Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti was in Marion County earlier this week, singing the praises of his predecessor’s decision to place countywide firefighting services under the auspices of the sheriff’s office.Monday’s two-hour session was the first time the panel heard first-hand from the architects and practitioners of the model [Marion Sheriff…
A year ago, Fabian and Jocelyn Ferguson found themselves with no place to live. Thanksgiving was a few days away and they needed a place to go with their two young children for the holidays. They, like many South Florida families, had lost their own home to foreclosure.So Jocelyn went…
Updated with arrest photo after the jump.Around 2,000 copies of the FAU student newspaper, the University Press, turned up in recycling bins around the Boca Raton campus last Wednesday. According to Managing Editor Gideon Grudo, 31 of 39 distribution boxes around campus were raided and their contents thrown away (“At…
For more than a year, concerned families have been looking for answers about a disturbing trend of pediatric tumors and cancers around the Acreage, an unincorporated area between West Palm and Lake Okeechobee.Early this year, the Palm Beach County Health Department confirmed that a “cancer cluster” did exist — but…
A couple of weeks ago we wrote about how the Broward Historical Commission lost all its funding in the recent round of budget cuts — and how it’s set to be absorbed by the already-beleaguered library department. We stopped by the brand-new commission offices — paid for with county tax…
The bomb-scare lockdown of schools in Pembroke Pines has been lifted, but a related threatening email promising “something big happening” today at Broward government buildings is apparently being taken seriously. Police say a “suspicious package” has been found on North Andrews Avenue between Third and Fourth streets. They have closed…
The season of consumerism is upon us (just kidding; we don’t have seasons in Florida), and the Pembroke Lakes Mall has a few new tricks up its sleeve — several of which may or may not end up in a class-action lawsuit.In honor of the season, we present four ways…
A Haitian-American family is suing the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office over a fight between family members and cops that resulted from a pair of sagging pants. Frantz Leger, then 20, had previously been banned from the Wellington Green Mall because his pants were hanging too low. When he returned…
Although Broward County election results saw a dead split between Marco Rubio and party-line pushover Kendrick Meek in the three-way race for U.S. Senator, statewide Rubio swept 49% of the vote, leaving Meek and Gov. Charlie Crist with less than 30% each. Rubio’s strongest showing was in northern counties like…
Come on, admit it: At some point on your way down the ballot, you just turn off your brain and start filling in the bubbles that correspond to your party affiliation. This is especially true when you get down to, say, commissioner of agriculture and state representatives that you’ve never…
There’s a familiar personal narrative around these parts: Somebody got tired of the daily grind and cold weather in his or her old life, packed up and moved down to South Florida to start anew. But for Neil Hoag, that wasn’t enough.Hoag moved down from Michigan when he was a…
There’s a conference under way in West Palm Beach called “Rx for Change: Targeting Prescription Drug Abuse.” One of the major talking points is the staggering number of accidental deaths related to prescription drug abuse: seven every day in Florida. That’s more than the number of car-crash deaths per year…
Fort Lauderdale is looking for a new city manager, the person responsible for making sure the city commissioners’ ideas translate into semilegitimate business decisions. The most recent city manager, George Gretsas, left in July when the city decided not to renew his contract. But before the city can make a…
When Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler jogged through Sailboat Bend with his entourage last Monday, he made a point to stop at the newly renovated offices of the Broward County Historical Commission. But a couple of weeks before, the Broward County Commission had axed the historical organization’s entire $275,000 budget…
Acclaimed scruffy documentarian Michael Moore showed up, clean shaven, to Cinema Paradiso on Saturday night for a sold-out appearance at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. Beforehand, he answered questions from reporters (and a smattering of film-dazed Florida socialites) about his films and the state of the world.Moore let slip…
Matthew Bent, Denver Colorado Jarvis, and Jesus Mendez are three sixteen-year-olds charged with attempted murder for their alleged roles in setting their schoolmate Michael Brewer on fire more than a year ago. Today they appeared in court — in sight of Brewer for the first time since he was doused…
Flickr: spookyriggsIt’s the land of Bernie Madoff, Scott Rothstein, prescription drug overdoses, concealed carry, extortion, Mob money, gang violence, and more… but Florida sheriffs have a new menace on their hands. The case of the sagging pants.”It’s a fashion thing,” the Fort Pierce Tribune quotes 27-year-old Antwuane Goodman as saying…
Traffic Signal Supervisor Brett Henderson opens the box.You’re sitting in a car, waiting for the light to change, when you notice a spindly little white camera peering down at you. Is this a red-light camera? Some sinister plot to spy on drivers? Nope, just a new way to control traffic…
timsmith.comImagine a society in which citizens must work to air their grievances, where every complaint to city hall requires a bit of physical effort. Would this weed out the gadflies? Apparently not.Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler’s new “mobile office hours” involve a monthly jog/walk through a neighborhood of the city…
Sun-SentinelIt’s just that kind of day. I’ve driven over a curb, showed up late, forgotten basic skills, had meetings canceled. Apparently I’m not alone. Behold the spate of awkward news:News 10 truck tips overWhen I entered the courthouse this morning, police cars and news trucks were gathered on SE Sixth…
mikesatz.comDanny PryorLet’s say you really, really don’t like somebody in a position of power. What do you do? Send letters? Pass on some dirt to New Times (yes, please)? Testify to the county commission? Deliver dog poo?Well, if your specialty happens to be creating domain names and building hundreds of…
This past week saw a series of headline-friendly bank robberies in South Florida. Two of them involved bomb threats scribbled on notes, in which the offenders were arrested within minutes of the attempted robberies. The most recent, at the BankAtlantic branch on Fairway Drive in Deerfield Beach, was more dramatic,…
