Corruption and conflicts of interest have already sullied the City of Hollywood’s multimillion-dollar sewage deal. Now it appears the March vote to choose a company with financial ties to Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom was based on false claims. The City Commission decided to hire Schwing Bioset to treat and haul tons…
Bad Fortune And imprudent jurisprudence? Trevor Aaronson’s July 15 story on Melody Fortunato (“Below the Bar”) could have been called “Below the Belt.” This so-called representative of the people screwed me bad during my divorce in July 2000. She was supposed to represent me for a child support hearing before…
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Joyce Tarnow’s a weird combo: a wiry, gray-haired mother of three who’s a feminist, an environmentalist, and slightly wacko about population growth. “Fertility is an environmental issue,” she says. “That’s why I try to get as many people sterilized as are in my way!” Tarnow also has an interesting stance…
Melody Ridgley Fortunato was the type of woman young girls are taught to admire. She overcame early hardship, living modestly but with big ambitions in Americus, Georgia. After moving to South Florida, Fortunato took on a sexist boys’ club in the Hollywood Police Department and won. Then she divorced a…
In the early evening of Tuesday, November 11, 2003, Stephen Jordi parked his 1988 Ford Aerostar van in a lot south of the Sunset Harbor Marina in Miami Beach. With him was a friend he’d made in August, Stewart Welch. The two looked almost identical: middle-aged white men with flabby…
Well-run cities are all alike; every corrupt city is corrupt in its own way. Hollywood is a good example of the latter. Dragged by its dysfunctional mother, Mayor Mara Giulianti, the city keeps sliding further into the stinking sludge. I mean that almost literally, since the latest scandal centers on…
For the Love of Dogs Not the bad rep: I just read Sam Eifling’s July 8 article on the Pembroke Pines gentleman who had the issue with the pool guy (“`Burb Dogs”). It always saddens me to hear of any pit bull mishap, as I have been involved with the…
A spin of the Romance Roulette wheel landed on a Thursday night for my newest sidekick, Rufus. The lucky chap’s spectacles positively fogged up over the prospect that I’d throw all five feet, eight inches of his vein-bursting desire into the path of lusty ladies in downtown Fort Lauderdale. I…
It’s the sort of place where people obey speed limits, keep their lawns lush, play catch with their kids in the front yard, and invite one another to barbecues on Friday and Saturday nights. Teenagers maneuver bikes, skateboards, and motorized scooters around the meandering streets, past the beat-up basketball hoops…
North Broward Hospital District Commissioner Dorsey Miller appears to have used his influence to help Enterprise Security, a minority-owned Fort Lauderdale firm, land a contract worth about $500,000 a year to help guard the district’s four hospitals. At the same time, Enterprise was paying the commissioner’s company, D.C. Miller &…
Olson shudda played Sonny Crockett: Wyatt Olson’s July 1 article on Rick Bradshaw, “West Palm Heat,” was excellent; I am impressed with his investigative reporting. He did awesome work putting this article together! Great job! Darleen LaPaglia West Palm Beach Brave Islanders Out for good, we hope: I recently read…
State Sen. Steve Geller (D-Hallandale Beach) has struck a small blow for justice with his bill to wipe out place names containing racial, ethnic, or religious slurs. Spurred by a news story last year citing the “Nigger Jim Hammock Bridge” in Hendry County as a leftover from the state’s Jim…
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in late May, Ric Bradshaw was ready to show off the support he’d garnered for his campaign for the sheriff’s office in Palm Beach County. About 50 supporters had gathered just outside the Palm Beach governmental center in downtown West Palm Beach. Some were West…
That was Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, who Tailpipe spied in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. No little white hat and scoops of Cherry Garcia or Heath Bar Crunch to give him away, but a familiar Woodstockian message. Cohen was in town to install electric signage on…
“I can control what you experience through the night,” Gary Santis says, “with my lighting.” The mad-scientist statement drops from the hot (very early ’90s George Michael, yum!) promoter for the most prominent dance venue in Broward County, the 18,000-square-foot Coliseum nightclub (2520 S. Miami Rd., Hollywood). Unless you’ve been…
If Broward County had only listened to Miriam Oliphant, taxpayers could have saved millions of dollars and had a more efficient democracy. Stranger words were never spoken. But it’s true. The mega-maligned former Broward supervisor of elections — who Gov. Jeb Bush forced out of office last November — tried…
Help for Gay IslandersFrom north of here: No one deserves the nonsense suffered by Brian Williamson or others in Jamaica as described in Jeff Stratton’s June 24 story, “Gay in Jamaica.” I practice immigration law with the Catholic Diocese of Richmond. If any Jamaican gay guy can get to the…
It’s a stinker of a ruling if Tailpipe ever smelled one. Broward Commissioner John Rodstrom this month squeaked through a Florida Commission on Ethics investigation of his dealings. Fort Lauderdale resident Judy Sadlier had alleged that the millionaire politician benefited financially from his opposition to expansion at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood…
When Desmond Chambers found the corpse of his friend, Brian Williamson, he couldn’t believe the carnage. Blood was spattered on all four walls of the tiny bedroom in New Kingston, a well-to-do part of the Jamaican capital. The carpet was drenched from multiple wounds to Williamson’s head and neck. The…
Simone Gitman wants to help me find God. A petite brunet with ocean-blue eyes the size of half-dollar coins, Gitman sits cross-legged next to me on a brown sofa with oversized cushions in the canal-front home she rents in Victoria Park. Dressed in gray sweat pants and a blue tank…
What would Granny do? Probably take him to the hospital. But tonight, stitches and duct tape will have to suffice for Al Michael. Michael was ATVing a recent Saturday out by Mack’s Fish Camp when he rolled his machine and split his scalp wide open. “Anyone else would have laid…
