Update: What A Joke! Wants Reappt So Bad He Hired A Lawyer
Update:
All the pressure applied by Jim Cummings, his lawyer and the members of the business group Broward Workshop failed on Tuesday when County Commissioners voted 9-0 to appoint Beth Talabisco to the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority.
See earlier post below:
BY BUDDY NEVINS
This is from the Oh Pleeeeze Department.
Jim Cummings, the retired builder whose term is up on the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority after 18 years, wants to hold on to his job soooo badly that he has hired a lawyer.
Jim Cummings
The lawyer, as they are paid to do, has obfuscated what is usually is routine appointment process.
Matthew D. Katz, esq. found some alleged flaw in the appointment process. Katz says the appointment should transferred away from Commissioner Stacy Ritter, who wants to appoint former Tamarac Mayor Beth Talabisco, to the board.
This farce would be funny is it didn’t (1) cost taxpayers money for the county’s lawyers to research and give an opinion, (2) confuse and delay the appointment and (3) wasn’t so pitiful.
Life must be pretty empty for the multi-millionaire if he must fight so hard for an appointment to a volunteer board and not go graciously.
An appointment to the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority isn’t a life time sinecure. It isn’t meant to be retirement therapy.
And 18-years are enough. That’s six years more than the 12-year term limit for county commissioners.
When Cummings retired after selling his multi-million dollar construction company, he told the Sun-Sentinel he intended “to split time between homes in Fort Lauderdale and in Big Sky, Mont., where he enjoys fishing, hunting, snow skiing and horseback riding.”
Isn’t it time for Cummings to ride off into the sunset with his shotgun across his saddle?
XXXXX
Katz letter to the county can be found here: Additional Material Item #43 08.25.15 Comm. Mtg.
An earlier piece on authority appointment is here.
August 24th, 2015 at 8:49 pm
Why would anyone spend money for a volunteer position? Hmmm. Sounds like there is money to be made somewhere. Follow the money trail.
August 24th, 2015 at 10:22 pm
I keep wishing your columns had a “like” button.
FROM BUDDY:
My Facebook page — Buddy Nevins — has a like. Feel free to like anything on Facebook.
August 24th, 2015 at 10:33 pm
I have no knowledge of Mr. Cummings, the group in question or the politics of the Broward County Commission except for what I read on this website or in newspapers, that said, I have noticed in the 12 years I have lived in Ft. Lauderdale on Ocean Drive, AlA, North Federal Highway and South Middle River that Ft Lauderdale more than any other place I have lived in within the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada has a very few ethnic groups entirely self-centric and with values oddly at variance with each other and with, to be blunt, the values of various parts of the Jewish Community I have been raised in. The pretensions of social high position of basically middle class White Christians from the Mid-West or Deep South who have made a bit of money here in Ft Lauderdale but whose county, state, let alone national significance is ZERO are a source of constant amusement to me. A retired construction company owner in Ft. Lauderdale who apparently has retired to Montana to play at being a cowboy worrying about being on a county appointed board is something for Moliere or Beaumarchais or Franz Lehar or Jacques Offenbach or Peter Jay or the writers for the Three Stoogies or the Marx Brothers.
That we county tax payers have to foot the bills for “legal work” for such nonsense only makes the story a bit pathetic as well as absurd!
And, what Mr. Nevins is too kind to point out, NO ONE PAYS ATTENTION TO APPOINTED BOARDS ANYWAY!
August 24th, 2015 at 11:53 pm
Isn’t it time for Cummings to ride off into the sunset with his shotgun across his saddle?
Also take Stacy Ritter and Beth Talabisco with him, time is long past due in getting rid of these political trolls.
August 27th, 2015 at 4:54 pm
“Isn’t it time for Cummings to ride off into the sunset with his shotgun across his saddle?” the cronisim never ceases. They love the tax dollars from constructing the county projects. Go back and re-read ritter’s comments on why she kept him on with a re-appointment…..
I heard he likes shooting Alaska polar bears for their coats.