BY BUDDY NEVINS

There was a lot of speculation about former Sheriff Al Lamberti when he showed up at the county commission Tuesday.

At the commission to watch is successor Sheriff Scott Israel beg for a huge funding increase from skeptical commissioners, Lamberti’s appearance immediately triggered speculation among tongue-wagging pols.

Was Lamberti taking the tentative steps to regain the sheriff’s office in three years?

Were eyes fixed on Lamberti when they should have been watching Neal DeJesus, who was sitting next to the former sheriff?   DeJesus was fired as part of the purge of Lamberti supporters when Israel took over.

Former Sheriff Al Lamberti (left), Commissioner Barbara Sharief and former Broward Sheriff’s Fire Chief Neal DeJesus. Contrary to this happy scene, Sharief worked for Lamberti’s defeat last year.  

In some circles, the former Broward Sheriff’s Office fire chief DeJesus is considered a possible candidate for sheriff in 2016.

Another rumor is that DeJesus will run for Commissioner Lois Wexler’s seat in 2016.  He served two years of a four-year term as a Cooper City commissioner from 2008-2010, quitting to take the BSO job.

So far, Israel has done little wrong to justify any candidate challenging him.

Why would anybody  believe Lamberti would do any better in an election after four years out of office than in 2012?  Even if he switches to a Democrat and runs in a primary as has been discussed (meetings have apparently taken place about this with Lamberti, I am told by three sources.), his chances are not good.

At this point I can’t see anyone beating Scott Israel.  He can only beat himself by making some horrendous blunder or having one of his cronies get in trouble.

If I was Israel, it is the later possibility I would watch out for.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

Tallahassee’s remote location fosters  a lack of accountability, a disregard for the public good in the Legislature and corruption.

That’s what a new study led by Harvard researchers Filipe Campante, David Chor  and Quoc-Anh Do found.  They were studying the role of a state capital’s location in good government.

Their findings found:

• Isolated capital cities “are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption.”
• “Isolated capital cities also seem to spend relatively less on things like education, public welfare, and health care, and more on administrative expenditures.”
• “People who live in counties that are closer to the state capital are more likely to turn out in state elections.
• “Campaign contributions are actually higher in states with isolated capitals, belying the fear that having the capital in a major economic center would lead to a greater risk of capture of state politics by economic interests.”

Sounds like Tallahassee to me.

In fact, Tallahassee is singled-out in the study.

I’ve been harping about this for years — here and previously in my Sun-Sentinel column.

Most of the voters never visit Tallahassee to express their views on issues or watch what is happening.

Its a pain to get to Tallahassee.  Its a ridiculously expensive plane ride or a tedious 450-mile drive from Fort Lauderdale so who’s going up to testify at a committee hearing or to watch our legislators at work (and play)?

Many lawmakers — maybe most — like working in the dark. I got this straight from the horse’s mouth.

I once complained to a state senator about the remoteness of capital while squeezed in next to him on a ride back in one of those tiny planes that serve Tallahassee.

“We like it that way,” he said. “Who wants the constituents seeing what we do?”

And he was serious.

Would it make a difference on social issue and gun control if votes were cast nearer the urban centers of Florida?  Could legislators be so quick to bow to the wishes of special interests if more citizens were watching?

What about downright stealing?

On the chart below of state capitals, Florida is high on the corruption/remoteness scale.

Corruption was measured by federal convictions and a data base development involving Internet searches of wrongdoing in the nation’s state capitals.

It then correlated with other factors like voters turnout to measure involvement and newspaper coverage of state affairs.

Using newspaper coverage is based on the assumption that government accountability requires that the the public be made aware of government issues through the media. Newspaper coverage and peoples’ awareness of what is happening in state government decreases the farther away the capital is located, the study found.

“Newspapers do tend to give state politics greater coverage when their audience is more concentrated around the capital,” the researchers write.

None of this is a surprise to me.

It is nice to see a study’s findings backing up what I’ve always contended:

Tallahassee is in the wrong place and its isolation fosters bad government.

 XXXXX

The chart (click to enlarge) measures the data used by the researchers to study the distance of the state capitals from population centers with corruption.  Florida’s Tallahassee (450 miles from Southeast Florida and hundreds of miles from other population centers) and New York’s Albany (more than 100 miles from New York City) are high on the scale.  States like Colorado have relatively low corruption because its capital
(Denver) is also the population center, according to the findings.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

Gov. Rick Scott okayed on Monday most of the spending for Broward approved by the Legislature.

Still, Scott vetoed state spending on some Broward projects Monday. Other programs in Broward may have been affected by budget language vetoed by the governor.

The projects vetoed are:

* Transportion Hub, State Road 7, Lauderdale Lakes, $500,000,

* Program of All Inclusive Elderly Care (PALE), $353,867,

* Drainage improvements, Hallandale Beach, $500,000,

* Holocaust Center,  $500,000,

* Flood mitigation, Lauderdale Lakes, $500,000,

* Seawall Improvements, Fort Lauderdale’s Seven Isles section, $100,000.

The Holocaust Center money was specifically singled out by Senate President Don Gaetz in the news release below.  Does Florida TaxWatch has more weight with the governor than Gaetz?

An earlier post below lists all the proposed money for Broward.  It appears that most of this survived the veto pen.

XXXXX

Below are the Broward County items that were included in the state budget by Florida’s Legislature.

Florida TaxWatch has denounced many of these expenditures as “turkeys,” meaning they are unnecessary and wasteful.

State Senate President Don Gaetz had this to say this week about Florida TaxWatch’s “turkey” list:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 16, 2013

STATEMENT FROM PRESIDENT GAETZ REGARDING FLORIDA TAXWATCH

Tallahassee — Florida Senate President Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) today released the following statement regarding Florida TaxWatch releasing their 2013 Turkey Watch Report.

“The TaxWatch list is built on the unconstitutional perversion that if an appropriation isn’t recommended by unelected agency officials it shouldn’t be considered in conference by elected legislators.  This is an arrogance of the elite who spend too much time in Tallahassee and Washington listening to the echoes of their own invented wisdom and thinking they’re hearing the voice of God. 

“No agency put in its budget a $3,500 raise for Florida’s most effective teachers, yet that was funded.  No agency testified before the Legislature asking for a raise for state employees who had been without one for six years, yet we passed it.  No bureaucrat in the Department of Education asked for a career-technical pathway to a high school diploma or an online pathway to a university degree, but we funded them.  Not a whisper of criticism from TaxWatch on any of these and a hundred other similar items.  So, apparently, their indignation is not only ill-informed but selective. 

“TaxWatch has dismissed as ‘turkeys’ mobile medical and dental units to bring health care to poor people in rural areas, documentation and education about the Holocaust, housing for disabled veterans, rehabilitation for severely wounded soldiers who want to return to duty, and replacement of 50 year old educational facilities that produce workforce for companies bringing jobs to Florida.  In most cases, those who put together this list couldn’t find these projects on a map and haven’t put five minutes into finding out anything about them. 

“If our founders had shared the slavish devotion of Taxwatch to unchallenged decisions and dictates of faraway bureaucrats, we’d all be drinking English tea and singing God Save the Queen.  A good song.  But not an American song.  The Constitution obligates and empowers elected legislators, who come from communities and go home to communities, to write the state’s budget.  If TaxWatch staffers want to test their budget theories in the public square, let them stand up in front of conference committees and testify in public.  More than thirty public, open conference committee meetings were held during the recent legislative session.  Every item in the state budget was proposed and adopted during those public meetings.  Testimony was requested and welcomed at every meeting.  Not once did any person from TaxWatch ask one question, offer one idea or say one word. 

“It is little wonder that TaxWatch is irrelevant 364 days a year.”

In Broward, the spending watchdog group’s “turkeys” include $484,000 for a road project in Lauderdale Lakes, $500,000 for the Holocaust Center and $500,000 for a transportation hub facility on State Road 7.

You can look at the list by clicking on the three images below and decide which projects you believe are unnecessary and wasteful.

But your opinion really doesn’t count.  It is Gov. Rick Scott who will decide which of these items to line-item veto.

We’ll see soon.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

Broward  Inspector General John Scott,  who enforces the county’s ethics law, is accused of violating the same law.

John Scott

Scott is alleged to have attempted to sway the selection of a firm to clean Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport by writing the county’s purchasing director he had “evidence” that Sunrise Cleaning Systems has violated its 27-year-old contract.

Scott’s Office has a different take:  They say the law specifically gives them the power to take an active role in purchasing.

The accuser is Bill Scherer, a downtown Fort Lauderdale lawyer who represents Sunshine and is a long-time political powerbroker.

In a letter to Scott distributed to county commissioners this week and to county Purchasing Director Brenda Billingsley, Scherer says:

“Mr. Scott, you are in direct violation of County Ordinance 12-01.  This ordinance, which establishes the Office of Inspector General for Broward County, does not provide you with any authority to provide written opinions prior to the conclusion of your investigation.  Instead, the ordinance requires you to complete your investigation, keep it confidential, and then prepare a preliminary report, including making a finding of probable cause, something you have yet to do…”

“Your actions appear to be malicious. Why you have elected to unfairly disparage Sunshine Cleaning with an obvious motive to adversely affect Sunshine’s current participation in the RFP ongoing at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport is a mystery.  We believe that your deliberate failure to timely provide Sunshine with a copy of your letter to (Purchasing Director) Ms. Billingsley is further indicia of malice on your part.”

In a second letter to Billingsley sent this week, Scherer asks that the selection process be restarted  because of the “taint” caused by Scott’s “illegal acts.”

However, Scherer fails in his letter to cite this section of the Broward ethics law:

“As part of an investigation, the Inspector General (or his or her designee) may attend all duly-noticed local government meetings relating to the procurement of goods or services, and may pose questions and raise concerns consistent with the functions, authority, and powers of the Inspector General.”

Is this section in conflict with the section that states investigations should be confidential?  That’s for lawyers and maybe eventually a judge to determine.

But Scott’s Office cites the same section in their answer to Scherer, which is below.

Scott, a 1985 graduate of Georgetown University Law in Washington, was a senior trial attorney in the Justice Department from 1990-2008.  The last 13 years he was in the public integrity unit, responsible for numerous corruption prosecutions around the country.

Sunshine Cleaning has been under investigation by Scott’s office since last year for alleged irregularities regarding minority contracts, a charge the company denies.

XXXXX

Scott’s answer, penned by another lawyer in his office, to Scherer.  Inspector General Offfice’s General Counsel Jennifer Merino cites the same section of the ethics law as I did (click to enlarge):

BY BUDDY NEVINS

After belittling and yelling at at least three of the five city commission bosses, Coconut Creek City Manager David Rivera is on his way out.

The question is when?

It all depends on money.

If Rivera is fired, he gets hundreds of thousands under his contract.

If he quits, nothing.

Word is that he could leave as soon as next Thursday — May 23 — if he can cut a deal over the money.

He wants some severance and he’ll leave his job, according to sources.

Commissioners don’t want to pay any more than they have to.  However, they can’t stand Rivera’s uncontrollable temper anymore.

“I’ve been yelled at, screamed at, told I’m ‘the worst mayor ever. Something does have to be done.” said Mayor Becky Tooley last week.

Rivera has also berated Commissioner Lisa Aronson, Sandy Walsh and members of the public.

It has gotten so bad that commissioners last week decided Rivera needed anger management treatment.

His answer was to seek an exit strategy that would still pay him something.

Stay tuned.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

(Thank you, readers.

Your comments – many of them astute and very well presented – has caused me to rethink my position on the Yearbook.

My original post below was inarticulate enough to cause confusion. I’m big enough to admit that.

I applaud the students who worked in any capacity on the Douglas Yearbook. I also want to make it clear that a few pages in a large Yearbook does not reflect any other excellently executed material.

I also agree that Washington Collado’s trouble was a significant incident that warranted being mentioned. We could argue about how it was mentioned, whether it was fairly presented, and whether it favored the principal. 

I think that the seven pages devoted to Collado — almost all of it favorable to him — is a little much.  One page, written by Niki Wasserman, is a well done opinion piece that is clearly one sided.  On the page is a poll of  303 students, a mere fraction of the number at the school, which found 60 percent believed the principal should stay.  Putting aside the obvious questions about where and how the poll was taken (at the pro-Collado demonstration?), that still means that 40 percent of the students are in favor of him leaving.

 Niki Wasserman’s opinion piece, well done but one-sided (click to enlarge)

That Collado’s situation had to be mentioned at all is my problem with him.

There are dozens of high schools in Broward County. Many have parents equally passionate about their cheerleading programs as Douglas.

Nowhere else has this situation been allowed to get out of hand.

A real leader would have found a way to skillfully negotiate a way to calm the situation. Instead, a minor situation between a small group of parents was allowed to fester and eventually boil over to involve the School Board and the media. 

The merits of the two sides’ positions are not what counts.  What counts is that Collado couldn’t find a way to bring the two sides together.  I believe that this lack of leadership eventually cost him his job at Douglas.

As one reader commented below (Parkland Parent No. 13), most students and parents don’t care about any of this.  Most aren’t part of the cheerleading program and none of it affects them. So it could be argued that less attention should have been paid to it in the Yearbook.

That said, working on the Yearbook itself is a worthy endeavor for any student.

Thanks again for participating in Browardbeat.com.

Buddy

P.S.: For those of you mentioning the students’ Freedom of the Press:

 Students don’t have absolute freedom to write anything they want in school publications.  That was decided in court decisions years ago.   The principal and staff do have the right to determine what appears in the Yearbook, just like the editor of the Sun-Sentinel,  the New York Times or the Huffington Post can determine what appears in their publications. )

The Original Post is below:  

If you had any doubt that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Principal Washington Collado needed to go, exhibit No. 1 is this year’s school’s yearbook.

Collado was told earlier this year he would be transferred out of Douglas before next school year.

In an obvious editorial stand against the transfer, the Yearbook venerates Collado.

It mentions his bosses evaluated him as “highly effective” in 2012. It mentions that 200 demonstrated outside the school against his transfer.

And I thought Yearbooks were about the students’ year, not the principal.

The Yearbook also has two pictures of Melissa Prochilo, the former Douglas cheerleading coach dumped by the School Board after complaints about her.

There are no pictures – I am told – of the current coach.

It was in part the cheerleading dispute between two sets of parents over Porchillo that caused Collado’s transfer.  In a lack of leadership, he failed to quell the disagreement, allowing it to get out of hand.

Now the Yearbook is stirring the pot again!

Some of the Parkland school’s parents are upset.  A Board member said, “I thought this was over.”

Here are two questions:

(1) Doesn’t Principal Collado have any control of his school’s Yearbook?

(2) What does the Yearbook say about Collado’s respect for Supintendent Robert Runcie, who transferred him, and the School Board that backed up Runcie?

BY BUDDY NEVINS

Eugene Pettis will be sworn in as the new president of the Florida Bar next month.

The Fort Lauderdale lawyer is being acclaimed as the first black leader of the almost 100,000 lawyers in Florida.

Eugene Pettis

Pettis might be a great lawyer.

He is also the lawyer who has defended some of the most odious practices of the Broward School Board.

He defended bureaucrats who fired a whistleblower. He fought parents who claimed their children’s illnesses were caused by air pollution in the schools.

He protects front office flunkies who do wrong and battles teachers and parents who do right.

Perhaps the most outrageous case involved Andrew Greene, a part-time teacher.  Greene’s troubles started when he decided to run against incumbent Miriam Oliphant in 1992.

School Board upper-level bureaucrats, seeking to protect Oliphant, leaked “derogatory statements gathered in an earlier disciplinary investigation of him” just a few weeks before the election, according to a court decision.  The material included information that Greene sought counseling for psychological problems.

Oliphant won two-to-one.

Greene sued and up stepped Eugene Pettis to defend the School Board.

The suit alleged “negligence and invasion of privacy” by disclosing private information.  It claimed – correctly – that the School Board staff released the information in violation of state law.

Greene won $850,000 from a jury.

And what did the School Board do? Pettis appealed the verdict.

The Board lost.

Then Pettis testified before the Florida House stating that paying Greene would damage the school system.

This is taking advocacy to a new level.

What would have happened if the Board bureaucrats didn’t leak the information?  Maybe Greene would have won.

Oliphant’s political career would have been over, she would have never become Elections Supervisor. There would have been no botched 2002 election that ended with her removal from office.

That’s not all, of course.

If the documents weren’t leaked, Pettis would not have run up thousands in legal fees that we taxpayers paid to defend political dirty tricks by the School Board staff.

How much?

A Sun-Sentinel article in 2000 by my pal Bill Hirschman wrote: “a legislative claims committee that estimated the cost of the original suit at $518,000” for the School Board, not counting any money paid to Greene.

Pettis Admired By Many

Pettis has a lot to recommend him as Bar president.

A trial attorney practicing since 1985, he is very well respected in legal circles. He is dedicated to legal education and pro bono work.

Pettis told the Bar that his goals in the coming year are continuing “the advancement of identifying a long-term, predictable source of court funding so that every Floridian will be assured access to our courts.”

Another goal is “achieving true diversity and inclusion within our profession.”

A third goal is to deal with “one of the devastating consequences of the recent economic downturn — the impact on legal aid organizations,” he continued.

“We must recognize an obligation to strive for equal access to an availability of legal services for all Floridians in need.”

All noble ambitions. The achievement of any one of them would be a great testament to Pettis. If anyone can accomplish them, Pettis can.

I know what some of you are thinking:

Pettis is eminently qualified to be the next president of Florida’s Bar.

As for the School Board, it is just another Pettis client.  Everything I mentioned is just representation of his client.

I’ve got a different take.

My opinion:

Sometimes a lawyer has to do what’s right, rather than defend a bad case no matter what the facts.

My opinion:

Sometimes a lawyer has to seek justice, rather than fight those seeking justice

My opinion:

It would have been nice if the Bar had picked as its president a modern day Clarence Darrow who defends the constitutional principals of the oppressed.  They picked instead the School Board paid courthouse hit man.

BY SAM FIELDS

I owe Miami Dolphins owner Steven Ross an apology for my earlier columns attacking the 83^rd richest American. I erroneously went after him for his unwillingness to use his $4.5 billion to pay for all the improvements to “Joe Robbie, Landshark, Sun Life, Russell, etc., Stadium”.

It turns out that $4.5 billion is not the kind of wealth you think it is.

According to the May 9^th Herald, in 2012 his team lost $41 million!

I felt terrible when my calculator made clear that, at this rate by 2123, Steven Ross will be on Food Stamps, or whatever they are issuing 110 years from now.

From what I can figure Ross is in the predicament because of the team’s evil landlord.

Mike Dee, the Dolphins CEO, explained it to Channel 10’s Michael Putney.  It seems that Ross bought the team without realizing the stadium was in such terrible condition.

Ross apparently has always been a trusting soul who bases his business deals on a kind word and a handshake.  No need for “due diligence” to check out the stadium.  After all, the guy who sold him the Dolphins spent fifty years in the trash hauling business.

So the problem has to be with the new owner of the stadium and the way he has been mistreating “our” Steven Ross.

You see The Miami Dolphins do not own the stadium. That’s a separate business that currently has the team as a captive tenant.  It can charge The Fins any rent it wants.  That greedy landlord is unconscionably siphoning off the profits of the hardworking Fins owner.

Now here is one of the most amazing co-incidences you ever going to hear.  The name of the landlord, who is gouging the team, is also named Steven Ross!

Now what are the odds of that happening?

But that’s nothing.  It turns out that the guys who own the parking and food concessions and every other related business are also named Steven Ross.  The mathematical probability of this is like winning the Powerball Lottery six weeks in a row. Yet, it’s happened.

Now I know what some of you are thinking: “Sam, Sam, Sam, don’t you know that all those Steve Ross’s are the same guy?”

No way. You’re such cynics.  If the cynics are right then someone might conclude that the $41 million loss was nothing more than creative bookkeeping by adjusting the rent up or down or shifting the profits from one corporation to another.

How do I know this can’t be true? Because, if Ross was such a bookkeeping flim/flamer, there is no way that Mitt Romney would have taken his $3,000,000 in 2012 campaign contributions.

Nevertheless, politicians and the media have been pummeling this man who only cares about making a better life for the rest of us.

So where has all this mistreatment of “The Good” Steve left us?  It’s summed up in the May 10^th Herald headline: “Dolphins open to Palm Beach home”.

I hope he’s not talking about Palm Beach County.  I hope he’s talking about the Town of Palm Beach on the oceanfront island where “The Good” Steve lives.

Want to know the perfect place to move the team?  The south side of The Breakers Hotel. There is all this open space that hardly anyone uses.

On the downside somebody has dug 36 holes there already.  But they’re only about 4 inches wide. I am sure “The Good” Steve can get some beach sand to fill them in.

And here’s the best part.  “The Good” Steve will be able to say “good riddance” to “The Evil” Steve and at the same time live the American Dream.  He’ll be able to walk to work.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

You’ve got wonder whether Gov. Rick Scott has the stamina to keep it up for another 18 months.

Scott doesn’t even have a credible Democratic opponent, yet he is running like its two weeks before the election.

On Monday, Scott launched his Teachers Pay Raise Pep Rally Tour. It got media coverage across Florida. He started at Piper High School in Sunrise then went to schools in West Palm Beach and Ponte Vedra Beach near Jacksonville.

On Tuesday, he started in Fort Myers by announcing that Hertz was moving its worldwide headquarters and 700 jobs to Estero, Florida from Park Ridge, New Jersey.  He then flew to a middle school in Ocoee to continue his teachers pay raise tour.

Wednesday Scott was on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” morning show at 7:30 a.m., bragging about the Hertz move.  Then it was a speech in Fort Lauderdale to discuss the impact of federal budget sequestration on hurricane readiness.

Meanwhile, his Tallahassee media office churned out news releases trumpeting everything from the 130 top Florida students winning National Merit Scholarships to Chief Executive Magazine naming the Florida the #2 state in the nation to do business  “edging closer to knocking Texas off the top spot.”

Scott’s media team may call all this “governing.” Make no mistake.  Scott is really campaigning.

The governor is campaigning to improve his standing in the polls.

He is campaigning to so that independents, conservative Democrats, women and maybe even teachers take a second look at a governor they had written off.

From the Democrats?  Not a peep.

They Ds have no candidate yet, unless you count former state Sen. Nan Rich of Weston.  If you think she is a plausible challenger for Scott, you’d be the only one.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist hasn’t stepped up…yet.   No word from U. S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

Zero.

While Crist and Nelson quietly mull over a run, we’ll hear a lot more from our governor.

My only question is whether the 60-year-old Scott can keep up this pace until November 2014.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

School Board member Ann Murray, who was reprimanded for making a bigoted statement using the “N” word, has picked up a re-election challenge from a black elected official.

Vice Mayor Felicia Brunson of West Park holds her kick off fundraiser tonight.

The only 2014 School Board candidate to draw an opponent so far, Murray was a supervisor in the school system’s transportation division in February 2007.  While directing school buses being used for the Super Bowl, several bus drivers and other administrators heard her refer to the upper-level seats of Sun Life Stadium as “n—– heaven.”

Complaints were made. She was issued a written reprimand.

The next year, in November 2008, she was elected to the School Board. The incident never came up during the campaign.

After the reprimand surfaced in 2011, there were calls for Murray’s resignation by some leaders.

Murray publicly apologized.

The apology may not matter. In a district where roughly one-third of the Democrats are black, the reprimand could come back to haunt her.

Although the race is nominally non-partisan,  it is on the primary ballot where Democrats count.

Democrats have some primary races next year.  So the Ds will dominate the primary since there is expected to be very few Republican races.

Brunson is a longtime civic activist in Carvers Ranches, a section of West Park.  She has been a member of the commission since the first commissioners were elected in the newly-formed city in 2005.

Murray’s District 1 is centered in Hollywood and covers a large area of Southeast Broward.

Some interesting names are on Brunson’s invitation below.

One is Henry Rose, who lobbies for charter schools and runs campaigns.  Another is Property Appraiser Lori Parrish, one of Broward’s most admired Democrats.

Most interesting is Richard and Diana Wasserman Rubin.  You all should know who they are.

He just served time for tax evasion.  She is the former county commissioner who pleaded guilty last month and got a slap on the wrist for providing false information to county attorneys to help her husband earn a bonus.

Is this a sign that Wasserman Rubin is forgiven by Broward’s political world?

Time will tell.

XXXXX

Brunson’s invitation (click to enlarge):