8/8/2019 Mayor Ken Keechl Opposes Amendment 4 in Broward County Commission Election Campaign

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For Immediate ReleaseRe: Pompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) v. Gil EriksenProperties LLC; Case No. 06-004169 (21)

No Surprise Special Interest Candidate Mayor Ken Keechl AgainstAmendment 4 in 2010 Broward County Commission

Election CampaignPompano Beach, FL, October 17, 2010 – Broward County Mayor Ken Keechl is

running for reelection as a Broward County Commissioner in District 4. As theDemocratic candidate one might think Keechl would back the proposed FloridaConstitutional Amendment 4 which calls for the public’s vote before a local governmentcan adopt or change a comprehensive land use plan. Not so. As a Commissioner on thenow famously corrupt Broward County Commission, Keechl, like many in-the-clubFlorida politicians, is well into the special interest and land grab game and does notsupport Amendment 4. This is no surprise to those following Keechl’s career, with hisMutual Benefits ponzi scheme past, his real estate connections, the fact that his district

contains prime oceanfront property, and his current work with the law firm KopelowitzOstrow Ferguson Weiselberg Keechl who represents the huge developer StilesConstruction. Is it any wonder he, the Democratic candidate (and not presumably theRepublican candidate Chip LaMarca), is endorsed by the Builders Association of SouthFlorida?

Put on the ballot by over 1 million petition signatures, Florida HometownDemocracy says that Amendment 4 is a way for Florida voters to have a seat at the tablewhen it comes to land use and development, as opposed to only corporations, lobbyists,and special interests that have long been dominating Florida’s politics. The amendmentwill allow voters a veto power as a final step to the currently rather easy process of

getting land development plans approved. This proposition of the public having a voiceseems to be quite scary to most politicians as many city governments have looked to passresolutions against the Amendment, and huge advertising campaigns a re being wagedstating that the amendment originated from politicians wanting to raise citizens’ taxes andhurt job availability, most notably by Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy,Inc.

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8/8/2019 Mayor Ken Keechl Opposes Amendment 4 in Broward County Commission Election Campaign

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In Broward County’s Fourth District, both party candidates for CountyCommissioner, the Democrat Ken Keechl and the Republican Chip LaMarca are againstthe amendment, with only the non-party affiliated Chris Chiari being for it. Chris Chiarihas reported that he is actually a Democrat, but is running without a party as the BrowardCounty Democratic Party has gotten so far away from the activism that he sees as

necessary. Perhaps Chiari is correct as currently everyone on the Broward CountyCommission is a Democrat, and the Commission has seen several corruption stingsrecently centered around fraud and bribery in the special interest and land grab arenas andthe arrests of Josephus Eggelletion and Diana Wasserman-Rubin.

One may ask why should I be bothered to care about land use planning and thisthis amendment? The answer is simple, because your private real estate property couldeasily be taken by the government for the benefit of a land developer and their cronies ashas actually become institutionalized in the current Broward County government in SouthFlorida. As South Florida has no more prime land left to develop in the urban core,developers team up with politicians and political agencies to take properties from existing

property owners.A case in point is the recent and highly publicized egregious land grab by the

Pompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency in Pompano Beach CRA v GilEriksen Properties. In this case, a historical property in a prime location was bought at theheight of the market and restored at great expense by Gil Eriksen Properties for its sole

proprietor business and residence. It was taken by force by the Pompano BeachCommunity Redevelopment Agency, an agency that was not authorized to exist and didnot have the governmental power of eminent domain to take property. This fraudulentagency merely acted as if it did, and took the property, looking to resell it to developers,even though takings of private property for private use are also illegal according to theFlorida Constitution.

This unconstitutional land grab is still being facilitated through the BrowardCounty Court system whereby the owner has continued to protest for five years now, buthas not yet been heard, and has been blocked from all due process, like so many other land grab victims. The still unresolved case’s file reads like a crime drama, involving

judicial nepotism, staged trials, and the exclusion of the property owner in his own proceedings. The Pompano Beach Commission is aware of the highly contested case, asthe commissioners are the exact same people as the members of the CommunityRedevelopment Agency, just with other titles to distance the Commission itself from theongoing land grabbing. Mayor Ken Keechl and the rest of the Broward CountyCommission is also aware as it has recently come out that five years after the taking, nowBroward County is eying the prime location for its school board buildings (even whenBroward County School Board officials have also been recently arrested on developmentcorruption charges). Yet no one and no regulatory agency has stepped in to stop thecrime. To do so would apparently be the system turning on itself.

Land grabbing has become a huge industry, not only feeding the developers,construction industries, and their political friends and lobbyists, but also the real estate

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8/8/2019 Mayor Ken Keechl Opposes Amendment 4 in Broward County Commission Election Campaign

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and legal industries with appraisers, lawyers, expert witnesses (even the property owner’srepresentatives) all profiting fro m property owners losing their land. Most scary in thePompano Beach CRA case are sources indicating that the property owner’s one ti me lawfirm for three years of the case, Shutts and Bowen LLP, approached the owner torepresent him with the specific intent to quiet the very vocal owner and to get him to sign

away his rights and sign off to the corrupt land grab as it turns out the law firm itself is lead by notorious development lobbyist and friend of the Broward CountyCommissioners, George Platt. Property owners have little resour ces to aid them in

battling the uphill battle against land grabbing, let alone having t heir own attorneysworking against them as p art of a racketeering conspiracy. This might be whereAmendment 4 is so critical.

Getting and keeping Amendment 4 on the ballot was no small task, and it is nowup to the people of Florida to decide if it will be passed. Land development lobbyists sayif passed, Amendment 4 will harm Florida’s economic future which depends oncontinued development. Property owne rs like Eriksen see this as an unparalleledopportunity to begin to halt land grab c orruption at the citizenry’s expense. They pointout that even the recent investigations of the Broward County Commission and thePompano Beach CRA and subsequent arrests arrests have not halted the corruption, as theinstitutionalization and political culture of land grab cronyism seems to be ever pervasiveand ongoing. And when South Florida Democratic candidates like Ken Keechl don’tsupport the democratic notion of the populous having a vote on issues that directly affectthem, it begs the questioning of the state of politics and democracy in South Floridatoday.

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For the official site of Amendment 4 visit:

http://floridahometowndemocracy.com

For the latest information on the Pompano Beach CRA and Broward County illegal landgrabs visit

http://wojspubs.com/2010/Press_files/ScandalEminentDomainPompanoBeachCRA.pdf

http://www.wojspubs.com

http://cbs4.com/local/vincente.thrower.pompano.2.1626784.html

http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=186

http://www.myactsofsedition.com/my_acts_of_sedition/2010/09/around-south-florida-with-elgin-jones-09-17-10.html

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/pompano-beach/fl-pompano-kessler-audit-20101013,0,6961739.story

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8/8/2019 Mayor Ken Keechl Opposes Amendment 4 in Broward County Commission Election Campaign

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For more information on Ken Keechl and the Mutual Benefits Ponzi Scheme visit:

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2009-02-12/news/mutual-benefits-used-dirty-money-to-pay-its-legal-defense/

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/01/

broward_vice_mayor_ken_keechl_refuses_to_talk_about_mutual_benefits_corp.phphttp://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/did_drug_money_fund_renovation.php

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2009-01-29/news/mutual-benefits-may-have-collapsed-but-the-fallout-for-south-florida-politicians-is-still-coming/

For more information on the Broward County Commission District 4 Election visit:

http://www.browardsoe.org/SampleB allot.aspx?eid=114&PrecinctID=2098

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/10/

keechl_has_t ough_race_in_browa.html

For more information on Broward County Commission Corruption visit:

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/10/fbi_undercover_operation_shake.html

http://cbs4.com/local/diana.wasserman.rubin.2.1790354.html

For more information on Broward County School Board Corruption visit:

http://wojspubs.com/2010/Press_files/ScandalEminentDomainPompanoBeachCRA.pdf http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/02/1659429/ex-broward-school-board-member.html

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/10/ breaking_news_stephanie_kraft.html

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