Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino will try to weasel their way out of a $52k bldg. code fine tonight -one they EARNED the old-fashioned way- and Mayor Cooper will be rooting them across the finish line; Pegasus Park; Hallandale Beach's shenanigans with 2014 Parks Bond issue to use money for purposes other than Parks -surprise!

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 From a month ago but still applicable: 
Local10: Mayor wants $52K fine against Gulfstream Park waived
No vote taken on waiving fine at Hallandale Beach budget meeting
By Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com, and Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com
Published On: Oct 04 2013 06:13:16 PM EDT   
Updated On: Oct 04 2013 11:51:10 PM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/mayor-wants-52k-fine-against-gulfstream-park-waived/-/1717324/22282006/-/p0vivbz/-/index.html

This blog post today was an email an hour ago that soon got sent all over the city, county and state. In fact, I made a point of sending it up to Tallahassee to someone who has been outside the blog's view and sphere-of-influence up until now, the Chair of the Florida Senate's Gaming Committee, Garrett Richter, whose name makes me think of an NFL player from the 1960's.

It represents the follow-up to my last two posts on Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the building code fines they have tried to get out of paying, with the moral atta-boy support of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper.
Who, of course, is supposed to be representing the interests of HB citizens, not the parties that break its laws and rules.

In case you need a quick catch-up, here they are
November 8, 2013

Another completely unnecessary night of confusion, finger-pointing and buffoonery at Hallandale Beach City Hall. Agenda item re Gulfstream Park Race Track's $52k fine for Building Code Violations is deferred, but only after it became clear to one and all that execs at Gulfstream Park prefer to deal only with their pal, Mayor Cooper, not the ENTIRE elected City Commission, as the 4 other members find out about the deferral roughly 24 hours after Cooper; article & video re proposed Pegasus Park at Gulfstream Park; @DRFInsidePost, @HRTV, @raypaulick

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/another-completely-unnecessary-night-of.html

 NOVEMBER 5, 2013 
On Wednesday night, Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper has to defend her freelancing, breaking of city's rules in order to help her friends at Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino with bldg. code fines they EARNED. Again! Her campaign contributors, Gulfstream Park, must really love her "Special Rules for Special People" form of advocacy, but why does she save her energy & love for a multi-million dollar company instead of insisting they follow the law and finally fix up their appearance problems?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/on-wednesday-night-hallandale-beach.html

Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino will try to weasel their way out of a $52k bldg. code fine tonight -one they EARNED the old-fashioned way- and Mayor Cooper will be rooting them across the finish line; Pegasus Park; Hallandale Beach's shenanigans with 2014 Parks Bond issue to use money for purposes other than Parks -surprise!

This will take place tonight at the same Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting where GP will pat themselves on the back for their little-understood Pegasus Park project, for which they seem to have all of two renderings of, and none of which shows what this 11-story statue will look like from the nearest main road, U.S.-1./South Federal Highway.
That's a fact I discovered when I asked about that at the HB Planning & Zoning
meeting. 
So,. something the size of the Statue of Liberty will be erected less than a block from U.S.-1 and they can't provide the public any image or idea of what it will look like from the perspective of 99% of the public who ever see it?)

There is no recorded history of any Hallandale Beach citizen or HB-based property owner
ever getting such a large fine waived. EVER.
I didn't make that fact up, the city staff says as much in their own background docs, below.
This is especially troubling given the unrepentant repeat offender track record of Gulfstream Park, whose past behavior and avoidance of paying legitimate fines is contained in the city staff's documents.

So given all this, WHY are Mayor Cooper and the HB City Commission poised to waive the entire building code fine when Gulfstream Park has ZERO extenuating
circumstances to explain or justify their actions in starting a project of this size and scope without permits?
Why do you suppose the State of Florida also fined them?

Personally, I'd like to know where the records are that detail the communication trail between
between Gulfstream Park execs and Mayor Cooper, who seems to have conveniently
forgotten -again- that under this city manager-run form of govt. this city operates under,
and the city's own rules of administration, Mayor Cooper is NOT to interfere with the everyday running of the city.
But she did.

 She did so by acting like an unpaid lobbyist for Gulfstream Park, trying to make the case for why city employees should, in effect, ignore what they saw and heard, and then later in the day, wearing her mayor's hat, trying to cram a huge fee waiver down the Commission's throat, a month ago,
That came at the end of an already far-too-long night meeting -where Comm. Sanders 
was, apparently, no longer even present at?
Talk about adding insult to injury!

Yes, at the end of a long night meeting where mere minutes after the mayor revealed her own embarrassing (but not to her) role in this unethical matter, she immediately wanted a vote on a waiver without providing any documents for the commissioners to read or make sense of, and that in any case, was never properly noticed and placed on the public agenda.

Yes, that would be the same meeting where she tried to waive the STATE'S fine, too. (Thank you for remembering!)  

14.  RESOLUTIONS/CITY BUSINESS
A.    CONSIDERATION OF GULFSTREAM PARK PERMIT FINES FOR PERMIT #13-2881, GULFSTREAM TEMPORARY BARNS. (STAFF: DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT SERVICES) (SEE BACKUP) (Staff Report, Supporting Docs


Also tonight, agenda item #13A is the replat of the very controversial property at 2000 
S. Ocean Drive, which drew HUNDREDS of residents to an early September community 
meeting at The Hemispheres, 99% of whom publicly opposed it when they spoke because
of what it does to the area, the beach and to them.
When it came before the HB P&Z Board, it was overwhelmingly rejected.

If you haven't heard, the city also seems to have some three card monte shenanigans in store for tonight for the so-called Parks Bond issue that won't even go before HB voters
until next year -in August, not November, for purely parochial political reasons.

14 B
 A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH, FLORIDA, DECLARING THE CITY'S OFFICIAL INTENT TO REIMBURSE ITSELF FROM THE PROCEEDS OF TAX-EXEMPT OBLIGATIONS FOR CERTAIN CAPITAL EXPENDITURES TO BE MADE BY THE CITY, WITH RESPECT TO THE MAIN FIRE STATION, PUBLIC LAND ACQUISITION, AND PARKS AND RECREATION CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS (COLLECTIVELY REFERRED TO AS THE "PROJECT"); AUTHORIZING CERTAIN INCIDENTAL ACTIONS; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE. (STAFF: CITY MANAGER) (SEE BACKUP) (Staff Report, Supporting Docs)

It appears the city wants to borrow money from it despite it not having even been approved
yet, in order to build a new Fire Station HQ in NW, which, as it happens, will NOT be 
centrally-located but will be off of a one-way road where the smallest percentage of the
city actually lives -13%.
You tell me, if this was such an important priority, why hasn't the city properly planned for that
construction for years by having budgets that actually reflect that need?

Not mentioned in the city's own documents -what happens if HB voters go thumbs-down on the Parks Bond issue, as seems likely right now based on my many conversation around town, given citizens' well-earned reservoir of anger at the city for refusing to construct a Parks Bond issue that is for Parks Only, as public testimony made clear over the years, which I and they would support.

But what we will NOT do is vote for a new slush fund for Mayor Cooper and the HB City 
Commission and the city's high-paid staff to use under the pretext of fixing the parks and instead see those funds funneled into their pet projects involving cronies, while neglecting
the long-neglected parks which are the source of so much embarrassment in this city, owing to Mayor Cooper and the City Commission's own longstanding myopia and benign neglect.

Taxpayers paid millions of dollars for the Old Dixie Highway property a block from City Hall 
to make that a public park, and yet over four years later, there's still nothing there.

Mayor Cooper needs to stop wearing so many hats when she is only supposed to be
wearing one in this city, and stop running interference for her friends who owe the city and
its citizens $52,000 in fines.
For starters...
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Saturday, November 16, 2013

As U.S. approaches 50th anniversary of JFK assassination in Dallas, our thoughts at the blog are all over the place: JFK & LBJ and Texas and... Bryan Cranston playing LBJ on Broadway in Robert Schenkkan's "All The Way"; UVA Prof. Larry J. Sabato's fascinating new book on JFK, and CBS News' veteran reporter Bob Schieffer, who covered the JFK visit 50 years ago, now busy hosting a Saturday night network special on JFK and hosting 'Face The Nation' on Sunday morning from the scene of the crime

                       
KVUE News video ‏-Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston visited Austin today to talk about his new Broadway role as LBJ.
by KRIS BETTS / KVUE News and photojournalist MATT OLSEN 
Posted on November 15, 2013 at 8:20 AM 
Updated yesterday at 1:41 PM




 As some of you reading this blog may well recall from my having told you before in-person, in Indiana, Illinois Washington, D.C. or here in Florida, or even here on the blog, both of my parents actually saw President and Mrs. Kennedy the day before the fateful day he was killed. The reason is that both of them worked over at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, my Mom as a secretary for the Base Commander, and my Dad, who worked in the Medical Corps. 
(I was actually born next door at the hospital at Lackland AFB, one month after JFK was inaugurated.)

 They were at Brooks because President Kennedy was dedicating the new School of Aerospace Medicine, which was quite a big deal at the time given the space program, but as things turned out, of course, it was to be his last official act as president.

 My Mom still has the official photos that were taken of the welcoming ceremonies there at the base by the vigilant base photographers, and I grew-up knowing those photographs, one in particular, from just a few feet away, like it had always been part of my memory.
Because it had been.
The Last Two Days, November 1963: 21-22
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHF-WHN17.aspx

 That's the late Henry B. Gonzalez coming down the stairs off Air Force One behind JFK, to his left, and then again at 01:06 in the film, waving to the crowds.
Henry B. was the longtime congressman from San Antonio and someone I was very fortunate to talk to be able to talk to a handful of times when he was still in Congress when I was living and working in the Washington, D.C. area. 

 I was fortunate enough to attend a few of the public birthday parties that got thrown for him that were held outside in one of the House Office Bldg.'s courtyards, as his party was always one of the real highlights of the year I looked forward to, as far as having real fun was concerned. Complete with a kick-ass Mariachi band, attractive and talented dancers and a variety and huge amount of really great food and cold Texas beer, I only wish that I'd taken more photos back then, because besides his very loyal and longstanding staff, other Congressmen and staffers, Democrats as well as Republicans, he had quite a few well-known people come swing by the party to say hello, many of whom he had known for most of their adult life or even before. 
Those friendly get-togethers meant a lot to him, but I grew to believe they meant just as much to the people who attended them, because they were old-fashioned relaxing fun of the sort that 95% of the events we attended in DC never were, but wished they were.

 By the time I got to Washington, Congressman Gonzalez was still a very beloved-yet-controversial figure, and I think for most of the time I went to those events on The Hill, or saw him at other Texas-related events, he was either the Chairman of the House Banking Committee or Chair of one of the important Subcommittees, and even then though there should be an audit of the Federal Reserve, much as Sen. Rand Paul and many others do now. Transparency and public accountability.

But when that film above was made in 1963, Rep. Gonzalez was an eager and excitable second-term congressman, albeit one who had already done quite a lot for san antonio and in the texas legislature, often against great odds.
He was the first Hispanic congressman ever elected from Texas, something that he was very proud of in a not-at-all unreasonable way, especially for the times.
http://www.cah.utexas.edu/feature/0611/video.php?connection=dialup

 In all my dealings with him, you could not have met a warmer and more sincere person or someone with a better memory, and if you didn't know any better, you'd probably have guessed that he was either a retired pediatrician or veterinarian.
That memory of his was one of his great talents for succeeding in politics, since he remembered my Mother's name from a conversation we'd had many months before, even though I'd said it only in passing when talking about the fact that when JFK ran in 1960, it was the first time that she could legally vote.

 At 06:19 and 06:33, not wearing an overcoat, you can see future Speaker of the House Jim Wright, the congressman from Fort Worth.
As U.S. approaches 50th anniversary of JFK assassination in Dallas, our thoughts at the blog are all over the place: JFK & LBJ and... Texas and Emmy Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston of 'Breaking Bad' visiting Austin and the LBJ Library as he prepares to play LBJ on Broadway in Robert Schenkkan's "All The Way"; UVA Prof. Larry J. Sabato's fascinating new book on JFK, and CBS News' Bob Schieffer, who covered the JFK visit 50 years ago, busy hosting a Saturday night network special on JFK and then hosting 'Face The Nation' on Sunday morning from the scene of the crime, with Luci Baines Johnson slated to be a guest
As always, Prof. Larry J. Sabato's wise words and depth of knowledge are a useful antidote to years of revisionist history, both Democratic and Republican, foreign and domestic.

The Washington Post
Five myths about John F. Kennedy
By Larry J. Sabato, Published: November 13, 2013
Most everyone who was alive on Nov. 22, 1963, remembers where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. JFK was the youngest elected U.S. president and the youngest to die. The fascination with him is never-ending: There have been hundreds of books, TV specials and films about his New Frontier, as well as the enduring controversy surrounding his assassination. Let’s debunk some of the most pervasive myths.
Read the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-john-f-kennedy/2013/11/13/bf1d1442-4b1a-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html


 fact-filled photo gallery
Is there more to JFK assassination? 
By Larry J. Sabato 
updated 4:32 PM EST, Fri November 15, 2013


















Listening to THE FIRST FAMILY for The First Time. I can see why it was a huge hit - until 11/22/63. #JFK50 http://t.co/e75IplT1Ib

 In the early-to-mid 1970's, while living in North Miami Beach, I had a very good friend whose parents still had a copy of this record album, and his father would often play it when his wife was out of the house because he really loved the album and knew the material backwards-and-forwards and would often say the lines along with the actors, and laugh and laugh.

Now I don't recall whether the story was that the father was supposed to have gotten written of the album altogether, or just couldn't have it out where she could see it, but I know that in the hundreds of times I was over there, that album stayed out-of-sight, and NOT with the rest of the records they had near the old-style entertainment center console -with lots of Broadway cast albums I would come to know and love.

It seems that hearing those Kennedy-like accents just made his wife very upset and she'd often start crying and weeping if she heard even some of it.
I know that must sound sort of odd to read right now, but trust me, at the time it was happening, it seemed quite upsetting and turned everything around us upside down.
That was a secret that 12-year old me had to keep on the down low.
The Dad playing the record and the Mom who cried when hearing it unexpectedly. 












http://jfkfacts.org/
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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Immigration Hump Day: Wednesday morning's SkyNews Press Review and guests Rowenna Davis and Tom Newton Dunn made many of Mickey Kaus' go-to points re immigration, esp. about new immigrants lowering wages, etc. due to 2 front page immigration stories, in The Sun and The Daily Star; This common sense aspect of immigration & economic policy is one that was completely ignored by South Florida news media during #GangofEight bill this summer, esp. its negative effect on working poor Blacks in Miami


Immigration Hump Day: Wednesday morning's SkyNews Press Review and guests Rowenna Davis and Tom Newton Dunn made many of Mickey Kaus' go-to points re immigration, esp. about new immigrants lowering wages, etc. due to 2 front page immigration stories, in The Sun and The Daily Star; This common sense aspect of immigration & economic policy is one that was completely ignored by South Florida news media during #GangofEight bill this summer, esp. its negative effect on working poor Blacks in Miami

Lots of talk about Labour leader Ed Miliband and former Foreign Sec. and Home Sec.
Jack Straw
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/12/jack-straw-labour-migrants-europe-workers_n_4263548.html
going public with Labour's past mistakes in an attempt to catch up to public opinion and make laggard, hold-out Labourites realize that it's time to either get on the train or be left behind on the issue. But they say that Tony Blair says he has no regrets, and is esp. happy about the 300,000 Poles who have come to Great Britain at some point over the past few years.

The Press Review guests were Tom Newton Dunn, The Sun's Political Editor,
and Rowenna Davis, Labour Parliamentary candidate for Southampton Itchen, a chic little dynamo who can get in some real weighty zingers with a smile.
Precisely the sort of English woman I always go for!









 Mickey Kaus @kausmickey https://twitter.com/kausmickey
Kaus Files blog: http://dailycaller.com/author/mickeykaus/

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Sunday, November 10, 2013

Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens & taxpayers have a good day at meeting of Oversight Comm. of Broward's Inspector General, uniformly great actually, as Mayor Cooper's efforts at obfuscation and misdirection fall flat and backfire. Her name ends up being the one most-cited over two hours -and NOT in a good way. It was delicious!

From the p.o.v. of Hallandale Beach's beleaguered citizens & taxpayers, Friday morning's crucial meeting in downtown Fort Lauderdale of the Oversight Comm. of Broward's Inspector General was uniformly great, even when HB CRA Attorney Steven W. Zelkowitz spoke, since it's what Zelkowitz didn't say or couldn't admit -and that WAS mentioned by my friend and former HB Commissioner Keith London and myself- that was most telling.

Along with the comments of the Oversight Comm. members themselves and IG John Scott and his Chief Counsel, in what was the most open and fairly-run meeting I've ever been to in South Florida the past ten years.

(HB CRA Director Rosemond was also present, but did not speak publicly.)

Even though absent from the proceedings, Hallandale Beach's obnoxious, thin-skinned and anti-democratic mayor Joy Cooper was the Broward pol whose name was mentioned MOST
over a period of about two hours -and not in a good way!
Just like the name "Hallandale Beach" was repeatedly used as an example of what NOT to do in these things.
And all the negative things that were mentioned all came under the reign of Mayor Cooper.

I especially love the idea that it came out during CRA Attorney Zelkowitz's comments that Mayor Cooper sent the Oversight Comm. a letter re the Broward IG.
But guess who Mayor Cooper DIDN'T send a copy of her THREE-PAGE letter to.
Yes, the IG's Office.

When I spoke, I told everyone present that this was no mere oversight, it was entirely intentional by her, and that the mayor wanted the IG and his staff to be blindsided by it at the meeting.
Instead, though, Mayor Cooper's self-serving stunt completely backfired on her.

Not that much of the South Florida news media actually bothered to show-up to the Broward County Govt. Bldg. to report on what transpired, which was entirely in keeping with how things have been down here for years, as the Sun-Sentinel still has NOT mentioned the HB CRA scandal in an editorial, six months after the IG's inch-and-a-half thick Final Report alleging and proving "gross mismanagement" was released.

But your faithful blogger was there, and did I ever get a wheelbarrow's worth of facts and nuggets to share!

It was also NOT a good day for the anti-IG Broward League of Cities and their hardcore and permanent crew of longtime apologists and paid consultants throughout the county, who continue to want to allow themselves the freedom to continue to misrepresent what's really going on with ethics in this county and what the IG's Office is doing, but also continue using municipal taxpayer dollars to pay attorneys to tell them  what exactly they want to hear, instead of simply following the spirit and letter of the law.

Or as one of the learned members of the Oversight Comm. put it, it seems like Broward cities love using taxpayer dollars to "shield" themselves, but there's no reason for that to continue any longer.

(So, remind me again why South Florida's news media refuses to go after the Broward League of Cities and ask for meaningful transparency from them on how much they receive every year in taxpayer money from each and every Broward city, and show  from any of the many examples they could choose, just how that money is continually used in ways that are fundamentally against the best long-term interests of their own citizens, and rather FOR the benefit of career politicians, including lobbying against their own citizens? Oh, right. 
The South Florida news media doesn't want to do that.)

More details on all this will be coming out in the coming days on the blog, along with photos and video on Monday and Tuesday, including answering the question of who the unexpected people were who showed-up with Mayor Cooper when she twice had to testify under oath and answer questions from the IG's office over the past year.
The answers to that surprised members of the the Committee and left some of them -and most of the audience, even the Broward League of Cities types- shaking their heads in bewilderment at Mayor Cooper's efforts to deny, deny, deny.

In retrospect, I could NOT have scripted it better myself from the point of view of frustrated HB citizens FINALLY getting some highly-relevant and meaningful and provable facts out in the open for everyone to know, esp. among such well-known people as those on the committee.
And, of course, into the record!

If only members of the JLAC in Tallahassee could have been there to hear some of the damning testimony, and litany of inconvenient facts concerning HB's CRA and the invisible oversight of its millions by Mayor Cooper and her loyal  Rubber Stamp Crew, suddenly being uttered aloud.
C'est al vie...

But next week some time, I will send them some excerpts of what was said and let's see them try to ignore the stone cold facts uttered by people who know them like the Inspector General knows them.
The proof is in the pudding, and the case has never been more stronger that JLAC needs to come thru for citizens in our city so we can finally find out where the $80 MIllion has gone the past 10 years.
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Saturday, November 9, 2013

Update re Nazis and counter-demonstrators clashing in upscale Östermalm section of Stockholm that TV4 has aired for hours online


LIVE via @TV4 - Nazis and counter-demonstrators clash at demonstration in upscale Östermalm section of Stockholm

http://www.tv4.se/nyheterna/klipp/tumult-vid-nazistdemonstration-i-stockholm-2481683
-----
Noon Eastern EST Update re Stockholm demonstration b/w Nazis and counter-demonstrators, TV4 is now just interviewing cops and showing news photogs smoking cigs while chatting away on mobiles in aftermath, so it's basically all over for the day.
I actually recognized some of the shops and restaurants that were better prepared
than the others -including ones I couldn't afford on my trip there in January- 
who foolishly left tables & chairs out where they could be used for other purposes.

TV4 had LIVE coverage for three hours.
Question: What media group would do that in the U.S. if it was happening here so you could watch online if you wanted to? Exactly.

Video clips later at http://www.tv4.se/nyheterna/ under Klipps

Here's the first one without any VO:

Remember, with time change here and there the past three weeks, Stockholm is now 6 hours ahead of Eastern U.S., so anyone in the world can watch their 10 pm newscast LIVE online via SVT play if you're curious, at 1 pm Eastern:

We now return you to your football weekend...
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Friday, November 8, 2013

Another completely unnecessary night of confusion, finger-pointing and buffoonery at Hallandale Beach City Hall. Agenda item re Gulfstream Park Race Track's $52k fine for Building Code Violations is deferred, but only after it became clear to one and all that execs at Gulfstream Park prefer to deal only with their pal, Mayor Cooper, not the ENTIRE elected City Commission, as the 4 other members find out about the deferral roughly 24 hours after Cooper; article & video re proposed Pegasus Park at Gulfstream Park; @DRFInsidePost, @HRTV, @raypaulick




And so ends the celebrity portion of this blog post.

The subject of our last blog post on Wednesday morning was the Hallandale Beach 
community's growing sense of frustration and consternation over what might actually transpire at that night's City Commission meeting. Specifically, Agenda item 14E regarding the $52,000 in fines owed by Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino to city taxpayers on account of their NOT following the Building Code with respect to their construction of their temporary barns.
They had no permit and started building anyway.
Really.

 Like it wouldn't be noticed.
Do you recognize this "temporary" facility at Gulfstream Park's south parking lot. No, it's not the Hindenburg 2.0's new air hangar. What you're looking at above, looking east, is the "temporary" horse barn being constructed on the south side of the Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino, to the southeast of the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex off U.S.-1/South Federal Highway, that is the center of an ethics controversy surrounding the rogue activities of a mayor in a city that has seen plenty of those -Hallandale Beach. September 27, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
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Local10: Mayor wants $52K fine against Gulfstream Park waived
No vote taken on waiving fine at Hallandale Beach budget meeting
By Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com, and Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com
Published On: Oct 04 2013 06:13:16 PM EDT   
Updated On: Oct 04 2013 11:51:10 PM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/mayor-wants-52k-fine-against-gulfstream-park-waived/-/1717324/22282006/-/p0vivbz/-/index.html
The community's fear?
Of a highway robbery led by Gulfstream Park's defender-in-chief and HB Mayor Joy Cooper, with her standing in the way of the taxpayers of this city actually collecting what they were legally due for Gulfstream Park's own indifference to the rules they are REQUIRED to follow.
The Building Code is not a hatbox full of suggestions and recipes for success, it's the way things have to be. Period.

 Well, after expending lots of time and energy and thought to all of that prior to the meeting guess what happened?

 Correct, it was deferred until the November 20th City Commission meeting, which is the same date the they were already scheduled to consider Gulfstream Park's odd, 11-story Pegasus statue and Pegasus Park project, which I have  previously written about here on the blog, with some links to some articles about it below.

 But back to the request for a deferral and how that really ignited a fuse.
Supposedly, the City Manager's office found out late Tuesday afternoon that nobody from Gulfstream would be available to attend the City Commission meeting, even though it is only across the street from HB City Hall and the meeting has been known about by all concerned.

 Just like the THREE meetings this year with senior city staffers that Gulfstream Park blew-off because they couldn't manage to get themselves together, a fact that was publicly disclosed in the staff's background docs I included in my previous post.
Agenda item # 14E under City Business


E.    CONSIDERATION OF GULFSTREAM PARK PERMIT FINES FOR PERMIT #13-2881, GULFSTREAM TEMPORARY BARNS. (STAFF: DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT SERVICES) (SEE BACKUP) (Staff Report, Supporting Docs)

 Specifically, the city staff was told late Tuesday afternoon that "Nobody from Toronto" could be here. (Actually their headquarters is located in a suburb of Toronto, Brampton.)

But the real problem is the fact that the only one of the five city members of the City Commission to know in advance that Gulfstream Park wouldn't be present and had requested
a deferral was -surprise- Mayor Cooper, longtime recipient of their campaign largess.
The rest of the commission found out Wednesday night during the meeting, despite the City Manager's office knowing for roughly 24 hours.

Comm. Michele Lazarow was especially indignant about the way things were handled by the City Manager's staff, yet again, with Gulfstream Park going thru their preferred conduit, Mayor Joy Cooper, instead of directly contacting the City Manager's office as they should've.

 Which, of course, has sort of been my main point in my emails and blog posts about this matter, no? 
Transparency, public accountability and treating all businesses in HB the same and NOT forever having a culture that encourages showing favoritism.

 As you may have gathered from what I've written with respect to this matter and her general outlook on things, Mayor Cooper isn't too interested in that sort of even-handed policy.
She has always liked to play favorites and pick winners and losers among the business community in the city.
And she doesn't really care what you think about that.

 At the Hallandale Beach Planning & Zoning meeting I attended in late September, when it came time for public comments I rose up and strode over to the microphone to ask what i thought would be some pretty easy questions for them to answer, since neither I or anyone else is against it per se, it was just that as usual, Gulfstream Park has been ham-handed in what they were doing and keeping the community in the dark, justr as they have for years about night racing.

 Almost everyone I know had heard about the plans but where was something definite that you could look at over at the park or online? Exactly.
Under-the-radar!!!

 There also seemed to be a lot of confusion about it and when it would start, since previous media stories about this project, below, had given this past April as a starting point and these were not at all accurate.
They only started blocking off the enormous NE parking lot and re-configuring the main access road from the northern entrance on Hallandale Beach Blvd. in late September or early October.

 I asked the reps from Gulfstream Park to show me and the P&Z Comm. and the public in the Chambers any renderings of what this statue would look like from US-1/Federal Highway, since that's how the vast majority of the public would see it forever once it was finished -by driving by. 
They had nothing to show me.

 All they had was the same rendering of the statue, taken from below it, which tells you nothing about what it would look like from hundreds of feet away.
They couldn't answer other obvious questions, either.

 I was really dumbfounded at the lack of forethought that the'd given this matter but then if you know that they haven't even considered what an 11-story statue would look like from the main road near it when there's currently nothing between it and the road, at least for now -even more enormous than described- you know what kind of people you're dealing with over there. And the results show it, too, which is sort of the problem, no?

 Perhaps this new guy is supposed to help resolve problems like that...















It's like the Statue of Liberty has moved into your neighborhood but they hadn't thought that the people in the nearby community would be curious how it would appear to them.




South Florida Business Journal
Sep 25, 2013, 12:28pm EDT UPDATED: Sep 25, 2013, 2:09pm EDT
Gulfstream Park could add 11-story tall Pegasus statue to expansion
By Oscar Pedro Musibay, Reporter-South Florida Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2013/09/25/gulfstream-park-could-add-5-acre.html

 video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

 Local10 video: Massive statue part of Gulfstream expansion plan 
Statue will be bigger than Statue of Liberty 
With the $1 million Florida Derby just days away on Saturday, Local 10 has learned about a major expansion plan at Gulfstream Park.
Published On: March 28 2013 07:36:36 PM EDT   
Updated On: March 28 2013 08:04:35 PM EDT
Reporter Jacey Birch 
http://www.local10.com/news/Massive-statue-part-of-Gulfstream-expansion-plan/-/1717324/19512844/-/nyyfh0/-/index.html


Local10 video: Gulfstream Park moves toward $500M expansion 
Park seeks to attract prestigious Breeder's Cup  
Reporter Todd Tongen, ttongen@Local10.com 
November 28, 2012 05:05:24 PM EST, 
Updated November 29, 2012 10:14:07 AM EST 
http://www.local10.com/news/Gulfstream-Park-moves-toward-500M-expansion/-/1717324/17582640/-/7nm4j2z/-/index.html

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