Ritter’s Husband Shared Lobbying Client With Ilene Lieberman
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter and County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman are best friends.
They share meals. They share fashion tips.
And their families share lobbying clients.
While Ritter’s husband Russ Klenet was lobbying for Fort Lauderdale dialysis tycoon Mark Ginsburg, so was Lieberman.
It’s more evidence of the entanglements between lobbyists and Broward County commissioners.
Two articles in The Miami Herald April 19, 1998 and May 14, 2002 identify Lieberman as a lobbyist for Ginsburg’s clinic.
But excuse me.
It wasn’t Ilene Lieberman lobbying for Ginsburg’s clinic. It was Ilene Michelson, because she used her married name in Tallahassee.
Strange.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Broward County needs strong ethics laws right now aimed at the county commission.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:47 am
I just read Sam Fields post on this blog. He is right. Public officials like Lieberman should be forbidden from lobbying.
January 31st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
We must have term limits to get rid of these lifetime politicians.
Lieberman has been in office for more than 12 years and no doubt will stay until we are all old and gray. She and the rest of the commission need to leave and make room for newcomers. Honest newcomers. Not one like Ritter, who is nothing but a younger version of Lieberman.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:42 am
Ritter+Lieberman+Gunzburger=Corruption.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:04 am
It seems to me that there are two different issues here. One is the ethics of Lieberman being a paid lobbyist while serving as a sitting commissioner. The other is Lieberman and Ritter’s husband being hired by the same firm to lobby.
I don’t like elected officials serving as paid lobbyists, and I would like to see that put to an end, but I think it’s stretching the point to assume that the second issue is somehow an automatic conflict of interest.
Elected officials do have to live in the real world — should we be upset if two commissioners use the same bank or stock broker? The same attorney? The same gas station?
At some point I think the allegations have to be backed up with at least a modicum of evidence that something bad is happening because of the connection.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:22 am
how can we help to send Ritter to washington D.C
all of plantation
June 7th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
If anyone knows Ilene Lieberman, I do personally. She is nothing but a liar and a very manipulative person. She will hurt anyone who gets in her way, she will result in cheating, lying, and down right being nasty if things don’t go her way, even if it is illegal. She uses the system to her personal advantage, and pulls favors from many officials to where she does not follow the law the appropriate way. She even teaches her grand babies to be manipulative and disrespectful to their families and peers.