“Vigilante trappers” and pet activists have improperly stuck Broward taxpayers with the tab to sterilize feral and stray cats.

An internal county report says Broward’s Stop Pet Overpopulation Together (S.P.O.T.) program was misused by animal rescue groups to have wild cats spayed and neutered at local clinics in violation of program rules.

No allegations of wrongdoing were leveled at any specific animal rescue group or clinic, but reports by Broward’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Professional Standards recommended better verification of pet ownership before S.P.O.T. sterilization vouchers are issued.

S.P.O.T. program coordinator Timothy Weihrauch said program fixes have already been made.

“This new process prevents vigilante trappers from trapping feral cats and presenting vouchers which they obtained by soliciting unknowing citizens in local neighborhoods,” Weihrauch said.

“I have already seen numbers from [animal] hospitals which had been questioned for ‘feral’ activity drop drastically.”

The investigative report, written April 20, was made public recently at Broward Bulldog’s request.

Low and moderate income pet owners who own and keep a dog or cat are eligible to obtain S.P.O.T. vouchers. But county officials believe some activists duped friends, neighbors or others to sign up for vouchers to sterilize feral cats that no one owns.

The county’s internal probe began last November after complaints were received that two clinics, Cats Exclusive of Margate and Discount Pet Clinic in Davie, had misused S.P.O.T. funds. Each of those clinics performed dozens of sterilizations in 2008 that were paid for by the county, the report said.

Investigators were suspicious because registered pet owners who received their annual license renewals in 2009 reported back that they didn’t own the neutered animal. Likewise, numerous S.P.O.T. applications submitted to the county for payment had similar handwriting, reports say.

“Each alleged S.P.O.T. pet owner brought in 2-4 cats at a time,” says one report.

At the county’s request, the clinics turned over S.P.O.T. surgery records for the period May-August 2008. In March, investigators interviewed 18 customers each from the two clinics.

Thirteen customers of the nonprofit Cats Exclusive and eight from Discount Pet said they did not own the animal registered to them.

Investigators did not attempt to determine how long program misspending occurred, or determine its breadth. But Professional Standards director Gretchen Harkins said the misuse had cost in the thousands of dollars.

Broward paid for about 2,000 S.P.O.T. sterilizations in 2008 at more than 20 veterinary clinics and nonprofit organizations. The procedures were funded by a $2 surcharge on animal license tags.

The S.P.O.T. program reimburses veterinarians $60 to neuter a male cat, and $86 to spay a female cat. Pet owners must pay an additional $10 at the clinic.

Feral cats are excluded from the program by county ordinance because they are not owned by anyone, said S.P.O.T coordinator Weihrauch.

While the rules are clear, the S.P.O.T. application form was “vague” in 2008, the reports say. The form was revised this year, and applicants must now certify they live in Broward and own the animal that’s to be sterilized. They must also present a photo ID.

Some pet owners told investigators they gave cats to several rescue groups to stop the killing of animals and to reduce the population of wild cats in their neighborhoods. The report on Cats Exclusive identifies two of those groups as Beyond Nine and Animal Aid.

“Other pet owners stated that they were being solicited by rescue organizations to bring in the cats for spaying/neutering,” says the report, adding that unidentified rescue workers also provided pet owners with “pre-completed S.P.O.T. applications” for them to sign.

The report concluded evidence “clearly supports the allegation that many of the S.P.O.T. application pet owners [at Cats Exclusive] were bringing feral/stray or rescue cats, in violation of the S.P.O.T. program eligibility requirements.”

A spokeswoman for Cats Exclusive said the clinic did not know of any misuse of the county’s vouchers.

“If anybody was misusing the vouchers they pretty much had nothing to do with us,” said manager Niuvi Liriano.

Investigators also found that Discount Pet customers did not own sterilized cats registered in their names. However, they found no cause to believe pre-completed forms were used at Discount Pet because all 18 pet owners they contacted said they signed their applications.

Clinic co-owner Sherry Norem said she supports the new county requirements and was unaware of any past voucher abuses.

The report is the latest problem for the section that runs Broward’s animal shelter. Three years ago, reports of animal abuse and poor management at the shelter prompted county commissioners to pay for an expensive audit that led to numerous recommendations for change.

Animal Care received an administrative shake up earlier this year when it was put under the control of the county’s Permitting, Licensing and Consumer Protection Division. The move came after animal care mistakenly euthanized a cat with an embedded locator microchip that was owned by a Broward family. Animal Care’s former bureaucratic home, the Department of Community Services, is being disbanded Oct. 1.

Zachariah Zachariah

By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org

Testimony began Tuesday in the politically-charged, insider stock trading trial of Fort Lauderdale heart doctor and top Republican fundraiser Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah.

Zachariah, who has raised millions of dollars for the GOP, stands accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of using nonpublic information to make nearly $1 million in illegal profits trading stock in two Florida companies in 2005.

The federal civil trial in West Palm Beach is expected to last about a week.

Some big names are expected to testify, either in person or by deposition. They include South Florida corporate titans Philip Frost, the billionaire chairman of the board of Teva Pharmaceuticals, and George Zoley, CEO and chairman of The GEO Group of Boca Raton.

Fourth District Court of Appeals Judge Melanie May and former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth could also appear. Each gave character witness depositions for Zachariah in May that have not been made public. The government is asking the court to exclude their testimony, but there’s been no ruling.

If the judge finds Zachariah committed fraud she could order him to pay back the money he made with interest, impose a large civil penalty and bar him from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company.

Both sides outlined their case Tuesday in opening arguments before U.S. Magistrate Linnea R. Johnson – who will decide the case.

SEC trial attorney Christopher Martin portrayed Zachariah as a consummate political and corporate insider with no qualms trading on valuable inside information he learned as a corporate board member and through other means.

“It’s really hard to imagine anyone less fit to serve” on a company’s board, said Martin, who characterized Zachariah as a “prominent South Florida political fundraiser and powerbroker.”

‘A model citizen’

In contrast, defense counsel Curtis Miner called Zachariah “a model public citizen” who has served selflessly on public boards – he’s a former chairman of the Florida Board of Medicine and current trustee for Nova Southeastern University – while giving generously to charity.

“He has the trappings of wealth, a nice house, a boat. Does that make him a greedy person? No. It just means he’s successful,” said Miner, co-defense counsel along with former federal judge and U.S. Attorney Tom Scott.

Zachariah, an elite Pioneer fundraiser for President George W. Bush and co-chair of Florida fundraising for the first President Bush in 1992, is the director of the Fort Lauderdale Heart Institute at Holy Cross Hospital. He has testified previously that Bush wanted to name him U.S. Surgeon General in 2006, but that the plan was torpedoed by the SEC’s investigation.

Zachariah, his brother Dr. Mammen Zachariah, and their friend, Dr. Sheldon Nassberg, are named in the SEC’s May 2008 insider trading complaint. His brother and Nassberg, who also practice at Holy Cross, paid substantial sums in December to settle the insider trading charges against them.

Nassberg was the first to take the witness stand Tuesday as an adverse witness for the government. Under contentious questioning, Nassberg said that before he settled, Zachariah had offered to loan him money to pay his legal fees. “But it never came to be,” said Nassberg, who returns to the witness stand this morning.

Zach Zachariah, who listened intently in court on Tuesday, is accused of using inside information to buy and sell shares of Miami-based generic drug maker IVAX and Sarasota’s Correctional Services Corp. (CSC).

Ivax was later bought out by Teva. CSC was taken over by GEO.

According to the SEC, Zachariah was on IVAX’s board of directors in July 2005 when Frost, then chairman of IVAX, informed him Ivax had agreed to be acquired by Teva for $26 a share. Within minutes, before the deal was made public, Zachariah bought 35,000 IVAX shares for about $21 a share, the SEC says.

Tipped his brother?

Zachariah is also alleged to have tipped his brother, who bought 2,000 shares that he later sold for a profit.

All three doctors are accused of loading up on CSC shares in the weeks before a July 14, 2005 takeover announcement by GEO. The SEC says they did so because Zachariah got a sneak peak at inside information about GEO’s plans.

The SEC contends Zachariah had plenty of ways to find out. Among other things, he worked as a consultant for GEO, introducing Zoley to politicians in Washington and Tallahassee. And his son, Reggie, was a GEO employee whose duties included working on the CSC acquisition.

Zachariah’s defense conceded those avenues of access, and others, but said they prove nothing because he received no inside information – not even from his son. He said Reggie Zachariah will testify to that.

“The government’s case is circumstantial,” Miner said.

To win, the SEC must prove its case by the legal standard known as a “preponderance of the evidence.” That’s less than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the standard required for a criminal conviction.

Jack Seiler

Yet another Fort Lauderdale neighborhood is fighting City Hall over plans for unwanted new development – and has taken the additional step of hauling the city into court to try and stop it.

In court papers, the not-for-profit Trust for Historic Sailboat Bend claims the fix was in when the city commission voted 5-0 in March to bulldoze and replace the Dr. Kennedy Homes public housing development. The vote, after a lengthy public hearing, reversed the city Historic Preservation Board’s 2009 decision to deny demolition.

Now, trust officials say they have proof the city intended all along to approve the demolition: a letter Mayor Jack Seiler wrote last September expressing the city’s “support” for the demolition and offering his “best wishes for the success” of the controversial replacement housing project.

“The mayor had his mind made up before the evidence was heard,” said Trust Vice President Charles Jordan. “The quasi-judicial hearing over which he presided was a charade.”

Some established neighborhoods would be eager to get rid of old, substandard public housing occupied by the poor. But in eclectic Sailboat Bend, critics of the housing authority’s plans argue that demolition will destroy an important part of city’s history, displace some of its neediest citizens and install development that is too big and out of character for the city’s only officially designated historic district.

 “This is a reverse NIMBY,” said Jordan, using the “Not In My Back Yard” acronym. “This is in our backyard and an integral part of our community. We want it preserved.”

Instead of eight gleaming new buildings up to five stories tall, the opponents want the existing 132 units completely renovated with the same new amenities, like air conditioning.

Using Seiler’s letter as Exhibit A, trust leaders Paul Boggess and Donna Isaacs last week accused the mayor of selling out Sailboat Bend in an email sent to friends.

In an interview, however, Seiler denied prejudging the case. He said his Sept. 14 letter to Tam English, executive director of the city Housing Authority, was for the specific purpose of supporting the authority’s project application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Seiler added that he knew of no opposition to the authority’s plans when he signed it.

“It is like a judge making a comment 10 years ago that he likes to protect dogs. Now, the judge is hearing a dog abuse case and people say he prejudged the case because 10 years ago he said he liked to protect dogs,” Seiler said.

Wrecking Crews on Hold

City wrecking crews are on hold as the court ponders the trust’s allegations in two related lawsuits filed in March and May that the commission’s vote violated both the city code and constitutional due process requirements. The due process violations involve alleged lobbying violations, and failures by commissioners to make adequate disclosure about the lobbying.

The city denied those allegations last month in a response filed in Broward Circuit Court.

Other Fort Lauderdale neighborhood groups have been at odds with the city this summer.

Idlewyld residents are resisting plans for a massive remake of Bahia Mar. Colee Hammock homeowners are looking to overturn the zoning board’s July approval of First Presbyterian Church’s expansion plans. And in Coral Ridge, neighbors are pushing the city to deny permission to Cardinal Gibbons High School to light up its football field.

The city housing authority, whose board is appointed by the mayor, owns and manages seven public housing sites and 612 units in the city. It is an independent agency, mostly funded by HUD, created under Florida law, according to City Attorney Harry Stewart.

Dr. Kennedy Homes is one of those public housing sites. Built in the early 1940s, the Dr. Kennedy homes is located on 8.5 acres in Sailboat Bend that front Broward Boulevard between Ninth and 11^th Avenues, south to Southwest Second Street. Its 132 units, many with porches, are occupied by those with very low incomes.

“The Dr. Kennedy Homes in their original intent and their use today helps tell the story of Fort Lauderdale,” Merrilyn C. Rathbun, of the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society told the city in March.

City housing officials, however, contend the units no longer meet proper living standards, and want to raze 42 of those one- and two-story cottages and replace them with eight modern, air conditioned buildings up to five stories tall.  Three existing cottages would be rehabilitated and preserved. The total number of housing units will remain the same.

The proposed $25 million development is a public-private partnership between the housing authority and Miami’s Carlisle Development Group. Carlisle was chosen by the authority after a competitive bid process, according to executive director English.

‘A better place to live’

The project is to be financed mostly with federal tax credits. It would provide affordable housing for the low income – $47,500 a year for a family of four. Fewer units would be available for the very poor.

“At the end of the day, it’s a better place to live for our residents,” housing authority lawyer Robert Lochrie told commissioners, according to a transcript of the March 2 hearing.

The 100-member Sailboat Bend Civic Association isn’t a party to the lawsuit, but President David Parker and Vice President Alysa Plummer support its objective to quash the commission’s vote.

“We support the saving of Dr. Kennedy Homes. The housing authority wants to blow out an 8.5 acre hole in the middle of our historic district,” said Plummer.

English, however, says those agitating against building a new Dr. Kennedy Homes with updates like air conditioning and washing machines are a tiny fraction of the approximately 600 people who live in Sailboat Bend.

“A silent majority supports what we are doing, yes,” said English. “A lot of people want to see change, but they aren’t the kind of people willing to go out on a limb and stand up and scream.”

Residents who appeared at the March hearing generally favored the upgrade plans after hearing assurances that they will be given priority to return to the new Dr. Kennedy Homes and won’t see their out-of-pocket rent go up.

But attorney Janet Riley, who heads Broward Legal Aid Service’s affordable housing advocacy project, said vulnerable residents have been misled by the authority about the future cost of rent, and whether they will be able to return after the place is rebuilt.

“This is last resort housing. People pay 30 percent of their income, and if they lose that where are they going to go?” said Riley.

Campaign contributions typically go to politicians, but timeshare owners in Broward, the state and across the country will soon split $562,000 – an amount equal to the illegal contributions collected by the political fundraising arm of the U.S. vacation industry from 2003-2007.

The payout is part of a deal between the industry and the Federal Election Commission to settle civil allegations of wrongdoing in the solicitation and distribution of millions of dollars in political contributions.

The American Resort Development Association – Resort Owners Coalition PAC will also pay a $300,000 civil penalty. It is the largest fine imposed by the FEC since 2007.

In a statement released Friday, ARDA conceded that “errors were made” in the collection of contributions but called them “unintentional and unfortunate.”

“ARDA has taken proactive steps to suspend any improper practices and rectify past errors in an open and transparent way,” ARDA’s Washington attorney Mark Braden said in the statement. 

The sale of vacation timeshares is a $10 billion-a-year business, with a large footprint in South Florida. In 2008 4.7 million households owned one or more weekly interval or points-equivalent timeshare properties, according to ARDA’s web site. Florida has more timeshare resorts than any other state.

ARDA is the industry’s Washington-based trade association and a major lobbying force on Capitol Hill and in Tallahassee. Federal records show that since 2006, ARDA has spent more than $1.1 million on Washington lobbyists to oppose such things as mortgage reform legislation, including the expansion of truth-in-lending requirements to timeshare buyers.

ARDA-ROC PAC has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans and Democrats.

Nearly all that political money, and millions more, came from tens of thousands of timeshare owners who paid them in small amounts to their property management companies as part of their regular bills. The individual contributors were not identified in records sent to the FEC.

Boca Raton’s Bluegreen, one of the nation’s largest timeshare companies, collected money that way for the PAC. The charges were billed to timeshare owners only as “the ARDA fee.”

Company general counsel Michael Kaminer did not respond to a request for comment on Friday about how the settlement will impact its billing practices.

The FEC began its inquiry after an audit of ARDA-ROC PAC’s books turned up irregularities. The PAC’s treasurer, ARDA vice president Sandra Yartin DePoy, was also a respondent in the case.

In 2008, the FEC disclosed that timeshare owners here and elsewhere had been misled into donating to ARDA-ROC PAC while paying their regular property fees. The charges, most $3 to $5, were billed to individual timeshare owners along with tax and maintenance charges.

Political contributions are voluntary, and federal law requires solicitations to make that clear. But at least three of ARDA-ROC PAC’s solicitations lacked that information, according to the eight-page settlement deal released Thursday.

The small donations, not itemized by the PAC, totaled $8.4 million between 2003 and 2007, records show.

The PAC acknowledged in its agreement with the FEC that about $562,000 were illegal contributions from foreign nationals and corporations. The payout to the homeowners associations is equal to that amount.

[In January, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government cannot ban such corporate political spending.]

The PAC has 90 days to comply with the settlement order that was approved unanimously by the six-member, bipartisan commission on July 29.

Site of proposed Captiva Club apartments

Homeowners are crying foul at Pompano Beach’s plans to funnel to a private developer as much as $2 million in federal housing funds meant to help neighborhoods blighted by foreclosed and abandoned houses.

“Do we feel betrayed? You got that right,” said Ron Boehl, president of the Cresthaven Civic Association.

Pompano Beach is among the hardest-hit cities in a county with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. A city report this month said there are more than “1,900 bank-owned properties” in Pompano, with another 1,600 homes in pre-foreclosure proceedings.

The Cresthaven and Pompano Highlands neighborhoods on the city’s north side have taken the brunt of the foreclosures and now face a second blow of losing access to about $1 million in federal money meant to revitalize abandoned and foreclosed houses.

Those dollars appear headed to a private developer to build new apartments, rather than fixing up existing distressed houses.

The Cornerstone Group of Coral Gables wants to build 360 “attractive, affordable” rental apartments on 20 acres in a dreary industrial area in the 1200 block of S. Dixie Highway. The developer has cobbled together a financing package for the $40-million project that includes millions in low-interest construction bonds and state housing grant money administered by Broward County, according to city records.

But a $2 million “funding gap” remains, according to city records, and Cornerstone wants the city to plug it with a loan. The city commission, in a 3-2 vote last month, tentatively agreed to make the loan.

A final vote of the city commission is set for Tuesday. Mayor Lamar Fisher has abstained from past votes because his Fisher Auction Company was used to dispose of unsold condos from other Cornerstone projects.

The developer’s representative, Leon Wolfe, did not return phone messages before deadline.

Funds are to be diverted from several pots of federal housing dollars, including about $1 million received through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The NSP was established by the Obama administration to buy and fix up foreclosed and abandoned homes. Pompano Beach received a $4.4-million grant in 2009. Through June, 27 properties had been acquired throughout the city, including Cresthaven and Pompano Highlands.

Commissioner Woodrow Poitier thinks that’s enough for the time being.

“We represent the whole city and they’ve redone 24 homes up there in that area,” said Poitier, who supports construction of Cornerstone’s $40 million Captiva Club project. “I think the housing that’s needed are rental apartments. It will create more of a tax base and give people jobs.”

It is also a matter of equity, according to Assistant City Manager Willie A. Hopkins Jr.

“We are diverting a small amount of program income into a loan for the additional construction of housing for another low-income segment of the community. Unfortunately, that community may not be able to participate in a home purchase-driven program,” Hopkins said.

Pompano Beach City Commission Chamber

Commissioner Barry Dockswell voted against the rental project last month. He said it is a mistake to pull back from rehabilitating abandoned homes.

“I don’t think NSP money should be used to create new housing. We already have an overabundance of housing units,” Dockswell said.

“The loss of these funds will be devastating,” said Walter Syrek, president of the Pompano Highlands Civic Association. “While we have nothing against low-income rental housing, we believe it is within the letter and spirit of the law to use these funds primarily for the purpose the Congress intended, to stabilize existing neighborhoods such as ours.”

“We have 12 homes in Cresthaven that the NSP has bought and started cleaning up,” said Boehl. “It’s a chance to help people get their feet back on the ground. We have enough rental property in this city already.”

The Highlands is located between US 1 and Dixie Highway, and Sample Road and Northwest 54^th Street. Cresthaven, with more than 3,700 homes, lies due south, running south from Sample Road to Copans Road.

Cornerstone first asked the city about a year ago for financial assistance to build Captiva Club on the site of an old trailer park. At the time, the city agreed to commit $1.2 million in NSP funds.

Poitier said any city loan will be repaid through fees paid by the developer and rents paid by the tenants. The city will also benefit from increased tax collections, he said.

In a memo last month, Hopkins said that making the loan would qualify the city for additional NSP funds “because we have obligated our funding 100 percent.”
But homeowners say the diversion of NSP dollars will threaten both the existence of the program, and the city’s ability to attract future rehab grant funds.

“Funds from the sale of foreclosed houses in the Highlands and elsewhere, rather than being used to buy more foreclosed houses, will be given to the Cornerstone Group,” said Syrek. “We fear that the NSP will be prematurely shut down and the experienced city staff let go.”

Poitier says homeowners are overreacting.

“We’re not done by a long shot. Once those homes are rehabbed and sold, that money will be turned over and over again. It’s not like we are abandoning them,” said Poitier.

A ranking Broward County Transit official has resigned amid an internal corruption and waste investigation triggered by a whistleblower’s complaint.

Lorin S. Swirsky, transit manager for information technology, had been suspended without pay since June 3 after county investigators determined he lied about having a computer science degree from the University of Miami.

“He made the choice to resign. He called me personally,” said Broward Transportation Director Chris Walton.

Swirsky was fingered in a whistleblower complaint submitted to the county in March that includes other, more serious allegations. One is that Swirsky and Associate Director Rebecca Blitman may have “misled” the county commission into awarding a $13.3 million, no-bid contract last year to a North Carolina company that sells digital communications equipment for buses.

The whistleblower also told authorities that in 2007 Swirsky and Blitman authorized the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the company – Digital Recorders, Inc. – for an automatic bus passenger counting system (APC) that didn’t work.

The system was initially installed on 55 buses at a cost of more than $470,000, but allegedly failed a final acceptance test. The two officials, after coercing a transit project manager to pay DRI, outfitted 98 other buses with the system, but most of them weren’t reporting data either, the whistleblower alleges.

“I have no comment,” said Swirsky, who lives in Coral Springs. Blitman has declined comment.

Despite assertions made in the whistleblower complaint, Walton said that the system is fully operational today.

“I’m very happy to tell you the last time I checked things were working quite well. The information is being reported from the buses and is being used and is quite accurate,” Walton said.

Walton met recently with DRI officials to discuss “contractual expectations.” He said he believes the company “is doing a good job.”

A copy of the 12-page whistleblower complaint was obtained by Broward Bulldog. The complaint does not name the whistleblower, whose identity is protected under state law. You can read an earlier story here.

County investigators currently are pulling together purchasing and transit records, looking at contracts and payments to verify the whistleblower’s complaint.

The first phase of the investigation focused on vetting accusations about the educational background of Swirsky and another county transit employee.

The findings are spelled out in a report by Office of Professional Standards that was reviewed and signed June 11 by County Administrator Bertha Henry.

Senior Investigator Steven D. Patterson wrote that Swirsky told investigators on June 4 that he had a Bachelor of Science degree from UM. But school officials later reported that Swirsky had no science degree, though he did attend the university for one year in the early 1970s while majoring in communications.

To get the county job in 2007, the report says, Swirsky “submitted a fake/manufactured diploma from the University of Miami.” Patterson recommended “appropriate disciplinary action.”

Falsely claiming an academic degree is a first degree misdemeanor under Florida law, punishable by up to a year in prison.

The whistleblower complaint alleges that after DRI was “paid in full” for the passenger counting system, Swirsky and Blitman apparently “orchestrated” the no-bid deal to mask what the county was actually buying.

On April 28, 2009, commissioners voted to modify an existing sole source contract with DRI to upgrade a bus announcement system originally purchased in 2002 for about $2 million.

But the complaint says that’s not what the county really bought. In fact, the county got an altogether different kind of bus communication system that DRI was selling, but had yet to deploy at any other large transit agency – an Automatic Vehicle Location/Computer Aided Dispatch system (AVL/CAD).

“Note the glaring omission (in the county’s agenda item) of any reference to an AVL/CAD system,” the complaint says. “It is most likely that an upgrade of this single announcement system would cost BCT over $13 million.”

The whistleblower urged investigators to follow the trail in purchasing records find out who made that happen.

“Some at BCT had to provide information to county purchasing personnel that formed the basis of emails and documentation provided by purchasing personnel that in turn created the mechanisms for approval by the Board of County Commissioners,” the complaint says.

Cardinal Gibbons High athletic field

By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org

Fort Lauderdale’s summer of neighborhood discontent continues – this time in Coral Ridge where Cardinal Gibbons High School is pressing ahead with plans to light up its football field over the objections of neighbors.

The neighbors oppose lights on poles that reach as high as 95 feet on an athletic field at the Catholic high school.

City rules had limited churches and church schools to structures of 35 feet; however, city commissioners changed the rules in April to allow taller structures as long as they were compatible to the surrounding neighborhood.

Nervous residents say city staff support the taller lights and have not given enough consideration to whether they are compatible to the community. They also say zoning officials refuse to enforce neighborhood compatibility requirements such as noise limits and setbacks.

If the city allows the taller lights at Cardinal Gibbons in northeast Fort Lauderdale, then zoning standards are threatened throughout the city, according to activists in Coral Ridge and elsewhere.

“This case is not about any specific church or school; it is about every church and church school in Fort Lauderdale,” Coral Ridge Preservation Association  director Robert Prager wrote in a recent open letter to city residents. “All residents should be concerned about the outcome of this case. City staff should not have the power to pick and choose what sections of the code to enforce or not enforce.”

Prager’s message of neighborhood control resonates outside city hall, particularly in neighborhoods pushing for a citywide moratorium on the use of Planned Unit Developments they see as encouraging detrimental development. You can read about the PUD fight here.

“This will affect every single neighborhood,” said Alysa Plummer, vice president of the Sailboat Bend Civic Association, west of downtown. “This and the whole issue of the PUD – it’s all part and parcel of the desire of homeowners to be in control of their neighborhoods, and not be controlled by a city employee.”

Prager had planned to appeal city zoning boss Greg Brewton’s position on enforcement to the city’s Board of Adjustment tonight. But Prager withdrew it suddenly on Monday after city staff objected. They argued that without a specific decision to appeal, Prager did not have the proper legal standing to file it.

Prager, who said the appeal has cost him “hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars,” will get his hearing later this summer at another venue – the city’s planning and zoning board. Last Thursday, the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami and Cardinal Gibbons filed a fresh application with the city for a permit review under the modified ordinance passed in April.

Prager said he will argue that city zoning officials must apply specific neighborhood compatibility requirements before signing off on any such permit. If they are followed, he said, the massive light towers will have to be moved to comply with setbacks, and a survey would have to be made to determine the impact of night games on local noise levels. Prager said private surveys he paid for found noise would rise above legal limits.

Brewton and other zoning officials declined to be interviewed about their position on the enforcement of neighborhood compatibility rules.

But a city spokeswoman denied Brewton has instructed zoning personnel not to enforce them.

“They are saying he is telling (city staff) not to enforce. That is not true,” said Petula C. Burks.

Prager and others in Coral Ridge have been at odds with city officials since Cardinal Gibbons was allowed to install four light poles on its football field in 2007. Two poles are 65 feet high and two are 95 feet high. Neighbors feared light spillover and noise generated by night football games.

“It’s going to be unbearable,” said Prager, whose home borders the high school’s athletic field.

The lights have yet to be turned on. Shortly after the poles went up, the city determined they did not comply with local zoning requirements which limited such structures to a maximum of 35 feet.

The high school sought a variance and lost. The Board of Adjustment, which decides appeals of decisions about the city’s Unified Land Development Regulations (ULDR), denied its appeal in September 2008.

In April, city commissioners passed an amendment to the regulations allowing churches and church schools to erect structures taller than 35 feet. To protect nearby property owners, they also included specific neighborhood compatibility requirements regarding noise and setbacks and the like.

Coral Ridge association president Edward Deeb is among area residents who want to make sure that the review covers specific neighborhood compatibility requirements.

“Selective enforcement weakens our system of codes and zoning regulations,” said Deeb. “We are making a stand to make sure it doesn’t happen in our neighborhood, or any neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale.”

David H. Brooks

By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org

The embattled founder of financially-hobbled Pompano Beach body armor maker Point Bank Solutions refers to himself on his foundation’s website as a “Living Lifesaving Legend.”

But federal prosecutors say former Broward mogul David H. Brooks is a world-class crook responsible for an audacious $200 million corporate theft.

Brooks, forced out as CEO a year before his 2007 arrest, has been on trial for nearly six months in Central Islip, N.Y. on federal fraud and conspiracy charges. A writer for Vanity Fair has called it “the year’s most entertaining trial you’ve probably never heard of.”

The grand jury’s 61-page indictment describes a corporate chieftain gone wild. It boils down to this: Brooks looted his publicly traded company and burned through its cash like it was Monopoly money.

Point Blank, once known as DHB Industries, is a leading manufacturer of “bullet, fragmentation and stab resistant apparel and related ballistic accessories.” Its products are used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as federal and state agents and local police.

In the middle of the trial, Point Blank filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Wilmington, Delaware claiming assets of $64 million and debts of $68.5 million. The company blamed the filing on tight credit and “legal issues from former management” that it said were costing it $600,000 a month in legal fees.

Point Blank, which once employed about 1,500 people, had 920 employees at the end of last year. Its stock, which once traded as high as $20 on the American Stock Exchange, now sells for 25 cents on the pink sheets. You can see Point Blank’s website here. 

Court records lay out Brook’s over-the-top lifestyle. He owned a Lear Jet, took fabulous vacations, threw lavish parties, paid for his then-wife’s facelift. He bought dozens of racehorses, a fleet of luxury cars and a treasure chest of showy jewelry – including a $100,000 diamond, ruby and sapphire-studded belt buckle in the shape of an American flag.

Brooks apparently had a kinky side, too. He used company money to hire prostitutes to service Point Blank’s board of directors, and spent more than $1,000 a month buying “large amounts of pornography for his son,” according to court papers filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher A. Ott.

Brooks, who faces more than 100 years in prison if convicted, now spends big on about three dozen lawyers. Court records indicate his legal tab is upward of $25 million a year.

The trial, which began Jan. 20, has been awash in waves of rancor. In April, Brooks was cited for contempt of court by Judge Joanna Seybert. In May, the judge threatened one defense lawyer with sanctions for being disrespectful, according to Newsday.

The government says Brooks, trading on inside information, made $185.3 million when he sold at the stock’s high of about $20 a share in 2004. He and other company officials allegedly dumped the stock after pumping it up with rosy forecasts and phony asset valuations that made the operation appear more profitable that it actually was.

“The goal of this scheme was to ensure that DHB consistently reported gross profit margins of 27 percent or more and increased earnings, to correspond to the expectations of professional stock analysts,” government court filings say.

Co-defendant Sandra Hatfield, Point Blank’s ex-chief operating officer, made around $5 million in the same insider scheme, the government says.

Sandra Hatfield and David H. Brooks

They and Point Blank chief financial officer Dawn Schlegel managed to cover up what they were doing for a time by making fraudulent entries in the company’s books and lying to auditors, the government says.

Schlegel later became a key witness against her former colleagues. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government and conspiracy to conceal tax information and faces 10 years in prison.

Hatfield, a former Pompano Beach resident, remains free on bond. But Brooks, who owns an oceanfront condo in Boca Raton, has been jailed since a week before the trial started.

Brooks had been released on a whopping $400 million bond in early 2008. That bond was revoked, however, after the FBI convinced the judge that Brooks had violated the conditions of bond by secretly transferring up to $300 million into bank accounts in San Marino, a tiny independent state within Italy.

Brooks’ lead defense counsel, Kenneth Ravenell of Baltimore, Md., declined comment.

The case is expected to go to a jury later this month.

Zachariah Zachariah

By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org

Fort Lauderdale heart doctor and major GOP fundraiser Zachariah P. Zachariah has picked up two influential allies in advance of his federal insider stock-trading trial this summer.

Former Florida Attorney General and top Democrat Bob Butterworth and Fourth District Court of Appeals Judge Melanie May, both Broward residents, testified under oath two weeks ago as character witnesses for Zachariah.

Their depositions are not public, and neither responded to requests for comment. They are identified in court records.

Judge May supported Zachariah despite judicial rules that discourage testifying as a character witness.

Florida’s Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits judges from giving such testimony voluntarily “because to do so may lend the prestige of the judicial office in support of the party for whom the judge testifies.” It says judges may testify if subpoenaed, but nevertheless “should discourage a party from requiring the judge to testify as a character witness…except in unusual circumstances where the demands of justice require.”

A source said Judge May testified in response to a subpoena from Zachariah. Whether she took any steps to discourage such testimony is not publicly known.

Zachariah, former chairman of the Florida Board of Medicine who has raised millions of dollars for Republicans, is accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of using nonpublic information to rake in more than $400,000 in profits from illegal stock trades in 2005. You can read about the alleged scheme here.

His trial on those civil charges is set for Aug. 23 before U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra. If Zachariah loses, the case could be referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.

Two other Holy Cross Hospital physicians, including Zachariah’s brother, agreed to substantial payouts last December to settle federal civil charges that they acted on Zachariah’s stock tips to reap tens of thousands of dollars in illegal windfalls. You can read about those settlements here.

Butterworth has personal and political connections to Zachariah, dating back two decades. For example, in 2001 Zachariah performed a balloon angioplasty on Butterworth, and implanted a stent in his chest, to repair a clogged artery.

Federal and state campaign records show that Butterworth is one of only two Democrats – Broward State Attorney Mike Satz is the other – to snag a campaign contribution from Zachariah since the mid 1990s.

In 2002, Butterworth’s office quoted Zachariah in a press release announcing an attorney general’s initiative that sought to prevent doctor-shopping for illegal narcotics prescriptions.

Miami attorney Curtis Minor, who represents Zachariah, did not respond to requests to discuss why the testimony of Butterworth and Judge May was sought.

But Butterworth, a former Broward sheriff and judge, is a political Mr. Clean who over the years has helped mop up some of Florida’s most unsightly government messes. In 2007, for example, Gov. Charlie Crist brought in Butterworth to head Florida’s troubled Department of Children and Families.

Crist turned to Butterworth again in May when he appointed him and former Republican Attorney General Jim Smith to spearhead the state’s legal advisory team on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Butterworth also serves today on a blue-ribbon ethics panel appointed to review the Broward school district’s operations following the corruption arrest of former board member Beverly Gallagher.

Butterworth has used his stature to help others in trouble.

In 2007, at the sentencing of former Sheriff Ken Jenne, Butterworth told a judge about the personal sacrifices Jenne made for his job before his conviction on corruption charges.

“He literally almost gave his life doing it,” Butterworth said before Jenne drew a shorter than expected prison term. “My hat is off to him.”

Zachariah’s lawyers also called  two other character witnesses. One was Ocala Republican and former Florida Board of Governors member Carolyn Roberts.

Proposed Bahia Mar PUD

Spurred by a pair of high-profile zoning battles, a dozen Fort Lauderdale neighborhood associations have called on the city to halt the use of an innovative ordinance meant to encourage “unique” development.

Upset residents insist the city slap a moratorium on its eight-year-old Planned Urban Development scheme – commonly known as a PUD.

Some see the PUD as a nightmare that will corrupt the character of neighborhoods and allow large new buildings near their homes. Others call the PUD a saving grace that can breathe new life into a community.

Tens of millions of dollars in development dollars are potentially at stake; not to mention millions more in future property taxes and other projected income to the city.

The PUD is the planning vehicle for developers seeking to supersize beachside Bahia Mar, and to expand significantly First Presbyterian Church’s presence in the Colee Hammock neighborhood off fashionable Las Olas Boulevard.

Those projects carry price tags of $500 million and $20 million, respectively.

A moratorium on the consideration of PUD zoning requests could freeze plans for those projects - plans in the works for years – while the city reviews the ordinance’s language.

The fight in Colee Hammock and Bahia Mar worries distant associations who fear unacceptable changes coming to their communities in the future.

“There is concern that the spot zoning of PUDs will set the standard for neighborhoods,” Idlewyld homeowner’s association President Mary C. Fertig said in a recent letter to the city commission.

Stiles Corp. President Douglas Eagon, whose company is the project planner for First Presbyterian’s building program, calls such talk “PUD hysteria” and says it has been used unfairly to whip up neighborhood opposition to the PUD.

“They keep saying this could happen in your neighborhood as well, which is a total fabrication,” said Eagon.

Zoning law for ‘unique’ development

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler said Tuesday that he’s willing to conduct a review of the PUD “to find out how it came about and whether it’s still something we need to be doing.” But Seiler, a lawyer, doubted it would hold up the two projects for long because legal precedent exempts zoning matters in progress from that type of delay.

The city’s PUD ordinance doesn’t contemplate such disputes. It permits “unique or innovative development that is not otherwise permitted under traditional zoning districts and development standards” so long as it is compatible with the surrounding area and the “general welfare of the public” is protected.

Seven PUD districts now dot the city and innovation hasn’t always been the watchword. They range from a stalled luxury resort hotel and condominium development on the beach at the site of the old Ireland’s Inn to a 253,000-square foot storage warehouse on State Road 84 near Interstate 95.

The city’s first PUD was the Village at Sailboat Bend, a 13-acre neighborhood of multistory townhomes developed by Lennar Corp. behind the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. The site was once a maze of more than a dozen ramshackle buildings owned by the Broward County School Board, including the historic but dilapidated West Side School.

The ordinance was conceived by a Lennar lobbyist, Lisa Maxwell, and drafted by a Lennar attorney, former Broward County Attorney Susan Delegal.

According to Maxwell, who no longer works for Lennar, the city’s hodgepodge of area zoning made a new ordinance imperative to making the multimillion dollar project happen.

“I met over 200 times with people in the neighborhood,” said Maxwell.

“They had a vision about what they wanted this to be. But when you put it all together and looked at the zoning code, it simply wouldn’t work. We were talking about 50 variances. It was silly.”

After “a lot of back and forth with the city,” Maxwell said, the commission approved the PUD ordinance in November 2002. You can read it here.

It encourages “flexibility of design” and a variety of integrated uses. The Village at Sailboat Bend, already in the planning pipeline as an anticipated PUD, was approved two months later.

Then Mayor James Naugle approved the redevelopment in Sailboat Bend, but nevertheless was wary of the PUD, saying it might one day allow “monstrous buildings” elsewhere in the city.

“He stated he supported the permitting of innovative designs, but feared this would allow buildings which would be incompatible with the neighborhood and should not be accommodated,” according to minutes of a Nov. 5, 2002 meeting.

What’s a PUD good for?

PUDs appeared after World War II as a tool in the unified planning of entire suburban communities, like Levittown on New York’s Long Island.

Decades later, Fort Lauderdale was among the first cities in Florida – many have followed – to turn the PUD idea inside out and apply it to urban redevelopment on a much smaller scale.

Two acres is the minimum area for a PUD zoning district. Permitted uses are established at the time of rezoning and projects must meet eight criteria. For example, the height, bulk, shadow, mass and design of a building must be compatible with the surrounding area. PUD projects also “shall have a long-term beneficial impact” on the area and the city as a whole.

LXR Resorts of Boca Raton wants a PUD district, and a 100-year lease, to allow it to redevelop city-owned Bahia Mar. Its $500 million plan envisions renovating the existing 15-story hotel, adding a new 300-room Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and constructing two high-rise condominiums and retail stores along A1A.

Plans also call for a large elevated waterfront park with a parking garage underneath, and that’s the reason for the PUD. The length of the park is longer than would be allowed under current zoning, said LXR executive Peter Henn.

“But the end result is a less tall parking structure which is hidden by the landscaped waterfront park,” he said.

First Presbyterian Church's proposed PUD

Further west, in Colee Hammock, First Presbyterian Church and Stiles Corp. are seeking a PUD to build two large, Spanish Mission-style structures on land south of Las Olas Boulevard between Tarpon Drive and Southeast 15th Avenue. The buildings are a five-story parking garage/commercial office building and a two-story Family Center. The PUD makes the project doable in a location that’s a “quagmire” of zoning districts, said Eagon.

Neighborhood worries grow

Opponents of both projects have rallied support for a citywide moratorium on PUD approvals while the ordinance is reviewed.

Marilyn Mammano, the president of the Harbordale Civic Association and a former top zoning official in New York City, believes the ordinance is too developer-friendly. She said she wants it made “more responsive to neighborhood concerns.”

Land-use lawyer James Brady, who lives in Colee Hammock, calls the PUD ordinance “an abomination.”

“It clearly promises a lot of things and uses a lot of buzzwords,” said Brady, who opposes the church expansion. “Zoning is supposed to provide some predictability for people. This renders the issue unpredictable and subject merely to political whim.”

But Maxwell thinks such thinking is wrongheaded, and could backfire on neighborhoods like Colee Hammock by leading to even taller structures.

“We wrote safeguards into this ordinance, criteria requiring developers to meet with the community and help foster a bridge of understanding,” she said in an interview. “The church isn’t going anywhere, and if it doesn’t use the PUD it will expand under the current zoning code. And, trust me, that will be 10 times more draconian than under the PUD.”

Las Olas area real estate broker Jacquelyn Scott has helped lead the charge against the PUD. She said the ordinance is “vague” and needs to be made more responsive to local communities.

“I don’t think there’s a neighborhood in the city that’s not at risk to have a developer come in and attempt to do a PUD project,” said Scott. “Once it’s cleaned up I think the neighborhoods would be in good shape.”

That message has resonated at other civic associations throughout the city. Victoria Park, Croissant Park, Imperial Point, Golden Heights, Sailboat Bend, Lauderdale Isles, Tarpon River, Melrose Park and Melrose Manor all now support a moratorium.

Some applaud the PUD

Opposition to the PUD ordinance is not unanimous.

Bryan Sawchuk is a member of the board of the Lake Ridge Civic Association. He believes his neighborhood benefited from a PUD district that allowed the development of the 279-unit Satori apartment complex that opened last year at 1201 E. Sunrise Blvd.

“The PUD is an important tool that promotes reasonable development while giving more opportunity for public improvements to the neighborhood,” he said in a recent letter to city commissioners.

Attorney William Grundlach, former chairman of the Colee Hammock Homeowner’s Association’s church committee, also thinks the PUD is beneficial.

“Although there are those in the Homeowners Association who passionately oppose any development by the church and especially through a PUD, it is my opinion that a PUD is the only way we can protect the neighborhood,” Grundlach said in a letter to the commission.