On June 10, 2004, at the groundbreaking ceremony for the “planned community” called Wilton Station, city officials from Wilton Manors and real estate developers from the company Ellis Diversified Inc. (EDI) acted like revelers at a wedding, toasting to a prosperous future. The $100 million condo development — a five-building…
Remember this past February when the Miami Herald did a front-page story claiming that Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter voted on a measure in 2008 that benefited her lobbyist husband’s client, the Florida Panthers? First it looked bad for Ritter, since her husband, Russ Klenet, had been paid tens of thousands…
As the head of a homeless shelter in Hollywood, Sean Cononie has hosted more than his share of funerals. Recently, he decided to begin celebrating a lesser-known side of life on the streets: love. His group, the Coalition of Service and Charity, organizes and pays for the weddings of couples…
Sam Goren, acting general counsel for the $1 billion North Broward Hospital District, took that job despite having conflicts of interest, according to statements Goren himself made to a district investigator months before Goren assumed his new position.The investigator, Miami attorney Martin Goldberg, was hired by the board to look…
[jump] This originally appeared on New Times letterhead, addressed to his local residence: August 14, 2008 Dear Mr. Nielsen, I’m a reporter with New Times, the local weekly newspaper. I’ve been a fan of yours for some time now and I’ve wanted to write to you for a while. I…
In an unabashed marketing ploy, the makers of Old Spice deodorant have ranked the Top 20 All-Time Sweatiest Cities. Phoenix took the top spot, Miami came in at number 7, and West Palm Beach placed at number 8. Old Spice number-crunchers say that “Phoenix’s average temperature was 94 degrees in…
But the appearance was still “an absolute success.” The Coral Springs man who spent 20 years writing his self-published epic poem says Coral Springs Mayor Scott Brook mentioned ahead of time that he might show up at the local Waldenbooks last weekend to see the local writer in person at a book…
Live greyhound racing in New Hampshire ended swiftly this week with a new state bill that allows the two tracks there to have simulcast betting without having to run dogs on the premises. Similar bills have been proposed in the Florida Legislature each of the past three years, but none…
Well, the businesses that haven’t paid their 2007 taxes (yeah, there’s a bit of backlog at county revenue collection) on their furniture and equipment have been served with their notices, and it’s a pretty interesting list. One well-known fellow who had to deal with a notice was Scott Rothstein, the big shot Fort…
flickr.com Malcolm Gladwell at a lecture in Chicago. If you have a major problem with free media, please send cash or check before reading the rest of this post. In the beginning of Malcolm Gladwell’s piece in the current New Yorker, he sounds as if he might be mocking Jim Moroney,…
A few weeks ago, we wrote about a biologically male food server in Boca who claim to be fired from Carrabba’s Italian Grill for being too flamboyant. Alexis — as she prefers to be called — has breasts, long hair, and the (surgically altered) facial structure of a woman. She…
He can’t legally drive down the Glades Parkway in his hometown of Weston, but 15-year-old Gabby Chaves has a half-million dollar Formula BMW race car that he’s driven at speeds of 150 mph en route to being the league’s youngest champion ever.Weston, apparently, is where the U.S. hides its world-class…
[jump] Pat Macabi, owner of Macabi Cigar Bar in Fort Lauderdale, has mixed feelings on the new laws. While Macabi is pleased cigars aren’t being taxed like “dirty cigarettes,” he says the system is too convoluted and confusing for retailers. “But they’re right not to tax cigar smokers as much,” he…
The website for Publix supermarkets states, “There are plenty of fish in the sea, but not all of them are good enough for Publix.” According to the environmental organization Greenpeace, that statement is all sorts of wrong. First, there are NOT plenty of fish in the sea, as scientific report…
In what amounts to a gross violation of the public trust, the Broward School Board’s auditor has determined that the giant environmental services firm AshBritt Inc. overbilled and, at times, double-billed the School Board $765,000 during emergency work done in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma, according to a 48-page report obtained…
Ronald Belisario was just 16 years old when he was signed to the Florida Marlins in 1999. The right-handed pitcher from Venezuela worked his way through baseball’s farm teams, missing the 2005 and 2006 seasons due to surgery, then landing in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league system. This year, the…
Deon Thomas, the former University of Illinois basketball star who had retired in South Florida and who started a new career coaching junior varsity at The University School in Fort Lauderdale, just landed his first collegiate coaching job. Thomas is the new head basketball coach and athletic director of Lewis…
Here’s a story that brings home just how morbid this housing crisis can be: Heather Newnam of Tamarac shot herself yesterday instead of letting cops evict her for failing to pay her rent.It’s a depressing tale, but perhaps what’s more depressing is reading what amounts to Newnam’s final public words…
Jeopardy time. This black market product costs governments worldwide $50 billion every year, fuels Hezbollah, the PKK and other terrorist cells and runs on global crime syndicates and hundreds of underground factories in China and Eastern Europe.via Wikimedia CommonsHeroin, you say? Cocaine? Automatic weapons?Try cigarettes. As Western countries hike taxes…
Hit cop show CSI Miami is getting a new cast member — a cop from the Hollywood Police Department. There’s no indication yet whether the show is looking to do a ripped-from-the-headlines-type treatment of the new character, who will be played by the usually shirtless Eddie Cibrian. But if so,…
You apparently don’t mess with Dale Chihuly. The glass artist from Tacoma is apparently as tough as his eye patch would let on.That’s at least the conclusion I came to after getting a letter last week from Chihuly’s people, with a subject line that said simply, “Trademark Infringement.” The reason…
John and Jacci Knouff first figured out there was something wrong with their house because of the cat box. They kept changing the litter, yet every time they walked in, it smelled like they’d forgotten it for a week. “There were times at the beginning when we just had changed…
