Lori Nance Parrish Cohen Broward County Property Appraiser

October 16, 2009

Lori Nance Parrish Cohen
Broward County Property Appraiser
115 South Andrews Avenue #111
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: Pots & kettles and various shades of black – The Broward County Two Step on political ethics, as opposed to personal and private ethics and why do I just know that Aristotle is squirming mightily, as exemplified by super lobbyist Neil Sterling continues in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.

Ms. Nance Parrish Cohen,

First, congratulations are in order.

You broke the Broward County administrator’s tradition of being able to get lost on a three step ladder over and over and over again. Compared to Miriam Oliphant you have run your department in an exemplary manner. Updated editions of Deming and Drucker will hail your husbandry.

Second, and I cite today’s Sun-Sentinel quoting you thus:

“I love him, he’s an honest person.”

Perhaps it’s damnation with faint praise such as “He’s my idea of a great shoplifter” or “She’s a good hooker. Her customers say she earns her money.”

I do know that when politicians talk about honesty it’s like the Anvil Chorus in the Amen corner with background music being provided by atonal banshees. Plus, it’s time to count the silverware.

Perhaps it’s a remembrance of things past. Things like you as a Broward County Commissioner, the Swap Shop, and a past due bill of $300,000 owed to the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

You were an officer and director of the Swap Shop, the Swap Shop being one of the few times that the words unique and Broward County can be used non-pejoratively in the same sentence.

The Swap Shop contracted with the BSO [Broward Sheriff’s Office] to provide uniformed, off duty deputies to provide security at the company that you worked for.

The deputies were paid by the BSO.

The Swap Shop was supposed to pay the BSO.

The Swap Shop didn’t.

The indebtedness was more than $300,000.

The Sun-Sentinel quotes you thus:

“Nobody pays up front, it’s the American way.”

The possibilities were/are/shall be endless.

Perhaps the company of which you were an officer and director had a case of the financial shorts. If so you earned your fees. You arranged for an interest free loan of more than $300,000 from another company [BSO] over which you had fiduciary responsibility. In addition to approving the budget of the BSO you had a responsibility to the citizens of Broward County. At some point you swore to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land. [You may want to ask your husband to explain the difference between lying and perjury.]

It is indeed fitting and proper to note that when you were a Broward County Commissioner you served with such ethical heroes as Scott Cowan and Sylvia Poitier.

I am surprised that a Broadway musical hasn’t been written about those times. The Airport Lease, the minority owned hotel, and a host of minor peccadilloes have become the stuff of legend. Only a Mel Brooks or a Professor Irwin Corey could do justice to those times. Plays about a hooker [Evita], a murder most foul [Umbrella Man], the drowning deaths of 1500 people [Titanic] have opened on Broadway. Why not “Welcome To Broward County – Hold On To Your Wallet”? I know it’s too long but it’s just a working title.

You may remember that we had Judges who scalped tickets. We had Judges who owed $100,000 to a local bail bondsman. We had Judges who played hide the salami with their clerks. We had Judges who sold Girl Scout cookies in the court room before the trial began. We had Judges so dumb that the had tutorials on what to do with their thumbs.

Thank God Justice was blindfolded. If she had known she would have asked for a cigarette and put the mask back on.

Commissioner Scott Cowan went to prison because he stole from himself. Commissioner Sylvia Poitier had some money backdoored into the minority hotel deal. If memory serves she demanded and got a second legal opinion paid for by the Broward County taxpayers. The new lawyer told her that what she did was a no-no and could make her the subject of a major time out. The time out would have been spent in prison.

Talk about quoting my aunt from Hester Street. “Don’t pee on my back and tell me it’s rain.” You can never have enough dry clothes.

If the matter had gone to trial you could have testified for both sides. You had markers in both camps. You were like a bookmaker covering both sides of the bet and making a living on the vig. You were at once a debtor and a creditor. Ask your husband about that combination.

People born in Hudson County, New Jersey, as I was, frequently face this ethical dilemma. It is decided, not in the confessional, but rather from the innate ability to tell the buttered side from the dry.

I am glad you said you “love him”.

It would take a Dante to chronicle the couplings of Broward County politics.

I may have stumbled on a name for the upcoming musical;

“Nothing lost save honor.”


Kevin Smith