I just got off the phone with the City Clerk's office and we were discussing the impending Special Election for Deerfield Beach District 2. The City Clerk, Ada Graham Johnson, in my mind is more than capable of working within the law to see that "we" get the fair and equitable election that is called for under the law. My concern is not Mrs. Graham Johnson, but her bosses who could potentially utilize the law to delay and postpone our Special Election. Now this is just conjecture and I have no proof, but a case can be made for improprieties on behalf of the City to have reason to intentionally delay this election. But again this is just me playing devils advocate...
Keeping that in mind, I have been advised that the idea is now being tossed around that because our City's charter, which requires a special election no sooner than 45 days and no later than 75 days, does not provide an adequate time-frame to adhere to state laws regarding notice, polling place contracting, hiring poll workers, etc... that our Special Election may not take place within the 75 day City Charter prescribed time-frame. Now, this is reasonable and sounds good, almost as if the City has the interest of fair and equitable in mind when planning this event. I won't hold my breathe, though.
Ada Graham-Johnson insisted that she is doing her best to ensure that a fair, equitable, and timely election is held for District 2. I have no doubt in my mind that Ms. Johnson, who has family who resides in District 2, would do her best to ensure that this takes place as soon as possible. Ensuring that District 2 gets the duly elected representative that the people want, in the most cost effective and timely manner. My concern is that it is possible to draw this out and every effort and every avenue needs to be exhausted to make sure that our City Charter is upheld and it's people get the prescribed remedy to this situation in as timely a manner as possible.
Due to past events that have adversely affected District 2 (including acts of the City Manager(s), City Mayor, and others), and my perception of the attitude shown by certain City Commissioners towards District 2, I have no confidence in our City Commissioner and our City's Management to do the truly fair and equitable thing. They have not in the past, so why should we expect them to now.
Now, that they have exactly what they wanted. A City run without all the voices of the people being represented. I for one am appalled and afraid that Deerfield Beach is now going to be run Business as Usual. Which if past practice serves as a guide, means we better all be mindful before our City Coffers are bare, our Beach and Pier will be owned by a developer, all of our City employees will be laid-off in favor of privatized services, our Fire Department will belong to BSO, and our police well, that's another story for a later date.
I want most desperately to believe that our City is working for the betterment of all of the City's residents, but far to many instances have occurred that tell me to be careful and wary of the City bearing gifts.
We understand that this is an unprecedented event and our City Clerk's office is doing their due diligence to adhere to state and local statutes and ordinances to pull off this election in a fair, equitable, and timely manner. At the time of this post no concrete date has been set, but I will keep you posted. I have heard that it might be July 19, 2011, which is about 96 days from the date of the removal.
*If no Commission Meetings are cancelled or postponed and they continue having them as scheduled once every other Tuesday, then "WE" citizens of District 2 will have had no representation for about 7 City Commission meetings. All I know is that we better be as vigilante, watchful, and mindful as possible while they pass legislation without our representation.
I laugh at the people on this post and the writer of this article because $400,000 was never attributed to Poitier. It was about $150,000, which the WDBA apparently had already given back to the City and was held in escrow account. About $160,000 of that was attributed to the City itself for mismanagement of funds. Paying salaries to individuals with no documentation on the deservedness of said salary. This information is well documented in HUD's OIG report, which for some reason is not available on the City's website (BTW they do allow access to the Kessler report, which does blame Poitier..hmmmm???) That same Kessler report showed a mismanagement of funds by the other Festival in town "Founder's Day", but for some reason no one is discussing that. The City Leadership along with certain Gadfly's have targeted this Commissioner and her constituents as crooks and thieves, but oddly enough the same attention to detail is not showed towards the other side of the tracks.
Don't get me wrong, I am not condoning the use of any card, except the card that would allow fair play and justice to be seen across the board in the City of Deerfield Beach. Many of the people who posted here have no clue of what is going on in my city. Even if Poitier is convicted the people who have and are feeding from the taxpayer trough are still in office and in management positions. I do believe that corruption is rampant in this city and the fact that Poitier may be going down for a few misdemeanors is obvious that a this was a stretch for the SAO to come up with. I mean 22 ethics complaints were supposedly filed and yet this is what they came up with. I am the only one sensing something is wrong here. I have heard many people say "it's about the money", but where is the money in this case? Even the same Gadfly has recently been back paddling on his accusations against Poitier and is now saying that she may get a slap on the wrist. Which is a departure from his assured heckling as she turned herself in. These things make you think.
The same gadfly who shed some very damning light on the City's mayor, but no one is talking about that. 2009 was a corruption filled year for said Mayor and yet no charges were ever brought. Her son was found guilty of destroying an opponents campaign signs and he got a slap on the wrist. Her husband may have committed workers comp fraud, She voted in the affirmative to give a company where she allegedly had worked occupancy rights of city owned property. That same company was a major contributor of her 2009 campaign, for which neither filed state required disclosure forms. Talk about Conflict of Interest, money actually changed hands. But we are sitting here talking about the possibility of corruption. but no one is talking about that. I for one would love to see the Florida Ethics Commission responses from where said Gadfly submitted the complaints. Since these majority and most damning of these possible ethic violations happened in 2009 the 5 year limitation has not expired. The difference I see in these three cases is only one thing.
You tell me what you see!!!
Go back and read the blogs and the newspaper articles for this city in 2008-present and you tell me what you find. I think the real response to all of this should be a city-wide audit by forensic auditor, not Kessler. Our City has a firm that does it or we could even reach out to national firms to audit all of the departments. I think a precedent has been set with three elected officials being indicted in 4 years, several department heads being fired for possible corruption, missing money up the ying yang, 2 City managers fired with corruption scandals behind them. This should be the time to stop gloating over the arrest of Sylvia Poitier and a whole investigation should be initiated into the City's workings and dealings. The words common sense come to mind after looking at the totality of the city's history regarding corruption.