Toss Out Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick, Not Ethics Law
BY BUDDY NEVINS
It’s time for Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick to leave politics.
Gary Resnick from campaign literature of his opponent
The reason?
His pathetic attempt to overturn the county’s ethics law in his city. It’s on tomorrow’s ballot.
I think he is motivated by naked self interest: He is a lawyer who told Mike Mayo in the Sun-Sentinel that he sometimes lobbies Broward cities.
Oh, he doesn’t call it lobbying. He calls it representing a client in front of government. Using Resnick’s definition, there are almost no lobbyists since most are lawyers representing clients.
Regardless, Resnick would be forbidden to lobby in Broward under the new law.
Now I don’t want to cost anybody his livelihood. So I’ve got a better idea for Resnick: Quit.
Resnick told Mayo that the new law would result in a lot of “very good, qualified elected officials” leaving. I say if the reason they are leaving is they can’t lobby their buddies on other city commissions, good riddance.
Nobody needs ethics laws more than city officials. It is always helpful to remember that State Attorney Mike Satz has prosecuted more city officials than County Commissioners and School Board member combined.
City Halls, which have largely been abandoned by the financially beleaguered media, are filled with special interest dealing.
Resnick engineered tomorrow’s referendum to throw out the ethics law in Wilton Manors. Of course, the language of the ballot question is highly misleading and makes it look like voters are just ratifying the state’s ethics law. No mention of replacing the county law with the weaker state law.
Isn’t the ballot language what we would expect from a lawyer who has a self interest in seeing the law tossed out?
The one who should be tossed out is Gary Resnick.
January 30th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Mayor Resnick’s problem is that he needs Florida to adopt gay marriage. If they did he could simply have his husband keep his maiden name and rake in the cash like Ritter & Lieberman. With some luck he could even get a golf cart for his husband.
January 30th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Resnick is with Grey Robinson which is a Republican law firm. He represents the cable industry. A Democratic city like Wilton Manors voting for Resnick is not right.
January 30th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
This is not rocket science. Mayor Resnick quite simply pick one. Either you want to be Mayor or a lobbyist. You are not getting to do both. Pick one. I mean really Mayor resnick? Really? Ethics rules and reg. are good for everyone else but you. Had a nice discussion about you w/ the Inspector Gen. Off. the other day. We are going to grill your ass until we see smoke. (legally speaking). Talk about a wench…
January 30th, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Buddy Check your math!!!!!! Put the Resnick issue aside as it is seperate and apart from prosecuting corrupt elected’s. The Mayor isn’t doing anything corrupt or illegal.
By my count 10 City elected’s have been charged or convicted and this is by my count so I may have missed one or two. Please excuse the misspellings that follow, but: Wasserstrom, Gonot, Cappellini, Poitier, Salesman, Talabisco, Grad, Boccard, Powers, Sultanof, ??? Now you have to drop out Powers and Boccard because the State’s case was so poor they never made it to a jury. We’ll count Salesman, but the Feds nabbed him, not Satz and Sultanof died an innocent man, but I’ll leave him in because it helps Satz’s numbers.Poitier should only count for a half because politically motivated misdemeanors are less than remarkable, but again we’ll count them because it helps his cause.
On the County Commission we’ve lost Egelition and Wasserman Rubin, again the Feds got Joey Eggs, but I’m sure Satz played a role.
On the School Board we’ve lost Gallahger and Kraft, again with the Feds and giving some credit to Satz.
This is my point, 22% (2 of 9)of the sitting County Commission and the same percentage of those elected School Board reps were outed from office on corruption charges. Less than 5% of the 31 citys’ electeds (8 of 170+) have been charged or found guilty. It’s realy 7 because Sultanof’s dead and therefore innocent, but who’s counting. As a percentage, the School Board and the County Commission would appear to be far more corrupt than the 31 Cities throught Broward County. I admit to have missed a few of the guilty, but as a percentage a few more don’t change the numbers. I don’t remember what happened to the Mayor from Parkland and I’m not sure how you count Bob Levy, if he’s charged as the City Administrator does that count towards electeds as well because of his role in Plantation?
FROM BUDDY:
First of all, I didn’t put a time on my comment. There were many others if you go back a few years.
Second, you made my case. More city officials have been prosecuted by Satz than County Commissioners and School Board members combined. You used percentages. I used pure numbers.
Regardless, I believe we would both agree that one is too many which is why we need the toughest ethics law possible.
Also, Resnick wouldn’t have to quit. My understanding is that he would be grandfathered in until he ran again.
January 31st, 2012 at 6:56 am
Buddy, I do agree with you! One is too many and Resnick’s issue is his own problem.
But I disagree with you when you insinuate that City Officials are corrupt, yes more have been prosecuted, but their are 20X the number of City Officials than County Commissioners or School Board members. Both the School Board and the County Commission are corrupt at a much higher percentage. Saying: “Nobody needs ethics laws more than City Officials” is really missing the point. It’s a small group of people that cause most of the problems in this County and everbody knows who they are and no one going to do anything about it beause of fear, etc… Ethics ordinances, IG’s, etc…aren’t going to solve any of this!
January 31st, 2012 at 10:25 am
When an elected is a lobbyist, are they hired to be a lobbyist because they are an elected?
Do they have better access to other electeds in other cities?
Do they get better treatment when appear in other city halls? Do the other competing interests think to themselves, what chance do we have because that company hired a fellow elected?
Do they get more deference when talk to a council at a meeting?
Do they get greeted by their title?
Wonder if those city councils think, what if I vote against this, will she/he give me ahard time on something else in their city or something we share as a mutual concern? What if the lobbyist/elected is from next door city? Dont they have issues of mutual concern?
Just seems so much easier to avoid being a lobbyist and an elected.
January 31st, 2012 at 1:19 pm
We must really be looking for something to bitch about. There is an argument on which political group has higher numbers of being guilty of corruption or even being charge with corruption?
We’ve got too much corruption. period. Doesn’t matter where it is. the real problem is that we keep electing these people. Maybe there’s a solution in them there words!
January 31st, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Hey Buddy,
I appreciate the generous attributions, along with your sentiments, but just one clarification: Resnick never told me what he charges clients. The $700 figure you refer to is his monthly salary as Wilton Manors mayor. Mayor Resnick says that the low salary from his public office is one reason why he should be able to continue in his day job. I say he — and all public officials — have to choose, either public office or lobbying, not both.
FROM BUDDY:
Here is my real sentiment: Mike Mayo is just about the best thing the Sun-Sentinel has going for it in the news section. I love his work and everybody should read him.
Everybody should read Mayo with more comprehension than I have. He is right. I misrepresented what he wrote and I have corrected it.
January 31st, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Hey Mayo: Since you’re tuning in ponder this: you carp about County working double dipping on the election pay. Why don’t you take a minute to consider why the County employees were asked to do this in the first place. It was because after the 2000 debacle and the conversion to Russ’s voting machine the Supervisor of Elections didn’t have enough trained, competant workers and the County workers were forced into indentured servitude on election day. You should be asking the question why after 7 years those County workers are needed. Seems to me she should have had plenty of time to recruit and prepare plenty of workers. Can’t blame this one on Miriam O!
February 1st, 2012 at 6:31 am
Looks like Gollum Gunzburger really got this on wrong
HILLSBORO BEACH – ELECTED OFFICIALS EMPLOYMENT (Vote For 1)
VOTE TYPE SUMMARY
PRECINCTS REPORTING
1 of 1 Precincts Reporting
Percent Votes
YES/SI/WI 73.16% 278
NO/NO/NON 26.84% 102
380
SEA RANCH LAKES-ELECTED OFFICIALS EMPLOYMENT (Vote For 1)
VOTE TYPE SUMMARY
PRECINCTS REPORTING
1 of 1 Precincts Reporting
Percent Votes
YES/SI/WI 93.41% 156
NO/NO/NON 6.59% 11
167
WILTON MANORS 1-ELECTED OFFICIALS EMPLOYMENT (Vote For 1)
VOTE TYPE SUMMARY
PRECINCTS REPORTING
8 of 8 Precincts Reporting
Percent Votes
YES/SI/WI 66.53% 811
NO/NO/NON 33.47% 408
1,219
February 1st, 2012 at 11:58 am
@WOW: Misleading ballot language is the reason. Quite frankly, its disenheartening that 176 votes passed the ballot question in Hillsboro Beach, 145 votes passed it in Sea Ranch Lakes, and 403 votes passed it in Wilton Manors. A total of 724 votes weakened the ethics law in three municipalities that have a total of 14,177 residents (2010 US Census)
February 1st, 2012 at 3:33 pm
The county ethics law is a joke. It was intentionally poorly written by county commissioners that have never been serious about ethics. An independently appointed group of non-interested lawyers and ethicists should be tasked to write a proper law that doesn’t violate the constitution or create illegal conditions. It should be guided by national best practices and established ethics standards. We want ethics reform in Broward, not the county’s disguised unethical efforts. Be glad that three cities overturned this silly language. It wasn’t worth the paper it is written on.
February 1st, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Wrong. The BC Commissioners were not allowed to change one word of the proposed ordinance drafted by the Appointed Broward County ethic commission that drafted the ethics ordinance. They had to vote yes or no without any changes. Literarily every one of them had issues with the way it was worded especially Wexler, Rodstrom and Keechel. The only one who loved it was Gunzberger.I think they all thought that maybe they could change it later but then they were to afraid to.
February 1st, 2012 at 7:45 pm
The part that Real Deal is wrong on this one is leaving out is the appointed so called Ethics Committee members were all hand picked by the Broward County Commission.