There it was, a tweet from Palm Beach County Fire Rescue:
Why is a career political insider speaking to people about hurricane preparedness? This opinion is not about Ms. Berger alone, nor is it limited to Democratic politicians. I feel the same when Republicans do it. It could be Rick Scott or Marco Rubio and I’d be just as irritated.
But turning to Ms. Berger, I wondered if she has some special experience regarding hurricanes. So I checked her bio. No. She doesn’t. She worked for Montgomery Ward in Pittsburgh before moving here in 1989. She did clerical work for the court system. Then she started working as Burt Aaronson’s assistant 20 years ago. Nothing in her bio shows anything close to expertise about hurricane preparedness. So let’s be clear about why Berger was there and why this was tweeted by a county agency. It’s politics. It’s a politician pandering to an audience of frequent voters. And the pandering is amplified on Twitter by an agency subject to her budget votes. But don’t worry. Berger sits in a heavily gerrymandered district so she’ll be pandering to us for several more years until she’s term-limited out and the next one comes along. Cynical? You bet.
A Boca Raton beach lifeguard was attacked Monday by a man designated as a career criminal by the State of Florida. The city police blotter places the attack at Lifeguard Tower 6 (above) at the north end of South Beach Park near NE 4th Street. Per the blotter, Arthur Kennedy Gates (55) battered a lifeguard inside Tower 6. When police arrived on the scene Gates attacked them. He was subdued with the use of a Taser, medically cleared, and then taken to the Palm Beach County Jail. Charges filed from the incident are burglary with battery, battery on a police officer, and resisting with violence. He remains in custody at this writing with bond set at $10,000. In light of a reader comment we note that there is no charge for causing injury, so we are hopeful that the lifeguard is okay. Arthur Gates is listed by FDLE as a habitual violent felony offender. While we found no history for Mr. Gates in Palm Beach County, we found seven cases in Broward, including felonies in 1979 (battery on police officer), 1992 (robbery), and his career felony cases from 1995. The 1995 charges look particularly troubling, including: Aggravated assault, sexual battery on a child under 11, kidnapping, and … wait for it … attempted murder in the first degree. We should note that despite the sexual battery on a child charge, he is not listed as a sex offender by FDLE. That charge may have been dropped. However, his career offender record indicates he was adjudicated guilty of attempted murder. More recently he was charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm in March of 2013. Somehow that didn’t stop him from getting out in time to face two municipal ordinance violation charges in September (trespassing) and November (open container). Gates appeared in front of Judge Crow on Tuesday and is scheduled to appear again on Thursday. Readers might wonder what we’re wondering: How is this guy out? Update: Per a reader comment on Facebook, we have been told the following.
Hi. I found out exactly what happened through my son’s junior lifeguard captain. The lifeguard, Brendan, is totally fine. The bad guy tried to climb the lifeguard tower. When Brendan tried to stop him, the guy put Brendan in a headlock. Then he tried to punch Brendan. Brendan was able to restrain him. Then the cops came. Brendan decided not to press charges. He felt bad for the guy because he was homeless. Then the guy attempted to punch one of the cops. He was then arrested. The cops say that the homeless people have been doing things like this to try to get arrested on purpose to get out of the heat, into somewhere air conditioned and with food. That is why when the guy saw that he wasn’t going to be arrested at first, he then had to go after the cop. Crazy, right? Anyway, funny thing is that I realized after hearing Brendan’s full name and age, that we went to grade school and high school together!! So funny! I told the captain that some people on Facebook were concerned about him and he promised to pass along everyones’s well wishes.
Note: Normally we try to stick closer to West Boca with our coverage. However we feel the facts here are particularly serious. Also, we go to South Beach Park ourselves and know that other West Boca residents go there. It is the one beach where non-city residents can get parking permits.
Well that was interesting. Yesterday I sat down with school board candidate David Mech at Jon Smith Subs in Mission Bay Plaza. Mr. Mech has a math tutoring business in West Boca. He became motivated to get his political message out when the school district took his sign down because of his past history as an actor in the adult entertainment industry. He’s suing the district over that. Various media have picked up on this story not because of Mech’s policy views but also because of his past. We were more interested in policy issues and his candidacy so we focused on that in our conversation (for those with other interests the porn-related information is at the bottom of the article). He’s very likeable and he makes some sense. Mech is well educated, smart, and his views on schools are thoughtful and interesting. But it became apparent early in the conversation that Mech is not trying to win the school board race. He doesn’t know what his district lines are, how many voters are in his district, and has no plan to get his campaign message out to the voters in the district other than getting media attention due to his previous career. He wasn’t even sure how many seats there are on the board. There are all things a serious candidate should know. We’ve figured out some of that. He’s running for District 3, which runs north from Clint Moore and west of Military Trail. There are seven seats, so that works out to less than 200,000 residents per district. Instead Mech says he’s trying to get a message out about issues. Unfortunately his message might be too complicated for the level of attention he’s going to get. He mentioned five general topics: Technology, Innovation, Equality, Sex Education, and Secular Values. I like some of his suggestions, such as a pilot program incorporating Khan Academy. However, much of what he talked about seemed out of touch with voters. His “equality” issue is not about disparate treatment of students based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, but rather about employment protection for teachers and other staff who have made “lawful lifestyle choices” such as working in porn or just having sexy pictures on the internet. Is this something that motivates voters? He complained that the incumbent in the race is wasting time pushing for a parent dress code for school events. While there are certainly bigger issues, her idea is probably more important to more voters than his “equality for sexy teachers” issue. Even though he works with kids in our schools, he was not familiar with many of the concerns I’ve heard from other parents and experienced ourselves. He was only marginally aware of the magnet schools and choice programs, or disciplinary problems plaguing some of our schools. He was unaware of textbook quality concerns or homework loads. Despite those criticisms, I like the guy, particularly his experience as a math tutor and his obvious mathematical competence. There’s a shortage of that in the education establishment. If I lived in the district I’d probably vote for him just because it would be nice to see if he could shake things up a bit. And the district pretty clearly screwed him when they took his sign down, a clear violation of his First Amendment rights. Speaking of which, for those more interested in his career in adult entertainment, Mech operated under the stage name Dave Pounder. He published a book last year under that pseudonym, Obscene Thoughts: Obscene Thoughts: A Pornographer’s Perspective on Sex, Love, and Dating. He’s also done a documentary, Risky Business: A Look Inside America’s Adult Film Industry, as Dave Mech:
As best we can tell Mech appeared in over 100 adult films and directed over 100 titles for outfits such as BangBros.com. Titles of his films include the 18 with Proof series, Teenage Delinquents (we might have to use that for one of our crime articles), and I Scored a Soccer Mom that would be more than suitable for a website that caters to a specific sexual fantasy, somewhat similar to various videos you could view at maturepornvideos and other sites for example.
Yesterday I had lunch with Jaimie Goodman, one of three candidates for Circuit Court Judge, Group 30. We met at Bagel Works and spoke for over an hour about his career, why he wants to be a judge, and the politics of judicial elections. One thing leapt out at me during our conversation. Questions others have raised about his experience are nonsense. This guy is an experienced trial lawyer. We talked in depth about some of the cases he’s handled over the years and he’s genuine and knowledgeable. In interviewing candidates who claim to be experienced litigators, we look for storytelling ability. A trial lawyer has to tell juries the story of the case. One of the bits of lawyer life others don’t know about is the moments when we’re sitting around a courtroom waiting for something. Lawyers do a lot of waiting. In those moments we tell each other “war stories” about cases we’ve handled. Goodman has plenty of those stories. If he has a weakness, it’s specialization. Some lawyers are generalists, handling all kinds of cases. He’s the opposite. In his career Goodman has practiced almost exclusively in employment litigation. That’s a narrow field within the broader area of civil litigation. That is a potential issue for Circuit Court. Over the course of a term, a circuit judge might handle a wide variety of cases including criminal, family law, probate, civil litigation, state and local tax disputes, and more. His experience is narrow, but it’s also deep. So while it’s something to consider it’s not a deal breaker. As far as background and credentials, Goodman checks off a lot of the right boxes. He earned his Bachelor’s degree and law degree from Cornell University. He’s admitted to federal courts in both Florida and Michigan, including two federal circuits and the US Supreme Court. He’s a member of various bar associations, involved with community organizations, and he’s “AV” rated by Martindale-Hubbell. The politics are interesting. This is Goodman’s third run for judge. He lost an open seat race in 2010, and a fairly close race against Judge Alvarez in 2012. That 2012 race means a lot. There is a terrible unwritten rule in the legal community that you’re not supposed to run against a sitting judge. The state Constitution mandates that judges have to run for reelection. It’s also hard. Sitting judges are also generally popular and hard to beat. Goodman took some heat for running against an incumbent, when he should be admired for swimming upstream. You can look at those previous campaigns two ways: He lost twice so he must not be a great candidate; or he’s gotten valuable experience and gotten his name out there so that makes him a stronger candidate. Running close to a sitting judge is a sign of the latter. One of the funny things about the campaign is a reflection of life in South Florida. Goodman mentions prominently in his campaign that he was born in Queens and went to school in upstate New York. We’re not sure but this might be the only place in the world where a candidate would feature that he’s from somewhere else. There’s one big question we ask judge candidates: Why do you want to be a judge? No candidate yet has given us a good answer. Someday we’ll meet one who does. We previously interviewed Peggy Rowe-Linn running for the same seat. We had lunch with her at the Original Pancake House in Somerset Shoppes. And before that we met with Jessica Ticktin at Panera in Mission Bay running for a different seat on the Circuit Court. We have reached out to the other candidates in their races but have not received any response so far. If any of our readers has connections to the campaigns of Judge Diana Lewis or Maxine Dianne Cheesman, please let them know we’d be happy to meet with them in West Boca to talk about their campaigns. At this point we expect to make endorsements in both races. If we don’t hear from them, we will not consider them for endorsement.
Three candidates seeking the GOP nomination to run for Congress in District 22 will debate on Wednesday, June 25th at 6:30 pm. District 22 includes most of Boca east of the Turnpike, as you can see in the map above. The debate will take place at the South County Civic Center in Delray Beach (Jog Road not far north of Clint Moore).
The three candidates are: Andrea Leigh McGee, a graduate of University of Miami. Miss McGee currently works as a real estate agent, an artist, and in concert production. Next up, and the one we’ve seen the most from, is David Wagie. Here’s a picture of him from his campaign website, along with a few friends: Wagie is a UF graduate with an MBA. He is a certified general contractor doing kitchen and bathroom remodeling, and also a licensed home inspector and real estate agent. Finally, we have Paul Spain, pictured below with his daughter: A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, we think he works in financial planning. But his website doesn’t really say. The incumbent in the race is Lois Frankel. No questions will be taken from the floor. All questions must be emailed to [email protected] with your name for consideration. Light refreshments will be served. The event is hosted by The Boca Raton Republican Club, Republican Federated Women of South Florida, Boynton Beach Republican Club & Palm Beach Republican Club.
