DEERFIELD BEACH. For the past couple of months I’ve been doing something deeply out of character, which is trying to help City Hall quietly. I didn’t write a column and I didn’t file anything. I called developers, land owners, elected officials, and the assorted Powers That Be, and I said, in effect: I know how this stuff works, I’m available, use me. I reached out to Rodney Brimlow, our city manager.
I’d love to tell you what he said, and I will, the minute he says something.
From everybody else, barely a call back. Sure, I hear your bitching. Chaz, you’re a _________. Exactly. I don’t disagree. And that’s the exact reason to bring me on board. I’m not looking to volunteer at the library. I get shit done.
Early on, when everything started going sideways, I asked our elected officials where the city’s effort was. Their answer, and I am not making this up, was that we have a web page.
A web page. I’ve been building websites since 1996, and I can tell you that building one is the simple part. It’s what you do with it. Do you think residents are going to dive four layers deep into the city’s site to find the thing? Printing business cards is all well and good, but if you leave them sitting on your dresser, what good is that? How did they hand them out?
I was over at the farmers market. Did the city have a table there? Nope. The city owns legions of vehicles. How about a magnetic bumper sticker that says “Learn more about the vote here”? Also nope.
What we got was some videos about the pier, plus, every once in a while, something on Facebook. For those of you new to town, the pier is a long thing that sticks out into the ocean. It has been doing this for years without video support.
While the city was filming the pier, it got duped by Pam Militello.
The man in charge of the city’s IT resources holds the title of Director and he holds a Doctorate. I tried to talk to him about Lindke v. Freed, a Supreme Court case about what public officials can and can’t do on social media, which you’d think might interest him. Two titles, lots of ghosting.
Next week I’m teaching that case to the International Municipal Lawyers Association, which is exactly what it sounds like: the trade group for city attorneys, including, and I want to stress this, ours. In February I’m back to teach them public records. That will make it my third time before the IMLA.
I’m not a lawyer. I’m the guy lawyers bring in as a subject matter expert to teach them this stuff, alongside a retired federal magistrate judge and a licensed attorney, and this, like I said, isn’t my first CLE. So the lawyers who advise cities are paying attention to me on the very matters that land on their desks, and my own city couldn’t give me the courtesy of a fucking reply.
That’s fine. That’s on them. In the end it’s a matter of grace and manners, and I’m the guy with the beer-can pole saying so.
I’ve also been trying to figure out what’s going on with the water, and they’re going to kill me with fees. Maybe Thomas Noland is right, and maybe he’s wrong. City Hall would rather send me an invoice than find out.
Meanwhile, I’ve been battling Sheriff Gregory Tony with no staff, no budget and no resources, and I didn’t run and fucking hide. At first I thought, shit, he’s trying to blow up my city manager, and I took the manager’s side. Then the sheriff ran his mouth at a roll call, Brimlow worked from home, and it dawned on me that my city manager is kind of a pussy.
And speaking of elected officials, let’s talk about mine. Mike Hudak, the District 1 commissioner, has been described as “really good while on script.” Off script, he’s a train wreck, and from late summer into November he was missing in action. I didn’t see him knocking on doors. He burrowed underground.
The good news is we’re soon to be rid of him, and he can crawl back down there for good.
The bad news is the bench. We have Dan Herz. We have Doogie Howser’s stunt double, a kid who’s shown up at a few commission meetings, and between that and collecting Pokémon cards, he’s shown the gravitas for the job. Cody Loomis, anyone? Hell, if we rolled in Con Roddington for his fifth try at the seat, we’d be blowing out our flip flops, stepping on the 130 pop tops left by Ron’s latest escapades.
So I’m putting in my paperwork for District 1, and I have two reasons.
Plank 1: Fuck Dan.
Reason one is Dan Herz. Being a candidate gives me standing to sue him, and I won’t withdraw this time, because I learned my lesson. If anything comes up sideways about Herz, and in this case maybe it already has, I file. The last round cost him about eight grand. Dan, if you’re reading this, and your lawyer is definitely reading this, at his hourly rate, let’s see if we can get that number up to twenty. Thirty?
I’ve been training MAD/STAN for three years now, and I’ve won pro se in both federal and state court. I’m happy to dispense free lessons to your legal team.
Plank 2: Fuck Rod.
Reason two is that if I win, on some really odd, and remote, chance, it’s time for a new administration. I’m calling for the removal of Brimlow. I’m calling for the removal of the director of IT, doctorate and all. And the dude in charge of facilities.
These guys couldn’t come up with $30 fucking dollars, to pump Dan’s charges to felony, and thereby, keep him off the ballot?
Hello? Thirty dollars?
And I’m calling for the removal of our public information officer, a brand new hire who’s terrific if what you need is a video of the pier and fucking worthless for everything else.
By the way, the pier was doing pier stuff long before someone decided it was the only item of video interest in town.
Then I’m going to turn Lindke on our newly established police and fire leadership team. And the new elected officials. This is likely to go over the heads of 999 of you. The one person who gets it will, well, get it.
You want change? I’ll bring you goddamn change.
Do I expect to win? That’s not the point. Do I want a seat at the table? Now, you’re tracking.
If you’re thinking I’m burning my bridge with City Hall. Ha! You’re new around here.
Chaz, you’ll say, you’re _________, etc., etc., etc. True, but this go around, I was kittens and ice cream, and look what being nice got us?
But, I digress … about change at the CM level.
Ask Mike Mahaney. Bill Ganz, a guy named Burgess Hanson and I chased Mahaney’s ass out of the city manager’s office. Before he went, he was sucking up to Steve Gonot and the rest of them, worried about his job, and he came to me and said, please stop writing about Gonot. Stop writing about Poitier. I’ll lose my job, and then where will I be? He also told me I was radioactive, which I’ve chosen to take as a compliment.
I kept writing.
I helped blow up Mikey, all the while listening to the gaggles of giggling shitters bemoan, oh, Chaz, he’s a _________.
Noted.
So I don’t just have a track record of rooting out corruption. I have a track record of getting rid of fucking city managers.
My campaign website launches in the coming weeks, and you can follow along at votedanherz (dot) com. Be warned that it is NSFW. Like, really NSFW. You will see things that cannot be unseen. No, really, DO NOT CLICK THERE.
Oh well. Told you so.
That’s the whole platform. Anybody but Dan, and see you fucking later, Rod, and take the other two Pep Boys with you.
I’m Chaz Stevens, private citizen, and I approve this message.