County Report: Lauderdale Lakes Commissioners Faulted In Financial Failure

BY BUDDY NEVINS

Lauderdale Lakes commissioners “neglected to perform oversight” of city finances, causing all Broward taxpayers to have to bail them out, according to a blistering report of the county’s Inspector General.

The report was obtained and posted on Chaz Stevens’ My Acts of Sedition.  I haven’t seen it in the Sun-Sentinel yet  (No surprise.).

So you can read it yourself on Stevens’ website here.  You can download the report through a link in the third paragraph.

It portrays Lauderdale Lakes commissioners as totally out to lunch while their city went deeper and deeper into a financial hole.

In earlier report, Stevens outlined how the commissioners took full advantage of any money they could get their hands on, using it for trips and other freebees.

Now we all have to pay.

“Their lack of…oversight of city public funds has now been transformed into an additional expense for all Broward taxpayers,” the report states.

This is an outrage!  I don’t even drive in Lauderdale Lakes. Why should I pay for the clowns in that city hall?

It’s time for county commissioners to impose not just strings, but thick chains, on any money given the Lauderdale Lakes wastrels.



24 Responses to “County Report: Lauderdale Lakes Commissioners Faulted In Financial Failure”

  1. No surprise... says:

    i’m not one to ever give credit to the S.S.’s political coverage, but to be fair, this report has not been formally issued by the IG as of yet. so give Brit a bit of a break, i’m sure she’s busy working on a breaking news story on what she thinks county commissioners will be wearing at next week’s meeting.

    my vote… brown.

  2. No surprise... says:

    interesting that a non-affiliated blogger/journalist has a source that leaked this document to him, while Brit, a paid reporter for a “reputable” daily, can’t get a copy in advance (or didn’t want to write about it).

    i guess the years of publishing drivel, unsubstantiated reports, half-truths and reportage by omission is coming back to bite her in the butt..

    FROM BUDDY:

    I wouldn’t lean too much on Britt Wallman. She is a terrific reporter. She has all the instincts and is a bulldog. I worked with her and won prizes with her. I recommended she be hired so I deserve partial blame for whatever your problems are with her.

    Britt – I am told she is like everybody else there – is under tremendous pressure to turn copy (write stories). I get the impression from her stories that the paper no longer values in depth reporting, with a few exceptions like the outstanding speeding cops series.

    The Sun-Sentinel is in bankruptcy. It has an editor who is not respected by the staff. I am told this editor only cares about the bottom line. He doesn’t know or care about Broward County.

    The paper dumps way too much work on its writers and editors. There is no way to do great work when you have more and more things put on your plate.

    I don’t know what your problems are with her. They may be valid. They may be a matter of interpretation of events. She has editors. Bitch to them.

    Again, I have no reason to stick up for her. I don’t work there any more. I haven’t spoken to her in years. I still think she is a crackerjack reporter who really understand the web.

    (You know my address, Britt. You can send the check there. 🙂 )

  3. Round and round we go says:

    Did somebody say that it was the School Board that needs to be abolished?

  4. No surprise... says:

    though you won’t approve my comments, i will keep them coming.

    funny that when the report finally gets a mention in the S.S. it isn’t written by Brit, the reporter with the Broward Government “beat”. perhaps her editors realize how big of a hack she is…

    FROM BUDDY: I approved your comment. And I will continue to approve your comments, as long as you don’t libel anyone.

  5. Tamarac Talk says:

    Chaz,
    Fantastic job. How did you get this doc? I read every stinking page and cannot believe what went on in LL. Will Fain-Taylor or Tibbs be arrested or charged? What are they doing now?

  6. Chaz Stevens says:

    Brittany Wallman rocks… To think otherwise is just asinine.

    Think of it this way…

    She doesn’t come over to your job at McDonalds and bitch about how you are making the Filet O’ Fish…

    So give us all a break.

    I’ll take one Wallman over 10,000 of your anonymous comments any day of the week.

  7. Chaz Stevens, Traitor says:

    Hey Tamarac Talk;

    I have my ways…

    The story here though isn’t about 2010, it’s about 2012…

    Recently, the Vice Deputy Mayor of Lauderdale Lakes, a military veteran (if you consider two years in the military a career) by the name of Eric Haynes indicated “that anyone found helping MAOS is considered to be treasonous.

    That’s right.

    Treason.

    This moron, an elected official, obviously not too well versed with a dictionary, actually had the audacity to consider the sharing of public information as an act of treason.

    Have you ever heard in the history of mankind when a local city government accusing a private citizen of treason.

    Treason.

    Ha! I nearly snorted out my spleen in derision.

    Bite me.

    So, my dear, back to the point.

    What matters isn’t 2010, but now. Right now. Like as in the $9M the folks at LL want you and I to guarantee in payments.

    They travel on trips. The City Manager wants to spend a month in Boston. They buy $90 fountain pens and $500 worth of personal xmas cards… They make contributions to the college fraternities. All on the taxpayer dime.

    These are the stewards of the money.

    Not willing to stand by and let such activity go unchecked and in the ultimate act of so-called “treason”, I provided the following data points to the Broward County Commission…

    Treasonous Statement #1:
    We pointed out that City owed the
    County $4.2M as of 9/30/2010

    Treasonous Statement #2:
    
Oh, and let us not forget the $1.4M in Special Assessment and $1.7M in CRA cashola. Cashola… rhymes with asshola.

    Treasonous Statement #3: 

    We were audacious in pointing out the 9/30/11 debt to the County which stood at $9.2M, the CRA loan/debt/IOU/theft of $2.5M, the fact that the City did not pay BSO at the end of FY11, and the FY12 budget did not include any repayment of special assessment cash.

    Treasonous Statement #4:

    Our rudeness continued when we noted contracting problems with that lease/buyback/hosing arrangements. Not to mention it was a suck-ass deal (borrowed $10.5M, only got $8M with the consultant and contractor set to make a whopping $2.5m).

    Treasonous Statement #5:

    The City’s first quarter FY12 financial report to BC was flat out wrong- first said they had $1.2M in the General Fund that magically grew to $2.7M. MAOS believes that fund to be busted broke.

    Treasonous Statement #6:

    Our favorite bit of mutiny was when we pointed out the City indicated 2012 property tax collection of 98% collected, when only 77% was collected.

    And finally…

    Treasonous Statement #7:

    In the Feb 2012 cash flow analysis provided to the County, the General Fund showed $600,000 in cash… We took treasonous exception to the fact as moneys were consistently overstated.

  8. Undisputed Truth says:

    The reason Brittany Wallman is forced to write crap about facebook pages, what color dresses officials wear, and inside political crap that nobody cares about is that nobody trusts her. It’s not the editor, who sucks in his own right.

    Her phone doesn’t ring because she has stabbed too many already and is not trusted in Broward.

    Nevins never had that trouble. He was much tougher but always had copy for his column every Saturday morning. Why? He was fair. He could be trusted. He didn’t play games. He had some ethics. People would speak to him. Not so with Wallman.

    She is avoided. She and her husband both. Which explains her many stories about red dresses and facebook pages. Also Bob Norman’s endlessly boring diet of Rothstein retreds. Nobody trusts them.

  9. Undisputed Truth says:

    The Inspector General should get a grip on leaks in his office and not editorialize in his reports. Both rob him of credibility. He should be very careful not to come off as a politician which is the outcome when he editorializes in investigative reports. Just the facts and no leaks.

  10. Chaz Stevens, Traitor says:

    Leaks?

    Come on now…

    This is the public’s business and not the iPhone v6.

  11. Dear Truth says:

    Even better when Britt was working Lauderdale and would have dinner with the Rodstroms, never saw or have seen since her return to the county a bad word about them…

  12. TruthNotSpoken says:

    Wait a minute…When I first began reading Buddy, then Chaz, then the readers who posted, I got the impression that the City Administration and City Commissioners were totally, even criminally, negligent. But then I read the actual report and noticed that everyone who has bothered to cover this issue on this site made a very key omission. What was an obvious truth that all have chosen not to acknowledge is that at least one City of Lauderdale Lakes Commissioner had the wherewithal to suspect something was not right. Per the OIC Report, “The OIC determined that when City Commissioners did ask questions…they were misled”.

    This is highly significant especially since Chaz took the time to deride this same Commissioner for allegedly warning staff not to give Chaz information, but Chaz did not spend one sentence of his very long dissertation acknowledging that this Commissioner at least attempted to act responsibly but was sabotaged by the lies of the so-called professionals the Commissioners were paying to provide the right answers.

    Guess this is how half truths get told and substitute for a more comprehensive and fair representation of the REAL truth. Not saying the Commissioners shouldn’t have done more, but just pointing out how obvious it is that something like this could get left out of these analyses. Guess it would have softened the shock value or something. Can anyone offer a reasonable explanation?

  13. NoseBleedSeats says:

    Undisputed Truth is correct!!!! What should surprise everyone is not what is going on in Lauderdale Lakes, that is obvious. What is shocking is the new ethics czar can’t keep a confidential report confidential.He has an obligation to those of us who pay him to remain above the fray. When Chaz Stevens sup with a copy of the draft report it makes the IG look like an A**clown, as Chaz is so fond of saying!

  14. sidelines says:

    Brittany Wallman tweeted re: the OIG LL report yesterday afternoon and withing a few hours she had the write-up on her blog page w/link to report, although Chaz Stevens had it first!! I am impressed that the Broward OIG took this on, but believe they were embarrassed or shamed into doing so because of thorough ongoing reporting by Brittany starting April/May 2011. And citizens emails to DOJ attorneys in Dade. She is tenacious, and if muzzled in any way, it is by higher ups at S-S, which is why her FLL beat was switched with Scott Wyman in 2009. An occasional blog about dress/attire, haircuts, or other less serious issues is for the readers that are only concerned with the frivolous actions of the ladies on BCC.

    FROM BUDDY: Chaz sent out news releases to Brittany, Browardbeat.com and other media outlets when he posted the story.

  15. Crazy Joe Davola says:

    Every single one of them should go to jail. The role of the Commission is to review the budget and vote on it. The fact that they may have been “mislead” doesn’t exorerate them. The OIG report shows revenues from “sources that did not exist”. (“Administrative Cost Charges” “Recreation Fund”) The report went on…”described as a ‘shell game’- The City used a non existent service agreement from the CRA to claim $800,000 in Revenue from the CRA”
    If the average reader thinks Mr. Haynes is less culpable because he picked up on some of this- they are wrong. The fact that he KNEW and still “supported the proposed budget” is WORSE! Additionally, Mr. Haynes knew that his City was in a grave position and still chose to ignore the proposal for police and fire services from Lauderhill that would have saved the City MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!

    I guess for Mr. Haynes and the rest of the LL commission paying nothing on a high priced contract with BSO is cheaper than paying a deeply discounted rate to a neighboring City.

  16. Aletheia Drakos says:

    I have no problem with the OIG Report getting out. If it’s complete and accurate, we need to see it, regardless of who delivers it to us. I have been frustrated myself with the Sun-Sentinel’s lack of coverage about the dirty dealings in Lauderdale Lakes. Chaz is 100% correct that the worst is yet to come. We know what happened under CM Taylor but the new sleazy clown who inherited the job, Jonathan Allen, has pushed the Ponzi Scheme into overdrive…continuing to tap restricted funds, falsifying cash flow reports, hiring incompetents, spending City dollars on worthless out of State conferences to pad his resume and violating public records request laws. Stay tuned for Chapter 2!

  17. Chaz Stevens, Traitor says:

    And when you read report #2, you keep thinking to yourself how responsibly these folks are acting…

    You keep thinking that…

    At the moment, you are looking at this story thru a motel room door peephole.

  18. Chaz Stevens, Traitor says:

    What I find highly significant is the close personal relationship between Commissioner A (Haynes) and City Manager Jonathan Allen. A relationship that dates back to their college days.

    The issue here is divided into two parts. The crap that happened under Taylor and the crap that continues under Allen.

    Taylor took money from the CRA to pay bills. Allen’s taken money from other special assessment funds to pay bills. Both broke Florida law and hide their actions. What is the difference?

    Both Taylor and Allen have horrid HR skills.

    Taylor furlowed 21 folks, 17 of them white. Allen seemed to have crossed the fraternization line.
    Allen also replaced Tibbs with a woman woefully unprepared for the job. Her only qualification? She was a member of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators.

    But a CPA? Nope. Forensic accounting experience? Nope. Certified? Nope.

    However, once on the job, she did ask Lori Parrish to give a workshop on tax collection? As she had no idea how that worked.

    Beautiful! Magnificent!

    The city’s dire straights stem from tax roll problems and the lady handpicked by Allen has no clue…

    What’s next Mr. City Manager? Going to replace the Chief of Police with the Hamburgler?

    In the end, Allen and his cronies will have a much more difficult time trying to foist this turd sandwich on all of us.

    With the spotlight now blazing on them, I expect the cockroaches to start scurrying away in panic.

    It’s already happening. A couple weeks ago, Allen and Haynes wanted the County to guarantee $9M in BSO payments.

    MAOS countered with a non-stop flurry of factual rebuttals to the City’s intentionally misleading financials reports and statements.

    The County’s response? Here’s three months.

    The OIG’s response? Their upcoming second report about LL. And when that comes out, bump it up against MAOS’ reporting and the numbers provided by Allen and Haynes.

    Care to wager who was telling the truth?

    One last point about significance.

    Significant to me is Haynes using precious taxpayer money to pay his college fraternity membership dues.

    That’s significant. And telling. And a dirt bag move.

  19. Aletheia Drakos says:

    To TruthNotSpoken:

    You are correct that in the OIG Report it appears that Commissioner A (Eric Haynes) voiced his concerns about the City’s revenue projections, however, you need to view all of his actions (or lack thereof) in context.

    Two years ago at a City Commission workshop, Haynes advised his colleagues not to pay BSO for their services when he learned of the City’s massive debt. This was his strategy. Not to call for outside help or replace the City’s management team.

    Haynes went before the County Commission seeking the City’s first bailout money and revealed that he and his colleagues were victims of a “Ponzi Scheme” perpetratred by the former CM, Anita Taylor. After firing her, he then pushed for and supported the installation of his former fraternity brother from FAMU, Jonathan Allen, as the City’s new CM. With a “wink and a nod” the unethical Allen was directed to save the City, regardless of what he had to do. The books are continuing to be cooked, cash flow reports inflated, public records requests are being ignored and incompetents and friends are being hired. In the meantime, Haynes does nothing.

    Haynes could have voted not to support the City’s budget when he didn’t receive an adequate response about the revenue projections. He could have voted to bring in an outside firm (like Weston and West Park) to oversee the City’s management and operations when everything began falling apart. Most importantly, he could have pushed to remove all individuals who were reponsible for the City’s fiscal woes,overspending and questionable practices, including his buddies, and established real credibility and integrity within the community and County.

    Haynes will try to hang his hat on the fact that he noticed that some of the revenue projections were not on track, to save his badly damaged reputation…but don’t you believe it. He is a major part of the problem at LL and as corrupt as his new CM!

    Oh yeah…and he doesn’t like treasonous behavior by investigative journalists!

  20. Undisputed Truth says:

    This is entitled “preliminary report.” It is not listed on the Broward OIG website. That suggests it is not ready for public consumption. It suggests that there may be changes to the document. It suggests that it was issued possibly to those affected so they could express their side of the story better and that information taken into account in the final report. It suggests many things. It is not a final report.

    I do not know how much if any of it will change as it evolves from preliminary to final report. I do know that making judgments on a preliminary report is dangerous business. It is prejudicial. Such a document is not ready for public consumption. Nobody suggests that the public should be denied information. I am suggesting that the information given be factual, reliable and unbiased.

    We make too many knee jerk decisions and this should worry us. For all I know the final report will be exactly the same as the one posted above. However a preliminary report if leaked is not ready for prime time discussion and it is prejudicial to suggest otherwise.

  21. Good Work Chaz says:

    Congrats to Chaz… but first it was Sylvia Poitier & now it’s LL… I hope it’s just coincidental that the Chaz targets are all African-American so far. Bob Norman doesn’t seem to be watching Mitch Sleazer at all any more… maybe Chaz can do a story there?

  22. Bob Who? says:

    Bob who? Norman? Norman Bramen? Who is Bob Norman? Oh the guy on channel 10 who has the same 4 people comment on his blog.

    Big bad Bob who the mere mention of his name sent people in convulsions. No life after Jen Jen and beating Rothstien like a dead horse.

    This guy exposed more dirty dealings of Judy Stern and then recently does two kiss ass interviews with her and her daughter. The same woman who was rumored to fuel the rumors all over town Bob was stepping out with Alu all because he went after Eggelletion. Bob did you bring the rugula to the interview?

    CHaz and Buddy keep up the good work.

  23. Chaz Stevens, Traitor says:

    My record is

    Filed complaint that sent Al Capellini to jail. He is white.

    Filed complaint that landed Steve Gonot in jail. Steve be white.

    Soon, very soon, you will all learn of my work busting the badniks at the DBHA. Mixed bag of skin tones.

    I go where corruption is. I never once consider race.

    I am a card carrying member of the ACLU and NAACP.

    PS I am a white guy.

  24. Get informed says:

    The law requires the OIG to give out the preliminary report to a bunch of people for response. If those people decide to post it on a billboard, there is nothing the OIG can do about that. This probably won’t be the last time we hear about a preliminary report, I read about them all the time in the Herald with the Miami OIG.
    As for LL, I hope the residents decide to get vocal, otherwise, it will remain business as usual.