As the Wizard of Oz said, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

That’s what a Cuban American special interest group wants the County Commission to do while they are considering redistricting – pay no attention to who helped it draw their map.

Fat chance.

The man behind the curtain in this case is Dan Lewis.  He is a former Miramar commissioner, former candidate for Fort Lauderdale mayor and political consultant.

Lewis is “working with” the Cuban Americans for a Better Florida, according to Brittany Wallman of the Sun-Sentinel.  She wrote that when she looked at the group’s proposed redistricting plan, she could “note his company name on the map”.

The problem with this is pure politics.

Some people love Lewis and think he is a computer and political genius.

Others hate him.  They believe he worked against them politically.

Another problem some have is that Lewis is the campaign strategist for Sheila Alu, a Sunrise commissioner running for county commission. Some believe that the Cuban American group’s redistricting map is very helpful for Alu.

District 1 encompasses parts of five cities and does not fulfill the desire of the commissioners to avoid gerrymandering.  It takes in some condominium areas in Sunrise and Lauderhill.  It avoids Weston, where voters might be hostile to Alu since she spent years competing with that city for school construction money.

Alu said she has nothing to do with the Cuban-American plan, even if it favors her.

“I haven’t seen the Cuban American map,” Alu said. “I don’t support any map other than the map that the County Commission chooses to accept…Which map they choose doesn’t matter to me.”

Besides what looks to some like gerrymanders for Alu, the Cuban American map is unfair to the commission’s only Republican – Chip LaMarca.

I don’t believe redistricting should protect incumbents or favor particular challengers.  But the political reality is that incumbents are not going to vote for a plan that is heavily tilted against them.

LaMarca’s new District 4 contains almost 12,000 more Democrats than Republicans.  That’s twice the margin of Ds to Rs than is currently in LaMarca district!

The Cuban plan makes it tougher for LaMarca to get re-elected. It leaves the commission open to the charge they are gerrymandering the only Republican off the Board.

The map is also unfair to black Commissioner Barbara Sharief.  In return for making her District 8 a “Hispanic” access seat, Sharief’s re-election is made harder.

The Cuban proposal would have District 8 contain 18 percent black voters and 46 percent Hispanic voters.  Not exactly fair to Sharief!

The district currently is close to even — roughly 43,000 blacks and 42,000 Hispanics.

Could District 8 elect a Cuban even under the proposed Cuban plan?  The district would remain heavily Democratic, while many Cubans are Republicans.

And Hispanics in Southwest Broward are diverse.  There are Columbian-Americans, Venezuelan-Americans and Puerto Ricans.

In addition, there are Brazilian-Americans, who come from South America but speak Portuguese.  And there are ther immigrant groups.

I think it is profoundly insulting to say that Hispanics can only get elected if the game is rigged in their favor. After all, Nick Navarro, a guy with a heavy Cuban-flavored accent, got elected sheriff…twice.

We’ve got one heavily black seat, now held by Commissioner Dale Holness.  The seat is compact and represents a stretch of central Broward that has many similarities.

Commissioners should not gerrymander during redistricting. They need to stand up to the pressure to carve out additional seats based on ethnic quotas.

Former Tamarac Mayor Beth Talabisco should rest easy.

Although she is charged with corruption in the probe of bribery at Tamarac City Hall, prosecutors cut Talabsico a break when they took a deposition from County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman.

Lieberman is supposed to be a star witness against Talabisco.  Instead, parts of her testimony doesn’t ring true to me.

The county commissioner’s tale should have the Broward political world laughing.  It sure had me laughing.

The case involves this:  Talabisco, the former Tamarac mayor, voted in favor of a huge project being built on two city golf courses. Prosecutors charge the vote was an illegal quid pro quo in return for the developer paying to help Talabisco win her 2006 city election.

Lieberman would have us believe that former County Commissioner Norm Abramowitz of Tamarac was running Talabisco’s campaign from behind-the-scenes.  Lieberman would have us believe that she was little more than a bystander.

Convenient.  Abamowitz died of cancer just months after the election. A dead man can’t deny Lieberman’s story.

Prosecutors said an e-mail indicated Lieberman– not Abramowitz — was the Svengali of Talabisco’s controversial campaign.

Lieberman brushed off the e-mail: “Well, that is not correct.

Instead Lieberman blamed the dead guy. She blamed the dead guy, who had been out of office six years by the time of Talabisco’s campaign and was near death.

I don’t believe this tale and no one who has followed politics here for the last two decades will believe it either.

Why?

Lieberman never takes a back seat. She is no one’s vice president.  She is always the quarterback and never plays the line.  She takes charge of everything and anything she touches.

So the idea that she deferred to anyone, much less Abramowitz, is ridiculous on its face. It is especially preposterous to me.

When Abramowitz was on the county commission, Lieberman never disguised her disdain for the man.  They were usually on opposite sides of issues.

Abramowitz was part of the effort to elect Talabisco, maybe even a big part.  But based on her personality and her past history, Lieberman was in the pilot’s seat.

Her deposition pushing blame on Abramowitz is a joke.

Lieberman created Talabisco the politician. Lieberman told prosecutors that she was Talabisco’s “mentor.

It was widely known in political circles that Lieberman wanted to control Tamarac City Hall and tried to use Talabisco to achieve that goal.

It didn’t work out that way.

When prosecutors asked why she broke with Talabisco, Lieberman said the newly elected mayor didn’t follow her wishes.

Talabisco wouldn’t back banning fishing in certain canals.  Talabisco wouldn’t agree that Lieberman’s upscale neighborhood should become a gated community.

And the final straw:  Talabisco opposed a developer who was represented by Lieberman’s husband, Stuart Michelson.

That part of Lieberman’s testimony handed Talabisco’s attorney Larry Davis a potential game changer.  Jurors can now be told that Lieberman had reasons to lie about Talabisco.

Sounds like “reasonable doubt to me.

Meanwhile, Lieberman gave prosecutors very little.  I believe what she did give prosecutors was fantasy.

No surprise to those of us who have watched her career.

Lieberman took office in 1996 as a reformer with the Sun-Sentinel calling her “an endless source of innovative ideas on how to improve government.

That too was a fantasy.

I need a shower.

I feel soiled just touching the four depositions from political consultant Bev Stracher in the corruption case of former Tamarac Mayor Beth Talabisco.

I’m nauseous from the callous way Stracher talked to prosecutors about Tamarac politics.

She told tales of inside dealing and cash passed around in envelopes like so many party favors. But she never expressed discomfort with any of it.

She is a disgrace. Why is she working as an aide to County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman on our dime?

Stracher was subpoenaed by prosecutors to talk about her role in corrupt developers Bruce and Shawn Chait’s Tamarac project.

The Chaits have pleaded guilty to bribery.

She had no lawyer in her first two depositions Nov.12, 2009 and Jan 11, 2010.

During her final two depositions, she got lawyered up and switched her story.

Without at lawyer at her side during the first two depos, Stracher talked about how the Chaits hired her.

They wanted her to prod Tamarac residents into accepting their plans to replace two golf courses with a massive housing development.

Her pay was sometimes delivered in envelopes — $3-5,000 cash.  Plus the Chaits gave her a new air conditioner for her home in lieu of some of the pay.

Once Stracher walked in on Shawn Chait. He had envelopes full of cash on his desk, she said in the sworn testimony.

If I was working for someone who did business with envelopes full of cash, I’d run for the door.

Something obviously was not kosher.

Bev Stracher apparently didn’t care. She stayed on the Chaits payroll.

BEV KEEPS TALKING

She recounted how the Chaits wanted suddenly to donate $5,000 to School Board member Darla Carter’s losing 2006 re-election campaign.  Carter, a member of the county Planning Council who had a vote on their project, did not take the Chaits’ money.

She discussed how County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman ran Beth Talabisco’s 2006 campaign from behind the scenes, approving ads for a political committee attacking opponents.

That political committee is at the heart of charges against Talabisco.  She is accused of accepting the Chaits’ campaign money for the committee in return for her vote on the Chaits’ development.

The Chaits needed Lieberman’s vote at the county as well as Talabisco’s at city hall.

Stracher told prosecutors she was also hired by them to “talk to Lieberman.

Lieberman had a pet charity for organ transplants and the Chaits asked Stracher if they should contribute to it.

She told them, “It couldn’t hurt.

Then Stracher told prosecutors, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why they’re doing it.  It’s definitely not out of the good(ness) of their heart.

Projects need to pay fees for their impact on schools, but the fees are sometimes negotiable. The Chaits were seeking the best deal.

The Chaits obviously talked about the School Board to Stracher. She knew in 2006 that former School Board member Stephanie Kraft’s husband Mitch Kraft had been hired by the Chaits to take care of a “problem.

(Much later, Stephanie and Mitch Kraft were charged with corruption in the Chaits case.  He is accused of helping the Chaits reduce their School Board fees $500,000 with the help of his wife.)

Stracher talked with prosecutors about the $250,000 that the Chaits supposedly offered then-Tamarac Mayor Joe Schreiber.

The sleazy stories go on and on.  Until she gets lawyered up.

SWITCHING STORIES

On May 18, 2010, Stracher returns to the State Attorney’s Office.  This time lawyer Eric Schwartzreich accompanied her.  Schartzreich is a veteran political player whose wife, Mila Schwartzreich, ran twice for judge.

Prosecutors asked Stracher about Lieberman.

“I don’t knowI can’t remember.

They asked her about Lieberman’s role in Talabisco’s campaign.

“I can’t rememberYou’re asking me about something that happened four years ago.  I don’t remember.

She is Lieberman’s aide.  She depends on Lieberman for her salary.

Stracher had a different reason for her change in her testimony.

“When I came in here last time, my 14 year old son (had medical problems which required hospitalization)

Schwartzreich jumped in to prompt and head off any charges of perjury: “When you were answering the questions last time you were being truthful, it was just the condition you were under?

“I was under a lot of (stress) and I couldn’t remember. I just couldn’t remember and I just guessed because I wanted to be truthful.  You wanted answers.and I apologize if I misled anybody.

This woman is now a county commission aide!  Is anybody as outraged as me?

I’m particularly upset because I liked Bev Stracher.  She worked at the Sun-Sentinel as a reporter years ago. We often talked politics later when she became a consultant.

Because I viewed her as a friend, I feel personally betrayed by what I read in those depos.

Jumping out at me amid all those tales of slimy politics was that Stracher still found time to complain about her fees from the Chaits.

She got $40,000 or maybe $80,000.  She wasn’t clear about that in the deposition.  There was one thing Stracher was clear about:

“They also owed me more money which I never received.

Faced with the Republicans’ overwhelming political power in Tallahassee, the Democrats fight back the only way they can — through the media and on the Internet.

Democrats recently set up a website blasting Gov. Rick Scott.

I believe Scott’s mantra that he is creating jobs while cutting government is a Tea Party fantasy.

Scott fires thousands of government employees.  He proclaims he is growing jobs.

Tallahassee has become Bizarro World from the Superman comics where everything is reversed.   Black is white.

The plain truth is that dismantling state government will negatively affect thousands of Floridians, many who don’t work for government but can no longer get prompt services.

The reality is that generating new jobs for Floridians largely is the hands of Wall Street along with Congress and the White House.  Florida will rise or fall along with the general economy.  Scott’s role in it is to a great extent an afterthought.

To say anything else is deceitful. Then again, I’m not surprised that Scott hides the truth from Floridians.

He took the Fifth Amendment how many times?

XXXX

Below is the news release. The link to the website are in the release.

NEWS FROM THE FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY

For Immediate Release: April 14th, 2011
Contact: Eric Jotkoff, (850) 222-3411

100 Days, 100,000 Jobs Destroyed:
Rick Scott’s Record As Governor

Every week that Rick Scott is in office, he and the Republican controlled Legislature are discovering new ways to destroy jobs and hurt Florida’s economy. As Rick Scott reaches his 100^th day in office, we’d like to give an answer to the question that many reporters, legislators and hardworking Floridians are asking just how many jobs has Rick Scott’s proposals created?

To answer this question, we have launched the website www.WhereIsMyFloridaJob.com.

Since taking office 100 days ago, Rick Scott actions and proposals have destroyed 100,000 Florida jobs as he works to impose his extreme agenda on our state. As Governor, Rick Scott has solely focused on pleasing the Tea Party rather than implementing commonsense solutions to bring jobs to our state. That is why the Florida Democratic Party is launching www.WhereIsMyFloridaJob.com, as we work to hold Rick Scott accountable, so Floridians can see how Rick Scott’s extreme agenda is damaging Florida’s economy,said Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith.

The site is intended to let Floridians know just how many jobs have been lost in Florida because of the reckless approach taken by Governor Scott and an overzealous Legislature that continually puts extreme ideology before the needs of over one million working Floridians still looking for an honest paycheck.

“It’s now clear that Rick Scott’s mantra of ‘Let’s Get to Work’ wasn’t a message to Floridians, but a message to his associates ready to launch a hostile corporate takeover of our state. There are ways to create quality jobs and be both a business-friendly and people-friendly state, yet the governor has shown no interest in seeking such balance. It’s our job to work to hold him and his friends in the legislature accountable,” State Representative Rick Kriseman added.

Failed Republican budget policies over the past decade have resulted in a $3.6 billion deficit. Instead of focusing on creating jobs during the 2011 Legislative Session, Rick Scott proposed a spending plan that fails to meet the public’s needs and does real harm to middle class families.

To justify these dangerous cuts, Rick Scott and his Republican enablers have decided to play politics and attack firefighters, police officers, teachers, nurses, and other public servants, while balancing Florida’s budget by creating a backdoor income tax on working families.

I must have heard dozens of School Board candidates say over the years that education would be fine if it only ran like a business.

Some aspects of the school system should run like a business:  Construction and the purchase of goods.

Education itself can not be run like a business. The reason is apparent to anybody who taught school, which I did for a very short period of time.

The following Blueberries Story was written by education activist Jamie Vollmer. It first appeared in Education Week on March 6, 2002. It has been making the rounds on the Internet since then.

Local political consultant David Brown, who is also on the school budget committee, sent it to me today. I hadn’t seen it in years.   I thought it was particularly appropriate to read this year when the education system is under attack everywhere.

Here it is for those who never read it.

Your thoughts as always are appreciated.

XXXXX

By Jamie Vollmer

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!

I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that had become famous in the middle1980s when People magazine chose our blueberry as the “Best Ice Cream in America.

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society. Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure, and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced — equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.

I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.

“How nice, she said. “Is it rich and smooth?

“Sixteen percent butterfat, I crowed.

“Premium ingredients? she inquired.

“Super-premium! Nothing but triple A. I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Vollmer, she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.

“I send them back.

She jumped to her feet. “That’s right! she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!

And so began my long transformation.

Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.

Now that it is clear that County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman is talking to prosecutors, I’ve got to wonder:

Is she talking about anybody else?

Ilene Lieberman: What’s She Saying?

Let me speculate a little.

Assume that prosecutors would like Lieberman to squeal on others. Tamarac politician Beth Talabisco is small fry compared to some of  the political insiders Lieberman knows.

She was never shy about calling me at the Sun-Sentinel to drop a dime on her political enemies. Is she being as free with Satz’s guys?

Most likely her attorney has confined her cooperation to the developers Chaits and Talabisco.

But what a chorus she could sing!

What does she know about other commissioners like Stacy Ritter, another good friend of hers?

How about the waste industry?  How about the gambling industry which she cozied up to when casinos were approved?  How about the bail bonds folks?  Developers?

The list of special interests Lieberman knows and supports is endless.  After all, she’s been a commissioner for 15 years.

What she must have heard commission corridors!  Can’t she point prosecutors in the right direction?

What strikes me is that the Chaits were largely unknown in the public until this scandal.  They weren’t major players in the development industry.

Lieberman’s familiar, political consultant Bev Stracher, was a minor league player.  She was neither the top consultant, nor even a big-time lobbyist.  The Chaits were probably her biggest score ever.

If Stracher was allegedly receiving $100,000 to lobby for this project, can you imagine the other deals that went down at Government Center?

The biggest question remains:  Why let Lieberman and Stracher go to snare a small fish like Talabisco?

If Lieberman was willing to rat on Talabisco one of her best friends and a neighbor — why not others?

Are there others she will stab in the back for Satz?

Are there others who, to paraphrase a famous playwright, will be crying tomorrow:

Et tu Ilene?

If I was Maureen Dinnen, Ben Williams and Robin Bartleman, I would be thinking about Plan B for my career.

Their lives on the School Board appear to be over.

The most devastating Grand Jury report I can ever remember was released this week calling for the abolition of the School Board for “incompetence and “corruption”.

Jurors handed any candidate wishing to run against Dinnen, Williams and Bartleman next year an almost-certain victory.

I say “almost because even in the wake of this report, a lot can change in 18 months.  I never underestimate the survival abilities of the system’s corrupt overlords.

Dinnen already has two unannounced candidates sniffing around her Fort Lauderdale-based seat. Two challengers could split the anti-School Board vote and make it easier for Dinnen to survive.

Amazingly, the tone-deaf Dinnen has already told supporters she is running for re-election.

This election coming up is a no-brainer for any challenger.  The report is ready-made for devastating campaign ads against these incumbents.

Just read two excerpts:

“The gross mismanagement and apparent ineptitude of so many individuals at so many levels is so overwhelming that we cannot imagine any level of incompetence that would explain what we have seen. Therefore we are reluctantly compelled to conclude that at least some of this behavior can best be explained by corruption of our officials by contractors, vendors and their lobbyists.

“Moreover, many of the problems we identified in our inquiry are longstanding and have been pointed out by at least two previous Grand Juries. But for the Constitutional mandate that requires an elected School Board for each District, our first and foremost recommendation would have been to abolish the Broward County School Board altogether.

Jurors appared to single out actions by members Jennifer Gottlieb and Bob Parks without mentioning them.  Gottlieb just got re-elected and Parks retired.  Both are untouchable at the polls for now.

The damage done by Board members is incalculable.  Its the students and teachers who suffer, while the fat cats count their dollars.  The Grand Jury has given legislators one more reason to cut money to Broward schools.

The report is already circulating in Tallahassee.

The School Board should dismiss its thousands of dollars worth of lobbyists.  After this report, Broward is dead meat in the Legislature.

The report echoes what I have been saying for years, long before I left the Sun-Sentinel.  I haven’t been alone.

Bob Norman and his New Times colleagues have been constant critics of the Board’s shady practices. The Sun-Sentinel’s Mike Mayo and the paper’s investigative team have exposed much wrongdoing in the system. Broward Cleansweep and former Board member Marty Rubinstein’s blogs have chipped away at the misspending and ineptitude.

Activists like Charlotte Greenbarg, Mary Fertig and others have been pointing out what’s wrong with the system for years.

Sadly in many cases, the voters haven’t been listening.  Members have been re-elected again and again.

Sometimes this is because the challengers were clueless jokes. Sometimes it is because good candidates were overwhelmed by the money members could muster from their lobbyist and business friends.

Guilty also are the newspaper editorial boards, which have endorsed incumbents despite stories in their own publications exposing shortcomings.

It’s time to end this embarrassment.

It’s time for State Attorney Mike Satz to follow up on the allegations in the Grand Jury report and see if he can make a case.  One section states that members secretly traded votes, surely a violation of the Sunshine Law.

It’s time to throw out Superintendent Jim Notter and his gold-plated management team.  Either they were deaf, dumb and blind or part of the incompetence. Either way, they should go.

It’s time for the Legislature to find a way to split up the unwieldy Broward School Board into two or three more manageable districts.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz had a bill splitting up the district when she was in the Legislature.  It always seemed to fail, but she was right.

Most of all, it’s time to get one good challenger for every Board member facing re-election in 2012.  Throw Dinnen, Williams and Bartleman out!

XXXXX

The report is lengthy and has many recommendations, including changing the number of Board members to five instead of nine.  Also recommended is forbidding Board members from accepting contributions from vendors or Board lobbyists.

Please read the report.  The Sun-Sentinel story on the Grand Jury is here. Pay special attention to the actual PDF document, which you can download as part of the paper’s coverage.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

Sunrise Commissioner Sheila Alu said Thursday that she is “seriously considering running for Broward County Commission.

Alu had better be “seriously considering long and hard.

She’s no shoe-in.  This will be a tough race.

Redistricting Will Be Key

Alu’s biggest dilemma is she has no idea what northwest Broward’s County Commission District 1 will look like.  It will be reshaped during redistricting before the 2012 election.

Alu’s goal will be to put as much of her Sunrise political base in the district and cut out Lauderhill Vice Mayor Howard Berger. He is already running and has put $80,000 of his own money in the race.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t get a vote.  The County Commission does its own redistricting.

One of her allies in redistricting will be her friend County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman. She now represents northwest Broward’s District 1 and is widely thought to be retiring from politics.

I believe that Alu will also be helped by her long-time campaign consultant Dan Lewis, a professional computer techie who helped the county commission redistrict ten years ago.

If Lewis has any role, it will be opposed by County Commissioner Lois Wexler. Those two are like oil and water.

County Commissioner Stacy Ritter is another opponent who won’t make redistricting easy for Alu.

Whatever happens, Alu will have to introduce herself to a large number of voters in cities outside Sunrise between now and the Democratic primary in 2012.

Money Is Another Key

Raising money will also be a challenge for Alu.  She needs 160 donors with $500 each just to catch up with Berger’s personal loan.

She has made a lot of enemies over the years among developers and big-money insiders.  That may be a good thing for voters and the media, but it makes it harder to fund a campaign.

Experts anticipate an open seat for the county commission could cost easily $500-750,000.  That’s a lot of money to raise, especially when you have a day job as a full-time prosecutor. (Alu says she’ll quit the day job if elected.)

Experience is A Double-Edged Sword

On the plus side, Alu is an experienced, savvy and engaging campaigner.  She is a defender of the environment.  She seems seriously about cutting the cost of government, voting against a pay raise for cops in Sunrise despite the political power of the police union.

She’s a master of getting her views into the media and leaking to reporters, which is a good trait in a politician from a journalists point of view.

(Personal disclosure: She has leaked plenty to me over the years, which I greatly appreciate.)

However, she has a decade of votes as a Sunrise city commissioner. A day searching through old minutes could find plenty of fodder for campaign attack ads.

I can think of two that would make great ads against her:

(1) Her vote to approve a $400,000-plus, no-bid city attorney contract for Stuart Michelson, who is Lieberman’s husband.

(2) Her vote for the abomination called Tao, those two monstrous condos that tower over the Everglades and are totally out of place so close to the Everglades.

The Informer Factor

I can’t write about Alu without mentioning what has gotten her the most publicity:  Her role as an FBI informer.

I know some consider her a hero.

Alu “made headlines in 2009 after revealing she worked as an undercover FBI informant to take down corrupt politicians, in the words of today’s Sun-Sentinel.com.

Alu volunteered to spy on other politicians.  Some were dirty. She introduced some of them to undercover agents and they ended up arresting former School Board member Bev Gallagher for bribery.

But people, especially Americans, are very conflicted about informers.  Open up a Thesaurus and see the synonyms for informer:  squealer, rat, canary, fink, snitch, stool pigeon.

Those are some of the nicer ones.

I believe her role as an informer is politically a wash.

My bottom line:

I truly, truly, truly believe that Alu’s heart is in the right place.  She really wants to do what’s right.

She would make a tough and combative campaigner.  She has a lot of positive on her resume.

But she is no sure thing.

Plantation Commissioner Diana Veltri Bendekovic did not break ethics laws despite accusations by one of her opponents in the March mayoral election, according to state investigators.

I am not going to mention this opponent’s name because I believe the complaint was filed to get him publicity.

The Florida Commission on Ethics staff is recommending that the complaint against Bendekovic be dropped.  The Commission votes on the recommendation in February.

“There is no probable cause to believe that respondent (Bendekovic) violated Secton 112.313 (6), Florida Statutes by misusing her position by accessing restricted areas of City facilities to campaign and solicit support from city employees for her mayoral campaign, the recommendation from the staff to the commission states.

It is signed by Diana Guillemette, advocate for the Florida Commission on Ethics.

Here is the kicker:

“(The man who filed the complaint) advised by telephone that he does not have any ‘first hand’ knowledge of the allegation and that he is unable to provide additional informationThe complaint, he said, is based on ‘rumors’ he heard from City employees.

Rumors.  This candidate had state and city employees running around, wasting time and money “based on rumors.

Despite the fact that the complaint was based on rumors, the state interviewed Commissioner Sharon Uria, former Commissioner Rico Petrocelli (no friend of Bendekovic), City Clerk Susan Slattery, the city Finance Director Herbert Herriman and other employees.

Nobody heard anything.

In fact, when employees asked Bendekovic at a city picnic about the race she told them it was “inappropriate for her to discuss her campaign with city employees during the event, according to the state report.

The candidates for Plantation mayor are Bendekovic, Commissioner Jerry Fadgen and the third candidate, who will remained unnamed here.

(Personal disclosure: My wife gave a small contribution to Bendekovic’s campaign.  I stand behind every word I have written about the Plantation mayor’s race.  Her contribution does nothing to change my views, anymore than my son’s work for a Republican state senator or my other son’s campaigning for Democrats.)

Words do matter.

It’s a lesson that should have been known from history, but apparently was forgotten.

When the shots rang out in Arizona last weekend, blame was immediately placed on talk radio hosts.

You can’t blame the Glenn Becks and Joyce Kaufmans of this world for the violence.  You can blame them for creating an atmosphere of anger that causes the mentally unbalanced to act out.

Their fulminating rants, their attacks against the government have consequences.

Its nothing new.

In 1963, President John Kennedy rode into a Dallas filled with hate.  Right wing leaders had free reign in the Texas city, attacking Kennedy publicly and often.  The newspapers contained ads, editorials and letters-to-the-editor denouncing him and his administration without any attempt at other points of view.  Authorities were particularly worried about a handbill handed out just before his arrival that had his picture and the words: Wanted For Treason.

Who was behind Kennedy’s killing is still debated.  There is no debate that the atmosphere in Dallas was poisonous that November.

In 1890, the Hearst newspapers led an unrelenting attack on President William McKinley. Hearst flunky Ambrose Bierce suggested that a bullet was needed “to stretch McKinley on his bier.  Hearst writer Arthur Brisbane wrote, “If bad institutions and bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done.

Shortly afterward, a nutcase Leon Czolgosz pulled a revolver from a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand and shot McKinley, who later died.

Czolgosz probably couldn’t read English.  Hearst was blamed anyway for creating an atmosphere that prompted the assassination.

Theodore Roosevelt, the vice president who became president when McKinley died, said: “Every scoundrel like Hearst and his satellites who for whatever purposes appeals to and inflames evil human passion, has made himself accessory before the fact to every crime of this nature.

That says it all.

It could become the epitaph for Kaufman call for bullets to settle political disputes, Beck with his anti-Semitic conspiracies and Michael Savage’s (Michael Alan Weiner) fuming.

What is sad is that these reckless broadcasters are largely in it for the ratings.  If left wing talk got listeners, they would be there. Just like Hearst was largely in it for the circulation.

What is most disturbing to me is that small-minded talk show host Joyce Kaufman got a lot of attention this week.  A column in The New Times. A mention on Channel 10.

Here I am giving this low-rating lightweight more attention.  I feel bad about it, but she is the prime example of extreme speech broadcasting locally in English.

It doesn’t matter that she said off air, “If ballots don’t work, bullets will.

It matters that she said it publicly at a political rally. Sadder yet, she has been defended by our newly elected U. S. Rep. Alan West, R-Plantation.

A congressman supporting this verbal fire starter just got her more attention.

Attention.

For an entertainer that’s what Kaufman is or tries to be, folks attention is akin to an organism.  So this week has been like night at Plato’s Retreat for Kaufman.

The best thing that could happen for is that she goes back to what she was in the past:  A little-listened to broadcaster on the dying A.M. radio dial talking and talking with almost no one paying attention.

Because words do matter…unless nobody hears them.

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Sun-Sentinel columnist Mike Mayo’s take on this subject is here.