Showing posts with label Airbnb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Airbnb. Show all posts

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Over a year later, where are the positive results of the City of Hollywood's new Vacation Rental ordinance? How's the compliance rate? About what WE expected and less than the city promised.


Over a year later, where are the positive results of the City of Hollywood's new Vacation Rental ordinance? How's the compliance rate? 
About what WE expected and less than the city promised.

 Because I am the way that I am and interested in the sorts of myriad things that I am, and write and Tweet about a LOT, including the #GigEconomy and #Airbnb and public policy, I mention this in case you are interested in some things that touch on all of these things.

 Just got this in the mail today:
Rebecca Stone, Skift Research: The Roadblocks Airbnb Must Tackle on Its Way to Possible IPO: Skift’s Latest Research

As of today I plan on doing an updated blog post sometime in the next few weeks that'll seriously examine and re-examine what I believe to have been the completely ineffective changes the City of Hollywood made last summer to their Vacation Rental ordinance.

Those of you among the public and the press who attended that afternoon might recall that I spoke towards the very end of that Hollywood City Commission meeting on whether to give the city more aggressive (regressive!) tools to enforce the city's new changes to the existing ordinance, after many representatives of the Vacation Rental, real estate and Small Business industry spoke, including Tom Martinelli, Airbnb's Florida Government Relations Director based out of Miami.

 I spoke after people from Airbnb, individual Airbnb or VR hosts and other industry members spoke had the chance to articulate their frustration with the city's refusal to work in good faith with them, to say nothing of many of the City Commissioners NOT understanding that they could NOT simply go back on contracts and MOU's with individual hosts and give the city personal confidential information.

 Among other things I said that it was, sad to say, yet another example of a South Florida municipality putting its faith in the power of a govt. bureaucracy rather than empowering responsible Vacation Rental hosts, in this case, in Hollywood -where I live and know many such hosts- and trusting human behavior, and actually making it easier for Vacation Rental hosts to comply.
A win-win scenario for everyone.

BUT to do so on terms that did NOT open hosts up to what could be unlimited and unwarranted intrusion by city officials (or their hired hands) looking to play gold prospector and recoup money for the city's coffers for its own past failure to have adequate code compliance in place and be able to catch additions made to houses at the time they took place 20, 30 or 40 years ago, rather than try to go after current owners or renters.

 Many of the latter have invested in their future by renting houses in Hollywood that would otherwise be empty if not dowdy, but which are now much-improved by their interest in making it as attractive as possible.

 In many cases, better taken care of than if the city itself owned them, as hearings I attended earlier this year regarding the city's attempt to sell some city-owned parcels proved 
conclusively, when a mirror was held up to the city's owned homes and the eyesores many of them have remained in many neighborhoods.

 It was also hard not to notice that there seemed to be a very lackluster effort shown by the city to go after the repeat offenders that cause a majority of the complaints that are both valid and intrusive to their neighbor's Quality of Life. 

The fact that the city and the person running the program for it, Lorie Mertens-Black, seemed to fail to invite several responsible and articulate Airbnb hosts who were in compliance to speak at their July dog-and-pony show weeks before,

 

Updated: A veritable trainwreck of a public meeting. Wednesday's embarrassing 

Vacation Rental Ordinance Amendment presentation at Hollywood City Hall was 

not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination


 gave me plenty of angst and ammo for what happened when the City Commission voted. 

 As we all saw to our exasperation when we saw how my logic and common sense was received last summer. Badly.
After all, there was money to be made!

 I predicted that the compliance rate would be much less than what they expected or had been led to believe by vendors, and would... well, to quote myself:
"As long as the city makes it about meting out individual and collective punishment
and making money via fees, based on what I have personally seen and heard at city
meetings and in conversations with many successful Airbnb and Vacation Rental
hosts in Hollywood, I see little prospect that the city's compliance rate will ever get
much over 40% with the proposed changes."

That's still my perspective as I start cobbling together that new post, and no facts or
evidence I have seen or received from the city of late shows me that I'm wrong.
The fact that this was so predictable doesn't bring me any joy. 

Let me leave you with a sweet teaser of things to come: The city's VR licensing program
is now so inaccurate that it shows properties on its site that may not even be in compliance
any more, since it is accurate as of... Sept. 30th.
"The map illustrates all approved Vacation Rental Licenses that will expire on September 30, 2018."

Why should it even be more than a week inaccurate if the whole point of it is to BE accurate? Also, HOW and WHY would any out-of-town traveler go to the city's website, a site that they wouldn't even know exists? They wouldn't. 

But the city acts like people would do that.

Yet again, completely ignoring human behavior when it comes to this subject.



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Wednesday, August 30, 2017

New #VacationRental ordinance/fees and #Confederate Street sign re-naming on tap this afternoon for Hollywood City Commission

May 3, 2017 photo, looking west at Hollywood City Hall, Hollywood, Florida, as seen from in front of the  Hollywood branch of the Broward County Public Library. © 2017 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved


Revised and Updated August 29, 2017 2:15 PM
Just one of the MANY questions I've heard for the Hollywood City Commission to answer, based on my many conversations around the area:.
Airbnb was created in Aug. 2008. Since then, how many times have you personally stayed overnight at a facility that was NOT a hotel and was located in someone's home who was not a family member or friend?

 The reason for the question, cobbled together from several similar question?
People want to know your actual personal experience/expertise to speak publicly on 
the issue, not hear you relate a series of anecdotes or Talking points from influential residents or various Hollywood neighborhood Civic Associations.

The reality is that based on their own numbers from this summer, Hollywood currently has, at best, a 15% compliance rate, and some people say those numbers are "soft."
. 
As most of you know by now, including from my pointed July 3rd blog post on this subject,
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2017/07/sharingeconomy-hollywood-city.html
in my opinion, these proposals  -below- WON'T improve that, and only serves to highlight the city's myopia and general clumsiness in handling the issue.
As long as the city makes it about meting out individual and collective punishment and making money via fees, based on what I have personally seen and heard at city meetings and in conversations with many successful Airbnb and Vacation Rental hosts in Hollywood, I see little prospect that the city's compliance rate will ever get much over 40% with the proposed changes.

 In the coming days, I'll share here on the blog what I said at the meeting -and meant to say!
My first time speaking before the City Commission publicly in the past year.



 These are Time-Certain items scheduled to start at or around 1:30 PM

R-2017-250
41
Appeal of revoke vac rental license
Resolution
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Considering An Appeal Of The Revocation Of A VacationRental License For The Property Located At 929 North Southlake Drive, Pursuant To The Provisions Of The City Of Hollywood Code Of Ordinance.  


PO-2017-11
42
VRL Ordinance
Ordinance
An Ordinance Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Amending Chapter 119 Of The Code Of Ordinances Entitled “Vacation Rental License Program” To Revise The Definition Of A Vacation Rental, And To Require Compliance Inspections For Vacation Rentals; Providing For Severability; Providing For Conflicts; Providing For An Effective Date.  

R-2017-177
43
VRL Fee Increase
Resolution
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Amending R-2015-328 To Increase The Application Fee For Vacation Rental Licenses Within The City Of Hollywood To $500.00 And The Renewal Fee To $350.00, Establishing An Application Fee For Vacation Rental Licenses For Applicants Whose Primary Residence Is Partially Being Rented And Establishing An Inspection Fee.

These Time-Certain items are scheduled to start at or around 4:00 PM
R-2017-251
45
Rename Forrest Street & Forrest Drive
Resolution
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Approving/Denying The Application To Rename Forrest Street And Forrest Drive To Savannah Street and Savannah Drive.  


R-2017-252
46
Rename Hood Street
Resolution
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Approving/Denying The Application To Rename Hood Street To Macon Street. 

R-2017-253
47
Rename Lee Street
Resolution
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Approving/Denying The Application To Rename Lee Street To Louisville Street.

D-2017-02
48
Street Names to Street Numbers
Discussion Item
Discussion By The City Commission On Changing All Street Names To Street Numbers.

D-2017-03
49
Moratorium on Street Renaming
Discussion Item
Discussion By The City Commission On Imposing A Moratorium On Future Renaming Of Streets.
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Monday, July 3, 2017

#SharingEconomy - Hollywood City Commission's 2nd hearing on its latest version of its ill-considered Vacation Rental legislation come up Monday afternoon. Will reasonable compromise and specificity finally trump arrogance and greed? Would be nice for a change! #tourism

#SharingEconomy - Hollywood City Commission's 2nd hearing on its latest version of its ill-considered Vacation Rental legislation come up Monday afternoon. 
Will reasonable compromise and specificity finally trump arrogance and greed? Would be nice for a change! #tourism

 Updated on July 3rd at 2:55 PM -see bottom

I'm writing this blog post on Sunday night, the night before the Hollywood City Commission's second hearing on its latest version of its ill-considered Vacation Rental legislation, agenda item #34. Meeting starts promptly at 1 PM. 

There is clearly a case to be made on Monday afternoon for compromise and reasonable, achievable legislation that resolves most of the legitimate concerns of Hollywood City Hall, pacifies the angry, vituperative and influential neighbors from Hollywood Lakes, and, of course, helps raise the morale and hopes of very-concerned Airbnb hosts, who for months have wanted greater specificity and yet were made had to fly under-the-radar like they were Public Enemy Number One, because of the consistently unfair and one-sided manner that this issue has been publicly handled and presented in Hollywood (and Broward) for far too long.

 Having read every single article about Vacation Rentals that has appeared in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times or Florida Trend magazine of the past three years, and checked the video archives of WFOR, NBC6, WSVN and Local10, all before the city of Hollywood's pubic presentation one month ago, I can vouch that I was right all along in my thinking even before I started doing my research.

This area of Florida is rich in public officials and bureaucrats eager to appear in public to be seen as playing the role of vigilant defenders of neighborhood Quality of Life, but behind 
closed doors, they play their preferred role of thinly-disguised holdup men, eager for a big score of cold hard cash at the expense of Airbnb, travel hosts and others for the public kitty.
More money to spend on stuff!

No matter what individual travel hosts say at the hearing, compelling or not, regardless of whom they are affiliated with, or even what Tom Martinelli, the head of Public Policy in Florida for Airbnb might say or suggest at the meeting that sounds logical or inspired, the die is already cast.
The electeds and the bureaucrats will be the ones wearing the White Hats afterward, not anyone else, even if you are the one who saves a deal that threatens to come apart because of their greed or desire to be shown driving a hard bargain against big, bad Airbnb & Company.
Our South Florida pols and bureaucrats, they sure do love them some straw men!

In public, they expect hosts and the Vacation Rental industry to jump thru their hoops and be happy about it, and for others to provide enormous amounts of information to them, while they in turn are vague about what they can give interested individuals and groups in the way of information or assurances.
Or conveniently forget about past promises to treat everyone fairly.

 Having gone to so many Hollywood City Commission meetings over the years, and about 85% of the ones held since the November election brought two new faces to the dais, Mayor Josh Levy and District 1 Commissioner Debra Case, I must say that I was NOT at all prepared that at the first hearing on this matter that so many Hollywood Commissioners appeared so publicly tone-deaf and myopic. 
Even to the idea of multiple competing companies cooperating on an issue past a certain point not being seen as a possible cause for anti-trust or legal action by someone.
It was just par for the course as this issue has chugged along.
They just don't see the bigger issues involved, just their own POV.

 For those of you who are new to this issue or who might've forgotten what led to this point, one month ago I wrote an honest and well-circulated account of the city's quite disastrous dog-and-pony show led by Laurie Mertens-Black, the closest thing to a lynch mob I have ever seen in Hollywood -at least in a civic setting.

The many Hollywood Police who were there seemed not at all interested in preventing the constant verbal threats and taunts that filled the air as you would reasonably expect. 
That's how nuts it was.
I urge you to take a look at it before tomorrow's meeting starts.

Updated: A veritable trainwreck of a public meeting. Wednesday's embarrassing 

Vacation Rental Ordinance Amendment presentation at Hollywood City Hall was 

not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination


Now you can guess why I didn't speak that night?
Why I didn't ask any of the dozen of good questions that I had researched and written out in advance, just in case we had to hand in our questions instead of being able to ask them ourselves, an oft-used trick in South Florida political and govt. circles to prevent well-informed citizens from being able to ask hard questions.
Or even more importantly, follow-up questions!

Speaking truth to power is not now or ever been a problem for me, but doing so at the same time as I feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall -and accomplishing nothing- is a different thing altogether.
I chose to save my powder and live to fight another day.

When I'm finished here, I'll be sending out some 125-odd emails around -and some tweets via my Twitter handle, @hbbtruth- to some local TV & print reporters to persuade, induce or otherwise get them to show up and give an honest account of what transpires Monday afternoon, instead of following the now-familiar Miami TV narrative of finding the angriest "citizen" in the room, and then making that person and their particular case/cause/issue the new "norm."

Besides being guided by my own personal opinions about how this particular 
#sharingeconomy issue has been handled, poorly, as it has been in almost every city after another in South Florida -to say nothing of poorly covered by the South Florida news media- by trying to adopt a one-size-fits-all mindset, instead of trying to go after persistent bad actors who comprise a disproportionate share of all complaints, I'm also guided by my own personal experiences with Airbnb, as well as other guests who have used it in this area and throughout South Florida and Europe.

Take my word for it, I have talked with them for HOURS about their Airbnb experiences as well as what they like and dislike about the South Florida, Broward and Fort Lauderdale
and Hollywood hospitality and tourism scene.
I only wish the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau did as much talking to actual travelers as I do, since it's clear that follow up and understanding consumers is NOT high on their list of things to do.
Perhaps if the CVB did as much talking with paying consumers s I have, they would realize how much travelers to our area feel taken advantage of, especially at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

As it happens, I am very, very close to someone who is a very successful Airbnb host in the area. I would likely have brought her with me to the last City Commission meeting on this issue except for the fact that she was traveling in Europe then.
Staying at Airbnb properties while there, of course.

if anyone wants to have some pre-game talk about all of this, I'll be in the lobby outside Hollywood City Hall Chambers about 30 minutes prior to the meeting, in what is Hollywood's de facto 'spin room.'





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Friday, June 2, 2017

Updated: A veritable trainwreck of a public meeting. Wednesday's embarrassing Vacation Rental Ordinance Amendment presentation at Hollywood City Hall was not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination

Looking west at Hollywood City Hall, #HollywoodFL, around 5:40 PM.
May 31, 2017 photos above and below by South Beach Hoosier.
© 2017 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

 A veritable trainwreck of a public meeting. Wednesday's embarrassing Vacation Rental Ordinance Amendment presentation at Hollywood City Hall was not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination
Updated/Corrected at bottom on June 7th, 2017 at 3:15 PM 2017-06-02
Wow! So THAT was embarrassing. Color me dumbfounded. 
Almost but not quite... speechless.
In short, What I believe is the city's ill-conceived plan that seeks to impose a one-size-fits-all solution to solve a genuine problem for some residents in certain neighborhoods.
So tell me, when has THAT approach ever worked successfully in South Florida?

The Vacation Rental Ordinance Amendment presentation at Hollywood City Hall late Wednesday afternoon by the city's Chief Civic Affairs Officer, Lori Mertens-Black, was easily THE worst-run public meeting in the City of Hollywood I've attended since returning to South Florida from the Washington, D.C. area in late 2003.
I returned to South Florida, where I grew-up, having been an eyewitness to history at hundreds of congressional hearings over the 15 years I lived and worked in the DC area.
Hearings and presentations that had more than their fair share of high-level controversy, flashes of anger and pique, and even outright witness intimidation.

I've been to many high-profile hearings, including some where well-known people in a variety of fields, from business to unions took the Fifth, and watched as one persistent Congressman after another sought to ask a variation of the very same questions, as if the word order was what prevented the witness from testifying, not their fear of self-incrimination.
But I never saw anything in Washington quite like what I witnessed Wednesday afternoon in Hollywood.

(Of course, I HAVE seen meetings as bad, if not much worse, many times, at City of Hallandale Beach public meetings, whether City Commission, CRA or Planning & Zoning meetings. I was even once publicly threatened with arrest by a HB official for video recording portions of a scheduled public meeting where only one or two other members of the public were present. But that's another issue for another time.)
For the record, I saw Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy and Commissioners Debra Case, Traci Callari, Peter Hernandez, Richard Blattner and Linda Sherwood sitting amongst the audience. I didn't see Comm. Kevin Biederman present, but he may've well come in at some point without me noticing.

This presentation was originally scheduled for the smallish Room 215 at Hollywood City Hall but had to be moved next door to the Commission Chambers after it started, because of the large number of people who showed up.
This, for a presentation that I only heard about that same day, Wednesday, shortly after Noon.

 Which is to say that the A/C in Room 215 was completely inadequate to the task, and there were far too many people standing in the very narrow hallway outside the door, trying to peer in, including popular Broward County Commissioner Beam Furr.

 Commissioner Furr is a former Hollywood City Commissioner and someone whom as most of you regular readers of the blog know by now is someone I've always supported politically, in large part because of his enormous common sense and willingness to take on the Broward establishment and bureaucracy in policy issues that will give residents and consumers more and better choices.
Last year he was one of the leading voices responsible for finally getting Broward into the 21st Century via Broward County's agreement that introduced Uber, Lyft and other TNCs into an area that is tourism-reliant.

 I got in a quick hello and smile with him before the meeting started, as well as with Mayor Josh Levy. The presentation began with some introductory remarks by the Mayor.

Apparently, the people responsible for putting this event together thought that the this issue was VERY important. But apparently not important enough to be held in a room with more than 50 seats.
So into the Hollywood Commission Chambers everyone marched..





Lori Mertens-Black listed some of her preliminary ideas for solving the problem -ideas that she said are to be presented to the entire City Commission at a future meeting- and you won't be surprised to learn that, naturally, Hollywood being Hollywood, her diagnosis and prescription includes MUCH MORE government and much-higher fees for owners of Vacation Rental properties in Hollywood, regardless of their size or location within the city or even how often they're used in the course of a year.
Yes, one-size-fits-all.

 Her preliminary plans also don't make any distinction between whether these homes are owned by out-of-state investors, or, by Hollywood residents like your friends or neighbors, who have established a relationship with Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia's HomeAway, or TripAdvisor.

But wait, hasn't the City of Hollywood already proven beyond a reasonable standard that it is structurally unable to properly administer and enforce their existing ordinance? Yes.
So, why would her solution be stakeholders paying a lot more for a system to the very people who have proven they can't run it fairly or effectively?

 I say this because Mertens-Black said something so crucial in understanding the city's colossal failure to deal with what's a very real problem for some people and a few neighborhoods -but also a problem of a lack of imagination, including the city's failure to include all stakeholders in the search for solutions- that I don't want it to blind you to everything else I'm going to say.
But you'll have to hear it from someone, so it might as well be me, right?
Try not to keep thinking about THESE numbers as you go to sleep...

 According to the City of Hollywood's own records, only 52 property owners of Vacation Rentals in Hollywood, out of what they claim is a universe of 785, have complied with the city's current ordinance.
That ordinance was passed in 2015, while I was out of the area.

 Let that number sink in on you: 52 out of 785. 
(Personally, I think the number is well over 785.)
Batting just over .300 consistently for at least ten or so years usually gets you in to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Batting .15096 does not.
Consistently batting .150 gets you to retire from baseball.
Yet 15.096% is the city's current compliance rate with Vacation Rentals.

So, in short, the very people who are most responsible for the current reality that nobody is happy with, are now the ones who are going to suddenly solve it? No, not in my opinion.

 Especially as long as the city continues to fail to appreciate why so many reputable and hard-working Hollywood homeowners are not complying with the current system.
And even worse, not trying to get the people who do comply more involved in resolving the problem, as they would/should other stakeholders on any other public policy issue in the city.

 Something that you would think that would have occurred to them by now, given how long this has been a problem and given how low their compliance rate is.
But clearly, as Wednesday's presentation showed, it has NOT.

 Based on many personal conversations I've had with people in Hollywood who are directly involved, they don't believe the current system is anything close to being fair, and see little to make them believe that a new system will be any fairer if it is "improved" by the current crew at City Hall.
Frankly, some think it's just a flat-out money grab, nothing more.

If any issue cried out for hiring experienced-but-impartial consultants in Hollywood to help get a handle on this problem, it's this one, since the city is clearly NOT an impartial actor.
Especially when the city's first suggestions for solutions all require a LOT MORE money, even from people who have been complying with the city's current ordinance.  

 Many of the people I've spoken to about this issue the past few years believe that there are many in Hollywood, including some members of the current City Commission, who would end what they are doing tomorrow if they could, even if they have done nothing wrong, and have not ever been cited with a complaint.
And who would do that with no thought as to its negative effect on tourism and the local economy.
That's the other thing that was striking.
There was ZERO serious discussion by the city's officials regarding the changing nature of tourism and the economics of that in Hollywood. 

Based on what I heard Wednesday afternoon, the people I've spoken to who are involved in this slice of the tourism trade are correct in thinking that, because most of the speakers at Wednesday's meeting made absolutely clear that they want to eliminate them.
Or, at a minimum, place them at a clear disadvantage to many other actors -consumer choices- on the scene, including the influential and well-heeled hotel establishment that dominates most aspects of Hollywood's civic and political life, including the well-run Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which is much more active than most such groups in South Florida.

After what I observed and heard Wednesday, it's clear to me that I have no choice but to send a very pointed email to Hollywood City Manager Wazir Ishmael and Mayor Josh Levy and the rest of the Hollywood City Commission next week, expanding upon many of the points that I had wanted to make at the presentation at Hollywood City Hall but never got a chance to publicly state, including many questions to the bureaucrats about why the whole meeting seemed so one-sided and lacking in perspective.

Considering the tsunami of vituperative words, insane allegations, false innuendo and snide insinuations that were flowing in the room, and the palpable sense of anger that was hanging over the proceedings from start to finish, perhaps it's just as well that I didn't walk up to the podium microphone.
You see, my plan had been to illuminate a few things and throw some much-needed doses of fact-based reality on everyone present, including the city's bureaucrats, and hold up a mirror to many of the loudest complainers at the presentation.
Let the facts get publicly aired in a way they have not thus far, including economic facts.



 By the way, for what it's worth, I left the meeting at Hollywood City Hall after about 90 minutes. I did so after Comm. Peter Hernandez, above, got the opportunity to speak despite my having raised my hand multiple times less than 50 feet from Mertens-Black from the very beginning of the resident feedback portion of the session.
It's also why I got up in the first place and started taking photos before leaving.
#frustration

The truth is that I doubt my comments would have gone down very well with most of the Hollywood Lakes bien-pensants in attendance, given the self-evident antagonistic and closed-mind set of so many of them, unable as they were to see the larger picture, just their own.
That is to say, the only picture they see is one where the sky-is-falling.

I'm sure this will probably come as news to many of you, even the well-informed regular readers of the blog who live outside the immediate South Florida area.
As you should know from my past posts about the city, Hollywood is a thoroughly liberal Democratic redoubt in what is Florida's most-liberal county.

Think of my old home of Arlington County VA, but with a beautiful and delightful beach ambiance instead of high-rise gray glass monstrosities full of federal bureaucrats.
But in this comparison, Hollywood also has about a good 60-80% less college-educated people living here.

You can be sure that particular email and subsequent blog post here will feature facts that can be substantiated by ample evidence, something that I thought was COMPLETELY
lacking by Mertens-Black and 99% of the local public who did get a chance to speak.

From my perspective, Mertens-Black seems to have made little-to-no effort to look critically at her own Power Point presentation and think about what might've been missing from it.

 Long story short, to me, someone who, for a variety of reasons not worth going into now, is in a unique position to speak about this issue with more than a little passing knowledge of the realities, it was patently obvious.

At a minimum, what Mertens-Black ignored was that a whole swath of stakeholders DO exist in this city who own Vacation Rental properties and who DO live on the premises or next door.
Hollywood residents who don't do anything wrong because they have all sorts of reasons to be just as concerned with being good neighbors as keeping their guests happy.
But Mertens-Black acted as if such people don't exist in Hollywood.
Worse, she acts like they don't get to have their chance to participate in public policy, too.

 But those kinds of people do exist, and I know several of them.
Trust me when I tell you, they are doing MUCH MORE to try to increase and encourage tourism spending in Hollywood than many of the hotels, restaurants and businesses in town who take tourism for granted, and whom, in my opinion, ought to be doing MUCH MORE than they do now.
Frankly, I might have to start naming some of some of those apathetic businesses in coming posts if the city is going to pretend that everyone is in this together, when clearly there are some who are prepared to let others do the heavy-lifting and marketing of the city and its attractions.

That email of mine next week will also emphasize some old-fashioned common sense ideas that are seldom if ever seen in government circles in South Florida when elected officials and bureaucrats say they want to solve problems - like punishing only the guilty parties, NOT everyone in a particular tourism industry niche.

Like actually suggesting workable solutions that work for the largest number of people, including tourists to the area, whom as i stated earlier, so many residents at the presentation seemed to take for granted.
As if there was no other place in South Florida or the state where they could go and have a good time and spend their money.

To me, rather than sound like a sensible way of eliminating the bad actors and actions that cause the vast majority of complaints by homeowners, the preliminary "solutions" proffered by Mertens-Black actually look like they will make things WORSE for the very people who are following the law, or waiting for the city to make their rules more reasonable, practical and enforceable based on observable facts.

That is, as opposed to what exists now, which is LOTS and LOTS of complaints to the Hollywood Police and to City Hall about a small handful of properties, most of which are clustered in the Hollywood Lakes area - the affluent area in eastern Hollywood, west of the beach and the Intracoastal Waterway that's home to both the most civic-minded and well-informed residents of the city. 

 I know because of both past personal experience closely following what takes place in Hollywood, and because I now live in that area, though with no water in my backyard via a swimming pool or canal.

Me being me, and wanting as much citizen interaction as possible, I can't help but wonder why this presentation was scheduled for 4 PM on a hot and humid Wednesday afternoon at City Hall when there weren't any other public meetings scheduled that day.

Instead of say, 7:00 PM at the ArtsPark stage at Young Circle on Monday night, when the army of very popular Food Trucks are there and lure hundreds and hundreds of people into Downtown Hollywood.
That way the entire city could participate if they wanted to, and weigh-in with their point of view, instead of the reality, which was that 90%-plus of the people who were heard on Wednesday live in upscale Hollywood Lakes.

 I guess that's a question without an answer, but it's the sort of outside-the-box thinking that the city has always been claiming for years that it wants to have MUCH MORE of, but which, factually, seldom if ever actually takes place.
Instead, it's more of the same old, same old...
The same old, same old that is NOT working.

Here are some tweets from a very frustrated me, posted hours after the presentation was over and I had some time to sit down at home and think about what I just witnessed.
You know, to give you a sense of what transpired.
https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/status/870082660676362249

MUCH MORE on this issue is coming next week, but there's clearly no point in my giving away all my thoughts and information here before I share it with the city's elected officials, and ask them to explain the logic and sensibility of the process they are embarking upon, which to me, at present, looks like directions to a dead end.
And more problems in the future.

For a person whose job entails some aspects of being in charge of a city's civic engagement, I think Lori Mertens-Black has a LOT to learn about doing it successfully.
Her failings in that regard, as well as those of other influential groups in Hollywood, many of whose dramatic failings were also on full display recently, will be the subject of a future blog post here. 
Teaser Alert: It won't be pretty.







Dave
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