 |
| Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall, September 2016, as captured by me, SouthBeachHoosier, © 2016 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. |
Important update to my last post: #SoFL #ethics - Proving that the past is prologue, yet again, here comes ethically-challenged Commissioner Bill Julian to once again personally make Hallandale Beach a laughingstock. But this time, a NATIONAL laughingstock.
Surprise! It involves votes on real estate development and favors in return. Here's the latest
on the matter, along with a stark reminder of Bill Julian's previous unethical actions
So, like many people in Broward County, we were recently surprised to wake up one morning and discover the strangest thing in in the pages of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the very newspaper that had specifically instructed its Hallandale Beach reporter to NOT report on the bribery allegations against Vice Mayor William "Bill" Julian in the context of their recent meetings.
It was an editorial about the longstanding public corruption and ethics problem at Hallandale Beach City Hall and the current one involving Commissioner Bill Julian
Here's a reminder about that lack of media clarity and accoiuntability from the newspaper first:
POLITICO Florida
Florida newspaper kills story of local official allegedly seeking favors from developer
By Marc Caputo
08/26/16 05:33 AM EDT
By Marc Caputo
08/26/16 05:33 AM EDT
The South Florida Sun Sentinel killed a news story on its website about Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Bill Julian admitting on tape that he sought developer favors in return for his vote — a move by the newspaper’s leadership that appears to be part of a pattern of censoring controversial stories, according to multiple sources inside and outside the Fort Lauderdale newsroom.
The story concerning Julian’s alleged bribe-taking was first reported by WPLG-10, where investigative reporter Bob Norman obtained a voice message that the commissioner mistakenly left after he failed to properly hang up a phone. Julian discussed voting favorably for the $450 million Diplomat Golf & Tennis Club and linked it to alleged pledges from the developer’s attorneys who allegedly promised campaign contributions and campaign volunteers as well as a new van for his favorite city charity.
The story concerning Julian’s alleged bribe-taking was first reported by WPLG-10, where investigative reporter Bob Norman obtained a voice message that the commissioner mistakenly left after he failed to properly hang up a phone. Julian discussed voting favorably for the $450 million Diplomat Golf & Tennis Club and linked it to alleged pledges from the developer’s attorneys who allegedly promised campaign contributions and campaign volunteers as well as a new van for his favorite city charity.
Read the rest of the article at:
That Editorial is here:
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial: Hallandale Beach running off rails
Of course, it's important to keep in mind that the Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board are the very same folks who were perfectly happy to keep quiet for YEARS about the Hallandale Beach CRA and the crimes against HB residents and Small Businesses that took place there over a period of years, which resulted in perhaps $80 Million going out the door with precious little of a tangible nature to show for it, as I so often wrote, blogged and tweeted about, with links here:
That is to say, the Sun-Sentinel ignored it for years AFTER a damning report had already been issued by the Broward County Inspector General showed that there was practically no oversight or vetting at HB City hall by anyone in a position of authority of the kind that would be expected, including from longtime Mayor Joy Cooper or the previous two City Managers.
So, where were Hallandale Beach's various state legislators when all of this was actually going on and what did they do?
State Senators Eleanor Sobel and Oscar Braynon II were actively trying to prevent a Joint Legislative Auditing Comm. audit in Tallahassee into the HB CRA -and succeeded!- while State Rep. Shevrin Jones was so clueless and uninformed about what was going on in his own district that he NEVER knew what was going on -admitting as much in a tweet to me.
Jones never publicly offered to help the public get the facts they were entitled to, even though the public in question that was most-angry and most-taken advantage of was, of course, his own constituents.
And Joe Gibbons did what he does best: saying nothing and doing nothing to help Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens and Small Business owners who had a right to expect more from all of them than endless amounts of apathy, indifference and outright obfuscation of the truth.
With help like this, who needs enemies?
And don't forget! A scheduled meeting to discuss the alleged bribery scandal surrounding
Comm. Bill Julian will take place tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Hallandale Beach residents and interested parties who want to speak need to sign up in advance.
This is prior to the controversial vote on the Chateau Group project on US-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd.
Many if not most of you who are familiar with how things actually work at Hallandale Beach City Hall are also quite familiar with how frequently Mayor Cooper has brought up items that
were NOT on the scheduled agenda and tried to force the Commission to vote on that matter,
even when the staff said that they did not have any information to provide the Commission
at the time so that they could make an even vaguely-informed vote.
Like, above, the way in 2013 Mayor Cooper tried to have the City Commission forgive the hefty
fines that Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino accrued from the city and state for violating
the city's own Code Compliance rules, by starting work on huge temporary buildings before they
had any permits. They owed the city $52,000.
Gulfstream Park first tried to pressure city employees and when that didn't work, they simply called Mayor Cooper across the street instead of following established procedures and contacting the City Manager and the rest of the Commission to inform them and the public about their self-created "problems."
I remind you that this email below is esp. important given that unlike it has always done in
the past, even when they were held at locations other than the HB City Hall Chambers, the
city did NOT televise -via their cable channel- or video record last month's Planning & Zoning
meeting held at Ingalls Park re the very controversial Chateau Square project proposed for
the SE corner of US-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd., which comes before the HB City Commission
next Wednesday night for the first of two required readings.
