Pages

The Town of Southwest Ranches, Corrections Corporation of American (CCA), and DHS / ICE want to build one of the largest immigration detention centers in the nation within walking distance of thousands of homes; thus, reducing the quality of our life and our community. We do not agree with the federal government privatizing our immigration detention centers throughout the nation when there is clear evidence that privatizing our prisons creates a clear public safety threat. For ICE to continue to privatize these institutions and bring this safety threat through their "secure communities Initiative" to our community is unacceptable. Depriving someone of their liberty is a non-delegable governmental function and privatizing of such a function is infecting our nation like a virus.

The Town of Southwest Ranches has now entered into it's THIRD Fire Contract within the last year now with the Town of Davie, costing taxpayers $120,000 in ramp up fees. They are now closing several roads in western Southwest Ranches charging the tax payers $80,000 for the gates. They have paid an unknown amount of money for lobbying with ICE regarding this prison. They have several lawsuits against the Town, 1- Involving Open Meeting Violations on a November 5th meeting concerning the ICE Detention Center, 2- Open Records Violations, and 3- The Town is putting together a lawsuit to sue Pembroke Pines for breach of contract because the City utilized their exit clause and cancelled for convenience their Fire/EMS contract which included water and sewer at the last minute for the CCA prison. In the contract it states that there should be no third party beneficiaries. CCA would be a third party in this instance.

CCA has also filed suit in Federal court against the City of Pembroke Pines saying they are denying them water however the City had never seen a water application. The City did file for a Declaratory Judgement in State Court but that has been put on hold until the Federal Court hears the suit from CCA.

Is ANYONE CONFUSED as to why the Pembroke Pines/Southwest Ranches Fire Agreement was cancelled? The Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff attempted to "slip" into the agreement a portion that guaranteed water for the prison at CCA's request. This is something that should have been brought up separately. CCA should have brought it forward on their own in a water application. This is sleight of hand that CCA and the Town attempted to do because they were so afraid of CCA being on the Pembroke Pines agenda.

As of June 2012, ICE put out a statement that the site selection was no longer needed due to the fact that the extra bedspace was no longer needed. READ UPDATE HERE!


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Town Attorney pushes Code changes help CCA

We got more and more curious since our recent Plat Note Delegation Request Rigged article and started to go over some more historical footage of the October 2010 Town Council Meetings.  As we reviewed the meetings, it seems Mr. Keith Poliakoff, the Southwest Ranches Town Attorney, is constantly making last minute additions to the Agenda and pushing the Council to approve things in a rush.  It really makes you wonder, who is running our Town?

During the October 6, 2010 meeting, we observed near the end during the Town Attorney comments that the town clerk stopped taking the minutes.  The subject of CCA was brought up at time stamp 3:32:30 of the meeting.   Mr. Keith Poliakoff said that he met with CCA and that they said there were "unique housing opportunities within the town."  One would be think that they were talking about Section 8 low income housing. Certainly, most residents had never heard of CCA, never mind knew for what the initials stood.  Even when you spell it out -Corrections Corporation of America- unless you're in law enforcement, you wouldn't think they were in the business of prisons.

He goes on to tell the small audience that Council Members Doug McKay and Aster Knight had attended this meeting and hung out in the back of the room, but did not speak; they just "happened to be at the Town Hall".  We wonder if Mayor Nelson was at this meeting, as well, as he seems to sit in on all of the contract negotiations with Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff.   Does this go against sunshine meeting laws?  We'll worry about this later.

He continues to tell the Council that a lot of modifications to the 2005 agreement between CCA and the Town are required.  That the Town would "essentially be requesting a grant from the Federal Government" and that "we'd be bringing in a partner (CCA) who would actually be running our facility."  This portrays it that the Town would actually own the jail.  In addition, he adds that the Town would need to "take the security risk level out of the contract."  The 2005 contract did not allow for maximum security prisoners to be held at the facility in question.  Mr. Keith Poliakoff states that "when it's an illegal alien, they could be there for a multitude of reasons, so we would have to take the security risk out."


He instructs the Town Council, that the "Town had to write to ICE stating that they would be interested in the detention center."  In addition, "Everyone in the Town is going to have to contact Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to tell her we really want this."  It's interesting that he's said this to a near empty room.  So, does the council get to vote on them writing a letter?  No, Mr. Keith Poliakoff went ahead and wrote it for them.  We wonder, should and can that be done by the town attorney without direction from Council Members?

We then viewed the October 20, 2010 meeting.   Again, this item is the last item on the agenda, Item number 11 which changes ULDC (section 55-080) where it discusses "Manufacturing and Industrial District" which Mr. Keith Poliakoff points out, "effects all the penal institutions in the Town." The changes were to delete the limit of beds and increase the square footage allowed. The full text with deletions noted in strike through is shown below taken off the agenda from October 20, 2010 meeting:
055-080 - (H) Penal Institutions and correctional institutions.
                       (1) The minimum distance separation is two thousand five hundred
                             (2,500) feet from any plot in an agricultural or rural district.
                       (2) The maximum size is seven hundred fifty (750) beds and one                              hundred thousand (100,000) square feet of gross floor area.
                       (3) The minimum plot size is twenty (20) acres.
Mr.  Keith Poliakoff then goes on to tell the Council that this change "gets away from the restriction on the beds and the square footage." Again he touts that the Council "would have to approve the site plan anyway," just like he did in the December 2010 meetings and "if it's not approved, it would prohibit us from applying for the ICE proposal."  We have to wonder if this this rigged too?  See Plat Note Delegation Rigged?  Emails dated September 30, 2012 between Sam Poole (CCA's atty), Michell Mellgren (Town Planner) and Keith Poliakoff show that this is being done at the instruction of CCA's attorney Sam Poole.  This email is very interesting as a normal homeowner has to wait an average of 10 months for a permit, yet CCA can come in and request the town code to be changed!!  WOW!

He then discusses the letter he received back from ICE in which it said that they (ICE) would like Southwest Ranches to submit a proposal to them.  We’re not sure, but since when do you reply to an RFP (request for proposal) and they write back a letter inviting you to give them a proposal. Wouldn't that have been what you were doing when you originally responded?  Mr. Keith Poliakoff then asserts his position that "this has to be adopted to make sure that we are in line for the possible GRANT OPPORTUNITY."  A GRANT OPPORTUNITY? Since when is an IGSA (Inter-Governmental Service Agreement) considered a GRANT OPPORTUNITY? Note, that such an important item is the last item on the agenda, that there weren't many people present and that there was NO PUBLIC COMMENT on this item or any real discussion.   It passed UNANIMOUSLY! Nelson, Knight, Fisikelli, McKay and Breitkreuz all voting “YES!”

The Town Attorney’s got more spin than any politician we've seen! Where does the Town attorney end and the Lobbyist begin?  Guess that comes with the territory, when you have a lawyer whose firm also doubles as a lobbying firm for your town. That one way to tweak the situation of the federal government wanting to put one of the largest immigration detention centers in the state (to possibly house the BULK of all the state of Florida's illegal immigrants) and he spins it as a GRANT OPPORTUNITY? We have to wonder if he's practicing as a lobbyist for CCA or as the Town's Attorney?  Where do his loyalties lie? 

With all that we have seen in the October 2010 and subsequent meetings, we have to wonder who exactly is running the town- the elected town council members or the unelected town attorney?  One way to start cleaning house is to vote on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.



Sam Poole RemovingBedLimit&SqFt
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousOctober 23, 2012 at 3:42 PM

    So in other words you are saying that the Town Attorney brought up CCA at a public meeting, the Town Council voted on the item, the item was advertised in the paper, and it was approved unanimously. What part of this am I missing

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comments. Your comment will be posted by the moderator. Any threats of people are discouraged and as such those comments will be removed. Thank you for contributing to our conversation on the Southwest Ranches ICE/CCA Detention Center

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)