Killing Citizens

Trying to kill the beast is proving harder than expected.

Or is it an intentional suicide ?

The strange (but perhaps normal as Florida is governed)  purpose of eliminating a perfectly functioning publicly sponsored Insurance Company  is proving harder than expected.

All the tricky ways to induce or to plainly force home owners into unknown private insurance companies is meeting a mass resistance from many property owners.

I never understood why Citizens (which re-insures a good part of its policies) is supposedly incapable of doing a good job at insuring homes if we get hit by a major hurricane, while other smaller companies could do it safely and pay their claims with no risks to the insured. 

About 20 years ago I was in the business of importing merchandise and I suffered a 100% loss of a whole cargo that arrived at Miami Airport.  The goods had been insured by the sellers in a California insurance company.

Guess what!  

When I made my claim this insurance company was in bankruptcy. I didn’t get a penny.  Just to inform you that Insurance companies can also take you for a ride. 

Safer than Citizens?  No way I can believe that.  

Citizens proved in previous hurricanes that it can do a perfect job; it paid its claims; it didn’t raise sensibly its premiums.  

And how do we know that in a future, confronted with heavy losses when hit by a sizable windstorm, these new companies will not just abandon and walk out of Florida?  The largest insurance companies have done it in the past, everybody knows that.

But it is too late now to save the victim.  

Just read the article I found on FloridaRealtors.org on Sept. 30, 2015

Fewer owners ditching Citizens for private insurance

Customers in Florida's state-run and largest insurer are getting choosier.

Fewer than half are accepting offers to switch to private insurers this year, down from 70 percent a year ago at Citizens Property Insurance Corp., records disclosed at a meeting Tuesday show.

Though 1.2 million transfer offers have been approved by regulators this year, just 141,680 customers have actually switched, records show. That's a significant slowing from record departures in recent years that have seen the company downsize from 1.5 million customers to 585,000, including about 60,000 in Palm Beach County.

The changes come as the company phases out, for example, warnings in letters to customers about 45 percent storm taxes if they stick with Citizens. The Palm Beach Post probed how unlikely such assessments have become after a storm, and noted the letters fail to mention customers could be charged another kind of storm tax if they switch to private carriers who fail.

Private insurers have continued to use the bold-faced warning nearly half a year after Citizens said it would cease, although officials said it is on the way out for upcoming offers.

To be clear, private insurers have not been making all the offers allowed by regulators, sometimes because they covet the same customers or simply choose not to act. In June, for example, private insurers did not make any of their 45,500 approved offers.

Still, out of the about 300,000 offers companies made in 2015, 47 percent have been accepted, records show. The outcome from about 46,000 offers in September is not yet known.

The acceptance rate declined from 69 percent in January to as low as 35 percent in March. It averaged 70 percent in 2014.

Why? Some of it has to do with a shift in the mix of customers remaining in Citizens that has created "uncertainty" in the acceptance rate, said Barry Gilway, Citizens' chief executive.

"It's very hard to nail down what that the ultimate takeout rate is going to be," Gilway told the company's depopulation committee Tuesday, a day ahead of a meeting of the company's full board.

Many customers with standard home policies, often priced close to what private insurers want, have already left. That leaves a higher proportion of others like coastal, wind-only and mobile home residents who may find fewer offers close to Citizens prices.

State-approved transfer offers differ from ordinary marketing pitches because consumers are automatically switched if they do nothing.

Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a bill passed unanimously this spring that would have beefed up consumer protections on Citizens offers. 

That has not slowed calls for consumers to get clearer information about what private insurers intend to charge.  Citizens officials noted Tuesday they are working to see that an estimated premium appears in certain October letters related to the offers.

The Foreclosure Saga Goes On

Law firm warns of foreclosure ruling's effect

WEST PALM BEACH — The national law firm of Greenberg Traurig issued an alert this week warning its lawyers that a 4th District Court of Appeal ruling in favor of Palm Beach County homeowners could "dramatically change the foreclosure landscape in Florida."

The Sept. 7 decision in the case of Gary and Anita Glarum vs. LaSalle Bank says that an affidavit of indebtedness submitted by the bank was hearsay because the person who signed it did not have personal knowledge of the case. It reversed a 2010 Palm Beach County Circuit Court summary judgment that said the Glarums owed the bank $422,677.

"This decision could have broad, sweeping application in the lending and loan servicing industries and affect thousands of foreclosure cases, among other types of cases, currently pending in Florida courts," says the alert posted on Greenberg Traurig's website. The Orlando-based firm of Butler & Hosch represented LaSalle Bank in the case, but Greenberg Traurig also is a bank representative.

The amount the circuit court said the Glarums owed was based on an affidavit of indebtedness signed by loan servicer employee Ralph Orsini, who pulled the information from a company computer - a move that appeals court judges said amounts to hearsay. The court's ruling means the home can't go to foreclosure sale until the bank either gets another summary judgment or goes to trial. The plaintiffs have 15 days to file for a rehearing.

Ice Legal of Royal Palm Beach represents the Glarums, who have been in foreclosure since 2008 and continue to live in the home. Ice Legal founder Tom Ice said the alert is a "transparent attempt to influence" the court to change its ruling .

"Being denied a prohibited shortcut may cost the banks a little more, but given that they are the deep pockets here, pockets lined with our own taxpayer money, the ruling is hardly unfair or earth- shaking," he said.

Greenberg Traurig writes that the Glarum decision is the first case to specifically hold that an affidavit of a loan servicer relying on computer records is inadmissible hearsay because the affidavit was unable to identify who made the data entries, or how or when they were made.

"In the context of foreclosure matters, Glarum is especially concerning given the fact that the lending community uniformly relies upon computer data, including data from prior servicers, when drafting affidavits of indebtedness in support of summary judgment motions," the alert notes.

It says the appeals court sent a "strong statement" that "may have achieved the unintended result of dramatically changing the foreclosure landscape in Florida."

From the Palm Beach Post – Sept. 16, 2011

Henry B. Nathan is a Realtor at United Realty Group Inc.

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More about property taxes in Miami

I don’t usually trust billionaires when discussing politics.  

In this case, however, my sympathy goes to Normal Braman, one of the richest men in Florida whose interests or beliefs surprisingly coincide with those of the common citizen of Miami.

The City of Miami and Miami-Dade County have never been an example of incorruptible public officers.

I recall the Marlins' Stadium outrageous situation when the City and County of Miami agreed to finance it at taxpayer's expense. A team worth hundreds of millions of dollars was blackmailing a city in need of every penny to improve public services and education.   

With a  totally convoluted reasoning, Miami commissioners never talked and acted businesslike when confronted to shrewd corporate interests. 

They could have asked for partial ownership of the team, or repayment of the city's loan with part of the team's revenue. But we would listen for hours to their speeches and discourse, never to get any reasonable explanation.   

And in spite of the strong opposition and action of Norman Braman, and most of Miami's people, it just passed. The Marlins Stadium will be built by Miami.

And at the present time,while the Marlins are making a handsome profit,  Miami is increasing its tax rate by a shameful percentage. 

Too late, it seems, to reclaim taxpayer's money. But never too late to add to the suffering of their beleaguered citizens.

Here is what I read today, that sounds like a payback, but is more like a little bit of justice. 

Norman Braman launches drive to recall Mayor Carlos Alvarez 

Billionaire businessman Norman Braman announced Monday he is launching a petition drive to recall Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez. He said, however, he will not seek the recall of sitting county commissioners -- at least not yet.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez boosted the authority of his office and became a ``strong mayor'' through a petition drive. But now, a new ballot initiative could trigger his political undoing.

For the second time this year, an effort to recall the county mayor has been launched. Unlike the unsuccessful effort waged on a shoe-string budget by a Coral Gables retiree, the new campaign is backed by Norman Braman -- an auto dealer not shy to use his private fortune to battle public officials.

The move comes after the mayor and eight county commissioners approved a 13 percent property tax rate increase last week to plug a budget hole for the coming fiscal year, and after mounting criticism over other county spending. 

Braman had pledged to launch recall efforts of the mayor and any commissioners who backed the tax hike. On Monday he followed through with the promise to target the county mayor, but said he's not currently pursuing sitting commissioners.

``This outrageous tax increase has been enacted while citizens are suffering economically, property values have crumbled, foreclosures are rampant, and unemployment has reached almost 13 percent in our county,'' Braman said.

The businessman said he's launching the campaign so ``the citizens of this community finally may have their voices heard.''

In a mid-day news conference, Alvarez responded that the property tax rate had to be increased to protect vital services, like fire and police.

" It is Mr. Braman's right to do this,'' said Alvarez, with County Manager George Burgess at his side. ``Quite frankly, I don't worry about things I can't control.''

The mayor later added: ``I will worry about running county government until the citizens of Miami-Dade County tell me otherwise.''

The recall reflects the shifting political fortunes of a county mayor ushered into office in 2004 as a former police director bent on bringing common sense reform to a county government frequently embroiled in scandal.

Indeed, in 2007 voters backed a petition-drive by Alvarez to further empower him by shifting the county manager's office and the entire county bureaucracy under the mayor's direct control. The move was supported, in part, because vesting power in a single, term-limited leader -- namely, Alvarez -- was viewed as the best alternative to improve county government.

But as the economy has worsened, Alvarez has come under fire.

In 2009 he declared that government ``must do more with less'' but then handed out double-digit pay raises to his top aides.

Separately, Alvarez initially defended his chief of staff -- whom he'd given a hefty raise on the grounds of increased responsibility -- after Miami Herald reports the top staffer was working as a private consultant in Panama on county time. He later demoted the aide amid escalating criticism.

Other criticism centers on the county's decision to use public funding for a new Florida Marlins baseball stadium in Little Havana. The mayor said the stadium is bringing jobs to an economy in desperate need of them.

Braman, joined at the press conference by state Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, majority whip in the Legislature and a Miami Republican, said it is time for change. 

The Miami Herald – Sept. 27, 2010

Henry B. Nathan is a Realtor at United Realty Group Inc.

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This is what I'm talking about

A few days ago, I posted some comments regarding my new property tax bill.

In essence, the City of Hallandale Beach and Broward County have chosen to substantially increase their tax rate instead of trying to adjust their budget to a new reality.

Downgrading and thrift are the way to go. Continuously raising taxes to support an inflexible path of so called "growth" is irresponsible. 

It is sad to observe that citizens' response has been almost inexistent. We are sitting back, while our pockets are being sacked. Broward is our county and Hallandale Beach is our city.

We should be able to make our elected officers  work for us, not against us. 

We are tolerating that, while services provided are diminished and degraded, our taxes go up every year.

This year will mean for many "homestead" beneficiaries, an approximate 10% increase, in a time of zero-inflation. 

Is this ridiculous? Tragic would be more like it. People losing their jobs, their homes; retirees whose savings have been almost wiped out by the economy, shouldn't be confronted with this type of issue.

I am reading today on Heraldtribune.com  which covers Florida West Coast an article about how Venice, Fl. has addressed the issue. A good example to follow.

Venice tax rate held flat

BUDGET: 4-to-3 vote means city will have to use $3 million out of reserves

VENICE, FL.  Despite advertising a potential 29 percent property tax rate increase for the 2010-11 budget, the City Council voted Tuesday to keep the rate flat.  The decision marks a continuation of a decade-long streak of either lowering or maintaining the tax rate.

Property owners will continue to pay 2.77 mills, the equivalent of $2.77 per $1,000 of taxable property value. 

The council must approve the budget and tax rate at a second public hearing Sept. 21.  After two hours of spirited debate, the council voted 4-3 to maintain the current rate.  Council members Emilio Carlesimo, Kit McKeon and Mayor Ed Martin opposed the idea. Council members Sue Lang, John Moore, Jim Bennett and Ernie Zavodnyik voted for keeping the rate the same.

"I fear we are kicking the can down the road," said McKeon, before the vote, expressing concern about dipping into savings to fund the operating budget. "To be fiscally responsible, we have to maintain the proper fund reserve."  But Lang, who is up for re-election along with Zavodnyik, said with the economy struggling, residents cannot pay more. Reading tax statements from residents who have seen their properties decline in value while they are paying more in property taxes, Lang said the council needs to cut spending and use reserves.  "We have a reserve fund" that is in good shape, Lang said. "I would rather have people go and spend that money in our local economy." 

The council will have to use about $3.1 million of its $9.2 million or so in reserves to sustain its $22 million budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. It will collect about $800,000 less in taxes than last year because of declining property values.

 City Manager Isaac Turner has laid off four employees and left jobs unfilled to balance the budget. He expressed concern about deficit spending.  "We are below what your goal is for reserves," Turner said. "We will need to immediately identify where we are going to make that up."  Before the vote, Zavodnyik proposed eliminating city provided health insurance for council members. Carlesimo made a motion to eliminate council member pensions, provided by the state after six years.

City Attorney Bob Anderson said the council could not vote on the measures because they did not advertise them in advance.  Before the vote, some residents urged the council to not raise the property tax rate.  "It's been nothing but increases," said Mike Rafferty, a resident of Bay Indies, the city's largest mobile home community.

He said the county appraised the community about 18 percent higher than last year. A tax rate increase would mean his taxes would go up, he said.  "If you don't want to take it out of a rainy day fund, don't take it out of my pocket," he said. 

Venice Taxpayers League President Gary Budway said the city should have cut the budget across  the board and suggested Venice consider combining its fire department with the county and hiring a city attorney, rather than contracting with Anderson.

Henry B. Nathan is a Realtor at United Realty Group Inc.

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Don't worry it's just your money!

Throughout this blog, I have always advocated for thrift and good management of taxpayers' dollars by our cities, counties and the state of Florida.

As a real estate agent, I observe every day how excessive taxation has a major effect on home-ownership. At about 2% per year on the value of your home, added to Florida high insurance premiums, (as well as out-of-control condominium fees) it is an overwhelming factor that often discourages buyers.

Property Taxes and routine expenses are often higher than the basic monthly payment of the related mortgage loan.

The generosity with which taxpayers' dollars are spent with no other consideration than "if it's there we must get it", is far out of the traditional values of thrift and austerity that should be the norm in times of recession, hardship, and high unemployment.

The same criteria we follow in our home budgets should be applied by our city commissioners.

They can’t just spend and seek the revenue later. Because most possibly, you and me will be stuck with the bill.

I heard that a former manager of Hallandale Beach, who was making an outrageous salary, (and doing a pretty bad job), was fired at an usually high cost to the city.

The present interim manager assumed his functions just a few months ago.

He will possibly get a bonus of $15,000.

Why is it that the city had to consider this bonus request so soon?

Do you ask your boss for a raise two or three months after you were hired?

Trust me, I hate getting involved in local politics. I would just like to see less pomp and circumstance, less meetings and bureaucracy, less formalities, forms, regulations, and a more down-to-earth management of citizens' money.

Our elected officers should start understanding that they have a mandate to gradually reduce their cities' budgets, because they are inflated and unaffordable.

In South Florida, we are famous for our dozens of municipalities all along the coast, each with its commissioners, offices, firemen, water departments, police departments, and miscellaneous levels of managers, technocrats, and bureaucrats.

While this proliferation of local governments could, in some people's minds, be an advantage of de-centralized government, don’t you think that we can't afford it anymore? Is this really a good idea?

I'd like to hear some comments.

I read this on August 9th, in The Miami Herald:

HALLANDALE BEACH

IS MONEY NO OBJECT HERE?

You would think city commissioners and Mayor J.C. would know better by now. In 2007 the commission and the Mayor gave themselves a whopping $55,000 pay raise without bothering to notify the public first.

As a result, a hailstorm of outrage from local residents rained down on City Hall, and the chastised officials rescinded the raises.

But now city officials are up to the same old game: Hastily and secretly spending taxpayers' money like it grows on trees. First, they were so desperate to get rid of former City Manager Mike Good that they agreed to pay him an overly generous severance package worth $366,653 in total.

Now, the mayor and commission majority want to reward interim City Manager Mark Antonio with a $15,000 bonus on top of his $145,000 annual salary. And, if it hadn't been for Commissioner Keith London, they would have signed the bonus check without benefit of public notice or input.

The talk of a bonus for Mr. Antonio came at the end of long budget workshop session that lasted past midnight last week. Residents had left, and while a video camera was recording the session, the broadcast of the meeting had gone off the air.

The commission turned to an evaluation of Mr. Antonio and generally praised his work. That prompted the interim manager to ask for a $25,000 bonus. Mayor Cooper countered with an offer of $10,000.

Eventually the $15,000 figure was negotiated.

That's when Mr. London blew the whistle for a timeout, saying a vote on the award of the bonus should happen in a public meeting for residents to observe and comment on.

So, eager for some reason to ensure that Mr. Antonio gets his bonus sooner rather than later, the commission set a special meeting for 6 p.m. Monday at City Hall for the bonus vote.

Mysteriously, they just couldn't wait for the next scheduled commission meeting.

Commissioners and Mayor Cooper had better be prepared to justify why Mr. Antonio deserves a bonus simply for doing what he was hired to do.

And to explain why they're so willing to be fast and loose with taxpayers' dollars. 

Henry B. Nathan is a Realtor at United Realty Group Inc.

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The Real, Deep Cause of Real Estate Troubles

More than in any other branch of the country's economy, real estate crisis might be the thermometer of US middle class' distress and the looming disappearance of the American dream of home-ownership.

Mortgage abuses and frauds, banks games of hedges, CDO's and Credit Swaps, uncontrolled financial schemes are of course signs of the bad course we've been on. However, they are not the whole story.

They are in fact relatively correctable issues that can be addressed with regulations and government controls.

What hasn't been addressed and will not be any time soon is the continuous deterioration of employment and salaries.

We hear our legislators and our president planning on the creation of new jobs and new opportunities; at the cost of billions to the taxpayer.

This sounds so ridiculous when we read every other day about thousands of American jobs lost, small businesses closing doors, corporation shipping away their research and development departments, their calls centers, their accounting and their software engineering to India or China.

Who are we going to sell these condos and these homes to? Or are we going to end up as humorously said by somebody "selling insurance policies to each other" ?

A substantial part of realtors' activity has been switched to selling a large part of whatever is being sold now, to foreigners, Canadians, French, Japanese, you name it. Because these people are gradually becoming the only ones who can afford buying a home in America. And I am not being xenophobic, just observing facts.

Read for example the following article from the St. Petersburg Times in Tampa. It's the symbol of our times.
Observe that we are not losing blue collar jobs. They have been gone long time ago. It's not about U.S. Steel, or G.M. assembly workers.
What we see now are the very same high-tech class of workers that we are supposed to become, by going back to school to retool our knowledge, learn, and prepare for the new times and the new careers. These jobs, businesses, technologies, that were supposed to keep our country in its traditional position of economic dominance, and sustain the prosperity and livelihood of our middle class.

Read on:

PricewaterhouseCoopers to lay off 500 workers, mostly in Tampa

PricewaterhouseCoopers will lay off about 500 information technology workers, most of them in Tampa, as part of a broader push to outsource to cheaper labor.

The news is an untimely blow to Tampa Bay's economy, which is already battling a 12 percent unemployment rate, the fifth-highest among the country's largest metro areas. It also comes amid a recent resurgence in mass layoffs and growing concern nationally that the economy might slip into a double-dip recession.

"It's just terrible news," Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio said Friday. "It's a terrible job market for those people to find other jobs and I'm very sorry to see it happen. … They're moving jobs away from this community and that's a negative. And it's a negative to our national economy when jobs are moved overseas."

PWC spokesman Jonathan Stoner said the consulting powerhouse employs 1,100 in its information technology group nationwide. Of the 600 remaining employees, most will stay in its Tampa hub, he said. With four locations and 1,850 employees in the Tampa Bay area as of early this year, PWC has been one of the region's top employers. In March, it ranked No. 3 among large bay area companies in the Times' Top Places to Work survey.

Iorio said PWC did not approach the city asking for incentives to keep workers here. "If they're making a fundamental decision to move jobs overseas to reduce labor costs, that's a business decision," she said, "and I don't think there's anything any American city can do to compensate for that."

Stoner said the decision stems from a combination of PWC's information technology groups in the United States and United Kingdom.

"The U.S. and UK firms are combining governance, organizational structure and business processes and a single, Indian-based vendor will provide service to both member firms," he said.

Other reports identified Tata Consultancy Services of Mumbai, India, as the vendor, but Stoner said the company does not comment on clients or third-party contracts.

He also disputed one report that employees were told they would have to reapply for positions at Tata. "What we have told our employees is that they are all to be encouraged to apply for other positions at the firm, at PWC."

Throughout the recession, corporations have continued to outsource jobs to Indian vendors to save money, with Tata often reaping the rewards.

Idearc Media, which publishes the Verizon Yellow Pages, laid off 150 employees in St. Petersburg in December as it transferred much of its publishing business to Tata. Ratings agency Nielsen Media Research also turned to Tata for cheaper labor in laying off 170 information technology employees at its Oldsmar complex in 2008 and 57 in November.

Workers found out about the Pricewaterhouse layoffs on Thursday, coming in the wake of PWC cuts elsewhere statewide, including the shutdown of its tax practice office in Orlando.

A half-dozen workers exiting PWC's Lakepointe office complex on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on Friday said they were in shock, but were warned by managers not to speak publicly. Workers said the company had not given details on severance packages nor a specific time line, except to indicate cuts would likely be completed by the end of the year.

One worker, an Indian contractor for PWC, said the project he's working on will likely be shut down, leaving him with bittersweet emotions: He's sad for his colleagues here and happy for people in India.

As recently as a month ago, Florida economists were pointing to a slowdown in mass layoffs as a sign that the economy was starting to recover.

But July has been a particularly brutal month based on recent mass layoff notices filed with the state. Among them: 892 workers affiliated with the Kennedy Space Center; 320 with the GEO Group in Graceville; 81 at LifeLink HealthCare Institute in Tampa; 245 at Lockheed Martin Corp.; 344 at Kehe Distributors; 221 at Mosaic Fertilizer in Fort Meade; 100 at Bank of America's Idlewood Avenue location in Tampa; and 67 at Enterprise Leasing in Tampa.

All told, 16 layoff notices have been filed in July affecting 2,864 workers statewide. That doesn't include this week's cuts by Pricewaterhouse.

And, as a Spanish poet said: The rest is silence

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Red Light Cameras Might Just Be The Start

I still believe that we can do something about fighting traffic cameras.

I have no doubt that red-light cameras are just the start of a massive program for States and Cities to raise revenues through abusive punitive policies, which in fact are taxes, believe it or not.

Some say: "Relax, it's not as bad as it looks... just a new way of enforcing the law..."

Pundits said the same about Global Trade, US deficits, dismantling US industry, NAFTA, jobs outsourcing, and the mortgage looming disaster, and dozens of issues that are hitting us hard today.

We have grown comfortably accepting everything in the belief that "things will take care of themselves", that we live in the best possible world and nobody is going to change that, and other nonsense.

The truth is that every little issue and problem must be addressed and discussed. I firmly believe that, in time, Big Brothers will proliferate and prosper, at the expense of our liberties and quality of life. This is one notable example.

I totally agree with the following article, read in the Sun Sentinel on July 14, 2010.

Red-light cameras in South Florida – the start of an expensive ride?

Will cash-hungry governments keep expanding technological reach? With cash-hungry South Florida cities and the state in full money-grab mode, will red-light cameras be just the start?

"I don't see why they wouldn't do it for stop signs, too," said Daniel Karten, of Hollywood.

Or how about the state using SunPass transponders to detect speeding violations on toll roads?

Or how about cities using cameras to bust illegal U-turns?

"What's next? Probably speed cameras," said attorney Bret Lusskin, whose successful suit against Aventura's red-light cameras prompted the Legislature to rewrite state law and allow them. "If we don't stop this now, there'll be cameras everywhere, trying to catch anything you do."

Said Karten: "As a driver it stinks, but if I were a city council member sitting up there looking for revenue, it probably makes sense. They've got all this technology. All they have to do is start using it for different functions."

Karten was among dozens of readers who got in touch after I wrote about Hallandale Beach's red-light camera. The camera, on northbound Federal Highway at Hallandale Beach Boulevard, has rung up nearly $1 million in fines since January – a whopping 93 percent for slow-rolling right turns on red.

For now, Hallandale Beach is alone among Broward and Palm Beach County camera cities in enforcing right turn violations. But two cities in north Miami-Dade -- Aventura and Miami Gardens – have been mercilessly doling out right-turn tickets.

Karten said his wife has gotten multiple tickets at cameras near the Aventura Mall, as recently as June. I also heard from people who've been cited for slow-rolling rights at the corner of US 441 and Miami Gardens Drive. "Incredibly frustrating," said Karten.

Karten said he realizes people should follow the law, meaning coming to a full stop before turning. But in the case of these intersections, drivers making right turns often think they are acting safely because oncoming traffic is halted by the crossing street's left-turn signal. "They should put right-turn arrows in, so traffic can keep flowing when the other street has the left-turn signal," said Phil Kodroff, who got cited by the Hallandale Beach camera in May.

But that would cost money, instead of making cities money.

The new state law took effect July 1. It remains unclear what will happen to fines issued before that date, because an appeals court still must clarify that issue.

Still to be hashed out is the growing debate over right-on-red enforcement. The new law says drivers who make right turns in a "careful and prudent manner" may not be ticketed. But the definition of "careful and prudent" will have to be litigated, attorneys and city officials say. "Nobody knows what it means," said Lusskin. "If the cities keep issuing violations for right turns, I expect to challenge it."

According to the state's uniform traffic code, drivers must come to a full stop at a crosswalk or intersection before making a right turn on red. "There is no such thing as a 'rolling stop' and there is no grey area in state law," wrote reader Bruce Hogman, of Fort Lauderdale. Debbie Rozanski, of Pembroke Pines, wrote: "If people can't follow the law, then maybe we should stop allowing right turns at red lights." Mary Zervos, of Hallandale Beach, asked: "Why not have a sign installed, 'Stop here on red, then turn.'"

Under the new state law, a sign is required to mark red-light camera intersections, along with right-turn enforcement. In Hallandale's case, the sign is easy to miss, tucked 10 yards off the side of the road 130 yards before the intersection. "What driver is going to see that, especially at night?" Kodroff said when I showed him the sign last week.

Hollywood recently approved the installation of 10 red-light cameras by year's end, but it hasn't been determined if slow-rolling rights will be enforced. Ditto for Fort Lauderdale, which will have 11 cameras running by next month.

"When we gave approval, I never realized that cameras could be used this way," Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober said Wednesday. "I don't support playing 'gotcha' with drivers." Bober said he would like to see a middle ground, perhaps only ticketing those who go above a certain speed making a right on red.

"If you make a safe turn, but you're still going one mile per hour, I don't think that deserves a $158 fine," Bober said. "We should be trying to deter the most egregious and dangerous types of behavior, not giving people more reasons to hate municipal government."

From The Sun Sentinel - Michael Mayo - Columnist , July 14, 2010

Henry B. Nathan is a Realtor at United Realty Group Inc.

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