Bernie's Blog

Update From Capitol Hill

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, June 19, 2012 1 Comment(s)

Washington, D.C. – The young woman was kneeling in the small yard in front of the small but charming house, planting flowers. She seemed happy, and said hello to the strangers walking along the brick sidewalk in front of her home. Her yard was very pretty, filled with flowering plants, yellow and pink and blue, some in buckets, most in natural soil. There was nothing unusual about this scene, nothing you could not see this time of year in countless places in the northern states. But what made it different was that this was an old neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and you would not likely have witnessed this scene five years ago, certainly not 10. For this was Capitol Hill, a neighborhood risen from the dead.

Florida, as we have noted in the past, had something to do with it. In fact, more that something. In 1972 Rhea Chiles, wife of then-Sen. Lawton Chiles (later Florida governor), noticed an abandoned building virtually in the shadow of the Capitol. It was definitely in the afternoon shadow of the Supreme Court, directly across from Second Street. Its windows were boarded and an upper floor was falling in. Homeless occupied the basement. But in 1972 it was not unique. Much of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in the southeast quadrant of Washington, an old section on the opposite side of the famous mall, was a disaster.

Prudent people did not go there. The streets were unsafe. More than a few houses were so neglected as to be uninhabitable. It was a national disgrace. Rhea Chiles may have shared that view, but she also saw opportunity. She had been thinking about a state embassy ever since her kids asked where Florida’s embassy was. She raised the money to buy the dilapidated property, which dated to 1891 and was designed by a famous architect, and in short order an eyesore was restored to a modernized version of its original dignity.

She began the first, and still only, state embassy – Florida House. Gold Coast magazine wrote about it in the late 1970s; it already had a reputation as a convenient place for Florida business people to drop by – an office away from home, as well as a classy place for Florida legislators to hold receptions, and for families touring the capital to get their bearings. By then it had an important side effect in calling attention to its neighborhood as a redevelopment project begging to happen. By the late ‘70s it had already begun, and it goes on as this is written. Within a few years the blocks adjacent to Florida House began to recover. And so it has gone on, almost 40 years now, block by block to the east, all the way to RFK Stadium, roughly 20 blocks from Florida House on the edge of the Anacostia River.

The trend has accelerated in recent years as members of Congress and thousands of government workers have looked for comfortable housing close to the capitol and surrounding government buildings. Commuting from outside Washington has become a nightmare. Every main approach is like a bad day on Interstate-95 in Florida, and that of course includes the same I-95 north and south of Washington. Even the existence of the Metro, an excellent modern subway system, has done little to relieve auto traffic into the city. What Metro has done is accelerate redevelopment of old city neighborhoods convenient to stations. Workers can get to downtown jobs in minutes instead of an hour or more from outside the city.

Most of those buying, at very high prices, and restoring old homes are young people. These are people who love, but could not afford the charm of the old Georgetown section, but they are bringing the Georgetown style to Capitol Hill. The sidewalks are busy with mothers pushing carriages and people walking dogs. The newcomers improving properties often have formidable challenges. One couple bought a house that had been foreclosed on. The floor of the house, including the supporting joyce, was rotted and had to be ripped out. There was no basement and in the dirt below the floor they found old whiskey bottles obviously left by the workers who built the place in the 1880s. This couple spends much time debating what subtle shade to paint their brick front wall and figuring out how to top their neighbors with the contrasting color of doors and decorative shutters. The effect of all this energy has been to stimulate all aspects of urban life that had been in trouble in Washington. Schools and churches that in a different locale might have closed are surviving and growing. Capitol Hill is alive with restaurants and the Eastern Market, not long ago surrounded by a neighborhood where one would venture with caution, has become a tourist attraction.

And those visitors spread without fear into the neighborhood, admiring with awe the renaissance of a city, and exchanging pleasantries with a young woman planting flowers in a front yard.

Vacation Reading

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, June 12, 2012 No Comment(s)


Ocean City, N.J. – The Atlantic was as blue as it regularly is off the beaches of South Florida, and that, in some 70 years of occasional visits to this place, is a rare sight. Typically the water is a gray-green, the colors that the Royal Air Force used to camouflage its aircraft in World War II. The Brits nicknamed the scheme “slime and sewage.” But yesterday was wonderful great-to-be-alive weather in this favorite escape for people from Philadelphia and much of eastern Pennsylvania, and it was hard to believe that all is not right everywhere in the world.

Among those who once were summer regulars here was the Kelly family, one of whose members was Grace Kelly, later princess of Monaco. Mention that name to your average 15-year-old today and they will ask “Who is Grace Kelly?” Sic transit gloria mundi. That’s a line from a play written by Princess Grace’s uncle, George Kelly, once a famous figure, now more forgotten than the beautiful actress turned princess. But neither of them is as forgotten as William E. Dodd, the subject of our vacation reading. He was the American ambassador to Germany in the years just preceding World War II. History is one of my fancies, and I never heard of the man. Happily, his memory is rightfully restored in Erik Larson’s book In The Garden of Beasts, published last year.

Dodd was a college professor who was tapped by President Franklin Roosevelt to become ambassador to Germany in 1933, largely because nobody else wanted the job. Dodd was qualified because he actually knew something about Germany, having studied there years before. In another sense, he was an odd choice. Unlike most ambassadors, he was not wealthy and was unable to use his own money to party the way ambassadors usually do. He was actually resented, and ridiculed by members of what was called “a pretty good club.” The members of that club, and many of the political leaders in the U.S. and throughout Europe, tended to dismiss Hitler and his Nazi thugs as almost comical, hardly the sort who could dominate a country such as Germany.

Dodd and his family arrived in Germany at a tragic hinge of history, although few realized it at the time. President Roosevelt told him to assess Hitler and conditions in Germany. Dodd appreciated the good qualities of the German people, and he did his best to remain open-minded even as the Nazis consolidated power, and brutally began exterminating political opponents and persecuting Jews. He even went so far as to worry that his staff had too many Jews, which he feared would antagonize the German leadership and complicate his delicate work. But that was 1933 and by 1937, he had done enough to earn the hatred of the German regime and put his own life, and that of those he associated with, in danger. He took risks to attempt, with some success, to protect people who might otherwise have died at the hands of the Nazis.

He returned to the U.S. to lecture widely, warning that Hitler was bent on war and the extermination of a race of people. President Roosevelt, we now know, was listening, but in the mood of America at the time, he felt politically unable to take action that might have prevented World War II. The enormous pressure William Dodd felt took a toll on his health and he died in 1940, living just long enough to see his predictions coming true.

Seventy years later it is hard to believe it ever happened, and that a man with a front-row seat to the beginnings of the Holocaust and preparations for a war that would cost millions of lives, could be ignored by all but a few. Today, with parts of the world ruled by people with no more scruples than the Nazis, and like Hitler vowing to exterminate nations and people, and having already demonstrated an ability to create massive destruction, and with Western leaders faced with similar political constraints, In The Garden Of Beasts and the story of William Dodd take on an ominous poignancy.

Even with fair skies and cool winds blowing in from an ocean blue.
Welcome to Armor Ball

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, June 05, 2012 No Comment(s)


Always looking for new forms of business, and inspired by the current NBA playoffs, we wonder if there is an emerging market of armor for basketball players. There have already been hints that a demand exists. Notice those cute masks that players wear when they break their noses. In a game that celebrates increasing roughness, with coaches and players vowing to be more “physical” than their opponents, it seems only a matter of time when basketball players will look more like football and hockey players than the swishy-dressed of today. 
Not that we think this is a good thing; just practical and perhaps a business opportunity. After all, is it not business that has professional basketball teams playing obscenely long schedules, beginning in the early fall and lasting well into June? As we noted not too long ago, basketball is likely to be the first sport to have a new season begin before the old one ends. But back to sex and violence.
Chicago’s best player got hurt with the playoffs barely underway. The Miami Heat has one of its Big Three out with an injury, and other players constantly nursing something or other, missing games and playing hurt. This in a game which James Naismith invented in 1891 to be a safe, indoor sport to keep the lads active in the cold northern winters. Today, to protect the players we need armor.
Helmets, of course, should be first, complete with face masks and perhaps decorative Prussian spikes on top. That would one-up football and hockey and perhaps cut down on the concussion lawsuits that are all the rage among former football players, although there could be a danger of puncture wounds to the groin as players lower their bodies to charge through defenders, a very common tactic in today’s game. That would, of course, necessitate some form of body armor, and maybe shoulder pads. This would not be terribly heavy, less than 25 pounds, and probably only reduce the average player’s standing jump by a foot. Some players already wear knee braces, and knee pads have been around for years, although somewhat out of fashion because you can’t see them due to length of the gowns that are the current mode.
If these ideas seem extreme, keep in mind that there was a time when football players did not wear helmets, and concussions, oddly enough, were not so common. Ditto hockey. Back when we cut out photos of hockey players from Sportmagazine to decorate our bedroom walls, none of the great stars wore headgear. It was not considered manly. So now we press on, designing the helmets, blackjacks and other garments which will be quickly bought up by the poor souls who support this perversion of a once-great game. Our company has already cornered the market on helmet spikes. You guys can get the rest.
The Jury Is Out – Of It

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, May 29, 2012 No Comment(s)

 

 

Wealthy fellow gets in a bad accident and goes to lawyer.
“Hello Mr. Goodenrich,” the lawyer says. “I have reviewed your case carefully and I must tell you it is a tough one. Your blood alcohol was out of sight, you seem to have been flying, you left the scene of the accident, there were serious consequences and frankly, there is only one thing I like about your case.”
“What’s that, Mr. Lawyer?”
“You’re rich.”
“Well, rank has its privilege.”
“Yes indeed, and we will do the best we can for you. We will try to get a change of venue on the grounds that you have already been tried in the press. That may work. It’s up to the judge. But we will argue you weren’t going that fast, your expensive car malfunctioned, you only had a few drinks, you thought you hit a big snake, and your alcohol level was high only because you drank something after the crash because you were in pain and jumpy and needed something to relax you and you happened to be near and friend’s house who gave you a few drinks. We can argue all of this but there’s only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Nobody will believe it. But all is not lost. We can bring in the best expert witnesses to testify that all of these impossible things could happen. But I think your best bet is the jury.”
“How tell?”
“Jury selection is the key to any trial. That’s why we spend so much time on it.  We need to get the right jury, and that will require hiring an expert to get the kind of jurors we need to win this thing, or at least not lose everything. Such experts cost money, but it is our best shot.”
“Mr. Lawyer, you mean we need an expert at jury selection to get some really gullible people?”
“No, Mr. Goodenrich. They could be dumb as ducks and I could be at my usual brilliant best, but they still won’t believe it. No, we need a different kind of juror. We need a juror who wants to be on the jury. Most people don’t. They don’t have the time, or they are prejudiced because their ex was an alky, or they are married to the judge, or their brother lost the same kind of case, or it will cut into their bar time or they’ve been planning a trip to Ireland for years. … They’ll say anything to get off the jury. But we need people who really, really want to be on this jury. It’s our best chance. We need grounds for an appeal, and if the judge doesn’t screw up royally, we got to hope for jury misconduct. And that’s why we need an expert in jury selection. We need somebody who can spot a juror who will screw up and give us a shot at a new trial, which will take time.”
“I see,” Mr. Goodenrich says glumly.           
“You see, my friend, if somebody wants to be on a jury you know something is fishy. You have to ask what is their motive. And suppose their motive is to make money on the case. You know, the O.J. stuff. And maybe they see an advantage in a certain outcome and might try to influence the other jurors, talk about the case, go out of their way to learn stuff out of court. Maybe even write a damned book. That’s not likely to happen, but you never know. My sense is we are going to need an appeal, and all this stuff could be grounds. It’s a long shot, but it’s a shot.”
“So what if we get an appeal?”
“Time. It all takes time. If we lose you might stay out on bail and be under house arrest or whatever, but then we can start all over trying for another trial, and this time we will have more ammunition, citing the stuff the smart-ass columnists write as prejudicial and requiring for a change of venue, to Alaska or some place where everybody is drunk all the time. There’s a lot of stuff we can do.”
“And how much time would we get?”
“Mr. Goodenrich, I will shoot to string it out for 20 years. By then we all may be dead. But it all depends on the right jury. We may need to hire an expert to find us the right jury expert.”

Scams R Us

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, May 22, 2012 No Comment(s)

 

 

The latest scam is in today’s Sun-Sentinel, front-page play.
People are being threatened with lawsuits for pirating adult videos. It is similar to the suits about stealing music a few years back. In this case, it is also a form of extortion, an attempt to get people to avoid embarrassing publicity by settling out of court.
Now we fully recognize that nobody reading this essay has ever seen an adult film, with the possible exception of everybody reading this, but that’s not the point. The point is that this is just one more example of people using (and abusing) the legal system by filing lawsuits they never intend to litigate. The idea is to get people to pay less money than a full-fledged lawsuit would cost. So they pay a grand, or even less, to avoid paying 10 grand to fight the case.
This hits close to home, and it goes back a few years. Does anybody remember the fax machine? We used to fax, as did many businesses, advising potential clients of special sections – restaurant issues, etc. But we never sent a fax without the potential client asking for information. It always, and I say again always, began with a phone call from one of our ad reps, and the potential advertiser asked us to send information via fax.
Along comes Peter N. Price, attorney out of Hollywood, Fla. He threatens to sue us for sending unsolicited faxes to several clients. He wants to settle before litigation, for maybe $500 per fax. We call the lawyer’s clients, who say they had no problem with us, and don’t want to be involved. Therefore, we say no, and accuse the lawyer of extortion, but that means hiring an attorney, and we have the unfortunate condition of having lawyers who are serious about their work. So we have responses, hearings, postponements, the usual B.S.
Meanwhile, we are looking up Price, and find he has a reputation for odd lawsuits. We also engage in some testy phone conversation, at which we are good, having once aspired to the stage. It turns out that Price has an associate whose name is Michael Satz. Coincidence, that the name is the same as our longtime state attorney?
Of course, we advised the state attorney, which cost us nothing but a phone call, and produced no action that we know of, but in the meantime, and the meantime is several years, our legal fees grew to about $10,000.  Which is exactly what these scams are about. What businessman in his right mind would spend 10 grand for something that might have gone away for $500? Well, maybe you can call it principle. 
How about a happy ending. Unknown to us at the time, Peter N. Price’s fax scam was the minor league of his calling. In 2010 he was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge James Cohn to 46 months in jail, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,712,766.92 in restitution. Mortgage fraud. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Time to Stack the Rifles?

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, May 15, 2012 No Comment(s)


It has been more than a year since the Civil War on Las Olas was reported here. The war ended, we think, quite some time back, but there has been no formal surrender, no stacking of rifles, no affectionate farewells to those brave veterans of so many battles.

Rather, the dispute between the Colee Hammock Homeowners Association and the First Presbyterian Church over the church’s expansion plans for property it owns on Las Olas Boulevard might be described as a truce. The church withdrew its original plans, the first of which actually looked like a fort – a stark, tall slab-sided building, which needed only guns protruding from portals to qualify as a genuine tourist attraction, claiming to be where Fort Lauderdale got its name.

The second plan was considerably more aesthetic, but it still struck Colee Hammock neighbors as unseemly large for a block in which most buildings were one or two stories high. It was also accompanied by a request for a planned unit development (PUD), which neighbors saw as a way to circumvent normal zoning laws.  A PUD gives a developer great latitude in what it can do. Basically, it throws out zoning.

It just wasn’t the threat of what appeared to be a school in the heart of one of the city’s oldest residential neighborhoods that alarmed the nearby homeowners.  It was the precedent it would set. Once such a large structure were permitted, it was a sure bet that adjacent land owners would run to the city commission with equally tall, or taller buildings, shouting “me too.” That’s the way it works.

The neighbors were already upset that parking for church services on Sundays closed off streets south of Las Olas and spilled into the nearby neighborhoods, one of the most pleasant, and convenient, in the city. And north of Las Olas, there has been continuing concern that employees and visitors to restaurants and other businesses along the boulevard have been parking on the oak-canopied residential side streets, sometimes depriving home owners from a spot to park in front of their own homes.

It has been spreading for years block by block. The residents have responded by planting their swales to discourage parking. As this is being written, the owner of one of the most impressive homes, a full three blocks north of Las Olas, is reacting dramatically. His home is a walled enclave with spectacular landscaping. Years back he bricked his swale, most attractively. Now he is in the process of putting planters among the bricks to discourage parking.

There have been other consequences to the civil war. Anticipating a legal fight, Colee Hammock raised a war chest, including significant gifts from some of the more important names in the city. Jackie Scott, president of the Colee Hammock Homeowners Association, and a long-time champion for preserving her neighborhood, recently ran for the city commission against Romney Rogers. She lost. The election was not close, but she did very well in Colee Hammock and its adjacent neighborhoods, winning 64 percent of the vote. The mere fact that she ran sent a message.

There have been indications that the First Presbyterian Church got the message some time back. Members of the congregation let it be known that they weren’t happy with the big expansion, or the attempt to bulldoze it through. In subtle ways, elected officials urged the church to seek accommodation with the neighbors. Leaders of the church, last year accused of arrogance in trying to push their plans, have become notably gracious in dealing with the community.

In that spirit, there is a meeting Thursday night of the homeowners to hear the revised proposal from the church. By all accounts, the plan works for the church and the neighbors. It may be time to stack the rifles.
A Prescient Comment

by Bernard McCormick Wednesday, May 09, 2012 8 Comment(s)

 

 

Paul Rogers, who died nearly four years ago, was one of the finest men Florida ever sent to Congress. The voters obviously thought so. He served 12 terms from 1955 to 1979, when he chose not to run again. He was the son of former Rep. Dwight Rogers and the uncle of Romney Rogers, current City of Fort Lauderdale commissioner.
 
Paul Rogers is best remembered as a prominent voice on medical issues, but he was also known as a steady, perceptive representative whose judgment was valued on many subjects. An example jumped off the page of one of the books I have been re-reading in anticipation of next year’s 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It is Gaeton Fonzi’s The Last Investigation, which first appeared in two long articles in Gold Coast magazine in 1980. Fonzi had just finished five years working as an investigator for two government committees that, responding to doubts about the Warren Commission’s conclusion that a lone nut killed the president, had reopened the investigation into the crime.
 
Fonzi, one of the few investigators in the field, did most of his work in South Florida. He was the first man to connect the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, to a highly placed CIA officer. Fonzi, whose information came from a prominent anti-Castro Cuban, made a compelling case that Oswald was a CIA operative, but one of such little value that his own murder became part of the plot. That tells you everything you need to know. Fonzi’s work was a dramatic breakthrough that has led numerous subsequent researchers, working with witnesses who have come forward over the years and supported by gradually declassified documents, to persuade most Americans (70 percent and growing) that there was a government conspiracy to murder a president.
 
Early in his book Fonzi went into detail about the CIA’s activities with anti-Castro elements, which became such an extensive and well-funded network that it bordered on a government of its own. President Kennedy distrusted the agency after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and actually replaced its head, Allen Dulles, with a man he thought he could trust. Still, he suspected he was not in control of the country’s intelligence apparatus. He was, in a sense, at war with his own administration, specifically the intelligence agencies and military leaders who wanted to launch a nuclear war with the Soviet Union while it could still be won. 
 
In 1963 few people knew that, and even members of Congress had no idea what the CIA was doing. For the most part, they did not give a damn. An exception was Paul Rogers. From Fonzi’s book:
 
There were few who had the foresight or knowledge to understand the significance of what was happening at the time, but one who did was Paul Rodgers [misspelled], a Democratic representative from Florida. As early as February of that year, Rodgers, citing some “serious kinks in our intelligence system,” had called for a Joint Congressional committee to oversee the CIA. “What proof have we,” he asked with uncanny presience, “that this Agency, which in many respects has the power to preempt foreign policy, is not actually exercising this power through practices which are contradictory to the established policy objectives of this Government.
 
Paul Rogers did not realize how important those words would become in the light of history. Nor did he realize that the “contradictory” practices might include the murder of his president. I actually reviewed Fonzi’s quotation of Paul Rogers in 1980. I did not catch the misspelling (a rare mistake by Fonzi) or even attach much importance to Rogers’ comment about the CIA, for at the time I probably did not know Paul Rogers existed.  Years later the name meant something after I learned that the late Robert (Buddy) Lochrie, who became one of Fort Lauderdale’s more prominent citizens, had worked for 12 years for Rogers in Washington, and eventually became his chief of staff. Lochrie praised the man highly, and when a man as respected as Buddy Lochrie in turn tenders respect, you listen.
 
A footnote to this story, for those who wonder why witnesses took so long to come forward with information on the assassination: In fact, many came forward immediately, but they were ignored by the Warren Commission. Others were simply scared when witnesses began dying mysteriously. In illustration, almost any Cuban-American familiar with the era knows the name of Fonzi’s informant who connected Oswald to the CIA. His name has been in numerous books. But when I contacted him last year, he was reluctant to talk, almost 50 years after the event. He told me he had said enough.
Secret Service: Unfinest Hour

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, May 01, 2012 No Comment(s)

The recent news of Secret Service men enjoying the company of working girls while protecting the president in South America is being viewed as the low point in the history of the service. Hardly. When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, the Secret Service men charged with protecting him might as well have been arm wrestling with Dallas hookers. They weren’t there when a president was murdered.

Among the strongest evidence that it was a government conspiracy, not a lone nut, that assassinated JFK, is the shocking absence of security during his visit to Dallas, known to be one of the more hostile environments for the president at that time. Few knew of the lax security at the time, and those few were either security agencies themselves who knew normal precautions were absent, or the plotters who took pains to make certain it was that way.

Although ignored by the original Warren Commission we now know, through witnesses who have come forth over the years, reinforced by declassified documents, that the Dallas police and local sheriff’s office, units which normally are out in force for a presidential visit, and especially for a motorcade, were not present in the usual numbers that day. There were no snipers on rooftops near Dealey Plaza, no one checking to see if guns were peeping out of windows. And, despite the fact that a number of witnesses, including a police officer, immediately after the shooting encountered men with Secret Service credentials, there were no Secret Service men on the ground at Dealey Plaza. The identification shown was false, by obvious members of the assassination team.

An excellent account of the security situation is found in James W. Douglass’ book JFK and the Unspeakable, which in turn relies on the work of numerous researchers. Those researchers include Gaeton Fonzi, whose landmark book The Last Investigation first appeared as articles in Gold Coast magazine in 1980. One glaring example of lax security was the fact that the president’s motorcycle escort, which normally rode beside his limousine, thus providing some shielding from potential attackers, was ordered to follow the limousine. Also, there were not Secret Service agents riding in the back of the president’s car, which might have saved him. The initial explanation, one given to the Warren Commision, was that the president wanted it that way, but over the years Secret Service people have said the president made no such request. He never interfered with their advice. That change in routine came from Washington, either from the Secret Service or someone controlling the Secret Service. Interestingly, just the day before in Houston, normal security had been in place.

The route of the motorcade was incredibly careless. The slow turn at Dealey Plaza seemed designed for a hit, providing an easy target for gunmen in a building or behind the grassy knoll. A vigilant Secret Service would never permit that. At the least, the place should have been swarming with security. Almost none existed.

The Secret Service did strange things after the murder. The Dallas coroner wanted to keep JFK’s body there for an autopsy. That would be normal procedure by Texas law. But Secret Service men (real ones this time) literally pushed his body past the coroner and left the hospital. After failing to do its job in the motorcade, it took on a job that was not its work. It was subsequently learned that the autopsy back in Washington was also controlled, and photographs of the president’s wounds altered to make it appear he was shot only from the rear – necessary to set up the lone gunman theory.

This is not to suggest that Secret Service agents guarding the president that day were part of the conspiracy. One of them, Clint Hill, became famous by racing to the president’s car and pulling Jackie Kennedy back from the top of the trunk. The men guarding the president were following orders, but it is an inescapable conclusion that someone high up the Secret Service, or even above that agency, was part of the conspiracy to murder a president, even if the overall plan likely involved high-ranking military, other government agencies and some organized crime elements, all coordinated by elements of the CIA.

The recent prostitution incident may not be the Secret Service’s finest hour, but it is a long way from its worst.
A Sellout Without Invites

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, April 24, 2012 1 Comment(s)


It was considered one of the wonders of the social world when two years ago the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society’s dinner honoring Wayne Huizenga as “man of the centennial” sold out without invitations being sent. The Ritz-Carlton even had to use the dance floor for extra tables to handle the demand.

Well, it just happened again. The Historical Society’s Friendship Luncheon did not require invitations when word spread that Monsignor Vincent Kelly would be the honoree. Last week the Lauderdale Yacht Club needed to use everything but the swimming pool to accommodate the 222 people who attended. It would have been more if room permitted.

It was a tribute to one of the most influential religious leaders in the history of South Florida. The Irish-born Kelly has been here in the Archdiocese since 1969 and built Fort Lauderdale’s oldest Catholic high school, St. Thomas Aquinas, into an institution with a national academic and athletic reputation. This is the school which produced Brian Piccolo, Chris Evert, Michael Irvin and numerous others who made it to the professional sports level. It also ranks annually among the area’s best in National Merit Scholars.

It took his longtime St. Thomas associate, retired principal Sister John Norton, several minutes just to list his additional achievements. They included being pastor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Coral Ridge and supervising principal of Cardinal Gibbons High School, where Fort Lauderdale mayor Jack Seiler, one of the speakers at the luncheon, went to high school. He also served until recently as vicar of education for the Archdiocese of Miami, in which capacity he made perhaps his most lasting contribution – the Archdiocesan Education Foundation, which is now part of the Catholic Community Foundation.

The endowment concept was pioneered at St. Thomas Aquinas in the early 1980s. Shortly thereafter Monsignor Kelly took it diocese-wide to serve what has become more than 70 schools in the Archdiocese, with the purpose of holding Catholic education costs down at a time when members of religious orders, once the overwhelming number of Catholic school teachers, were declining rapidly. They had to be replaced by lay teachers who required living salaries. Endowments vary widely from school to school but after almost 30 years the total fund has been reported at around $100 million.

Monsignor Kelly, known for his communication skills, was typically entertaining, thoughtful and relevant in remarks.

The luncheon was one of the first official duties of the new president of the Historical Society, Elton Sayward, who took over for Dr. Harry Moon. Sayward is chief operating officer of Gulfstream Media Group, which publishes Gold Coast and nine other magazines in a market from Broward County to the northern Treasure Coast. He and Gulfstream Media Group president Mark McCormick go back to 1988 when McCormick was a newly minted U.S. Navy ensign and served with Sayward on a guided missile frigate based in Philadelphia. Sayward joined the Navy as an enlisted man, and already had 10 years service. He retired as a commander in 2007 after 30 years. He has had a busy month. In addition to planning the Historical Society event, he is involved in the Navy League's and the Navy Days' participation in the revived Lauderdale Air Show.
Cracking the $200,000 Club

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, April 17, 2012 1 Comment(s)

 

The cost and inefficiency of government has been much in the news in recent years. Whole cities in California have bellied up when they could not meet the cost of salaries and benefits to public employees. The federal government’s Medicare program has been so abused that people now consider Medicare half a word. The other word is fraud. This has been especially embarrassing in South Florida, where the government does not catch up with scams until it is too late and the culprits have escaped to foreign lands, where most of them started out. By the time a scam is exposed and remedied, the bad guys have come up with something new to enjoy a second round of thievery. The problem is so serious that people are running for president to try to cure it.

Of course, not all of this is illegal. The pension abuses go with many jobs. Some public sector employees retire young with almost as much as they got paid. Some people game the system brilliantly, retiring with all kinds of bonuses, only to unretire a month later in a similar job, or the same job in the next town. These problems are being addressed, but not very quickly because people enjoying these perks tend to vote, and vote for people who will keep the game going.

Yesterday’s paper reports the fake accident game goes on. People driving beat-up cars deliberately create minor accidents. It happened to my daughter. A car filled with people, probably illegal, who don’t speak English, barely taps her car, which is on my insurance. Our car isn’t damaged. The other is already a wreck. Nobody hurt. Then the crooked lawyers and doctors bill insurance companies for services not needed or even rendered. This was more than 10 years ago, and the game goes on. When lawmakers shut down one scam, the same people come up with another.

There has to be a faster way to reduce government costs, and I just came up with it. The Sun-Sentinel reported Broward’s new medical examiner makes $240,000, joining the “The 200,000 Club.” Others in that club are the county administrator ($290,000), aviation director ($257,000), port director ($250,000), attorney ($240,345) and auditor (200,000). That’s well over $1 million. I propose we turn all these jobs over to my firm, McCormick, O’Goniff and Craven. It isn’t a law firm, but we can hire lawyers. They are all broke and will come cheap. I will immediately cut these county job salaries by one-third.

I realize people filling these jobs are highly skilled, but no public servant should make that kind of money. Indeed, a public servant should be just that. Work for free, but that is not realistic in this market. More realistically, I will take the aviation job for $200,000, saving the county $57,000. I know something about aviation, having once jumped out of airplanes. I also know that the Douglas A-20 Havoc ceased production on Sept. 20, 1944. I bet our director doesn’t know that. I bet he doesn’t know it was my eighth birthday, either. Anyway, I will find a highly qualified person willing to do that job for $150,000, and pocket the other $50,000.

As for county attorney, I personally know at least two who already do that kind of work. Neither has ever been indicted. I’ll bet we get them for a buck and a half, providing they can keep their day job. I’ll take $50,000 for the firm. Port director may be tougher, although I was a coxswain on my high school crew and was one of the best on the Schuylkill River until one summer I grew a foot and gained 50 pounds and the coach threw me in the back of boat and gave me an oar. That was a lifestyle change that I never got over.

But I could get over this lifestyle change pretty easily, especially if my political friends would give me a deal in which I could retire in a month, get hired back in 90 days and hire public servants all over again. This time we would work the $150,000 club. Our fees, of course, would be commensurate.