BrowardBeat's Buddy Nevins zeroes-in on Broward pols' hypocrisy over red-light cameras -and Angelo Castillo's name comes quickly to mind among some

Where's that red-light camera warning sign?
Looking west on W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. approaching N.W 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, Florida. About 6:50 p.m. on April 24, 2011.
Photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Where did you say that red-light camera warning sign was, again?
No, it's not that silver-colored one next to the curb, that the Merge/Bike lane sign. Looking west on W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, Florida. April 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.


Oh, there you are, red-light camera warning sign, intentionally placed right between two trees!
You only see the sign above because of the reflection of my camera flash, there are no street lights nearby. You'd almost say they were hiding it, yes?
Looking west on W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. & N.W 10th Terrace, Hallandale Beach, Florida. April 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.


My own comments about Buddy Nevins' new post on red-light cameras at BrowardBeat, which I first read about around 10:15 p.m. Monday night, follow his own critical comments.

I read it while watching a new episode of NBC-TV's terrific and re-configured Law & Order: Los Angeles, which had a common element of the real-life murder last November of noted Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen thrown in, which I immediately caught despite not having read about the episode online or in print, but still felt uncomfortable about.
Chasen was the victim of a random shooting by a guy on a bicycle; in the episode, it was a hit.

Still, it was a hell of a compelling story well-told and is exactly why everyone I know is watching this show after the recent cast changes were made, with cast regular Alfred Molina sent from the DA's office to the detective squad, replacing the departed Skeet Ulrich, whose character was killed on the show a few weeks back after it finally returned to the air.

Dick Wolf Must Really Hate Skeet Ulrich
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/04/dick_wolf_must_really_hate_ske.html

Watching LOLA after Fox-TV's The Chicago Code is definitely a habit I could grow accustomed to. http://www.fox.com/chicagocode/

TheWrap
Ronni Chasen Laid to Rest, but Hollywood Can't Shake the Shock
By Sharon Waxman & Dominic Patten
Published: November 21, 2010 @ 10:31 am

They came by the hundreds from all across the country and within Hollywood. Every senior PR professional and most entertainment journalists but also composers, executives and movie stars -- to pay respects to Ronni Chasen, laying to rest the beloved publicist just five days after she was killed.

The primary message at the packed midday funeral service in the bright, fall air was of shock and loss. Elegant eulogies conveyed how fresh the grief was -- not yet a week removed from her senseless killing at the hands of a person or people still at large.

Read the rest of the post at: http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/indignation-hollywood-friends-set-bury-ronni-chasen-22675

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Broward Beat
TV Highlights Hypocrisy Over Red Light Cameras
By Buddy Nevins

Channel 6-NBC Miami proved tonight that elected officials who support red light cameras are hypocrites.

The report by Willard Shepard featured the red light camera Pembroke Pines has installed westbound at Pembroke Road and SW 129^th Avenue. This is at the southern entrance of Century Village.

I want to see any official claim how these particular Pembroke Pines cameras are being used as a safety measure. Their nose is growing.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/tv-highlights-hypocracy-over-red-light-cameras/

There was no video of this story on NBC-6 website as of 11:30 p.m. Monday night; I'll re-check Tuesday and post it on the blog if found so you all can see it for yourselves.

See also:
Broward Politics
Red light camera spokesman didn't like yesterday's post
By Brittany Wallman April 19, 2011 10:37 AM
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/04/red_light_camera_spokesman_did.html

Per the above, I should mention that every time I have posted something on my blog about the mendacious red-light camera situation in Broward County or Florida, esp. anything that is at all critical of them -which is each post on red-light cameras!- I quite suddenly get lots of hits from the home of American Traffic Solutions Inc., i.e the Phoenix area. Hmm-m...

Also, per the arrogant, condescending and patronizing tone of the note above in the Brittany Wallman post from Pembroke Pines Comm. Angelo Castillo -did I leave out an adjective?- as I stated recently to some of you via email, I'm really starting to fully grasp the full-dimension of my misplaced positive words about Castillo last year, as he has increasingly become for me the poster boy for the pro-govt., know-it-all Nanny State in Broward County that brooks no disagreement from its citizens.

Castillo's 'my way or the highway' attitude expressed in that note above is precisely the opposite of what an elected official should be saying right now in Broward, and, again, is about the last thing I'd have thought I'd be hearing out of him, based on his comments to me a year ago.
But make them he does, and with increasing frequency!

In one new story after another on Pembroke Pines -where my youngest sister lives- he somehow keeps finding himself on the side of everyone but the average taxpayer, having supported one pink elephant or govt-funded fiasco after another, and thus far, at least as the stories have been reported, there never seems to be even the slightest amount of doubt on his part about his actions, words or votes.

It must be great to be so sure of yourself, despite the observable, quantifiable facts all around you. General Custer must've had those traits in spades I think.

Frankly, I've wondered for the six months since Election Day why the Miami Herald never gave his truly disastrous County Comm. run last year the full Quincy, M.E. post-mortem it deserved, the sort that we have become accustomed to in other cities, since Castillo seems by most accounts to have run THE single-worst election campaign of any Broward candidate last year, esp. for one so well-financed and known.

The final totals for that three-way primary: Sharief 6,973 Castillo 2,415

Despite he and I having exchanged several friendly emails early last year, Castillo never once contacted me on when he was actually coming into HB to talk to the residents of the city living in that District 8, which had formerly been represented by Diana Wasserman-Rubin, until she was FINALLY arrested.

(Frankly, I don't know that he ever visited, since nobody I know ever heard about such a thing, which explains a lot in retrospect.)

I'd have been more than happy to post the meeting info here and remind people in emails, just as I would've been for (eventual winner) Barbara Sharief as well, because I wanted HB residents to take full advantage of the opportunity, however fleeting.
But despite having all my contact info, he never did anything to communicate.

-----
REMINDER: Don't forget that Comm. Barbara Sharief will be speaking at HB Comm. Keith London's Resident Forum at the HB Cultural Center Tuesday at 6 p.m.
http://www.co.broward.fl.us/Commission/District8/Pages/Default.aspx

Sharief has been a voice of logic, reason and sanity on the red-light camera issue, and has refused to be intimidated, or swallow whole the laughably bogus claims of local officials like Hallandale Beach and Pembroke Pines' mayors, Joy Cooper and Frank Ortis, that fall apart as soon as you examine them for facts, not spin.

It's telling that like Buddy Nevins says in his post, if there are problematic intersections that are responsible for a larger number of speeding-related accidents than seems reasonable, why aren't local city managers and mayors directing local police resources there to make their presence felt and change the dynamic?

The sort of thing that would have been common sense years ago in other cities I have lived in like Bloomington, Evanston and Wilmette, and which is still probably the first thing that happens in the cities and towns where many of you reading this now live.

That doesn't happen here in South Florida, though, for the very same reason that the HBPD doesn't care about all the speeding on U.S.-1, esp. at night, and while you are more likely to see someone pulled-over there by an Aventura policeman than you are a HB one. They don't want to do what's simple and necessary.

Instead, as I've mentioned so many times here, with photos, what happens is that rather than locate the second red-light camera in HB somewhere where it might actually do some public safety good, it's deliberately placed in a location, one block east of I-95, in order to nab drivers eager to get onto I-95 and out of the daily HB gridlock.

So tell me -since Mayor Cooper and City Manager Mark Antonio won't say publicly- why are there NEVER any HB police cars stationed near there if it really is a problem?

If Mayor Cooper were really interested in public safety, as she said she was a few weeks ago in her laughable performance with Mayor Ortis before the Broward County Commission, to cite but one example, why is it that for well over a year, despite everyone in the city seemingly knowing about it, for a few blocks on one of the three streets that directly lead to the HB Police Dept, it's pitch-black at night?

Yes, pitch-black, just like the Police Dept. and City Hall parking lots were so frequently for 6-9 months at a time, numerous times over the past few years, a subject I frequently mentioned at City Commission meetings and which the myopic and mendacious HB Police Chief at the time, Thomas Magill, completely ignored, along with the mayor and the city commission.

(The same way Magill continually ignored the broken parking lot light nearest the ONE security camera in front on the U.S.-1 side of the municipal building, having been out 99% of the time since the security camera were installed over three years ago. It's still out as of last night. And what about the city's liability in case something unfortunate happens? City Attorney David Jove takes the who-cares route, ignoring that possibility. month-after-month, year-after-year. Personally, I don't think the city's insurance company will take such a happy-go-lucky view, which is sure problematic for city taxpayers in the future in the event of a lawsuit.)

That pitch-black street would be Old Dixie Highway, the same street that's right near the city's largest park, Blusten Park, which many kids walk to and ride their bikes to and from everyday. The park's lights are usually turned off about 9:15 and then it's every man -or kid- for himself.

Safety is not what they care about in HB, revenue is.

Above, (diagonal) Old Dixie Highway looking north from S.E. 7th Street towards the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. HQ and parking lot on the right, two blocks away. The lights you see on the left are the auxilary lights at the city's municipal pool at Blusten Park. Hallandale Beach, Florida.
April 24, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The photo above was taken WITH a flash, otherwise you'd see nothing but arc lights emanating from the pool area.

My prior posts on red-light cameras can be found at
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search?q=red-light

Because of the number of posts I've written on the subject, and the particular template and design I use on my blog, after you click the URL and go to the most recent one, continue to the end and right below the Google Ad Sense ad you will see "Older Posts."
Click that to see prior post on the subject in reverse chron order.

Scott Galvin's myopic FL-17 campaign never did the things it needed most to win: a persuasive/strategic outreach to Broward voters early this year

The Scott Galvin direct mail campaign literature in question.



Though it may look like it's rural Alabama or Georgia as you zoom past it on AMTRAK, that sign actually says "Welcome to Broward County." Above, August 20, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier of northbound W. Dixie Highway as it approaches the Broward and Miami-Dade county line, with unincorporated M-D to the south and Hallandale Beach to the north. This is part of the Florida 17th congressional district that has its primary on Tuesday.

"Know your universe" is the number-one rule of politics that I learned over many years of working on and being a high-ranking official of a successful national political campaign, after years of working on state and local campaigns and seeing what works and what doesn't work -and why- including in Dade County, as I've previously written here.

Trust me, all the hard work and faith of your volunteers and friends is completely wasted if you as a candidate don't have the heart to stick to a demanding strategy that puts real expectations on you to get out of your 'comfort zone,' and thereby force your opponent(s) to have to work much harder than they ever imagined.

Going the unconventional route, which, counter-intuitively in South Florida, means a campaign plan that emphasizes you projecting internal logic and common sense reasoning in your answers to questions, while you draw a contrast with your opponents continuing to make expensive empty promises, is one way to break out of the pack and draw attention.

When I first heard that North Miami city council member Scott Galvin was planning on running for the FL-17 congressional seat being vacated by Kendrick Meek due to what I saw as Meek's nonsensical long-shot effort to be elected to the U.S. Senate, I must admit that I was intrigued.

More accurately, I was intrigued at the prospect that someone whom I'd generally heard pretty good things about when I asked some usually well-informed people, might actually be that rare South Florida candidate with the smarts to know that in order to win in a congressional district of its peculiar shape and all-over-the-map voter demographics, with him very much in the middle of a pack of nearly a dozen candidates, he'd have to throw the traditional cookie-cutter political campaign out and go unconventional.

Not Robert Redford's Bill McKay unconventional in Michael Ritchie's 1972 The Candidate, obviously, but whatever it's 21st-Century South Florida lower-key congressional equivalent might be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K78U6XsHsg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkGhplApYt4



Especially when running against so many candidates of middling-to-little accomplishment or talent, none of whom physically looked like him, as he has been constantly been reminded of, over-and-over again by the South Florida news media, on those rare occasions this summer when they deigned to leave the cocoon of their air-conditioned offices and mix it up with the vox populi in the sweltering heat.

(Was there ever a summer in South Florida where so many political stories were written while never leaving an air-conditioned office, and done almost entirely by telephone? Discuss.)

No, in order to win in this environment, Galvin would have to run a campaign that was by turns compelling to voters and the news media, based on his unconventional campaign that took more than the average number of calculated chances, since the alternative was to simply play-by-the-book and lose.

He would also have to be entirely comfortable taking the attack to them, which in this race, would mean telling the entire truth about his opponents while waging an offensive campaign as the only White candidate in a majority minority CD, spelling out the specifics of what would make him the best representative of this crazy-quilt district, which will hopefully be changed a lot after re-districting so that NE Miami-Dade is part of it and Broward is not.

How many times have we heard that the best defense is a good offense?

But it's true for a reason and if you can recognize the organizational and structural weaknesses of your opponents -i.e. they're being completely unknowns in Broward County- and carve-out spheres of influence for yourself in Broward, bulwarks if you will, that force the other candidates to expend a disproportionate amount of time and resources battling for those areas, your initial investment of time and energy can pay dividends later in the race while you work on the undecideds.

After all, it's not a two-way race, it's a ten-way race, and you aren't going to go from unknown to 50.1% overnight.
Know your universe.

One of the ways you do that now, of course, is to take the initiative and try to find out what non-elected officials are looked upon by the community as straight-shooters whose advice people generally listen to.

What you don't do is talk to the area's sorry collection of poverty pimps and the usual suspects with connection to the Steve Clark M-D Building in downtown Miami or at Dinner Key Auditorium, but real civic activists who don't personally profit financially from their work in the community. (The better to insulate yourself from future revelations.)

Frankly, the sort of serious high-minded people whom you don't have to waste time and resources on later reminding them to vote because they are, in fact, so busy being your shock troops at getting their own large circle of friends and acquaintances to the polls, you can instead concentrate on whether you need to devote time and energy on some areas that are under-performing or simply cut the cord and write-off some neighborhoods as un-winnable when you are running against so many opponents.

But in order to get those trusted community people on your side, you have to reach out to them.

Back in early January, I sent out an email to a few dozen friends and acquaintances throughout the Broward portion of FL-17 asking them to let me know if they ever heard about any
appearances by Galvin or any of the other FL-17 candidates, so I could arrange to be there and see them in action for myself.

Then I decided to set up separate Google Alerts for Galvin and certain of the other FL-17 candidates, so that I would have a good working intelligence base for following the various words and moves of the candidates, whether in print on TV or in blog posts.

I still have all of them in my computer, accessible in just seconds, and it has proven invaluable, but not for the reasons that I'd have originally imagined.

Now given how things have gone the last few months, where Galvin has seemingly done none of the things I think he ought to have done, has a website that is average at best, etc., I suppose I could mention some of the names of the dozens of such community people in the Broward portion of FL-17 whom I respect in Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and over in Pembroke Pines.

Folks that clearly should've been contacted by Scott Galvin and his team back in January and February if they wanted to be taken seriously NOW.

People who are persuasive as a result of their own hard work and ethics, dedication to their community's betterment and genuine honesty, even if you disagree with them on individual issues from time-to-time.

But they never received a phone call to arrange a personal meeting, never received an email saying that Galvin would be at so-and-so's and would like to speak with them alone after wards.

That's how you do it, especially when you don't have a lot of money to invest in sizable TV ad buys to keep your name recognition high in areas where you are otherwise a complete unknown, despite only living a few miles away.

So what was the Scott Galvin campaign strategy, exactly?

Nobody I sent that head's-up email to all those months ago ever heard from him, and they remain as flummoxed as I am now knowing that he had to run an upbeat, issues-oriented campaign that was decidedly different than his blah opponents, and has instead run a poor mishmash of a campaign that continually emphasized issues that have nothing to do with the job he is seeking: U.S. Representative.

That's why I titled my post about him on Friday the way that I did, FL-17's Scott Galvin isn't running for Class President, he's running for Congress. Different rules and standards apply.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/fl-17s-scott-galvin-isnt-running-for.html
after having previously taken him to task here on May 20th,
The FL-17 race that Scott Galvin ought to be hitting his stride in, is actually showing his immaturity. Has Galvin ALREADY blown it? http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/fl-17-race-that-scott-galvin-ought-to.html


"I'll do things differently."
Actually, that's what you needed to do in order to get the nomination.
News flash: You didn't do it.

That Galvin is so much more liberal than me I understood, this area being what it is, but just because you are liberal doesn't mean that you don't have to make any effort to reach moderate Dems like myself. And what did you talk about in your campaign literature?

Beach renourishment, traffic congestion, libraries, parks...?

Those are not issues to get you elected to Congress, they're issues to get you in line to replace Sally Heyman on the Miami-Dade County Commission, which perhaps would be best for all concerned.
What's his opinion of ending the tyranny of congressional earmarks?

It's my educated guess that his calendar since January 1st is littered with lots of wasted opportunities that he can likely not recover from, which is why perhaps what this race really proved about Galvin was that he's not ready to be a national prime-time player.

Maybe setting his sights on the Miami-Dade County Board is the thing for him to do.

But if he wants to do that, he and his supporters need to learn a few lessons.

First, don't put campaign signs on school property.


Above and below, July 31, 2010 photos by South Beach Hoosier of Scott Galvin campaign posters on school property in Hallandale Beach. They were there for weeks. Learn the rules of where you can place campaign signs.


And that goes for supporters of FL-17 candidate Phillip Brutus and U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, who for months have had their signs in all sorts of places that are forbidden.
Is that on church property or the public right-of-way?
You decide.
In any case, it's been there for a while.

July 21, 2010 photos by South Beach Hoosier.


Yes, that's definitely a cross on the top of that building.


Second, don't approve photos or material for your campaign literature without knowing that you came by them honestly and legally.

In the case of the photos of Hallandale Beach City Hall and Hollywood City Hall on the cover of the material I received in my mailbox last week, I know that's not the case because they are MY photos, ones I took and have used on this blog.






When you do a Google search for Hollywood City Hall and then click Images, what is the first photo that comes up of all the possible photos in the world?
Let's see...


August 20, 2010 screen shot by South Beach Hoosier


Yes, it's MY photo, as the URL is listed on the description.
In fact, the shape of the clouds in the sky and the composition of the parked bicycles prove it.

It's less than a 20-minute drive from North Miami City Hall to Hallandale Beach City Hall, and another 15 minutes up to Hollywood if you don't catch red lights all the way up.

If you and your campaign saw the photos on my blog and liked the idea of using photos of the city halls in the 17th district in your campaign ads, since I can't patent an idea, per se, you and your campaign could've sent someone to take shots for your ads and that would be that.

Instead, though, in the laziest and most egregiously obvious way possible, you took something that didn't belong to you, did so without asking me or notifying me, without any credit on the material itself and on and on.
And now everyone knows it.
Congratulations!

But your campaign made damn sure that your mailer had a little Union Bug on it for the benefit of those who find that important?
So, I give up, which is it, attention to detail or no attention at all?

That sort of oblivious, half-assed behavior with respect to the use of my photos in these campaign ads is symptomatic of the larger problems of the 2010 Galvin campaign that looks likely to come to an end on Tuesday night -bad communications.

My vote against Galvin on Tuesday will be with that in mind.

Above, August 20, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier in Hollywood, FL for early voting.

------

FYI: Due to a problem with the scanner, I decided to take shots of the Scott Galvin campaign literature while I was at the Panera Bread, below, located on East Hallandale Beach Blvd., which is why the photos aren't as good as they'd ordinarily be, and why you can see part of the table in the shots or ceiling lights reflecting on the material.

Above, the Panera Bread in Hallandale Beach with The Duo condominium towers overlooking it on the south side and the Diplomat Golf Course on the north side.

My coffee of choice there is hazelnut with a bit of honey and cinnamon.

South Florida Needs to Emulate Pembroke Pines Approach re Roads/Traffic: ACTION!

My comments follow the article.
___________________________________
www.sun-sentinel.com/community/news/pembroke_pines/sfl-flbpines12xxsbdec16,0,1462881.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Pembroke Pines rebuilding I-75 ramps at Pines Boulevard
Lanes to be closed weekends, nights; work to go on 14 months
By Michael Turnbell
December 16, 2008

Pembroke Pines
When the Pines Boulevard interchange at Interstate 75 opened in 1985, the area was considered out in the boondocks.

The Pines interchange, like others along I-75, was built to rural standards with high-speed curves and little space for merging onto the connecting road.

But what worked then doesn't hold up under today's traffic-choking volumes.

That's why the city is replacing the interchange's wide, curving ramps with straight ramps — one exit for both eastbound and westbound traffic — that join Pines Boulevard at right angles similar to exits on Interstate 95 in south Broward County.

"When you come off 75, everybody's moving at a high speed and then they have to quickly merge over to the left onto Pines," said Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis. "It's a huge safety issue."

The new ramps will create two, four-way intersections on each side of the overpass and lead drivers exiting I-75 to a traffic light, instead of directly onto Pines Boulevard.

Four new traffic signals are planned for Pines Boulevard — two at the new exit and entry ramps and two at 145th and 148th avenues, which are the entrances to new shopping centers on the east and west sides of I-75.

On the east side, drivers headed in and out of the new Shops of Pembroke Gardens, built by Duke Realty Corp. of Cincinnati, are using a temporary signal at Pines at 145th.

On the west side, developer KRG/CREC of Indianapolis can't open Cobblestone Plaza shopping center until the traffic signal at Pines Boulevard and 148th is installed.

Ortis said he has asked the state to activate the 148th Avenue signal ahead of the project's January 2010 completion.
Drivers can expect lanes and ramps to be closed at night and on weekends.

"We are asking motorists to be patient while we reconfigure the interchange during the next 14 months," said city engineer Joe McLaughlin said.

Although Pines Boulevard is a state road, the city agreed last year to take over the job from the Florida Department of Transportation to accelerate the road work.

The city is paying for the $11 million project upfront. The state will reimburse the city in 2012, when it originally expected to have funds available to do the work. Developers on both sides of I-75 are contributing $2.6 million plus covering any cost overruns.

Michael Turnbell can be reached at mturnbell@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4155 or 561-243-6550.
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I loved when this first opened up because going north on the new I-75 on my way back up to Chicago/Evanston, after coming back home for the holidays down here (at my mother's then-place near The Falls, at S. Dixie Highway and S.W. 136th Street, once you got up towards then-western Pines, you could really, really FLY!!!

The only place in South Florida where that was true.

It was very similar at the time to parts of I-75 South, south of Tampa-St. Pete going towards Port Charlotte, where I'd always make a pit-stop on my trips south and visit a friend, who had already become a popular high school English teacher in his first job.
That was back when Charlotte County was the fastest-growing county in the whole country, full of Midwestern transplants, can-do enthusiasm and Cubs and Reds ball caps.

Miles and miles of wide roads with no cars on them!
Especially at night!!!

Those roads were so much fun to ride.

Sometimes, you wouldn't see another car for 2-3 miles, and when you did, they were going at least 80 or so.

And naturally, almost without exception, at least once before you got to Palm Beach County, you'd hear the great beginning storm percussion of Christopher Cross' Ride Like the Wind, so you'd have no choice but to turn up the volume and sing along, especially the iconic Michael McDonald back-up vocals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9wULOlc6o

I was born the son of a lawless man.
Always spoke my mind with a gun in my hand.
Lived nine lives
gunned down ten.
Gonna ride like the wind.

And I got such a long way to go.
To make it to the border of Mexico.
So I'll ride like the wind.
Ride like the wind.
Ride like the wind.


Our little Broward mini-Autobahn!
How I do miss it!

In the past 20 years, the closest thing I've experienced to that kind of fun driving, especially after being in the cramped Washington, D.C. area, where speed is just an abstract idea, was heading west on I-66 on Fall Sunday afternoons when the Redskins weren't playing, and my friends and I would head out to the bucolic hills and mountains of West Virginia for the day.

We'd get up early Sunday morning and after the prerequisite stop at the IHOP or Denny's and back on the road by 8 a.m., as long as we studiously avoided the areas known for attracting the "brunch crowd" or "horse crowd" going west, we were set for a nice steady speed with music to relax and just unwind.
(That's one of the things that I miss the most about being down here, surrounded by flat land and traffic -that tangible sense of movement with winding hills )

And coming back to Arlington, with the sun going down over the hills and the foliage whizzing past us, and starting to pick up WBZ-Boston or WCBS-New York on our car radio around 7 p.m., well, it was easy to forget for a while what sort of new mini-crisis would greet us the following day, the big Beltway news story which you'd have to have an informed opinion on.

I especially recommend that you consider the comments below of Pembroke Pines Commissioner Angelo Castillo, within the context of his longer comments:

"...Implementing better traffic management solutions citywide continues to be a top priority for all of us at City Hall. I think it's important to note that while other cities talk about traffic, we in Pines are actually doing things to make things better. That's what our residents demand -- action, not talk...."

That guy is 100% right.

Reader comments at:
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/south-florida-sun-sentinel/TLMR9QIRO7CL7VFTE