Pump stations built directly in front of homes Miami Beach residents say city officials never asked for their input
Author: Jeff Weinsier, Reporter, jweinsier@Local10.com
Ben Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com
Posted online December 19 2013 11:00:00 PM EST
http://www.local10.com/news/
Here's my comment to the Local10 story above and the predictable reader comments that appeared the first week after it aired.
I only came across it Saturday night.
Watch that and read those comments first before seeing what I've posted below.
"I can't say specifically that we went door to door and say you all have this type of facility directly in front of your house," said David Martinez, acting director of the city's capital improvements.
Martinez added that he didn't believe an impact study was done.
Yes, local government making conscious decisions to NOT do an impact study.
No, THAT can't possibly have any bad consequences, now can it?
This reminds me so much of the half-assed nature of municipal bureaucracy here in Hallandale Beach. A few years ago, the city paid for a consulting firm to do a Transportation Master Plan.
The consultants they hired were clearly smart, savvy, motivated and were very open to hearing from residents about their concerns, certainly more open to ideas and suggestions than the mayor and the city commission and City Manager and their retinue ever were.
But then the former were being paid to listen to the public -the electeds just pretended to be.
But at the heavily-promoted final presentation meeting -heavily-promoted on my blog, not by the city on any of its portable electronic message boards - I asked a series of logical and common sense questions during the Q&A that nobody else though to ask before me, and then made some predictions about things to come.
Did the city make drivers of its FREE Mini-bus system available to speak to the consultants to answer any questions about common complaints or suggestions they heard on a daily basis, since they were the city's eyes and ears on this subject? No.
That sort of managerial genius and decision-making explains why so many years later, the #1 place in the entire city where passengers utilize the service to get on and off the city's mini-buses is a place where there is NO timetable or map at all for passengers to check -the Publix on Hallandale Beach Blvd. & SE 14th Avenue.
Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders, the city commissioner who claims he primarily represents the city residents who use public transportation on a regular basis, in NW HB, despite the fact that all commissioners are at-large, DIDN'T even bother showing-up for the meeting.
Years later, that is crystal clear since residents show a facility and knowledge of it that is continually above his head. Where's the sense of personal accountability?
That failure by an elected official like Sanders to even show-up meant that Sanders could NOT only NOT hear anything said by taxpayers and residents at the meeting, but also meant that he couldn't be asked hard questions by me and other residents about about why nearly 90% of the city-maintained bus shelters had lights that DIDN'T work at night -for YEARS at a time, despite it being self-evident, as any drive at night will show, including the bus shelters closest to HB City Hall.
A fact that is STILL TRUE!
In all of Hallandale Beach, there's but one city-controlled bus shelter on the east side of busy U.S.-1, north-bound, one of the three main streets in the city.
And that one bus shelter is NOT at or near Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino or the next-door Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex, but rather 2 blocks south of the Hollywood cityline. Why?
No explanation has ever been publicly given for such stupidity or why all these years later, the city can't manage to keep more than 10% of its own bus shelters lit at night for its own residents.
Again, where's the sense of personal accountability at HB City Hall among elected officials or city employees? MIA.
And I didn't even mention yet that there are now LESS bus shelters in the city than there were five years ago, much as I predicted would happen, given the mindset here.
Does that sound like any kind of Transportation Master Plan that you would want your city to have?
So, those of you commenting here that there may've been public meetings about where the pump stations would be located, how come Jeff Weinsier couldn't find any record of them and how come the city officials couldn't refute him by stating when and where they were held.
No, instead, you impugn these particular residents as being too lazy to get involved.
Based on what evidence???
What we all know now is that the one person who appears on camera who ought to know the answers says nothing at all about any such meetings, and even while stating that he doesn't think an impact study was ever done, also never adequately explains why some pumps stations were placed on medians and some weren't, which is something that residents directly-affected were certainly entitled to know about beforehand.
And yet they weren't, now were they?
Again, that sounds exactly like how things happen in Hallandale Beach -conscious stealthiness to keep the residents in the dark.
Some of you folks ought to stop reflexively defending government bureaucrats who can't or won't explain their own actions and decisions when given a chance to, instead of being sympathetic to the plight of the residents who were just minding their own business. Instead, you choose to bash these residents with legitimate and justifiable concerns just because you don't like the fact that someone else chooses to make a housing/lifestyle choice that's different than yours.
I wouldn't live there, but would I want to wish that person's home gets flooded, like some of you clearly do?
You're biased.
Only wish the Local10 website was better and required people to use either their real names or a certified name that couldn't be changed so that in the future, I'd know better than to waste my time reading the comments of dopes, given so much of what I've read here.
C'est la vie.
-----One of my most-popular blog post on that City of Hallandale Beach Transportation Master Plan debacle was posted on June 9, 2009, and has been seen 3242 times as of right now, titled, Tonight's Hallandale Beach Transportation Master Plan meeting is a Sign of the Times in HB: We Need Change!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/tonights-transportation-meeting-is-sign.html
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