Wanting to respond to what I witnessed firsthand on Wednesday afternoon in Hollywood, and then later that evening in Hallandale Beach, at their respective City Commission meetings, where the number-one topic was Hollywood and their unanimous 5-0 approval of the Beach One Resort project on A1A, I sent the following as an email to some folks in Hallandale Beach, Broward County and up in Tallahassee, who are concerned with what's going on here.
(And news media personalities and outlets throughout the state, who have already evinced to me a certain interest in the strange doings hereabouts.)
Especially since both the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald utterly failed to connect the dots on this story as they should've.
I guess that's the logical downside to their so-so attendance at Broward city commission meetings and reporting of local news, since there hasn't been a Herald reporter actually present at a HB Commission meeting since at least June, for the joint meeting with Hollywood that Breanne Gilpatrick covered.
The Herald not only failed to write about either city's Wednesday Commission meeting in the paper on Thursday, but botched the job from the start when they covered the first reading in Hollywood on Beach One Resort on October 1st, failing to run a single illustration or rendering of the hotel that everyone, even critics, agrees is beautiful, thanks to the design by architect Carlos Ott.
This is a longer version of the original email, along with with new updated information and URL links.
September 17, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Things reached a new low(!), if possible, when crazy threats were uttered by Mayor Joy Cooper about actually charging the public to access the North Beach of Hallandale Beach, which is right next to.... why yes, the City of Hollywood and the Beach One Resort.
Does this bully of a mayor have no scruples left?
Is there nothing she won't say or do or threaten in order to get her way?
But then I recall that twice this summer, despite a unanimous HB Planning & Zoning Board vote approving it, she twice voted against an Assisted Living Facility (ALF) application, even though the applicant had already complied with all existing requirements up to that point in the process.
Mayor Cooper's unconscionable -and frankly, creepy- attitude, especially given the clear and bipartisan public policy intent of the legislature in crafting the law, caused me to unexpectedly get out of my seat in the Chambers and remind the Commission that the vote they cast would speak volumes for the community, one that's full of older residents, and have unintended negative effects for the city if they foolishly followed the mayor's lead.
Fortunately for everyone concerned, especially the future residents of the ALF, Mayor Cooper was the lone vote opposing the applicant in a 4-1 vote.
Lesson learned? She's capable of anything under the sun.
June 25, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Above, the iconic Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A and Hallandale Beach Blvd., is dwarfed by the three towers of The Related Company's development, The Beach Club.
Pay to use the very public beach the city currently does such an abysmally poor job of keeping clean and maintaining, where they can't even enforce their own code enforcement rules because of the rampant cronyism and corruption thereabouts?
Where even months later, after not being there for years, HB's DPW can't manage to consistently put enough clearly marked BLUE recycling bins on the beach where the public can use them, instead of either hiding them or leaving them in places where the public wouldn't think to look?
The bins are paid for by taxpayers and are there for the public's benefit, to actually be convenient and used, not to be hidden so that DPW employees can do the least amount of work, as has been the case for MONTHS.
The public beach where, as I mentioned at budget meetings months ago, the city uses garbage receptacles without lids at the windiest place in the city? Yes!
Right, because on-duty lifeguards really need one more thing to do than concentrate on their job -cleaning up debris from strong winds or garbage overflows.
The public beach where the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. currently never patrols on a regular basis, even on busy three-day holiday weekends, leaving the burden largely to beleaguered (contractor) lifeguards? Yes!
is seeing the staff from The Beachside Cafe nonchalantly tossing a myriad of things on top of,
into and below the plants that are supposed to be protected and left alone, including heavy garbage bags, heavy plastic storage containers and cardboard with all sorts of liquids on them.
outside on the public sidewalk, and those liquids go directly into the ground.
I first told Corrine Yoder of HB Code Enforcement about this behavior in person at HB City Hall
in May of 2007, and referenced the encounter on this blog in my June 14, 2007 post titled,
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/rude-reception-at-hb-city-hall-are-you.html
Not surprisingly, given the strong connection the owners of The Beachside Cafe have to HB City Hall, I'm not aware of any HB City Commission meeting that has ever taken place where the longtime behavior of this facility has been adequately addressed publicly.
You can see the logical results of my having gone thru proper HB City Hall channels for yourself.
Hmm-m..
I forgot, when exactly did the Florida Constitution change and allow cities to charge citizens
of this state, much less, residents of that city, a fee to access the public's own beach?
I must've missed that memo!
Above, Hollywood's public notice sign on the slit-fence on State Road A1A surrounding the Beach One Resort property, with HB Water Tower and HB Fire/Rescue Station #600 to south.
If only there was some way to see what really happened in Hollywood and not just take
my word for it.
You can see the wriiten docs at: http://www.hollywoodfl.org/docdepotcache/00000/814/PO-2008-20.PDF and http://www.hollywoodfl.org/docdepotcache/00000/814/R-2008-327.PDF
and see the video of exactly what transpired in Hollywood on their excellent website at http://www.hollywoodfl.org/Media/Archives/ccm101508/ccm101508_Indexed.pdf and judge for yourself.
It's just THAT version of events is NOT the one that Mayor Cooper and City Manager Good were particularly interested in sharing Wednesday night with HB residents in person or via cable TV, as they told one fantastical and indignant story after another of the myriad depredations they say were inflicted upon them and their City Hall Crew by their mean-spirited and un-cooperative neighbors to the north, Hollywood.
The only thing missing from their stories was "Once upon a time..." plus the usual assortment of princes and princesses.
Earlier Thursday afternoon, I received an update from Comm. Keith London regarding last night's chaotic HB City Commission meeting, and draw your attention to this item which I've actually been concerned with for awhile, and wrote down when he cited the specific figures from the dais, even as City Manager Good stood directly over his shoulder, and Mayor Cooper publicly belittled his attempts to get to the heart of the matter, which she and the rest of the Commission clearly did NOT want to do:
The appraisal information is as follows:
I did NOT receive a second to my motion. What could be the justification of the City Manager (Mike Good) entertaining the Butterfield Appraisal?
That's a very good question Comm. London asks, one which is certainly worthy of a very good answer, don't you think?
So why can't City Manager Mike Good and his staff adequately answer that question and so many others fully and publicly at HB City Commission meetings?
More troubling to me as a citizen of this city, given the current financial situation the city says it's in, is why none of the other HB City Commissioners seconded this common sense motion by Comm. London, and why are they even considering the possibility of paying a sitting interim HB Commissioner -running for election for the first time- an unwarranted $130,000 of taxpayers funds?
As has usually been the case with this Hallandale Beach City Hall crew since I first returned to South Florida from the Washington D.C. area in late 2003, their continuing pattern of obfuscation, misbehavior and questionable ethical conduct raise more questions than it answers.
Not so coincidentally, these same three HB commissioners who didn't want to second that motion of Comm. London -Ross, Sanders and Julian- are the very same three who couldn't be bothered to make the ten-minute drive up to Hollywood Wednesday for the matter that Cooper and Good apparently considered a veritable red alert. London was there.
I should know -I went to all three meetings.
If you haven't already seen it yet, a good place to start digging for some answers on what's going on at HB City Hall, especially re financial issues, is http://www.changehallandale.com/
It's a website started recently by a smart and savvy friend of mine who shares our common interest in seeing reform, accountability and transparency in Hallandale Beach government.
The sooner the better!
No comments:
Post a Comment