FULL SPEECH video: Kevin Costner's heartfelt & nuanced speech about Whitney Houston delivers an emotional wallop that won't be forgotten by anyone who heard it

ITN's Show Biz 411 video: Kevin Costner's ENTIRE speech at Whitney Houston's funeral at the New Hope Baptist Church, Newark, N.J. February 18, 2012 http://youtu.be/2wjh0N1EzPI

Kevin Costner's ENTIRE heartfelt and nuanced speech about Whitney Houston delivers an emotional wallop that won't be forgotten by anyone who heard it. Given the level of sadness that was both inside and outside of that church, this speech was about as close as you can come to pitch-perfect.

Now THAT was funny! David Spade's recent appearance on David Letterman was a reminder of why we like him: sly, sardonic, shocking and genuinely funny

David Spade - Stand-up comedy segment and sit-down interview on CBS' Late Night with David Letterman. The real-life housekeeping story that Spade shares in his own inimitable style, had the audience and Dave curious and laughing the whole way thru. February 10, 2012. 720p.

http://youtu.be/rfqxfNY9spk

Please note this honest Tweet of David's from Wednesday that partly answers a question I'd been pondering, too, by HIS admitting that even HE doesn't know the answer to the question he constantly gets from fans of his show:

Rules of engagement comes back thursday march 29 for 8 weeks straight. I know i know, i dont get whats going on either... 

My final comment here is a simple one - Get well, Heather! We're rooting for you.

-----

http://twitter.com/#!/DavidSpade

http://www.davidspade.com/

http://www.cbs.com/shows/rules_of_engagement/ 

Miami Herald's Fred Grimm weighs in -again- on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach and its sweetheart CRA deal from HB City Hall to be a propaganda arm

Having known the ins-and-outs about this awful deal for years and writing about it here, and having attended the Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting last year where it finally came out how little the recipients of HB CRA loans were actually paying back, if anything, galling gallows humor to even the most jaded veteran observer of HB City Hall nonsense, it's been interesting to observe how now that the Broward Bulldog has reminded everyone in South Florida paying attention what a ridiculous deal Hallandale Beach taxpayers were stuck with, on behalf of the mayor and three of the four commissioners, everyone wants to get in their licks on the unethical low-hanging piñata...
------

Miami Herald
IN MY OPINION
Hallandale Beach paper shows way to make easy money  
BY FRED GRIMM  
FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM
February 14, 2012

Money problems have pretty much flummoxed the newspaper industry. Corporate executives spend a lot of time obsessing over various strategies to recapture lost revenues. I worry about Strategy Number 17, which entails columnists in sandwich boards.

Who would have guessed that the solution to the industry’s financial problems would come from a little weekly newspaper in Hallandale Beach? The South Florida Sun Times gets all the credit for the brilliant new business plan: free money. Much better than cranky old guys in sandwich boards.

The Sun Times cache of money comes from the city of Hallandale Beach. The BrowardBullDog.org, a regional non-profit dedicated to investigative journalism, reported last week that the weekly newspaper received $50,000 from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency back in 2009. The money was ostensibly a loan, but special terms excuse the newspaper from the burden of paying back more than half the money. The Sun Times gets away with repaying the other half at only 2 percent interest over 10 years.

This is what’s known in the financial sector as “one sweet deal.”

CRAs are special defined urban districts that levy taxes to fund infrastructure improvements. Stuff like slum clearance, water and sewer projects, street lights, sidewalks.

In Miami, CRA funds have occasionally been diverted toward the improvement of private property owned by the close relatives of unscrupulous politicians. We know this because newspapers like The Miami Herald dig into the CRA records and report the scandalous truth. Then the unscrupulous politician goes on radio and says unkind things about The Herald. This is the old, tried, true but not very profitable model of newspaper journalism.

In Hallandale Beach, a city conjured out of the Broward tomato fields by mob boss Meyer Lansky, the Sun Times has invented a better way. The newspaper doesn’t investigate the questionable distribution of CRA funds. The newspaper takes the funds.

The $50,000 was the first “loan” given out under a CRA program supposed to rescue struggling city businesses. BullDog.org reports that the Sun Times was the only business in the program allowed to shrug off half the loan.

BullDog.org, looking at the tax records filed with the CRA, noticed that the president of the “struggling” Sun Times was paid $259,193 in 2007 and $239,054 in 2008. The weekly’s vice president received $192,052 and $229,010 those same years.

Experts in employee compensation have a special term for this level of pay: “Wow!”

Under the old newspaper model, a courageous, slightly overweight, aging but still virile columnist would have gone berserk, suggesting that with that kind of executive pay, no wonder the Sun Times needed a bailout from the city. And why on earth, the columnist would ask, would the mayor of Hallandale Beach push such a dodgy deal through the city’s CRA?

Except that Mayor Joy Cooper, the potential object of the Sun Times columnist’s scorn, also happens to be the Sun Times columnist. Admittedly, her style does not recall Chicago’s Mike Royko (“The subject of criminal rehabilitation was debated recently in City Hall. It’s an appropriate place for this kind of discussion because the city has always employed so many ex-cons and future cons.”) or New York’s Jimmy Breslin (“Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.”)

But there she is, the mayor/columnist, with her regular space in the Sun Times, with an unfettered opportunity to enhance her public persona. Meanwhile, City Commissioner Keith London (or any other critic of municipal policy) is nowhere to be seen in the pages of the uncrusading newspaper. That may be because London has not only railed about the $50,000 loan, he has criticized the $105,000 the city has spent advertising in the Sun Times over the past two fiscal years. The Sun Times deals were never approved by the city commission, he complained.

(In 2009, a letter was mailed out to city businesses on official Hallandale Beach city stationery stating: “Just about everyone is feeling the effects of the economy and doing what we can to get through tough times. In an effort to promote and support local businesses, the city encourages all businesses to advertise in the city’s only local newspaper.” The love letter was signed by both Mayor Cooper and City Manager Mike Goode.)

A columnist under the old newspaper model would argue that the mayor has a very suspicious relationship with the recipient of so much city money. But the columnist under the much cozier Sun Times model, with the free money strategy, would write, “Hey, suckers. I’m the mayor. I do what the hell I want.”

Read the readers comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/13/2639870/hallandale-beach-paper-shows-way.html

Csaba Kulin on Hallandale Beach's crony capitalism deal with a fake newspaper that stands ethics on its head and takes CRA money in exchange for being a City Hall propaganda machine

Above, the September 12, 2010 issue of the Stongsville Post, a genuine "community newspaper" that reports both sides on issues and controversies in its part of suburban Cleveland, Ohio

Today I'd like to share with you a copy of the email my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach/Broward County activist Csaba Kulin sent out on Monday concerning the continuing controversy surrounding what Csaba and I and many other concerned HB residents have long believed is the city's completely unethical and financially unsound arrangement with a faux newspaper located here in the city.

The problem is simple to understand: in exchange for operating as a propaganda arm of Hallandale Beach City Hall and its mayor of the past ten years, Joy Cooper, the owners receive funds from the city's CRA, which is generally supposed to be used to eliminate blight within the CRA zone of the city.

Since Csaba brings up his former full-time home of Strongsville, OH in his email from yesterday, I thought it was important to preface his new email with another instance where Csaba used Strongsville as a means for comparison to what passes for normal here in Hallandale Beach, so you could judge for yourself.

That instance comes from a Bob Norman blog post from last year, before he left the NewTimes for WPLG-TV, Channel 10, the ABC-TV affiliate here in South Florida, which concerned an email Csaba had written to Mayor Cooper and the other four members of the City Commission contrasting municipal spending habits and patterns of Strongsville to those in Hallandale Beach.  

BrowardPalm Beach NewTimes

Bob Norman's Pulp

Hallandale Beach Mayor Defends City in Sloppy, Error-Filled Email

By Bob Norman

April 27, 2011 at 8:54 AM Comments (55)

Ever heard of Strongsville, Ohio?

Neither had I, but it's apparently a suburb of Cleveland and a place where Hallandale condo president and activist Csaba Kulin used to live.

Kulin is amazed at the bloated cost of Hallandale Beach's budget compared to that of Strongville and recently wrote a letter about it to the City Commission.

Read the rest of the post and the reader comments at: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/04/hallandale_mayor_joy_cooper_budget.php

----- 

Dear Friends and Hallandale Beach Residents,

I am sure by now you read or heard about the "sweet deal" the South Florida Sun Times receives from the City of Hallandale Beach. In case you are not aware of it, I included the link to the Miami Herald and the Broward Bulldog articles. My name was mentioned in both articles, so I decided to make a comment to both publications to state my position.

I hope you will find the stories informative. At the bottom you can see my comments.

Sincerely,

Csaba Kulin 

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/02/sweet-deal-for-owners-of-hallandale-newspaper-that-features-mayor-as-columnist/

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2633582/hallandale-beach-newspaper-gets.html

From personal experience, I'm a great believer in the importance of an "independent community newspaper" that covers issues that larger mass circulations newspaper can't or won't cover. I know something about that because when I'm in Ohio for part of the summer every year, the town I lived in full-time before moving to Hallandale Beach has one of the best "community papers" in the country, the Strongsville Post. There was no community issue or policy that the Post won't send reporters to examine or report upon, and because of that, the newspaper remains trusted, popular, a good place to advertise a product or service, and accepted as an important part of the community there.

Conversely, that same experience informs my opinion that the South Florida Sun Times (SFST) failed the “independence” test the moment it asked for and accepted money from the City of Hallandale Beach for services NOT provided. The SFST, having accepted funds that could have been better spent elsewhere within the CRA zone to eliminate blight, has for years adhered to a policy that's ever mindful of biting the hand that feeds it.

As opposed to the Post in Strongsville, OH, the SFST has become a one-sided house organ in its "reporting," and has thus become both irrelevant and a subject of open ridicule throughout the community, practically a punch line. In my own condo complex, we routinely discard large bundle of unread copies that were placed in the condo lobby into the recycling bins every week.

A legitimate newspaper that aspires to consider itself a "community newspaper" should, without even having to think about it, write about both sides of an issue or policy, and must encourage and publish opposing points of view. So in our case here in Hallandale Beach, routinely publishing something against the “party line” given by Mayor Joy Cooper in her so-called "columns," rather than NOT publishing anything that challenges what she says, as is currently the case. And the same goes for publishing Letters to the Editor without censorship with respect to topic and content. They ought to publish updated police blotter and proceedings of the City Commission Meetings. The SFST currently does NONE of these things.

If the SFST continues to operate in its current fashion, they might as well change their name to PRAVDA.

The Hallandale Beach CRA, with policy set by the elected City Commission and the mayor, has had more than its share of problems in the recent past. One episode in particular is worth mentioning here as it's indicative of the sort of favoritism and cronyism it has practiced in the past, a story never mentioned in the SFST. A loan in the amount of $125,000 loan was given for what was called at the time, THE CITY CHANEL, and was promoted and developed by Steve Fecske of California, and his local partner, a person very well-connected to HB City Hall. Mr. Fecske’s previous expertise includes, among other things according to Google's search engine, developing pornography web sites.  Like Seinfeld said, “not that anything is wrong with that”.

The night of the city commission meeting, Hallandale Beach taxpayers showed up in force to vehemently oppose the proposed loan on its merits, as well as the transparent way the commission waived its own meager requirements that the business group did NOT meet. Commissioner Keith London took the lead in objecting to it from the dais, but because the mayor supported it, it passed. Where was the SFST?

Well, forward to today, the local partner has since passed away, the money expended from the CRA is lost, and nobody in charge is asking any questions about it. And the South Florida Sun Times remains silent.

In November, voters of Hallandale Beach will have a chance to make major changes in the way this city is governed and the public policies that guide it. Concerned voters who want a better-managed and more transparent City Hall that is proactively accountable to taxpayers, and NOT in love with crony capitalism excesses like the loan to the SFST, should heed the recent lessons that have cost them and their neighbors both money and lost opportunities to make this a better community, and should vote for reform candidates.

Csaba Kulin, candidate for Hallandale Beach City Commission

More about Hallandale Beach's unscrupulo​us crony capitalism deal b/w the faux newspaper, the SFST, and Mayor Joy Cooper, Cub Reporter...

 Above, a photo I took back on October 8, 2010 of the never-ending embarrassment...  for us as Hallandale Beach taxpayers and the world of journalism.
Below, a copy of the email that I wrote and sent out last Friday to the Usual Suspects thoughout South Florida and journalism watering holes in the U.S. and elsewhere.


Sixteen months ago, I wrote the following on my blog, just one of many over the years on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach. My biggest problem wasn't writing it, of course, but rather trying to decide which was THE most outlandish and absurd front page of the dozens they've run that I've kept...

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2010
Csaba Kulin's common sense take on the faux newspaper in Hallandale Beach that gobbles up taxpayer funds, the South Florida Sun Times



It's hard to imagine a more ridiculous, self-serving and un-true headline than this one from August 13, 2009 in the faux community newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Times: AHEAD OF THE GAME: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper continues to do the job residents elected her to do -once again!

Read the rest of my post above at:http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/csaba-kulins-common-sense-take-on-faux.html

That followed by five months the effort to create...
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2009
Hallandale Beach insiders to offer goodies/new propaganda TV channel to HB City Hall for $200k CRA loan Wed. morning.

As you'll recall above, despite NOT meeting most of the very-low standards the city usually required for a loan, the loan was made... more money down the drain!
That eye-opening post of mine from almsot three years ago is at: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/hallandale-beach-insiders-to-offer.html

I'm planning on posting some more incriminating info about the SFST in a few days on my blog, possibly including some eye-opening video I still have from 2010 that makes clear how steadfast and stuuborn HB City Hall remains in trying to funnel money to people who, as I'll show, couldn't even do the one thing they needed to consistently do -reliably inform the people of this community.

That info will be news to most of you in Southeast broward and elsewhere I think, since what was in the Broward Bulldog and then the Miami Herald last Thursday is, as some of you already know, just the tip of the iceberg on this story about the mayor's ambition and desire to always get her way being subsidized by taxpayers dollars -yours.

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/02/sweet-deal-for-owners-of-hallandale-newspaper-that-features-mayor-as-columnist/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2633582/hallandale-beach-newspaper-gets.html Make sure you read the comments!

Below, more on Joy Cooper, Cub Reporter...
I was going to say Nancy Drew, but of course Nancy Drew in her stint as a reporter in the 1940's film series tried to bring facts to light, not to bury them; she cleared a girl of murder, after all.
http://www.archive.org/details/nancy_drew_reporter

Also, Nancy Drew never threatened a "publisher" before like the mayor and her husband did a few years ago when, out-of-the-blue, something true-but-unflattering about her somehow wound-up in the faux newspaper.

Again, I remind you, that something was true-but-unflattering, but as we all know, the mayor really hates hearing Inconvenient Facts, whether from me or any other citizen paying close attention to what's going on -or isn't- right in front of us, so, as you'd expect, she and her husband went to the "newspaper's" office and went ballistic.
They demanded that... well, that's the part of the story still to come.
-----

I also commend to you the following piece as well on the blatant disregard for fairness and journalism ethics.

South Florida Business Journal
Why fight City Hall when you get a h andout?
by Kevin Gale, Editor in Chief
Friday, February 10, 2012, 12:10pm EST
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/2012/02/why-fight-city-hall-when-you-get-a.html

If you have a Facebook account, you can leave a comment... I don't, so can't.

See this mention of our mayor from last month...http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2012/01/occupy-protest-leads-arrest-assault-officer/165117

And in case you forgot one of the previous Joy Cooper crony capitalism deals with the faux
newspaper... I still have a copy of the letter and envelope that was sent out on HB City Hall
stationary to try to drum up business for a fake newspaper that nobody trusts or believes.

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/850227.html
Miami Herald
Mayor, paper are very cozy in Hallandale
By Fred Grimm
January 13, 2009

It pays to be nice.
If only The Miami Herald had been a little nicer, a little more accommodating, a little less critical, some grateful mayor might be sending out swell letters to our potential advertisers.
Consider the South Florida Sun-Times in Hallandale Beach. A nice weekly paper. Very nice. Self-consciously nice. ''We do mostly positive stories. We don't do a lot of negative,'' Sun-Times President Craig Farquhar said.
No nasty (or otherwise) letters to the editor. (Too bad, given that Hallandale Beach residents are both literate and famously contentious. Their letters would liven up any newspaper.)
The Sun-Times (circulation about 55,000) especially eschews articles critical of the mayor of Hallandale Beach. Not exactly what you'd call a media watchdog when it comes to local government. More like a lapdog.
But niceness pays off. Last month, a surprising letter was mailed out to city businesses on official Hallandale Beach city stationery: ''Just about everyone is feeling the effects of the economy and doing what we can to get through tough times. In an effort to promote and support local businesses, the city encourages all businesses to advertise in the city's only local newspaper.'' The letter was signed by both Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Goode.


LETTER STARTLING
For an old newspaper guy, who harbors an almost religious reverence for the contentious relationship between journalism and government, it was a startling read.
For Jeanne Roonoe, a businesswoman who has owned Dixie Top Shop down on Dixie Highway for 28 years, it was startling for other reasons. ''For one thing, the city mailed out these letters using first-class mail instead of bulk mail.'' But mostly she wondered why, when so many businesses are hurting, ``the city singled out just one to help.''
Because it pays to be accommodating. The Sun-Times runs a weekly column by Mayor Cooper. City Commissioner Keith London, often at odds with the mayor, claims that the paper refuses to print contrary opinions from him.
In particular, last fall after the mayor ran a column critical of a lawsuit London had filed against the city, the newspaper refused to publish the city commissioner's response. ''We chose not to run his article. We choose not to run lots of stories from people,'' Farquhar said.


SWEET DEAL
London, using Freedom of Information requests to pry the information out of City Hall, found that Hallandale Beach city government spent $18,500 buying ads in the Sun-Times over the past two years. The commissioner suggests that the newspaper, at city expense, has become a kind of unfiltered house organ for the mayor's office.
(However, to be fair, Mayor Cooper's latest column is not exactly a scintillating read. Not a whiff of controversy. No political attacks. No mention of her blood enemy Keith London.)
Mayor Cooper told the Sun-Sentinel that in exchange for the letters to potential advertisers, she expected stories in the Sun-Times that would ``promote the city.''
That happened to be the same term employed by the very nice president of the Sun-Times. ''We all have to work together to promote the city and business,'' Farquhar told me Monday.
Not that I have anything against being nice, even to mayors. It's just a peculiar ethos for a newspaper.

-----

I only wish the South Florida news media had taken this whole embarrassing situation more seriously when I knew about it and was writing about it before they were.
I constantly contacted all four English-speaking TV stations and both the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel with the pertinent facts, delivering it on a silver platter with all dots already connected, but as you know if you read my posts at the time, the local news media just didn't care.
Not a whit.

All of which makes this sudden media interest in a longstanding situation that HB taxpayers have had to live with for years, now seem rather curious to lots of well-informed people I know and interact with regularly.
Adminstrators and elected officials from other cities and up at Broward County Govt. HQ and regular taxpayer citizens.
They all wonder why the concerns of HB residents didn't matter to the news media when it might've done some good.
It's a little after-the-fact, now.

Tesla Motors' new electric car, the Model X SUV, has room for 7 adults with front-facing third row seats -and falcon wing doors. Sweet!

CNNMoney
Tesla unveils its Model X SUV with 'falcon wings'
By Peter Valdes-Dapena @PeterDrives 
February 10, 2012: 8:41 AM ET, http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/07/autos/tesla_model_x_crossover/index.htm


-----
See another video of the launch at:
http://www.latimes.com/videogallery/67993418/Technology/Tech-Report--Tesla-Model-X


Los Angeles Times

Tesla announces Model X SUV for 2014, starts taking deposits
The electric SUV will share a platform, components and technology with Tesla's electric Model S sedan, which is slated to go into production this year.
By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times
February 10, 2012, 9:59 p.m.

Tesla Motors Inc. has yet to deliver the much-touted Model S — the electric sedan it is making at its auto factory in Fremont, Calif. — but that didn't stop the automaker from taking reservations for a sport utility vehicle it doesn't expect to begin selling until 2014. 

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-autos-tesla-suv-20120211,0,4608265.story


I last wrote about Tesla Motors' electric cars back on November 19, 2009 in a post about the introduction of their Roadster, titled, Get me a Tesla Roadster, stat! The sexy electric car that turns heads
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/get-me-tesla-roadster-stat-sexy.html

Hallandale Beach residents are eager to speak at Tuesday night's Resident Forum re Mayor Cooper's myopic State of the City speech, and the troubling role of the cliquish, pro-Cooper HB Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers are forced to subsidize

Above, looking west from Hallandale Beach City Hall towards the Hallandale Beach Cultural Community Center, i.e. "the Cultural Center," right before I went inside and voted in the 2012 Florida GOP primary. January 31, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Hallandale Beach residents are eager to speak at Tuesday night's Resident Forum re Mayor Cooper's myopic State of the City speech, and the troubling role of the cliquish, pro-Cooper HB Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers are forced to subsidize

Just over a week ago, I and many other concerned residents and business owners in the greater Hallandale Beach area received an email from my friend and Hallandale Beach City Commissioner, Keith London, reminding us of his upcoming Resident Forum meeting on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. in the HB Cultural Center.


Comm. London also reminded us as well of his longstanding opposition to the taxpayers of this small community being forced to fund the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce.


That's the group that I and many other concerned and well-informed residents here believe is a particularly standoff-ish and cliquish retinue of ardently pro-development, pro-Joy Cooper, pro-HB City Hall partisans who operate in what can charitably be called a moral 'vacuum,' though it may more accurately be called an 'alternative universe.'


In fact, it's in large part because the HB CoC operates in ways that are DIFFERENT than how most city CoCs in the United States manage and comport themselves, as well as how they are funded -and the particular civic activities the HB CoC consciously choose NOT to perform, roles performed by many if not most CoCs in this country- that best explains why so many people in this area DON'T want to join them.


Well-meaning HB citizens and business owners who truly see things as they are, and NOT how the mayor and city hall pretends they are, folks who simply want city govt. costs contained and not continue to balloon, DON'T wish to be tainted by any association with myopic believers in crony capitalism at its worst.


I say that because some of the people who lead the group here, like realtor Joe Kessel, are well-known for not only their parochial and self-serving nature, but equally known for their willingness to try to take advantage of their position within the community to become part of ownership groups that seek HB CRA loans for ill-conceived ideas that local banks won't touch -and for good reason. 
Again, exactly what Joe Kessel did.


And Kessel did this WHILE already receiving money from the city as a top secret 'consultant' -what I called 'spying'- in a stealthy arrangement that the HB City Commission and the public was intentionally kept in the dark about, but which Mayor Joy Cooper knew all about.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/04/hallandale_mayor_cooper_kessel_contract.php
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/related/to/Joe+Kessel/


No, the HB CoC doesn't act like the CoC group in next-door Hollywood does, nor like most CoCs in the country that are largely self-sustaining thru not only the membership dues they collect, but also thru activities they conduct throughout the year, whether fairs, festivals and other special events for which there's a small charge for the public to attend, or for businesses to participate, as well as general sponsorship arrangements.


Unfortunately for taxpayers, because most of the concerned people paying close attention to what happens in Hallandale Beach already recognize these self-evident facts, the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce, like the city's faux newspaper, the South Florida Sun Times, both currently exist as little more than one-party propaganda organs for HB mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew, and poorly-functioning PR organs at that.


In the very near future, I'll be posting something else here about the strange role of the HB CoC, and its new president, Carole Pumpian, a woman who has consistently worked AGAINST the long-term best-interests of Hallandale Beach residents 
And for the record, Pumpian doesn't live in Hallandale Beach, either.

I've excerpted Comm. London's email below to give you the pertinent info, but first read
this:
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Mayor-No-charge-for-speech/-/3223354/8578562/-/a3y74x/-/index.html


-----

From: Keith London 

To: klondon@hallandalebeachfl.gov 

Sent: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 8:16 AM

Subject: Your Tax Dollars ($20) at Work Mayor Joy Cooper State of the City Address - Reported by Local 10.com

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Mayor-charges-residents-20-for-speech/-/3223354/8563986/-/1utfiiz/-/index.html

Everyone,

...Let’s remember this is the same Chamber of Commerce that receives $40,000 - $50,000 every year of your tax dollars from the City of Hallandale Beach in addition to free rent and utilities.

In lieu of paying $20 for information that should be relayed to the residents for free, please attend my FREE “Resident Forum” held the second or third Tuesday of every month at the City of Hallandale Beach Cultural Center .  Free refreshments are offered. 

The items of discussion pertain to current pending issues or anything a resident may want to discuss.  I include significant information and documents to elaborate the points and I always listen to what the residents and taxpayers are saying about the state of Hallandale Beach .

I hope to see you and friend at the next meeting on February 14, 2012 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM to discuss “OUR” city.

Regards,

Keith

Keith S. London

City Commissioner, Hallandale Beach

954-457-1320 Office

954-494-3182 Cellular

www.KeithLondon.com

http://www.facebook.com/KeithSLondon

From: BFoglia

Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 07:55 PM

To: joycooper@aol.com

Subject: RE: Mayor Joy Cooper State of the City Address 

Is this a joke? We have to PAY to listen to your Annual State of the City Address? Shouldn't that speech be given in a public forum? This speech is for ALL the people in your community - The City - , not an elite 'lunch crowd' between 12 & 2. This notice has to be a hoax on Hallandale residents.

Barbara Foglia,
a resident.

A timely FYI from my friend, Charlotte Greenbarg re Florida SB 1808: "Don't let seven-year old Gabriel Meyers' death be in vain!"

A timely FYI from my friend, Charlotte Greenbarg re Florida SB 1808: "Don't let seven-year old Gabriel Meyers' death be in vain!"

In case you forgot about the absolutely heart-breaking story about seven-year old Gabriel Meyers, just take a peek at this article, video and blog post and it should all come back to you in all its sordid misery and bureaucratic red-tape, http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/initiatives/GMWorkgroup/index.shtml, or see this video from 2009 featuring Florida State Sen. Ronda Storms, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuqRNRCX8Zc


SB 1808: Provision of Psychotropic Medication to Children in Out-of-home Placements
http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2012/1808


Having heard two separate accounts -in-between sobs- from two separate Broward
parents on Thursday night in Hollywood, at Broward Supt. Robert Runcie's last
"Listening Tour" meeting, about their young kids talking about committing suicide because of bullying at school, and the Broward School system's continued inability to handle things -one of the bullies made new threats last week AFTER returning from being suspended!- this tragic case of child suicide in Margate in 2009 reminds us that helping children and protecting them from the practice of over-medicating powerful drugs to numb them, is exactly the sort of black-and-white issue that people in Tallahassee need to finally face-the-music on, before they show their faces around here after the legislative session is over.


Palm Beach Post political reporter Dara Kam wrote the following post Thursday night at their Post on Politics blog about the future of :



House won’t make it harder for state to put foster kids on psych drugs
by Dara Kam | February 9th, 2012

Sen. Ronda Storms’ bill that would make it harder for doctors to put foster kids on mind-altering drugs passed another milestone in the Senate today, but its future is bleak.

http://www.postonpolitics.com/2012/02/house-wont-make-it-harder-for-state-to-put-foster-kids-on-psych-drugs/


And here's the email I found in my inbox when I got home from Hollywood:

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Charlotte Greenbarg

Date: Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 7:41 PM

Subject: Don't let Gabriel Meyers' death be in vain!

To: Charlotte Greenbarg

Cc: storms.ronda.web@flsenate.gov

There is an important vote in the House of Representatives and I urge you not to forget GABRIEL MEYERS, A 7 YEAR OLD FOSTER CHILD WHO HUNG HIMSELF while under the influence of pych drugs not approved by FDA --and prescribed by a Broward doctor who still believes there was nothing wrong with multiple adults drugs prescribed to a 7 year old.

Senator Ronda Storms has done an outstanding job in bringing the issue of psych drugs and foster care children to everyone's attention in Tallahassee, but her pleas may be ignored without your call or email. This child died in Broward County---- and it is our obligation not to allow his death to be ignored .....until the next child dies. 

Please contact your representatives; if you don't know who they are, follow this link : http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/representatives.aspx

www.myfloridahouse.gov

No-Spin Zone awaits Broward County Schools Supt. Robert Runcie at Hollywood Hills H.S. Thursday night at 6:30 pm

Broward County Schools Supt. Robert Runcie's so-called "Listening Tour" finally comes to southeast Broward on Tuesday night, his only appearance in the area, at Hollywood Hills High School at 6:30 p.m., 5400 Stirling Road, Hollywood.


As I see it, his mission Tuesday night, besides whatever actual listening he does, will be to try to explain to those in attendance just how he's going to demolish what I've long called here on the blog 'the Broward County Schools' dysfunction junction.'


That's an amorphous universe of light and shadows where the normal laws of logic and reason, not to mention, gravity and morality, that apply to the rest of us, are laughed at with seeming contempt. 
Their response to the public's queries and complaints in the past has always been some variation of, "well, we have our own rules, and you wouldn't understand them."


Which explains, in part, why expensive school buildings have been built that weren't actually needed, land has been purchased that didn't have an actual future purpose and... well, you get the idea.
To say nothing of the ethical scandals, some of which are still not fully known to the general public.

All of that dysfunction and incompetency combined explains why the School system has riled and enraged concerned taxpayers, parents & pols in this part of Broward for years. 

Given everything that's happened in the past year within the School system, and in this part of the county in particular, I feel pretty confident in saying that Tuesday night will be a No-Spin Zone for Runcie and any Schools administrators or elected officials who even try to mis-represent the truth (and the facts) that everyone attending already knows.

Attempts at historical revisionism should be met with boos and hoots from the audience.  

In fact, given everything that HAS happened in the past year, with lots of legitimate questions NEVER properly answered to taxpayer and parent's satisfaction, if everyone from SE Broward who should actually show-up for this event actually does, I expect that it will be quite a combative night.

And rightly so.

See ya there!



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Nine months from tonight, the Rubber Stamp Crew at Hallandale Beach City Hall can be kicked-to-the-curb for good

November 13, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Nine months from tonight, the Rubber Stamp Crew at Hallandale Beach City Hall can be kicked-to-the-curb for good

Concepts like common sense, logic, reason, transparency, Sunshine in Government and living-within-your-means could finally make their long-overdue appearance at 400 S. Federal Highway.


Not to mention, new City Commissioners dedicated to providing genuine oversight of the new City Manager and city employees, and a willingness to work hard and become familiar with pertinent information BEFORE City Commission meetings, instead of continuing the current practice where the majority merely go-thru-the-motions and forever defer to un-elected staffers who may not represent the long-term best interests of the city's citizen taxpayers and business owners.


We could finally see some intelligent public policy that encourages genuine community involvement throughout the ENTIRE CITY, and NOT exclusion and stealthiness at public meetings, which leads to important decisions being made at 2:43 a.m., as happened with the vote on the Diplomat LAC in 2010.

We could finally have a city hall where a work-ethic exists among city employees that rewards those who consistently show initiative, get the community involved, create cost efficiencies and increased productivity or tangible results, and proactively cuts red-tape and spots problems ahead of time, instead of merely waiting for them to happen and then pretending you don't know anything about it.


Conversely, that new work-ethic at city hall will make clear that it will punish or replace those who cling to the outmoded and musty status quo policies that have existed here for years, a mindset which has cost this city's taxpayers so very much money with so little tangible good to show for it the past ten years -a city budget that has nearly doubled the past five years.


But this change in both attitude and direction won't be accomplished easily, or just thru collective good intentions and a few clever campaign slogans.


It'll require some hard work and diligence by those who are genuinely committed to bringing meaningful policy reform and financial accountability to this city with so much unrealized potential, so that the citizens of this community can FINALLY leave the embarrassing bad old-days in the rear-view mirror.
So, what are you prepared to do the next few months to make that a reality?

In case you're interested, if all goes as expected, I'll be posting some Alternative State of the City comments on my blog in a few days, which is to say, an alternative to Mayor Joy Cooper's likely myopic and unrealistic snapshot.

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Mayor-charges-residents-20-for-speech/-/3223354/8563986/-/1utfiiz/-/index.html

http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bob-norman/Mayor-No-charge-for-speech/-/3223354/8578562/-/a3y74x/-/index.html

If any of you you have something you'd like to contribute, either using your own name or, well, as "Anonymous," send it to me by 8 p.m. Thursday night.

-----

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog 

Change Hallandale Beach- 

A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos. The kind of evidence that they CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais.
See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com