Lauderdale Lakes Commissioner John Billingsley is going to announce his run against Broward Mayor Josephus "What Baby?" Eggelletion tomorrow at city hall.
Now I'm not one to run around vouching for politicians -- they'll usually find a way to prove you wrong -- but Billingsley seems like an honorable guy to me. And he has a history with Eggelletion that can be read about here. In short, Billingsley had the guts to criticize Josephus, who tries to play Godfather in black political circles, so Eggelletion booted him off the county planning board.
Eggelletion is ripe for an electoral beating. Not only does he have a history of malodorous lobbying deals since his last election, but he's gone through a paternity suit that proves he's the father of a child by a former student of his at Dillard High School, where he taught for many years. The former student claims Eggelletion began bedding her when she was his underage student and finally fathered her child when she was in her mid-20s. That's a pretty stock political scandal, but only in Broward does the politician continue to thrive in office after it breaks.
It may be early, but I'm predicting that next year will see more than one incumbent fall. Not only Eggelletion, but on the school board front, Henry Rose is challenging Chairwoman Beverly Gallagher. In Davie Judy Paul is going up against Mayor Tom Truex. And in Deerfield, Commissioner Steve Gonot is challenging Mayor Al Capellini.
Speaking of Capellini, he popped up in a pretty interesting piece in the Sun-Sentinel yesterday about youth football coaches who have past arrests on their records. Reporter Hemmy So writes:
Mayor Al Capellini expressed concern about keeping volunteers with criminal backgrounds, especially those with multiple arrests in the recent past."This is something that could possibly be endangering one of the children. I think the prudent thing is to vote on the conservative side and don't allow them to coach," Capellini told the boosters and parents.
This guy should take some of his own advice. The mayor has served as the right-hand man for Sam Frontera, a convicted cocaine kingpin whose cartel was known for home invasions of other drug dealers. Frontera opened up Club Cinema in nearby Pompano after a prison stint. Capellini has made a mint working as a contractor and club front-man for Frontera. And the millions funding the operation is coming from Chicago's biggest slumlord, Lou Wolf, a former Frontera cohort who supplied nightclubs through which Frontera laundered his drug profits.
And now Capellini's taking a stand against a youth football coach who is trying to turn his life around after being arrested on the Deerfield streets for selling cocaine? Somebody who might have the life experience to help turn some of the troubled kids growing up in the roughest parts of his city around and get them off the streets?
Deerfield: You get what you vote for.
