Jennifer Gollan had a nice little scoop about elected officials' travel that centered on mayors Richard Kaplan, Joy Cooper, and Frank Ortis billing hundreds of dollars to stay at a hotel for a convention in Miami -- all of about 30 miles away. Nothing earth-shattering, but a sweet daily story.
Then on the B-front there were two stories about corruption, one by Sally Kestin and Peter Franceschina and the other by columnist Michael Mayo, that tried to encapsulate the fallout o
Broward CountyOrtisWith its 150,000 population, Pembroke Pines stands to get a nice, fat slice of the $10-12 billion coming to Florida from the economic stimulus package Obama will sign into law today. How will Mayor Frank Ortis spend his Obama bills? Not on hookers nor cocaine. Not on a U2 performance at city hall. Not a space station or even a monorail. Nope, Ortis told The New York Times that the top item on his wish list is repairing the city's aging sewer lines. Booo! Monorail! Monorail! Mo
Flickr user: Patrick Henry McGinleyDodge this, Charlie!Many people who packed the Pembroke Pines City Commission chambers for a budget hearing last night were angry at political leaders they believed had failed them. Despite laying off 84 employees and outsourcing major city services, the city still faces a $27 million budget shortfall, and commissioners are considering raising property taxes to fill it.The proposed hike, coming at a time when home values have plummeted, was not exactly welco
Flickr user: clar@bellConflict? What conflict?This summer, the Juice raised ethical questions about the City of Pembroke Pines' decision to outsource its building department to a private, Fort Lauderdale-based company, Calvin, Giordano & Associates. Because the firm also handles multimillion-dollar engineering projects for
the city, it could face serious conflicts of interest when reviewing building plans by competitors or approving projects that could pad its own bottom line. But Pi
