A Message From The Publisher
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. The results of races came pouring in last Tuesday and there were some winners, some losers and some interesting “to be continued’” to come.
To start, Sheila Cherfilus McCormick didn’t play the fiddle with Dale Holness one iota. As a matter of fact, she acted as if she was playing a base drum. Sis ran away with that US Senate Seat looking like Florence Griffith Joyner in those long nails and designer tights. And as I predicted, in the race between the two Bobs, Robert McKenzie put Bobby Dubose to bed, not for a nap, but in one of those deep REM, rapid eye movement slumbers. Lauren Book also turned the page on Barbara Sharief. While I thought that race might be close, Book delivered Sharief a nightmare of a story with no fairy tale ending.
Rosalind Osgood easily won her seat as there was no contender and while most would think she would quietly celebrate, Oz cannot stand the idea of not being in the limelight. The not so quiet whispers are Roz escaped the embarrassment of being removed from her former District Five School Board Seat along with four of her former colleagues, yet she cannot stop talking about it with the media every chance she gets. Is she being smart and garnering free publicity or being a glutton for punishment?
This takes me to School Board races and the Referendum. To my disappointment, the School Board Referendum passed. Voters held their noses and voted in favor of it understanding that while it stinks, they were being sandwiched between a rock and a hard place. How do you vote no on giving teachers more money, providing students with mental health services post pandemic, and ensuring safety officers are in schools in the wake of mass school shootings, with one that happened right here in Broward county in 2018, even if there is no concrete plan?
In what some (particularly Board members who were removed) are saying was an attempt to influence the outcome of the Referendum and School Board races, Governor Ron DeSantis released the 122-page Grand Jury Report just days before Election Day. If that was DeSantis’ intention, he totally miscalculated (as he always seems to do), the release date. Voter turnout in Broward was extremely low, 22% overall and by the time Early Voting was complete on Sunday, August 20, 16% of votes had already been recorded. IF his intention was to negatively impact the Referendum and incumbent re-election, it may have been more effective for DeSantis to have released the report at the start of Early Voting and then removed the four sitting Board members shortly thereafter.
Removed former Board chair, Laurie Rich Levinson, told Channel 7 that she believed this was DeSantis’ intention but failed to mention that the Grand Jury Report was set to be released months earlier but was postponed because of legal actions taken by Board members and District staff who are mentioned in the report. The release of the report was halted as they went through legal challenges that delayed the release.
Incumbent Nora Rupert easily won Seat 7 over Merceydes Morassi,.Don’t quit Merceydes; come on back. While Rupert maintained her seat with 58% of the vote, Morassi was able to garner a healthy 41%.
Incumbent for Seat 4, Lori Alhadeff, also maintained her seat over Kim Coward; however I would be remiss if I did not speak to the courageous fight of Coward. Coward, a virtual unknown who entered the race at the 11th hour filing just hours before the deadline, garnered 39% of the vote. While it surely was not enough to win over Alhadeff who won 60% of the vote, it should certainly get the incumbent’s attention. There are constituents in her district who have complained that Alhadeff is not attentive to their concerns. Let’s hope that we haven’t seen the last of Coward.
That brings us up to the runoffs. There will be four School Board seat run-offs in November.
In Seat 1, Marie Murray Martin, the daughter of ousted Board member Anne Murray will be on the November ballot with Rod Velez. Murray trailed Velez with them earning 35 and 31% of the vote, respectively.
Brenda Fam and Steven Julian will battle for School Board Seat 6. They received 39 and 44% of the votes, respectively.
Incumbent Donna Korn and Alan Zeeman will meet each other in November for the countywide at large seat 8. Korn squeaked by Zeeman warning 30% of the vote with Zeeman earning 29%. Currently, Korn , who vice chair, has been removed by DeSantis citing incompetence, misfeasance, malfeasance as outlined in the Grand Jury Report. Raymond Adderly, who placed third with an impressive 50,000 votes, was subsequently eliminated from this seat race. If you recall, 18-year-old Adderly held a press conference on the steps of the KC Wright Administration building and called for Korn to suspend her campaign shortly after the release of the Grand Jury Report. It is rumored, however, that Adderly met with Korn and Anna Fusco of the Broward Teachers Union on Wednesday, a day after the election, to discuss whether Adderly would be willing to endorse Korn in exchange for employment at the BTU and a guaranteed BTU endorsement for Adderly in a 2024 race of his choosing.
Adderly also discussed the possibility of providing Zeeman with an endorsement; however, there are some rumors about some shady quid pro quo that is told differently by the two men.
Though Adderly lost, he was able to secure an impressive 50,000 votes which could easily help Korn or Zeeman advance to victory in November. Adderly is quite an intelligent young man, but this is where his youth is a handicap. Endorsing Korn after a scathing Grand Jury Report and her removal from office would essentially end any future political aspirations for Adderly. Yet, there are some cunning politicians in his ear who are playing on his youth and trying feverishly to persuade him to do just that.
Senator Rosalind Osgood’s District 5 seat also resulted in a runoff. The candidates from this race learned nothing from the five who all left their seat to run for Alcee Hastings’ US Senate seat: Bobby Dubose, Omari Hardy, Dale Holness, Barbara Sharief and Perry Thurston. Dubose, Holness and Sharief have not recovered from this mistake as they all lost their races this cycle. Hardy and Thurston sat this round out.
District Five used to be comprised mostly of the 33311 and the Pompano community near Blanche Ely High School. Redistricting resulted in Pompano being eliminated and a portion of Plantation and Sunrise being added to District 5. There were four candidates in the District 5 race who hailed from the 33311 Fort Lauderdale area who learned absolutely nothing from the Alcee Hastings US Senate Seat debacle. Antonio Burgess, Ruth Carter-Lynch, Gloria Lewis, and Jimmy Witherspoon ended up splitting the Fort Lauderdale-33311 vote.
Ruth Carter Lynch and another candidate, Jeff Holness, had a strong presence in the Sunrise and Plantation area and were able to garner most of the support there. Carter-Lynch and Holness secured the number one and two spots and will face off in the November runoff.
Both Carter-Lynch and Holness are seeking the endorsement of candidates who were eliminated; however, none have publicly endorsed either of them. The general consensus is that the Fort Lauderdale-33311 fiasco has resulted in the two weakest candidates moving forward.
Holness, who lost to current School Board member Debbie Hixson two years ago, is seen as weak and not being a true representative of District 5. His children do not attend school in the district, and he has two educational businesses that are not located in District 5. Holness who clenched the endorsement of BTU is also feared to be just another pawn to Fusco and the teacher’s union. Holness has run for several political offices, and he is closer to success than he has ever been. Will this be the one?
Whispers about Carter-Lynch is that she also hops from race to race in her quest to become an elected politician. Carter-Lynch has run for School Board in the past and most recently she campaigned to replace Brenda Snipes as Broward’s Supervisor of Elections. This is the closest she has come in sealing the deal, but her strong ties and relationship with charter schools is threatening to derail her success. While charter schools are indeed public schools, they are seen as a competitive threat to the Broward School District. Currently there are more than 80 charter schools in Broward serving more than 50,000 students. Many fear that electing Carter-Lynch would widen the opportunity for charters. If those 50,000 students could convince their parents to vote Ruth could win. “If you want the truth, vote on Ruth.”
Before closing, it’s important that light is shed on some of the shady dealings of Anna Fusco and the BTU around School Board races. It was mentioned earlier that Fusco is fully invested in ensuring Korn wins the countywide seat. It is said she met with Adderly to negotiate a quid pro quo to secure his endorsement of Korn. It seems that the BTU and Fusco are not confident in Korn’s ability to pull this out and are going to great lengths to ensure Korn is the victor. With her removal from her current office, her re-election hopes seem to be fading. But… Broward voters are known for their sympathy vote.
Before addressing the reasons, the BTU seemed scared of Korn’s defeat and replacement by Zeeman, it is important to spell out just how ratchet their endorsements of candidates in the District 5 race appeared to be. If you recall, Anna Fusco and the BTU got in behind Debra Hixson and Sara Leonardi a couple years ago and touted that the teacher’s union fully supported teachers. Both Leonardi and Hixson are former teachers (Nova High and South Broward High) and won their elections.
This time around, for the District Five seat, the BTU changed its tune about supporting its own. The BTU co-endorsed Jeff Holness and Nathalie Lynch Walsh. These two candidates are not teachers; however, two other candidates, Antonio Burgess and Jimmy Witherspoon are Broward educators who are members of the BTU collective bargaining unit. Burgess is a decade long teacher and Witherspoon works as a BRACE Advisor at Dillard High School. How is it that this organization can abandon its dues paying members and co-endorse two candidates who are not a part of the organization? Was this a BTU executive board decision or an Anna Fusco dictatorship?
But, back to the BTU and its desperate attempt to get Korn elected. For more than two weeks leading up to the August Election Day, the BTU sent multiple communications to a database of voters in a frenzied attempt to support Korn. While BTU endorsed a candidate in the other five open school board seats, it did not put the same effort and money behind ensuring endorsees in the other seats were elected.
The question is why? Why was so much invested in Korn, and why wasn’t two candidates from District five who are in the BTU’s collective bargaining unit not endorsed, especially when this seat had a dual endorsement?
What is crystal clear is this…. four School Board members were removed from elected office for alleged incompetence, misfeasance, malfeasance, and corruption. Had Osgood remained on the Board, there would have been five removals. I have long said that the Board needed to be washed clean and could benefit from a gender and racially balance representation. Like a squirrel with wide eyes and a bushy tail looking for nuts, I am waiting in great anticipation to observe how this newly impaled Board will operate. It is time for this Board to operate with a level of professionalism and integrity that has been missing for years.
I think Anna Fusco is nervous like a bug in a den of chickens. Her presidential counterpart from Miami-Dade is on the ballot with Charlie Crist while she remains in Broward desperately trying to hold on to her ill-gotten power base. I got my popcorn and my pen in hand, and I am ready.
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