Mid-July 2008's VERY odds and ends in Hallandale Beach

Directly underneath the circle of the Hallandale Beach Water Tower around 5:45 p.m., Hallandale Beach, FL; July 11, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Took the shot above while roughly about one inch from the front door of the "community center" facility below the Water Tower that adjoins Hallandale Beach Fire Rescue Station #60.

The City of Hallandale Beach has held title to the facility since last August, but it has only been used a handful of time in those eleven-and-a-half months, and usually by people with a very close relationship to the folks at City Hall, prompting some heated emails to me over the past few months asking if I know what's afoot.

In all that time, there has yet to be even ONE public meeting in the city dedicated specifically to allowing the community to speak their mind about the future uses of the facility.

In fact, the only meeting in the city that I've attended since January of last year where it's even been broached in a halfway-serious fashion, was the all-day budget meeting held in mid-May, where somewhat incongruously, I found myself agreeing with Mayor Joy Cooper more often than has ever been the case previously or since.

(That was the meeting where I snapped some damning shots of the city's blase approach to recycling by showing city plastic water bottles tossed in with regular garbage, despite all the PC talk at HB City Hall about taking recycling seriously. I have a whole series of post with photos that take the recycling program to task, but until then, there's http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/talking-globally-polluting-locally-in.html )

Despite what I though at the time were my common sense comments at that budget meeting to the City Manager, the Mayor and the City Commission that, at a minimum, they needed to put up some signs or fliers on the doors letting residents know that the building did in fact belong to the city -despite the Beach Club Realty info that remains on the front door.

I also argued that in the absence of any information on the matter whatsoever, the city also needed to post something on the doors about what the tentative plans were regarding a prospective city-wide meeting, where residents could weigh-in on the facility's future use.

Frankly, it's a huge embarrassment to the city that there was not such a meeting held early 
LAST YEAR over at the HB Cultural Center, months before the building actually reverted to the city, so that plans could be made to have something resembling a seamless transition.

I hardly need tell you, do I, that not only were there no signs two weeks after I made my comments at that mid-May city budget meeting, but there are still no signs, two months later.

The city is communicating ZERO information about what's happening with it or when or if any public meetings will be held, which I personally think is MUST in order to prevent it from becoming a Clubhouse for the favored few in the community who have connections, or are otherwise cronies to those who do.

Say, like the people who got the VIP parking passes for the beach concert a few months ago, when it was not at all clear what made them VIPs other than their connections to City Hall.

(I personally apologize for not having written what I know and observed that day at the beach, which, even for Hallandale Beach, showed signs of laughably bad planning, organization and execution, right down to the number of people who had to make U-turns around the fountain because the electronic sign wasn't located somewhere in front of the area, and assigning a uniformed cop to guard the South Beach while Police Explorers goofed around on the sidewalk and didn't even help direct traffic, thereby helping folks trying to cross the street with coolers, umbrellas, et al. That's all coming. Mieux tard que jamais!)

Here's why this negative news about the difficulty of simply planning a public meeting isn't surprising.

It took the city almost THREE MONTHS exactly to simply replace the severely damaged American flag that flew in front of the Water Tower and Fire Station #60, despite my personally having told the Fire Dept. about it in minute detail -twice.

The last time, it was when I spoke face-to-face with HB Fire Chief Daniel Sullivan during a City Commission meeting at the beginning of June, and he pooh-poohed my concerns, saying it'd be taken care of right away.

Then I told him that I wish that were so but the facst were that I'd already spoken to someone in the Fire Dept. about it -a captain?- for about 5-10 minutes and it was now six weeks later, so I wasn't exactly wowed by the follow-up, and wanted to see some tangible sign of progress, not more promises.
It would be another five weeks before it was actually done -eleven weeks in total!

By Sunday evening, I'll recount here that sad example of what life in Hallandale Beach is like, complete with photos.
------------------------------------------------------------http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2007-10-17/item%206a/supp_docs/documents/doc2.doc.MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COMMISSION, CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH, FLORIDA, HELD ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 01, 2007

Discussion of Public Works Construction Projects
City Manager Good advised that DPW has inspected the former Beach Club sales facility on the beach by the Fire Station and the facility will be turned over to the City on Friday, August 3, 2007.--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.cohb.org/DocumentView.asp?DID=416
page 55

Upgrades to Municipal Building @ North Beach, CIP #: 07 46 02

Fiscal 2006-07 Funds: $100,000
Upgrades to Municipal Building located at North Beach
----------------------------------------------------------from May 2008 monthly DPW report
10) Demolition of interior of North Beach Municipal Building was completed, and parking machines with signage has been installed.
I've been on the case since last year, but my new camera has allowed me to connect the dots on all sorts of shady things that have been happening over at the beach -and environs- for a long time, which will be the subject of future posts, replete with lots of incriminating photos.
Herewith, I some of the comments I've received over the transom, some direct comments and others I've paraphrased:


"Do you know when the City of Hallandale Beach will make their final decisions on which 'so-called' non-profits they'll be funding for next year? At the budget meeting in August?"


I've actually received several emails from people around town asking me why the same groups keep getting funded, year-after-year, despite perhaps only getting "sketchy results" as one letter writer put it.

The same groups who, according to that letter writer, "get to use the Cultural Center (and that space below the HB Water Tower) all the time, thanks to City Hall cronyism."


Myself, I realize that there's a charge to use the Cultural Center facility, but I don't know whether the letter writers necessarily

a.) know that, or
b.) are implying that these "groups" are getting a break on the price.


It used to be -may still is- the common practice on Capitol Hill that Members got the use of their committee rooms for certain pet projects or to hold press conferences for concerns of their district, after getting the okay of the Comm. Chair and the Ranking Member, which is why certain well-known but relatively small groups, got the use of some of the nicer rooms on Capitol Hill.

I was at lots of those events myself, including some DLC meetings when Rep. Dave McCurdy was running things, and I often lugged food and drinks from his office over to wherever we were meeting that day.


Email writers have also asked me whether I knew who in the city actually receives those non-profit funding requests before the decision is made, so that HB residents could, if so inclined, see who was making formal requests, and take a look at those groups financial disclosures.
(This has only served to make me curious about it, too.)


Would that be the Finance office or the City Manager's office?
I don't know, myself, but given the level of interest in this, I'd now like to follow-up and find out, since there seems to be much more interest in this topic than you'd generally think, especially since it's clear that the City of HB will have to make some funding and employee cuts in the near future.

Speaking of which, consider this approach to the problem:
Imaginative ways of culling the public service workforce http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0709/1215537641182.html

I'm curious if any of you all have yet discovered the new blog that comes from our fair city, http://cityofhallandalebeach.blogspot.com/ ?

I ask because it's interesting to me that the author doesn't reveal much of anything about themself, much less, detail their motivation for doing so, the exact opposite tack I took in creating my two blogs.

Obviously, everyone has their own personal reasons, it just struck me as odd to never mention it. Certainly, at first glance at least, it seems clear that the person behind it is more overtly religious than the average person I run into in at local events and meetings.

The fact that they choose to use the phrase "City of Hallandale Beach" in their title seems a rather curious one to me, since there's no disclaimer on it anywhere, so far, saying that it isn't an official city blog or being written by a city employee, though it's clearly not a tourist-y blog, like the one up in Ft. Lauderdale for the Greater FTL CVB, http://www.sunny.org/blog/index.html

Then again, the Aventura-centric blog that started up a few months ago, http://cityofaventura.blogspot.com/ has the phrase "City of" in it, but they have a disclaimer.

I describe it on my blogroll this way: City of Aventura Blog -The 2007 brainchild of longtime Aventura resident Aaron Gurland who seeks to give the city with no downtown a virtual place to come together._____________________
Below are some of the very fact-specific posts on discretionary spending in Miami-Dade County written by EyeonMiami, voted the #1 blog in South Florida by Miami New Times.
I highly commend it to you now, given what's going on in Miami.

Despite it being a big election year and many of the people involved here running for re-election in November, or worse, un-opposed, http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other_views/story/574089.html it's not exactly been a case of local media -and TV in particular-rushing into this particular area of inquiry, so until they do so, somebody has to do all the heavy lifting.
Up 'till now, that's been EyeonMiami. http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/


In reading the blog posts on discretionary funding, I can't help but think of the comments I shared a few weeks ago with the Herald's Larry Lebowitz, after his recent exhaustive research project resulted in the excellent front page series on Miami-Dade transit issues, one of the best the Herald has had. http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/transit/


There, he revealed in minute detail the myriad promises to voters that were broken over the years, as to the nature and scope of the system, because corruption, cronyism and political sleight-of-hand are so scarily endemic here, while transparency and accountability are not.


I wrote: "Your head must ache from all the negativity and incompetency you encountered and wrote about, knowing you couldn't possibly include everything you found out about.
I commiserate. I know the feeling."

Over the weekend, I hope to be sending the guys at EyeonMiami some comments on the topic of elected officials' discretionary funding in general, including the amazing fact that, per the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial below- Palm Beach County commissioners had almost $1 million dollars a piece to hand out as party favors, three times what NYC Council members and Miami-Dade County commissioners had to dole out.
______________________________
These results are as of a week agohttp://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/search?q=discretionary

Private Foundation "Wounded Healers" Got $13,000 from District 7 Discretionary Funds with a Numberless Tax Return! By Geniusofdespair

Bay of Pigs Veterans...Is Natacha Seijas Mad At Them? By Geniusofdespair

Commissioners Giving our Tax Dollars to Non-Profits: Bad Idea. By Geniusofdespair

Ongoing Investigation into Non Profits that get your tax dollars. By Geniusofdespair

Miami Herald, on the permanent incumbency... by gimleteye

The Miami Herald Wrote This? Sounds More Like Eyeonmiami by Geniusofdespair.
Backed by discretionary accounts and swelling war chests, County Commission incumbents are sitting comfortably. This year's batch of challengers faces a difficult test.

Pizzi to challenge Seijas? by gimleteye

Curley's House of Style Has Your Tax Dollars! By Geniusofdespair

The Inspector General's "Random Audits" of Non Profits: There are none!! by Geniusofdespair

Miami Dade County Should Stop Funding Non-Profits. By Geniusofdespair

Miami Dade Elections Department is Dead Right. By Geniusofdespair

County Commissioners: Buying Votes? by Geniusofdespair

Obscene Amounts of Money in Miami Dade County Commission Races


See I told you there's a reason why EyeonMiami won the Best Blog award!
See http://miaminewtimes.com/bestof/2008/award/best-blog-1006337

Without getting too deeply into this Sun-Sentinel Editorial, perhaps the most shocking aspect of this is their blase reporting of the fact that Palm Beach County commissioners had approximately a million dollars a piece to generally do with as they chose, almost
three times as much money in their discretionary accounts as those of NYC Council members.

The least shocking was the Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board failing to put the Palm Beach s.o.p./shenanignas in their proper numerical perspective for comparison's sake, and comparing them to other counties in the state.__________________________________
www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-editnbslushfundspnjun05,0,5505617.story
South Florida Sun-SentinelSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board
Commissioners' discretionary accounts better used elsewhere, like on Tri-RailJune 5, 2008


ISSUE: County administrator recommends commissioners give up discretionary funds.Call them what you like — "discretionary funds," "slush money," a "lifeline" for community services.

Whatever their moniker of the moment, this year, once and for all, county commissioners should have one overriding description for the controversial accounts: "gone."

The money, used by each commissioner at their discretion for local needs from streetlights to street festivals, can be used for very good purposes. But they've become a target for budget cuts, and rightfully so, given an economic climate that's got the county weighing crushing cuts to such essentials as its mass transit programs, parks services and employee salaries.

Last year, amid a financial storm that had the county considering laying off deputies and cutting whole programs to make up a $14 million shortfall, commissioners agreed to give up the biggest chunk of their discretionary accounts — $7 million in gas-tax money split evenly among the seven commissioners for new roads and beautification projects.

But still left for each commissioner to spend as they pleased was $200,000 from property tax revenue for pet projects like band uniforms and downtown Christmas trees.

Only Commissioners Karen Marcus and Bob Kanjian, seeing how inappropriate it was to lavish money on chosen projects when the county budget was bleeding, refused to take the money.

Now, this year's budget is expected to be even more painful. With property values falling 7 percent, the economy teetering on recession and cuts expected from voters' Amendment 1 directive, County Administrator Bob Weisman is slicing department budgets by another 5 percent and limiting employee raises.

So it makes perfect sense that he recommend eliminating the last of commissioners' discretionary accounts. The $1 million in savings could prevent deeper cuts to Palm Tran and park services. Or, better yet, the county could put the money toward its faltering Tri-Rail contribution, sending a message to Broward and Miami-Dade counties that keeping an increasingly popular commuter rail service afloat in today's $4-a-gallon gas market will take us a lot further than band uniforms or street festivals ever will.

BOTTOM LINE: Money better used elsewhere, like on Tri-Rail.
_______________
Reader comments at:http://www.topix.net/forum/source/south-florida-sun-sentinel/T33JMASVE3UQR5TOB