Showing posts with label Rick Scott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Scott. Show all posts

Saturday, November 18, 2017

#RemoveHer - What's Past is Prologue: Freud & Jung together could NOT possibly plumb the entirety of depths of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged #HallandaleBeach mayor & town bully #JoyCooper's super-size ego and sense of entitlement. Florida Governor Rick Scott asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting




Local 10 News WPLG-TV, Miami
Video shows Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's husband going on wild rant
Harry Cooper loses it after he's called to attend to wife
By Bob Norman - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 6:25 PM, November 17, 2017

Updated: 8:39 PM, November 17, 2017
https://www.local10.com/news/local-10-investigates/video-shows-hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-cooper-s-husband-going-on-wild-rant

#RemoveHer - What's Past is Prologue: Freud & Jung together could NOT possibly plumb the entirety of depths of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged #HallandaleBeach mayor & town bully #JoyCooper's super-size ego and sense of entitlement.
 Florida Governor Rick Scott asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting

The ruinous reign of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper has hit yet another bumpy moral pothole that makes Hallandale Beach a laughingstock in South Florida, and this time, her husband husband Harry got involved just to make the whole thing even more of a desperate cry for help. 
Not tragic, just desperate, pathetic and annoying.

And it's hardly surprising to someone like myself who has been writing about the ethical and financial shenanigans in Hallandale Beach for so long that when something like this happens, inevitably, Miami-area TV and print reporters -as well as reporters, activists and legislators from around the state- contact me to see if I have a new angle on this latest incident.

I try not to disappoint them and have some compelling take, but in this case, no, it's just more of the same damn thing that has so upset concerned residents and Small Business owners people like me and my friends who just want this area to be normal.
To be the well-managed city it ought to have been many years ago but has never had been because that would be incompatible to having Cooper as mayor.

People want a a city free of corruption, something it still is NOT. despite the end of the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's reign of ruin, after last year's successful election of Anabelle Taub to the City Commission. 

Joy Cooper, the longtime Hallandale Beach mayor and town bully, the sanctimonious woman who called me a "Nazi" at a City Commission meeting almost ten years ago -while I was sitting on a chair writing down some notes even before the meeting started- is clearly gearing up for an explosive and messy final act to her long-running performance that's consistently made this southeast Broward County city a running punchline in South Florida media for well over a decade.
These things never end well for despots!

Florida Governor asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/hallandale/fl-sb-hallandale-mayor-slurring-20171117-story.html

For you newcomers to the blog who have no idea how many hundreds of times I've written blog posts and widely-shared emails that have exposed her narcissistic personality's self-serving nature and outright deviousness, trying her best to make sure that the public is unaware of what she's actually doing, where, for all practical purposes, for years the glorification of her personal persona has long been the city's number one concern, with no expense spared, it's hardly surprising that Joy and Harry produced a son, Matt, who also thought that he had a giant sense of entitlement, too.
When you know all these things, it's not so surprising that Matt Cooper thought he was above the laws and rules that everyone else in the area has to live by and abide.

All you need to do is re-read my 2012 post below about Matt Cooper's own curious sense of entitlement to know that something like this does not just happen overnight. 
It takes years and years...
And you know what they say about apples not falling far from the tree...

Whatever else you can say about them, the Cooper family's grandiose sense of entitlement and perks, and their lack of hubris, never seems to wane.

This is how the Cooper Clan rolls -our way or the highway.

As long as they do, the public must be ready to fight back with everything they have.

If you agree, retweet this!



A helpful reminder from me to you!

NOVEMBER 9, 2012
Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante is no Paul Revere! Caught in the act: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's son's Midnight Ride of campaign sign-stealing -on Election Day!; Anything goes now in HB -even political intimidation- as Broward IG & Broward SAO sleepwalk while laws & ethics are repeatedly laughed at by pols in power; @MayorCooper, #FDLE, @myfloridalegal, @fbi.gov

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/hallandale-beachs-midnight-vigilante-is.html

"Good always prevails," Cooper said. "Didn't your mom tell you that?" 
-from Cooper re-elected in Hallandale Beach
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-11-06/news/fl-election-day-hallandale-beach-20121106_1_commission-term-new-fire-station-commissioner-dorothy-ross

Hmm-m... irony.
I suppose it all depends on whom your mother is, doesn't it?
What sort of ethical role model SHE is. 
Is she conscientious and does she instill a proper, grounded sense of perspective, or does she teach by example that you can always get away with what you want because of who she is, and if that doesn't work, you can just ignore the rules that everyone else in society has to follow?

Is your mother the sort of person who, when she's the mayor of a small town, a propos of nothing in particular, when she thinks she can't be overheard, tells a City Commissioner that she thinks that one of their town's citizens, someone sitting in a chair patiently waiting for a Commission meeting to start -and the only citizen in the room- is a "Nazi"?
Does she follow that up by saying that she thinks that one of the other city commissioners, who isn't present yet, "is a Hitler"?

Yes, I guess it really all depends upon whom your mother is.

But then after all these years and all the unethical incidents we've collectively witnessed, we pretty much know what sort of role model Joy Cooper is, and it's certainly not one for "good."

For years, whether we wanted to hear them or not, nearly everyone who pays close attention to civic affairs in Hallandale Beach heard the same familiar fact-filled stories, with lots of specifics, about the dysfunctional Cooper family and their myriad anti-social behavior problems: excessive drinking, physical altercations, and most alarmingly, FREQUENT and excessive phone calls to the 911 service asking for a police response.

We heard how seemingly all members of the family -including the mayor- had developed a well-practiced yet despicable habit of using her position as an elected official in this town as, alternately, either leverage or a crutch, whenever they had run-ins with various members of the law enforcement community in South Florida.

Of which there have been so many, to say nothing about possible incidents where the other party reluctantly decided NOT to call the police on them after all.

Not surprisingly, they were said to be especially fond of the old standby, "Don't you know who I am/my mother is/my wife is?" line when confronted by Police Officers, as if being mayor of this small city somehow entitled her and them to some sort of special treatment or consideration by the police of any city.

It's precisely the sort of thing that is not only illegal, but specifically prohibited behavior by elected officials in the State of Florida.
Correct, because it's someone using their office to gain a benefit not legally available to other Florida citizens.

The problem, of course, is that we all know from personal experience in living in Hallandale Beach that this sort of thing happens here fairly routinely, because we've seen for ourselves that there are, in fact, some people in this community who can, quite literally, do whatever they want to do, no matter that it's illegal under state, county or city law, and they never have to face the public and legal consequences. 

In some cases, they practically dare authorities to say anything or do anything to stop them.

Lest you forget, I've written about unethical behavior by well-known people in this community breaking the law in quite a number of ways a few times in just the past two weeks on my blog, and lots of people have been reading all about it.

In fact, 2,700 people read this one post of October 15th:
Ethics? Not for us! Follow-up to my post re Hallandale Beach's unethical "business as usual" attitude, with "special rules for special people" if they are named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders; What ethics? What rules? @MayorCooper, @SandersHBhttp://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/ethics-not-for-us-follow-up-to-my-post.html

No doubt many Hallandale Beach residents were nodding in silent agreement as they read it because they've frequently observed public signs of this sense of entitlement, too, and now feel somewhat relieved at least that they're not alone in having seen the same despicable behavior, too. Misery lives company, and here, it's the whole town that is being made miserable by Joy Cooper and her actions, words and attitude towards regular citizens, with some of us receiving extra dollops of her attitude.

Perhaps the most-famous recent incident of Cooper family members being treated differently involves Mayor Cooper herself, after she crashed her moving car into another moving vehicle, which as it happened, turned out to be a City of Hallandale Beach emergency response vehicle -responding to an actual emergency call.

There were plenty of witnesses to that incident, of course, including members of the public who witnessed it, and the city employees in the vehicle that Mayor Cooper actually hit.

But how did that all turn out exactly?

Yes, good luck trying to find out what exactly were the legal and financial consequences to Mayor Cooper for that careless and reckless behavior of hers.
Hmm-m...

More frequently, there are all the fact-filed stories that have been borne out by history about various members of the Cooper family being caught speeding by police, esp. the Aventura 

Police, and running that familiar line of theirs on the police officers, as if they'd never heard that sort of self-important excuse before.

Yes, whatever else you can say about them, the Cooper family's grandiose sense of entitlement and perks, and their lack of hubris, never seems to wane.

(Not unlike Andre Pierre, North Miami's mayor. In May of 2011, he was caught speeding by Aventura Police on his way to meet, of all people, Mayor Cooper. He said all sorts of incriminating things and ALL of his remarks were recorded by a camera inside the squad car, one that the officers on the scene can't turn-off, and which prints out a ticket to prevent anything illegal from transpiring, with all the info fed directly to Aventura Police HQ for monitoring. WTVJ-TV/Channel 6 showed the video on-air and it was amazing -and appalling. But pretty reflective of the both the low-caliber and high self-importance that many South Florida pols possess, including in our very own city.http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/North-Miami-Mayor-accused-of-abuse-of-power-for-implying-threats-to-cops-121368674.html)

So, all that said, now on to the story of Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante... and his true identity
On Tuesday night, while over at the Upper Deck restaurant with some friends, watching 
election results across the nation rolling on their bank of TVs, I received the following photos from a reliable source.
The source said that earlier that morning, at approximately 12:05 a.m., just under seven hours before the polls opened for voting, he spotted an individual removing political campaign signs over near the intersection of Hallandale Beach Blvd. and Ansin Blvd., roughly the area between the IHOP and the Burger King.

An individual who clearly has a real problem with the concept of Freedom of Speech.

He doesn't seem to like it, and he most certainly wants to eliminate public displays of free speech he disagrees with as best he can, at least in Hallandale Beach.

This reliable source told me that after witnessing this activity take place, he drove his vehicle up close to this other person's vehicle so that he could get its license plate number and later report what he'd seen to the proper law enforcement authorities.



Well, within moments of doing this, the person removing the signs came over to my source in his car and, if you can believe this, asked my source what HE was doing, as if his own behavior was perfectly normal -someone with campaign signs after Midnight near one of the city's three most-heavily-traveled and highest visibility roads.

Even for Hallandale Beach, that's highly suspicious behavior, especially when the person with political signs after Midnight is NOT placing political yard signs in the ground and exercising their right of free speech, but rather removing them and eliminating someone else's right to free speech.

Removing political signs that are NOT theirs to take.

So, you're no doubt asking who was that un-masked man?

The creepy guy engaging in odd, to say nothing of blatantly anti-democratic and unethical conduct?

The creepy guy who thought that he was so brave -after Midnight- removing other citizen's signs where they expressed their freedom of speech, but who when my reliable source grabbed his camera to snap a shot of the license plate to have him later identified by Police, ran like a coward back to his car and placed his hands over his license plate?
The creep who then jumped inside his car and hit the gas to get out of the area?

Who was it?
Well, many of you reading this won't be too surprised to discover that the creep engaging in this  anti-social, anti-democratic behavior not only has quite a track record, but is also none other than Mayor Joy Cooper's adult son, Matt.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/05/hallandale_beach_matt_cooper_spit_on_your_kids.php



Talk about apples not falling far from the tree...

Yes, the son who was discovered to have had almost as many Driver's Licenses and ID's as Jason Bourne.

Except that rather than merely pretending that he's a fictional spy in a Robert Ludlum novel, the evidence suggests that perhaps Matt Cooper has been busy playing the role of Midnight Vigilante, driving around Hallandale Beach under the cover of night and removing campaign signs of people who disagree politically with his mother's reckless and wasteful policies that both insult common sense and punish taxpayer's wallets.
Yes, it's not too creepy, is it?

One can safely surmise that it was Matt Cooper's last Midnight Run of such creepy and anti-democratic behavior, if only because of the political calendar.

Monday, July 6, 2015

From political cipher and unknown to possible successor to Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate in no time at all, there are a myriad of legal & political choices confronting Florida Lt. Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera, as he seeks to define himself to Floridians before rivals pounce and do it for him. @LopezCantera





Tampa Bay Times

Eyeing Senate bid, Lt. Gov. Lopez-Cantera must decide whether to stay or go
By Steve Bousquet, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Saturday, July 4, 2015 6:00am

TALLAHASSEE — After 18 months in Gov. Rick Scott's shadow, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera has to make his first big decision.


Before he enters Florida's wide-open race for the U.S. Senate, he'll reach a political crossroads as the state's No. 2 executive: Should he stay or go?


Lopez-Cantera won't say, and the public probably would not notice the difference


Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/eyeing-senate-bid-lt-gov-lopez-canteras-must-decide-whether-to-stay-or-go/2236092

Roll Call
The Mystery of a Possible Florida Senate Candidate
By Stuart Rothenberg

Posted at 4 p.m. on April 21


A handful of Republicans are currently being mentioned as possible Senate candidates for the Florida seat being vacated by Marco Rubio, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination.

Former Rep. Bill McCollum, who has run repeatedly (and often unsuccessfully) for statewide office, is mentioned, as are a handful of House members, including Rep. Ron DeSantis, a tea party favorite.

Perhaps the most interesting, or at least unusual, candidate for the Republican nomination is the state’s current lieutenant governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a former Florida House member (and majority leader) and Miami-Dade County property appraiser.

What makes Lopez-Cantera, who was appointed to his current post in January 2014 by Republican Gov. Rick Scott, so unusual is that he is a Cuban-American Jew who was born in Madrid

Read the rest of the article at:

Nearly everyone I know and respect in South Florida who knew Carlos Lopez-Cantera when he first decided to run for the not-exactly-sexy position of Miami-Dade Appraiser -in an area of the country we know from experience is NOT exactly known for accuracy and truthfulness about tax dollars or numbers- told me that their take was that he was merely biding his time, waiting for a larger opportunity.


According to them, perhaps a run for the position of Miami-Dade County Mayor AFTER he'd been in office as Appraiser for about 6-10 years, and had actually acquired some reasonable amount of name recognition and power, to say nothing of perhaps even making some tangible improvements in his office that he could tout to what would surely be legions of skeptics.

Well, they're just as surprised as anyone that someone whom just three years ago, most South Florida political junkies and reporters had either never heard of or ever met him before in person, might now be 1 of 100 votes in Washington in just 18 months time.
I know because I'm one of those surprised people.


There's no higher-ranking politician in Florida whom I -and most people I know- actually know less about. than Carlos Lopez-Cantera.
That fact is abetted by South Florida's current lackluster crop of print/TV reporters and columnists, most of whom can be charitably described as apathetic and sleepwalking zombies in the best of times. And this is clearly NOT the best of times for serious new consumers in Florida.

Dave
Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth
https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

Monday, October 14, 2013

re Common Core - FL Dept. of Education's public meeting in Broward Wednesday re Gov. Scott's "Plan for Education Accountability" just got a whole lot more interesting -a pro-Common Core supporter and Jeb Bush "insider" just resigned; IVBE President Charlotte Greenbarg urges Gov. Scott to stay strong AGAINST Common Core; @JeremySWallace, @fineout

















But today.. former Jeb Bush Chief of Staff and Ed Board member Sally Bradshaw says, "No Más."










Hmm-m... this immediately makes that Broward meeting of theirs much-more interesting now.

"The Florida Department of Education will be taking public input on mathematics and 
language arts standards in Florida, in accordance with the request that accompanied 
Governor Rick Scott's recent executive order regarding a Plan for Education Accountability."

Wednesday, October 16  5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Broward College - Davie Campus
Bailey Concert Hall - Building 4
3501 SW Davie Road
Davie

More information here:  http://flstandards.org/

Email comments on the standards to flstandards@fldoe.org





Based on how these sorts of things have gone around the country, my free and unsolicited advice to any of you attending this or future meetings is: Beware of politically-motivated "experts" saying things that aren't quite true 
Like the one depicted here:

Education Views blog

Common Core ‘specialist:’ National standards are necessary to combat birthers and Bill O’Reilly
Posted by Jimmy Kilpatrick on October 8, 2013 
http://www.educationviews.org/common-core-specialist-national-standards-are-necessary-to-combat-birthers-and-bill-oreilly/
By the way, Common Core standards are supposedly only for math and English. Why does a school district have a “Common Core science specialist”?
Now there's a question for Jeb Bush and his friends.
http://www.floridatrend.com/article/16270/floridas-think-tanks--heavy-hitters

-----


This afternoon, my friend and fellow Broward County civic activist Charlotte Greenbarg, president of the education reform group Independent Voices for Better Education, sent the following email to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and gave me permission to post it here for your edification:




Dear Governor Scott,
Attached is IVBE's position paper on Common Core. We urge you to disengage Florida from this untested, intrusive and non-validated scheme.
The Brookings Institution/Brown Center's report cites the uselessness of Common Core.

Sincerely,

Charlotte Greenbarg
President, IVBE

2 attachments — Download all attachments  

Friday, June 14, 2013

"Fertile" territory for media bias! Or, that's why it's the Miami Herald -and is shedding longtime readers! Former Florida governor Jeb Bush makes some nonsensical comments on Friday morning in hopes of passing the amnesty-first immigration bill, but while MSM and blogosphere duly write about what he said and give it due attention, the Miami Herald wouldn't post the story and leave it visible on their website for hours -like they'd do if other pols had said same thing -like Rick Scott for instance

Above, what the Miami Herald's webpage looked like shortly before 11 p.m. Friday.

On a day when an embarrassing and nonsensical comment by former Florida governor Jeb Bush was one of the top political stories of the day as judged by the country's political class and blogosphere, guess which Florida newspaper has nothing about it on the front page of their website, even while continuing to carry a story at the top of their website about Brit boy band One Direction?
Yes, the Miami Herald.
Surprise!

More than 12 hours after The National Journal has posted their story using some informed tweets, 

Jeb Bush Says Immigrants Are 'More Fertile,' Twitter Gets Mad
By Ben Terris and Matt Berman
Updated: June 14, 2013 | 10:34 a.m. 
June 14, 2013 | 10:24 a.m

you literally couldn't find the story by examining what appears on the Herald's landing page.

Another example of the Florida news media running interference for the darling of the GOP East Coast Establishment and Florida's influential low-wage agribusiness industry, and a scenario that keen-eyed observers have seen time and again at the Herald the past ten years as its era of genuine relevancy in the community recedes farther and farther back in time and memory.

But then the Herald has long treated Jeb Bush differently than it does other pols in Florida -that is, once he finally got elected governor.
Typical media suck-ups.

By the way, who, exactly, is going to be persuaded to support this bill, S.744, because some self-serving and over-rated politician says that female immigrants are fertile?
That's a very, very weird thing to say aloud and makes you wonder what would have happened if some quick-witted reporter had asked him how he knew that.

I'd like to meet those people, or rather, I'd like the Florida news media to try to seriously try to find even one person in this state who is convinced by Bush's comment to change positions.
Just one person.
You couldn't find one, which makes Bush's comments even more asinine and queer.
This guy could NOT win an argument to save his life -or our country's..

If current Florida governor Rick Scott had said something along these lines, that story would've been the lead story on Friday night's six o'clock TV newscasts in Miami and be parked at the top of the Herald webpage for days on end, full of feigned outrage by liberals and La Raza about "the hurtful comments."

But yet again with Jeb Bush, someone I'd never vote for, and someone too weird, off-putting and self-serving for my tastes -to say nothing of his being very, very over-rated as a policy personthe Miami Herald gives him another hall pass.

Here's where the Herald buried the story
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/14/3451208/jeb-bush-america-will-decline.html

And if you're paying attention, you'll see that it was an AP reporter doing the story on the former Florida governor, not even one of the Times/Herald reporters or a McClatchy reporter in D.C.
Now that's embarrassing!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Follow-up email to FL Gov. Rick Scott about MILLION$ more down the drain at Hallandale Beach City Hall. MORE of what we already knew and always suspected and now it's Q.E.D. yet again -Bill Gjebre in Broward Bulldog: "Hallandale city managers erased millions in code violation fines with little oversight"; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy

Palm tree obstructing the sun's powerful rays  at Hallandale Beach City Hall. And if there's any City Hall in Florida that needs more sunshine and scrutiny, it's Hallandale Beach's. May 28, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Below is a a copy of my Tuesday morning email to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, with copies to various Florida Legislative leaders and other public officials and interested parties throughout the Sunshine State, about the latest details to come out on what's been happening in one of the most unethical, incompetent and anti-taxpayer outposts in Florida, Hallandale Beach.
There's even less financial accountability and management oversight than we thought, and we didn't think there was very much to begin with.
And the shoes just keep dropping...

For some of you newcomers to this blog, in case you forgot whom I'm referring to in paragraph six regarding the very curious pensions changes that were made by someone at HB City Hall that netted million$ more to certain high-ranking people, by someone that HB City Hall won't name, it's former City Managers Mark A. Antonio, Mike Good, R.J. Intindola and former City Attorney David Jove

They're among the handful of people that this city's most well-informed and active citizens personally blame for the tens of millions of dollars that have been wasted and squandered the past 5-6 years, and whom logic and reason dictate should receive the highest degree of scrutiny by by public officials and law enforcement personnel in Tallahassee and at the Broward County Courthouse.
I've deleted the email addresses for obvious reasons.

-------------



To: Gov. Rick Scott
cc: FL Attorney General Pam Bondi, FL CFO Jeff Atwater, Sen. Don Gaetz, Sen. Jack Latvala, Sen. John Thrasher, Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, Dominic Calabro of Florida Tax Watch, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott and Tim Donnelly of the Broward State Attorney's Office

April 3, 2013

Dear Governor Scott:

Tens of million$ of tax dollar$ squandered here, tens of million$ of CRA dollar$ squandered there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Sadly in the case of the city I've lived in the past nine years, Hallandale Beach, citizens have seen tens of millions of dollars continually squandered with no genuine accountability or oversight by either elected officials, or, highly-paid but incompetent city officials, despite all of them having a moral and fiduciary responsibility.

And now we saw yesterday, via one of the articles below, that our well-founded suspicions have been confirmed as fact with even millions of dollars having been given away as party favors by the current City Manager and her two predecessors in forgiven fines.

I'm sure you won't be too surprised to learn that the current City Manger doesn't want to end her power to play Santa Claus, saying that actually having the elected City Commission make the decisions about waiving fines over $50,000 would slow down the bureaucracy!

Governor Scott, it's this city's longstanding incompetent bureaucracy, fiefdoms and mis-management that's responsible for literally ruining this city's current morale and future Quality of Life in the first place, by saddling current and future taxpayers with exorbitant bills for services that are NOT rendered: clean competent government.   

And even now, three former City Managers, a former City Attorney, and a couple of dozen highly-paid former and current city employees are now laughing all the way to the bank, courtesy of beleaguered Hallandale Beach taxpayers, thanks to a very mysterious decision made over ten years ago regarding pension payments that were changed to exclusively benefit about 40 highly-paid city employees.

And almost as if they needed to square the circle on their own jaw-dropping incompetency, many months after it was first requested, the City of Hallandale Beach STILL can't produce contemporaneous documents that say who the individual was at HB City Hall who decided, without City Commission approvalthat these particular city employees would get their prior years of service paid-out to them at a MUCH-HIGHER rate than they actually earned at the time.

In fact, HB City Hall STILL claims it doesn't have the full list of these former and current city employees who have benefited enormously from this mysterious decision by this mysterious official that will cost HB taxpayers millions and millions more than it should.
What does all of this tell you about the scope of HB City Hall's lack of accountability to residents, taxpayers and small business owners?
And the crazy part is that we still have in place many of the very same individuals legally and morally entrusted to do right by the citizens of this city, but who were and are so irresponsible about fulfilling their responsibilities that they didn't ever bother to verify any information submitted to the city for city/CRA grants or loans, before or after the funds were handed over to so-called non-profits, at least some of whom were actually NOT legally considered non-profits at the time by the IRS.

Not that this salient legal distinction prevented City Hall from giving the money away to their cronies anyway, because as the city's very own documents have shown, there was never any appropriate follow-up to ensure that the funds were being spent properly or even as they were intended.
Really.

Do you see the unmistakable fact pattern that's present here, year-after-year?
Governor Scott, THAT self-evident fact pattern of illegality, incompetency and gross mis-management is our daily reality in this city.
Where's the cavalry?

Broward Bulldog
Hallandale city managers erased millions in code violation fines with little oversight
By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
APRIL 2, 2013 AT 6:23 AM

Broward Bulldog
Split Hallandale commission votes to give Miami developer Tibor Hollo big break on fines
By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
MARCH 22, 2013 AT 6:13 AM

And just a reminder, sir, it's all true and verifiable!

Sincerely,
DBS

-----
Tuesday's email was the logical follow-up to my March 14th, 2013 email to Governor Scott about longstanding unethical behavior and corruption at Hallandale Beach City Hall,

My open letter to Florida Governor Rick Scott about the longstanding corruption and incompetency at Hallandale Beach City Hall and environs re the HB CRA: More shocking proof of what I've written you several times in the past: Serial malfeasance and millions of dollars squandered by public officials as State laws/ethics were ignored, and with little genuine public oversight or transparency. Broward Inspector General Scott assails Hallandale Beach for past and continuing "gross mismanagement" -possible "criminal misconduct"; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-open-letter-to-florida-governor-rick.html

It started out like this... and got even better...


FYI: Some follow-up to my March 7th email to you about longstanding culture 
of corruption and incompetency at Hallandale Beach City Hall: 


Broward Bulldog
Hallandale mayor, ex-city managers defend millions in suspect spending to county agents
By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org 
MARCH 14, 2013 AT 6:10 AM

And the pull-quote?
Probably this:
City records regarding payments to non-profit groups were so lacking, the report said, that investigators were “unable to reliably assess the amount of possible losses suffered by the CRA as a result of ‘misapplication of funding by non-profits.”

Florida law does not permit the CRA to fund charitable donations to non-profits, the report said.

Friday, March 8, 2013

My open letter to Florida Governor Rick Scott about the longstanding corruption and incompetency at Hallandale Beach City Hall and environs re the HB CRA: More shocking proof of what I've written you several times in the past: Serial malfeasance and millions of dollars squandered by public officials as State laws/ethics were ignored, and with little genuine public oversight or transparency. Broward Inspector General Scott assails Hallandale Beach for past and continuing "gross mismanagement" -possible "criminal misconduct"; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy


Above, the center of the unethical storm, where malfeasance has a homestead:  Hallandale Beach City Hall. January 29, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved



More shocking proof of what I've written you several times in the past: Serial malfeasance and millions of dollars squandered by public officials as State laws/ethics were ignored, and with little genuine public oversight or transparency. Broward Inspector General Scott assails City of Hallandale Beach for past and
continuing "gross mismanagement" -possible "criminal misconduct"

Broward Bulldog
Broward Inspector General slams Hallandale for “gross mismanagement”; CRAs elsewhere eyed
By William Gjebre and Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org 
March 6, 2013 AT 6:10 AM


March 7, 2013

Dear Governor Scott:

I'm writing to you today because I and many other concerned citizens of this community believe it's long past time for you and your staff to start paying  some serious attention to what's been allowed to go on in Hallandale Beach for YEARS, with nary a move by people legally in a position to both inquire into and prevent this sort of pervasive public corruption from continuing apace, to the detriment of the entire community.

Years of opportunities for this community to move forward and actually solve some problems were wasted thru corruption, incompetency and outright dereliction of duty by elected officials who were supposed to follow the law, not ignore it.

And yet even now as an IG investigation is underway, with damning news, current and former elected officials, administrators and city employees who engaged in this illegal and incompetent behavior continue to act like they are "untouchables."
This simply can not be allowed to stand.

For the record, I should state that I was the individual who blew the whistle to the Broward Office of the Inspector General (OIG) regarding certain specific failures that I had been able to uncover and prove regarding the Hallandale Beach City Commission, acting as the Hallandale Beach CRA Board of Directors, along with their highly-paid city staffers, including the then-City Managers Mike Good and Mark A. Antonio and City Attorney David Jove, failure to perform appropriate oversight and enforcement of applicable state laws and city rules/ordinances, with common sense ethical rules routinely violated all along the way.
For YEARS.

Specifically, I provided the OIG with information showing 
a.) that even in years where they were no longer legally considered non-profits by the IRS -for the YEARS of the group(s) failing to provide the IRS the required documentationgroups eager to receive HB CRA funds continued claiming that non-profit status to the Hallandale Beach CRA in their applications, knowing that the city's elected officials and staff weren't verifying the information. 
This all-too-true fact was borne out by the Broward OIG report, and,

b.) that purported non-profit groups routinely turned in incomplete documents, including the sort of relevant information that the public should reasonably expect the city to have in their possession and know in advance BEFORE awarding any funds -who are the administrators, what are they being paid in salaries or fees, etc.or, turned in documentation that was no longer valid, knowing the CRA Board of Directors and city staff would never make reasonable attempts to verify any of it.
Again, another fact corroborated by the Inspector General's report.

Recently the Hallandale Beach City Commission, acting as the HB CRA Board of Directors, despite all the facts, again voted to award precious CRA funds to a group, Palms Community Action Coalition, Inc.that claims on its own website that the best way for the taxpayers of this city and the general public to keep informed on its activities was to check their online Calendar.

That this was just a sop is perfectly clear from my 2012 email below to the well-meaning and new-ish then-head of the city's CRA, Dr. Jackson, which physically showed that the Calendar had not been changed one iota since June -of 2011.
It still hasn't been.
But despite this fact, tens of thousands of dollars have continued to flow freely to them...

All of this despite this particular group's having so little to point to in the way of tangible accomplishment that's consistent with the state's original purpose years ago in creating enabling CRA legislation -fighting blight.

This is yet another point the Broward OIG report makes clear -the City of Hallandale Beach DOESN'T check whether any group's stated goals are actually accomplished.

Tell me, without an objective and accurate measurement, what's the purpose of listing goals on an application?
Exactly, Governor Scott!
It's done merely for the sake of appearances, like so many other things in this city the past ten years.

But without an objective measurement of whether the purported non-profit groups have actually done anything positive, how do you know whether they are deserving of being funded the following year?
Perhaps that's why the City of Hallandale Beach doesn't believe in THAT.

You see, an objective measurement would no doubt hurt the feelings of the group's leaders and Board of Directors, to say nothing of their supporters in the HB community -other stealthy non-profits who want to keep the gravy train running.

Of course, a common sense move like an objective measurement would also necessarily blow-the-cover on what's been going on in this city for many, many years with respect to the non-profit groups NEVER actually being expected to show they're making any progress towards a defined goal.

So instead, guess what the folks at City Hall and the shadowy figures behind these groups have done, rather than correct the process, the policies and their own behavior?
Correct!

They publicly lash out and malign concerned citizens in the community who show enough gumption to publicly ask basic questions like, "What happened to the money?"
Yes, inconvenient questions that the powers-that-be at HB City Hall and their cronies prefer NOT be asked or answered.

Concerned citizens like, well, me for instance, and many of my friends here, all of whom desperately want to see this city be so very much better than it has been allowed to be, and as you might imagine, we are both frustrated and resentful that elected officials and the hired help continue to use the CRA funds like their own personal piggy bank, as if we couldn't see exactly
what they were doing -or do anything to stop them.

The Hallandale Beach's CRA Board of Directors' oversight of millions of CRA dollars has been a complete pretense for years, as funds were routinely co-mingled, allowing the City Commission and the City Manager ttreat CRA funds like they were 'found money' under a sofa cushion, or taken from their own personal piggy bank, with those funds carefully funneled to a select group of people in the community who have been and would be supportive (politically) of the members of the Board of Directors.
But, of course, it WASN'T their money to play Santa with, was it?

In fact, to give you some sense of how truly out-of-kilter things have been here for many, many years, until recently, Palms Community Action Coalition, Inc. was led on a day-to-day basis by the wife of HB City Commissioner Anthony A. SandersJessica Sanders.
Unlike any other real or imaginary non-profit group in this city, Mrs. Sanders was specifically given the use of a furnished office on city property, as well as the use  of city resources and city personnel.
All to very little genuine accomplishment. 

Which is why for years, Comm. Sanders has always been so very consistent when speaking at City Commission meetings with real estate developers with applications before the Commission, not so much job creation, which would be reasonable and predictable given his position, but rather about "job training," which is less reasonable, given what one of the stated goals of his wife's group was supposed to be.

Are you sitting down?
You guessed it: job training.
What are the odds?

And trust me, Governor Scott, the attorneys for the real estate developers speaking at the meetings know this fact, too, and carefully tailored their public comments towards him onto this subject almost exclusively.
Hmm-m...

I hope this fact-filled email of mine will have the effect of getting your attention and causing some wheels to start getting in-motion that will cause some real world consequences for the current and former elected officials and management at Hallandale Beach City Hall, people who were entrusted with responsibility and power to perform their jobs with fidelity to both the
law and common sense -and who were loyal to neither.

People who for years routinely abused their power and authority in order to use city funds like their own personal trust fund, to reward their various politically-supportive friends and cronies in the community, all while the Broward State Attorney's office did nothing but snooze.
That latter fact no doubt only emboldened them in their thievery and malfeasance..

Trust me, Governor Scott, this beleaguered community will be closely watching your response to what's gone on here.
It simply can't be allowed to stand, with no real-world consequences for both the perpetrators and those who consciously chose to look the other way.
Unethical behavior and illegal actions in the performance of the people's business should have genuine consequences that serve to remind others why they shouldn't be repeated.

--------

At this point in my letter to Governor Scott, I had a copy of my February 19, 2013 email to Broward Inspector General John. W. Scott, which was my blog post of February 20, 2013, titled, No end in sight for Hallandale Beach's ethical problems with CRA funds: The Palms Community Action Coalition's lack of public transparency -and Murvin Wright's fingers in so many pies- are THE logical result of years of unethical dealings in Hallandale Beach, wherein taxpayer & CRA dollars routinely go out to pals of City Hall, and compliance with laws, common sense and real-world notions of oversight and conflict-of-interest take second place to personal/political gain
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/no-end-in-sight-for-hallandale-beachs.html

Below that I had and a copy of my September 12, 2012 email to then-Hallandale Beach CRA Executive Director Alvin Jackson, Jr. 

I posted that email to him here most recently on September 19, 2012 under the title, More tough questions for Hallandale Beach taxpayers to ponder as voting draws near on 2013 budget for controversial CRA; Why can't the city provide real oversight and criticize Jessica Sanders' continued inability to properly manage the Palms Community Action Coalition, which gets CRA funds? Because her husband is a commissioner, the same man who hides from savvy taxpayers rather than answer their questions about his land sale to the city in 2009 -for MORE than property was worth!; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB, @AlexLewy

In my opinion, Dr. Jackson, while not without some fault for some things the past year that I strongly disagreed with him on, was largely forced out of his position by Mayor Joy Cooper so she could make him the fall guy for the scandalous, unethical and illegal culture of corruption and incompetency that has been the very hallmark of the HB CRA while Joy Cooper has been mayor for the past ten years, always eager to throw her weight around and try to take credit for things, even when she had nothing to do with them.


Cooper has had innumerable chances over the years to change course and do the right thing by taxpayers and residents and move the CRA towards more openness and transparency in their dealings, so that taxpayers could be satisfied -but she consciously chose NOT to. 


Year-after-year she did what she does best, bullied and hectored others into letting her get her way and get what she wanted, even when that was not in the best short-term or long-term interests of this community, and the results -or rather the lack of them- are readily-apparent when you drive within the CRA district, especially within NW Hallandale Beach.


And all the while she made excuses for the dismal performances of former City Managers Mike Good and Mark A. Antonio, both of whose own egos, myopia and tone deafness on these matters made the IG report largely predictable, because there was so very much for those investigators to choose from, given Good and Antonio's years of bad judgment and willingness to look the other way so the mayor and her cronies could do what they wanted to do.


And speaking of looking the other way, hardly anyone has perfected that quite like former City Attorney David Jove, who was present all these years when one curious and unethical thing after another happened.

As it concerns the HB CRA, instead of doing his job professionally and genuinely earning his salary by stepping in when appropriate to prevent the commissioners/directors from engaging in their unconscionable behavior and approving documents that had never been verified, Jove just sat like a bump on a log earning his very nice salary and working on a very nice pension.


But there was a real cost to Jove's dithering and inaction and it's one that has been and will be borne by Hallandale Beach taxpayers, residents and small business owners for years to come -squandered money and wasted opportunities.