As most of you know, over the course of a typical month, I go to all kinds of public meetings at Hollywood City Hall, as well as to numerous Civic Association meetings being held throughout the city, so I can keep tabs on the evolving concerns of the city's residents and Small Business owners.
But I also spend a lot of time during the week in Downtown Hollywood in the afternoons and evenings -and not just on weekends- talking to individual owners and managers of restaurants, bars, retail shops, boutiques as well as office buildings about their concerns about Hollywood in general and the Downtown area in particular.
People who, despite having lenty of choices to do so elsewhere, have personally decided to invest themselves emotionally and financially in Hollywood's Downtown area, and want it to be much better, safer and more-interesting than it currently is or has been in the past.
They are long past tired of hearing excuses, alibis and unkept promises to "fix things."
Simply put, they are also not buying the popular perception hereabouts that you really can't force the City of Hollywood or the Hollywood CRA or Broward County or FDOT to acknowledge, recognize and actually resolve problems with anything under some six-month projection.
Over the past few years, but most especially the past year, both during the 9-10 months while I was out-of-town, and then after I returned to Hollywood in late April, these same stakeholders who are invested in so many ways in this city's success, have expressed themselves to me in increasingly angry and ominous tones about what they feel is going on now.
They are particularly upset about how this past summer's business seemed especially dead, with few events going on in the city that would attract genuine crowds of visitors and consumers to the larger area as a whole, not just to the immediate area around Young Circle.
So, despite some positive developments over the past year, including the introduction of some new businesses and eager faces, like my talented photography friend, Noël de Christián, who opened up an amazing gallery bearing his name a few months ago on the west side of S. 20th Avenue, and my friend John Wiltsey, who last month opened up his Camp Cocktail Bar + Grill on the corner of N. 21st Avenue and Hollywood Blvd., many Downtown stakeholders feel like there is a palpable sense of complacency among the local powers-that-be that can simply not be allowed to continue moving forward.
Some dynamic changes in attitude and behavior are needed lest these ingrained public perceptions among Hollywood and regional residents go unchallenged and continue to grow.
To these stakeholders, there's a very strong public perception among both Hollywood residents as well as from nearby cities, that too many parts of the Downtown area are not as safe as they
should be. And perception IS reality, whatever the actual Hollywood criminal statistics may say.
To be honest, I've personally been stopped DOZENS of times over the past six months by either Hollywood residents or visitors/tourists who did not understand why there were seemingly uniformed Hollywood Police officers in the Downtown area every night who seemed to always congregate on Hollywood Blvd. -and take up too much space there- yet who never venture more than ten feet away from their patrol cars.
To paraphrase, "Why don't they stop leaning on those damn cars and actually walk around and
see what's going on and stop trouble before it happens?"
I've explained every time, often until I simply can't repeat myself again, that in most cases, these police officers were/are "off-duty," and there because they are detailed to a specific business that
is paying for that, and thus, not "on-duty," per se.
As you might imagine, though true, this response of mine tends not to either placate or delight
most people.
They just shake their heads and say that they visit plenty of other cities in South Florida and the
rest of the state where they see walking police patrols at night and why can't that happen here
in Hollywood.
Just so you know, over the past few years, an increasing number of the successful people I know
who live in the Hollywood Lakes area have felt emboldened to tell me that they personally feel like
they are safer and have more choices of things to do if they go to Aventura, Sunny Isles, Bal Harbour
or up to certain Fort Lauderdale-area neighborhoods.
They tell me they wish they were spending that money in Hollywood, but that their perception is
what it is, and until they see some kind of tangible sign that the city and the CRA are changing it,
why should they alter their behavior and go there with their spouses or families?
I should mention that women seem to find the current reality even more ridiculous than men,
which given where the city's two public parking garages are located, in not-always bustling areas
at night, perhaps explains itself.
"David, do they even have operating cameras in the public parking garages?"
People consistently tell me the answer is NO, so perhaps that is something simple that
the city and CRA should explore changing, since many woman I've spoken to feel the
public garages are just as likely a site with potential for harm for themselves and their
guests as any other spot in the Downtown area. That perception must change.
Towards that end, over the past few months, District 2 Commissioner Peter Hernandez and many Downtown business owners have been calling for the city to institute nighttime walking patrols in the Downtown area to assuage people's reasonable beliefs and directly change those self-evident public perceptions about public safety.
Last week at the CRA HQ on Harrison Street, I was one of about two dozen interested parties at the latest meeting Comm. Hernandez has held since June with downtown business owners about their concerns. CRA Executive Director Jorge Camejo was also there as he was at previous meetings, along with a few reps from the Hollywood Police Dept..
The possibility of having these nighttime walking patrols, at least on Friday, Saturday and Sunday
nights, was broached once again.
I think there's a reasonable possibility that the CRA may be willing to put some money forward to help pay for those costs, but it will not happen unless the public wants it and expresses themselves to the people who will actually be deciding the matter, that is, the seven members of the Hollywood City Commission/CRA Board of Directors.
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3. news re University Station redevelopment
Last Tuesday, September 24th, from just before 3 pm until about 5:15, I was at Hollywood City Hall in Room 421, up on the locked floor, for the City of Hollywood's Evaluation Committee meeting re the P3/University Station redevelopment project that both Pinnacle Housing Group and Housing Trust Group, LLC want.
The public notice was only put up before 3 pm the day before, after I had already been at City Hall around lunch time. To be honest, I was very suspicious that something fishy was happening, since for just barely 24 hours to lapse between an announcement and an actual meeting is very unusual in Hollywood, though was not so uncommon in Hallandale Beach during the lamentable reign of Joy Cooper, with the goal of keeping the public out of the room and in the dark. :-(
Public perception-wise, it seemed to me to be an especially bad move, too, especially for such an important project that has the potential to help positively transform the Downtown Hollywood corridor area from the FEC train tracks going back east to US-1, as was so often
repeated at the meeting itself.
I was the first person in the meeting room not on the Eval Comm. or with a business interest in it, though there was one person there already monitoring it on behalf of one party's attorney.
Right before the meeting started, literally, while outside the door and standing next to the window that offers an interesting aerial view of the immediate area to the east, I called my friend, North Central Civic Association president Patricia "Patty" Antrican, who has talked to
me about this project for many months, and asked her to come by if she could, though I knew she'd likely still be busy because North Central was having its monthly meeting that night, and I assumed Patty was still trying to add some public speakers to the agenda for her typically large crowd of very concerned residents and business owners to hear over at the Lippman Center later.
Fortunately, she was able to get over there pretty quick and caught most of the Eval. Comm.'s discussions and points about what they thought about the two parties eager to control that property with so much potential for being a dynamic force in the city.
Patty and I, as well as anybody paying close attention, knows that the tract under discussion there, offers lots of interesting possibilities, and a chance to reshape those public perceptions about what was and is possible in Hollywood, especially if there's a train station nearby that allows residents to easily go points north and south on the FEC tracks towards Downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
As regular readers of my 12-year old blog know, I've attended dozens of transportation meetings over the years, most though not all about the proposed Tri-Rail Coastal line that is my preferred choice because it services the largest number of people and accomplished a VERY POSITIVE public policy goal -mobility. Increased ease of travel
I am not at all sold on the idea of having that location be a Virgin Train stop for the train north to Fort Lauderdale, West Paln Beach and eventually, Orlando, and south to Miami, since tickets would be so much more expensive and draw a fraction of the public of what those well-located tracks will bear.
I took about 9 pages of copious notes about what was said, and will soon post some of them to the blog about it in depth.
But for now, it was clear to me that the two most important of several concerns expressed were:
1.) Whether the two groups were prepared to be a key and vocal part of the referendun process if they are selected and get it thru a purchase instead of a lease, as they would prefer, and,
2.) What would Pinnacle's level of interest in constructing the market rate building component of the project still exit if they did not get the available tax credits within two years?
I reconfirmed this afternoon with Hollywood Procurement Dept. Director Paul Bassar that the Oral Evaluations for Pinnacle and HTG will be next Monday, October 7th, at Hollywood City Hall in Room 215, starting at 1:30 p.m. and likely ending about 4:30 pm or so.
I strongly suggest you bring some caffeine and something to munch on!
ICYMI: My last blog post was this!
Can development and historic Downtown #HollywoodFL co-exist? Current public pushback against possible demolition of a historic Hollywood Bank Bldg. to make way for the Soleste
Hollywood project, makes one wonder whether it can or not
