More Proof That Condo Clout Is Dead In Broward
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Century Village’s pathetic turnout in the Deerfield Beach city election on Tuesday brings to mind David’s lament from The Bible: “How are the mighty fallen!”
A decade or so ago, Century Village could reliably turn out thousands of votes in any election.
On Tuesday, there were 1,317 votes cast in the 7 precincts.
Compare that with Weston’s Seat 3, where there were 3,441 votes in 13 precincts.
Weston turned out roughly 77 voters-per-precinct more than once mighty Deerfield Beach.
Two more points from the March municipal elections:
* Bernie Parness, a Democratic leader in Century Village, won a commission seat with 552 votes in a field of three. That’s not exactly a show of political clout compared to the time when Amadeo “Trinchi” Trinchitella could turn out more than that before the sun rose.
With those kind of pitiful numbers behind him, can Parness realistically hope to block the expansion of Southwest 10th Street, a key campaign pledge?
Parness is no Trinchitella. But is it his fault?
After two decades as the epitome of condo bosses courted by everybody from presidents to the courthouse crowd, Trinchitella died in 2005. Apparently he took most of his voters with him.
Bernie Parness
* Jim Norton stupendous loss in Weston’s Seat 2 is another example of the once mighty falling hard.
Norton is a former commissioner who resigned to run against Nan Rich for County Commission. After losing that race last year, he filed to run for his old seat.
But Byron Jaffe was already running. So Norton’s entry prompted a special election this week costing taxpayers $75,000.
That was Jaffe’s campaign message fashioned by consultant Dave Brown, who extended his decades-long lock on winning elections in Weston.
Jaffe won 2,416 to Norton’s 1,025.
And to think, Norton once believed he could win a County Commission seat.
Listen carefully and you might hear the sound of Norton’s political career tanking.
March 17th, 2017 at 9:22 am
HMMM???? Wonder if the loss of condo clout is part of the reasons Stacy Ritter, former Broward County Commissioner and now head of tourism in Broward, gave up her seat for that new job? Ritter was the queen of condos in Tamarac. Maybe she saw her base of support eroding and asked Bertha Henry for the new job ahead of looming political defeat.
March 17th, 2017 at 2:32 pm
Over in Century Village, voters had the following choice to make:
1. Incumbent Richard Rosenzweig … noticeably suffering from age-related brain fog, he’s contributed zero to the Commission the past four years.
2. Snake in the grass Parness … who offered to pay me to file a complaint against his opponent Caryl Berner.
3. Berner, now with four loses in her pocket, when asked by the Sun-Sentinel to explain her IRS tax lien, suggested since Trump didn’t need to release his records, neither does she.
Thankfully, in Deerfield, there’s Bill Ganz, Gloria Battle, and incoming Commissioner Todd Drodsky.
Along with City Manager Burgess Hanson, all’s not lost in town.
March 17th, 2017 at 5:26 pm
Jim “Bozo” Norton is the Class A moron behind the complete ban on nightclubs, dance halls and skating rinks in Weston! This obnoxious POS thought that banning nightclubs, etc. was exactly what he was supposed to be doing as an elected official…
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/florida-footloose-town-bans-night-clubs-dance-halls-and-skating-rinks/
March 22nd, 2017 at 9:01 am
The low turn out is more about Canadians and SnowBirds owning most of the units in CV and they can not vote in this country, same thing happened in Hollywood’s Hillcrest Condo