City of Hollywood gives you chance to socialize/hobnob/people watch and shred your inhibitions -along with your old docs on Saturday at City Hall

Above, Hollywood City Hall, looking west from the half-circle in front of the Hollywood branch of the Broward County library. June 2, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
(When you look up Hollywood City Hall on Google Images, my photo is the first one you see. And the third!)

Finally, one of those shredding parties you've heard about and seen videos of at odd hours of the night on YouTube or one of the TV cable nets when you couldn't fall asleep, but never actually knew about beforehand, so you always missed out.
Well, today's your lucky day, because now you know!

Below, the press release just coming over the Hallandale Beach Blog transom from Hollywood City Hall about Saturday's event in their parking lot

It's been my own experience that local TV stations around the country love these events almost as much as the people with boxes and boxes of docs to shred, since it often provides a fascinating look at what people -and Americans in particular- hang on to (or hoard) until there's finally a time to cast it off.


Good Riddance Day - New York Post
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jhSEICf-k

Of course, IF there was a night-time bonfire and a nearby barbecue, say, for some local charity, now THAT would be a great double-feature!

Maybe that's what we'll do in Hallandale Beach one day in the future between HB City Hall and the Cultural Center, when the day finally arrives that the city employees running City Hall are actually responsive to citizen taxpayers and have their best interests at heart, something that's definitely NOT the case today.

And when that happens, the first thing to be burned at the charity bonfire would have to be -to steal the thunder from my friend Rob, a local business owner on the city's beleaguered Fashion Row- the city's overly-large code compliance book, which is full of things that nobody alive in the city understands, which even the city's own professional staff was forced to admit at a public meeting recently held at Dekka.

And why does the City of Hallandale Beach continue to be one of THE biggest violators of its own code book in the city, and also NOT follow many existing common sense state laws and statutes?

The evidence for those violations are right in front of you -everywhere- if you just open your eyes, and yet it goes on day-after-day, month-after-month, year-after-year, because HB City Hall consciously chooses to ignore the laws they don't like.

So what does Red Tape sound like or smell like when it's being either shredded or burned? Probably chicken!

-----

City of Hollywood, Florida

Office of the City Manager

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 2, 2011

Contact: Raelin Storey

Public Affairs and Marketing Director

Phone: 954.921.3098

Cell: 954.812.0975 Fax: 954.921.3314

E-mail: rstorey@hollywoodfl.org

Shredding Saturday: Free Shredding to Help Protect Your Identity

Saturday, February 5, 2011

HOLLYWOOD, FL - The City of Hollywood's Office of the City Clerk, Records and Archives Division in partnership with International Data Depository (IDD) is sponsoring a free opportunity for businesses and residents to shred the records and documents they no longer need. On Saturday, February 5, 2011 from 10 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., IDD will bring its commercial shredding truck to the parking lot at Hollywood City Hall, 2600 Hollywood Boulevard.

By properly disposing of your personal and business records, you can reduce your risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. Criminals often engage in "dumpster diving"-going through a person's garbage in search of copies of checks, credit card statements, bank statements or other records they can use to gain access to your accounts and in the most serious cases, assume your identity. According to a report by TIME magazine online, Florida has the nation's highest rate of identity theft (122.3 reports per 100,000 people). Identity theft is a growing crime that can affect just about anyone, regardless of how careful you think you are. "Our objective is to help prevent identity theft within the South Florida community and promote the importance of shredding," says Jorge Bohorquez of IDD.

Aside from the loss of money, identity theft costs its victims time and can damage their credit. Bring those old checks, credit card statements or other personal and business records that put you at risk to the City's Shredding Saturday event this weekend.

For event information, please contact the Records and Archives Division at 954.921. 3545.

For media inquiries, please contact Raelin Storey, Public Affairs Director, at 954.921.3098.

# # #

Raelin Storey
Public Affairs and Marketing Director
City of Hollywood
954-921-3098 (Office)
954-812-0975 (Cell)
954-921-3314 (Fax)

City-sponsored 'Fashion Row' meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at Dekka in Hallandale Beach

The City of Hallandale Beach is hosting a 'Fashion Row' meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at Dekka, 139 N.E. 1st Avenue, Hallandale Beach.
It's long overdue!

To me and many other concerned residents of this southeast Broward County city, it sounds exactly like something that... well, in another city, would've already been taking place at least once a year since the Fashion Row idea started, whenever that was while I was working up in Washington, D.C.

My reason for mentioning this now, at this rather late date, is that I just recently found out about it on Tuesday night, and I want as many articulate and impassioned people as possible to make plans to show-up and demand some accountability, since the red-tape overkill and lack of clarity by Code Compliance at Hallandale Beach City Hall is literally killing businesses and jobs here.

It's something that lots of people in town are talking about more and more openly and frequently in restaurants and other meeting places, and many believe that City Hall has been guilty of being too blase about this simmering dis-satisfaction.
Well, now it's all in the open.

I don't currently own a business here in town but in talking to friends and trusted activists in HB who do, it's clear that there are far too many nonsensical sections of the code compliance manual in this city that rather than serve some self-evident public safety or building safety aspect that everyone would support, actually serve to frustrate small business owners who want to improve their property and become more competitive.
And stand out!

Their ability to survive is in question, and un-necessary permit costs and fines are the very thing that will cause them to either move or close-up shop, and there are too few big-picture minded business owners in HB as it is, we can't lose the ones we have.

Just to give you some sense of the dis-connect, as I've mentioned in this space previously, as of today, there are a couple of dozen Fashion Row directional signs still standing, but STILL ZERO of the HB Chamber of Commerce, which you can't find unless you go to City Hall, park your car in the parking lot and walk past their entrance opposite the breezeway from City Hall.
Another genius marketing move -NOT!

Echoing comments I've made here and at City Commission meetings, there's nothing about the location of the CoC anywhere in the city, not even right out front on U.S-1 despite the tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars that have flowed their way, averaging about $50,000 a year, with very little to show for it in the way of tangible results.

I wonder if their Patricia Genneti will have the nerve to show her smug face at the meeting and, ironically, face the music?
I suspect she will be a no-show, even though she is exactly the sort of character who needs to be held to account.

I can hardly wait 'til I hear the questions about the rampant and rapidly-expanding graffiti problem and the city's invisible effort to combat it, not only near the businesses along the F.E.C. railroad tracks and Hallandale Beach Blvd., but all down U.S.-1/Federal Highway, where it is on nearly single every light and traffic pole and bus shelter on U.S.-1 all the way down to Aventura Hospital, just as it was early last year on the east side before The Village at Gulfstream Park opened.

"HGS" positively owns U.S.-1!

I've been taking photos of the problem for years and the fact that the Nick's restaurant parking lot sign on 1st Avenue is completely covered with 'tags' is embarrassing in the extreme.

I'll post some of them here in the next few days when I can lay them out in a way that gives more context to you readers so it'll be clear why this news is so very troublesome.

It often seems that these sorts of Quality-of-Life issues are ignored and forgotten almost as soon as HB City Hall hears about them, as that's been my experince over the past seven years, even when I've connected-the-dots to City Hall officials in excruciating detail.
At City Hall!

Tonight's meeting should be pretty fiery and I plan on being there.


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http://maps.google.com/maps?q=139+N.E.+1st+Avenue,+Hallandale+Beach&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=139+NE+1st+Ave,+Hallandale+Beach,+Broward,+Florida+33009&gl=us&ei=4BABTc7KMIKClAeNkaDnCA&oi=geocode_result&ved=0CBMQ8gEwAA&z=16