FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL ๐Ÿ›ซ๐ŸŒ๐Ÿ“บ๐Ÿ“ฝ️๐Ÿˆ. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan

Friday, July 6, 2012

Latest on Broward IG's investigation of curious Hallandale Beach CRA policies & loans; despicable Bill Julian talketh, Andrew Markoff spinneth, but neither tells the whole truth, of course. They can't because the real facts are NOT their friend.


May 16, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier. 
© 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Note to former Hallandale Beach City Commissioner William "Bill" Julian, a 2012 candidate who claims to be honest and full of integrity but is anything but that: 
Most real agents or people who carry real badges denoting some power DON'T park in handicapped parking spaces like you did for SO MANY YEARS all over this city, esp. to hang-out with your pals and eat and drink at The Beachside Cafe on the city's North Beach. Why couldn't you just act like a normal human being and park in the nearby city garage for about a dollar an hour? It would have been so easy.


But instead, for many, many years, as regular beach-goers and the young Jeff Ellis & Associates lifeguards could see for themselves, literally dumb-founded at your sheer audacity, you regularly parked in THE only disabled parking space at North Beach near the sidewalk. Or, if that space was occupied by someone for whom it was actually intended, equally as bad and carrying the identical FINE amount as parking in a disabled spot, you parked your car in the Handicapped Access parking spot, a spot legally designated to allow cars and vans to discharge people in wheelchairs or persons who otherwise required assistance getting out of the vehicle. 


But it's NOT for parking! 
And most assuredly, it is NOT for parking by able-bodied City Commissioners like you were who wanted to drink and eat with your pals and be lazy about it.
So why did you do it, year-after-year?
Because YOU felt entitled and owed something.

You were so full of yourself that you had no problem in putting your little calling card right out where everyone could see it on your dashboard, and your pals in the Police Dept. of Thomas Magill always looked the other way because of who you were, didn't they? Yes, they did, on those infrequent times when they actually came to the beach.
But the truth of the matter is that, in the end, all your pomposity and sense of entitlement showed was what a truly despicable person you are, because that's what people who park illegally in handicapped spaces are -despicable.
And you did that for MANY YEARS!


Elsewhere on the ethics beat, Bill Gjebre has the latest news on the Broward IG's continuing probe of the City of Hallandale Beach and its CRA program run by the City Commission.
Mostly more of Bill Julian being Bill Julian: saying that he won't talk publicly about what he told the investigators and then quickly babbling like a brook.
Broward IG questions former Hallandale commissioner about CRA deals, newspaper loan
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2012/07/broward-ig-agents-quiz-former-hallandale-commissioner-about-cra-deals-newspaper-loan/


So, to repeat what we already knew, there never was a written plan for the Sanders property when it was bought and there is still no plan for it now that the city rents it out for a dollar a year to serial CRA fund recipient Deborah Brown.
No plan!


So why all the urgency at the time then to purchase it, Comm. Julian and Mayor Cooper, if there was no written plan or strategy? 
Well, as is mentioned elsewhere in the reader comments, Julian was a puppet in good standing and didn't ask and probably didn't even care.


Now, of course, Julian actually has the gall to sound resentful when asked why he said and did certain things while in office for ten years, as if wasn't really him, just his doppelgรคnger.
All this has really proven is that Julian was never fit to be a city commissioner in the first place and the fact that he never really learned anything at all, proves it, just as is the case with Sanders.
Simply showing up is not good enough.

In the interest of complete accuracy and everyone reading this blog knowing the true facts, I must note here that once again, the very same Andrew Markoff who has spent so much time over the years publicly defending mean-spirited Mayor Cooper and the recently departed small-minded City Manager Mark A. Antonio, and the whole culture of corruption, incompetency and second-rate accountability to the public that they had come to embody, someone who has remarked so often that everyone who's been critical of them, including myself and many of you reading this, are not just wrong, but fail to understand how local govt. is supposed to operate, is the same guy who in a matter of hours on Thursday had already commented three times on the Broward Bulldog website about a story put up in the morning.


Which is to say that, yes, once again, as he has so many times at so many South Florida websites and blogs, Markoff actually wrote more words and lines than the author of the article that was being posted.
And yes, once again, as has become increasingly common in his efforts to attempt to divert people away from the facts surrounding this investigation or any questioning of what City hall wants, he used his poison pen to attack a South Florida reporter for being a tool of... well, whatever the latest conspiracy theory  in his head is these days.


Though I have never spoken with him in person nor spoken on the phone, I'm quite sure that Bill Gjebrejust like another recent target of his, Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayois not losing any sleep about what mendacious Markoff thinks of him, and for good reason, given Markoff's chronic inability to tell the truth or keep his thin-skinned feelings and long-standing grudges out of the way.


If you read his querulous comments at the Bulldog website and had never heard of this blog, you might be surprised to discover that Markoff is actually part of one of the groups that is under current investigation, the Palm Community Action Coalition, which receives money from HB City Hall and is run by Comm. Anthony A. Sanders' wife, Jessica,


Yes, it sounds familiar alright, because it's the very same group whom I've mentioned here many times before whose sweetheart deal with City Hall gives them -her- the use of an office on city property at the Hepburn Center, and the use of city personnel and resources, despite their lack of publicly communicating just what this group actually does other than act as a paid booster squad and cheerleaders for City Hall policies.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/22/v-fullstory/2863431/inspector-general-digging-into.html


As usual, in both his written comments on websites and in person at City Hall, where he has felt perfectly at ease attacking Comm. Keith London and myself, and in May, adding Sun-Sentinel columnist Mayo in one comment at a May city commission meeting that Mayo was present at, as part of this personal conspiracy theory of his that must explain everything, Markoff has once again neglected to mention that he is part of a group being investigated.


Markoff has already picked his side in the status quo vs. reform battle in this city, and he's selected the side of Mayor Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew and their crony capitalism pals in the community, which perhaps is part of why she selected him for the city's Charter Review Committee advisory group, though he carefully avoids mentioning that publicly, too, as well as the fact that he was alone on an island there in his Minority Report, an outcast amongst his own kind.


Yet despite having chosen sides, Markoff still wants to act like he's an umpire who can call balls and strikes on others, based on his own very liberal politics and strange whims and sensibilities. The sort that caused him to sit in front of Panera Bread for so long trying to get people interested in an Obama front group he was involved with.


That sort of intellectual dishonesty, always a disqualifying character trait for me, is part and parcel of why nobody I know in this town trusts Andrew Markoff.
It's also part of his personal M.O., as he has verbally stabbed numerous people in the back in this community over the years who've attempted to befriend him or help him in some way, myself included.


A few years ago, I was foolish enough to spend dozens of hours with him, giving him a reality check tour of this city to point out why things were the way they were here -poorly-run in every way, shape and form- and why it was so important that they be changed.
I even ran what essentially was a free ad for his own website on my blog for around six months or so, a website that I'd actually made suggestions about.




Some of you might even remember it from four years ago.
Not from you going to it, but for me running it on my blog for so long, just to help him out.


No matter, after awhile, completely out-of-the-blue, after not having spoken to him in over 18 months, he felt that it was time to attack me.
The next thing I knew, I was being repeatedly attacked over on the Broward NewTimes blog comment forums by him.
It was so odd. 


Attack me and others who want new faces and policies at City Hall so this city can get out of its funk and be a more normal city.
This experience of trying to be friendly to him only proved again the validity of the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished.


As we've mentioned previously with respect to our frequent use of the Frog and the Scorpion fable on the blog and in my emails in the past to describe the actions and behavior of the mayor, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
Markoff, like Mayor Cooper, can't help being who he is, and Teaser Alert, in the end, he always turns on people who help him, so watch out...


And now you know the rest of the story...

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Tomas Lopez story results in predictably anemic response by Hallandale Beach City Hall as growing public outrage re harsh treatment of lifeguard Lopez by his company, Jeff Ellis & Associates -an unpersuasive form letter- shows City Hall's longstanding myopia remains. Story has touched a nerve all over the world about moral imperatives and importance of doing the right thing despite strong possible negative consequences. We desperately need to change the culture and personnel at City Hall ASAP!

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
ABC News video: Correspondent Matt Gutman on Fla. Contractor That Fired Lifeguard For Saving Man Outside Zone Reconsidering. July 5, 2012.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/fired-fla-lifeguard-reinstated/story?id=16716225
Tomas Lopez story results in predictably anemic response by Hallandale Beach City Hall as growing public outrage re harsh treatment of lifeguard Lopez by his company, Jeff Ellis & Associates -an unpersuasive form letter- shows City Hall's longstanding myopia remains. Story has touched a nerve all over the world about moral imperatives and importance of doing the right thing despite strong possible negative consequences. We desperately need to change the culture and personnel at City Hall ASAP!
In short, in the official City of Hallandale Beach response thus far about the incident I discussed here yesterday, that was originally reported by Ihosvani Rodriguez of the South Florida sun-Sentinel, and which blew-up over the Fourth of July holiday to become international news, to the surprise of no one, the city says absolutely nothing about their own longstanding neglect, incompetency and culpability regarding the public beach areas, including the news that I shared with you that the two lifeguard stations on the beach are NOT grounded for lightning strikes, as they are supposed to be.


Lifeguard Tomas Lopez helps save the day at the city's public beach but get's fired for his trouble. Meanwhile, Hallandale Beach City Hall continues to act neglectful and NOT do what it's legally supposed to do around the beach areas, and nothing happens. Nobody is fired. Just more mindless bureaucratic apathy and incompetency from the same old crew!

By the way, if you didn't already know, the lifeguards are supposed to call their own company first in order to dispatch Fire/Rescue to the scene of trouble, despite the fact that HB Fire/Rescue is right next to the iconic Hallandale Beach Water Tower on State Road A1A and Hallandale Beach Blvd., on the border separating HB and Hollywood.  

Hallandale Beach Fire Station 60 is located in the building north of the city's iconic Water Tower on State Road A1A, just south of the Hollywood cityline. May 30, 2012 photos by South Beach Hoosier© 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved


When that was done, a lot of the life guards told me at the time that based on their past experience, this policy would inevitably cause casualties.

And I didn't even mention in my email and blog post of yesterday that, as I've noted here previously, for a very long time, the lifeguards lacked a motorized device that would allow the guards to actually respond to people caught in dangerous high wave/strong undertow situations far from shore, which greatly frustrated them and created a lot of anxiety on those sorts of days.
And lest you forget, we had an unusually high number of such days early last year, which was even more troubling when you know the lifeguards lacked the tools they desperately needed.
You'd think the city would've had a back-up plan after the one device they had -to share among the two lifeguard stands- broke.
You'd think that, but you'd be wrong -there was no back-up plan!

Is having Jeff Ellis and Associates' dispatchers calling 911 instead of the lifeguards on the scene part of what should be publicly discussed and re-examined while everyone is looking at what took place at the beach on Monday?
Should help for victims really be delayed from being dispatched solely because of company policy?

In my opinion, this whole topic ought to be the subject of a public meeting held at the city's Cultural Center, say, on a Saturday morning at 10 a.m., AFTER Labor Day when everyone is back in town, so that everyone who is interested can attend and hear what's what from Jeff Ellis, the city and any other people who have some knowledge to share, as well as HB residents?

Earlier today, Hallandale Beach civic activist Etty Sims, always a strong voice for common sense, financial accountability and the entire community's best long-term interests, sent the following email to HB City Hall and its denizens.

Along with her comments were links to just some of the dozen and dozens of news sites around the world that have reported on this troubling incident via a Google Alert on HB, a tool which I also receive and have encouraged you all to get as well if you live here, or one for your own community if you're anywhere else in the world.

Among the hundreds of news organizations and websites that have delved into this story are the BBC and ABC News, the latter of which did a three-minute story on it last night with reporter Matt Gutman during ABC Evening News, which was re-run this morning, the video of which I've posted at the top.

Here's Etty Sims' email:

Good morning city commissioners, mayor and city manager,

So Hallandale Beach is in the news all over the country and not for a good reason.
I am sure that you all heard about the incident on the beach.
If you read the comments to the stories on the different news media sites you will see that not only the private company that you, the commission hired to protect our beach goers , BUT the entire city's reputation is beefing affected negatively.

Please let us know what are you going to do about this issue.

if we want to improve our beaches, it is very important that beach goers  not only feel safe on our beach but are actually being protected by someone that cares about people's life and not the bottom line.
Since the lifeguard company's contract is coming  up for renewal, it is a perfect time to look into the different options available.
It is time to bring back the Beach in Hallandale Beach. Please make it a priority and transform the beach to a place that people want to go to. There are too many other options very close by such as Hollywood Beach Broadwalk.

Have a great summer 

Etty Sims


-----
Meanwhile... I continue to receive email from everywhere, including some thoughtful nuanced email from Las Vegas that gets right to the heart of the matter of what happened on Monday

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: City Manager <CityManager@hallandalebeachfl.gov>
Date: Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:46 AM
Subject: RE: Lifeguard Tomas Lopez helps save the day at the city's public beach but get's fired for his trouble. Meanwhile, Hallandale Beach City Hall continues to act neglectful and NOT do what it's legally supposed to do around the beach areas...



Thank you for contacting the City of Hallandale Beach regarding the beach incident that occurred on July 2, 2012.  I am in close contact with Jeff Ellis of Jeff Ellis Management who has started a full investigation into the termination of their lifeguard.  The lifeguard is not a City employee, but was employed by Jeff Ellis Management, a private company contracted to provide lifeguard services for two city-owned beaches and the Municipal pool.  Jeff Ellis Management has committed to the City that if the lifeguard was terminated in haste, the company would move expeditiously to reinstate his employment.

It has always been the City’s policy that if there is an actual emergency inside or outside of the protected area, the lifeguard must respond. We do however have to ensure that certain safety protocols are followed to ensure the safety of all visitors to the City of Hallandale Beach.  At this time, the City is awaiting the facts of the termination and the results of our internal inquiry and the Ellis Management investigation.  Once the City has the results of the investigation, we can make an informed determination on the future of the relationship with this management company.

The City Hallandale Beach truly values your concerns and comments on this issue. The safety of our Beach patrons and the manner in which this service is provided is paramount to the City.  We are moving swiftly to address the situation.

Renee C. Crichton
City Manager
City of Hallandale Beach
400 S. Federal Highway
Hallandale Beach, FL 33009
954-457-1300 Phone

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Lifeguard Tomas Lopez helps save the day at the city's public beach but get's fired for his trouble. Meanwhile, Hallandale Beach City Hall continues to act neglectful and NOT do what it's legally supposed to do around the beach areas, and nothing happens. Nobody is fired. Just more mindless bureaucratic apathy and incompetency from the same old crew!

South Beach, Hallandale Beach, Florida. This and all photos below are from May 30, 2012 and were taken by South Beach Hoosier. 
© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
Lifeguard Tomas Lopez helps save the day at the city's public beach but get's fired for his trouble. Meanwhile, Hallandale Beach City Hall continues to act neglectful and NOT do what it's legally supposed to do around the beach areas, and nothing happens. Nobody is fired. Just more mindless bureaucratic apathy and incompetency from the same old tired crew!
Early this morning in an email to the Sun-Sentinel's Ihosvani Rodriguez, I wrote the following:

I  just needed to clarify something.
In your article, Hallandale Beach lifeguard fired after participating in beach rescue
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-hallandale-beach-lifeguards-20120703,0,5326638.story do you mean the lifeguard who saved someone from dying,
Tomas Lopez, left one of the HB lifeguard stands that, contrary to what the city's insurance docs likely claim, are NOT now properly grounded for lightning strikes?

© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Something the city already knows about, which is the city's legal responsibility and a HB taxpayer's lawsuit nightmare if someone is injured?
Yeah, sort of like the city still not having fixed or replaced 28 broken lights at Bluesten Park, three blocks from City Hall, for well over nine months and counting... 

Specifically, the lifeguard stand on South Beach that still has graffiti on it and had metal city signs underneath it for 4-5 months because the city's DPW is so poorly managed and bereft of anything resembling a strong work ethic or attention to detail, to remove them and place them in the correct place? 
And which was still under the South Beach lifeguard stand many weeks after I first called DPW on my cell phone in late May while standing next to it, to complain, when these photos were taken?
Those lifeguard stands?
© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

You mean THOSE lifeguard stands with metal underneath them just asking to be zapped
by lightning?

© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The beach where not so far away from those old and unsafe lifeguard stands there are faded, 30-year old Broward County signs from when southern Broward County was still using the 305 area code, the Miami Dolphins were still playing in the Orange Bowl, and BEFORE Dan Marino was playing quarterback for the Dolphins?
That neglected public beach?

© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Do you mean the beach where the weekend before the city's Parks Master Plan meeting of Monday May 31st re possible changes and improvements to South Beach, the sign with the meeting info came down, and rather than simply re-hammering it into the wooden pole, someone from the city dragged it next to the dumpster and left it there?
Which, of course, meant that anyone who went to the beach that entire weekend or Monday morning who didn't already know about the meeting would have had no idea about it, or what the rendering on the left actually meant?
That neglected public beach?

I spy: the missing meeting sign hidden next to the dumpster! 
© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The beach with the nearby dumpster without the fence enclosure the city requires of all businesses owners in the city with dumpsters, to hide the dumpster from public view, just like the city has been violating its own ordinances for YEARS at North Beach?

After I saw this for myself the afternoon of the meeting, I actually left the beach and drove over to City Hall and spoke in-person with the new Parks Director at her office to both tell her what I'd seen, but to also offer it up as yet another self-evident example of how things were/are routinely done in this city since I have lived here -with a lack of professionalism and with an almost completely contemptuous disregard for the taxpayers and residents of this city.
Which is to say half-assed! And with no consequences for continued sub-par performance.

But the reality is that in this city, it's DPW who is in charge of the beach, not Parks & Rec.
That's where the blame lies, along with just-departed City Manager Antonio, and the current Mayor and City Commission.


© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
Could there possibly be any garbage dumpsters in South Florida that are closer to the Atlantic Ocean than these two from the City of Hallandale Beach at North Beach? (The ones you can see because the city doesn't have the required fencing hiding them.) I don't think there are! 
Area to the left is The Apogee condos in Hollywood under construction. 
The public beach where for years, as they do elsewhere, the city just laughs at following its own rules and ordinances, to say nothing of city commissioners ignoring state laws about NOT illegally parking in disabled parking spaces?


© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
One of the many photos I snapped over the years of Julian's ID on dashboard while he was parked illegally in disabled or disabled- access parking spaces next to the Beachside Cafe at North Beach.  

(The latter is a common sense state law that for YEARS was routinely abused by former HB Comm. Bill Julian -running again this year- when he drove to the Beachside Cafe, continually parking in what was then THE only disabled parking space nearby, being sure to let everyone know whose car it was, as ID shows.)

Like the public beach -as depicted in photo above- that has dumpsters that have only needed lids that actually fit and cover the garbage since... 
Those public beaches?

The beaches that rightly ought to be taken away from the control of the city's DPW Dept., who have clearly demonstrated over many years that they are clearly NOT interested in giving HB taxpayers the appealing and clean beach they desperately want, and NOT giving them a dollar's worth of service for a dollar's worth of taxes?
The ones whose care should be outsourced to a licensed and experienced contractor to beautify and properly maintain?
Those public beaches?

Oh, okay, now I got it.
I just wanted to make sure that we were talking about the same beaches in HB I know about, and have been closely observing for years as they have fallen into rapid decline due to the city's very own longstanding neglect, apathy and incompetency.
After all, I certainly wouldn't want to jump to any erroneous conclusions.

Kudos to Tomas for keeping his integrity intact and not hesitating from doing the right thing.
I only wish that most of the people at Hallandale Beach City Hall who've been making the big bucks for years were as deserving of the community's trust, respect and admiration as Tomas was by his display of integrity.
But they're not.

No, sadly, my experience is that when they actually do the right thing, it's usually by accident, NOT by design.
And the proof of that is all around us in this city.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Amazing! Curiosity's "Seven Minutes in Heaven"? No, its "Seven Minutes of Terror." WSJ video: The Technology Behind NASA's 'Curiosity' Landing on Mars on August 5th




Wall Street Journal Digital Network video: The Technology Behind NASA's 'Curiosity' Landing on Mars on August 5th. Posted July 2, 2012. http://youtu.be/47JanXuYlNo
Amazing! Curiosity's "Seven Minutes in Heaven"? No, its "Seven Minutes of Terror." Wall Street Journal video: The Technology Behind NASA's 'Curiosity' Landing on Mars on August 5th. 



NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory News video: Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover Animation. Posted June 24, 2011.  http://youtu.be/P4boyXQuUIw

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/JPLnews/ 

Monday, July 2, 2012

Long-term financials at Hollywood and Hallandale Beach City Halls are likely shakier than they appear; 'Mayor Joy Cooper: "I don’t want to adversely affect our services.” 'Since when has she concerned herself with quality of services? Quite the opposite!


We would like [the tax rate] to be lower, but we have a lot of expenses this year,” said Mayor Joy Cooper after the commission tentatively approved the tax rate this week. “I don’t want to adversely affect our services.”

As quoted in the Miami Herald over the weekend.
To which I can only say, since when has she concerned herself with quality of services? 
Quite the opposite!
The evidence is all around you that you are NOT getting what you've paid for.

Miami Herald
Hallandale Beach residents likely will pay more in taxes  
Hallandale Beach leaders approve a tentative tax rate, which will help pay for additional city services.
By Carli Teproff
Posted June 23, 2012

With two new parks facilities and a push to increase code enforcement and maintenance, Hallandale Beach will have a lot of expenses in the coming year.

And most residents can expect to pay a little bit more in taxes to pay for it all.

So far, the City Commission is leaning toward keeping the tax rate the same as it was this year — $5.90 per $1,000 of assessed property — but with property values going up, that amounts to homeowners paying more.

For a home valued at $200,000, taking the standard $50,000 homestead exemption, the tax bill would be $885, not including school and other taxes.

The city expects to generate about $21.5 million in the 2012-2013 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. That’s up $700,000, or 3.37 percent, from this year.

“We would like [the tax rate] to be lower, but we have a lot of expenses this year,” said Mayor Joy Cooper after the commission tentatively approved the tax rate this week. “I don’t want to adversely affect our services.”

Costs are up because two new facilities, a city marina and Foster Park will come online this year, said City Manager Renee Crichton. Running the park will up costs for staff and maintenance, she said.

“The city is an excellent position financially, but we still have some challenges we are going to face long-term,” said Crichton.

Commissioner Keith London, who is running against Cooper for mayor, said he thinks the city needs to rein in its spending.

“I think the budget is too high,” said London. “I don’t think we get the value for our dollar.”

City staff has been working on a proposed budget for months now, and the work will continue through the summer. There will be two public hearings in September before the commission votes on a final tax rate.

In the meantime, commissioners said, the staff should look for ways to save money.

Also at the meeting, the commission agreed to raise fire fees by $20 to $145. By raising the fees, the city would see an additional $900,000.
-----

Earlier today, the Balance Sheet Blog in next-door Hollywood, run by Sara Case and Laurie Schecter, posted a thoughtful and important new entry that has an interesting take on the not-so-rosy long-term financial situation in Hollywood, in that despite the positive changes that were made in response to Hollywood voters overwhelmingly passing last September's referendum on city pensions, Larry Leggan experienced and savvy CPA who's looked at all the docs you can think of, still states that the "city is still at a moderate to high level of risk of bankruptcy and/or austerity measures." 
It's well worth reading!


Did you notice that line about Unfunded Pension costs?

That particular number here in Hallandale Beach is one that you never hear mentioned or discussed, much, esp. with respect to how to dig out of that hole, but I know someone who does know exactly what those numbers are, esp. with respect to the largest share of that problem, the Police and Fire/Rescue pensions.
If you've been reading this blog regularly, you know who that person is, too: Csaba Kulin.

Trust me, I've seen the numbers myself and it will make your head explode when you see them laid bare here on the blog very soon.

In a somewhat similar vein, based on the Teproff article at the top from the Herald and the everyday experiences of Hallandale Beach taxpayers and business owners, year-after-year, here's a reasonable question for Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper that Teproff and Tonya Alanez of the Sun-Sentinel might want to ask and actually follow-up on with some examples: How many years in a row has HB used the city's reserve fund simply to balance the city's budget?

Not for legitimate unexpected emergencies, but just to balance the budget, crammed with goodies for some, esp. the professional crony capitalism class here in our small city.

Cooper and her apologists at City Hall and all over town do not want to answer that question for a very good reason.
Because the truth is NOT her friend, and neither is spreading the truth.

Later today I'm heading over to North Beach for my final photo recon for my post on a matter that I had wanted to post Friday morning, Mark A. Antonio's last day as City Manager, but which will now probably run later in the week, now that I've blown past my own deadline.

It concerns the REAL reason that the City of Hallandale Beach's Parks Master Plan meeting on South Beach wasn't held at the North Beach Community Bldg. on May 31st, despite the fact that in a normal city, one where common sense and logic do intersect once in a while, that's where it would have been held for all sorts of patently obvious reasons.

If you guess that the reason probably has something to do with the city's infamous and cumbersome bureaucracy that has consistently shown no idea what's it's actually doing, its trademark inefficiency under Good and Antonio, you'd be right.

Not so much the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing as much as the right hand NOT knowing that it actually has a left hand.

Trust me, it's yet another embarrassing, only-in-Hallandale Beach screw-up, with its usual complete disregard for the taxpayers and citizens of the community.


Yes, just like Antonio's continual disregard for us by insisting that he'd do things his way -the wrong way- even after it was made clear over-and-over in regard to all manner of policy and financial matters that the community felt 100% differently than him.
His complete inability to adapt and evolve was always his most obvious weakness since I've been living here for over eight years.

I had been planned on toasting Antonio's departure on Friday, but absent someone to capture the moment, decided that the best thing I could do was to continue to document how genuinely feckless, ineffective and disconnected to our reality he was 'til the very end.
Incompetency for which he will be rewarded with a pension the size and scope of which will shock people here when they finally see the true figures, though I have a very good idea of it now.

By the way, there's a new Public Records policy in the city.
Guess where it's NOT mentioned? 
Yes, the city's own website.

So, remind me again how come the city's IT Dept. head Ted Lamott still has a job after so many years of ineffectiveness?

Without giving too much away here, the next four months are going to be VERY BUMPY for individual City of HB Dept. heads, so very used to flying below-the-radar publicly, as I and others publicly discuss and analyze what they have done and mostly haven't done with the funds and resources they've been given, with so little oversight by our feckless Commissioners and the departing City Manager, who has been counting the hours he could leave since January 1st.

All with little tangible results to show HB taxpayers for the city's budget having nearly doubled the past six years under Mayor Cooper, the woman with so very little genuine concern about the actual quality of services delivered to taxpayers and business owners.

Yes, on miserably hot days like today, Cooper must surely be thinking a lot about her Colorado
home-away-from-home. 
I aim to do all I can the next few months to help make THAT her primary residence after November, but the real question is whether or not all the pro-reform candidates running for HB City Commission will do the same.

And if they do, will the voters here actually reject the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's eye-rolling antics, odd disconnect from reality and financial bumbling, and actually vote with their heads?
Actually give pro-reform candidates the opportunity they need to properly reform this city thru meaningful financial accountability, greater transparency and an injection of plain old common sense to get it out of its current funk?
We'll all know the answer 18 weeks from tomorrow.

London calling! Your 2012 U.S. Olympic Mens & Womens Gymnastics team; Nastia Liukin ends her career with grace and class -a great role model 'til the very end! Only 26 days until the first event -and NBC milking every single human-interest angle they can possibly find


USA Gymnastics video: "Every Four Years" - Women's Olympic Intro Video - 2012 Gymnastics Olympic Trials - "The video that ran on the scoreboard at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California before the Women's competition" featuring Carly Patterson, Shannon Miller and Shawn JohnsonJuly 1, 2012. http://youtu.be/NwF0UX1RtUA



USA Gymnastics video: "It Starts With a Dream" - Men's Olympic Intro Video - 2012 Gymnastics Olympic Trials - "The video that ran on the scoreboard at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California before the Men's competition" featuring John Roethlisberger, Ron Galimore, Tim Daggett and Justin Spring. June 30, 2012.
http://youtu.be/uhvguFLRgoE

London calling! Your 2012 U.S. Olympic Mens & Womens Gymnastics team; Nastia Liukin ends her career with grace and class -a great role model 'til the very end. Only 26 days until the first event -and NBC milking every single human-interest angle they can possibly find
Women's team: Gabby Douglas, Jordyn Wieber, Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross, McKalya Maroney, with alternates Sarah Finnegan, Anna Li and Elizabeth Price.
Men's team: Danell Leyva, John Orozco, Jake Dalton, Jonathan Horton and Sam Mikulak, with alternates Chris Brooks, Steven Legendre and  Alex Naddour.


Read the following:
San Jose Mercury
U.S. Gymnastics trials: High expectations ahead at London Games
By Mark Emmons
Posted:   07/01/2012 10:00:17 PM PDT
Updated:   07/01/2012 10:06:21 PM PDT


San Jose Mercury
Liukin falters but resolute in final competition
By WILL GRAVES AP Sports Writer
Posted:   07/01/2012 08:21:31 PM PDT
Updated:   07/01/2012 09:48:03 PM PDT
http://www.mercurynews.com/olympics/ci_20986995/liukin-falters-but-resolute-final-competition


Nastia stays classy despite the disappointment:

Inside Gymnastics Magazine video: Nastia Liukin on ending her career at the 2012 Olympic Trials. July 1, 2012. http://youtu.be/CFAPsDp51Kc

New interviews and videos from Sunday night in San Jose are at Inside Gymnastics Magazine and their YouTube Channel at http://www.insidegymnastics.com/ and
http://www.youtube.com/user/insidegym/ and there will be new from this weekend's competition at the USA Gymnastics YouTube Channel at
http://www.youtube.com/user/usagymnasticsorg/

http://universalsports.com/category/gymnastics/
---------
http://www.youtube.com/user/universalsports  
http://universalsports.com/