The Miami Herald’s Jay Weaver wrote this weekend of how the feds “cleared” George LeMieux and Charlie Crist in the ongoing corruption probe into con man Joel Steinger and his billion-dollar life settlements scam, Mutual Benefits. But you’d have to be a fool to think the Department of Justice is blind when…
Broward County School Board Member Ann Murray was surrounded yesterday by sycophants who showered her with campaign checks. It wasn’t in her home district in the Hollywood area where she lives but in Okeechobee, the little town on the big lake up north. It was at a business called Royal Concrete…
Did I really just type those words? Well, it’s being reported that George LeMieux, Fort Lauderdale lawyer and GOP operator, is Crist’s pick for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez. This was actually pretty predictable. Crist, of course, is running for the seat in 2010, and LeMieux is…
The top click-getter on the Sun-Sentinel website yesterday was a headline asking: “Is Michael Jackson Still Alive at the Coroner’s Office?” Accompanying it is a video still of a figure standing outside a coroner’s van. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt for Stone to stroke the ego of the guy who puts him…
This is one of those stories that’s borderline, but it’s the buzz of the political underworld in Broward County and concerns one of the area’s more interesting political races, so I feel it should be told. Once. It’s about the District 100 Florida House of Representatives race between incumbent Evan Jenne and…
Congressman Ron Klein held what I think was a somewhat disastrous “telephone town hall” on the health care issue yesterday. First it was on the telephone. Yes, your congressman literally phoned it in. This has incensed those Death Panel town hall crashers around here who wanted to scream and yell at Klein for a…
The Broward County School Board has driven the school district into near-bankruptcy by overbuilding by tens of thousands of seats that now sit empty. Part of the reason is that every board member has had a pet project that’s added to the hundreds of millions of dollars misspent. Board Member…
South Florida Times’ Elgin Jones has reported that Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion faces a possible corruption indictment and is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation. Jones, a tenacious and good reporter, is definitely barking up the right tree, just the wrong branch or at the wrong time. Eggelletion does…
Well, Jason Wetherington came through. After the former GOP staffer who had boasted of an affair with Charlie Crist was arrested on charges of stealing his pastor’s daughter’s wedding ring, he told me his attorney would call. And veteran Fort Lauderdale attorney John Contini, who is representing Wetherington, did just that…
Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion has hired defense attorney and good friend Johnny McCray to represent him in an ongoing criminal investigation, according to sources. On top of that, rumors are swirling among government insiders that Eggelletion is considering quitting the commission and may have even drafted a resignation letter that has so far…
Well, I get a lot of ribbing about never getting out to things, so I decided to make a personal appearance at the Broward County School Board’s news conference at Stranahan High School marking the first day of school (today). After walking a few miles around the school and then…
Sometimes it’s hard to feel sorry for the Miami Heat’s Michael Beasley. God-given basketball gifts, big NBA contract, supersized ego… you know. But now he’s getting hit for something in the background of a picture he posted on Twitter. Here’s the image: OK, you see that in the lower right…
So freelancer Jack Furnari publishes on a Sun-Sentinel blog that the Boca Raton News has been shut down and that all the employees were told they were “no longer employed.” Then the Sun-Sentinel does a short story with no byline on it and writes that the newspaper is going online…
My God, it’s true: The Broward County School Board has squandered millions of dollars on seemingly everything it has touched. It took our property tax dollars and threw them way on unnecessary and ridiculously expensive schools. The waste is everywhere you look. I told you about the $25 million drained…
After amendments to the contract, the company has increased its fee by a whopping $250,000 – more than 50 percent of the original contract.
But that’s nothing compared to the construction change orders the board authorized to Padula. That low bid didn’t seem to mean much once the company won the job. So far, Padula has asked for and received extra fees that total more than $2 million.
At a staff meeting today, Boca Raton News Publisher informed the newspaper’s staff of 24 people that the 54-year-old newspaper was being shut down immediately. Sunday’s newspaper will be its last. The news was first reported by freelance writer and Boca Raton News columnist Jack Furnari on a Sun-Sentinel blog after…
Hey, times are tough. Jobs are scarce. So I guess it’s understandable that Broward County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin has hired someone inside her extended political family to take a key paid role in her 2010 campaign. Wasserman-Rubin, who has been hit with ethical violations in the past, hired Ann Gallagher as…
Incredible. After the Broward County School Board goes on an unnecessary building frenzy to pad the wallets of its campaign donors and puts us $2 billion in debt, it wants to hit taxpayers up for more money. They are thinking of putting it up for a vote next year. Any voter who would authorize this…
If you’re really paying attention to the Broward County School Board, you’re mad as hell. This is a board of nine elected politicians whose campaigns have been largely financed by the construction industry and its lobbyists. During the past several years, they’ve wasted hundreds of millions of dollars to allow…
A coalition of civic groups in Hollywood is coming to the defense of the beleaguered Broward County School Board auditors, who essentially are being pilloried by board members for doing a good job trying to protect taxpayers’ dollars. You may know that some board members, led by Stephanie Kraft and backed up by…
Alex Taylor is leaving the Palm Beach Post after just about eight months on the job. The following is a timeline of coverage on the publisher’s short stay in South Florida. — December 8, 2008: It’s announced that Doug Franklin is vacating his short but awful bloody stint as publisher…
Above is a photograph taken in 2003 of the giant Miami Herald staff at the time. It looks like a small city. And it’s probably been cut in half during the past couple of years. The photo was taken in honor of the newspaper’s 100th anniversary, an occasion that was marked…
