North Broward Hospital District

Fort Lauderdale Streetcar a Terrible Idea, Cato Institute Says

Last month, the Department of Transportation announced that it will fork over an $18 million TIGER grant for the first phase of Fort Lauderdale's proposed Wave Streetcar. The plan, which city officials have been molding since 2004, features a 10-station, 2.7-mile trolley-like system intended to shut ... More >>

[UPDATED] Timing of Broward Health Proposal Raises Questions About CEO's Motive

From BrowardHealth.orgFrank Nask​The pending changes at the North Broward Hospital District have been advertised as a way to make the hospitals more profitable and adaptable in the era after health-care reform. But a far more recent news event may have played a bigger role in the move: Florida's R ... More >>

Activist's Carrot Top Impression "Failed to Amuse" Hospital District Board

deGroot: An ornery ol' cuss.​If 72-year-old former Sun-Sentinel scribe John deGroot truly has a "humongous allergy to bullshit," as he claims on his eponymous blog, then he ought to have known not to attend yesterday's public hearing about the North Broward Hospital District's proposal to convert ... More >>

Broward Health Commissioner Says System Will Be Less Political as a Nonprofit

browardhealth.orgCommissioner Richard Paul-Hus​If the North Broward Hospital District follows through on plans to lease its assets to a nonprofit organization, then it will "take the politics out" of managing that public hospital district, according to Commissioner Richard Paul-Hus, who responded ... More >>

Whistleblowers Like This One Needed to Clean Up South Florida Health-Care Industry

Flickr: Cine FanaticoAs Matt Damon proves, executive informants are glamorous! (The mustache is encouraged but not required.)​South Florida is arguably the health-care fraud capital of the U.S. There's so much fraud, it's hard to blame the crook who reasons that stealing merely a million dollars w ... More >>

Former Broward Health CEO Now Wrestling With Public Health Effects of Massive Oil Spill

Photo: Louisiana DHHLevine​Looks like Alan Levine has managed to find a job that's tougher than the one he had managing the North Broward Hospital District. The former Broward Health CEO left the district in December 2007 to become the secretary of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals, w ... More >>

Pompano City Manager Making Changes Following Corruption Charge Against City Official

Photo: City of Pompano BeachDennis Beach​Dennis Beach, city manager of Pompano Beach, wants to put prospective volunteers through a more rigorous training course before allowing them to volunteer on city committees. He hopes that it will help to prevent arrests like the one that occurred Monday, w ... More >>

Seal Clubbing: Broward Health Attorneys Threaten Blogger

Flickr​John DeGroot's eponymous blog has been threatened with legal action over his use of the district's corporate seal. In a letter emailed Wednesday, an attorney for the North Broward Hospital District ordered DeGroot to stop using the nonprofit corporation's logo and remove the image from his ... More >>

A Bad Time to Be Charlie's Frat Brother

Crist and his Delta Lambda brothers.​It used to be the best gravy train on the tracks: If you were a frat brother of Charlie Crist at Florida State, you could practically name your job. Harry Sargeant landed a prestigious gig as the finance chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. Crist appoin ... More >>

[UPDATED] Commissioner Targets Inflated Salaries, Cronyism at Health Care District

A week after he disclosed his intention to fire the North Broward Hospital District CEO Frank Nask, Commissioner Robert Bernstein is now demanding to know how a Nask associate is being paid roughly twice what that position paid just four years ago.browardhealth.orgDeborah Breen​That associate is D ... More >>

Source: Broward Health Commissioners to Skip Meeting in Maneuver to Save CEO

browardhealth.orgFernandez​Citing "unnamed sources" in the North Broward Hospital District, Commissioner Robert Bernstein has told Juice that two of his colleagues -- Commissioners Joseph Cobo and Mike Fernandez -- will not attend the district's January 27 meeting and that their likely motive is t ... More >>

Broward Health Commissioner Explains Reasons for Wanting to Terminate Hospital CEO

browardhealth.orgBernstein​Later this month, when North Broward Hospital District Commissioner Robert Bernstein makes his case to the board for firing CEO Frank Nask, it'll be based on these grounds:that Nask's lack of hospital operations experience has made him use poor judgment in deciding what ... More >>

Roger Stone: Judicial Nominee Was "Fixture" at Rothstein Parties

Flickr: estacey718Roger Stone, in a photo that ran with his profile in last year's New Yorker.​Roger Stone, the battle-scarred political operative once employed by Scott Rothstein, told Juice today that Spencer Levine had been a regular at Rothstein parties before Levine received a coveted appoint ... More >>

Bar Complaint Against Hospital District Attorney Dismissed

The Florida Bar Association has ruled that Sam Goren, acting general counsel of the North Broward Hospital District, did not act incompetently or violate professional ethics standards in giving advice to the board, which led to the firing of the district's two lead attorneys and the hiring of Goren' ... More >>

A Couple Million Dollars in Cost-Cutting Not Enough to Keep Former Broward Health Attorney in Job

Laura Seidman​Documents recently made available by the North Broward Hospital District show that former general counsel Laura Seidman made major improvements to a legal department that -- by some indications -- had been full of cronyism and waste under attorney Bill Scherer. The most striking exam ... More >>

Blind Faith in Attorney Raises Questions at Ethics-Plagued Hospital District

It sure sounds like a nice gesture: Attorney Sam Goren's Fort Lauderdale firm gives pro bono legal work to the Broward League of Cities, the nonprofit organization through which the county's 31 municipal governments collaborate and work toward state and federal policies that serve their collective g ... More >>

Ex-Broward Health Attorney Suspects Excessive Billing by Current Attorney

Joe Truhe, former associate general counsel of the North Broward Hospital District, is asking that board's chairman to investigate whether its acting general counsel, Sam Goren, is wasting district resources by billing for unnecessary legal work.Goren's Fort Lauderdale firm of Goren, Cherof, Doody & ... More >>

Broward Health Documents Arrive (Anonymously) in Defense of Commissioner

Anonymously mailed envelopes are usually full of a whistleblower's goodies. But today's discovery was a bit of a let-down: This envelope with no return address contained the minutes of the April 7, 2008 special meeting by the North Broward Hospital District board.browardhealth.orgStoll​That was th ... More >>

Will George Lemieux Be Crist's Harriet Miers?

Crist and Martinez, whose Senate vacancy may be filled by the governor's "maestro."​That's the first name that popped into my head when I heard that Crist was serious about tapping his former chief of staff, George Lemieux, Broward County's most connected political player, to serve the remainder o ... More >>

Book of Jeb: At Hospital District, a Trial of Faith Between Ethics and Republican Friendships

Flickr: presidential_predictionsBush and Bernstein had a mutual friend at Gray-Robinson.​Broward Health Commissioner Robert Bernstein has cast himself as a watchdog for waste at the county's public health-care district. But in the months since he led the charge to terminate the hospital district's ... More >>

Before Being Fired, Broward Health Attorneys Slashed Payments to Powerful Law Firm

browardhealth.orgBernsteinBefore Marc Goldstone was fired as general counsel of the North Broward Hospital District in mid-May, he had expressed concern that his job would be threatened if he followed through on the district's request to reduce its billings to outside law firms -- in particular, the ... More >>

Internal Memo: Ethics Rule Is a "Joke"

browardhealth.orgCobo​Shortly after health care consultant Joseph Cobo was appointed by the governor to the board of the North Broward Hospital District in September 2007, the new commissioner allegedly approached the district's general counsel with a bold request. Laura Seidman alleges that Cobo ... More >>

Hospital District Attorney Hit With Bar Complaint

"I didn't come here looking for a job," said attorney Sam Goren on May 14 at an emergency meeting of the North Broward Hospital District's Board of Commissioners. In the moments before, commissioners had relied upon Goren's legal counsel in determining that their general counsel, Marc Goldstone, sho ... More >>

No End in Sight: Ethics Scandal Spreads to North Broward Hospital District Chairman

browardhealth.orgMike FernandezDocuments recently released by the North Broward Hospital District' show that its chairman decided his board didn't have a corruption problem so much as a Martin Goldberg problem. That's the name of the former assistant U.S. Attorney who was hired by the district's Boa ... More >>

Conflicts Loom Large for Current Hospital District Attorney

Sam Goren, the acting general counsel for the $1 billion North Broward Hospital District, took that job despite having conflicts of interest, according to statements Goren himself made to a district investigator months before Goren assumed his new position.browardhealth.orgCoboThe investigator, Miam ... More >>

Hospital Commissioners Argue Over Next Lawyer

Tension nearly boiled over at this morning's meeting of the North Broward Hospital District's Board as commissioners broached the touchy topic of the district's next general counsel. The seven-member panel appears divided over whether to speed that process or slow it down, given the flux at the posi ... More >>

Former Hospital District Attorney Files Suit

Flickr User: Scarlett3344 QiJoe Truhe, the former associate general counsel for the North Broward Hospital District, filed suit today, alleging that in firing him last month, the public health care system violated the Whisteblower's Act. The suit also names Commissioner Robert Bernstein and the inte ... More >>

Hospital District Emails Reveal Lawyer's Bid to Save His Job

browardhealth.orgGoldstoneJudging by Marc Goldstone's email inbox, the week of May 11 began like any other. That was a Monday, and the general counsel for the North Broward Hospital District exchanged emails with CEO Frank Nask about attending a health care convention the first week of June. But by ... More >>

Were Hospital Attorneys Fired for Sake of Cover-Up?

browardhealth.orgMarc GoldstoneFor the past month, the North Broward Hospital District has been wrestling with two seemingly unrelated scandals: the corruption investigation of Commissioner Joseph Cobo and the sudden firing of the district's general counsel, Marc Goldstone, and his lieutenant, Joe T ... More >>

Paging Doctor Footinmouth

Flickr User: georgina14For Broward docs, old habits may be hard to break.For much of the past week since the May 27 meeting of the North Broward Hospital District Board of Commissioners, Juice has been trying to reach the doctor who offered that meeting's most fascinating testimony.Dr. Richard Glick ... More >>

Hospital District Commish Now Under Criminal Investigation

browardhealth.orgCoboThe Broward State Attorney's Office has opened a criminal investigation of North Broward Hospital District Commissioner Joseph Cobo, based on allegations he used his public office for advantage in his private firm, Florida Medical Management Consultants.Cobo, of course, was inve ... More >>

Attorney Suspects Shakedown by Broward Hospital Commish

Flickr User: Arty SmokesNot bad, kids. But let's see you juggle your commissioner's hat with your consultant's hat.A tipster claiming knowledge of the North Broward Hospital District's investigation of Commissioner Joseph Cobo recently suggested Juice take a closer look at one of the most damning pa ... More >>

Fmr. Broward Hospital District Lawyer Demands Probe of District's Current Lawyer

Joe Truhe, former associate general counsel of the North Broward Hospital District, who was fired along with the district's general counsel May 15, has sent a letter to hospital commissioners demanding that they investigate Sam Goren, the attorney who became the interim general counsel.In a letter d ... More >>

Cobo-Cop: Will Governor Bust Broward Hospital Commish?

It'll be weeks, at least, till we learn how Gov. Charlie Crist intends to respond to the politically explosive packet of material he received last week from the North Broward Hospital District. It's the report of a former assistant U.S. Attorney retained by the North Broward Hospital District Board ... More >>

NBHD: As One Ethics Probe Ends, Will a New One Begin?

browardhealth.orgCommissioner Robert BernsteinIt's no fun to write a letter alleging corruption and send it to the Florida Ethics Commission or the Broward State Attorney. No, if you really want to make a splash, announce the allegations during the public comment period for an unrelated ethics case. ... More >>

Legally Blind: Broward Health Attorney Forgot to Mention He Can't Practice Law

browardhealth.orgMarc GoldstoneMaybe Troy Kishbaugh had good reasons for being angry about that job he didn't get. The former acting general counsel for the North Broward Hospital District was passed over for a job that instead went to Marc Goldstone. That was in December and only now do we learn th ... More >>

Ritter's Last Refuge: The Condo Circuit

When Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter goes out in public, she feels the eyes on her -- and they're telling her she's on her way to jail. So yesterday afternoon she escaped into the last refuge of any corrupt Broward politician -- the retirement condo circuit. There, as the intrepid Thoma ... More >>

Bill Scherer Gearing Up For Electoral Rampage

Reille Hunter Post

Bleeding Dollars

A former Broward hospital CEO's trail of dubious expenses is just a drip in the bucket

A Work of Art

Michael Satz's office clears Ilene Lieberman. Some might call it a travesty, but we call it transcendence.

Letters for October 7-13, 2004

Michael Sitz

Broward's top prosecutor loves to protect corrupt public officials. He just struck again.

Letters May 6-12, 2004

Save 'em from slaughter; end the travesty:

Deliver Us II

The Broward General maternity ward is gutted by corrupt politics

Broward Shell Game

It wasn't Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant who done the county wrong but the County Commission itself

Undercurrents

Jim Kane may look and act like a player, but his divorce file tells a different tale

Some Safety Net

All Vicky Lynch wants is to get her husband the neurological rehab he desperately needs. So what's the problem? Everything.

Trinchi Warfare

Despite ailing health, a dying constituency, and a shaky season for Democrats, politico Trinchi Trinchitella appears undiminished

The Dentist Is Out

The closure of a publicly funded children's dental clinic has low-income patients down in the mouth