So THAT'S why newspapers are dying? BORING!; Jon Gruden must go!

While waiting for the Ohio State-Texas ballgame last night, as I have a lot since the end of the NFL season, I went over to The Tampa Tribune's website to see if there were any more stories about whether Tampa Bay Bucs head coach Jon Gruden should've been fired already.There were, because he should. Hot Seat Available For Gruden Again

Then I went to the main website, http://www2.tbo.com/news/

You'll never guess what The Tribune's lead story was.

Panetta to lead CIA?

Upcoming Ohio State-Texas ballgame that same night?

Special Legislative session starting in Tallahassee?

The Gators' upcoming BCS title game here in Miami?

Nope, their lead story is about some 21-year old utilities worker being suspended from work.

Really?

You click the large box marked TOP STORY and are sent to... well, nowhere really:

http://www2.hernandotoday.com/content/2009/jan/05/utilities-worker-suspended-without-pay/

Utilities Worker Suspended Without Pay

Utilities worker Jason Booker on Monday was suspended without pay for five days for repeated absenteeism.

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That would explain a LOT!

I don't even think that's the TOP STORY tonight on that guy's particular

block.  In fact, I'm positive it isn't. 

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There's a photo run on the Tribune's Bucs homepage that spells out exactly the nature of the problem with the Bucs and their perennial December swoon, akin to the one of the Mets the last two years in October.

Since winning the Super Bowl against the Raiders after the 2002 season, with ex-Seminole/

Redskin/Viking Brad Johnson as QB, the Bucs are 45-41 in regular season games.

In six years they are only plus four games.

In my opinion, the best piece written on Jon Gruden's tenuous status in Tampa Bay is this one by Tom McEwan from Monday.

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Tampa Tribune

Breakfast Bonus with Tom McEwan

http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/sports/comments/help-wanted-signs-posted-at-one-buc/

Help Wanted Signs Posted At One Buc

Posted By Tom McEwen

Jan 03, 2009 at 05:38 PM 

Hard for us to understand, isn’t it?

I am talking about this Tampa Bay Buccaneer season that just recently that went south, that went from 9-3 to 9-7 like a bank robbers heading for Mexico.

Buccaneer fans, especially those weary enough to remember the 0-26 start, have unchallenged memories for memories of losing, so this lousy finish with four straight defeats fits well into our mental file of Bucko losses, particularly those final two (losers to San Diego and Oakland) at that great Raymond James Stadium we built for these players, and those before them.

Lousy deal, wasn’t it? Just lousy. This shabby finish at the site of the next Super Bowl, in maybe the best stadium in the NFL, on the best playing surface in the NFL, next to the best training palace in the NFL, built by team owners who certainly haven’t told Coach Jon Gruden and his players to shape up or they’ll ship them to Green Bay, who surely deserve more than their staff and “athletes” have returned, in wonderful weather and circumstances, before the most decent fans anywhere, fans who now are likely to face a ticket price raise.

Injuries, oh, we know about them. The coaches know about that risk. Yes, the loss of running back Ernest Graham was plenty serious. May well have made the difference. Got to figure on that, and to enjoy and reap the benefits of the arrivals of wideout Antonio Bryant and return star Clifton Smith.

We should not have lost those last three games—13-10 at Atlanta, 41-24 to San Diego and 31-24 to Oakland. San Diego and Oakland, remember, flew across country to lose here, and neither was a quality team. The Bucs had everything to win, were at home and quarterback Jeff Garcia had been playing pretty doggone well, recently. But, we’ve said all this before because it has happened so often before. 

Oh, the coach has taken the blame, and should have, but the losses are still losses and these Bucs so beautifully accepted them.

These Buckos are not in the playoffs of a Super Bowl lottery for the SB-41 that is booked in their backyards.

What’s to be done? Well, send in some more dough for season tickets next year, when money request arrives soon.  And assume Coach Gruden—no one has said he will not be back—is already checking his fishbucket of a roster for keepers and throw-backs. His assistants are already going and new ones will be coming.

Right now he’s surely looking at the free agent list and college draft. Since he all but dismissed Brian Griese this season, he certainly is in the young quarterback business. He’ll get a couple to go with his project Josh Johnson. They’ll need to get some defensive help. Stars Ronde Barber and Derrick Brooks may be back but will need help to work with coming linebacker headliner Barrett and his sidekicks. I mean, even defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin has gone to the Tennessee Volunteers to join son Lane, while other of Kiffin’s aides have move to promotions. The solid Buc defense of Kiffin of so many years—though not this last one when it slowed and leaked—must be rebuilt.

Malcolm Glazer, head of the owning family, is not well, and this last season could not have helped him, except in resolve. So far as anyone knows, there is no “for sale” sign out, nor is there a “situation wanted’’ sign on the Joel/Bryan Glazer door at One Buc.

But, believe me, there will be plenty of business for the name plate makers for the Buc locker-room. Losing in December has become unacceptable for the Buccaneers in the future.

Better be, some season ticket damage has already been done and higher prices could cause more in these rotten economic times.

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Since the U-M wasn't smart enough to make him the Hurricanes head coach when Larry Coker was let go, I'd love to see someone like Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach at Tampa Bay, and give the fans there the sort of team they desperately want but will never have with Gruden around.

Exciting and winning, instead of a team whose number one goal every week seems to be to prevent the other team from scoring more than 20 points, since once that number is hit, the Bucs seem to lose more often than not.

Watching the Bucs try to come from behind in December and the first playoff game every year is like the film Groundhog Day.  

If we've seen it once we've seen it a thousand times already.

Mediocre wide receivers without the ability to separate or come back for the ball when the QB has to scramble -just like U-M's.

Ron Gunzburger sees a LOT of amusing things at his beach; I only see incompetency at mine!

Well, it's a whole new year with the same old cast of South Florida and State characters and their grab-bag of personal, ethical and public policy problems they never solved, plus, a whole new cast of characters and personalities who are just waiting for their moment in the sun, to alternately amuse, irritate, bewitch, frustrate and vex those of us who know what is efficient, logical and common sense in the rest of the world.  

 

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Looking northeast from north-bound U.S.-1 towards Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino, with the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa and The Beach Club condo towers in distance.

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

The new Village of Gulfstream entrance north of the Aventura/Miami-Dade County line.

 

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

You can see the construction of Village of Gulfstream continues apace even as the track prepares to open on January 3rd.  I've taklen dozens and dozens of photos over the past few months of Village of Gulfstream and will be posting them soon, hoping to do a compare-and-contrast sort of thing, so you can see the progress taking place there.

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I think I've mentioned here in the past at Hallandale Beach Blog that, with certain limits, I try to take full advantage of helpful technology and tools out there to be a well-informed citizen and blogger, though there are certain things, like widgets for headlines or sports scores or videos, for instance, that I try to stay away from because it only makes the "look" of the blogs, such as they are, appear even more cluttered.

As an example, I make extensive use of Google Alerts on my various email accounts and use them as a fishing net to capture information in both popular media as well as far-flung and obscure sources about people, personalities, places and ideas that may be of interest to both me and anyone swinging by the blogs for a few minutes during the course of the day.

Given my own wide-ranging interests and the topics I've written about here over the past two years, some of those Google Alert terms seem self-evident at first glance: "Gunzburger," "Steve Geller," and, of course, "Hallandale Beach," while others, though less popular, like "SFFEC," "Broward MPO," and "South Florida Regional Planning Council" have a habit of really delivering gold the few times a month where they are caught in the net, even if I don't appear to make use of them right away.

(Not to be redundant, but I was forced to remind a friend over the weekend that about 85% of all the things I've written over the past year have yet to ever be put online, as I'm waiting for just the "right time" and circumstances to drop them online so they'll have maximum effect.

So keep that in mind over the next few weeks as you wonder where the "sudden" avalanche of posts came from.)

Though it's obviously a term that I get multiple hits on per week, "Gunzburger" actually delivered some unexpected laughs this morning when my inbox brought forth the following.

It seems that Ron Gunzburger, the son of Broward County Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger and founder of the hugely popular eponymous political blog, Ron Gunzburger's Politics1.com, http://politics1.com/, seems to routinely encounter more amusing things at the beach he goes to than I do -and I'm looking hard for the odd and the unusual, camera in tow.

Google Web Alert for: "Gunzburger"

Twitter / Ron Gunzburger: says Al Franken is good en ... Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time. The URL for the above is http://twitter.com/RonGunzburger/statuses/1094662837, then click the red-colored link marked Ron Gunzburger, which should take you to:  http://twitter.com/RonGunzburger   Well, personally, the highlights of the above include:

 "and am now watching some idiot swimming in the ocean wearing a football helmet, pads + jersey"

"had another WTF moment: just saw a guy trying to get his pet ferret to stay on his surfboard, before they went into the ocean"

I have definitely got to find out where this beach he's talking about is!!!

No, the public beach in my city, Hallandale Beach, the one that Mayor Joy Cooper threatened in October to start charging the public for access to, is far from that interesting and colorful one described by Ron Gunzburger, wherever that is.

It's an indictment of HB's current City Hall Crew and city employees that the beach is in the poor physical and moral condition it's in, where all sorts of weird and curious things happen around there, with a wink-wink and a closed eye here and there for a pal, and where pretending to do something gets treated the same as actually doing it.

In the weeks to come, I'll be publicly writing about (exposing) some of that incompetence, malfeasance, public corruption and moral turpitude, and I'll do so knwoing that I've already successfully communicated back and forth with some interested government officials who are far removed from Hallandale Beach and Broward County's tentacles and orbit of cronyism.

Professionals who now know what's really been going on here for years, and who, frankly, don't really much care who somebody is, what position they occupy locally, or even how long they've lived here or what sorts of notable charities they're involved with.

They don't care about any of that.

They just care about enforcing laws, regulations, statutes and standards that have been ignored, winked-at and laughed at in the City of Hallandale Beach and at City Hall on South Federal Highway for YEARS.

Which'll translate into some LONG OVERDUE public accountability for what's been taking place here, and some appropriate levels of punishment for all those involved.

While it may be a New Year with a clean slate for you, dear reader, trust me, for the particular cast of local characters that I'm referring to, the slate is anything but clear. 

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Looking south on the beach towards the hulking towers of The Beach Club, whose tall shadows cast such a dark pall on the area for most of the day.

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

My first photo of the year of the iconic Hallandale Beach Water Tower.

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

The side of the lifeguard tower on North Beach describing what proved to a very nice though slightly overcast day in early January.

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Above, one of my favorite places to stop, relax and read is this simple bench on North Beach.

Of course, it's also one of the only places to sit at the beach -not ON the beach- since most of the other benches that were formerly in the park have been removed and NEVER replaced, months and months after the fact.

And HB's DPW keeps the one and only picnic table at the park right near the sidewalk, just steps from the garage entrance, hardly the best place for something like that.

Self-evident matters never adequately explained by the City of Hallandale Beach:

Why is there only one picnic table at a public park next to the beach there, and whatever happened to the green-colored aluminum mesh picnic table that the folks at The Beachside Cafe long ago moved directly next to their property, and treated like it was their property, an overflow if you will, not the public's?

In fact, they continually served alcohol on the beach to people sitting there, even though the nearby posted city signs specifically prohibit the drinking of alcohol on the beach.  Wink-wink!!

Trust me, The Beachside Cafe has no earthly idea of the avalanche of negative publicity that is going to be falling on their head soon.

And it's all richly deserved!!!

 

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Snapshot of a poorly-maintained public beach: Finding a used condom near one of the only two park benches at 4 p.m., on a Friday holiday afternoon on a beach full of families.

And it's far from the only time I've seen condoms on the beach that have been there for days.

I've got the photos to prove it, too.

 
January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Just one of the 14 garbage receptacles on North Beach the day I stopped by -all full of items that are recyclable in normal cities- and none of which had a lid to keep garbage from getting out and flying around on windy days.

January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

While I was there that afternoon, there were about 14 garbage receptacles in the immediate North Beach area, many of them overflowing with garbage by 3:30 p.m. -and with no paper towels in Mens room.

Really not surprising for a beautiful day on January 2nd, with most people off from work and just a so-so Cotton Bowl Game on TV.

REMINDER: At the windiest place in the city, Hallandale Beach DPW uses receptacle baskets without lids!

I mentioned this and a number of other concerns about the beach back in August at a public city budget meeting at City Hall, and City Manager Mike Good pledged to follow through on common sense things like that, as well as the recycling bins.

Shocker! Nothing has changed for the better in five months.

Number of blue-colored "recycling" specific bins actually on North Beach and environs last Friday:

ZERO!

Logically, given the size of the area and where the paths are, there should be at least 6-8 of them distributed where they are most convenient for Hallandale Beach residents and guests to use, NOT where they are most convenient for the city's DPW employees.

For the past five months, they've hidden the ONE and only blue recycling bin for the beach near the access road, not even bothering to put it on the beach itself where it can be seen.

Everyone knows it, too.

Just before sundown, about 5:15 p.m.

Looking north from the lifeguard stand on Hallandale Beach's North Beach towards the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, four blocks north, and the crane building the Trump Hollywood, two blocks north of that.

All photos above taken Friday January 2, 2009 by South Beach Hoosier.

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Contact information for the person responsible for the beach in Hallandale Beach, the DPW Director: 

William M. Brant, P.E.,

630 NW 2nd Street, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009

Ph: (954) 457-1600,  Fax: (954) 457-1624

Email:

Contact him and let him know what you really think about the sorry and embarrassing physical conditions of the beach; the complete lack of enough conveniently-located blue recycling bins along the beach; the longstanding garbage that's inside of so-called "protected" plant areas, and along the emergency access road and beneath the Water Tower, much of which has been there for months and YEARS at a time, as my photos will illustrate. 

And then, ask him when was the last (or first?) time he actually spent more than an hour or so at this beach on a busy weekend afternoon.

It probably won't surprise you that after numerous conversations over the past year or so with other Hallandale Beach residents and taxpayers, that some of my future posts here in this space will address the issue of improving the public beach status quo by either privatizing the city's DPW operations on the beach, or completely transferring those responsibilities and funds to HB's Parks and Recreation Dept.

Currently, the latter's only responsibility on the beach is the kids playground equipment and the rental Chickee Huts on South Beach. That's it!

You can hardly be blamed for not knowing that, since there is no information posted on the beachanywhere letting you know whom exactly to contact with comments, complaints, kudos, or suggestions.  Zip.

You don't have to go far to see why moving it to Parks makes more common sense.

In next-door Hollywood, it's the city's Parks and Rec Dept. that actually manages and mainatains their famously excellent beaches, NOT their city's DPW.

And you constantly see city employees around, especially towards the popular Johnson Street area.

Unlike Thomas Magill's Police Dept. in Hallandale Beach, which is apparently afraid of either the sand, the surf or the sun -or all three!- Hollywood's Police Dept. under Chadwick Wagner is not afraid to actually walk/bike around the beach areas and interact with people to provide needed security and a sense of calm, especially on hectic busy weekends.

The contrast between the two neighboring city's styles, and ways of dealing with both residents and gue$t$, could hardly be more stark and self-evident than on this issue.