You might wonder how I know this, so I´ll prove it to you by challenging you to find out what you know.
What follows is a short quiz. Keep in mind while you´re taking it that it´s not the questions that are really important but the answers. If you score 2 or less here, your head is in the sand.
1. Which mayor is the subject of a paternity lawsuit that alleges he fathered a child out of wedlock with a woman he began bedding when he was a teacher and she was his 16-year-old student?
A. Broward County Mayor Josephus Eggelletion.
B. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Mayor Oliver Parker.
C. Deerfield Beach Mayor Al Capellini.
D. All of the above.
2. Which law enforcement figure in Broward is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into his finances?
A. Hollywood Police Chief James Scarberry.
B. Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne.
C. Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Bruce Roberts.
D. All of the above.
3. What politician representing Hollywood was indicted for allegedly selling out his/her public office to a sewage company?
A. Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom.
B. Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti.
C. Florida Sen. Steve Geller.
D. All of the above.
4. What top court official recently announced he was giving up his position after complaints of cronyism and incompetence among the ranks?
A. Judge Larry Seidlin.
B. Judge Lawrence Korda.
C. Chief Judge Dale Ross.
D. All of the above.
5. Which city recently got rid of its manager after a racist outburst and, more recently, discovered that a public works project has secretly been bleeding millions of dollars through waste and mismanagement?
A. Deerfield Beach.
B. Hollywood.
C. Plantation.
D. All of the above.
6. Which police department was rocked recently by federal indictments of four veteran officers who were allegedly trying to be made in the Mafia?
A. City of Fort Lauderdale.
B. City of Hollywood.
C. Broward Sheriff´s Office.
D. All of the above.
7. What former politician, previously indicted on elections violations in which he fraudulently pocketed his own campaign cash, has made a public resurgence in the City of Davie?
A. Larry Smith.
B. Alcee Hastings.
C. Scott Cowan.
D. All of the above.
8. What big-money lobbyist has virtually taken over the School Board?
A. Barbara Miller.
B. Neil Sterling.
C. Jim Notter.
D. All of the above.
Answers:
1. (A) Yes, it´s Eggelletion who has the paternity problem. It´s been proven in court that he fathered a son by Angelita Sanders, who was a student of his when he was a teacher at Dillard High School. Sanders says the affair began when she was 16 and continued on and off until he fathered her child when she was 25. Oliver Parker, meanwhile, is facing a recall petition in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, and Al Capellini has recently been investigated by the State Attorney´s Office for allegations that he personally profited from his public office.
2. (B) Yes, of course, it´s Jenne, who is the subject of a long-standing federal investigation into his moonlighting with a security company and a $20,000 ¨loan¨ from a developer who does business with the sheriff´s office. There are more rumors swirling around the grand jury than around Lindsey Lohan´s nightlife. Fort Lauderdale´s Roberts, meanwhile, has a rash of police shootings to deal with: four civilians dead and six injured, many of the shootings occurring under dubious circumstances and some still under investigation. And Scarberry? Well, you´ll get a taste of what he´s been up to below.
3. (A) Wasserstrom faces two felony counts for allegedly selling out his office to Schwing Bioset, a sewage company that won a lucrative sludge treatment and hauling contract from the city two years ago. The mayor, meanwhile, is basically an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. She cheerled for Schwing even though her son Stacey was Wasserstrom´s law partner at the time and also stood to profit. And Geller, well, he´s a developer´s lobbyist and shills at every turn for the gambling industry, so I thought I´d throw his name in there for the fun of it.
4. (C) Yes, Ross is finally stepping down after 17 years running the court system. He´s been dogged by allegations of cronyism and general arrogance for years, but it was Seidlin, the weepy drama king who presided over the epic Anna Nicole Smith case, and Korda, who was caught smoking pot in a public park, who generated the necessary friction to run him out of office. We conclude with just two important words for the future: term limits.
5. (A) It´s Deerfield, and the former city manager is the infamous Larry Deetjen. Poor Larry; he´s been applying at every other city in Florida and having no luck, mostly thanks to the wonders of Google, which make his transgressions apparent at the click of a mouse. Only recently, however, did it become known that millions of dollars have been wasted on public works building in the city. If you answered Hollywood, you were probably thinking of the ArtsPark debacle, which is millions over budget. And Plantation? Well, nobody covers that city closely enough. I just know there´s waste and fraud lurking there somewhere.
6. (B) This is the most entertaining scandal of all. Four wannabe goombahs working as cops in the Hollywood Police Department get taken in by a portly undercover agent pretending to be a Mafia capo named ¨Big Jack.¨ When the FBI tells the aforementioned Chief Scarberry about it, he blabs to half of his command staff. Naturally, somebody leaks the news to the culprits and the investigation is blown. The FBI starts an investigation into the leak, but Scarberry swears that nobody in his department talked. Of course, he was wrong. The leaker turned out to be a female officer named Tammy Clyde who learned about it from a lieutenant named Charles Roberts who learned about it from a major named Frank McGarry. Roberts was recently indicted for lying to the feds.
7. (C) Good old Cowan, who once controlled the County Commission through his knack for shrewd political maneuvering, is now working as a lobbyist, mostly in Davie and often with megalobbyist and longtime friend Ron Book. Most recently, he helped kill the campaign of Davie commission candidate Phil Busey by spreading false reports that Busey was a pornographer. Larry Smith, the former congressman convicted of tax fraud, is also happily back in the lobbying game, and Hastings, who was impeached as a judge after a bribery scandal, is now a veteran congressman himself.
8. (D) C´mon, you didn´t think I was going to put in those ¨All of the aboves¨ without one of them being a winner, did you? Well, it´s almost true, anyway. What is indisputable fact is that Sterling and Miller, who are partners, have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the current slate of School Board members and helped manage several of their campaigns. Sterling, who represents school builder James Pirtle and consultant Bernard Zyscovich, has an even closer tie to board member Beverly Gallagher than most he arranged for her to get a lucrative job at a blood bank he represents at the School Board. So where does Notter fit into this? Well, he´s the guy the board is going to vote in as superintendent without conducting the promised national search. Notter has a reputation for being extremely friendly with the lobbyists and other wheeler-dealers who prey upon the board. Some say he flies in the same flock (or drives his Corvette in the same flock, anyway). With guys like Notter coming into power, it´s a safe bet that, in terms of what the board does best, next year will be just as eventful as the last.
Does your IQ pass the test? How you did (based on the number of correct answers):
0-2: You are an empathetic mugwump. But don´t worry; that only means you are an average South Floridian who fits right in.
3-6: Congratulations, you are obviously literate and have used your ambulatory skills to occasionally pick up a newspaper during the past year. In other words, you´re the cream of the Broward crop.
7-8: You´re knowledge is such that you should be rich. Run for office or register as a lobbyist today!
