The Cooler

Better a little late than never is what they say, isn't it? Here's your slightly delayed Cooler.

A- Herald: File this one under crimes that can only happen in South Florida.

A former Miami-Dade police officer, convicted of shaking down a motorist during a traffic stop, admitted Tuesday to violating his probation — because he got busted for allegedly hawking an illegally kept monkey.

B- Herald: I wonder if higher taxes are as scary as that new flatscreen TV or iPad?

With a low voter turnout — about 13 percent of the city’s 84,521 registered voters — residents cast ballots to strip police, firefighters and the city’s general employee’s of their current pension plans, allowing the city to save $8.5 million.

[...]

“There’s really no good option here,” said Michelle Leonard, before voting at the Greater Hollywood YMCA Family Center, 3161 Taft St.

Leonard said although she doesn’t want to take away money from public servants, she, like many Hollywood residents, can’t afford a tax increase.

“Even the thought of a tax increase is scary,” she said.

C- Herald: Morin.

D- Herald: They write letters.

The wrath of God

If, as Michele Bachmann says, the floods in the Northeast are God’s punishment for Washington, would it not follow that the fires in Texas are God’s punishment for Gov. Perry?

Rosemary Fisher, Miami

E- Sun-Sentinel: Did your hospital make the list?

Sixteen South Florida hospitals were named to a list of the top U.S. medical centers on Wednesday, as rated by the nation's leading inspection and accreditation organization.

The hospitals made the list because they followed 22 recommended methods for preventing complications, infections and errors for at least 95 percent of patients last year, said officials of The Joint Commission.

F- Sun-Sentinel: Of course they are.

Six months into the cashless toll system, more than a third of the drivers getting a bill in the mail for tolls on Florida's Turnpike haven't paid.

Officials say about 1.2 million bills have been sent to drivers under the turnpike's new license plate tolling program. Almost 40 percent still owe. That's millions of dollars worth of tolls, and another sign of the difficulties drivers – and the state – are having adjusting to a totally cashless system.

G- South Florida Business Journal: Upgrade for the Bahia Mar.

Bahia Mar Beach Resort & Yachting Center, which recently gained approval for a Waldorf Astoria hotel, is in the middle of a multimillion-dollar upgrade of the existing landmark hotel building.

The renovated hotel will be gaining the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel brand, part of a vast hotel empire owned by New York City's Blackstone Group.

H- WPTV: Maddening snack food reference of the day.

Deputies about 3:40 a.m. went to the area of Southeast Bayberry Terrace and Southeast Gomez Avenue in Hobe Sound and heard a woman yelling in the backyard of an address in the 8600 block of Southeast Bayberry Terrace.

They met a 23-year-old woman who said she and her fiancée -- Benafield -- had argued. The 23-year-old woman said that she, Benafield and a man were inside.

"Deborah was angry at (her fiancée) because (her fiancée) called her 'Debbie Cakes,' she hit (her fiancée) in the back of the head . . . approximately four times, but she was not injured," an affidavit states.

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