GENERAL ELECTION 2012 ENDORSEMENTS

PRESIDENT         Barack Obama/Joe Biden

U.S. Senate             Bill Nelson

U.S. House 20        Alcee Hastings

U.S. House 21        Ted Deutch

U.S. House 22         Lois Frankel

U.S. House 23         Debbi Wasserman Schultz

Broward:

State Attorney          Mike Satz

State Senate 31         Christopher "Chris" Smith

State Senate 34          Maria Sachs

State Rep 94              Perry Thurston, Jr.

Clerk of Court           (write in) Marc Dickerman

Sheriff                       Al Lamberti

Cnty Commish 3       Stacy Ritter

Cnty Commish 7        Timothy M. "Tim" Ryan

Justice of Supreme Court (Florida)   Yes to all

Circuit Judge 45         Julio E. Gonzalez, Jr.

Cnty Court 5               Olga Levine

Cnty Court 10             Robert "Bob" Diaz

School Board 4           Rochelle "Shelly" Solomon

School Board 5           Torey Alston

School Board 8 (at-large)  Franklin Sands

School Board 9 (at-large)   Robin Bartleman

Fl. Constitutional Amendments


1     NO

2    YES

3     NO

4     NO

5      NO

6       NO

8      NO

9      NO

10     NO

11     NO

12     NO


Fort Lauderdale Charter Amendments    YES



The above are MY endorsements for the November 2012 General Election.  We can agree to disagree with my choices.  What is most important is that you take the time and VOTE!

MY AUGUST 14, 2012 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY ENDORSEMENTS

United States Senator                         Bill Nelson
Representative in Congress Dist 22    Lois Frankel
State Attorney                                    Mike Satz
Clerk of Court                                    Robert Lockwood
Broward Cnty Sheriff                        Scott J. Israel
County Commish     Dist 7                Timothy "Tim" Ryan
County Commish     Dist 9                Dale V.C. Holeness
Circuit Judge Grp 19                          Michael Ian Rothschild
Circuit Judge Grp 35                          Dale Ross
Curcuit Judge Grp 45                        Rhonda Sokoloff
County Judge Grp 5                          Olga Levine
County Judge Grp 6                          Ilene Lieberman
County Judge Grp 10                         Robert "Bob" Diaz
County Judge Grp 32                         Melanie Golden
School Board Dist 3                            Katherine "Katie" Leach
School Board Dist 4                           Rochelle "Shelly" Solomon
School Board Dist 5                           Rosalind "Ros" Osgood
School Board Dist 8 (at-large)            Franklin Sands
School Board Dist 9 (at-large)            Robin Bartleman


The above are my endorsements in the August 14, 2012 Democratic Primary.  I hope you will vote for these candidates, we may disagree on my selections, but we can agree to disagree.  More important is that you vote.

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN

Last night the electorate has spoken. Mayor Seiler, whom I have supported, won with an overwhelming 75% of the vote. He has been re elected to another 3 years term. Also re elected was City Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom. (Commissioner Bobby Dubose was re elected without opposition).

There are two more commission races to be determined. It is my opinion that based on last nights votes, that both Commissioner Bruce Roberts and Commissioner Romney Rogers will easily be re elected March 13, 2012. The good citizens of Fort Lauderdale are pleased with the cordial workings of our "FAB FIVE".

I look forward to continue to work with all the commissioners over the next three years and beyond.

THIS WEEKS RANDOM THOUGHTS

CITY MANAGER

On May 17 the Fort Lauderdale City Commission by a vote of 3 - 2 selected Lee Feldman of Palm Bay, FL as the next City Manager. As I touted in my last blog, Lee Feldman was the best choice to lead this city. I wish him much success.

STATE OF THE CITY

On May 18 Mayor Jack Seiler presented the annual State Of The City. According to the Mayor the state of the city is "very good". I agree. Our budget process was both transparent and inclusive and in the 2010 - 2011 budget year; balanced. Most importantly Fort Lauderdale "held the lowest milage rate in 25 years at 4.112. This is the "2nd lowest in the State of Florida". With "13.5 million in savings" there were "no loss of services"

The Mayor went into all areas of concerns for the city, including Fire/Rescue, Police services, the homeless and tourism. All with positive results over the past year.

Thank you Mr. Mayor and City Com

missioners for an outstanding job in leadership of Fort Lauderdale.

JUDGEMENT DAY MAY 21, 2011

Not that I fell into this farce, but this prediction flopped worse than Howard The Duck. All I can say to this is I'm Still Here

HURRICANE SEASON

Hurricane Season (June 1 - November 30) is

almost upon us. This month I was able to take a tour of the NOAA Hurricane Chaser Aircraft. All the predictions are for a busy Atlantic storm season. Now is the time to prepare. I usually stock up now with canned goods, bottled water, sterno and what many forget, a hand held can opener.

FORT LAUDERDALE CITIZENS POLICE ACADEMY

For the past 14 weeks I have been attending the Fort Lauderdale Citizens Police Academy. I highly recommend this course as it is an in depth view of the police operations. Some highlights of the course include the gun range, simulations, crime scene, bomb squad robot and much more. This course is given once a year starting in February. Contact the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

As promised, I am trying to blog more often. I received good feedback on my recent random thoughts style so here it goes.

CITY MANAGER SEARCH

I sat in on the commission workshop where the three finalists for the city manager position were interviewed. All three candidates had their strong and weak points. Of the three, Lee Feldman, Mike Levenson and Paul DiGiovanni, one stood out to me as the best qualified.

Lee Feldman has 25 years experience here in South Florida and is currently the City Manager of Palm Bay. Mr. Feldman came across as strong, confidant and willing to work with the City Commission more than our previous manager. One statement that stood out to me was that we should we should step "away from managing cities and treating them as communities." "We should treat our citizens as neighbors and not customers"

Maintaining compliance with our City Charter, Mr. Feldman would allow staff to directly interact with commissioners, "after all Commissioners are citizens too". He would "set community involvement day one". Mr. Feldman instituted a 'Telephone Town Hall' meeting wherein he had over 2,000 participating, with 50 questions asked and answered, and over 500 citizens still on line after 2 hours.

He stated that the Fund Balance needs to be gradually drawn down, it should not be used to cover reoccurring expenditures. he stated that "the fund balance should not be the only mechanism to balance the budget". He does not support a zero balance budget "you can never have a true zero balance budget". He believes in a performance budget through action planning. A five year plan is a good option. Mr. Feldman stated that the administrative "organization needs to be reigned in". He stated that he is not a micro manager (we all know how that worked out).

I was extremely impressed with Lee Feldman. He has reached out to the community, department heads, city commissioners. Mr. Feldman spent the entire day observing the afternoon and evening agenda meetings, and appears truly interested in the goings on in my beloved City of Fort Lauderdale. I urge my City Commissioners to select Lee Feldman as our next City Manager.

BIRTH ERS:

Yesterday, President Obama released his long form birth certificate. This non controversy has been following him since January 20, 2009. Finally the Tea Baggers can stick it. I am sure this is not the end, as they will surely find another non issue to interrupt the job at hand which is to fix the economy, bring our troops home and rehabilitate the United States standing on the world theater. Donal Trump, now you can S.T.F.U!

FLEET WEEK:

This week is Fleet Week, where thousands of Sailors and Marines decent on Fort Lauderdale to enjoy our pristine beaches, perform community service, and fully enjoy shore leave. Last night American Legion Post 304 in Dania Beach had the honor of hosting a dinner for crew members of the SS Iwo Jima. Prime Rib, Pork Loin, Chicken Marsala, Halibut were among the choices provided. Prepared by a sharp crew of volunteers (myself included), Chef Patrick Smith (US Marine Corp, ret) served about 25 members of the crew, and 75 other guests and veterans. The food was awesome. We had Ellen providing Karaoke with many of the shipmates joining in. This was a fun and successful evening. I am proud and grateful to our Men and Women in service to our Country. May God bless and protect you all.

Until next time, Namaste'

Time to Blog Again

I know it has been quite awhile since I last blogged (Nov 2010 to be precise). Though I had strong opinions about many of the current situations, I for some reason did not feel the urge to blog. Today I will cover some of those subjects.

Self proclaimed "City Activist" Robert Walsh:

Robert Walsh in my opinion is a psychopath! There I said it. On the advice of an attorney friend of mine, I had ceased posting comments on the Broward Politics blog of the Sun-Sentinel any comments directed at Robert Walsh (RW). This was to avoid any confrontation with RW. It seemed to have worked. In recent weeks I have received numerous text messages from RW. His comments to me were "you are a nice guy", "let's be friends", "Let's meet for lunch to talk about our differences". My reply to him directly were "please do not contact me again" "go fuck yourself" and finally "go fuck your mother". RW did not get the message.

Former Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Tim Smith posted a blog about RW's criminal past including Mug Shots. It seems that RW is seriously (if you can really take anything RW does as being serious) considering a run for Mayor. RW states that people should judge 'him for what he is doing now and not what he has done in his past'. Well RW, wake up and smell the coffee, with over 10 public officials of Broward County convicted or under indictment for their wrong doings alleged or actual, your past misdeeds are in play. The electorate are over crooked officials, and certainly will never elect a convicted felon. On this same blog, under an assumed name, RW once again posted personal information about myself. Once again, I had to request, successfully, that such comments be removed. My right to privacy trumps your attempts at assassinating my reputation.

Geraldine Ferraro 1936 - 2011:

Gerry to her friends, was a model for young women to look up to and aspire to. As my Congresswomen in the early 80's, Gerry fought for the "common man". She was also a family friend. Gerry encouraged and supported my mother's political aspirations. In 1984, as the Democratic Nominee for Vice President, I had the honor and pleasure of working for her out of her Forest Hills home. You fought a hard battle against a blood cancer and now you can rest in peace knowing you broke a glass ceiling.

Gas prices:

WOW! My God how they have risen. I sincerely wish that the oil companies just raise the price to $5.00 a gallon. This slow rise of prices is painful to watch. This is certainly pouring salt into the wounds of our wallets.

Gov. Rick Scott:

MORON! LIAR! DANGEROUS! Enough said.

John Tupper:

In early 2010, I met and fell in love with John Tupper. John is a sweet loving individual with whom I hope to spend the rest of my days with. On February 28, 2011, John and I officially registered with Broward County as Domestic Partners. In the words of Sofia (Color Purple) "Ize Married Now" On a side note, John just celebrated his 40th Birthday!

Future Blogs:

To my faithful subscribers, I promise I will be blogging more often. As the Fort Lauderdale election cycle is just beginning, I am sure I will have my strong opinions on many subjects.

Now What

The election results are in, the talking heads, for the most part have stopped, so the question remains now what?

At one time I was a very active Broward Democrat. I would take the days approaching election day off from work. I would spend eighteen to twenty hours each of those days working towards the election of "good Democrats". I would do what it took from thousands of phone calls, to sign placement, to door knocking. The largest push of any election is the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort. From what I witnessed this midterm cycle there was very little if any GOTV effort. I received lots of e mails, but I received ZERO phone calls. Not even my precinct captain got in touch with me to make sure I voted.

In past elections the Broward Democratic Party had a plethora of GOTV offices, including one specifically for the LGBT identified voters. From what I can tell there were just three, two of which were not focused on the entire Democratic slate, but on two specific races on the west side of Broward County. Where was the Broward Democratic Party this election cycle?

After 16 years at the helm, I am in the opinion, as are many "silent" active Broward Dems, that Mitch Ceasar needs to step aside for new pro active leadership. The Broward Democratic Party needs a full time leader who will groom future candidates for office and leadership. Mitch at one time was the darling of the Broward Young Democrats and the Broward Democratic Party as a whole, but alas your time has passed. While you are at it Mitch, please take Diane Glasser, Mike Moscowitz, Lori Glasser, and Percy Johnson with you. You have all failed in your leadership capacity.

There are some very bright stars within the B.D.P. Names that come to mind are Tim Ross, Franco Ripple, Elroy John, Ryan Terrell, and Anne Gallagher just to name a few from the Broward Young Democrats. The so called "party base" out of Kings Point, Century Village Sunrise Lakes, etc. are no longer there. The few that attend the monthly meetings do so for the free coffee and cookies. The real workers are now more centrists, younger and professional. These are the future of the B.D.P. There are so many more, but the current BDP Leadership want to stifle their voices to the detriment of Broward Democrats.

Now is the time for a clean sweep. Now is the time to reorganize, reenergize, revitalize the Broward Democratic Party so that in 2012 we can be the powerhouse of the State as we used to be.