BY SAM FIELDS

If there was one thing that was predictable in the news coverage of the Moore, Oklahoma tornado it was the survivors “thanking the Lord”.

It was, therefore, amusing to see the link that I was sent by a Browardbeat.com reader.

In it CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asks a mom holding her baby if she wanted to “thank the Lord” for the survival of her family.

Not likely she told Blitzer. She was an atheist.

I’m pretty sure that was the minority view in Moore. But what if you believe that this was all the work of an All-Powerful, All-Knowing Supernatural Being?

The obvious and inexorable conclusion is that the Almighty is also to blame for the death of 24…including the seven third-graders.

If Believers are right, you gotta wonder what those little bastards did to so piss off Jesus that he killed’em?

Since 1999, Moore, Oklahoma has experienced multiple tornados including two F-5 catastrophes.  If all this is the work of God, than that place must be a regular Sodom and Gomorrah.

But how could that be?  As evidenced by the TV interviews of the locals, the only thing that exceeds the number of churches in Moore must be the number of McDonalds.

Or is there another explanation for the tornados and other natural disasters that have recently made Oklahoma “Ground Zero” for an angry Mother Nature”?

And it’s not only tornados. It’s drought and a spate of earthquakes that have recently struck the “Godfearin’ Okies”.

Of the 1200 or so tornados that we annually experience, no more than one is an F-5.  So what are the odd of the same town getting hit twice by F-5’s in 14 years?

Is it God, bad luck or the wrong end of climate change?

Science says that it’s the latter two.

The mentality of Okies, as propounded by its political leaders, says otherwise.

Senator James Inhofe (R. Ok) is the Senate’s most ardent climate change denier.  Sounding like a Holocaust Denier, he calls it a “hoax” perpetrated by Al Gore, Michael Moore and Hollywood elites. [Since John Wayne and Charlton Heston died, are there any other kind?]

Inhofe’s rants are not surprising in a state economically dominated by fossil fuels.

It does not change the facts that human activity has caused the degree of  climate change that has led to weather extremes including thunderstorms (Think tornados.) and the multiyear drought that now afflicts the Midwest and Southwest.

Add to that a growing body of evidence that the search for fossil fuels, through the method known as “hydraulic fracking,” is promoting earthquakes in places like Oklahoma.

Fracking is a way of releasing fossil fuels by injecting liquids into rocks deep in the earth. Scientists now seem sure that a 5.7 earthquake that struck Oklahoma in 2011 was induced by fracking.

The scientists at The U.S. Geological Survey and the National Academy of Science have looked at the recent spike in seismic activity near fracking sites.  Since 2009, the number of earthquakes greater than 3 on the Richter Scale has increased from 1.2 per year to 25!

In a report, the scientists conclude that this is “almost certainly manmade.”

Of course, they’re just a bunch of atheist scientists. Who would believe them?

In Moore, Oklahoma they know better. Earthquakes come from Jesus bowling.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

Talking to a friend this week, I asked him if he saw a story in the Sun-Sentinel.

“I cancelled my subscription,” said the friend, who now gets the Miami Herald. “I’m not giving my money to a paper that endorsed Romney and could be owned by the Koch Brothers.”

Charles and David Koch are billionaires who funded everything from the Tea Party movement to union busting, climate change denial and the anti-gun control movement. There have been published reports they are considering buying the newspapers of the Tribune Company, which include the Sun-Sentinel.

My friend is not unique in Democratic-heavy Broward.

Here is a warning to the decision-makers at the Sun-Sentinel:

Talk to your bosses at the Tribune Company.  Tell them that if the Koch Brothers end up with the Sun-Sentinel,  it would disastrous in terms of lost revenue as readers and some advertisers flee.

The Sun-Sentinel endorsed Mitt Romney last year. The endorsement was proof that those who run the paper are out of step with Broward’s residents.

The county voted against Romney by better than two-to-one.

And readers, angry at the endorsement, voted against the Sun-Sentinel by cancelling subscriptions in droves, I am told.

Real figures are hard to come by on the Sun-Sentinel grapevine, but several sources tell me the endorsement cost the paper a lot more readers than they anticipated.

So can you imagine what an embrace by the Koch Brothers — a lot more polarizing than Romney — would cost the paper?

When I was a kid in New York City, there were families I knew who wouldn’t allow The Journal American or The New York Daily Mirror in their homes because they were owned by Hearst.  Hearst and his columnists like the John Birch Society darling Westbrook Pegler were shrill ultra-conservatives, thus out of step with New York City politics.

Hearst’s politics didn’t kill his New York City papers. But it didn’t help, either.

The purchase of the Sun-Sentinel by the Koch Brothers wouldn’t help, either. The fading Fort Lauderdale daily would lose more readers and even advertisers.

Worst of all, the purchase by such rabid political players could cost the paper whatever creditability it has left.

BY BUDDY NEVINS

The Broward County Courthouse has entered the Twitter age.

Circuit Judge Matthew Destry has been tweeting pictures from his courtroom. See the site here.

Judge Matt Destry (Photo: Jaablog)

The tweeting has Public Defender Howard “Help Me Howard” Finkelstein upset, according to the Sun-Sentinel’s courthouse wiz Rafael Olmeda.

This is a very interesting modern-day question:

Should a judge be posting pictures of the participants in his courtroom on the Internet? Don’t the lawyers feel pressure when the judge presiding over their case asks them to pose?

It will be interesting to see Judicial Qualifications Commission or The Florida Bar’s take on tweeting from court.  I’m sure the JQC or Bar will deal with this at some time in the future here or at another courthouse.

My take:

There should be some way for judges along with prosecutors and defense attorneys have a Twitter presence.

I’d love to see both Finkelstein and State Attorney Mike Satz’s office have Twitter accounts. It would be another way to inform the public what goes on in the courthouse.

But judges tweeting from their courtroom ….????

You decide.

While you are thinking about it,  let’s applaud Destry for raising the question and attempting to do something new.

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Bill  “Mr. Jaablog” Gilen is back.

After a long hiatus and Bar complaints about the content of his courthouse blog, Gilen took to the keyboard again this week to relaunch his well-followed site.

Gilen writes about the Bar complaints:

“If we’ve done anything wrong,  we’ll take the rap.  No big deal.  But the Bar shouldn’t be allowed to change the rules in the middle of the game.  Sending letters which fail to specify any misconduct, a single violated rule, or even a specific offensive phrase or photograph is just plain old chicken shit,” is part of what he posted.

Read the rest of what he has to say about the Bar complaint here.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.