Last night at a candidates’ forum of the Pine Island Ridge Democratic Club in Davie, Broward County Circuit Judge John “Jay” Hurley claimed to have received the endorsements of the county’s public defender and the chairman of the county’s Democratic Party, according to a reliable source.A person who attended the…
Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London appears to be the only city official bothered by the ethics of doing land deals with Joe Kessel, a realtor who’s also under contract as a consultant to the city. The other officials, it seems, are bothered by how much London cares about this.Yet those…
The Rev. Anthony Davis appears to be a pillar of society. His charity, Brotherly Love Social Services, mentors at-risk youth in Deerfield Beach. Davis was quoted today in the Sun-Sentinel, decrying how the image of the city’s schools has been distorted by two violent incidents, the burning of Michael Brewer…
Joe Kessel, a real estate agent who since July 2008 has been under contract as a consultant for Hallandale Beach, collected $15,700 in commission that same year after the city purchased a lot at 814 SW Eighth Ave., according to documents provided to Juice.The purchase for what would become Sunset…
Charlie Crist hasn’t officially declared he’ll run as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate. But in the video above, from Saturday, it’s clear that he’s laying the groundwork for exactly that. Crist’s veto of Senate Bill 6 — the teacher merit pay bill — makes a perfect springboard for an…
A day after a forensic auditor told the Deerfield Beach Commission he’d found evidence of favoritism and fraud by officials in the city’s Community Development Division, the city has asked the Broward Sheriff’s Office to take custody of computers that belonged to two officials named in the audit report.According to…
Miami general contractor Donna Milo threw her hat into the ring this morning in the US 20th congressional district race against incumbent Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Milo’s family, her website says, fled Cuba in the 1960s. She got married, raised a couple of kids. She runs her own small business…
God help us, Chaz Stevens has been appointed to the board of the Deerfield Beach Housing Authority. Not even a very loud “No!” from Commissioner Marty Popelsky (at 1:20 in the video above) could stop Stevens’ rise to power.Of course, the activist blogger (he prefers “genius”) played a crucial role…
Deerfield Beach officials who administer home loans and grants to low-income residents engage in “favoritism” and “suspected fraud,” according to statements made at this evening’s commission meeting by forensic auditor Michael Kessler.”The entire process of awarding funds to deserving individuals should have been administered in a documented, precise, calculated, and…
For too long did grandmothers of yesteryear express their anger quietly, perhaps by “accidentally” missing a cross-stitch on this year’s Christmas sweater (and once there’s a run, there’s no saving Rudolph).That wasn’t Vicki Ryder’s style. For the past few years, the 67-year-old founder of the South Florida Raging Grannies has…
As pundits go, Chuck Todd usually has two feet squarely on the ground; his analysis was on the mark throughout the 2008 presidential campaign. But I think he’s missing the boat with his take on Florida’s Senate race. His theory sounds persuasive. Republican nominee Marco Rubio and independent candidate Charlie…
In March, a political action committee for Sarah Palin twice [SEE NOTE BELOW] spent $7,321 to deice her private jet after it had landed at a Fort Lauderdale aiport, according to Federal Elections Commission reports cited in this Huffington Post article.Problem: There is no need to deice a plane in…
If you ever find yourself being interviewed for a job with Charlie Crist, don’t worry about such things as a crummy résumé or a pending criminal investigation. Just give an answer of “Hell, yes!” to the question of whether you’ll be loyal to the Crist political franchise.Judging by this fascinating…
It’s almost impossible to describe the sights and sounds of last Thursday’s Tax Day Tea Party without making it seem like it was a crowd of angry, government-hating, probably-racist religious nuts willing to exploit their children to convince people the federal government should stop spending any money at all (except…
Here’s a radical idea: Maybe it’s not so wise to build another condo high-rise in downtown Hollywood. We told you this morning about the uncertain future of the site where the HART structure was to rise, and then the ArtsPark Village, which was foreclosed last month.These were rotten deals that…
National media pundits try so hard to understand South Florida. Bless their hearts; they find the weird mix of hanging chads, Ponzi schemers, gator wrestlers, and condo flippers to be terribly confusing. And once in a while, they just flub completely.This morning on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show, the subject…
Hallandale Beach City Manager Mike Good gave a consultant agreement to a local real estate agent, Joe Kessel, worth up to $36,000. But a city ordinance indicates Good was forbidden to do so without first getting commission approval.A 2006 ordinance describes exactly what contracts and purchases the city manager can…
Despite the rain, the threat of intentionally misspelling infiltrators, other silly-but-hot conservative options within driving distance, and some intense taxpayer-funded security (what we like to call irony), hundreds of people showed up at yesterday’s Tea Party at the federal courthouse in downtown Fort Lauderdale. They brought signs and shared their…
The race between incumbent Congressman Ron Klein and challenger Allen West keeps narrowing, with the West campaign claiming to have raised nearly twice the amount of campaign money as Klein during the first quarter of 2010.West reports $838,449 in fundraising totals between January and the end of March, while Klein…
Joining a list of decidedly eccentric squawk radio hosts in South Florida — from both the right and left — including Joyce Kaufman, Dick Farrel, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Foley, and Randi Rhodes, Stormfront’s poster boy, Derek Black, is now hosting his own radio show on Lake Worth’s WPBR-AM (1340). Black’s…
It appears that nobody in Hollywood government has a clear idea of where the city stands in its efforts to improve a big piece of property at the heart of downtown.At the southeast corner of Federal Highway and Young Circle, two huge, bold condo projects have self-destructed. First was the…
The Quinnipiac poll released Thursday shows that if the general election for U.S. Senate were this week — and if Charlie Crist opted to run as an independent — he would earn a narrow victory (32 percent) over Marco Rubio (30), with Democratic frontrunner Kendrick Meek coming in third with…
