City of Pompano Beach Looks for State Funds to Develop Land Illegally Seized from Citizens

Oct. 16, 2012 - PRLog -- Citizens in Pompano Beach are gravely concerned regarding a proposed Transit Oriented Corridor. In short, the City of Pompano Beach has proposed to amend the Florida Land Use Plan to rezone a large geographic area (approximately 300 acres to start) for transit and commercial use for the stated purpose of wooing a state railway station and private businesses to the area.

“If we have the underlying land use change, when they [the State] are talking about where do we site the [rail station] location, and we tell ‘em our land use allows it, where somebody else doesn’t, just like with the private sector of development, the government feels the same way - [and will say] ‘That city has done what’s necessary to allow me to be there, that’s where I’m going’. That’s what it’s all about,” says Carlton B. Moore,  Liaison to the Northwest CRA Advisory Committee and spokesperson for the new amendment.

The problem is much of the land in question does not legitimately belong to the city as it was illegally seized by the Pompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, which has cast the entire amendment as a fraud being perpetrated on the State of Florida. Any development could well be tied up in litigation as rightful land owners contest the various illegal tactics used to seize land in the area including forged deeds, misuse of code enforcement, intimidation, attorney conspiracy, and staged trials.

The other problem is other lands in the proposed area are owned by private home owners, who may likely be displaced as only mixed-use zoning is being proposed in the area with plans for buildings combining retail/business with apartment/condo uses. The proposed Florida Land Use Plan amendment would change all the zoning of the area, at once, right under current land owners’ feet.

“You got a transit corridor. You got the opportunity to do it under one fell swoop. It then allows the rest of it to take place so that when the advisory board or the commission decides that it wants to have this type of development, we now only have to go and try to encourage the development community to do it,” says Carlton B. Moore.

Recently the city itself held a “Truth and Rumors” meeting whereby so called rumors about the project were to be dispelled and property owners were to be allowed to ask city staff questions. Noticeably ill-attended by the public, the meeting featured a presentation by Carlton Moore who offered hollow promises to not take citizens’ properties by eminent domain for private use (a practice already illegal by Florida’s State Constitution anyway), while conveniently not discussing taking citizens’ properties by eminent domain for ‘public use’ or the new ability of the Transit Oriented Corridor to be deemed a public purpose.

Adding to the public relations quagmire the city has found itself in, the history of illegal seizures by the Pompano Beach CRA under investigation by Legal Aid Service of Broward County was not addressed at all, nor was the rumor that the land amendment proposal is yet another white wash attempt to bury the paper trail of decades worth of illegally seized properties. The meeting also failed to outline any plans to preserve single family homes and business already in the area. In fact, when one citizen saw a map with a proposed building replacing his own on the exact location of his current address, public concerns were anything but quelled.

The ineffectiveness of the Truth and Rumors campaign may not be all that surprising as it was held by those under investigation for committing the massive land grabbing in the first place, with less than stellar ethical records all around. Mayor Lamar Fisher who is also head of the court-ruled illegal CRA was in attendance, albeit briefly, and is in the private business of selling off foreclosures and other government seizures with his Fisher Auction Company. It may be worth mentioning that he has been found guilty of multiple ethics violations in the past including using his own company as Mayor to sell off government property.

Also in attendance was Pompano Beach Commissioner of this area and CRA Board Member Woodrow J. Poitier, who himself was chairman of the city's public housing agency when it was busted by the FBI for stealing $1 million dollars in federal funds that were supposed to go to low income housing programs. His relatives, Dan Poitier and Sylvia Poitier (by marriage) have also been investigated for their mishandling of federal housing dollars in neighboring city, Deerfield Beach, with Sylvia being convicted of  falsifying public records in a money funneling scam. Perhaps most horrifically demonstrative of Woodrow Poitier’s ethics, is the fact that he was also sued, fined and placed on probation in his role as President, CEO, and Director of his Poitier Funeral Home for putting deceased premature infants in a plastic bag and burying them in an unmarked grave instead of cremating them as their mothers had contracted.

Interestingly enough, Poitier’s previously hand-picked appointee as Chairman of the Northwest Community Redevelopment Agency Advisory Committee, Vincente Thrower was also in attendance. Thrower was arrested in 2010 for over $50K in three counts of unlawful compensation and one count of bribery for making deals for companies with the CRA and City in the criminal abuse of his position. Thrower who is currently on bond for those felony charges was recently arrested again in a prostitution sting captured by a TLC television film crew and remanded to house arrest with an ankle bracelet, yet was somehow able to attend. His next hearing on the felony charges is on October 15, 2012.

And then presenter Carlton B. Moore, VP of the Consulting Services division for the Fort Lauderdale McKinley Insurance Services firm and once City Commissioner of Fort Lauderdale, Florida was chosen as the public face of this amendment. While a city commissioner, Moore also been the face of business campaigns of developers like The Related Group CEO Jorge Perez (of the Las Olas Icon development) with active business before the commission and against express wishes of his constituents in the past. Moore has been popular in headlines for the detainment of his one son at a Fort Lauderdale night club, and the sentencing of another son to life in prison for possession of a large quantity of crack cocaine involved in a major trans-state drug ring deal while having a past history of drug charges.

Suffice to say, this recent land use amendment and its explanation has not sat well. The citizens of Pompano Beach are expressing dismay at the state of their government, and are concerned that what could have been an earnest development of their city has become over decades a racketeering for profit conspiracy perpetuated by the highest levels of officials, at the expense of citizens.

The proposed Transit Oriented Corridor Land Use Amendment is now set for public hearing at the Broward County Commission on October 23, 2012.

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For more information on Pompano Beach CRA Gate and illegal land grabs in Pompano Beach, Florida visit
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