HB Practices Violating Water Restrictions -just the tip of the iceberg

An email I sent earlier this afternoon to the Broward rep for the South Florida Water Management District,
http://www.sfwmd.gov/site/index.php?id=1 explaining who she's dealing with in HB: The Joy Cooper/Mike Good Gang That Can't Shoot Straight.
See http://www.sfwmd.gov/newsr/3_newsrel.html#shortages for info on the water restrictions.

Subject: Water violations already in Hallandale Beach -just the tip of the iceberg
To: "Miya Burt Stewart" mburt@sfwmd.gov
CC: "Tammy Moore" tmoore@sfwmd.gov

Tuesday March 20th, 2007

Dear Ms. Burt-Stewart:

I'm writing this letter to you in your capacity as the Broward representative on the South Florida Water Management District, and more specifically, their imposition of Mandatory Water Use Restrictions Imposed for Lake Okeechobee, Lower East Coast and Upper East Coast.

I don't know how familiar you are with how things are done in the City of Hallandale Beach, but a quick look at you bio on the SFWMD website tells me that you have lived in Hollywood over the years, and thus probably know by either personal experience or thru second-hand horror stories, how incompetent and inefficient, not to say negligent, the officials here can be, not to mention, their minions at the various departments, who can't seem to handle even the simplest easy to resolve problem.

(Whether it's ensuring the functioning of sinks in the Mens restrooms at the HB beach -2 of 4 have been out since Thanksgiving, only one works now, or fixing the light bulbs on their own city signs on US-1. Nope, it's beyond their ability, as evidenced by the fact that the lights facing HB's municipal complex on US-1 have now been out for two long years, or, even more remarkable, how the street light above it, right in front of HB city hall and the police dept. HQ, which HB is responsible for, has now been out for over 5 weeks.)

I mention this to you and your staff as a bit of warning, because days after watching on TV and reading the news about the agency's actions last week, almost as if I could've predicted it, this past Sunday, at approx. 7 pm. -when it was still warm and about 80 minutes before sundown- while riding my bike along Hallandale Beach Blvd., I saw water sprinklers watering the median strip on HBB west of NE 8th Street.
No telling how long they'd been on!!!

This is, by the way, not more than 100 feet from where when construction work was being done on HBB over the past two years, road safety barricades were piled next to, around and on fire hydrants.
Yes, that's how the City of Hallandale Beach supervises projects, and that lack of attention to detail is readily apparent all around the city.
This time, I caught them early on, though they will likely try to blame FDOT, their default position for everything.

Over the past 2-3 years, I was told numerous times by people in the Broward County Traffic & Engineering Dept., as well as vendors and contractors actually doing projects for the City of HB, that, with the exception of the City of Fort Lauderdale, no municipality in Broward has a worse reputation for NOT abiding by the law when it comes to their proscribed duties, and that they constantly fingerpoint to try to weasel out of their own liability.
Conversations I later had with MasTech contractors doing work for the City of HB only served to confirm those earlier BCTE conversations.
Just so you know who you're dealing with.

Please have your staff bcc me on any future communication the agency has with the City of Hallandale Beach so that I can keep my friends and blog readers properly apprised.
I'm sure this won't be the first time your hear about violations in HB, take my word for it.

Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,
DBS,
Hallandale Beach, FL

http://www.HallandaleBeachBlog.blogspot.com/
http://www.SouthBeachHoosier.blogspot.com/