He calls it the "City of Oz," and it's so large that Cohen is promising the development will create 13,478 new jobs. Here's the way he promotes the development on the Oz website:
"It's sunrise, and a fresh-baked scone beckons at the French bakery right outside your door. Your coffee is perfect because it is prepared by a local who knows you by name. Just a few feet from your residence is your office, and your commute is a stroll, no bus, no car, no taxi, no train. You will pass friends along the way. They will smile, wave and say hello... Tonight you might take in a Broadway show, or a professional hockey game or concert at the arena just around the corner. Your seats will be just where you like them, thanks to your resident concierge. Late night is every night in Oz, with sidewalk cafes, clubs, restaurants, bistros and even fitness clubs operating on your schedule. In Oz, the shopping is right at your doorstep."
Cohen has a vision, see?
And the money Cohen — who has recently been wining and dining county commissioners to push the project — has thrown into the political process virtually assures that it will be passed in Sunrise with the help of Wishner and Rosen. The cash says so.
What will be interesting will be to see how many breaks the commission gives Cohen if the project goes forward. This giant development will stretch the Sunrise infrastructure and will carry a lot of business risk. How much of that will taxpayers subsidize? That's an answer we don't have yet, but the campaign money provides a rather daunting clue.
Also on Liberty and Justice for All's contribution list is $5,000 from a much less glamorous source — an upstart garbage company called Ace Waste Resources. The owner of that firm is Jim Feeley, a longtime friend of Mayor Wishner's.
Feeley has a plan to build a garbage transfer station where trucks from all over South Florida will bring tons of garbage. The problem is that a garbage transfer station will do nothing for the citizens of Sunrise because the company that has the garbage contract with the city, Republic Industries, takes the refuse to a county incinerator.
Also, the current Republic contract forbids such a deal from taking place. I asked Republic Industries area president Bob Hely about the plan.
"I know [Feeley] has something in the works, but it's abstract right now," he said. "I don't have the details."
You can bet, though, that Wishner and Rosen are going to be following Feeley's lead, even if it means a lot of out-of-town garbage being hauled into Sunrise.
Another $5,000 came from companies controlled by developer Terry Stiles. What's interesting about these contributions is that they came a month after Wishner and Rosen voted to give Stiles Corp. the job to build the city's new $30 million public safety complex.
See how creative these guys can get? Most of the time, the contribution comes before the politicians provide the vote. Well, actually the builder contributed to the individual campaign war chests of Wishner and Rosen before the vote, so it was sort of a Stiles money sandwich. And it must have been delicious.
Others gave money to Liberty and Justice for All. Usual suspect Austin Forman chipped in $2,000. Lobbyist Neil Sterling threw in $500. Lobbyist Bill Laystrom and his law firm, Doumar Allsworth, chipped in $4,000.
And another ECO called the Common Sense Coalition gave Liberty and Justice for All nearly $15,000. That's right, one shady slush fund got a lift from another. The Common Sense Coalition was an ECO financed largely by members of the Fort Lauderdale law firm of Rothstein Rosenfeldt and Adler to produce attack ads against Sheriff Al Lamberti during his recent election.
Interestingly, folks connected to the same law firm — run by everywhere-man Scott Rothstein — were behind another ECO formed to attack Lamberti's opponents. Rothstein, a Republican, officially supported Lamberti.
Which brings us to another prediction for the future: There will be plenty more sleazy ECOs operating in Broward County, and each will have a story to tell.
Contact the author:
Bob.Norman@BrowardPalmBeach.com.
