I still have not gotten an answer from City of Deerfield Beach Mayor Peggy Noland as to if her husband will be retiring in August 2012 under the guidelines of the City of Deerfield Beach D.R.O.P. retirement plan or will he exercise his newly acquired rights, SOLELY THANKS TO THE MERGER WITH B.S.O, that allows him the benefit of opting to continue with BSO and join into Florida's Retirement System, while also collecting his retirement benefits from the D.R.O.P. Which you can read about here. In fact, in the aforementioned post the public, for the first time, is being advised of the fact that Firefighters were given the option to continue the D.R.O.P. program or go into the FRS creating an environment that would allow some current members of the City of Deerfield Beach D.R.O.P. to effectively cash in their CODB retirement collecting some hefty checks while continuing on with BSO and entering the FRS for a second helping of retirement cash, which the majority of the residents and affected classes of Deerfield Beach are not entitled to and will not be able to enjoy, but only a special private section, including the Mayor's husband, Howard Noland.
So many benefits have come to the fire department in the last 20 years and all made possible by the Deerfield Beach Firefighter Head Priestess, Peggy Noland.
Well, since she didn't respond I reviewed the City Commission Meeting from August 16, 2011.
Hey, that was barely pass Howard Noland's City of Deerfield Beach D.R.O.P. enrollment anniversary date of 8-9-07. I wonder if they waited til the passing of this resolution to celebrate that anniversary...Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!What I found was shocking, well not really given the Noland's history of lapses in judgement, which seems to always mysteriously result in a Noland enrichment or unjust enrichment depending on who you talk to in this town.
How much of a conflict constitutes an actual conflict???
Peggy Noland herself requested a rush to vote on these two specific items, pulling them from their place on the agenda to the very first vote, of which no real discussion took place only contrived and rehearsed dialogue from the Commissioners.
In this particular case under General Items 23 and 24, watch as Peggy continuously rubs her hands, as if she is anxious or nervous about something. She abstains from voting,
Mayor Noland abstained from voting on Item 23.
Andrew Maurodis, City Attorney, clarified if Mayor Noland abstained because she is related to two (2) members of the bargaining unit. As an abundance of caution she will not vote on this; and advised her to file the appropriate forms within 15 days.
Mayor Noland replied correct.
Mayor Noland abstained from voting on Item 24.
Andrew Maurodis, City Attorney, clarified that Mayor Noland abstained from voting on Item 24 based on the fact that her husband and son work for the Fire Department; there
is an appearance of a conflict. He reminded her to file the appropriate forms within 15 days.
not because of the possibility of her husband, Howard Noland, receivng a special private gain because he now, as a result of the merger, is now eligible to double dip into the retirement system from the City of Deerfield Beach D.R.O.P. which he will be eligible to CASH IN on or around 8/9/2012 and now, thanks to his wife's cunning and political skills to push through her personal agendas with help of Ganz, Popelski, Miller, and now Preston, the FRS once he retires from BSO. Costing the City of Deerfield Beach taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of this merger, which she (Peggy) and her compatriots pushed through under the guise of including it in the 2011/2012 Budget.
Well sounds like an actual conflict to me...only the Mayor, City Attorney, and Ganz, Popelsky, Miller, and Preston did not give us all the information, even though they stated over and over again that they went over the information.
So you are probably asking yourself how could they have missed this, huge CONFLICT!! I'm shrugging my shoulders and scratching my head too on that one...Maybe they were to busy being rushed by the City Manager and City Mayor as to the urgency of this vote as it pertains to the impending 2011/2012 Budget deadline and did not actually "Do their homework" as they should have.
Anyway, I might add that, unlike the wildly unpopular 10% Utility Tax speculative and assumed numbers, the numbers for the BSO merger were not included in the City of Deerfield Beach 2011/2012 proposed Budget, as the Commission lead us to believe it would be when they inexplicably rushed to push this merger through without public input as it was included in the "General Items" and not the "Public Hearing" section, which would have allowed the public to speak on it and possibly brought this matter up about the retirement situation and benefit to the Mayor and her husband, but the public was effectively maneuvered out of the discussion by a crafty City Manager, Burgess Hanson, and City Staff working for the Mayor and her cohorts on the Commission.
I wonder why??? (Watch and listen to the carefully chosen words by her fellow Commissioners to establish the need because of the Budget.
Even after it the resolution passed to complete the merger there has been no updates on the actual savings and final numbers of the merger presented to the public...hmmmmmmm!!!!
HEY TIM DONNELLY, if you have some time over there at the SAO do you think you might want to look into this, especially since it will involve the special financial private gain of the Nolands, when Howard Noland cashes in on that retirement benefit next year and then continues on with BSO under the FRS.
Oh, Deerfield will the corruption never cease? And this time it will actually involved actual money, instead of the possibility of creating better conditions to one day get paid, like in the Sylvia Poitier case. This time the good people at the SAO and the public actually have dates of the anticipated money transfer and violation that we will be looking for.
Now that doesn't sound like an appearance of a conflict to me, it sounds like an actual conflict and she should have stated this information for the public, which since we did not have access to the BSO merger contract at the time to even know it was a possibility. It seems like this information was intentionally left out and the public was intentionally mislead by the Mayor Peggy Noland and the City of Deerfield Beach Commissioners to hide this fact of the possibility to double-dip and the definite financial benefit to the Mayor Peggy Noland because of the merger option, especially since her political career in Deerfield may be coming to an end during the next election cycle and she may be just padding her pockets since she will be out of job and will not have access to the "gifts" that she loves from developers, lobbyist, and special interest groups (like the CODB Fire Department) that she repealed the City's ethics code to get.
I wonder if Tim Donnelly at the SAO is reading this and going to file charges. I suggest everyone take a close look also and then file a complaint against Mayor Peggy Noland, because it is time that she and her cronies stop lying to us and costing us millions in tax dollars, just so she and her CLAN can reap the financial benefits of her being an elected official.
To learn how to file a complaint with the Broward Office of Inspector General, click here.
You can file a complaint with the Broward State Attorney's Office by emailing them at sao17@sao17.state.fl.us or contacting them via telephone at 954 831-8029.
**So I sent in an email to request the Form 8b's that Mayor Peggy Noland was supposed to submit within 15 days of that vote, because they are not included on the website with the approved minutes as prescribed by law that the form be filed and included with the minutes for the meeting. I notified Ada Graham-Johnson via telephone that these materials are not there for public inspection and she indicated that she would get me the documents.
What amazes me as much as your revelations is the fact that the self professed genius hasn't picked up on this. But then again, u did mention that the city has made a deal with that upstanding corruption fighting devil.
ReplyDeleteI am deep into this fight with the City’s attempt to take our insurance benefit as part of a merger deal with the FD. I am now reading over the BSO merger contract. The objective is to take they’re representations of why this was a good deal for the City and to develop a more accurate evaluation using their own facts and others not mentioned. I am not saying it was a loss to the City but a third party evaluation is required to know the truth. The merger went after retirees and therefore in my mind, the merger must be reversed. Your Noland comments are pretty accurate but you don’t provide the numbers. It goes without saying that the men and women at DBFR did well in the merger, but it was the management and the pension spikers that really took you deep.
ReplyDeleteScott Holloway is an example:
1. $11,500/ mo. Retirement income ( 35% from overtime pension spiking in calculating years )
2. Calculated an additional 3.25% for the added 33rd year permitted by the pension board
3. DROP will be worth about $750,000 without interest in 2 more years
4. At 51 years of age he will continue another career at BSO at $120,000
5. He will be earning $21,500/mo. for at least 10 years
6. If he does not spend the DROP/retirement payment he will save $1,380,000 plus interest over ten years
7. He will earn a FRS pension at 61 years of age of $54,000 or $4,500/mo.
At age 61, all he had to do is show up to work and he will have:
1. Monthly income of $26,000/month
2. $2,130,000 cash assets without interest
Scott Holloway will be paid this money during the worst economic downturn in history. The City has to scramble to find public funds to pay him while its tax base suffers from massive devaluation. So much so, it had to dump its fire department as a first move to afford it. Noland does it in your face, Holloway and the others (many others ) are doing it quietly.
Scott Holloway’s earnings are more than 5 times greater than a firefighters earnings. Not bad for a guy with a high school diploma from Deerfield Beach. The City wants to take the Insurance benefit from a Firefighter making a $5,000 per month pension. This constitutes a 10% reduction in the entire annual income to a retired firefighter. However, it represents less than a 20% reduction in a single months income to Scott Holloway.
These are the Figures that likely had the most affect in pushing the merger without public referendum. It was not a difficult decision to let the City go after the defenseless Retirees either. I watched Commissioner Ganz explain in detail why taking retiree benefits was necessary with BSO Chief DeJesus, Peggy Noland, Fire Chief Brocato, Burgess Hanson and staff were all there. BSO is therefore fully aware that retiree benefits were being taken away as part of the merger deal. So was the Pension Board Chair person Rob Weech and Union President Matt Pellitteri.....they denied it when asked....but they are lying.
If this merger was really the best thing for the City to do... it didn't have to be hidden away from the public like it was. The contract has a 1 year escape clause. The best minds in deerfield must unite and determine the truth about this merger.....because the truth is not yet fully known. They will tell you its too late....but it really is not too late to do the right thing.
@axtogrind Thank you for this detailed information. This is what this blog is about. Getting the real information out there and making people question the facts and information that the City of Deerfield Beach is handing out to the residents as facts when the truth is something else. I hope when people read this and if they have additional info on this that they take this forum to comment and advise us on what the truth is. You are right like minded individuals in Deerfield need to stand up and together against this corrupt regime we call our City's government. Now is the time...
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