More On Lobbying and Lobbyist Ron Book. By Geniusofdespair

Here is how it works. Tuesday I wrote about Ron Book's client list. Included was Aventura City which has the cash cow red light cameras (before this bill, that Charlie Crist is seen signing into law above, court's said Aventura did not have the authority to collect camera fees under State Law). This bill nullifies the court ruling against Aventura - Book's client. To make these godawful tickets more palatable to we the idiots, Book and others gives a pittance to a charity as a carrot - in this case to cure paralysis. The rest goes to the cities and State of Florida. You lose, because you have to pay the fine. As you can see in the photo above at the signing of the bill, there is Ron Book all smiles at his win for his client. BTW, all his other municipal clients are happy as clams because now they can install the cameras and make extra bucks without hiring police. Big brother is alive and well. Some believe the cameras are a good thing reducing accidents and injuries.

How do lobbyists get paid for these feats of questionable benefit to everyman? First they usually have a monthly retainer of approximately $5,000. In Ron's case that would mean his fees could possibly add up to as much as $6,000,000 a year (he has about 90 clients in the State and Miami-Dade County, also another 20 in Broward County). There are no success fees for Lobbyists but a bonus could legally be added to their fee in the form of a raise for the next year, in appreciation for their success. Sometimes in addition to the retainer, they also get an hourly fee in the neighborhood of $500.

What does a lobbyist do for all that dough? Talk people into stuff, even stuff that is not beneficial to those he/she has coerced, because a lobbyist always finds a hook - that is their forte. I think a more accurate term for what a lobbyist does is 'bullshit' around an issue, but then I am not the most tactful of people.

"Everglades Summit" in DC draws attention for Congress: no time, for one at a time ... by gimleteye

It has taken 40 years for the US government to approve the priority of elevating Tamiami Trail that crosses the Everglades. Last year Congress approved funding for the first mile and yesterday, the Department of Interior announced its commitment to elevate more than 5 miles of the Trail; it is a critical step forward.
The Trail is the first highway built across the Everglades, linking the east and west coasts of Florida. The road bed and adjacent canal act like a solid barrier to water flow from north to south. Unless the Trail is elevated at a sufficient length, it is impossible to re-establish adequate water flow from water conservation areas to the north with Everglades National Park and tribal lands of the Miccosukee.

There is a glacial slowness to pace of restoration that has deeply frustrated and angered federal judges who have taken to task both state and federal agencies for foot dragging on Everglades restoration. It did not help that former Governor Jeb Bush "spun" his own version of restoration, blindly endorsed by the Florida legislature bedazzled by an army of lobbyists from Big Sugar, that did not meet even the most cursory "smell test". The Bush plan has been thoroughly discredited in federal court proceedings. So there is movement, finally, on the Everglades. The interconnectedness of this ecosystem is matched by jurisdictional conflict of agencies and budgets and then, there is the problem of political will. Credit the Obama administration for approving the elevation of Tamiami Trail; scientists agree that the one mile span was insufficient to this critical public purpose.

But elevating the Trail without assuring clean water for the Everglades is wrong. Raising the Trail is a separate matter from assuring that polluted water from the north won't further degrade public and tribal lands to the south. This is where the acquisition of lands currently in agriculture comes in. By purchasing more than 130,000 acres of private property-- belonging to US Sugar and to Fanjul billionaires-- it will be possible to provide the surface area for cleaning up water to put back in the right quality and right quantities at the right times of year. But this land is not contiguous in the right places: the US Sugar parcels represent pieces of a puzzle that still must be put together. The missing pieces belong to Fanjul billionaires.

Credit Gov. Charlie Crist for opening up the potential for land swaps and outright purchases of uplands that are desperately needed to complement the elevation of Tamiami Trail. It escapes no one's attention that Big Agriculture and the cities, too, are piling highly polluted water into public lands. And it escapes no one's attention that the Fanjuls are heavily investing to kill the plan supported by environmentalists.

Right now, there is a struggle in the prioritization of investment for the Everglades, manifested in at least three federal courtrooms. Hydrologists like Tom Van Lent of the Everglades Foundation believe that a lot has to happen at once, from land acquisition to the creation of vast, engineered cleansing marshes that also act as reservoirs. The Foundation's vision is leading the way in Congress this week. Others, including the Miccosuckee Tribe, have argued that the federal government has done so much wrong in the past, it must be compelled to do ONE thing right-- building the promised EAA Reservoir.

Until recently, the Tribe's anger and frustration had been strongly expressed by former US Attorney Dexter Lehtinen. For reasons unrelated to the Everglades, Mr. Lehtinen is no longer counsel to the Tribe. If the federal government lived up to its commitments to the Everglades, and if the State of Florida took the necessary steps to acquire sugar lands from willing and the federal government, from unwilling sellers like the Fanjuls in the Everglades Agricultural Area, then it would be possible to do what is necessary to give a fighting chance for the faded River of Grass during the reasonable life span of our readers.

The problem with Everglades restoration today is not a lack of understanding, it is a lack of imagination. Yes, we live in very difficult economic times. But the nation's leaders acted with alacrity to provide hundreds of billions to financial institutions who were, themselves, largely responsible for plunging the United States into the worst crisis since the Great Depression. We cannot put off massive investment in land and infrastructure to protect the Everglades and other degraded ecosystems any longer.

We need to raise the Trail. We need to buy US Sugar lands through the purchase initiated by Governor Crist and supported by the state water management district. We need to do land swaps necessary to take this quilt patchwork of ownership and put it back together in a way that serves both the economy and the nation's hope for the environment. Congress and the White House must get this point: in the Everglades we don't have time, for one at a time.

Less than a week before the Gulf Oil Spill, we wrote ... by gimleteye

Re-read, in case you missed it, by clicking this link to "Why Offshore Drilling is so bad for Florida", published less than a week before the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Read, in particular, the comments and post your own, below.

Gulf Oil Spill and "managed expectations": who will be the last man standing? ... by gimleteye

Where is the Gulf oil? This morning googling the question produces 16,676 related articles. It is the spatter of zeitgeist, of Youtube clips, talk shows, nightly news, CSPAN and press conferences from sea to sea shining with petroleum. The hidden clouds of oil spilled by BP into the Gulf of Mexico may or may not be light, may or may not be dispersed into droplets or globs, may or may not coat beaches, wetlands and mangroves along the Gulf coast for decades to come: toxic as the day is long. According to AP, "At first we had a lot of concern about surface animals like turtles, whales and dolphins," said Paul Montagna, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi who studies Gulf reefs. "Now we're concerned about everything." (Deep sea oil plumes, chemical dispersants pose risks for the Gulf's coral reefs, food chain", May 17 2010) Please click, 'read more'.

The scale for "everything" is not barrels per day pouring into the Gulf. "Everything" was gathered in a recent report called the United Nations Global Biodiversity Outlook. In this context, a catalogue of the sixth great extinction in the geologic record, the oil spill evaporating, drifting, and congealing in the Gulf of Mexico has entrained us all. According to a NPR broadcast: "The saddest part... might not be all the data about dwindling species." Dwindling species that will no longer sustain the food chain or economies that depended on this section of the Gulf until April 23. 5,000 barrels per day, or 70,000 barrels per day or more: the numbers are devastating from any point of view. NPR goes on: "It might be the data about us, homo sapiens. A decade ago, world leaders set 21 goals to meet by 2010 to protect the world's biological diversity, and here's how well we've done: None of the 21 goals, not even one, has been met on a global scale."

The context of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe is full scale surrender to climate chaos. Its trail is visible from outer space to astronauts. In MSNBC "Astronauts see 'scary' oil spill from space, (May 18, 2010), "NASA astronaut Piers Sellers, a trained ecologist currently at the station as part of the visiting space shuttle Atlantis' crew, said the oil slick is an unshakeable example of humanity's effect on its home planet. "These things aren't good," he said of the oil slick. "When you fly around the planet you get to see the thumbprint of man all over the place." While mostly that thumbprint is positive, such as sustainable cities and cultivation of the land for agriculture, there are also signs of the damage humanity has done to Earth. Nonetheless, he said, the sight of the globe gave him hope. "We're optimistic, I think, that people will eventually learn to look after the planet," Sellers said."

Telling the story of climate catastrophe this way—no bad news without a dollop of good—is like massively applying the oil dispersant Corexit on the oil deep under the surface; highly toxic and still applied to mitigate the spill. It gets worse. A year before the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank in 5,000 feet of water, Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas wrote: "The image of oil villains despoiling our beaches ... is fodder for political grandstanding and greenie fundraising. Drilling foes don’t have any recent pictures of oily birds to make their case, so they throw out worst-case scenarios that are about as likely as an oil bit goosing Godzilla out of the depths." ('Drill, baby, drill', April 23, 2009) How so last-year to the day.

It is painful to look at the world with a gimlet eye, but the closer one trains the microscope on public policies and public behavior from global to local, the more acute the damage appears. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe is like a fixative. It illuminates the scale of dependencies on fossil fuels and the lengths we will go, and interests placate, and pockets line-- to drill here, drill now; the Deepwater Horizon disaster conceals within its midst hundreds of millions of dollars of science and studies and meetings and agencies posturing back and forth about pollution; should it be regulated? how should it be measured? who should enforce? Can government do anything, or, can it do nothing? This is the clutter of noise through which a few key oil company executives made a chain of bad decisions leading to the biggest environmental disaster in US history. No wonder they will not show the continuous feed of videotape from the broken pipes underground, no more than show the caskets of US soldiers as they are brought home from wars fought to maintain our dibs on Mideast sources of oil. If you are an oil producer in the Mideast, now is the time to lower the price of oil.

NOAA, a science agency of the US government with a mission tied to the US Department of Commerce has a major presence in the Gulf and the Florida Keys but if you were to put a number to its budget for enforcement of laws protecting natural resources, and if you were to guess that it is practically nothing, and if you were to imagine that enforcement authority has been largely off-loaded to the states and in the case of Florida that, furthermore, local and state politics have ensured that budgets for agencies charged with environmental enforcement have been thoroughly strangled and eviscerated under a Republican legislative majority, you would be right. You would also be right to question whether the underlying premise of extremist Republican politics is a certainty in hopelessness.

Yesterday Interior Secretary Ken Salazar faced an outraged Congress; a Congress that performed even more poorly supporting laws and budgets for enforcement of environmental regulations than it did in protecting the US Treasury from predators. Of the MInerals Management Service-- the agency responsible for monitoring offshore drilling activities--Salazar "said that the majority of the agency’s 1,700 employees were honest and capable but that there remained “a few bad apples”. Neither Salazar nor the Congressmen were inclined to revisit the "sex-for-oil" scandal that erupted at the same agency in 2008. Salazar said that anyone found guilty of negligence or corruption would be rooted out. (Federal Agency Chief Admits Lapses in Gulf Oil Spill, NY Times, May 18, 2010) The question remains: how could President Barack Obama, he of the grass roots organizing background, he of the spirit of empowerment of the weak, he of the Harvard Law School, how could this president fail to purge from federal agencies the ideologues who had hijacked their mission on behalf of special interests under the lazy eye of Bill Clinton, the triangulator, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney whose White House closed the doors behind Big Oil from very nearly their first day in office?

The truth of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has been leaking out for weeks: that Congress is in business to defend polluters; that the wealthiest nation on earth, with the most advanced regulatory system in the free world meant to protect public health and the environment, cannot meet its own goals and obligations under federal laws because of insider dealing and the revolving door between the regulated and regulators, ensuring lucrative sinecures so long as regulatory vessels are more preoccupied with bailing out and defending budgets and authority from attacks, than actually protecting against industry’s excesses.

So it is that environmentalists and government skeptics are all in the same boat--without oars or engine--drifting on the Gulf Loop current along with tens of millions of gallons of spilled oil; we're waiting to see what happens. Only a few dozen tar balls have washed up in Key West. Yesterday I heard a news report that 187 birds and sea mammals had died as a result of the spill. The web is providing some very effective ways to measure the damage, which according to the top BP executive will be minimal. This is what it feels like to drift off to war.

I observed the Gulf Loop in the late 1980's, when a sea-grass die off began in the Marquesas, a gorgeous and uninhabited string of islands thirty miles west of Key West, Florida. In the pristine waters, the die-off was unconnected to any similar phenomenon to the east and north. The culprit was dirty water pouring from the Gulf of Mexico. And I mean, pouring. In the adjacent Boca Grande Channel, six miles wide, the current runs at a fast sprint from west to east. A few miles beyond, the Gulf Loop hooks into the Gulf Stream. Now the world is watching the Gulf Loop experiment, leading oil from the worst offshore oil spill in US history toward the third-longest barrier reef in the world and potentially to seep into shallow seagrass beds that were the glory of Florida Bay.

This comes as a hard blow to a small group of conservationists who spent the better part of their lives working with government policies, laws, agencies and regulations to restore clean water flow through the Everglades into Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay, a shallow water wilderness that has already suffered a cascade of accelerating damage.

"Capt. Jim Sharpe, charter captain out of Summerland Key near Key West, tried to be hopeful, noting that the Gulf Stream sometimes moves as far as 40 miles from the Keys. But if the oil does come, he said, it would be "catastrophic." "There wouldn't be any fishing," he said. "And without fishing and diving in the Keys, there isn't much left." ("Gulf oil spill could 'devastate' South Florida's environment", Sun Sentinel, May 5, 2010) In the late 1980's Sharpe was member of a colorful, local Keys community of fishermen, treasure salvors and anti-government activists who opposed government intervention in environmental protection through a new national marine sanctuary sponsored by NOAA, fearing more intrusion of regulations on individual liberties. Their cause dovetailed and was funded by the same interests located in the American West who started the Wise Use Movement and the Reagan era Sagebrush Rebellion.

In the Keys two decades ago, the cascading damage to Florida Bay was attracting both environmental groups, like the Wilderness Society under Arizonan Jim Webb and the adversary: Big Sugar seeking to close off any attempts to regulate its "free" use of the historic Everglades as a sewer for its phosphorous pollution. Keys environmentalists knew how badly outnumbered they were: they supported the creation by Congress of the national marine sanctuary, hoping that it would provide funding and programming to stem the tide of degradation. The greens didn't want bureaucracy, necessarily. They wanted government to enforce existing regulations and especially the nation's most important federal environmental laws that had manifestly failed to be enforced-- like the Clean Water Act, or, protecting fragile sea grass beds from propeller scars and dredging. Many conservationists put aside concerns that overlaying more government agencies and authority would only lead to enshrining the ineffective and commemorating champions, no matter they accomplished so little. Although green careerism was at a far fainter scale than industry, it nevertheless provided ammo for the red meat bloviators to come like Rush Limbaugh, and masked the centrifugal force of politics from low to high, through which science-based coffee-klatches manifested in hotel conference rooms where the decline of natural resources would be studied as though all the world turned on how many angels could be fit on the head of a pin.

In a recent email on the NOAA Coral Reef listserve, David Palandro, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission wrote delicately: "Oil that MAY (Palandro's capitalization) find its way down the Loop Current (surface) is expected to take a ABOUT a week to reach the Keys. The oil that MAY reach the Keys will be heavily weathered and expected to be dime to quarter sized tar balls. I have placed a picture of charred tar balls found two days ago on the east end of Perdido Key, Florida on http://www.truediveteam.org/news.html. There were a total of 3. Tar balls have minimum impact on coral reefs. Physical contact should be minimized as they tend to stay on the surface. Acute toxic impacts should be minimal because the volatiles/toxins should have been expended off early on. There is an ongoing debate on long-term effects that are worthy of discussion when we find out the dose and exposure of the oil that reaches the Keys. I hope that this helps those with questions and I hope that this is not misinterpreted as me saying 'don't worry'. I simply wanted to present facts as they are and let folks draw their own conclusions. As you all know this is a very dynamic incident, and will remain that way until the well head is capped. This is not a oil spill similar to the Exxon Valdez ... as it stands now."

In Audubon's online magazine, "What Happens to Florida’s Coral Reefs, Mangroves and Seagrass if the Oil Spill Hits?" (May 13, 2010) James Fourqurean, a marine ecologist from Florida International University, says, "... “seagrasses themselves seem to be relatively resistant to oil... The only time the seagrass plants themselves are really drastically harmed by those oil spills are when the oil actually ponds up at low tide at inches deep across the sea grass bed.” A critic notes of Fourqurean, "... that's the same scientist who produced a NOAA funded report on the nearshore habitats of the Keys a few years ago wherein he said their "study" couldn't document any signs of human-induced impacts to the nearshore seagrasses of the Keys."

Everyone has their own version of history. That much is clear to the wise man. And it is also abundantly clear that scientific baselines have been shifting so dramatically in the Florida Keys and Gulf over the past twenty years, there is scarcely anything in near shore waters that resembles natural history as it existed only a few decades ago. The same is true of coastal Louisiana. Environmental groups, welded to win-win scenario planning, public-private partnerships with industry and often polluters, struggle to find up from down in a world where Arcadia is mostly available in Orlando theme parks for a price.

If any president has a "true north"-- take away all the prerequisites of office, the cocoon of presidential privilege and power--if any president has the capacity to feel the moral outrage; not just of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe but of the global consequences of climate change, Barack Obama should. And what his outrage should tell him is that the time for federal authority to stop playing fast and loose with environmental laws.

There is a good reason that BP has been allowed by the federal government and agencies to run the show at the site of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Government, with failure built into its operation and capacity, has been infested with fear, paranoia, careerism and padded with inefficiency for so long, and pushed down by industry and the wages of lobbyists, that the question arises: who is there to make decisions except by committee, except by waffling. Is there anyone willing to pick up the lance and sword and lead? Or, is the battle we are observing, simply to be the last man standing?

Who is Ron Book Lobbying for in 2010? By geniusofdespair

Here is Ron Book's Lobbyist list for 2010 as registered with the State of Florida (first) and Miami Dade County (second). He has about 96 "Open" clients and another 20 in Broward County. When you get tired of reading the LONG list, also check out our extensive Ron Book file - under "Ron Book" in the index at right.

(Additionally hit this link):

AmTrust Insurance Services, Inc
901 NW 51st St Ste 100 Boca Raton, FL 33431
Effective: 02/09/2010

Anchor Towing, Inc
12555 Biscayne Blvd PMB 455 North Miami, FL 33138
Effective: 02/09/2010

Ashbritt
408 S Andrews Ave Ste 103 Pompano Beach, FL 33069
Effective: 02/09/2010

Assurance Financial Partners, LLC
2901 SW 149th Ave Ste 140 Miramar, FL 33027
Effective: 02/26/2010

AT&T
150 S Monroe St Ste 400 Tallahassee, FL 32301
Effective: 02/09/2010 (HIT READ MORE)


AutoNation, Inc
450 E Las Olas Blvd 12th Floor Ft Lauderdale, FL 33301
Industry Code: 522220
Effective: 02/09/2010

Bail Agents Independent League of Florida
424 S Congress Ave West Palm Beach, FL
Industry Code: 525990
Effective: 02/09/2010

Best Buddies International
100 SE 2nd St Ste 2200 Miami, FL 33131
Industry Code: 624110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Biscayne Bay Pilots
2911 Port Blvd Miami, FL 33132
Industry Code: 485991
Effective: 02/09/2010

Brevard County
2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way C301 Viera, FL 32940
Industry Code: 921120
Effective: 03/01/2010

Broward County
115 S Andrews Ave Ft Lauderdale, FL 33301
Industry Code: 921110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Broward County Clerk of Courts
201 SE 6th St Ft Lauderdale, FL 33301
Industry Code: 922110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Carlisle Development Group
2950 SW 27th Ave Ste 200 Miami, FL 33133
Industry Code: 236116
Effective: 02/09/2010

Children's Home Society
1485 S Semoran Blvd Ste 1448 Winter Park, FL 32792
Industry Code: 624110
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Aventura
19200 W Country Club Dr Aventura, FL 33180
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Cooper City
9090 SW 50th Place Cooper City, FL 33329-0910
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Hallandale Beach
400 S Federal Hwy Hallandale Beach, FL 33009
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Lauderdale Lakes
4300 NW 36 St Lauderdale Lakes, FL 33319
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Miami
3500 Pan American Dr Miami, FL 33130
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Miramar
2300 Civic Center Place Miramar, FL 33025
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of North Miami
776 NE 125th St North Miami, FL 33161
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of North Miami Beach
17011 NE 19th Ave North Miami Beach, FL 33162
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Palm Bay
120 Malabar Rd Palm Bay, FL 32907
Industry Code: 921120
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Pinellas Park
5141 78th Ave Pinellas Park, FL 33781
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of South Bay
335 SW 2nd Ave South Bay, FL 33493
Industry Code: 921110
Effective: 02/10/2010

City of Sunny Isles Beach
18070 Collins Ave Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Sunrise
777 Sawgrass Corporate Pky Sunrise, FL 33325
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Tallahassee
300 S Adams St Tallahassee, FL 32301
Industry Code: 921120
Effective: 02/09/2010

City of Tamarac
7525 NW 88 Ave Tamarac, FL 33321
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, Inc
5701 W Sunrise Blvd Ft Lauderdale, FL 33313
Industry Code: 541990
Effective: 03/16/2010

Creditguard of America, Inc
5300 Broken Sound Blvd Ste 100 Boca Raton, FL 33487
Industry Code: 541990
Effective: 04/16/2010

Diabetes Research Institute Foundation, Inc
3440 Hollywood Blvd Ste 100 Hollywood, FL 33021
Industry Code: 813211
Effective: 02/09/2010

Driver's Rights Inc
2298 S Dixie Hwy Miami, FL 33133
Industry Code: 541110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Apartment Association
1133 W Morse Blvd Ste 201 Winter Park, FL 32789
Industry Code: 531110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Association of Forensic Professionals
14000 E Palomino Dr Southwest Ranches, FL 33330
Industry Code: 813920
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, Inc
2475 Apalachee Pky Ste 205 Tallahassee, FL 32301
Industry Code: 813319
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Children's Services Council, Inc
216 S Monroe St Tallahassee, FL 32301
Industry Code: 624110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Heart Research Institute
4770 Biscayne Blvd Ste 500 Miami, FL 33137
Industry Code: 541771
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Panthers
One Panther Pky Sunrise, FL 33323
Industry Code: 711219
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Power & Light Company
215 S Monroe St Ste 810 Tallahassee, FL 32301
Industry Code: 221122
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida Regional Councils Association
18851 NE 29th Ave Ste 1010 Aventura, FL 33180
Industry Code: 813990
Effective: 02/09/2010

Florida WIC Grocers Association
8425 NW 29th St Miami, FL 33122
Industry Code: 445110
Effective: 02/09/2010

GEO Group, Inc, The
621 NW 53rd St Ste 700 Boca Raton, FL 33487
Industry Code: 922140
Effective: 02/09/2010

Grant Street Group
1800 Allegheny Bldg 429 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Industry Code: 541511
Effective: 02/09/2010

Health Choice Network
9064 NW 13 Terrace Miami, FL 33172
Industry Code: 621491
Effective: 02/09/2010

InCharge Debt Solutions
2101 Park Center Dr Ste 320 Orlando, FL 32835
Industry Code: 541990
Effective: 04/30/2010

Indian River County
1840 25th St Vero Beach, FL 32960-3365
Industry Code: 521190
Effective: 02/09/2010

Interior Design Associations Foundation
250 Royal Ct Delray Beach, FL 33444
Industry Code: 813920
Effective: 02/09/2010

Merrill-Stevens
1270 NW 11th St Miami, FL 33125
Industry Code: 336611
Effective: 02/09/2010

Miami Beach Community Health Center
710 Alton Rd Miami Beach, FL 33139
Industry Code: 621498
Effective: 02/09/2010

Miami Project/Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis
Lois Pope Life Center 1095 NW 14th Terrace Miami, FL 33136
Industry Code: 541710
Effective: 02/09/2010

Miami-Dade County
111 NW 1st St Ste 1032 Miami, FL 33128
Industry Code: 921140
Effective: 02/09/2010

Miami-Dade County Public Schools
1450 NE 2 Ave Miami, FL 33132
Industry Code: 611110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Mount Sinai Medical Center
4300 Alton Rd Miami, FL 33140
Industry Code: 621493
Effective: 02/09/2010

Museum of Discovery & Science
401 SW 2nd St Ft Lauderdale, FL 33312
Industry Code: 712110
Effective: 05/06/2010

Neptune Wholesale, Inc
768 E Dania Beach Blvd Dania, FL 33004
Industry Code: 424990
Effective: 02/09/2010

New Horizons Community Mental Health Center, Inc
1313 NW 36th St Ste 400 Miami, FL 33142
Industry Code: 621112
Effective: 02/09/2010

Our Kids of Miami-Dade/Monroe, Inc
Rohde Bldg 401 NW 2nd Ave S-212 Miami, FL 33128
Industry Code: 624110
Effective: 02/09/2010

Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners
315 Court St Clearwater, FL 33756
Industry Code: 921120
Effective: 02/09/2010

Pinnacle Housing Group
9400 S Dadeland Blvd Ste 100 Miami, FL 33156
Industry Code: 236116
Effective: 02/09/2010

Public Health Trust-Jackson Memorial Hospital
1611 NW 12th Ave Miami, FL 33136
Industry Code: 621493
Effective: 02/09/2010

Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic Florida
6704 SW 80th St Miami, FL 33143
Industry Code: 611710
Effective: 02/09/2010

Republic Services, Inc
751 NW 31st Ave Ft Lauderdale, FL 33311
Industry Code: 562111
Effective: 02/09/2010

South Broward Hospital District
1131 N 35th Ave Hollywood, FL 33021
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

Spectrum Programs & Miami Behavioral Health Center
11031 NE 6th Ave Miami, FL 33161
Industry Code: 621112
Effective: 02/09/2010

Sun Life Stadium
2269 Dan Marino Blvd Miami Gardens, FL 33056
Industry Code: 711219
Effective: 02/16/2010

Teva Pharmaceuticals, USA
444 N Capitol St NW Ste 399 Rogers, AR 72758
Industry Code: 325412
Effective: 02/09/2010

Turnberry Associates
19501 Biscayne Blvd Ste 400 Aventura, FL 33180
Industry Code: 531312
Effective: 02/09/2010

University of Miami
Ashe Administration Bldg Rm 230 Coral Gables, FL 33146
Industry Code: 611310
Effective: 02/09/2010

Vehicle Production Group
1425 Brickell Ave Ste 54-E Miami, FL 33133
Industry Code: 336111
Effective: 02/09/2010

Village of Bal Harbour
655 96th St Bal Harbour, FL 33154
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

Village of Palmetto Bay
8950 SW 152nd St Palmetto Bay, FL 33157
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

Village of Royal Palm Beach
Royal Palm Beach Blvd Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411
Industry Code: 921190
Effective: 02/09/2010

Vitas Healthcare Corporation
100 S Biscayne Blvd 15th Floor Miami, FL 33132-2304
Industry Code: 621610
Effective: 02/09/2010

West Flagler Kennel Club, Inc
401 NW 38th Ct Miami, FL 33126
Industry Code: 711212
Effective: 02/09/2010

Westchester General Hospital
2500 SW 75 Ave Miami, FL 33155
Industry Code: 621493
Effective: 02/09/2010

White Rock Quarries
101 Sansbury's Way West Palm Beach, FL 33411
Industry Code: 212312
Effective: 02/09/2010

Miami Dade County:

JOHNSON CONTROLS INC 1/26/2009
NONE Open

LENNAR 11/24/2008
NONE Open

FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF FORENSIC PROFESSIONALS 11/18/2008
RETIREMENT ISSUES Open

CVR 10/7/2008
NONE Withdrawn

GRANT STREET GROUP 9/16/2008
ONLINE AUCTION SERVICES-CLERK OF COURTS, TAX COLLECTION, MANAGEMENT & REVENUE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM Open


GEO CARE, INC 3/13/2008
NONE Open

ELECTROLYTIC TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION 2/28/2008
SOUTH DADE WATER TREATMENT PLANT-KLORIGEN SOLUTIONS Open

QUADEL CONSULTING CORPORATION 9/11/2006
NONE Open

DOLPHIN STADIUM CORPORATION 7/7/2006
ZONING MATTERS Open

MERRILL STEVENS DOCK COMPANY 6/23/2006
MODERNIZATION AND EXPANSION OF BOATYARD Open

WAL-MART STORES INC 6/20/2006
NONE Withdrawn

ANCHOR TOWING 4/10/2006
TOWING/POLICE DEPT Open


CONTINENTAL GLASS SYSTEMS 11/29/2005
PRODUCT APPROVAL Open

MIAMI BEACH COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER 5/26/2005
NONE Open

FLORIDIANS FOR A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD 11/22/2004
SLOT MACHINE REFERENDUM Withdrawn

VILLAGE OF BAL HARBOUR 4/13/2004
WATER AND SEWER ISSUE Open

CITY OF NORTH MIAMI 12/19/2003
NONE Open

FOSTER CONSTRUCTION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 11/24/2003
NONE Withdrawn

VANGUARD CAR RENTAL USA INC 11/24/2003
NONE Open

BROWARD ADJUSTMENT SERVICES 4/4/2003
COLLECTORS CONTRACT Open

ASHBRITT 2/28/2003
CANAL DREDGING CONTRACT Open

SWERDLOW REAL ESTATE GROUP INC 11/28/2000
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNET FACILITY Open

WHITE ROCK QUARRIES 10/17/2000
LAND USE Open

MIAMI DOLPHINS 5/23/2000
NAMING OF NW 199 STREET Open

Gulf Oil Spill: CBS 60 Minutes spoils BP and US govt efforts to "manage expectations" ... by gimleteye

There was a remarkable story and interview on 60 Minutes last night by Scott Pelley and one of the key engineers on the Deepwater Horizon when the rig exploded, putting the Gulf of Mexico and the economies and environment of the Gulf region at risk of severe damage. Click the link to watch it. Click 'read more', too:

Bleeding from a gash in his forehead from being blown across a computer control room, Mike Williams jumped from the flaming rig into the Gulf of Mexico: 100 feet straight down. He burst to the surface coated in oil and diesel fuel and escaped to tell his story. Williams gets to the key points: that the drilling operation had been troubled with a series of problems, all resolved in favor of BP pushing past safety concerns to save money.

Isn't it strange how the impulse to save money, to make more-- a few decisions by a few executives-- can do so much harm? You could think about that while looking at this map, overlaying the surface area of the spill on Miami. Given that a massive volume of spilled oil is lurking in clouds under the sea surface, it is easy to picture the area of the entire southern Florida peninsula encompassed by the spill. Let's hope that cloud doesn't wrap itself around us.

For different reasons, both the US government and BP and its subcontractors, TransOcean and Halliburton, are downplaying the mistakes and devastating consequences in the Gulf. BP, for example, has only released a fifteen second video clip of the pipe outfall: the company should have been ordered by the Obama White House to keep a camera in a continuous "on" record and transmit mode so that the world can see in real time what is going on. Instead the company says it has much higher priorities; no time, for instance, to calculate the true volume of oil leaking from the deep well that independent scientists estimate is five to ten times the acknowledged amount.

The US government has its own reasons for muting the extent of the tragedy. No one likes bad news on this gigantic scale. Although the Obama administration can scarcely be blamed from the culture of regulatory indifference that infected the operations of the federal government; from banking, to insurance, minerals and natural resource exploitation-- and measurement and science-- Obama could have acted much more quickly on taking office to reverse this culture.

I spoke to a senior government environmental official shortly after the Obama inauguration. I wondered aloud how long it would take to root out the lobbyists and industry insiders who, under George W. Bush and Karl Rove, ran the nation's major environmental protection agencies. It was clear that changing the political appointees at the Cabinet and sub-cabinet level could happen relatively quickly, but my contact told me that it would be much, much more difficult to change out ideologues who had been put into jobs that held a civil service status. That is a story for the future: what so-called regulators had the opportunity to hold BP and its subcontractors accountable for safety and environmental and permitting mistakes, but didn't because of their past relationships with regulated industries. Who failed to do their jobs, and how and under what circumstances were they put in positions to lubricate this catastrophic chain of mistakes?

The horrendous 2008 disclosures of the Minerals Management Service, the "sex for oil scandal", has been well documented. There is a lot more to come. Mike Williams will no doubt be called to testify to Congress in the coming days and weeks. Thankfully, he survived. Thankfully, he has the common sense to know that the full details of his story must be told in the public commons. Suddenly the "Drill here, Drill now, Pay Less" crowd of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Fox News bloviators have tar stuck to the roofs of their mouths.

Florida Hometown Democracy, Amendment 4: Mason-Dixon shows ballot initiative polling at 61% ... by gimleteye

Six out of 10 poll respondents say they’d vote for a proposed constitutional amendment that would require public referenda before amendments or new comprehensive land use plans can be approved, according to a Ron Sachs/Mason-Dixon poll released Wednesday. Help Florida Hometown Democracy defeat the special interests who drove the economy into the ground. (Please click 'read more' for full article and press statement by FHD)

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 | News Service of Florida
Mason-Dixon: Hometown Democracy Polling at 61%

While the results showing 61 percent of voters support the proposal to just 18 percent against, sound overwhelming that level of support would actually just barely be enough to pass because constitutional amendments require 60 percent voter approval.

The proposed Amendment 4 – dubbed by supporters as the “Hometown Democracy” amendment would stifle development and kill jobs, opponents say.

The words “Hometown Democracy,” controversial because of their positive implication, weren’t included in the poll.

Respondents from both major parties were overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal, though Democrats and independent voters polled more strongly in favor. Still 54 percent of Republicans support the proposal compared to 23 percent against with 20 percent undecided. Overall, 21 percent of voters say they’re still undecided on the land-use proposal.

The question as posed to poll responders: “Amendment 4 would require that before a local government may amend or adopt a new comprehensive land use plan, the proposed plan or amendment must be approved by a public referendum. If you were voting on this amendment today, would you vote: ‘Yes,’ in favor of this amendment, or ‘No’, against this amendment?”

The poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. from May 3 through May 5, asked the question of 625 registered voters by telephone, all of whom said they vote regularly in state elections.

The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.


Press statement from FHD:

"Florida voters are ready for Amendment 4, as the Mason-Dixon poll below shows. 61% would vote yes today; 18% no and 21% still undecided. Florida voters know that when our quality of life, home-values and taxes are at risk, we need a seat at the table. Florida voters know that comprehensive land use plan changes, mundane as they may seem, are just too important to leave in the hands of pay-to-play career politicians and their speculator friends. Florida voters know that the binge of speculative over-development that wrecked so much of our beautiful state must not happen again. Is even more development necessary than is provided for in our local plan? We must vote because we are the ones who must pay.

Send this email to 4 Floridians you haven’t contacted about Amendment 4. At a minimum send $20.10 to do your share. Better would be $40 or $400, but donate today either on-line or by snail mail check so we can fight the lies and disinformation that the politicians and speculators are spewing."


Vote YES 4 Hometown Democracy!
HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth!
http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com
PO Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.

Marco Rubio and Credit Card Spending. By Geniusofdespair

The Geynold's Park Love-in. By Geniusofdespair

I have been meaning to go to the Greynold's Park Love-in for years, to gather with a few thousand old hippies and new ones, I finally made it. Everyone broke out their tie-dye shirts and their secret stash of patchouli oil - didn't smell any pot. They even had empty Qualude jars for sale for $20. Check out the photos I took, and video -- hit read more to see the present generations celebrate the past!

Meek as the Dumb-o-crat Choice? Blame It on the Clintons. By Geniusofdespair

Let's face it, the only reason that Kendrick Meek is the front running Democratic Senate Candidate is because Hillary and Bill raised him wads of money for the race as payback for Meek's support. No other candidate can hope to compete. Sorry Maurice Ferre. Oops, except Jeff Greene, the billionaire from New York in the Democratic race, he can raise money from himself. My bet is Charlie Crist will lead the pack but it will be interesting to see Greene sling much needed mud at Rubio. Greene has no history, he has it easy in the politics department not so easy in the personal background (galpal former madam Heidi Fleiss).

Both Carrie Meek and Kendrick Meek had to claw their way to the top of the heap but they had to make too many concessions and 'deals' along the way and those are coming back to bite Kendrick and will ultimately destroy his campaign. See Jeff Greene:

This guy has a good machine, our blog is getting all his press releases. Someone is on top of things over there.

Former Florida Supreme Court Justice goes to work against Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment 4 ... by gimleteye

As a Florida Supreme Court justice Charles T. Wells wrote the majority opinion favoring opponents of Florida Hometown Democracy whose ballot initiative, Amendment 4, will be voted this November. The measure will be the first opportunity ever for Floridians to have a choice on land development patterns. Two months after Wells wrote that opinion, he joined the law firm that is leading the charge against the November 2010 state wide ballot initiative, that would require popular vote to decide changes to community land use plans in Florida. Read more:http://www.browardbulldog.org/?p=1181#more-1181

Ex-Supreme Court chief justice approves ballot petition, gets hired by firm allied with its sponsor

28 April 2010, 5:15 am
By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org


Charles T. Wells

Weeks after casting the deciding vote to approve a controversial ballot petition in December 2008, former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles T. Wells joined a law firm aligned with the petition’s sponsor.

The high court’s 4-3 ruling gave life to a push by developers and statewide business interests – led by the Florida Chamber of Commerce – to blunt a possible change in the state constitution to greatly expand citizen powers over local development.

Wells landed a senior job at GrayRobinson, an influential Orlando-based corporate firm allied with the petition’s sponsor, a political action committee called Floridians for Smarter Growth. He says he got the job because of his six decade old friendship with the firm’s co-founder, J. Charles Gray.

GrayRobinson announced Wells’ hiring on March 3, 2009. But in an interview with Broward Bulldog, Wells said he might have accepted the job in January 2009, while the case was still before the court for a possible rehearing.

“I don’t really remember. I may have,” Wells said. “As I say, I was wrapping things up at this point.”

Gray did not respond to a request for comment.

Florida’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to perform their duties impartially, and to disqualify themselves when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Specifically, the canons say judges negotiating for employment with a law firm are “disqualified from any matters in which that law firm appeared.”

Penalties for violations can range from removal office or public reprimand to a fine.

The rehearing had been sought by Floridians for Hometown Democracy, the group that sponsored the growth management initiative that’s on the ballot this November as Amendment 4. The court, including Wells, denied a rehearing on Jan. 29, 2009.

More than 711,000 Florida voters signed a petition to get Hometown Democracy on the ballot. If approved by 60 percent of voters, it would amend the constitution to require voter approval of changes to comprehensive land use plans.

Supporters say such change would amount to giving citizens veto power over unwanted development.

Builders, real estate interests and the Chamber formed Floridians for Smarter Growth in 2007 and raised $4.6 million to oppose Hometown Democracy, which they argue will lead to higher taxes, job losses and lawsuits. Smarter Growth’s competing amendment would offer voters a more limited opportunity to approve or disapprove such plans, but backers didn’t obtain enough signatures to get it on this year’s ballot.

GrayRobinson does not represent Smarter Growth, but its lawyers have had a significant and continuing interest in the PAC’s fortunes.

At least three GrayRobinson partners – including Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick – have helped lead the fight against Hometown Democracy.

As mayor, Resnick recently pushed a resolution that put Wilton Manors on record as opposing Hometown Democracy. Resnick supported a similar measure in March as president of the Broward League of Cities.

More influential is lawyer/lobbyist Frederick Leonhardt, a member of the quasi public government agency Enterprise Florida, and a Republican fundraiser who raised more than $100,000 for President Bush in 2004.

Leonhardt has been an outspoken opponent of Hometown Democracy since 2004, when he served as chairman of its most implacable foe, the Florida Chamber of Commerce. Today, he remains on the chamber’s board, as wells as the boards of other influential groups opposed to Amendment 4.

Those groups include the Coalition for Property Rights, the James Madison Institute, Floridians for Better Transportation, and the President’s Council Commercial Real Estate Forum, which Leonhardt chairs.

According to the Miami Daily Business Review, GrayRobinson now ranks as Florida’s fifth largest law firm. It has about 220 lawyers in 10 offices – including 25 in Fort Lauderdale, and its many clients include the Florida House of Representatives.

GrayRobinson also fields one of the state’s largest lobbying practices, which state records show earned more than $3.5 million in fees in 2009.

Charles Talley Wells was appointed to the Supreme Court by Governor Lawton Chiles in 1994. The conservative Wells began a two year term as chief justice in 2000, and presided over the highly-charged presidential election case Bush v. Gore.

Florida’s mandatory retirement age for judges is 70. Wells announced in mid-November 2008 that he would retire upon his 70th birthday in March 2009. GrayRobinson founding partner J. Charles Gray told the Orlando Sentinel then that Wells, his longtime friend, “was going to stay in the profession somewhere.”

On March 3, 2009, GrayRobinson announced Wells had joined the firm in an “of counsel” capacity and that he would work out of the firm’s Orlando and Tallahassee locations.

“The GrayRobinson situation was sort of a perfect fit for me,” said Wells, who declined to discuss his pay. “I was always interested in government and they have a good government practice.”

The date that Wells accepted his job at GrayRobinson is unclear.

Wells told Broward Bulldog last week that he did not recall the date, or the dates of his employment negotiations. He said he kept no records about it after leaving the court.

But on Jan. 22, 2009, Wells told an interviewer with the court’s in-house newsletter, Full Court Press, he planned to return to private practice, part time in Tallahassee and part time outside of Orlando.

That is the arrangement Wells enjoys today with GrayRobinson. Asked by Broward Bulldog whether it indicated he had by then accepted the job, Wells said it was possible.

Whenever he did take the job, Wells said, he was unaware of the firm’s aggressive efforts against Florida Hometown Democracy.

“I didn’t even know they had any kind of record on it. It never crossed my mind, but as I say the way I got with GrayRobinson was because of my friendship with Charles [Gray],” Wells said.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in September 2008 on Floridians for Smarter Growth’s competing amendment that would offer voters a more limited ability to control land use changes. Wells announced his retirement in November 2008. On Dec. 18, Wells authored the court’s majority opinion that held Smarter Growth’s proposal complied with various legal requirements.

Dissenting justices complained bitterly that Wells’ opinion authorized “a misleading and deceptive ballot title and summary to be placed before Florida votes on a future election ballot.”

One cited example: the ballot summary does not tell voters that they could only sign a land use referendum petition at the local elections office, not at a library or supermarket as is the customary method of citizen involvement.

Palm Beach lawyer Lesley Blackner, Hometown Democracy’s co-founder, calls the Supreme Court’s decision the “low point” of her long campaign to put Amendment 4 on the ballot.

Since 2003, the Hometown Democracy PAC has collected $2.1 million in contributions – including $750,000 from Blackner.

Three months ago, Floridians for Smarter Growth was replaced by a new group called Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy, which was formed by the same Chamber lawyer/lobbyist who founded Floridians for Smarter Growth, Richard E. Coates.

In February, Smarter Growth gave $487,269 to the new Citizens PAC. Two weeks later, the Chamber contributed $125,000.

At the end of March, Citizens had a war chest of nearly $1 million. Other big contributors include the trade association Florida Mainstreet Merchants ($150,000), Regency Realty Group ($50,000), Waste Management ($50,000) and NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association ($75,000).