Andrew Gillum fundraiser in building county might buy ‘looks bad,’ commissioner says

Eight of the nine Broward County commissioners are co-hosting a fundraiser Friday morning for governor candidate Andrew Gillum — at space donated by a property owner who wants the county to buy the same building for $24 million.

The fundraiser is organized by Commissioner Dale Holness, who was one of Broward’s most prominent Gillum supporters at a time when other commissioners were supporting different candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

Holness is also the commissioner who raised the idea of buying the building in question, in the Spectrum Office Park in northwest Fort Lauderdale, with his colleagues last month.

Holness said in a telephone interview there’s no connection between the free space for the fundraiser from the building owner and the possibility of the county buying the building. “I see nothing where anyone is getting any personal benefit from it,” he said.

County Commissioner Chip LaMarca, the only Republican commissioner, said the confluence of events “looks bad.”

“To throw a political fundraiser for somebody that eight out of nine people want to get elected? I’ll put it this way: It’s a great building. It would be a great project. But I think this is a little far out there,” LaMarca said. “I don’t know how anybody can say that there’s this one thing that has nothing to do with the other.”

Holness said everything about the fundraiser for Gillum “is transparent and done transparently” because all donations will be disclosed, as the law requires. That includes the value of the donated space, he said, which would be an in-kind donation.

Holness said building owner Sheldon Gross wanted to hold a fundraising event for Gillum and offered space in his building.

LaMarca said he’s skeptical that Gross, a registered Republican, had a sudden interest in helping Gillum get elected. LaMarca said Gross met with him Tuesday to show him more plans and push the project and “he made a big point to say he’s a Republican when he came to see me.”

LaMarca said Gross told him during that meeting that he was providing the building as a location for the fundraiser. “He said ‘I’m throwing an event there, but you probably don’t want to come.’”

In August, county commissioners were considering the purchase of another property in the Spectrum Office Park for the supervisor of elections and property appraiser’s offices when Holness said the county should instead take a look at the 128,000-square-foot building at 2050 Spectrum Blvd.

Holness described it at the time as a “superior building.” He said the county had previously looked at the building, but there were problematic ownership issues. Those issues were cleared up with the sale of the building in July, Holness said.

The idea of the county buying the building is pending.

The eight Democratic county commissioners are listed on the invitation for Friday’s event, along with 14 other elected officials and several other people prominent in politics and government in Broward.

Among those on the invite is lobbyist John Milledge.

The Broward County lobbying log shows that Milledge, along with building owner Gross, met with Commissioner Nan Rich on Monday to pitch the building along Northwest 21st Avenue near Commercial Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. The lobbying log also shows Gross’s Tuesday meeting with LaMarca.

Rich said there’s nothing wrong with holding the fundraiser at the building the county is considering buying. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”

She said the 2050 Spectrum Blvd. building “was just a good location that had a large atrium that could be used and some breakout rooms for meetings that people could have with [Gillum] and different commissioners and constituents. And there’s nothing sinister about this. This is just a place that was chosen by [Holness] to have the event for Andrew Gillum.”

The conservative Red Broward website questioned the propriety of the venue. “Will Andrew Gillum Breakfast Fundraiser Cost Broward Taxpayers $24 Million?” the website asked.

“These people have nothing to do with their time,” Rich said. “They’re constantly looking for things under a rock.”

Holness said the suggestion that there might be anything inappropriate with the fundraising venue is “ridiculous.”

Rich said she didn’t see any risk that commissioners, while they’re at the event, would hold any discussions among themselves about the building they were visiting. When officials such as county commissioners discuss business that they’ll ultimately vote on, the discussion must be held at a meeting that’s open to the public.

“I don’t see myself having conversations about the building. We’re not there for that. We’re there to support Andrew Gillum for governor,” Rich said. “It has nothing to do with the building itself.”

Roy Rogers of Lighthouse Point, a former chairman of the state Ethics Commission who was chairman of the Broward Fair Campaign Practices Committee, which no longer operates, said he didn’t want to render a judgment on whether there’s anything wrong with the location of the fundraiser and the involvement of county commissioners.

“It does seem to be a venue that has ties to something that would benefit by way of its connectivity to the political agenda,” he said.

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