Beach One Resort's Approval in Hollywood Provokes Wrath and Harsh Words at Hallandale Beach City Commission

Wanting to respond to what I witnessed firsthand on Wednesday afternoon in Hollywood, and then later that evening in Hallandale Beach, at their respective City Commission meetings, where the number-one topic was Hollywood and their unanimous 5-0 approval of the Beach One Resort project on A1A, I sent the following as an email to some folks in Hallandale Beach, Broward County and up in Tallahassee, who are concerned with what's going on here.

(And news media personalities and outlets throughout the state, who have already evinced to me a certain interest in the strange doings hereabouts.)

Especially since both the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald utterly failed to connect the dots on this story as they should've.

I guess that's the logical downside to their so-so attendance at Broward city commission meetings and reporting of local news, since there hasn't been a Herald reporter actually present at a HB Commission meeting since at least June, for the joint meeting with Hollywood that Breanne Gilpatrick covered.

The Herald not only failed to write about either city's Wednesday Commission meeting in the paper on Thursday, but botched the job from the start when they covered the first reading in Hollywood on Beach One Resort on October 1st, failing to run a single illustration or rendering of the hotel that everyone, even critics, agrees is beautiful, thanks to the design by architect Carlos Ott.

This is a longer version of the original email, along with with new updated information and URL links.

September 17, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Things reached a new low(!), if possible, when crazy threats were uttered by Mayor Joy Cooper about actually charging the public to access the North Beach of Hallandale Beach, which is right next to.... why yes, the City of Hollywood and the Beach One Resort.
Does this bully of a mayor have no scruples left?

Is there nothing she won't say or do or threaten in order to get her way?

But then I recall that twice this summer, despite a unanimous HB Planning & Zoning Board vote approving it, she twice voted against an Assisted Living Facility (ALF) application, even though the applicant had already complied with all existing requirements up to that point in the process.

Mayor Cooper's unconscionable -and frankly, creepy- attitude, especially given the clear and bipartisan public policy intent of the legislature in crafting the law, caused me to unexpectedly get out of my seat in the Chambers and remind the Commission that the vote they cast would speak volumes for the community, one that's full of older residents, and have unintended negative effects for the city if they foolishly followed the mayor's lead.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, especially the future residents of the ALF, Mayor Cooper was the lone vote opposing the applicant in a 4-1 vote.

Lesson learned? She's capable of anything under the sun.

June 25, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier


Above, the iconic Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A and Hallandale Beach Blvd., is dwarfed by the three towers of The Related Company's development, The Beach Club.


Pay to use the very public beach the city currently does such an abysmally poor job of keeping clean and maintaining, where they can't even enforce their own code enforcement rules because of the rampant cronyism and corruption thereabouts?



Where even months later, after not being there for years, HB's DPW can't manage to consistently put enough clearly marked BLUE recycling bins on the beach where the public can use them, instead of either hiding them or leaving them in places where the public wouldn't think to look?


The bins are paid for by taxpayers and are there for the public's benefit, to actually be convenient and used, not to be hidden so that DPW employees can do the least amount of work, as has been the case for MONTHS.

The public beach where, as I mentioned at budget meetings months ago, the city uses garbage receptacles without lids at the windiest place in the city? Yes!



Right, because on-duty lifeguards really need one more thing to do than concentrate on their job -cleaning up debris from strong winds or garbage overflows.



The public beach where the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. currently never patrols on a regular basis, even on busy three-day holiday weekends, leaving the burden largely to beleaguered (contractor) lifeguards? Yes!

September 22, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

An everyday sight for anyone who goes to North Beach in Hallandale Beach as often as myself
is seeing the staff from The Beachside Cafe nonchalantly tossing a myriad of things on top of,
into and below the plants that are supposed to be protected and left alone, including heavy garbage bags, heavy plastic storage containers and cardboard with all sorts of liquids on them.

And as you can see above, they are constantly putting cleaning supplies full of toxic chemicals
outside on the public sidewalk, and those liquids go directly into the ground.

You know, where the birds above are?

I first told Corrine Yoder of HB Code Enforcement about this behavior in person at HB City Hall
in May of 2007, and referenced the encounter on this blog in my June 14, 2007 post titled,

A Chilly Reception at HB City Hall: "Are you a reporter?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/rude-reception-at-hb-city-hall-are-you.html

This behavior at this location has been going on for 3-4 years, as long as this bldg. has existed, and people at HB City Hall know about it and do nothing.

Not surprisingly, given the strong connection the owners of The Beachside Cafe have to HB City Hall, I'm not aware of any HB City Commission meeting that has ever taken place where the longtime behavior of this facility has been adequately addressed publicly.

Why not?

Next week I'll be taking a look at the city's lease with The Beachside Cafe, and inquire as to a whole slew of curious if not downright questionable behavior that has taken place there over the recent past, much of it involving public parking.

And, needless to say, I've already got the photos to prove it.

September 6, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Above, the beach access for emergency vehicles to the left, usually full of debris, while to the right are the city-owned dumpsters on Surf Road for city lessee The Beachside Cafe, which has been missing code required decorative fencing for YEARS.

And I know with certainty that they toss glass bottles and aluminum cans that could be recycled into the dumpster, because I've seen it -and heard it- many times.

And snapped photos of them doing it, even though there's almost always a DPW recycling bin next to the dumpster.

Just as with the prior photo above, I first told Corrine Yoder about this at City Hall in May of 2007.
You can see the logical results of my having gone thru proper HB City Hall channels for yourself.

Hmm-m..
I forgot, when exactly did the Florida Constitution change and allow cities to charge citizens
of this state, much less, residents of that city, a fee to access the public's own beach?
I must've missed that memo!

October 3, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Above, Hollywood's public notice sign on the slit-fence on State Road A1A surrounding the Beach One Resort property, with HB Water Tower and HB Fire/Rescue Station #600 to south.

If only there was some way to see what really happened in Hollywood and not just take
my word for it.

Oh wait, there already is.

You can see the wriiten docs at: http://www.hollywoodfl.org/docdepotcache/00000/814/PO-2008-20.PDF and http://www.hollywoodfl.org/docdepotcache/00000/814/R-2008-327.PDF
and see the video of exactly what transpired in Hollywood on their excellent website at http://www.hollywoodfl.org/Media/Archives/ccm101508/ccm101508_Indexed.pdf and judge for yourself.

It's just THAT version of events is NOT the one that Mayor Cooper and City Manager Good were particularly interested in sharing Wednesday night with HB residents in person or via cable TV, as they told one fantastical and indignant story after another of the myriad depredations they say were inflicted upon them and their City Hall Crew by their mean-spirited and un-cooperative neighbors to the north, Hollywood.

The only thing missing from their stories was "Once upon a time..." plus the usual assortment of princes and princesses.

Earlier Thursday afternoon, I received an update from Comm. Keith London regarding last night's chaotic HB City Commission meeting, and draw your attention to this item which I've actually been concerned with for awhile, and wrote down when he cited the specific figures from the dais, even as City Manager Good stood directly over his shoulder, and Mayor Cooper publicly belittled his attempts to get to the heart of the matter, which she and the rest of the Commission clearly did NOT want to do:

I inquired as to the status of the three (3) appraisals the City Manager (Mike Good) agreed to provide to the City Commission before purchasing property from Commissioner Sanders at 501 NW 1st Avenue, Hallandle, FL.
The appraisal information is as follows:

LB Slater Appraisal #13057 $147,000

LB Slater Appraisal #13057a $147,000

Butterfield Appraisal #8785 $275,000

Broward County Property Appraiser Value $146,360

I proposed a motion to eliminate out the Butterfield Appraisal.
I did NOT receive a second to my motion. What could be the justification of the City Manager (Mike Good) entertaining the Butterfield Appraisal?

That's a very good question Comm. London asks, one which is certainly worthy of a very good answer, don't you think?

So why can't City Manager Mike Good and his staff adequately answer that question and so many others fully and publicly at HB City Commission meetings?

More troubling to me as a citizen of this city, given the current financial situation the city says it's in, is why none of the other HB City Commissioners seconded this common sense motion by Comm. London, and why are they even considering the possibility of paying a sitting interim HB Commissioner -running for election for the first time- an unwarranted $130,000 of taxpayers funds?

As has usually been the case with this Hallandale Beach City Hall crew since I first returned to South Florida from the Washington D.C. area in late 2003, their continuing pattern of obfuscation, misbehavior and questionable ethical conduct raise more questions than it answers.

Not so coincidentally, these same three HB commissioners who didn't want to second that motion of Comm. London -Ross, Sanders and Julian- are the very same three who couldn't be bothered to make the ten-minute drive up to Hollywood Wednesday for the matter that Cooper and Good apparently considered a veritable red alert. London was there.

As it happens, none of the same three attended ANY of the previous two public hearings in Hollywood that have been held within the past month on the project.
I should know -I went to all three meetings.

If you haven't already seen it yet, a good place to start digging for some answers on what's going on at HB City Hall, especially re financial issues, is http://www.changehallandale.com/

It's a website started recently by a smart and savvy friend of mine who shares our common interest in seeing reform, accountability and transparency in Hallandale Beach government.

Finally.

The sooner the better!

________________________

This afternoon I spoke with the person behind the Change Hallandale website on the telephone about another matter altogether.

After talking for about 15 minutes, he mentioned that following another HB resident's email relating to the above made the rounds Friday night -which I received- wherein this email writer had complained about a problem he'd had with the site's email function, my friend followed-up with the ISP and discovered that even his own messges to his own site weren't going through.

The ISP fixed the email problem, and he responded to the person who complained.

And what do you know, he actually got a new email today at the site.

It was an email from Mayor Joy Cooper where she wrote just one word: COWARD.

As if you didn't already know everything you needed to know about her style of operation, hadn;t seen and heard enough stories about thin-skinned ego, she goes ahead and throws another log on that roaring fire as to how she reacts to even the slightest bit of criticism.

You may use the phrase, "It's a free country."

But for Joy Cooper, it really isn't.

In Hallandale Beach, Joy Cooper believes it's her way or the highway!

I've mentioned it here before but compare the self-evident differences in style and substance and

what actually gets accomplished at Hallandale Beach City Commission meetings and those in Hollywood.

Especially now that Mayor Bober has taken the nastiness out of their deliberations on the dais by substituting basic fairness and reasonableness, even when he is on the losing side of a vote, as happened on the WSG project for the SE corner of Young Circle.

No threats, no recriminations.

Plus, because Mayor Bober attempts to give every commissioner ample opportunity to speak on every agenda item, doesn't cut them off in their questions or questioing of city staff, and, unlike in HB, demands complete answers from staff and not evasions, the tension is gone that has hovered over Hollywood City Hall for years.

That he won't tolerate staff not providing info to Commissioners in a timely fashion for their review goes a long way towards promoting comity and civility.

One other big difference in how things are handled is that he doesn't feel the need to constantly

provide a running commentary, and comment thru ad lib after each commissioner or speaker comments, as happens constantly here with Mayor Cooper, which is one of the reasons the HB City Commission meetings drag out forever and are constantly behind schedule, as I mentioned as recently as my discussion of Wednesday night's HB meeting.

Nearly three hours of their talking and still no Public Participation?

That sort of time management led me to leave the meeting to catch the debate at home.

The hope that Mayor Cooper is open to changing her behavior and tactics is a fundamental misunderstanding of human behavior in general, and her's in particular.

She can't suddenly change her spots -she is what she is.

Hoping, as some in the community do, that she'll see the light and suddenly change is no strategy at all for getting more reform and accountability, and neither is getting people involved or elected whom I personally perceive as parts of the larger problem (puzzle) involved, for the very same reasons as were true of the mayor.

They are the way they are, and show no desire to be open to changes and reform.

Especially an 82-year old woman running for re-election like Dotty Ross, who, even at this late date, still can't point to a single policy issue before the HB Commission the past four years where she successfully challenged the mayor or city manager on principle, by arguing her case so forcefully and persuasively with facts and concrete examples to buttress her points.

It has never happened!!!

Or, on the flip side, someone inexperienced like Alexander Lewy, whom I think is a pretty good guy generally speaking, but perhaps a bit prone to telling audiences exactly what they want to hear, as many inexperienced pols are, especially one who is a liaison to ethnic communities as his current job.

At least based on what I have personally seen, Lewy has never publicly questioned Cooper or Good's continued bad judgment or propensity for secretiveness even once, and the recent parking kerfuffle on Golden Isles hardly qualifies as public policy debate, since nobody thought it was a good idea except people at City Hall.

He might still do so, but from my perspective, it's getting a little late in the game for him to be something other than a young pol angling for the chance to make this Commission position a stepping-stone.

Where does Lewy or Ross or Anthony Sanders stand on the question of Police Chief Magill's egregious conduct and behavior, which was criminal in my mind, and his future as chief?

Here you have a man in Magill who consciously attempted to use his position to frame two innocent people, two Police officers, and continually lied about what he was doing to his boss, costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements and associated costs, and even more to its tattered reputation?

That whole subject has STILL never come up at a HB City Commission meeting with Cooper and Good in charge.

Well, it's pretty easy to guess, isn't it, considering their silence on the matter the past year?

They don't want to make waves, but waves are exactly what need to be made now to wash away the longstanding cronyism, incompetency and sense of entitlement that is rampant at Hallandale Beach City Hall.

If this were a city that is self-evidently well-run like Coral Springs, the luxury of having 'bumps on a log' would be a different scenario, but we aren't, we're talking about Hallandale Beach, and it is in severe trouble.

This city is light years from being in Coral Springs' class of governance, regardless of Cooper and Good's self-serving moves to have the city, Ross and Good nominated for a FL LOC award for excellence, a topic that I will likely deal with in more depth on Sunday.

I simply don't want to replace one group of puppets on a string with another group that over a period of months has shown no real awareness of the severity of the problems this city faces in uncertain economic times, where tough decisions will need to be made, not deferred.

Frankly, I want much more than that right now.

I want to see positive, dynamic changes and reform so this city will stop being a regional punch line and laughingstock that scares prospective businesses and residents away with their weird City Hall machinations and adversarial attitudes towards residents and businesses alike.

The current Joy Cooper/Dotty Ross/William Julian roadmap leads to a dead end, folks, let's not pretend otherwise.

Their continuing poor choices and (ethical) lapses in judgment have gotten us to this current point, and THAT should be enough warning for anyone who is paying serious attention, and who aspires for this city to be much better than it currently is now.

For that reason I'll be voting for Arturo O'Neill and Carlos Simmons on Election Day November 4th for City Commission, and urge you to take your vote seriously and do the same.

(See www.Arturo-Oneill.com for more infromation.)

If you don't, you'll wake up on the morning of November 5th to find the same HB City Hall Crew mentality, just with new faces.

Do you really want more of the same?

Not me.