first wrote back on September 2, 2011. I had meant to post it here shortly after he originally wrote it, but having failed to do that, in looking at it again, I think it provides a very good window for many of you to better understand the daily frustration felt by Hallandale Beach residents with respect to longstanding problems in how this city is managed -mismanaged- in so many, many areas.
Even ones that you would think would NOT be controversial.

This despite the claims that the city is ship-shape by those running things at HB City Hall, whether elected officials or highly-paid city employees, like some of the Assistant City Managers, who make $200k in salary and benefits, even while taxpayers wonder what they're actually doing to earn it, given that the city remains a morass, with low morale to match.
Yes, Assistant City Managers pulling THAT in a city of under 40,000 residents.


Csaba's email concerns how this small ocean-side city REALLY operates, and frequently attempts to use all manner of  obfuscation and intimidation to prevent citizens and other interested parties from gaining access to information they are legally entitled to, including, as I've demonstrated here a few times in the past thru personal experience, via email responses with City Hall with inflated and absurd costs for actually providing the PUBLIC INFORMATION, in an attempt to dissuade residents from actually filing.

Csaba's email is to the then-extant Hallandale Beach Charter Review Committee, whose meetings he either attended or watched religiously, gets to his troubling concerns with  the process the City of Hallandale Beach uses to dodge legitimate public discussion and force citizens and other interested parties to file Public Records Requests as a means to silence critics, esp. at public meetings, literally trying to starve them for information.

This often happens when elected officials and city employees are discussing a subject and claim NOT to know the answers they clearly do know, but are reluctant to make them public, for whatever reason.

This is made worse, of course, by a corrosive culture at HB City Hall that completely has it upside-down regarding government in the Sunshine, given that elected officials like Comm. Dotty Ross have felt free to chastise members of the public even BEFORE they can walk up to the microphone to ask their questions, in that case, Csaba himself.


More recently, we have the case of Comm. Alexander Lewy, who publicly steamed-up up on the dais during a City Commission meeting when someone spoke up to say that they were STILL waiting for requested answers from the city, and then Lewy showed bad judgment and lack of self-awareness by commenting publicly that he wanted to know why the citizen of his own city wanted it.
Really.


Instead of taking his oversight responsibility seriously, and asking/directing the City Manager to crack the whip and figure out why this continues to be such a problem, Lewy "killed the messenger." 

In that case, it was longtime Halandale Beach resident and civic activist Dr. Judy Selz, one of the most-respected and civic-minded citizens in this community who was outlining her difficulty in gaining information that she had a Constitutional RIGHT to.


See my previous post of on Dr. Selz here, Dr. Judy Selz zeroes-in on wasteful city spending, angering Comm. Lewy; Keith London's take on Hallandale Beach City Comm. meeting of Dec, 7 2011

This sad and pathetic moment not only highlighted how very short of the mark Comm. Lewy has been in office for the 15 months since he defeated sitting Comm. William "Bill Julian, coming in second to Comm. Keith London for the two seats that were up in November of 2010 -you regular readers of the blog will recall that I consistently urged you in the strongest terms to NOT trust or believe Lewy back then, lest you be greatly disappointed by what you had wrought, a phony- compared to his grand promises of being a fully-engaged reformer if elected, but also shows one of the great aspects of Florida's Sunshine Laws that make up the state Constitution.

That is, in this state, citizens are NOT required to have to persuade elected officials or city bureaucrats of the importance or significance or reason for their PUBLIC INFORMATION request in order to receive it.
You'd think an elected official like Lewy would know better than that after more than a year in office.

The second part of this email which is noteworthy is its description of the city's COMPLETE LACK OF EFFORT to keep the promise made by City Manager Mark A, Antonio at the very first CRC meeting -a meeting I personally attended, being one of the two people in the audience in July- to make sure that background information was readily available on the CRC web page on the city's website so that citizens could watch CRC meetings on TV or via streaming and be able to see what was being reviewed and and discussing, so citizens could keep up.

Though Csaba wrote the email in September, it was just as true in October, November and December, since it was NOT until January of this year, weeks after the CRC submitted their final recommendations to the City Commission just days before Christmas, that Hallandale Beach citizens could see any of the information.
Once the CRC no longer existed!

You tell me, what good was it after-the-fact? Exactly.

That's how the public process works here in Hallandale Beach under the current crew at City Hall.
It doesn't, it only pretends to operate in the Sunshine and be competent and efficient.
It's all pretense, a charade.


That's why we need big changes here in Hallandale Beach when election time comes in November, just 33 weeks away.

Trust me, given their disastrous voting records against the best long-term interests of this city's taxpayers, their  complete lack of effort to provide genuine oversight, and consistently oblivious feeling for what's really going on in this city while serving on the HB City Commission, Anthony A. Sanders and William "Bill" Julian, have absolutely failed to earn the trust or respect of the WHOLE community, and do NOT deserve another chance to keep the status quo Rubber Stamp Crew of Joy Cooper in charge, ruining this city's future.
They need to be rejected in November in the strongest possible terms.

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From: Csaba Kulin
Sent: Fri 9/2/2011 12:47 PM
Subject: CRC - Sept. 2, 2011

 Dear Charter Review Committee Members,

After two months of your existence I cannot find any information about your committee on the city's web site so I have to use only the names of the members I had some previous contact with. In my future correspondence if you like me to add the names of the rest of members, delete the name of some of the members or use a different e-mail address, please let me know.

During your last meeting, you mentioned the lack of interest of the residents in the work of the Committee. To some extent you are right but the lack of information available on the city's web site and the summer season can explain some of it. If you add to it the general belief of the residents that your recommendations can be and will be ignored by the City Commission, it is difficult to get real exited. I am an optimist, I will follow your meetings. I hope that you save the more important issues like districting, FOIA, recall any elected official and others for October, when most of our residents return from summer vacation.

During your August 31, 2011 meeting you talked about the City Clerk and his/her responsibility to honor public record requests. In my opinion, timeliness is an issue but there are bigger issues than that. Intimidation and the lack of co-operation are more important.

If I go the City Clerk and I request some information I have good reason to be "public record", the Clerk should have the following options:
*       I should be provided that information as is
*       "Black out" part of the record that is not public record
*       Deny the request with explanation (pending law suit, not in existence etc).

If I am not happy with explanation, I have a right to go to court and sue. As far as I know, in one case (09-22405 (03)) just the opposite happened. HB decided to sue the resident using the resources of the City instead of just "denying" the request. Of course the resident had to use his money to defend himself. The the way I look at it, this intimates me and many other residents.

Lack of co-operation comes in when I request some public record but I do not have the exact name of the items I requested. The City may call it a different name or give an extremely high cost for the request without proper explanation or ways to deduce the costs.

I hope you get a chance to read my e-mail prior to this afternoon's meeting.

Sincerely,

Csaba Kulin

Monday, August 8, 2011

When cities use taxpayers' money to pick winners & losers; Follow-up to my Public Records Request of July 22, 2011 to the City of Hallandale Beach

When cities use taxpayers' money to pick winners & losers; Follow-up to my Public Records Request of July 22, 2011 to the City of Hallandale Beach
This continues the tale of my email request of July 22, 2011 and subsequent blog post of July 26th titled, simply enough, Public Records Request of July 22, 2011: Debra Brown; Zamar, Inc.; Josh Brown; Lampkin’s Creative Arts 4 All; Joseph A. "Joe" Gibbons
I wrote and emailed my response to the city exactly a week ago today after getting something that in my opinion was completely non-responsive, and thinking that it was better to wait a while before sharing this with all of you, I've patiently bided my time.
But a week is long enough to keep you all in the dark, so now you'll know what's what.
Since I wrote this a week ago, thanks to concerned and well-informed friends, other upset HB residents and even some officials not from HB -elected and otherwise- I've learned even more troubling information, much of which I hope to share with you in this space in the near future.
Troubling, that is, if you are someone like me who believes that the city's own written rules and procedures must be followed whenever possible by everyone, not just some people.
Troubling if you believe as I do that the Hallandale Beach City Commission and the City Manager -past, present and future incarnations- should NOT be in the business of making excuses for those who consciously refuse to follow the rules or be entirely transparent with the public, whether applicants or city employees, when it comes to the use of taxpayer funds. Sunshine is almost always the best disinfectant!
Most of all, troubling , if you believe as I do that neither the elected City Commission or un-elected City Manager should be in the business of picking and choosing economic winners and losers in this community with taxpayers funds.

Crony capitalism as it has been practiced and honed to-a-T in Hallandale beach since Joy Cooper became mayor ten years ago, is NOT good for Hallandale Beach taxpayers, residents and business owners.
It's our money they're giving away, not their own.

For more on that subject of elected officials in Broward picking winners and losers with taxpayers' money, see the spot-on July 11th article by the Sun-Sentinel's Megan O'Matz and Georgia East following my response below.

-----

Chris Talmadge
City Clerk's Office
City of Hallandale Beach
400 S. Federal Highway
Hallandale Beach, FL 33009
August 1, 2011
Mr. Talmadge:
I find your official response to be my Public Records Request of July 22nd to be completely inadequate and borderline mendacious, besides just plain unresponsive.
In your so-called response, you do NOT provide me with any cost breakdown by individual item/request as I submitted it to you, something anyone would reasonably expect to see on any kind of invoice or bill, leaving me in no position to know whether I should do one or two items versus another, or none,
Or, frankly, whether you are simply trying to prevent me from getting the information I have a right to by intentionally sandbagging me thru vagueness.
1.) Debra Brown (a.k.a. Dr. Deborah R. Brown)
2.) Zamar, Inc.
3.) Josh Brown
4.) Lampkin’s Creative Arts 4 All, (a.k.a Lowell Lampkin)
5.) Joseph "Joe" Gibbons
I know for a fact that the funding two years ago for #2 Zamar, Inc., (for children's summer school), was for $25,000, and in fact went to #1, Debra Brown.
They're one and the same.
It was approved by City Manager Mike Good without a specific request by the HB City Comm., who, themselves, only found out about it a week after it was
approved.
I'm very interested in discovering how in this day and age a woman can simply ask for $25,000 in taxpayer dollars from a city, without ANY prior direction by an elected body, the City Commission, and have it all be approved and expedited by one un-elected person.
To me, that doesn't seem to provide much public accountability or much in the way of a checks-and-balance system to prevent financial abuse.
Logically, since Zamar IS, in fact, Debra Brown, the information should all be in one file or folder -or on one electronic disk- yet you see, to want me to imagine that there are, in fact, perhaps hundreds of documents associated with that one item request, since you do not even specify the number of extant pages.
In fact, to make it even worse, the city, thru the former City Manager, gave $25,000 to an entity that two years later STILL seems to have no known address or phone number according to the search engine Google, and you know what, lots of other residents and taxpayers in this city find that rather troubling, too.
No matter how long you look, there's nothing on Google that indicates the City of Hallandale Beach has even a single document with the word Zamar on it, despite the fact that they were given $25,000, or that Dr. Brown requested another $25,000 in March of 2010 for another purpose.
Hmm-m... how can there be no official record at all of $25k being disbursed?
Speaking of electronic disk, I never said in my request that I wanted a printout of every single document.
That would be ridiculous to agree to, sight unseen, and in any case, I did not ask you to copy a textbook from cover-to-cover.
I very specifically asked to have the documents "be made available for my inspection."
You also say nothing about the cost of providing information on an electronic disk even though I specifically asked about this.
As to Lampkin's Creative Arts 4 All, they were, in fact, asked to apply for city funds by Mayor Cooper within the past few weeks, a fact I know because she said so publicly at a public hearing, so how many documents could possibly have been created in about one month?
There's the original application, a few accompanying info, like IRS Form 990, for instance, and the letter of approval or disapproval.
Again, you do NOT specify in your so-called response the number of docs related to this specific request re Lampkin.
You also do NOT provide any information about my request for the mailing address used in documents sent to and from Hallandale Beach City Hall to Joseph "Joe" Gibbons in his capacity as a Broward County resident or property owner.
Mr. Talmadge, is that because Mr. Gibbons does not, in fact, live at the Hallandale Beach address he claims he does?
Does he, instead, receive any, some or all all official correspondence or documents from HB City Hall at his work address in Tallahassee, or, in the Jacksonville area,
where his wife and children actually live?
He's a former Hallandale Beach City Commissioner after all, Mr. Talmadge, so surely he receives at least one document a year from the City of Hallandale Beach.
But you don't say anything about that, do you, even though a simple mailing address in Hallandale Beach for Gibbons really ought to take no more than five minutes to find on the city's computer, given his unique status.
There's no confusion at all about who HE is.
In the matter of Joseph "Joe" Gibbons, you provide no information at all, not even a breakdown for costs associated with finding that simple address information I requested.
Given your completely inadequate response, Mr. Talmadge, I will have to re-think my options given your lack of salient information, and will be in further contact in the next ten days.
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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Officials in South Florida cities donate to charities with taxpayers' money
Local schools, clubs and churches benefit -- and so may politicians doing the giving
By Megan O'Matz and Georgia East, Sun Sentinel
9:30 p.m. EDT, July 11, 2011
LAUDERDALE LAKES
This town is broke, but that didn't stop Commissioner Gloria Lewis from spending $1,440 in taxpayer funds in February for 140 T-shirts for fifth graders at Oriole Elementary School's spirit-boosting event coinciding with the FCAT exams.
It was hardly an exception. Since January 2010, city records show, the mayor and the six city commissioners have used thousands of dollars from their city-funded expense accounts for charitable donations to which their names often are attached.
Early this year, for example, Mayor Barrington Russell Sr. dipped into his expense account to buy a $75 ad featuring his photo in the program for Merrell United Methodist Church's Pre-Valentine's Day Banquet.
The funds may serve a noble purpose. Few would deny they also may buy voter goodwill.
From city to city, amounts vary. Davie has a Community Endowment Fund from which it will dole out $390,365 this year. Upscale Boca Raton's charitable outlay totals about $450,000 annually, and is part of the public budget-writing process. Hollywood allocated $191,500 in this year's budget to 17 community groups that assist children, the elderly, the disabled, battered women and the homeless. But next year's proposed budget recommends eliminating the grants. Hollywood, too, is in dire financial shape
The charitable expenditures appear to be perfectly legal. But in an era of diminishing public resources, taxpayer-funded donations are open to question, as is every other government expense. Why does this charity benefit, and not another? Why this much?
"I give to anything that benefits the kids. I give to the children,'' Lewis told the Sun Sentinel.
In Lauderdale Lakes, officials are grappling with a $9 million deficit for this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The city has cut jobs and salaries and unsuccessfully sought a county bailout.
Since 2010, the mayor and six commissioners have spent more than $19,000 from accounts set up to pay their on-the-job expenses. A review of the receipts shows that about 75 percent of the outlays are not ordinary job-related out-of-pocket expenses, but donations –in the elected official's name -- to churches, clubs, schools and other organizations.
In August after this financially strapped municipality had run out of money to pay the Broward Sheriff's Office for police and fire protection, Commissioner Patricia Hawkins-Williams used $700 from her expense account to pay for 200 T-shirts for a city youth football program. At the time, Hawkins-Williams said, she and other commissioners were unaware of the fiscal hardships the city was facing.
Along with such out-of-pocket donations of public funds by individual commissioners, Lauderdale Lakes in recent years has allocated roughly $25,000 from its annual budget to about 10 community organizations, such as the Kiwanis Club and Meals on Wheels.
Groups requesting such assistance are required to show how many residents they serve. In 2011, the city scaled back, reserving nearly all the funds for one group: the Area Agency on Aging, which helps the city's Alzheimer Care Center.
The use of elected officials' expense accounts to aid charities differs from community to community, the Sun Sentinel found.
In Hollywood, Delray Beach and Boca Raton, local leaders aren't provided with expense accounts.
In Lauderhill, the city manager has proposed that the city not make its customary annual contribution in fiscal 2012 to the Area Agency on Aging or to Family Central, which provides day care and other services for low-income families. The city commission must make the final decision.
Like in Lauderdale Lakes, however, Lauderhill's mayor and four commissioners do occasionally dip into their administrative expense accounts to purchase tickets to local fundraisers or to help aid groups that have modest requests. "We're basically micro-gifting," Mayor Richard Kaplan said.
In Lauderdale Lakes, the mayor and commissioners have been provided with non-vouchered accounts that they can spend any way they like, without needing to provide receipts, usually to compensate for wear and tear on their personal cars. The mayor received $10,200 and the commissioners $9,600 annually. Those amounts were reduced by 10 percent this year because of the budget crisis.
The mayor and commissioners also have vouchered expense accounts of up to $5,000 yearly, for which they must provide receipts to show how the money was spent. These accounts also were reduced 10 percent.
The Sun Sentinel reviewed about a year's worth of these expense authorizations, and found most went to pay for donations to schools, clubs and churches for events or specific projects.
Money spent by commissioners included $500 for an elementary school teachers award; two $50 half-page souvenir program ads for the inauguration of the new pastor at the First Baptist Church Piney Grove; $100 for the Caribbean Bar Association's scholarship and awards gala; $300 for a half-page ad and five tickets for a Caribbean American Democratic Club's awards luncheon; $300 to help buy "audio books, Kindles, and padded headsets" for Boyd Anderson High School, and $50 to a women's club for a senior citizens' prom.
SOS Children's Village, a Coconut Creek facility for foster children, asked Russell, the mayor, by letter in August to earmark $1,000 for it in the city's annual budget.
In November, Russell gave the group $1,000 from his expense account. He is on the facility's board of directors.
In September, then-commissioner David Shomers donated $500 apiece to the Lauderdale Lakes Basketball Association, Lauderdale Lakes Sports Club, and Wheels of Excellence, a charity that repairs abandoned bicycles recovered by the Broward Sheriff's Department and gives them to needy children.
State corporation records show Shomers and six others formed Wheels of Excellence about 15 years ago.
Shomers, who lost a re-election bid in November, said he never sought or received publicity for his charitable gifts. "I can't think of any way it would have helped politically," he said.
Susannah Bryan contributed to this report.
Reader comments at:
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See also: Lauderdale Lakes officials took 4-star trip as city finances sunk

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Public Records Request of July 22, 2011: Debra Brown; Zamar, Inc.; Josh Brown; Lampkin’s Creative Arts 4 All; Joseph A. "Joe" Gibbons

Chris Talmadge
City Clerk's Office
City of Hallandale Beach
400 S. Federal Highway
Hallandale Beach, FL 33009

July 22, 2011

Dear Mr. Talmadge:

I am writing you today to formally request the following public documents be made available for my inspection.

Any and all documents, including emails, letters, reports, contract, grant applications, loan applications, citations, RFPs, MOUs, to-and-from the City of Hallandale Beach and/or its CRA, its elected officials, managers, city employees, contractors or agents, and the following individuals and entities for the years 2008 to the present day, July 22, 2011:

1.) Debra Brown

2.) Zamar, Inc.

3.) Josh Brown

4.) The individuals and entity aka/dba Lampkin’s Creative Arts 4 All,
222 S. Dixie Highway, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009

5.) Joseph "Joe" Gibbons, in his capacity as a resident or taxpayer in the State of Florida.
Be sure to include ANY and ALL street addresses in the State of Florida used by Gibbons in any documents sent to him or received from him.

I request that if electronic copies exist, they be made available to me in that format.

Please be sure to detail any proscribed fees associated with this request.

I can be reached at the above email address if you have any further questions about this specific request.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Unfortunate denouement in the matter of BUTLER v. CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH also shows the South FL news media for what they are -weirdly incurious

Above, October 9, 2010 photo of Hallandale Beach City Hall by South Beach Hoosier


Below, the sad and unfortunate denouement to the local situation involving my friend and fellow HB civic activist Michael Butler, the beginning, middle and end of which you NEVER saw mentioned once on local Miami TV newscasts, or -surprise!- in the Miami Herald.

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(But as some of you attentive readers out there have reminded me -though I saw it myself, too- the Herald did have the time, space and desire recently to mention something about a Romanian soccer player that you never heard of eating at some South Beach restaurant, since THAT'S considered news these days down at the Herald under the current regime.)

Yes, only the Sun-Sentinel's Michael Mayo and Brittany Wallman, and Bob Norman while at the New Times, back in 2009, have been the only print or TV reporters, editors or columnists to ever see the situation for what it really was and said anything publicly about this situation.
Pathetic!


Broward Politics blog
Mayo: Why are taxpayers footing Mayor Joy Cooper's lawsuit bill?
By Brittany Wallman,
October 29, 2009 09:59 AM


Mayor Joy Cooper: "i Feel Like My Privacy Has Been Raped''
Posted by Brittany Wallman on October 27, 2009 04:28 PM


BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Judge Patti Henning Strikes Again
By Bob Norman
Tuesday, Octover 27 2009 at 3:21 PM

My friend and fellow HB civic activist Csaba Kulin emailed me this morning after getting news from me about this latest and final chapter in the case involving Michael, and shared a few thoughts with me that I'd like to share with you here and now, rather than in a separate post.

The key points Csaba mentioned that I'm excerpting here mirror many of the ones that some of you who have been following this situation closely have asked me the past two years, including the role of HB City Attorney David Jove, who as you recall from my June 28th post, is officially history a week from today, thanks goodness.
I was going to mention it to you that in the last moments of Jove's tenure he declared 3 victories for HB. One was over Michael. This was a monumental loss and expense for the City. They could have just denied his request and moved on.
If it was not city business, why did the City pay the Mayor's expenses?

That last question is a real bitch to answer isn't it, and is one that Mayo raised above, no?
And the answer is ????

By the way, for the record, last time I heard, Hallandale Beach taxpayers have been paying attorney Jamie Cole $185 an hour to pursue this suit on the city's behalf, even though in reality, it was at mayor Joy Cooper's behest.

Some of you readers in South Florida have told me in person or via email that Jamie Cole was a "great guy," and that if it hadn't been him, it would have been some other attorney who would've done the dirty laundry for Joy Cooper.
Perhaps.

Jamie Cole may or may not be a good guy, I don't know, since I have never had any personal interaction with him to judge him fairly one way or the other.
Or, he could be one of a million parasitical hack attorneys in Broward and Miami-Dade.
Or, he could be a hack by day and avenging angel at night.
I really can't say.
And neither can you.

All I can do is judge him by what he actually does.

What I do know for a fact is that he agreed to do the bidding of Joy Cooper, seemed to have no moral qualms about suing a Florida citizen trying to get information that he was legally entitled to ask for under the Florida Constitution, so that is how I will see him and judge him in the future -as Joy Cooper's personal henchman.
If the glove fits...

If all goes as expected, on Friday -and possibly Monday as well- some of you out there in the blogospere who are regular recipients of emails from me will receive a bcc from me re a public records request to the City of Hallandale Beach re certain individuals and entities that have been recipients of taxpayer funds via City/CRA loans and grants in the recent past under what can only be described as very curious and even questionable circumstances.

How many times can you FAIL to meet the low standards and REQUIREMENTS the city itself has set and still have no problem getting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars?

How can votes even be taken by the City Commission or even approved by the City Manager on applications that are NOT even complete?

For those of you who will not be receiving the email later, that bcc will morph into a blog post by Monday night, and you can see it then if you care to.

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The following information is formatted slightly different than it appears on the Court's website due to indenting problems, i.e. paragraphs and indents wouldn't stay firmly in place here exactly as they appear on website. It got frustrating to keep editing and have the same problem occur over-and-over, no matter how many times I tried.
I've done my best to replicate the original but if in doubt, go to website!


DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
FOURTH DISTRICT
July Term 2011

MICHAEL BUTLER,
Appellant,

v.

CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH, a Florida Municipality,
Appellee.

No. 4D10-197
[July 20, 2011]

HAZOURI, J.

Michael Butler appeals from a final judgment in a declaratory action
filed b y Th e City of Hallandale Beach (th e City), which sought a
declaration that a list of recipients of a personal email sent by Hallandale
Beach Mayor, Joy Cooper, was not sent in connection with the discharge
of a n y municipal d u t y and, therefore, is not a public record under
Florida’s Public Records Law, Chapter 119, Florida Statutes (2009).

The email in question was sent b y Cooper from her personal email
account, using her personal computer, and was blind carbon copied to
friends and supporters. Th e email itself was very brief, and contained
three articles that Cooper wrote as a contributor to the South Florida
Sun Times (Times) as a n attachment. Cooper h a s been a weekly
columnist for the Times for more than four years. Th e three articles
included as an attachment to the email were: (1) a transcript of the 2009
State of the City Address; (2) a transcript of Part Two of the State of the
City Address; a n d (3) an article about tax questions raised at prior
commission meetings.

The trial court found that Cooper was under no obligation pursuant to
the statute or ordinance to notify her friends a n d supporters that a
column had been published, and further that the City played no role in
Cooper’s decision to send the email to friends. Therefore, Butler was not
entitled to the names and email addresses of the recipients of the email.
We agree and affirm.
----------------------
- 2 -

Public access to records and meetings of public officials is established
b y Article I, section 24(a) of the Florida Constitution, which states,
“[e]very person has the right to inspect or copy any public record made or
received in connection with the official business of any . . . officer, or
employee of the state . . . except with respect to records exempted
pursuant to this section or specifically made confidential b y this
Constitution.” Section 24(c) provides that the state legislature, by a twothirds vote of each house of the legislature, h a s th e power to enact
exemptions to section 24(a)’s disclosure requirements. Art. I, § 24(c), Fla.
Const.

Section 119.011(12) defines a “public record” as:

[A]ll documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes,
photographs, films, s o u n d recordings, data processing
software, or other material, regardless of the physical form,
characteristics, or means of transmission, made or received
pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the
transaction of official business by an agency.

§ 119.011(12), Fla. Stat. (2009). And section 119.011(2) defines “agency”
as:

[A]ny state, county, district, authority, or municipal officer,
department, division, board, bureau, commission, or other
separate unit of government created or established b y law
including, for the purposes of this chapter, the Commission
on Ethics, the Public Service Commission, and the Office of
Public Counsel, a n d any other public or private agency,
person, partnership, corporation, or business entity acting
on behalf of any public agency.

§ 119.011(2), Fla. Stat. (2009). Cooper qualifies as a n “agency” as set
forth in section 119.011(2), since the Mayor is a municipal officer acting
on behalf of the municipality and is thus subject to the directives of this
section.

“The determination of what constitutes a public record is a question of
law entitled to de novo review.” State v. City of Clearwater, 863 So. 2d
149, 151 (Fla. 2003) (quoting Media Gen. Convergence, Inc. v. Chief Judge
of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, 840 So. 2d 1008, 1013 (Fla. 2003)).

In City of Clearwater, the Florida Supreme Court analyzed the issue of
whether e-mails are considered public records. In that case, a reporter
------------------------------
- 3 -

requested that the city provide copies of all e-mails either sent from or
received by two city employees over the city’s computer network. Id. at
150. At issue was whether the e-mails, by virtue of the city’s possession
on their network, were public records. Id. at 151. The court concluded
that the definition of public records is limited to public information
related to records, and further defined the term “records” as those
materials that have b e e n prepared with the intent of perpetuating or
formalizing knowledge. Id. at 154 (quoting Shevin v. Byron, Harless,
Schaffer, Reid & Assocs., Inc., 379 So. 2d 633, 640 (Fla. 1980)). The
court emphasized that the mere placement of an e-mail on a government
network is not controlling in determining whether it is public record, but
rather, whether the e-mail is prepared in connection with the official
business of an agency and is “intended to perpetuate, communicate, or
formalize knowledge of some type.” Id. (quoting Shevin, 379 So. 2d at
640).

The court in City of Clearwater also emphasized that a common sense
approach should b e used in determining whether a communication is
public record, and further emphasized that “[t]h e determining factor is
the nature of the record, not its physical location.” Id. Just as the
supreme court concluded that the mere fact that the email was a product
of the City’s computer network did not automatically make it a public
record, the City concedes that the mere fact that Cooper’s email was sent
from her private email on her own personal computer is not the
determining factor as to whether the email was a public record. Once
again, it is whether the email was prepared in connection with official
agency business a n d in t e n d e d to perpetuate, communicate, and
formalize knowledge of some kind. See id.

The City played no role in Cooper’s decision to write articles for the
Times. Th e City played n o role in identifying the topics about which
Cooper chose to write and exercised no control over the content of the
articles. The City played no role in Cooper’s decision to distribute or not
to distribute her Times articles, or the means by which she chose to do
so. Th e City played n o role in deciding to whom Cooper chose to
distribute the copies of her articles; Cooper herself decided to distribute
the articles to select personal friends a n d supporters at her own
discretion. The email that Cooper sent was not intended to perpetuate,
communicate, or formalize the City’s business; it was simply to provide a
copy of the articles to Cooper’s friends and supporters. The email was
not made pursuant to law or in connection with the transaction of official
business by the City, or Cooper in her capacity as Mayor.
--------------
- 4 -

As previously noted, Chapter 119 is a legislative clarification of Article
I, section 24(a) of the Florida Constitution, which provides that “[e]very
person h a s th e right to inspect or copy a n y public record made or
received in connection with the official business of a n y public body,
officer, or employee of the state, or persons acting on their behalf.” The
articles h a d been previously published where anyone could inspect or
c o p y them a n d th e email forwarding copies of the articles was not
prepared in connection with the official business of the Mayor or the
City.

We, therefore, affirm the trial court’s determination that these articles,
the email, email addresses, and names of its recipients were not public
records under Chapter 119.

Affirmed.
WARNER, J., and MONACO, TOBY S., Associate Judge, concur.
* * *
Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit,
Broward County; Patti Englander Henning, Judge; L.T. Case No. 09-
22405 03.

Edward F. Holodak of Edward F. Holodak, P.A., a n d Louis C.
Arslanian, Hollywood, for appellant.

Andrea Flynn Mogensen of The Law Office of Andrea Flynn Mogensen,
P.A., Sarasota, for Amicus Curiae First Amendment Foundation, Inc., a
not-for-profit corporation.

Daniel L. Abbott a n d Jamie A. Cole of Weiss, Serota, Helfman,
Pastoriza, Cole & Boniske, P.L., Fort Lauderdale, for appellee.

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing