Patti Good and Nora Rupert are fast becoming my favorite School Board members.

Good and Rupert were the only ones who questioned Superintendent Robert Runcie’s ill-advised plan to increase administrators at the School Board in tough times.

You read it right. Increase administrators. Administrators are being increased in the downtown office.

These are the $100,000-a-year folks.  With added pensions and benefits.

The previous Superintendent Jim Notter had been cutting the number of administrators for years.

Then Runcie rides in from Chicago and decides what he needs is more people in the central office reporting to him.

Runcie’s new organization has 425 positions.  It previously had 423 positions.

There are 44 new positions added to the organizational chart and 42 positions deleted.

Hiding The Cost

But what will the bureaucrats in new positions be making?

Rupert asked what Runcie’s new organization would cost.

No answer.

She asked again.

No answer.

Rupert finally conceded she wasn’t going to get an answer.

“I will leave with no information given,” she said.

Good tried to probe with no better results.

The rest of the Board were cheerleaders for the misguided Runcie. That included the two Republicans who I would expect to be more fiscally prudent.

The worst among them:  Laurie Rich Levinson.  If Superintendent Runcie was Edgar Bergan, she would be Charlie McCarthy. The puppeteers’ puppet.

Let the School Board explain to voters why administrators are being increased.

Instead of increasing administrators, the School Board should be addressing why students are leaving the system in droves.

There are 30,000 students now in charter schools. The system’s own predictions say 4,900 more will join them soon.

The 30,000 who already left is the equivalent of 30 elementary schools, Runcie pointed out.

Now, maybe I’m not as sharp as Runcie or the School Board.

But I do read.

I know that when most businesses’ lose customers and revenue, they adjust.

Did the school system close 30 elementary schools to adjust to the loss of students?

No.

Did the school system layoff 12 percent of its employees to adjust to the loss of around 12 percent of its students to charters?

No.

The answer of our Superintendent Runcie is to add administrators.

School Board Excuses

School Board members excused it by saying it was only two more administrators costing around $250,000.

School Board members excused it by saying Runcie needs to be given the team he wants so he can do the job.

School Board members excused it by saying some of the new administrators were being paid for with federal money.

Wrong.

Its wrong to increase administrators anytime.  This is especially true when teachers and support staff are being asked to do more for less and are threatened with layoffs.

Its wrong to depend on anything from Washington or Tallahassee, when its clear to anybody that reads that the money will probably dry up next year.

And its wrong to treat federal money like it doesn’t come from the same place – taxpayers’ pockets.

Runcie distributed his new organizational plan late Friday. Making public proposals at the last minute has long been the school bureaucrats way of minimizing public discussion.

That led education activist Charlotte Greenbarg to caution that the public has had a lack of trust in the School Board for years. Rushing a plan through with little public notice does nothing to repair this lack of trust.

“The public is entitled to see (the plan) for at least a week,” Greenbarg said.

School Board members talk a lot about the new direction that they are taking the school system.

I don’t see it.

Sadly, the School Board proved – with the notable exception of Patti Good and Nora Rupert – that the more things change at the schools, the more they are the same.

Sheriff Al Lamberti proved again Wednesday why he will be hard to beat.

Democrats are praying that the rumors that Lamberti will be indicted in connection with the Scott Rothstein scam are true. Short of that, Lamberti appears harder and harder to beat.

These Rothstein rumors are  inside baseball.  They are confined to political circles, passed third hand or fourth hand.

This one was interviewed by the FBI.  That one is giving evidence against Lamberti.

Nothing concrete.  And no proof that anything concrete will ever develop.

I am skeptical because I’ve heard for years that this politician or that politician was being indicted tomorrow.  I got it right from an FBI agent, I have been told.

Funny how those same politicians are still walking around.

So without an indictment, Lamberti is the frontrunner.  Even though he is Republican in a Democratic county.

One reason is that the Democratic candidates for sheriff are underwhelming, to say the least. The only thing they have going for them is a “D” in front of their names.

There are a lot of Democrats who believe being a Democrat or Republican is largely meaningless in law enforcement. That may be why Lamberti has so much Democratic support.

Here is the latest from Lamberti’s campaign:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti Announces Historic Achievement

For the first time since founded in 1915, Broward County now has its first county-wide elected official being placed on the November 2012 ballot by candidate petition. The notable achievement was accomplished by Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti who is running for re-election in November.

“I am proud of this historic achievement and I am thankful to the people of Broward County who are again placing their confidence in me as their Sheriff”, stated Lamberti.

Sheriff Lamberti made his announcement outside the Supervisor of Elections Office Wednesday morning, after the Supervisor certified the 10,418 petitions necessary for him to be placed on the November ballot by the voters. “The actual amount of petitions signed were over 16,000”, stated Lamberti, displaying some of the thousands of petitions that were signed. “I am humbled by the support given to me during my first term in office,” the Sheriff commented, “I will continue doing the best job serving the citizens, businesses, and visitors of Broward County. I have been at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for over 35 years and I take the business and responsibilities of public safety and public service very seriously.”

Al Lamberti was appointed in 2007 by the Governor to fill out the remaining one year term of the previous Sheriff who was removed from office. He then was elected by the people in 2008 to a four year term.

Pembroke Pines residents are paying the cost of political folly at a rate of up to $225-an-hour.

That’s the legal fees to defend the city in a law suit for trying to block a proposed federal immigration detention center.

One key lawyer defending the city charges $225-an-hour.  Another charges $180.  An aide’s time is billed at $85-an-hour.

And there are lots and lots of lawyers involved.

The cost so far: Roughly $86,000 for just a few months of legal fees and costs.

The bill climbing ever day.

How many city employees’ jobs could be saved with that money?

The costs would be understandable if the litigation was justified.  It is not. It is nothing more than playing politics with the taxpayers’ money.

Blame Commmissioners Angelo Castillo, Jay Schwartz and Iris Siple. Those three voted to fritter away the money on legal fees when they voted to block the prison.

The three commissioners bowed to political pressure from a handful of homeowners in Western Pembroke Pines.  By a 3-2 vote, they withdrew promised water, sewer and emergency services to the land which would contain the proposed prison.

As predicted, the city ended up in court with property owner Corrections Corporation of America.

Now the whole city is paying!

This suit has become a real boon for the legal profession.

When the Pines city attorney opposed trying to stop the facility in neighboring Southwest Ranches, commissioners rejected his opinion.  They asked for an Orlando law firm to give a second opinion.

For his fee of $225-an-hour, Orlando attorney Usher Brown said the prison could be blocked.  His opinion wasn’t cheap.

On March 7, a day that included Brown traveling to Pines and attending a commission meeting, he billed $2,700.  Two days later, Brown charged $2,407.50 for analysis, review, research and preparation, according to the descriptions in the bill.

There were numerous phone conferences between the Orlando firm and the city attorney’s office, costing the taxpayers for both sets of lawyers.  Brown charged $517.50 for e-mails with the staff and “continued research.”

Taxpayers even footed the bill for the Orlando firm gathering the contact information for the mayor, commissioners and city manager and scheduling phone conferences: Cost  $34.

Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

Commissioners have a chance to rectify part of their costly mistake.  Once again commissioners are being asked Wednesday to approve supplying water and sewer to the detention center.

If they agree to provide water and sewer to the facility, I am told that Pembroke Pines gets an immediate $3 million-plus in hook up fees plus an additional $1 million annually in revenue.

That seems to me to be a no-brainer.

But then again I’m not Castillo, Schwartz and Siple, spending other peoples’ money.

You can hardly blame a 16-year-old Mitt Romney for having to resort to bullying and beating homosexual John Lauber.

It took place at Cranbrook, Romney’s exclusive prep school. If Cranbrook was anything like most of the upper-class prep schools of that era they didn’t let in any Blacks or Jews for him to torture.

For those not familiar with the story, following President Barack Obama’s announcement of support for gay marriage Romney reiterated his opposition.

He stands by his Mormon values which hold that marriage is solely between a man and a woman…and a woman….and a woman, etc.

Following up on the gay marriage debate, The Washington Post wrote a story that as a high school student Romney had led the charge to attack classmate John Lauber.

With his bleached hair and effeminate mannerisms, Lauber was suspected of being a homosexual.

While Romney’s henchmen held him down, the future GOP nominee cut his hair while a terrified Lauber cried.

Confronted by a reporter with the accusation, Romney  stated:

“I don’t remember that incident,” Romney said, laughing. “I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s, so that was not the case.”

So if I understand, he doesn’t remember thinking Lauber was a homosexual at the time of an incident that he doesn’t remember in the first place.

It’s vintage Romney and it is a lie.  Absent Alzheimer’s, the only reason you would forget this particular act was because there were so many others like it.

Unlike Mitt, some are now coming forward to admit their shame.  One, Phillip Maxwell, vividly described their posse as “a pack of dogs”.

As for his contention that homosexuality “…was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960’s…” that his next lie.

I am a contemporary of Romney and he is correct we did not talk about “gays” or “homosexuals”.

The Anti-Gay Era

No, we talked about “queers”, “queerbaits”, “homos”, “happy homos”, fags, faggots, etc.

And we knew who they were.  At least we thought we knew who they were.  Taunting them was a varsity sport that “all real men” engaged in sadly including me.

Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, Miami’s Bayfront Park was known as a place where gays hung out.  It was considered sport by some to go down there and “roll the queers”.  It was perfectly acceptable to beat them up and take their money.  It was the perfect crime because the victim would never report it.

I never engaged in that activity, but I cannot deny that I felt the need to keep my mouth shut about the injustice lest I be thought to be gay.

When I was not being taunted as a Jew, I was glad to join into the redirection of bigotry toward a different group.

Michigan was no different where Romney was a Mormon in the midst of a WASP prep school.  I strongly suspect being seen as a Mormon outsider was on in his mind.

It was not too long ago that Mormons with their polygamy and magical underwear were seen as a secretive whack job cult that make Scientologists look like mainstream Lutherans.

To avoid that kind of ostracizing, Mitt knew how to redirect the Lord Of The Flies impulses of young men toward another group….gays.

I suspect those who have said it is unfair to attack Mitt for his high school antics are some of the very same folks who have gone after Obama because of his elementary school days.

I say otherwise.

Last week Mitt Romney had a potential for a profound teaching moment about the evils of bigotry.

He could have talked about how he has grown as a human being and come to realize how profoundly hateful and hurtful this homophobic act was.  He might even have had an introspective moment regretting that he destroyed the high school experience of someone who had done him no harm.

Not wanting to offend his rightwing Christian base he punted with a phony memory lapse of an incident that the other participants vividly remember all too well.

Next month I have my 50^th high school reunion. I will be looking for the opportunity to apologize and ask the forgiveness of those I may have hurt.

Even if he wanted to, Mitt won’t have that chance.  John Lauber died in 2004 probably still wondering what he a done to earn the wrath and ridicule of Mitt Romney and his lynch mob.

John Laurer, your only crime was that you were different in a world that demanded conformity in every way possible.

It’s the fantasy hateful world Romney and conservative base want to take us back to.

Florida’s Supreme Court not only approved term limits on County Commissioners in its landmark ruling last week.

The decision was much wider than that, permitting term limits on Broward Property Appraiser, Clerk of the Court, Supervisor of Elections and Sheriff, too.   I’m not sure if it includes the State Attorney or Public Defender since they are part of the judicial branch of government.

I didn’t see that in any other media outlet.  Maybe I was wrongly interpreting the decision.

So I checked with super lawyer Bill Scherer, whose challenge to term limits ended up at the Supreme Court.

“That’s the way I read it,” Scherer said.

Two other lawyers questioned agreed with Scherer.

So far the Property Appraiser, Clerk, Supervisor of Elections and Sheriff are safe.  There is no push to expand term limits to include them.

And it is likely that if County Commissioners decide to put term limits on the ballot, it wouldn’t affect the current office holders.

Commissioners are limited to a 12-year term limit.  I doubt that Property Appraiser Lori Parrish, Clerk Howard Forman, Supervisor Brenda Snipes or Sheriff Al Lamberti will want to serve even another eight years, much less 12.

Voters would have to approve the term limits, of course. Is there any doubt they would?

The ruling can be read here.

Tim Ryan

BY BUDDY NEVINS

If an apple-a-day keeps the doctor away, Broward County Commission candidate Tim Ryan better get a bushel.

Angry over Ryan’s three-year old lawsuit against a shadowy political committee funded by the Florida Medical Association, state doctors are preparing to throw money against him in his commission race.

The lawsuit is against People for a Better Florida Fund, which spent at least $600,000 for a smear campaign against Ryan and Ken Gottlieb in the 2008 Democratic primary for state senator. FMA-supported State Sen. Eleanor Sobel won.

People for a Better Florida Fund’s money came from almost exclusively from the FMA and doctors.

Was Ryan Defamed?

In his lawsuit, Ryan alleges that the group defamed him by falsely advertising that he made a “shady” land deal with the town of Davie.

Ryan’s lawyer is a legal pit bull — former state Sen. Skip Campbell.  During three years of discovery,  Campbell has exposed just how these political committees work.

Revealing depositions show that the group’s political consultant also worked for Sobel.  The group’s deputy treasurer is also executive vice president of the FMA.

Apparently some in the medical profession prefer to keep their political work private.  “They are agitated about the suit,” said a well-placed source familiar with Tallahassee and Broward campaigns.

Running for the open seat, which winds from south Fort Lauderdale to eastern Davie, Ryan said he anticipated a backlash from doctors.

“If you base your decisions on what people may throw at you, you can’t be in public life and run for office,” Ryan said.

I find Ryan’s lawsuit fascinating.

The legal protection for political speech is generous. The key question in this lawsuit is whether that protection includes telling lies about a candidate.

The suit will hinge on whether the committee “recklessly disregarded” the truth when it printed falsehood in its ads.

“The ad said, ‘Check the facts,’” Ryan said. “They didn’t even do that.”

I’m happy someone is going after one of these shadowy committees. I wish it would happen more often.  The consultants who have made these committees an odious part of political life should be held responsible if they lie.

        Campaign Continues

Meanwhile, Ryan isn’t letting the threat from doctors distract him from campaigning.  He is going door-to-door in Fort Lauderdale, the base of his two major opponents – Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom and former County Commissioner Ken Keechl.

Ryan held a meet-and-greet this week at political consultant Judy Stern’s Las Olas Boulevard office.

Stern was working on state Rep. Evan Jenne’s campaign for the same seat. When Jenne dropped out, she switched her allegiance.

Stern is controversial.

However, I’ve never heard anybody say she doesn’t work hard in a campaign.  With fewer than 9,000 expected to vote in the Democratic primary in mid-August, it is the hard work of meeting as many individual voters as possible that will win the race.

Unless, of course, thousands of dollars in doctors money pours in and changes the equation.

Big Sugar, state gambling interests and Tallahassee lobbyists usually aren’t interested in the Broward County School Board.

This time around they are because one of their pals is running:  Franklin Sands.

Special interests with no obvious connections to the School Board poured thousands into Sands’ School Board campaign.  They were not particularly concerned whether Johnny or Jill in Broward learn.  They were interested in Sands’ vote in the Legislature in the last session as a Democratic state representative from Weston.

How else can you explain $500 check after check from businesses like North Florida Racing in Jacksonville, a dog track?

Hey, Franklin aren’t kennel clubs controversial with animal rights folks and others who love dogs?

Franklin Sands: Lobbyists’ Friend

Korn has raised only $6,150.  Sands has raised $41,366.  Luciani raised nothing, just like in his last School Board bid.

I counted roughly 10 percent of Sands’ $41,366 in contributions from gaming interests.  I probably missed some.

And what about Big Sugar? When they were not dumping chemicals into Florida wetlands they were dumping $500 checks into Sands’ campaign.

There was at least $1,500 from Clewiston-based sugar interests in December and $1,000 in March from another Palm Beach County sugar business.

At least another $7,200 are from Tallahassee lobbyists or their families.

His campaign coffers are filled with lots of other special interest money — $2,000 from Southern Wine & Spirits and subsidiaries;  $500 from the Florida Podiatry PAC; $250 from a chiropractor PAC  and $500 from Dosal Tobacco; $1,000 from the Florida Panthers and the arena; $500 from the Florida Medical Association; $500 from the Communications Workers of America; $500 from a trial lawyer’s PAC; $500 from a time share industry PAC…it goes on and on.

You get the gist.

Republican State Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff may have been thrown into a district that is heavily Democratic, but a Palm Beach County business group contended a poll shows her ahead.

According to The Business Political Action Committee of Palm Beach County website, a recent poll puts Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale running 7 percentage points ahead of Democratic State Sen. Maria Sachs of Boca Raton.

The results were Bogdanoff 34 percent, Sachs 27 percent and 39 percent undecided.  The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Bogdanoff and Sachs were put in the same Broward-Palm Beach Counties District 34 during reapportionment.

Since it is very early in the process and BIZPAC offers no real details about the poll in its threadbare story here, I wouldn’t start buying the balloons for the Bogdanoff victory party yet.

The Queen Is Dead

BY BUDDY NEVINS

It was only when they deposed The Queen did The People save money.

Broward County commissioners Tuesday for the first time in decades approved real competition for garbage disposal rates.

But before commissioners could make this taxpayer-friendly decision, they had to topple the county’s Queen of Garbage, fellow Commissioner Ilene Lieberman.

In the future, cities will have a choice between two companies – Wheelabrator Technologies and Sun/Bergeron – for garbage disposal. Or cities could pick any other company — Choice Environmental Services, Waste Systems of Florida and Republic Services have already shown interest in Broward’s waste.

It is expected to lower the cost for homeowners and businesses.

When competition was first suggested, The Queen was displeased. She wanted to continue Wheelabrator’s decades-long monopoly for another 20 years.

Lieberman got her nickname The Queen of Garbage because she reigned over the county’s garbage policy for years. The other eight commissioners deferred to her because, after all, studying and mastering waste disposal is a whole lot of boring garbage.

With the disposal contract expiring next year, Lieberman fought to extend the county’s marriage with Wheelabrator.

Commissioners balked.  They finally killed Lieberman’s idea, but it took foreeeever.

On Tuesday, commissioners finally buried the Wheelabrator monopoly starting when the contract expires next year. Commissioners expect disposal prices to drop 20-30 percent and much of this savings will be passed on to the public.

Broward Mayor John Rodstrom was in a fighting mood and wanted the public to know why it took commissioners so long.

Rodstrom told Browardbeat.com he wasn’t referring to Lieberman.  Since she was almost totally running the county’s garbage policy for years, you can be the judge.

Rodstrom couched his barbs by using the pronoun, “We.”

But it appeared to me — although he denied it — who he was talking about.

“We have not had leadership on this issue,” he huffed.

“We were not ever driving this train,” he puffed.

“We are (now) asserting ourselves as the leader of solid waste in this county,” he blew Lieberman’s house down. Or her castle.

The Queen is dead.  Long live the new Queen – competition.

How much is your garbage worth to two businesses?

Enough to flood the Broward County Commission yesterday with lobbyists in an attempt to influence Tuesday’s scheduled vote on who will get a disposal contract.

Thousands of dollars worth of lobbying fees spent in just one day!

This is just the latest chapter in the attempt by Sun/Bergeron to smash Wheelabrator Technologies’ decades-long monopoly on solid waste disposal.

Sun/Bergeron is a joint venture between Southern Waste Systems and entrepreneur Ron Bergeron. Wheelabrator is a subsidiary of the international garbage titan, Waste Management.

Businessman Ron Bergeron and his lobbyist girlfriend Ali Waldman in last-minute push for garbage contract

So both sides have plenty of money to spend on this fight over a contract that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Today’s electronic sign-in list at the Government Center is below.  There are other folks, like Sheriff Al Lamberti, who did get to see commissioners today.

But most of those signing in were involved in the garbage fight.

Commissioners have been lobbied heavily for over a year by some of the highest paid lobbyists along the Gold Coast.  They include Broward Democratic State Committeeman Mike Moskowitz, who works for Waste Management and is not on today’s sign on sheet.

Democratic State Committeeman Mike Moskowitz lobbying for Waste Management 

So here is today’s lobbying you are paying for in your garbage bills: