Yesterday we reported that Pembroke Pines and Southwest Ranches were getting phone calls from the Corrections Corporation of America asking whether they support a proposed immigrant jail detention center “processing center” that Southwest Ranches is gunning to build on a plot of land near the Everglades.People who picked up the…
Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s office has confirmed that it received 40 to 50 phone calls yesterday from Pembroke Pines and Southwest Ranches-area residents who were automatically forwarded from a “robocall” they had received.What did all those unwitting callers have in common? They had indicated support for a proposed immigration detention facility…
Late on Saturday night, after the Moonfest revelers had started to disband from Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach, a very drunk man and woman walked around a parking garage at Banyan Boulevard and Narcissus Avenue.Benjamin D’Avanzo and Ana Halper, members of the Occupy Palm Beach group, were standing…
“The new jail planned for southwest Broward County will go in a barren area where the county puts things that nobody wants,” wrote David Fleshler and John Maines at the beginning of a story in the Sun-Sentinel.At stake was a plan by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a landowner…
They are faithful to a huge organization, led by the vision of one man, claiming to find love, happiness, and redemption in allegiance to its symbols and lore. It makes them sing, cry, and make pilgrimages of thousands of miles. But there’s a dark side to this faith: catch them…
The Southwest Ranches Town Council has announced the time of a proposed meeting between local residents and officials from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to discuss a controversial new immigrant detention facility project that town officials appear to have been trying to move forward with as little public involvement as…
The Occupy Palm Beach movement, currently consisting of around a dozen people camping out full-time, has moved into what it’s calling a “permanent” occupation site at Banyan Boulevard and Flagler Drive in West Palm, just across from the Palm Harbor Marina.View Larger MapThe spot is a triangular plot of land…
Pete Werner had been clean and sober for nearly a year. He’d attended his third treatment program, moved in with his parents in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, and started working to slowly rebuild the life he had lost chasing booze and drugs. He had spent all his money and lived…
Well, that was interesting. Two and a half months of research into the teeming underworld of Disney superfans yielded a rather unusual cover story this week, “The Mouse Who Loved Me.” We traveled to Anaheim, rode Spaceship Earth, attended a singles meetup at the Magic Kingdom, and more, for your…
Update: Protesters have now gotten word that they’re allowed to stay in the park until 11 tonight; the mayor has reportedly extended an invitation to discuss a permit to stay in the parks at a later date.Original post, 10/22:An organizer and Facebook admin for the Occupy Palm Beach group, meeting…
Some organizers with Occupy Fort Lauderdale are debating whether to hold a demonstration at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show next weekend, possibly by banding together a flotilla of small boats and kayaks and peacefully floating by the marina.But a few days ago, people on the group’s Facebook page started floating…
Broward County Mayor Sue Gunzburger — without any great objection from her fellow commissioners — has issued a proclamation declaring this Saturday “Occupy Fort Lauderdale Day” and “encourag[ing] all Broward residents to work together to bring about a stronger, better, and fairer America for our future generations.”Gunzburger had previously visited…
On June 7, Southwest Ranches Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff sent an email to (now deceased) Town Administrator Charlie Lynn, town staffers, and his consulting and lobbying colleagues. The email urged town leaders to maintain a “cone of silence” about a proposed 1,800-bed immigrant detention center in Southwest Ranches to avoid…
A few people stayed the night on Saturday, and donations and support kept coming in through yesterday. On Sunday, organizers say, Fort Lauderdale police told them they wouldn’t be allowed to stay over.An attorney who has been working with the movement contacted the park’s owner, the Downtown Development Authority (DDA),…
We reported last week from the scene of a Southwest Ranches town hall meeting where so many people showed up to protest a proposed immigrant detention pen that BSO deputies just started blocking people from entering the council chambers, citing fire code.The detention center wasn’t on the agenda — it’s…
They started outside the federal courthouse and marched — on the sidewalk, escorted by police — to the front steps of Scott Rothstein’s old digs on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Outside the restaurant space where the local Ponzi king once cut his porterhouse, people gathered with American flags,…
The Pulp tried to attend last night’s meeting of the Southwest Ranches town council, but BSO Deputy Lee Roselli and Cmdr. Wallace Haywood wouldn’t let us inside the council chambers. So we remained outside with the 50 or so local residents who were loudly protesting an immigrant detention facility that…
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and current Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been hailed in the media as the winner of Tuesday night’s debate — and as a likely frontrunner for the candidacy — because he does nothing more than say “nine-nine-nine” and talk about “pivoting off the tax code.”…
Here in Florida, we have a broad array of sunshine laws designed to promote open government. Local governments routinely have to disclose information simply because citizens ask for it. But apparently there’s one thing that can clamp the mouths of local officials for good: a private prison contractor asking nicely.Bill…
The Everglades is too far gone for anyone to let it take its natural course. South Florida’s entire inland economy depends on a water system that stays around the same level all year long, avoids flooding communities (cough, Weston, cough) that are stupidly built in the natural flow of water…
Keith McHenry, founder of Food Not Bombs, who started off our cover story about the movement last month, has spent 30 years traveling around and serving free food at protests and uprisings. So it’s only natural that he’d be getting in on some of the “Occupy Wall Street” action that’s…
When the former Hollywood city manager found out he was under investigation for possible shady dealings involving the delivery of a city-owned generator to his dad after Hurricane Wilma, he went to discuss it in one of the brighter symbols of his tenure: the multimillion-dollar ArtsPark at the center of…
