He’s Baaaaack! Former Mayor A Member of Broward’s New Lobbying Team
BY BUDDY NEVINS
A lobbyist with a solid Broward political pedigree has been picked as one of the team representing Broward County during the upcoming session – Ron Greenstein.
Greenstein was the mayor and vice mayor of Coconut Creek from 1988 to 1998. He represented north Broward in the Florida House from 1998 to 2006.
Ron Greenstein, in the Florida House
Even before he was elected to the city commission, politics was in Greenstein’s blood. He learned it from his mother — the late fabled political powerhouse Tillie Rothstein.*
A Democratic activist in Brooklyn, Tillie Rothstein moved to Broward and quickly became a key political insider. By the 1980s, Tilllie Rothstein was thought to control well over 1,000 votes as the president of the West Broward Democratic Club. In that role, she was one of the first in Broward to marshal the power of the condominiums in elections.
“She could go both to Bob Butterworth [Florida attorney general) and Bob Graham [former Florida governor and now U.S. senator) and say, `Bob,’ in a small, charming voice [and ask for a favor),” Ron Greenstein told me in 1998, the year his mother died. “It was hard to say no to my mom.”
Now Greenstein will help handle Broward’s issues in Tallahassee during the 2015 legislative session for Anfield Consulting, one of six firms chosen this week to lobby for Broward.
During the July-September period, Greenstein reported an income of between $1 and $49,000 for five clients, including two from Broward — the City of Coconut Creek and Sunrise Sports and Entertainment at the hockey arena.
The other firms picked to lobby for Broward include the durable Dave Ericks and his daughter Candice Ericks. Dave Ericks, who at the beginning of his career was a Plantation police officer, has been Broward’s lobbyist in Tallahassee for two decades.
Ron Book, another longtime voice for Broward, is on the lobbying team.
Former Broward County Commissioner Jim Scott is a lobbyist for Broward once again. He was the first modern-day Republican to be Florida Senate president for a full two-year term, 1994-96.
The county commission and the lobbyists still are negotiating how much each will get paid.
(*A reader noted that Tillie Greenstein was known as Tillie Rothstein at the time of her death. Her first husband, Nat Greenstein, died in 1980. She remarried Mike Rothstein and took his last name in the 1980s. So during her political career in Broward, she was known by both names.)
December 11th, 2014 at 7:05 pm
Gonifs all.
December 12th, 2014 at 5:28 am
I have had direct / public exchanges with this guy when he was a hack on the now defunct Broward County Resource Recovery Board…..
I.Lieberman was the Chair of that Board (which was made up of political hacks who knew nothing of trash disposal, recycling,engineering etc. so the whole thing was fu**ed up).
Greenstein struck me as not being very bright and Lieberman was even more dumb.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel when speaking with them at one of the Boards meetings.
December 12th, 2014 at 9:42 am
I don’t know Ron Greenstein. I did know Tillie, a wonderful woman who got a great deal accomplished by old fashioned political wrangling and horse trading. I wish Washington had more like Tillie. Maybe something would get done.
December 12th, 2014 at 9:44 am
Is he up to the task without Ilene Lieberman whispering in his ear? Greenstein was always in the shadow of Lieberman. She got him a job as the county’s Resource Recovery director. In return, he did everything she wanted so in the end, she both ran the commission and ran the administration. With Lieberman gone, who will tell him what to do?