Saturday, March 6, 2010

Southwest Ranches could face $12 million in bills

Dear Southwest Ranches Friends and Neighbors:

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and if I don’t see you later … well then … Good Night!

Our little town is in the papers again, click here forBusiness connections of County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin and her husband are now under investigation by state prosecutors.

The chickens are finally coming home to roost in our modest town. Criminal investigators at the state and federal levels are actively dredging up past corrupt deeds. County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin and her puppet-master husband, Richard Rubin will almost certainly be slapped with a bit more than the $15 thousand fines the state Ethics Commission imposed a few years ago. With their incomes, fines and penalties are not punitive enough; jail time should be in order but hey, jail time cannot be that bad with two of your colleagues, Eggelletion and Gallagher inside with you and more on the way. In earlier articles in the Sentinel, Wasserman-Rubin said she would like the opportunity to clear her good hyphenated name. It seems the corrupt couple may now be getting Fifth Amendment lessons from a professional. According to the Sentinel, “They hired Bruce Udolf, the former chief of the public integrity section of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, to represent them. Wasserman-Rubin has said she never realized her husband would benefit from her votes and would have abstained if she did.” Really!? What husband doesn’t come home and tell his wife of a bonus or his means of income or whom he works for or what he worked on today. Are they that dysfunctional as a couple? Is it a marriage of political or financial convenience?

Folks, do these two corrupt individuals really think the Feds will believe that County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin and her husband do not talk about what she votes on as a commissioner. Does Richard Rubin really believe the Feds will see it his way when he tries to explain that for his $616 thousand in fees his wife never had a concern that if SWR did not get the grant money for parks the gravy train would end?

To see that Rubin is now in a venture with the crook that stole town hall called Synergy Solutions for Florida LLC, is even more damning! When will the investigators turn over the right stone that will expose the slime that is hiding John “Corruptor” Canada? When will they get to Sherri Canada and expose her corruption? When will they investigate Susan Owen, Canada’s daughter’s significant other was the unqualified Town Clerk? What does she know about the Rubin-Canada relationship? To think that Canada and Rubin are business partners in an enterprise that advises municipalities on how to get parks grant money is a travesty. It is as ridiculous as Scott Rothstein, Broward’s greatest Ponzi scheme criminal, opening a new investment advisory firm called Trust Me, Inc.

Synergy Solutions for Florida LLC? Why not Liars Inc., or Fantasy Ideas R Us? Their business plan must be interesting. It must read like: “based on the notion of fabricate concepts that will catch the evaluator’s eye, create elaborate schemes that will put your proposal ahead of any other applicants, create really pretty pictures that look great, win the bid by buying influence, procuring politicians, and strap the municipality with unanticipated development and operating costs, collect the money and disappear to another part of the state. It would be worth investigating whether County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin lobbies on Synergy Solutions’ behalf to their clients and whether she reports it.

Does County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin represent your values? Do you think she should be reelected this fall? To date, she runs unopposed. Hopefully, the Feds or State will indict her before the last filing date for her seat. The big concern among the county power brokers is that she and Michael Satz, Broward State Attorney, an elected official, share many of the same campaign contributors, who may be upset by her indictment before the election. One of them may be our pal Ronnie Boy who was last seen riding east with Donnie Boy in tow.

A quick look at their website says they have gotten their clients grant award amounts in south Florida from county, state and federal agencies during 2001-2008 for the following categories: park land acquisition $44,915,053; park land development $2,501,510; trails and greenways $2,310,500; transportation improvements $11,950,000; cultural/historical $380,000; totaling $62,057,063. Twenty five percent of their grants have been for SWR. Oh, Canada’s bio reads as if he successfully concluded his contract with SWR. I guess it depends on perspective. While he was boot out with cause, he made out like a bandit plundering the town under the noses of a malfeasant town council. Why were they malfeasant? Only Freddy Fisikelli raised the red flag on what these concept parks would cost to run after developed. The rest of the council, particularly Mayor Fink sat back and salivated like a bass eyeing a worm on a hook, she just could not say no and could not hear Fisikelli’s protests.

Take a few minutes and read Canada’s bio on their web site. It was clearly written by Rubin in his embellishing style. It states Canada has “Extensive experience in creating innovative solutions and concepts with outstanding results stemming from complex issues and situations”. That definitely describes they way he kept the town books and wrote contracts with his friends. They only party that benefited from his outstanding results was John Canada and Associates. It is reminiscent of the time he convinced the council that he needed to hire more people, they amended his contract, he didn’t hire the staff and kept the money stating they he fond a more efficient way to get the work done with existing resources. VERY CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE!

Do Synergy Solutions for Florida clients perform any due diligence? Does Suwannee County, Dixie County, or the city of Live Oak know about the nefarious backgrounds of its consultants? Is John Canada’s business partner, Ira Cor involved with these characters again? Are these governments getting caught up in the same land fever that Mecca Fink, the disgraced former councilmember Don Maines, Forrest Blanton, and Astor Knight got caught up in during the Broward green space land boom eight years ago? It is surprising these two have not made hundreds of million conning municipalities out of the Obama stimulus funds. They must be losing their touch!

It is interesting that the Town was recently confronted by a computer glitch that almost destroyed all of its email records, when a number of public records requests were made for information pertaining to Canada, Wasserman-Rubin, and Rubin. Its doubtful that the current administration or council played any part in the IT failure but it is curious that the IT tech, who was originally hired by and maintains ties with Canada and his crowd, intentionally deleted large amounts of email, with the stated intention of making the servers run faster, without any authorization from administration.

If the investigators really wanted to find the underlying cause of the Wasserman-Rubin/Rubin/Canada corruption, they should subpoena former John Canada and Associates and Richard Rubin, Inc., employees still employed by the Town. Under oath, they could talk about where the skeletons are buried.

That’s All Folks!!!

Wanch Waggler

5 comments:

Buford T. Justice said...

Great article Wanch!

But why didn’t you tell us who the eraser / deleting happy IT technician is married to? His last name is Haines just like the hyphenated last name of our parks czar December Lauretano-Haines.

VF said...

www.LeoAffairs.com
Pain and Suffering
by Just Do It on 03/06/10 13:21:44

Sad wrote:
I think he [lamberti who has the contrct with Southwest Ranches]is more disappointing than Ken Jenne. I actually looked forward to AL becoming Sheriff. Now, I just hope someone worthy steps up to run against him. And no, I don't think Scott Isreal is the answer. Anyone suggest a name?


I suggest Representative Martin David Kiar! Just Do It!

Anonymous said...

Great Job Wanch!

Anonymous said...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/fl-wasserman-ethics-broward-20100305,0,2374403.story

Anonymous said...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/southwest-ranches/fl-town-hall-money-missing-20100308,0,7853771.story