Showing posts with label Jorge Camejo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jorge Camejo. Show all posts

Monday, June 11, 2018

More critical analysis about tonight's update re the awful #YoungCircle Feasibility Study that'll make #HollywoodFL #traffic #business worse, NOT better ๐Ÿ˜ฎ


More critical analysis abt tonight's update re the awful #YoungCircle Feasibility Study that'll make #HollywoodFL #traffic #business worse, NOT better 

Updated June 12th, 2018 at 11:45 AM
For some reason, even after trying to fix it, after this was originally posted on Monday June 11th, some of the sentences are changing their fonts or sizes. I apologize for the look if after I re-edit this the gremlins pop-up again.
Want more examples of what's not working in Hollywood in 2018, especially in Downtown Hollywood? Of people in charge not paying attention or improving as they should? 
If so then you need to get yourself to tonight's meeting from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Lippman Center, 2030 Polk Street, an update on the preposterous Young Circle road project, because I have a very strong intuition that tonight will be such an example. 

A perfect example, actually, just like it was last year, when I attended the last in a series of public meetings hosted by the Hollywood CRA to try to sell Hollywood residents and Small Business owners on the idea of making what in my opinion would be a tragic mistake that will have long-term negative consequences for the city and Downtown Hollywood in particular.





I put the final touches to an important subject in an email that I've been meaning to share with you all for quite some time.

An email that I could have sent to you back in January or last month or last week and predicted with 100% certainty. Just as I was 100% correct last year when I wrote about what I saw and heard at the meeting that i'd shown up to with a great deal of trepidation. 
And then saw the same familiar faces saying the predictable things that gave me the trepidation in the first place.

The larger issue:
I personally don't believe that it's acceptable for highly-paid city employees or city agencies or city-funded groups, parties with access to lots of city-funded resources, to continue operating in a completely unsatisfactory way and specifically, acting like city residents, taxpayers and Small Business owners in the city won't eventually notice that they are being taken advantage of by being kept in the dark when it concerns something as fundamental as the usefulness and utility of US-1 as it intersects Young Circle and the Downtown Hollywood area. 
US-1/Federal Highway is the spine of Broward County and remains the main road that brings thousands and thouands of customers to the Downtown business area.
It's THE reason that they locate there!

The issue in question:
Where are the fliers for tonight's Young Circle meeting in storefront windows or bulletin boards of Young Circle and Downtown Hollywood businesses?
Where are ANY of the city's sandwich boards in Downtown Hollywood and in and around Young Circle ITSELF advertising this meeting about a proposal that will (negatively) affect Young Circle's future and the daily routine of residents?

Well, just like last year, those informational fliers and sandwich boards are NOWHERE to be found less than a week before the meeting tonight.
Or days before the meeting.
Or today.

Which is to say that there is NOTHING letting people visiting the park for last week's Food Truck Mondays or the Friday night Funtastic Friday family events and film that always draw a crowd, know anything about it in advance?

Instead, the public engagement relies on the same handful of people who are very interested in civic affairs here attending and saying everything is great and sounds great when common sense and first-hand observation tells us that's ridiculous.
And where's the diversity, especially the diversity of opinions from people throughout the area?

Last year I went to several popular and prominent businesses on Young Circle and Hollywood Blvd. the day after the last meeting that I had attended to speak to the owners/managers in order to find out from them if they knew anything about the series of meetings.
I didn't want to make the mistake of assuming they didn;t just because they didn't have anything posted at their business promoting the meetings, since it was always possible that they'd gone to a meeting that I hadn't attended. 

Nope, they didn't.
They knew nothing about the meetings.

I went to The Radius condominium, the largest concentration of Hollywood residents to Young Circle and spoke to the on-duty concierge and ten residents in the lobby over twenty minutes, asking them if they knew about it or had heard about any of the prior meetings.
ZERO AWARENESS.

Yes, there is clearly a problem with public outreach and engagement on this plan, so when are things actually going to change for the better?
Without that change, the results of any study involving this plan are completely invalid. 

If you had a business on or near Young Circle and hear that it will possibly be undergoing major construction for a lengthy period of time, why would you not get angry at the public access to your business being adversely affected? And you not having been in the loop when the decision was made?
Why would you want to stay in that area if the project actually decreases your business's opportunities if the proposed changes makes it more difficult for customers to get to your shop or restaurant?

But then I wrote all of this last year, didn't I? 
Yes I did, per the link below.

My critical lysis of awful #YoungCircle Roadway Feasibility Study that'll make #HollywoodFL #traffic worse, NOT better ๐Ÿ˜ฎ = coming soon. This week! 
In my opinion, it's not acceptable for highly-paid city employees or agencies with lots of city-funded resources to continue operating in a completely unsatisfactory way, acting like residents, taxpayers and Small Business owners of the city won't notice that they are being taken advantage of and being kept in the dark when it concerns something as important and fundamental as the usefulness of US-1 as it intersects Young Circle and the Downtown Hollywood area.

But it would have been just as true for promoting the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's so-called "Spark" entrepreneur event, both last year and this year.
An event that because of my own personal interests and background, in any other situation, I should have not only been attending but promoting on this blog.
But I didn't.

Last year, a week before the event and in the days leading up to it, I made a point of looking for promotional info about it where the public in Hollywood might actually see it.
Even the minimum - what one might see if someone in your neighborhood was trying to find a missing dog.
But the Chamber of Commerce didn't even do that.
There was nothing.

Nothing anywhere visible to the public at The ArtsPark at Young Circle itself where the event was being held. Even the Park Rangers there knew nothing about it when I came by an hour before the event started. How can that be?

As it happens, last year I even took photos of the non-existent signs and sandwich boards, that is, took photos of the areas of ingress and egress to the park wher ethose should have been but weren't.
I don't post those incriminating photos here now because it'd be overkill.

So, where was the promotional effort?
How do you explain that kind of attitude? Two years in a row?
Sorry, simply having an event is not the thing as it running it correctly.

For those of you who are curious, just a little under 8,000 people read that post of mine re this state of disconnectedness to the public last year, which, while far from The Drudge Report daily reader numbers and not even in the top five of my most-popular blog posts of last year, are still considerably more than most of the blogs in South Florida, even ones connected to local newspapers or TV stations.
Just saying...

When you do not perform up to the standards that Hollywood residents and Small Business owners have a reasonable right to expect and demand, then you need to understand that there are necessarily going to be genuine consequences when people who care about the area decide to educate all the people who were not being kept in the loop.

So what's changed in the past year?
Well, if facts on the ground mean anything, nothing, so far as I or any other Hollywood resident can see for themself, based on a walk around the area in question last week, less than a week before tonight's event.
Why?

Why is CONTINUING to do such a completely inadequate job of properly informing Hollywood residents, businesses and stakeholders about a transportation plan that could drastically and adversely affect them, their 
Quality of Life, and their financial bottom line, so acceptable to the Hollywood CRA, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Hollywood City Commission?
It shows a real and continuing lack of insight about human behavior and failure to learn from experience, factors which continue to plague Hollywood and Broward County in the year 2018.

It's not my job or your job to do Hollywood CRA Executive Director Camejo's job or that of his staff -all of whom are well-compensated- for free. Period.
We have a right to expect much better than this.

Dave 

Snapchat: SoBeHoosier

This info below is from the Hollywood CRA's website.
Make of it what you will, keeping in mind that all conclusions are based on a very, very small number of self-selecting people, including those with some conflicts-of-interest, weighing-in on the subject. over-and-over.
In other words, draw your own conclusions but be smart and question the very premise of the project.




Young Circle Roadway Feasibility Study
The Hollywood CRA and Toole Design Group have initiated a Roadway Feasibility Study for Young Circle. This study will examine the feasibility of improving the public realm experience and functioning of Young Circle in Downtown Hollywood.

The goal of this project is to analyze the block structure and collaboratively develop and assess the feasibility of new street cross-sections and a new block structure.Presentation from May 15, 2017
Presentation from May 18, 2017 | Video from May 18, 2017
Presentation from June 20, 2017 | Audio from June 20, 2017

Sun Sentinel | Video from July 14, 2017




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Sunday, September 2, 2012

re Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort - Sara Case of Hollywood's Balance Sheet Blog weighs in on the plausible merits of the City of Hollywood CRA's plan to increase their stake in the Johnson Street project from $10 million to $23 million; Starwood Capital Group jumps on board, but why now?

Above, looking west at Hollywood City Hall, where Tuesday night's very important Hollywood CRA meeting will be held at 6 p.m. September 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.
re Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort - Sara Case of Hollywood's Balance Sheet Blog weighs in on the plausible merits of the City of Hollywood CRA's plan to increase their stake in the project on Johnson Street from $10 million to $23 million; Starwood Capital jumps on board, but why now?


Over the weekend, well-informed Hollywood civic activist and blogger Sara Case posted some thought from her point-of-view on the city's new proposal to stanch the bleeding in the Johnson Street project known as Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort and mentions why she, rather counter-intuitively, supports it, despite the large number of CRA dollars involved.
I urge you to read it before Tuesday night's meeting, which I will be at.

Balance Sheet Blog
MARGARITAVILLE FINANCING
By Sara Case
September 1, 2012, 4:08 PM 
Hollywood residents in need of tax and fee reductions and City employees in need of salary increases …Time to Pay Attention!
As we all know by now, the Margaritaville project has been unable to secure funding from foreign investors as the original plan required.  So now we have a new proposal in which the CRA is to give the developer $23 million for construction financing.  When I learned of this plan, I initially opposed it as one more boondoggle — a massive developer subsidy like Radius, Hollywood Station, WSG, Great Southern, and Block 55, to name a few.
Read the rest of the post at:

My post on this topic from Friday, August 31st, was titled, Important public forum on the proposed Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort is scheduled for Tuesday Sept. 4th at 6 p.m. Chief among topics will be whether the Hollywood CRA should increase their investment in the Lon Tabatchnick project on Johnson Street and the Broadwalk from $10 million to $23 million

Saturday also brought forth this news, which is interesting in ways that I can't get into the details of now, but which I may be able to get into after Tuesday night, depending upon what gets said.

The Miami Herald
Hollywood’s Margaritaville project gets new funding source
By Carli Teproff
August 31, 2012
Margaritaville — the $130 million beach resort Hollywood city leaders have been dreaming about for years — has a new funding source: Starwood Capital, the investment group which once financed high-end hotels such as the St. Regis, W, Westin and Sheratons around the globe.
“We now have the necessary funds to complete the project,” developer Lon Tabatchnik said Thursday. “This is what we were waiting for.”
Read the rest of the article at:

After reading the above, you're more than reasonable if you ask whether or not anyone from Starwood Capital Group will be making themselves available for some serious questioning by Hollywood taxpayers at Tuesday night's meeting -besides City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark, some city staffers and developer Lon Tabatchnick or one of his reps, and, most likely, every single candidate challenging a City Hall incumbent.

Like, well... were they interested in the project much earlier and turn it down because of concerns about some aspect of the overall plan, marketing concept or the strength of the financing, or were they always biding their time in the bushes waiting for Tabatchnick and Company to get desperate enough to finally agree to meet their demands for whatever concession it was they weren't given originally?

It would also be great if someone asked Mr. Tabatchnick, given how over-confident he has appeared to many observers to be, when was the last time that he and his group actually met two of his promises, guarantees or legal deadlines (to the city and its taxpayers) in a row regarding this project?

Isn't that sort of history animating at least some of the opposition in Hollywood to this project getting more CRA funds now?
Yes, it is.

 March 21, 2012  CNBC video: Maria Bartiromo interviews Starwood Capital's CEO Barry Sternlicht.
http://www.executiveinterviews.com/delivery/v1/mini/default.asp?order=U14414

http://www.starwoodcapital.com/Overview.aspx



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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Hollywood civic activist Sara Case's spot-on take on the latest move by Eleanor Sobel, Munilytics, and the need for meaningful audits; Margaritaville

Above, looking west at Hollywood City Hall. September 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Hollywood civic activist Sara Case's spot-on take on the latest move by Eleanor Sobel, Munilytics, and the need for meaningful audits; Margaritaville

As a follow-up to my blog post of Monday titled, Pol who wanted -and got- Hollywood taxpayers to pay $30k for her new FL State Senate office in 2009 now asks FL legislature for audit of Hollywood!
I strongly suggest you read Sara's perspective on the rather-sudden concern shown by FL State Sen. Eleanor Sobel -who represents me as well in Tallahassee- on city spending and expenditures at Hollywood City Hall.

Sara also explains what the much-discussed Munilytics report did and DIDN'T say, since there seems to be a great deal of not only genuine confusion by some Hollywood residents about its representations, but also, sadly, some intentional misrepresentation being floated about by supporters of the Hollywood Police, Fire/Rescue Dept. union members who are SORE LOSERS about Hollywood voters rejecting their arguments in last month's referendum on government pensions.
They keep wanting to fight the battle but the war is over -they lost.

I know because many of these same people have written me angry emails, thinking that I'd post whatever they said about the Hollywood CRA and its spending and legality, regardless of what sort of mis-information they attempted to peddle, perhaps assuming that I didn't know the facts.
That was their mistake.

I've been to more Hollywood CRA meetings and workshops than 99.99% of Hollywood residents.

Hell, I not only posted the information about the pre-bid information workshops here on the blog but also posted the city's public notices here so that more residents and concerned people would show-up for the meetings and get educated about what was and was not happening.

I even wrote here about who some of the candidates were to be the new CRA chief under the newly-restructured organizational chart when the Herald, Sun-Sentinel and local TV stations were completely ignoring it.
(In case you didn't know, Jorge Camejo is the CRA Executive Director.)

I not only took notes but videotaped the meetings to make sure that my notes were correct and so that I was ready in case somebody said or did something of note, good or bad, whether Mayor Bober, the City Commissioners, city staff, the public or the competing developers for the six-acre Johnson Street project at Hollywood Beach and The Broadwalk, that was ultimately won by the Jimmy Buffett-themed Margaritaville, despite my own preference for The Hard Rock proposal as a concept and tourism magnet, however imperfect that was.

I didn't stop attending once Margaritaville's won the bid unanimously despite my own reservations about it.

Yet despite this, I received emails from people who clearly DIDN'T do their homework and thought I'd just pass along their nonsense that failed both the common sense and smell test.
Sorry, no sale.

-----
Balance Sheet Blog
STATE SENATOR’S AUDIT
October 4, 2011, 2:33 PM
Filed under: Budget, City Commission

State Senator Sobel – who in 2009 sought and was granted a $30,000 interest-free, non-recourse loan from the City of Hollywood to renovate 5,000 square feet of office space for her use – has suddenly expressed great concern with the City’s finances. She’s requested that the State of Florida audit Hollywood’s finances and her request has been granted.

Read the rest of Sara's post at:

For more examples of that often-inaccurate, anti-Hollywood CRA mis-information being pushed that I noted above, see some of the reader comments to this article:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Margaritaville resort brings optimism to Hollywood Beach
By Carli Teproff, The Miami Herald
12:00 a.m. EDT, October 5, 2011

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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Broward School Board mtg. re General Counsel semi-finalists is Tuesday at 3 p.m; their Financial Advisory Comm. mtg. is on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.



I actually could've written the following post weeks or even months ago, but it's just as apropos here now, so here goes:

I'll give you a dollar if you can show me even one mention -before today- of who the actual candidates were for the position of Broward Schools General Counsel position -to replace Ed Marko- in the Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel or any local Miami TV newscast.

Well, that dollar of mine isn't going anywhere, which really shows you how despite a story being right in front of them, the actual coverage of local government and agencies in South Florida has never been worse, especially given the technology that's available to them to make sense of what's going on and keep South Florida well-informed.

And have you seen anything noteworthy yet in the local news media on who was named the new CRA Executive Director for the City of Hollywood?

Yet it was newsworthy last year when the last Beach Executive Director, Gil Martinez was fired because of public perceptions -and the belief among his boss, the Hollywood City Commission- that taxpayer money was being wasted, perhaps thru fraud, and that certain other matters weren't being properly addressed, in part, due to stories in the Miami Herald. (Can you say Brazil?)

But an October 7th Herald story, Audit finds no CRA fraud, reads in part:
The audit, which cost the city $65,500, concluded that the agency failed to have proper controls and oversight of its spending, which was often unauthorized, not budgeted and not subjected to a competitive bidding process.
Oh!

Well, the City of Hollywood hired someone a few weeks ago to be the Executive Director for both the Beach and Downtown CRAs. Who are they, what are their qualifications, and what do they plan on doing to regain the Hollywood community's trust that they will be kept 'in-the-loop' and make prudent decisions?
All good questions.

The answer to the first is Jorge Camejo
The answers to the rest, though available now, have YET to appear in the local newspapers or on Miami TV newscasts.

In fact, Camejo's name has STILL never appeared in the Sun-Sentinel two months after he was hired. Not that the Herald has anything to brag about in that respect.

Just more of the same from the sleepwalking South Florida news media members that basically snooze until something awakens them or the public.

Consider the Herald's coverage the past six months on the Ed Marko replacement and retirement stories, a point I shared via an email with Rick Hirsch of the Herald many months ago.

Months before Hirsch was named the Herald's Managing Editor.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/05/2001320/rick-hirsch-named-miami-herald.html

They were completely MIA on that story for months, even while Buddy Nevins of Broward Beat, and to a much-lesser extent, yours truly, was telling people just what was being attempted by the Broward School Board and Supt. James Notter, thru the made-up Emeritus position they were considering creating, a ham-handed attempt to completely emasculate and frustrate the new hire, James D. Stokes.

You remember, that's the position that would have paid Marko a $266,000 annual salary?

Mr. Stokes, the General Counsel-to-be, had the good sense to promptly say non thanks once news about what was really in store for him down here started appearing and the public saw the attempt for what it was: appalling decision-making by people seemingly incapable of ever being right, even when they had the final say.

The ad at the top was published in the Miami Herald on March 1st, 2011


Published in Miami Herald on 2/27/2011

What were they thinking?

The Broward County School Board was poised to approve -- by voice vote, no discussion -- a generous golden parachute for outgoing board general counsel Ed Marko as it was about to hire a new attorney, James Stokes. The board planned to create a one-year ``general counsel emeritus'' job for Mr. Marko, to the tune of more than $266,000 in salary and benefits, so he could look over the shoulder of Mr. Stokes, who was negotiating a salary of between $180,000 to $216,000.

Mr. Stokes, to his credit, pulled the plug on the deal on Monday. And Board Chair Jennifer Gottlieb, wisely, albeit a little late, pulled the item creating the emeritus position until new board members are sworn in. Truth is, this item should be given a deserving burial.

Mr. Stokes, Palm Bay city attorney, objected to having his predecessor hang around for another year. And rightly so. He has 15 years of experience as a government lawyer and, as he pointed out, there's a staff of capable lawyers already serving the board in case he needed some guidance.

Altogether, hiring Mr. Stokes and retaining Mr. Marko would have cost the school district roughly a half-million dollars. This at a time when teachers' pay is flat and the district's budget is hurting?

A 2008 contract between the board and Mr. Marko created the emeritus position for him. Luckily, the proposed $266,000 compensation wasn't part of the contract. So the board might be legally bound to create the job, but it doesn't have to pay him a whopping salary.

Mr. Marko has served as the School Board's attorney since 1968. It's time for him to retire, but the School Board doesn't owe him anything more than his pension and a nice send off.

Meantime, it will have to decide what to do about hiring a new attorney. What an unnecessary brouhaha.

------
See my previous posts on Ed Marko at:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search?q=Ed+Marko

Buddy Nevins at http://www.browardbeat.com/
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