South Florida news media's silence in asking Steve Geller hard questions has never been more noticeable than now

What follows is an email I sent out this afternoon
to numerous South Florida print/TV reporters
and columnists, raising questions that you may
well have been asking yourself.

The part about Steve Geller could've been
asked last month or last year.
Oh, that's right, I did.
Reporters and columnists, not so much.
-------------

Monday March 22nd, 2010
Noon

Many of you have a reputation for being more
than willing to indulge former State Senator
Steve Geller's ego, and to contact him for
almost any reason under the sun if you think
he'll say something pithy that'll make your
audience chortle, even if he really doesn't
know any more about the subject than many
other people you could ask.

So that said, is there a reason that you and
the rest of the South Florida news media
haven't asked Steve Geller to publicly
declare his own sympathies, one way or
the other, in the fight by Hallandale Beach
citizens -and their allies in Hollywood-
against the incompatible Diplomat LAC
plan scheduled to be voted upon Tuesday
afternoon by the Broward County Commission?

Or to ever mention what other local Broward
pols are saying or doing in relation to the
prospect of four or five 25-story-plus condo
towers being dropped on a residential
neighborhood, largely because the Union
that owns the Diplomat Country Club,
along with their partner Starwood, has done
such a dreadful job of improving and marketing
the expensive golf course, that nobody wants
to play there.

(If they get the approval they seek from the
Broward County Commission, it's clear that
the Plumbers & Pipe Fitters Union will
try to sell it toute-de-suite.)

For instance, sounding-out local pols like
Eleanor Sobel, Joe Gibbons, Jennifer
& Ken Gottlieb, Elaine Schwartz or
Ann Murray or...

In most parts of the country, they'd be part
of the equation, and maybe even vocal leaders
in the fight.
But here, they just sit on the sidelines, as if
local voters in HB and Hollywood don't notice
their MIA status, and won't take it into account
negatively come Election Day.

(They're in for a surprise, as we WILL
take it into account and ask questions
about their silence.)

No, instead, we are met with completely
incurious reporters who don't seem to want
to ask reasonable questions that Southeast
Broward residents want answers to.

It's the biggest issue in this city -besides
reforming a very corrupt HB City Hall-
and yet you all have, individually and
collectively, given Steve Geller a free ride
for months.

You've been completely averse to asking basic
questions of someone who could, theoretically,
actually represent most of this city and
Hollywood if he were to actually somehow defeat
Sue Gunzburger, though I think it's unlikely.

Why?
Why this great reluctance to ask Steve Geller
tough questions?

Is it the possibility of losing access to
a quotable source?

Frankly, that's what most people I know who
are interested in public policy in South Florida
believe.
You know, the ones interested enough to actually
show-up and participate and be quoted by you
or featured in interviews you conduct?

That's also the belief of many Florida reporters
from outside of South Florida.
If you didn't already know, many of them think
Geller plays the South Florida media like
a violin, some more easily than others
-from practice!

And why the great reluctance to ask Geller
to state the specific date by which he will
actually be living in the Commission
District he's running for, while he continues
to live outside of it up in Cooper City?

Geller has been a carpetbagger this entire
campaign, an adjective that you all seem
very reluctant to use for reasons that don't
necessarily speak well for your profession's
integrity.
It's all just so very, very curious.

And what is Broward Commissioner Diana
Wasserman-Rubin going to do on the
Diplomat LAC, since Hallandale Beach is part
of her District, even if the project itself is not?

Will she continue to give the concerned
neighborhood the complete runaround?

DWR had no problem at all in meeting Hallandale
Beach Commissioner Anthony A, Sanders
in person on March 8th at the Hepburn Center
in HB to hear the typically one-sided rhetoric
sans facts that he specializes in.

But when the actual neighborhood directly affected
by the over-the-top project wanted to show her
around and give her some first-hand perspective
and context to better understand their plight
-and more easily imagine a 25-30-story
condo suddenly going up 100 feet from
their kitchen window, and plunging them
into near permanent shade- after initially
agreeing to come, DWR decided the following
day, last Friday, that she didn't want to meet
with them on-site.
Which defeats the purpose of a walking
tour, no?

Instead, she asked them to come to her
West Park office today at 4 p.m., at the
Family Success Center, 4733 SW 18th Street,
one block south of Pembroke Rd.

Those of you who want to break away from
the media herd may want to consider
swinging-by there and see how it's goes,
but at this point, given all her other myriad
problems, DWR seems to just be digging
herself into a deeper hole with HB citizens,
who already thought she was distant and
far-removed from their day-to-day concerns,
which will only be magnified if she votes
for the Diplomat on Tuesday.

After failing to meet residents where
the project is slated to be built.

For the record, besides Sue Gunzburger,
who has been to numerous meetings in both
HB and Hollywood on this issue that I've
attended, NONE of the other Broward
County Commissioners have bothered
to come to the affected area to see what's
in store for these beleaguered residents.

Perhaps the attached Massing Study done
by the Diplomat's consultants will give
you a sense of their future if the Diplomat
gets their way.

Seeing is believing, which perhaps best explains
why DWR chooses not to visit the scene.

She knows that she can't look people in the eye
and say that she likes what the Diplomat
proposes to do to their home, so she forces a
handful of them to have to come to HER office,
where she has home-court advantage, and can
conclude the meeting whenever she wants.

If I were a betting man, as of this afternoon,
I'd say that Diana Wasserman-Rubin will
vote for the Diplomat's project, along with
both Stacey Ritter and Elaine Lieberman,
the latter two forever the developer's friend
and among the biggest individual drags on
Broward getting into the 21st Century thru
their smirky, ham-handed ethical problems.

Me, I'm just wondering when the news media
down here will once again have both some bark
and some bite.

-----

Those of you who want to see the Massing Study
I referred to above for yourselves should drop me
an email and I'll send it to you.
Write me at hallandalebeachblog(-at-)gmail.com