Csaba Kulin and I re the Long Trail of Broken Promises, Alibis & Excuses from City of Hallandale Beach's elected officials, City Manager Miller and Police Chief Flournoy re self-evident safety problems for residents/visitors along NE 14th Avenue; photos

Looking south on NE 14th Avenue from Atlantic Shores Blvd., Hallandale Beach, FL. March 31, 2014 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Below is an email that was sent this afternoon by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin to Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and the following: Hallandale Beach Commissioners Anthony A. Sanders, Alexander Lewy and Bill Julian, City Manager Renee Miller, Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy, Assistant City Manager and CRA Director Daniel Rosemond, City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield, along with dozens of other HB residents, both those living on or near the heavily-traveled NE 14th Avenue corridor who have been under assault since that road first began construction in February of 2013, as well as those who live elsewhere but commiserate because it's a perfect example of finger-pointing in this city by both elected and appointed officials at Hb City Hall.

The construction revolves around some desperately-needed storm water pipes, after the city has has had years and years of flooding, especially in Northeast Hallandale Beach.

Keep in mind as you read this that this small city that's only 4.2 square miles to begin with, has some tangible geographical constraints that make getting around difficult even in the best of times, and especially during the tourist season, which makes the mess that's been taking place along NE 14th Avenue especially problematic: we have both the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway on the city's east side, with 1-95 to the west, plus numerous impassable canals.
This, in a city with ONLY ONE east-west street that runs throughout it -Hallandale Beach Blvd., where traffic goes to die in SE Broward and become part of gridlock history.

This is made worse by the fact that we have less than a handful of two-way north-south streets east of usually gridlocked U.S.-1/Federal Highway, the road that serves as the very spine of the city, interconnecting it to the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County to the south and the City of Hollywood to the north. 
U.S-1 is one of just two two-way north-south streets that span the length of the city, the other one being State Road A1A/Ocean Drive over on the beach, which again has Hollywood to the north at its intersection with HBB, and the Village of Golden Beach and Miami-Dade County to the south.

-----

April 9, 2014

Mayor Joy Cooper,

I am sorry you had to experience the indignities of obscene language and gestures the same way as the law abiding residents of N.E. 14^th Avenue had been subjected to for well over a year.

I asked the City Commission a number of times for help. Mayor, you tried to pacify me with promises, City Manager Miller did the same and Police Chief Flournoy said that as “manpower” allows he will enforce the One Way Street violators.

During the March 17, 2014 City Commission Meeting  I stated that we only saw one time a police officer handing out traffic tickets. You did NOT believe me.
I have proof from our police department that only two tickets were issued during the past four months, both on November 30, 2013.

When I met with Police Chief Flournoy on April 2, 2014 he said that “even those two citations should NOT have been issued”.
Chief Flournoy told me that ’signage and markings on N.E. 14^th Avenue are NOT sufficient and the citations would not stand up court’. The Chief said that ‘it is the city’s responsibility to properly mark the street and install proper signage’.

In my opinion it is inexcusable that our city is unable to mark and install signage to make a One Way Street legal. The City placed our residents in danger and created a risk of liability for the City in case of an accident.

Mayor, we like you to tell us when will the City install legal marking and signs so the police can start to enforce the law immediately?

Please do NOT tell us that we have already suffered over a year and we are used to the danger so a few more months do NOT matter.

The residents of 14^th Avenue hope to see the legal markings and signage by the April 22, 2014 community meeting to be sponsored by the City. 

The City Commission has two main functions, making policy and oversight of the operation of the City. We hope that in your oversight capacity you investigate who knew what and when in this unfortunate misunderstanding and share it with the residents.

I attached a couple of pictures to illustrate the current situation on NE 14^th Avenue.

Sincerely

Csaba Kulin
President, Fairways North, Inc. 

Looking south from 600 NE 14th Avenue.

-----

The self-evident lack of concern the City of Hallandale Beach and the contractor involved in this project have shown for the safety and health for the residents in that area, who've been treated like prisoners in their own neighborhood, is nothing short of shocking, even by this city's infamous low standards.

Over the past year, from my visits to Csaba and Susan's home, I've taken LOTS of photos illustrating the points that he makes so well above, and have accompanied him when, together, we've measured the distance across Atlantic Shores Blvd. and compared it to the much-shorter distance on NE 14th Avenue, since for reasons that defy logic and common sense, Comm. Alexander Lewy is strangely insisting on changing the parking equation on NE 14th Avenue -once the construction is finished- to angled parking, just like on Atlantic Shores Blvd..

This, despite the fact that it was already changed from angled to its heretofore parallel parking-to-the-curb status a number of years ago so that additional numbers of parking spaces could be created for residents and visitors.

Why would Lewy and the city intentionally want to go backwards in time and create more problems?

It's a reasonable question to ask: Why would a HB City Commissioner who is required to resign his post in August (in order to run for the FL House 100 primary) suddenly wants to micromanage parking in this area full of angry residents when he was completely unconcerned 

with the negative effects of this botched construction project, to say nothing of the very self-evident safety points that Csaba has repeatedly made? 

It's very, very curious.

In any case, angled parking on only the east side of 14th Street is FAR TOO SHORT an area to safely maneuver, since the lack of space necessary to properly back-up without being IN the road, allows no margin for error for drivers and those already on the road.

It's obvious the first time you see it -and yet...

I've taken tons of photos of Atlantic Shores Blvd. and NE 14th Avenue proving these points, so...

Looking south on NE 14th Avenue from Atlantic Shores Blvd., Hallandale Beach, FL. March 31, 2014 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

Even today, after over a year of haphazard construction and coating the area and the inside of residents apts. & condos/cars with dirt, and after I myself have nearly been hit about three separate times by cars driving on the sidewalk or driving the wrong way, the City of Hallandale Beach can't explain why there never was a mobile watering system in place that would keep the massive amounts of dust down to a minimum, as is typical of projects this large that involve moving and shifting tons of buried dirt, road and asphalt.

When you add the large number of residents living in the area just feet away, many who suffer from existing health problems, it really makes you wonder why so little intelligent thought was 

given to this project's cumulative effect on them in the first place, and how little attention to detail there is in general at HB City Hall under the current crew, since they had plenty of time to put remedial actions in place.

But they didn't.

As for the HB Police Chief, you can see for yourself by the recitation that Csaba makes above, despite knowing what he did, when he did, and despite the persistent and legitimate public complaints from Csaba on behalf of his own tenants and neighbors along the street apprising him of the problems, along with the pleas of others, Chief Flournoy has yet again failed to act and respond in a satisfactory manner for HB residents, and once again failed to give the public the sort of serious response they were entitled to.

Instead, for all practical purposes, Police Chief Flournoy just shrugged his shoulders.

Just more of the same sort of unsatisfactory attitude and results from him we've come to expect over the past few years.

Surprise!

Red-light cameras in Florida are on their way out and Hallandale Beach is FINALLY doing the right thing to end the revenue-generating scheme that has NOT made the city safer, but rather has made it quite infamous in South Florida; Csba Kulin weighs-in with insight and cold stone facts; @RLNOOZ

This video above ought to look familiar to almost anyone who lives in southeast Broward County, or in next-door northeast Miami-Dade County, the most traffic-gridlocked areas in the entire state of Florida. The reason? Lots of video of Hallandale Beach's detested red-light cameras in action!

Local10's Roger Lohse reports:

Study: Red-light cameras making some Fla. intersections more dangerous 

Feb 02 2014 11:34:20 PM EST   
Updated On: Feb 02 2014 11:47:11 PM EST

http://www.local10.com/news/study-redlight-cameras-making-some-fla-intersections-more-dangerous/24251504

@hbbtruth just wait until you see our story sunday night
— Roger Lohse (@RLNOOZ) February 27, 2014

Per the independent survey (by mail) of Hallandale Beach residents that was conducted a few years ago by a Kansas-based company that my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin references below, along with some previous emails of mine about the subject, it's important for those of you who are new to the blog or far from here to know that the survey was full of 'loaded' questions that were quite clearly of the City Commission's choosing -i.e. Mayor Joy Cooper's, NOT ones the public wanted to ask and get answers to, which is to say that the questions were deliberately tilted in favor of a positive response for the city to begin with- the red-light cameras were cited by Hallandale Beach residents as one of the 4 worst things about the city, a fact that the mayor consistently underplayed since she was the champion lobbyist of American Traffic Solutions, ATS,

Mayor Cooper consistently failed to see the facts that most of us could see clearly at the time: it was a pretense to increase the city's revenue, not a reasonable attempt to solve actual safety problems in this city that is boxed-in by the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway to ther east and I-95 to the west, and only one road that bisects the city and allows north-south travel, U.S.-1/Federal Highway .

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/whats-worse-galling-audacity-of.html

Mayor Joy Cooper only saw revenue - $$$.

And she was perfectly happy to take money from drivers making legal right-hand turns on red when there was no oncoming traffic, if her cameras said that the drivers didn't wait long enough.

And what was the result of that?

Lawsuits that the city lost and had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds and damages.

Much of that citizen discontent was not just because of simple policy differences but rather as I've discussed here previously, because of the rather egregious and ham-handed way that the city's program and partnership with ATS was rolled-out, with little transparency and public disclosure about relevant details that citizens like me specifically asked for and were entitled to have.
Details that, in the abstract, you'd think the city -any city- would want to have out on the table before the public if they were genuinely interested in getting the real facts out where everyone could see them so that smart choices were necessarily be made.

But Mayor Cooper and Hallandale Beach City Hall weren't interested in that.

Yes, it was yet another in the hundreds of examples over ther past ten years I've lived here where the powers-that-be at HB City Hall, like the HBPD, dis the mayor's bidding and did NOT 
cooperate because they wanted certain results, not a fair discussion and analysis of the problem and the unique geographical factors we have in this city: 3 city streets carry well over 90% of all traffic, and only one road exists that connects the eastern residents of the city on the beach with I-95. 

A complete lack of options.

Plus, there's the city's failure to actually post warning signs like other communities routinely did -where you could see them.

Instead, they had them placed behind a bus shelter located near the entrance to a retail complex -home of The Knife Argentinian restaurant- so that you couldn't  see the sign until you were even with it as you drove north on U.S.-1.

A sign that was located on the inside of the sidewalk, not where you could see it near the curb, as is the case for most but not all of those RLC warning signs in next-door Hollywood.

Even now, as I saw again yesterday, the city's warning sign on NW 10th Court & Hallandale Beach Blvd. is almost impossible for drivers to see given that there are multiple signs in front of it and it's placed in-between trees.  

Just as it has been for YEARS.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 12:24 PM
Subject: Red Light Cameras in WSJ

February 27, 2014

Hallandale Beach Residents,

Due to the relentless hard work of our residents and three courageous Hallandale Beach commissioners, Commissioners Julian, Lazarow and Sanders we can say “goodbye” to the hated red light cameras. Unexpectedly even Vice Mayor Lewy joined the majority, stating in the Sun Sentinel that the time has come to remove them. Only the unrepentant believer in the red light cameras, Mayor Cooper voted to keep it.

I knew it was a bad idea from the start, thirty eight (38%) percent of our residents did not like it when the City surveyed us. Under the slogan of “the beatings will continue until morale improves”, we had to endure the punishment and enriched the coffers of ATS for several years to come.

There had been a lot written about the issue but today the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had an article on its front page about “Number of Communities Using Red-Light Cameras Declines”. The article is good reading but please read the more than seventy reader comments. The comments reflect the public’s view on this issue.

I attached a link to the WSJ article for your convenience.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304071004579407413358714386?mod=wsj_share_email

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 3:55 PM
Subject: FYI: Csaba Kulin re the City of Hallandale Beach's Red-Light Camera contract with American Traffic Solutions (ATS) which calls for city taxpayers to shell-out $150k if city terminates contract before Dec. 31 -as they've voted to do

After all the dozens of blog posts and emails I've written on the subject of RLC's over the past few years, and all of the meetings I recorded, trust me when I tell you this: at NONE of the public meetings in Hallandale Beach that I or anyone else attended, before and after the ATS contract was signed and RLC cameras were initially erected -over the intense opposition of the majority of this community's citizens -in part because of where they were put up:  NOT where traffic accidents involving speeding actually happened!- were termination fees discussed.

Least of all, mentioned publicly by Mayor Joy Cooper, who received so much from Arizona-based ATS via campaign contributions funds and emotional support, and whose tune she has always danced and sung in public and in Op-Eds.

There was never any discussion of it or the the amount until AFTER the HB City Commission finally voted to get rid of it and the mayor was on the losing 4-1 side.

We got the specific numbers$ last week, weeks after the vote where both the City Attorney and City Manager couldn't answer numerous basic questions about the contract at the meeting where the vote to rid us of the cameras took place.

To most careful observers of what's going on here, which does not include the Herald or the Sun-Sentinel, the sudden need by City Hall to talk about termination fees seems like a rather ham-handed and obvious attempt by city administrators and city bureaucrats to justify keeping the contract, despite the will of the people actually being expressed forcefully thru the elected City Commission for one of the rare times in the past ten years, albeit years after they should've.

This from bureaucrats who routinely waste money hand-over-fist into the tens of millions.

re Unamortized amounts invested:

Also never discussed when Mayor Cooper and Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy were championing it as a safety measure despite all the evidence to the contrary that it was being done to generate revenue for City Hall: it would be HB taxpayers' obligations to pay for something -equipment- that would not be used if the contract was terminated.

Folks, it's NOT a perishable cake or pizza or a time-sensitive airline ticket we're being forced to pay for, it's metal, wires and software that can be used over-and-over.

So why are we going to have to pay ATS a hidden profit for something that the next govt. foolish enough to use it will also have to pay for?

Question for the media to ask the Mayor and Police Chief: if it's all about public safety, why all these years later are there still ZERO of the required warning signs for it on either west-bound or east-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. as you approach that U.S.-1 intersection?

See prior posts re RLC's at:http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/red-light%20camera

Dave

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 11:43 AM
Subject: RE: Red Light Camera Contract
To: "Whitfield, Lynn" <lwhitfield@hallandalebeachfl.gov>
Cc: becjuli@aol.com, mlazarow@hallandalebeachfl.gov, alex@hallandalebeachfl.gov, onevision4life@aol.com, rmiller@hallandalebeachfl.gov, Nrafols@hallandalebeachfl.gov

February 24, 2014

Dear City Attorney Ms. Whitfield,

Thank you for your quick response to my e-mail and thank you for your explanation before and during the February 19, 2014 City Commission Meeting. As I stated to you at the time, I did not get your e-mail before the meeting and I did not have sufficient time to read the entire Agreement between the City and ATS. Now I had the time to read the Agreement and I do see the ARTICLES you referred to during the meeting.

To memorialize the essence of your comments let me see if I remember them correctly. Of course, if you remember differently, please let me know.

You told me that ARTICLE 1, TERM of the Agreement reads “the term of this Agreement be five (5) years and shall begin on the date immediately following conclusion of warning period”. That is the reason the Agreement shall not terminate until December of 2014. You are absolutely correct but you did not tell me about the “however” in the clause, the second part of ARTICLE 1.

The second part of the TERM Section reads “if the term of this Agreement extends beyond a single fiscal year of CITY, the continuation of this Agreement beyond the end of any fiscal year shall be subject to both the appropriation and the availability of funds in accordance with Florida law”. The language indicates to me that on less the City Commission budgets funds in the next fiscal year the Agreement is terminated at the end of this fiscal year, maybe earlier if no funds are available. No mention of the City’s obligation to pay ATS any “unamortized amounts invested”.

I mentioned in my comments ARTICLE 7, TERMINATION, Section 7.3, the CITY’s right to terminate the Agreement for “convenience”.
Part 1 of the Section 7.3 reads “In the event this Agreement is terminated for convenience, VENDOR shall be paid for any services properly performed under the Agreement through the termination date specified in the written notice of termination”. I agree, the VENDOR should be paid for services already performed.

Part 2 of Section 7.3 reads “VENDOR acknowledges and agrees that it has received good, valuable and sufficient consideration from CITY, the receipt and adequacy of which are, hereby acknowledged by VENDOR, for CITY’s right to terminate this Agreement for convenience”. This tells me that the VENDOR has received sufficient consideration from the City to cancel for “convenience” at any time. No mention of the City’s obligation to pay ATS any “unamortized amounts invested”.

ATS may argue for “unamortized amount invested” in ARTICLE 7, TERMINATION, Section 7.5. In my opinion, this Section is very poorly worded, ambiguous and unconscionably one sided favoring ATS.

 “Any termination of this agreement by the City shall be without any liability or damages to ATS, except if the Agreement is terminated pursuant to 7.1 above the City shall pay ATS the unamortized amount invested by ATS in the program at the date of termination by the City”. At a minimum, a comma should have been placed between “above and the City” to make the Section easier to read.
What does this above sentence say? The City pays the entire 5 years worth of payments no matter what? Does the City have any contemporary documentation as to the “amortized amount invested” or ATS will give it to the City now?

I cannot understand how the City’s law department “signed off” on the cause and I do not believe our City Commission was made aware of this cause prior to approving the Agreement. Had the City Commission decided to cancel the Agreement one month into the 60 month contract, the City would have been required to pay close to $750,000 to ATS? Am I wrong to assume this?

In my opinion there are sufficient questions concerning this Agreement and a significant amount of money demanded by ATS to hire an outside counsel to advise the City as to the proper course to follow.

You stated that the City Manager has the information as to the dates of grace period and start of the Agreement. She also has documents as to the amount invested by ATS and an amortization schedule of amount invested by ATS. I will ask her for that information.

I hope you will find the time to correct me where I am wrong because I do not want disseminate partial or incorrect information.

Sincerely, 

Csaba Kulin


--- lwhitfield@hallandalebeachfl.gov wrote:

From: "Whitfield, Lynn"
To: "ckulin Bill Julian, "Lazarow, Michele"  "Lewy, Alexander" , Commissioner Anthony Sanders
CC: "Miller C., Renee" , "Rafols, Nydia M"
Subject: RE: Red Light Camera Contract
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 23:01:30 +0000

Mr. Kulin

If you look at the contract, the effective date is not until after the expiration of the warning period.  The warning period did not begin until after the cameras and system were installed which was not immediately after the contract was signed.  With the installation of the cameras and the 90 day warning period the contract did not become effective until December 2009. 

V. Lynn Whitfield

City Attorney

(954) 457-1325

AV Preeminent ® rated, the highest rating by Martindale-Hubbell

AV Preeminent® is a registered certification mark of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc.

Used under in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards

And policies.

From: Csaba Kulin
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 5:16 PM
To: Billy Julian; Lazarow, Michele; Lewy, Alexander; Commissioner Anthony Sanders
Cc: Whitfield, Lynn; Miller C., Renee; Rafols, Nydia M
Subject: Red Light Camera Contract

Dear Commissioners,

In the short time I had to look over the ATS contract it seems to me that the City entered into a 5 year contract in 2009 with ATS.

ATS signed the Contract February 24, 2009 and the City signed the Contract March 5, 2009.

You can find the signatures on pages 19 and 20 of the Contract.

On less the City signed a 2 year option, the contact is just about expired.

I hope you have time to confirm my findings by tonight's meeting.

Csaba Kulin

---

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 2:24 PM
Subject: re Sun-Sentinel's incomplete story re red-light cameras getting the boot in Hallandale Beach -just another example of their shallow reporting missing-the-mark 
Would've been nice if the Sun-Sentinel, for a change -FOR ONCE- actually focused on the myriad reasons why HB citizens have been calling for RLC to go for years, including an honest accounting of the the history of Mayor Cooper, City Hall and HBPD consciously deciding NOT to share public info on traffic accidents so that citizens could actually see where largest number of accidents occurred.

Once again, when presented with a story on a silver platter about a dysfunctional HB story that cried out for some genuine depth in it, the Sun-Sentinel went for the bury-'em-with-quotes 

approach that left HB's unique perspective completely unexplored, and has instead left objective observers just as confused as to why this happened here instead of happening in another city.

How can they bring the word trend into the story without ever explaining how it all happened?

What would those common components in other cities be that could make it happen elsewhere?

They don't say.

Until that paper is sold and new management and reporters are there, that paper 

is an afterthought when it comes to local news and political coverage.

No mention at all of the city starting a RLC program before the state authorized one, and with so little attention to detail by the City, HBPD or then-City Attorney David Jove that required warning signs were actually obscured from the public driving by, as I noted at the time with photos connecting-the-dots.

All these years later, there's still ZERO warning signs on either east-bound or west-bound 

Hallandale Beach Blvd. approaching U.S.-1

Those required warning signs on the median near NW 10th Terrace were NOT there when the 

city started their program or when the state did but much later.

I know because I have the photos that show that lack of attention to detail at the 
time, and most of you have already seen them.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search?q=red-light

They didn't want to do that because they knew that if the facts came out, they'd be hard-pressed to explain why they were so insistent on placing cameras in places that'd clearly generate less REVENUE, including the illegal right-hand turn money they were getting hand-over-fist at the beginning that got the city so much negative media coverage across the state.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Red-light cameras kicked to curb - Hallandale yanks them, but will others follow?

Susannah Bryan and Ariel Barkhurst, Staff writers 
January 24, 2014
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-01-23/news/fl-red-light-cameras-bye-20140123_1_red-light-cameras-camera-programs-american-traffic-solutions

Election Day tomorrow will give Los Angeles voters either their first woman or first elected Jewish mayor, in Wendy Gruel or Eric Garcetti. Garcetti has the LA Times endorsement, a 7-point lead and counts seriously attacking traffic as one of three most-important tasks at hand; Is there someone like Hallandale Beach's Dr. Deborah Brown in Los Angeles, someone who will walk up to volunteer campaign workers of someone she doesn't support and tell them and anyone around them that their candidate is "the devil"? Like she did in HB last year. If you know, let me know!

KCAL news video: Latest USC Price/LA Times poll shows Eric Garcetti with seven point lead over Wendy Gruel in LA Mayoral race, with 11 percent of voters still undecided.

As Election Day in the U.S.'s second-largest city looms tomorrow, and Los Angeles voters getting either its first woman or first elected Jewish mayor, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Gruel have spent the last days of their hard-fought campaign battling for Black voters and for the favor of fickle Undecideds, who like being fussed over, but who find it hard to commit.
Just like Hollywood's central casting.

It all makes me wonder if any of the middle-class Los Angeles neighborhoods where my SoCal friends live have someone like Hallandale Beach's Dr. Deborah Brown living amongst them.

Someone with strong connection to the City Hall teat and powers-that-be, in her case, to mayor Joy Cooper, and who has no qualms about showing up at polling sites and boldly walking up to volunteer election workers of candidates she doesn't support, and just a few inches from these campaign workers faces, loudly proclaim that their preferred candidate is "the devil." 

You know, like she did repeatedly in Hallandale Beach last year at the city's Ingalls Park precincts on the city's SW side, to volunteer supporters of HB mayoral candidate Keith London?

Yes, that would be the same Dr. Brown I've written about here on the blog before with the curious -and which some in the community would say borders on fictitious- loan and grant applications that give the appearance that her group was/is a non-profit when the IRS says differently.
The very same Dr. Brown whom the Office of the Broward Inspector General wrote about in their damning final report a few short weeks ago.
Allegations she used money her group was given by the city for purposes for which it was NOT intended, like, well, let's just say unethical conduct and let you read it yourself.

But then again, having received money for years from City Hall, including many large grants just under $25,000 from former HB City Manager Mike Good, she already knew from experience that city officials would never check on what she did with CRA funds, that since as the IG report says, they DIDN'T. 
Yes, no double-checking information or accountability from the city before the vote and zero after the money is dispensed.


Excerpt from March 6, 2013 Broward Bulldog
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/03/broward-inspector-general-slams-hallandale-for-gross-mismanagement-of-cra-funds/

The final report will recommend to the county that it look over its legal options “to prevent the ongoing abuse of the CRA process and recover those funds that may have been misspent,” the preliminary report says.

In Hallandale, there was an apparent lack of regular monitoring by the CRA of who got its funds and how that money was spent.

In one case, the report says, a nonprofit grant recipient spent nearly $5,000 in funds to make a payment on her time-share at the Westgate Resort in Orlando, make payroll payments to herself and her brother and on other things.

“We found probable cause to believe that Dr. Deborah Brown, the founder and director of the Palms Center for the Arts (PCA), engaged in criminal misconduct in the handling of a $5,000 award the PCA received from the CRA,” the report says.

Brown could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

The matter has been referred to the sheriff’s office and the Broward State Attorney for prosecution.

The reason I ask is because I've been closely following the back-and-forth of the Garcetti-Gruel campaigns the past few weeks via videos on various LA TV station websites and the LA Times and... well, there's a lot that needs fixing in LA no matter who actually wins, because many voters have just about reached their limit on govt. waste and inefficiency and cronyism.  

I ask because I had breakfast on Sunday morning yesterday with a friend of mine who, like me, had supported Hb City Commissioner Keith London against longtime incumbent mayor Joy Cooper.
But unlike me, he's a longtime HB resident, so someone with even more perspective than my nine years of living here and seeing the chaos and dysfunction up-close.

While I was flitting about with materials and messages from one election site throughout Hallandale Beach to another on Election Day for Keith, and my friend Csaba Kulin and Michele Lazarow, who were running for the City Commission, my Sunday morning tablemate was working the crowds of HB residents arriving to vote at Ingalls Park in southwest HB, just one block south of Hallandale Beach Blvd.

(Yes, as some of you long-time readers of the blog may recall, that also the place where the City of Hallandale Beach used to have its recycling site. The one that had no directional signs on nearby streets, much less, on main drag HBB, letting people know exactly where it was. Now the city foolishly has no central recycling site for residents to use even while much of the city lives in places where recycling something other than newspapers simply doesn't take place, due to the city's apathy, like smaller condos and apts. As usual, the city seems clueless what to do to capture that market, despite how obvious it is. For starters, you make it as easy as possible.)

If any of my friends in LA know who Dr. Brown's counterpart in LA might be, or even have seen media reports about the activities of such a doppelgänger, please drop me a line and share the 411.

View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

Garcetti: "Enthusiasm" High Day Before Election. NBC4 new video: reporter  Toni Guinyard speaks with mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti on NBC4's "Today in LA" May 20, 2013.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Los Angeles Times

Greuel, Garcetti court black voters on final weekend

By James Rainey and Seema Mehta 

May 19, 2013 8:09 p.m.

Polls show Garcetti ahead but Greuel favored among African Americans. The winner will be either the first woman or the first elected Jewish leader in the mayor's office.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mayor-daily-20130520,0,2746694.story

The LA Times endorsement of Eric Garcetti from February 17th, for the primary, was leagues ahead of the sort of thing you ever read in South Florida newspapers, both in terms of length and in gravitas.

Titled, Eric Garcetti for mayor He's the candidate with the most potential to rise to the occasion and lead Los Angeles out of its current malaise and into a more sustainable and confident future," it concluded with this:

Voters at first embraced Villaraigosa because they saw in him the power to inspire. Garcetti has that too, but in a different, quieter fashion, and he backs it up with experience in City Hall, a share of troublesome mistakes and 12 years of achievement. If he avoids a tendency to be glib when he should motivate, and if he avoids the tendency to allow his finesse to give way to a desire to be all things to all people, he could be just what Los Angeles needs. At this time, out of this field, he's the best choice for mayor.

Now that's how you write and end a persuasive editorial!
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-end-0217-mayor-20130215,0,7012293.story

KCAL/CBS LA News video, Profile of LA mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti
February 28, 2013 8:16 AM
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/02/28/la-mayoral-election-preview-eric-garcetti/

The above profile includes the following nugget:

But perhaps Garcetti’s most ambitious goal is to tackle the city’s notorious traffic problems.
“We have to reduce our traffic in Los Angeles. And I want to see five different rail finished or well underway by the time I leave office,” he said. “It’s the only way we will be able to get enough people out of cars to be able to really make a dent in the traffic that is choking our lives.”

Tuesday night you might want to be watching here to see LIVE election results
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/live-video/

Follow the money? Okay, here it is: $2,000 on page 3 of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's most-recently filed Treasurer's Report is from American Traffic Solutions-related entities who support installation of Red-Light Cameras. Like what she railroaded thru in HB. What are friends for, after all?; @MayorCooper

Photo above from my February 23, 2011 post

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/roger-lohses-amazing-story-on-red-light.html

Per my earlier post this morning, What's worse? The galling audacity of the feckless Sun-Sentinel giving free space to thoroughly-mendacious Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, 16 weeks before the election, or her stridently self-serving lies re Red-Light cameras in Hallandale Beach, which she and her Rubber Stamp Crew rammed thru to gain more revenue for the city? American Traffic Solutions could NOT be any happier for the free plug, and will no doubt have a campaign check to Cooper on its way soon -if it's not there already; @MayorCooper

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/whats-worse-galling-audacity-of.html 
I forgot to show this important link earlier.

It's from page 3 of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's most recently filed Treasurer's Report, which lists campaign contributions, and shows $2,000 from American Traffic Solutions-related individuals and entities.
http://www.hallandalebeach.org/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2492

And within ten days of filing that Treasurer's Report, she was able to shill for ATS in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, even without mentioning their name, since everyone who's paying close attention to the issue knows exactly who's doing what.

She is such a good friend to ATS!

Just imagine how gleeful the mayor must've been after being contacted by the newspaper, knowing that the newspaper was going to give her space to not only pat herself on the back, one of her favorite things to do, but to also allow her to blow a kiss to a financial contributor of hers.

Do you think that she mentioned THAT salient fact to the newspaper?

I don't, rather I think she laughed at being able to get away with it.

No wonder she wants her many friends in the Florida League of Cities, which she has recently headed, to do exactly what she and Hallandale Beach does, regardless of what taxpayers or the facts show.

It pays to.

At least for egotistical despots like her.

What's worse? The galling audacity of the feckless Sun-Sentinel giving free space to thoroughly-mendacious Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, 16 weeks before the election, or her stridently self-serving lies re Red-Light cameras in Hallandale Beach, which she and her Rubber Stamp Crew rammed thru to gain more revenue for the city? American Traffic Solutions could NOT be any happier for the free plug, and will no doubt have a campaign check to Cooper on its way soon -if it's not there already; @MayorCooper

West-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W. 9th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, with the so-called Red-Light camera warning sign posted a block farther east of the camera on the corner of N.W. 9th Terrace, which, as it happens, is also a popular area for dangerous U-turns. It's right around here somewhere... 

In what way, exactly, is the red-light camera warning sign "visible" from this distance? September 25, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier 

Or visible from this distance? August 19, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier 

Or from this distance in the right-hand lane? September 25, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier 

Where did it go? Shouldn't we see it by now? September 11, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier 

Oh, there you are, red-light camera warning sign, intentionally placed right between two trees!

You only see the sign above because of the reflection of my camera's flash, since it's pitch-black there at night.

You'd almost say they were hiding it, yes?

Looking west on W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, April 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier 

As if the summer hadn't already been hot enough and embarrassing enough for residents of Hallandale Beach, who have once again had to watch in complete dismay as their city was once again involved in being on the wrong side of an ethical issue, due to the city's own longstanding incompetence and failure to pay close attention to either a written contract or to what its taxpayer citizens said and demanded.

And as usual, Mayor Joy Cooper thinks she knows better than everyone else, and as we've seen so many times before to our own chagrin, nobody-but-nobody in South Florida government and public policy believes and swallows her own mendacious lies like Joy Cooper does.
It's like she even has to lick the mixing spoon, so thoroughly does she fall for her own self-delusions and serving lies.
So, can you believe it's happened yet again?

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Red-light cameras save lives, fund essential research
5:40 p.m. EDT, July 22, 2012
By Joy Cooper
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-guest-cooper-cameras-mon0723-20120722,0,6873108.story


What's worse? 
The galling audacity of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in giving free space to thoroughly mendacious Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper 16 weeks before an election to spread her unique brand of un-reality, which shows complete contempt for the truth, or the degree of her stridently self-serving lies re the issue of Red-Light cameras in Hallandale Beach, which she and her Rubber Stamp Crew at the time rammed thru in order to to gain more revenue for the city, NOT because of safety, as anyone who is even slightly-objective and paying even the barest of attention to the proceedings would know, given how very poorly Cooper and her puppets articulated their point of view?

The Sun-Sentinel won't admit it publicly anytime soon, but trust me, it just got rolled and played like a country bumpkin by a consumate con-woman in Joy Cooper, who won't acknowledge any truth but the truth in her own mind, regardless of what the national, state or county law is, and regardless of what the law requires.

That personal disconnect of her's from both the reality and the law that the rest of us have to obey and deal with explains a good part of old-fashioned dislike and contempt in with Cooper is held by the portion of this city's populace that is well-informed and actively engaged, which includes myself as it happens.

That's a pretty telling statement, alright, and yet the South Florida news media as presently constructed continues to fail to ask how it could be that Cooper is both so consistently on the wrong side of both the facts, the law and history, and yet remains in office.
Cooper is the conundrum that won't go away on her own accord, but they ignore what's right in front of them.

To me, someone like Susan Candiotti or Ike Seamans in the Miami TV news of the 1970's and '80's, before they went national with CNN and NBC News respectively from Channel 10/WPLG and Channel 4/WTVJ, would've positively jumped at the chance to put together a news report or two within a short period of time that pinned the tail of responsibility and failure on this donkey, with common sense facts and wit and a few lacerating-but-fair questions with a microphone pointed Cooper's way.

Yes, nobody in elective office in South Florida has profited more from the sleepwalking state of the South Florida press corps more than Joy Cooper.
Their absence is her wish come true, day-after-day. 

It's really too bad for the rest of South Florida who doesn't live here and who doesn't know the true facts, that there wasn't anyone from any of the local Miami TV stations or newspapers

consistently attending all or even most of those HB meetings on Red-Light cameras.

Someone in the press corps actually paying attention to the facts and reality, since then they could've seen everything for themselves, including what the citizens here were overwhelmingly saying and thinking.

Yes, but then that was back when both newspapers largely liked to pretend that HB didn't exist, and didn't send reporters here for large parts of a year.

In the Herald's case, nearly a year-and-a-half as I recall

Not so very different from now, actually, esp. when something of note is going on in Hollywood on a Wednesday.

Yes, it's hard for me to not think about how much better it would be if one of the TV stations had actually sent a film crew and actually caught then-Police Chief Magill on film caught up in the fanciful story that he had to spin for the mayor and city manager's benefit.

So much so that he actually got tripped-up weaving his lies about traffic statistics & anecdotes re north-bound U.S.-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd., the media's new cause-celebre at the time because of how much in fines was coming into City Hall.

Magill lied about an accident with a fatality that happened elsewhere -near City Hall- in order to make it seem as though it happened there, in order to justify the city's placement of the camera.

You remember, the warning sign erected behind the bus shelter, on the far side of

the sidewalk, so that passing drivers couldn't really see it?

Right before the entrance to The Knife?

That's the one!

But Chief Magill got caught lying, alright, and I and many of you out there reading this witnessed it, and in any case, it's on the city's videotape.

http://hallandalebeachblog.

blogspot.com/2011/02/now-as-
before-facts-seldom-if-ever.html

Yes, nobody from the South Florida news media was really the least bit interested in hearing what the citizens of this community had to say, which was that it was done, plain and simple, to raise revenue, at the behest of Cooper and the City Manager.

Yet another attempt by her to use the city as a prop to score points and chits with her League of Cities pals who have never set foot in this city, and who have no earthly idea how disastrous a mayor she has been for this community for ten years.

The South Florida news media could've cared less about any of that! 

If they'd shown up and been properly prepared, they'd know that the City of Hallandale Beach City Manager and Police Chief Magill were so disinterested in having an honest exchange and fair discussion of the issue that they refused to even reveal to citizens basic info, like where the highest percentage of speeding tickets in the city were issued, and where were the intersections with the highest number of accidents, since logically, IF you believe in cameras, that's where the cameras should go if safety was really the number one concern.

But the city refused because they knew the information would NOT support their faulty theory or its carefully chosen location of cameras.

Even in committing their fraud, they were unconvincing because the facts simply don't support what they say, and nobody lied more than Joy Cooper.

When the city commissioned a survey/poll by mail with a Kansas-based company, with very poorly-written and frankly, LOADED questions, the Red-Llight cameras came back as THE number-one complaint,

Guess who pretended that the #1 problem citied by her own citizens wasn't really a problem?

Guess who had the nerve on the one hand to pat herself on the back for voting to have the survey done, and then ignore the #1 problem citizens cite?

Yes, Joy Cooper, in her typically thin-skinned, confrontational and oblivious way, which I'm sure that American Traffic Solutions won't forget now that she's running for re-election against the only person on the dais with any integrity who fought against the inside con job by her and city employees -Comm. Keith London.

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/09/hallandale_beach_residents_tak.html

In here piece, you'll also notice how Cooper completely neglects to mention the huge amounts of money the city initially made, which is THE only reason that the South Florida news media paid any attention in the first place, since that was the last time HB was mention in newspapers or on TV all over the state the way it was before the lifeguard incident three weeks ago, which she also had NOT been 100% truthful about.

I trust that I don't have to spell it out for you that this sort of fact-free, propaganda BS from Mayor Cooper should NOT be allowed to go unchallenged, because in the year 2012, we simply can't rely on the quaint idea that the South Florida news media will actually verify

anything that this mendacious women says before it gets into print or on air.

Sadly, that's an ideal that no longer exists in South Florida.

-----

Photos from my February 24, 2011 post that showed the truth regarding the mayor's lies, in a post I labeled, Now as before, facts seldom if ever matter in red-light camera debate in Hallandale Beach. Instead, it's just a pathetic case of "Show me the money!"

http://hallandalebeachblog.

blogspot.com/2011/02/now-as-
before-facts-seldom-if-ever.html

Below are some photos of a self-evident fact that I and many tens of thousands of other Hallandale Beach and Hollywood residents have known about ever since the red-light camera was installed on Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W. 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, with the so-called warning sign posted a block farther east on the corner of N.W. 9th Terrace, which, as it happens, is also a popular area for dangerous U-turns.

It's here somewhere...

It's right around here somewhere.

In what way, exactly, is the red-light camera warning sign "visible" from this distance?

September 25, 2011

Or this distance? August 19, 2011

Or from this distance? September 25, 2011

Where did it go? Shouldn't we see it by now? September 11, 2011

Oh, there you are, red-light camera warning sign, intentionally placed right between two trees!

You only see the sign above because of the reflection of my camera flash.

You'd almost say they were hiding it, yes?

Looking west on W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, April 24, 2011.

In fact, it's not until you are almost parallel to the sign itself, assuming you notice it among the other signs preceding it, that it's visible to west-bound drivers in the road lane that is actually CLOSEST to the sign. That seems illogical on its face doesn't it?

Shouldn't the lane closest to the sign at least see it at roughly the same instant others do?

Instead, the driver closest to it is the one driver most likely to NEVER see it.

How exactly is that common sense?

The fact that there is no street light there only makes it even worse at night, as this photo below amply demonstrates.

Above, the red-light camera warning sign on the north-side of west-bound W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. at N.W. 9th Terrace on February 27, 2011 at 6:40 p.m., a bit past sundown.

The ONLY reason that you even see the sign above is because I'm standing on the curb and pointing my camera directly at it, using my camera's flash.

And that assumes that you the driver aren't distracted -and a bit un-nerved- by the sight of the over-grown palm fronds that obstruct the electronic message board directly behind it.

September 11, 2011

Hmm-m... erecting an electronic message board behind a palm tree on a west-bound roadwhere a setting sun is often brutal at times?

No, nothing bad could ever go wrong with that sort of well-organized plan.

Well, unless it rains .. and the palm fronds get larger.

And aren't properly maintained and cut.

Like the reality in Hallandale Beach since that particular red-light cameras went up.

Where's that red-light camera warning sign?
Looking west on W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. approaching N.W 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach. About 6:50 p.m., April 24, 2011.

Where did you say that red-light camera warning sign was, again?

No, it's not that silver-colored one next to the curb, that the Merge/Bike lane sign. 

Looking west on W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, April 24, 2011.