Sarcastic Sue Snaps At Constituents

Broward County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger paints herself as an up-front ethics guru, but when a well-known activist asked her to incorporate federal standards into our corrupt county's code, all Gunzburger showed was her backside.

It began on February 19, when Charlotte Greenbarg, the president of the Broward Coalition and a key school board watchdog, asked all the commissioners in an e-mail to use the federal code in constructing their own. Gunzburger snapped back this email:

From: Gunzburger, Suzanne
Subject: RE: Request for stringent County ethics and dishonest compensation
requirements
To: "Charlotte Greenbarg"
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 9:09 PM


Could you send me a copy of the Federal government ethics rules, so that I know
what you are talking about.
Sue Gunzburger

Gee, no "thanks for the suggestion," Sue? Worse than that though is that Gunzburger, who again claims to be the commission's ethics maven, has never read the federal ethics rules.

Greenbarg obliged by sending the link to the fed's rules. Gunzburger then apparently read America's ethical standards for the first time and fired off another nasty little e-mail to Greenbarg:

Did you read it? Most of it does not translate to a county commissioner.

Sue

Okay, now she was just being bitchy for the sake of being bitchy. Did Greenbarg read it? What kind of a question is that? Hell, she was the one that sent it to her. And what is Gunzburger talking about? Just about every law that applies to congress can apply just as easily to the county commission. 

Greenbarg kept her cool. "I read it," she replied to the commissioner. "The salient points translate well."

After reading Gunzburger's unbecoming snark, activist Andrew Shaftel jumped into the fray with an email to the commissioner of his own. In it, he told Gunzburger that it was "infuriating" to see a commissioner "challenge a constituent, if not to insult one."

Gunburger had another tart one-line reply, which she fired off yesterday afternoon: "Thank you for all your advice on how to be a better county commissioner."

Sue, you think maybe you need a break from public office? Because you sound overworked, ill-informed, and pissed off. Your attitude is abysmal, despite that nice fat public paycheck you get for your part-time job. You keep this up and you'll start making Steve Geller (see below) look like a lesser evil. 

The thing is, though, that relatively speaking you're about as good as we got on that dysfunctional and corrupt commission. So please stop disappointing people and do your job, beginning with incorporating the federal standards.