One week after Patty Miranda became one of the first business owners in Deerfield Beach to ask for a second sign under the month-old recession clause in the sign ordinance, her Olympia Flame Diner got the kind of publicity that neon just can’t buy.

The producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show asked Miranda to e-mail photos of the diner for possible use on a show featuring financial guru Suze Orman.

Orman’s financial advice is everywhere from the New York Times best-seller list to Costco Connection, the warehouse store’s public relations vehicle.

Her connection to Oprah runs deep. She is the contributing editor to Oprah Winfrey’s "O" at Home, as well as "O," The Oprah Magazine in the United States and South Africa.

Orman was to be featured in a segment highlighting her humble beginnings as a waitress and cook at a diner in her home town. Producer Brian Piotrowics hoped the e-mails would lead to the Hillsboro Beach resident being filmed at the nearby The Olympia Flame.

“He wanted to get a visual…to represent the diner in the production meeting,” Miranda said.

It must have played well. At 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 23 the crew arrived, followed two hours later by Orman. As early as it was, she played to a full house, Miranda says.

“I notified everyone on my cell phone directory and we told our customers, friends and family members, that we wanted them to come out and support us,” Miranda said. “By 8:30, all 100 seats were filled. The last time we filled up like that was after Hurricane Wilma.”

Orman greeted everyone then headed for the tiny ladies room to change into her kitchen uniform. For an hour, she cracked eggs, scrambled omelets and said Miranda, “She was lovely – very down to earth (and) we were all eating because she was cooking.”

Then she changed into a white dress and pink apron and waitressed for an hour, autographed a book for each member of the staff – and then she was gone.

As for The Olympia Flame? The two hours of glory is over but the afterglow may endure beyond the show's airing on Nov. 3 at 4 p.m.

“It’s a validation for all the work and effort my parents have put in most of their life in the restaurant business,” Miranda said.

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In a sweeping audit of city finances for the 2007 tax year, the Internal Revenue Service has asked the city of Deerfield Beach for documentation of everything from employment agreements between the city and more than three dozen independent contractors to employee-kept logs detailing how city cars and city cell phones were used that year.

Documents made available under the Freedom of Information Act included dozens of separate memos addressed to Assistant Finance Director Hugh B. Dunkley by Fernando Echeverria, the federal, state and local government specialist for the IRS office in Plantation. Starting about six months ago, the IRS began asking for supporting documentation regarding a range of issues. Among them: use of official government vehicles by various employees; the city’s rationale for treating employees such as a car detailer, a baton and color guard instructor and even the city attorney as independent contractors; whether there was proper accounting for city-issued uniforms and shoes, documentation of the use of petty cash, and logs itemizing employee use of city cell phones for calls both personal and business-related.

Sally Siegel, director and finance officer of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, and Dunkley did not return phone calls. However, the responses to the IRS query drafted by Dunkley indicated the city was having difficulty complying in some instances.

Regulations require employees to keep a written log of miles driven in city-issued vehicles and to specify the purpose of trips, for example. However, such logs have been intermittent and incomplete, according to documents.

Likewise, questions regarding the employment status of various employees turned up mixed results. The city is required to pay a federal payroll, or FICA, tax on city employees, but not on independent contractors. The IRS requested proof that the city’s many independent contractors met the definition of the law.

Deerfield Beach is not the first Florida city to come under IRS scrutiny. In 2007, the year it stepped up its enforcement efforts, the agency cited Jacksonville for four violations. Michael Givens, the city’s treasurer the time the process ended in late 2007, said that in one of the four infractions, involving about $261,000 the city had allowed employees to report as deferred income, the IRS found employees owed an additional $65,410 in taxes. Because it was due to the city’s error, Givens said, “What we wound up doing was issuing an explanation and paying the tax for the employee.”

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