Curious news regarding Florida East Coast Realty's property next to The Mardi Gras Casino proves -yet again- the prescience of Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist Csaba "Chuck" Kulin

Some curious development news regarding Florida East Coast Realty proves -yet again- the common sense and prescience of Hallandale Beach and Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin

As my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward civic activist Csaba "Chuck" Kulin astutely said at the time when Florida East Coast Realty (FECR) demanded a sweetheart deal from City Manager Renee C. Miller on the huge fines they owed at a HB CRA meeting in March 2013, despite their NOT having done everything they were required to do first, as other HB businesses would have to do, FECR completely played Hallandale Beach City Hall officials and our City Commission for rubes.

They did so by selling Miller, Mayor Joy Cooper and the City Commission -but NOT the bewildered and concerned residents in the Commission Chambers- on the patently ridiculous idea that they would actually do something positive for both themselves and the community with this property located south of the eastern entrance to the Mardi Gras Casino -formerly the Hollywood Dog Track- where a series of produce markets have been located over the past few years, and just opposite Atlantic Shores Blvd.

This Google Maps Street View photo below is from July 2014 and looks southward at the eastern U.S.-1 entrance to The Mardi Gras Casino, where FECR's property is opposite their sign, on the south side. 

My first post about this bad deal for Hallandale Beach taxpayers and lovers of common sense:

February 8, 2013

Friday begins a very bumpy couple of weeks for real estate developer Jerome Hollo and his plan to NOT pay Hallandale Beach taxpayers the $450,000 that Florida East Coast Realty owes them. And a storm is coming...

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/friday-begins-very-bumpy-couple-of.html

Do you recall the vague nonsense they spouted about a "New Orleans-styled" hotel they said they'd build there, which, quite curiously, had the same exact specs as a hotel once previously proposed in the city? 
Csaba saw right through it and said as much to me sitting next to me in the Commission Chambers when it happened.

Then he said that and more when he spoke during public comments against giving them a sweetheart deal.

I can't recall whether I spoke against it before or after Csaba, but I asked the city to produce proof that FECR had met city's requirements. The first thing you'd expect they'd have produced, right. 

To nobody's surprise, HB City Hall bureaucrats could NOT produce any tangible proof -got angry that I even asked!- even while I had photos on me (which I didn't use) that showed FECR hadn't fulfilled the requirements more than three months after-the-fact.

So much for any lingering expectations of anyone in the room or watching on TV who thought that HB City Hall still clung to any notions of at least trying to appear to be fair and even-handed in its treatment of businesses in HB.

I should mention that this news about the FECR "plan" completely shocked Dan Atkins and the execs at Mardi Gras, who were VERY UPSET about being blindsided and first finding-out about "the plan" after-the-fact, instead of via one of their many pals at HB City Hall who like to whisper sweet nothings into their ears.

And now, as if we needed a big exclamation point to the whole sorry episode, we now see the proof, via the always-reliable Brian Bandell and his article on this subject Friday at the South Florida Business Journal that Csaba was right all along.

As if some of us didn't know that more than two years ago!

Dave

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth
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South Florida Business Journal

Realty profits on sale of Hallandale site to retail developer 

June 19, 2015, 7:33am EDT  

By Brian Bandell 

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/morning-edition/2015/06/florida-east-coast-realty-profits-on-sale-of.html

@SFlaBizBandell You'd think by now #HallandaleBeach showing overt favoritism re Code Comp 2 certain Biz wld get attention of @BrowardIG. No

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) June 19, 2015

@SFlaBizBandell #HallandaleBeach CM gave #FECR sweetheart deal via fine foregiveness despite them NOT fulfilling city requirements w/cleanup

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) June 19, 2015

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Csaba Kulin and I re the Long Trail of Broken Promises, Alibis & Excuses from City of Hallandale Beach's elected officials, City Manager Miller and Police Chief Flournoy re self-evident safety problems for residents/visitors along NE 14th Avenue; photos

Looking south on NE 14th Avenue from Atlantic Shores Blvd., Hallandale Beach, FL. March 31, 2014 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Below is an email that was sent this afternoon by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin to Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and the following: Hallandale Beach Commissioners Anthony A. Sanders, Alexander Lewy and Bill Julian, City Manager Renee Miller, Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy, Assistant City Manager and CRA Director Daniel Rosemond, City Attorney V. Lynn Whitfield, along with dozens of other HB residents, both those living on or near the heavily-traveled NE 14th Avenue corridor who have been under assault since that road first began construction in February of 2013, as well as those who live elsewhere but commiserate because it's a perfect example of finger-pointing in this city by both elected and appointed officials at Hb City Hall.

The construction revolves around some desperately-needed storm water pipes, after the city has has had years and years of flooding, especially in Northeast Hallandale Beach.

Keep in mind as you read this that this small city that's only 4.2 square miles to begin with, has some tangible geographical constraints that make getting around difficult even in the best of times, and especially during the tourist season, which makes the mess that's been taking place along NE 14th Avenue especially problematic: we have both the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway on the city's east side, with 1-95 to the west, plus numerous impassable canals.
This, in a city with ONLY ONE east-west street that runs throughout it -Hallandale Beach Blvd., where traffic goes to die in SE Broward and become part of gridlock history.

This is made worse by the fact that we have less than a handful of two-way north-south streets east of usually gridlocked U.S.-1/Federal Highway, the road that serves as the very spine of the city, interconnecting it to the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County to the south and the City of Hollywood to the north. 
U.S-1 is one of just two two-way north-south streets that span the length of the city, the other one being State Road A1A/Ocean Drive over on the beach, which again has Hollywood to the north at its intersection with HBB, and the Village of Golden Beach and Miami-Dade County to the south.

-----

April 9, 2014

Mayor Joy Cooper,

I am sorry you had to experience the indignities of obscene language and gestures the same way as the law abiding residents of N.E. 14^th Avenue had been subjected to for well over a year.

I asked the City Commission a number of times for help. Mayor, you tried to pacify me with promises, City Manager Miller did the same and Police Chief Flournoy said that as “manpower” allows he will enforce the One Way Street violators.

During the March 17, 2014 City Commission Meeting  I stated that we only saw one time a police officer handing out traffic tickets. You did NOT believe me.
I have proof from our police department that only two tickets were issued during the past four months, both on November 30, 2013.

When I met with Police Chief Flournoy on April 2, 2014 he said that “even those two citations should NOT have been issued”.
Chief Flournoy told me that ’signage and markings on N.E. 14^th Avenue are NOT sufficient and the citations would not stand up court’. The Chief said that ‘it is the city’s responsibility to properly mark the street and install proper signage’.

In my opinion it is inexcusable that our city is unable to mark and install signage to make a One Way Street legal. The City placed our residents in danger and created a risk of liability for the City in case of an accident.

Mayor, we like you to tell us when will the City install legal marking and signs so the police can start to enforce the law immediately?

Please do NOT tell us that we have already suffered over a year and we are used to the danger so a few more months do NOT matter.

The residents of 14^th Avenue hope to see the legal markings and signage by the April 22, 2014 community meeting to be sponsored by the City. 

The City Commission has two main functions, making policy and oversight of the operation of the City. We hope that in your oversight capacity you investigate who knew what and when in this unfortunate misunderstanding and share it with the residents.

I attached a couple of pictures to illustrate the current situation on NE 14^th Avenue.

Sincerely

Csaba Kulin
President, Fairways North, Inc. 

Looking south from 600 NE 14th Avenue.

-----

The self-evident lack of concern the City of Hallandale Beach and the contractor involved in this project have shown for the safety and health for the residents in that area, who've been treated like prisoners in their own neighborhood, is nothing short of shocking, even by this city's infamous low standards.

Over the past year, from my visits to Csaba and Susan's home, I've taken LOTS of photos illustrating the points that he makes so well above, and have accompanied him when, together, we've measured the distance across Atlantic Shores Blvd. and compared it to the much-shorter distance on NE 14th Avenue, since for reasons that defy logic and common sense, Comm. Alexander Lewy is strangely insisting on changing the parking equation on NE 14th Avenue -once the construction is finished- to angled parking, just like on Atlantic Shores Blvd..

This, despite the fact that it was already changed from angled to its heretofore parallel parking-to-the-curb status a number of years ago so that additional numbers of parking spaces could be created for residents and visitors.

Why would Lewy and the city intentionally want to go backwards in time and create more problems?

It's a reasonable question to ask: Why would a HB City Commissioner who is required to resign his post in August (in order to run for the FL House 100 primary) suddenly wants to micromanage parking in this area full of angry residents when he was completely unconcerned 

with the negative effects of this botched construction project, to say nothing of the very self-evident safety points that Csaba has repeatedly made? 

It's very, very curious.

In any case, angled parking on only the east side of 14th Street is FAR TOO SHORT an area to safely maneuver, since the lack of space necessary to properly back-up without being IN the road, allows no margin for error for drivers and those already on the road.

It's obvious the first time you see it -and yet...

I've taken tons of photos of Atlantic Shores Blvd. and NE 14th Avenue proving these points, so...

Looking south on NE 14th Avenue from Atlantic Shores Blvd., Hallandale Beach, FL. March 31, 2014 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

Even today, after over a year of haphazard construction and coating the area and the inside of residents apts. & condos/cars with dirt, and after I myself have nearly been hit about three separate times by cars driving on the sidewalk or driving the wrong way, the City of Hallandale Beach can't explain why there never was a mobile watering system in place that would keep the massive amounts of dust down to a minimum, as is typical of projects this large that involve moving and shifting tons of buried dirt, road and asphalt.

When you add the large number of residents living in the area just feet away, many who suffer from existing health problems, it really makes you wonder why so little intelligent thought was 

given to this project's cumulative effect on them in the first place, and how little attention to detail there is in general at HB City Hall under the current crew, since they had plenty of time to put remedial actions in place.

But they didn't.

As for the HB Police Chief, you can see for yourself by the recitation that Csaba makes above, despite knowing what he did, when he did, and despite the persistent and legitimate public complaints from Csaba on behalf of his own tenants and neighbors along the street apprising him of the problems, along with the pleas of others, Chief Flournoy has yet again failed to act and respond in a satisfactory manner for HB residents, and once again failed to give the public the sort of serious response they were entitled to.

Instead, for all practical purposes, Police Chief Flournoy just shrugged his shoulders.

Just more of the same sort of unsatisfactory attitude and results from him we've come to expect over the past few years.

Surprise!

Friday begins a very bumpy couple of weeks for real estate developer Jerome Hollo and his plan to NOT pay Hallandale Beach taxpayers the $450,000 that Florida East Coast Realty owes them. And a storm is coming...

View Larger Map

Above, looking south from the southwest corner of U.S.-1 & Atlantic Shores Blvd., back when it actually had an operating business, near the entrance of Mardi Gras Casino. The building immediately south of the one in the foreground has NEVER  been open in the nine years I have lived here, which gives you some clear idea of both how truly incompetent the former owners were, thinking it'd be a gold mine someday -and then the recession hit!- and how genuinely short-sighted and incompetent the Hallandale Beach City Commission and HB CRA -the same guilty parties!- have been that entire time, allowing a location that should've been a key economic engine along U.S.-1 to simply rot before residents eyes year-after-year. To say nothing of the empty space south of that which used to be the Kelly Chevrolet dealership. That whole area has been largely ignored by HB City hall for years, chronically poorly-lit and dangerous at night. And Joy Cooper has been mayor the entire time that's been the reality. Coincidence? I think not. Nice job, HB Chamber of Commerce!  

Friday begins a very bumpy couple of weeks for real estate developer Jerome Hollo and his plan to NOT pay Hallandale Beach taxpayers the $450,000 that Florida East Coast Realty  owes them. And a storm is coming...

AFTER the city has already given him and his company $25k in a CRA grant to demolish HIS eyesore buildings on U..S.-1, near the eastern entrance to the Mardi Grass Casino.
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=25.994793,-80.14272&spn=0.001432,0.002663&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=25.994793,-80.14272&panoid=lV8wFVvQtGrRxC-Nmi7lHw&cbp=12,222.26,,0,-8.97

Hollo might want to consider putting a construction hat on, because I have it from good authority that a storm is coming, and part of that storm will consist of cold, hard facts raining steadily on the head of him and his company.
Facts of the sort that his regular retinue of assorted attorneys, consultants, PR pals and business sycophants will NOT be able to unspin.

Agenda item #10 involving Hollo was pulled from Wednesday night's Hallandale Beach City Commission consent agenda and is likely to come back for discussion on Wednesday night February the 20th.

10.  CONSENT AGENDA A.   A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH, FLORIDA, AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO FULLY MITIGATE ALL CODE COMPLIANCE LIENS ON REAL PROPERTY LOCATED AT 801, 805, 811 AND 821 NORTH FEDERAL HIGHWAY, HALLANDALE BEACH, FLORIDA, AND TO AUTHORIZE THE RELEASE OF SAID CODE ENFORCEMENT LIENS; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE. (STAFF: DEVELOPMENT SERVICES) (SEE BACKUP) (Staff Report, Supporting Docs)

Staff Report is at
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2013-02-06/Staff%20Reports/00011990.htm
Supporting Documents at
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2013-02-06/Item%2010A/index.html

Stop thief, stop! So guess whose campaign website contains 3 of my original blog photos -all taken without permission or paying for them? Bill Julian. Yes, just like Hallandale Beach City Manager Mark Antonio's serial copyright theft of many of my original photos. Antonio will soon learn that stealing just doesn't pay!

Stop thief, stop! So guess whose campaign website contains 3 of my original blog photos -all taken without permission or paying for them? Bill Julian. Yes, just like Hallandale Beach City Manager Mark Antonio's serial copyright theft of many of my original photos. Antonio will soon learn that stealing just doesn't pay!

Yes, it was exactly who you thought would be that incredibly clumsy just 20 weeks before a pivotal city election where voters will have yet another chance to thoroughly reject him, and keep him far away from any important decision-making about this city's future - former Hallandale Beach City Commissioner William "Bill" Julian. 


The very person whom I personally hold most responsible -along with Mayor Joy Cooper- for the sorry state of this city with so much potential, because of their consistent bad judgment, embarrassing decision-making, inattention to detail and complete unwillingness to ever learn from their many mistakes.
In that respect, they are both forever re-inventing the wheel of exasperation.

Circled in orange on this screen capture I made are the three original photos of mine that illegally appeared on Julian's campaign website as of 8 p.m. June 19, 2012.

So, let's take a close look at what Julian and his dim-witted campaign decided to use on their temporary campaign website, things which better completely disappear from there very soon -or else!
And really, Julian's lived here for multiple decades and he doesn't have any good photos of his own that he can use for his own campaign website, even temporarily?
Wow, that's pathetic!

Here are the captions that I've had on these photos since I first took them and uploaded them to my blog, with the occasional updates: 

Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive. Located below the Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive, on the south side (right) is the "Community Center" that HB City Hall, thru their gross incompetency, had made impossible for HB citizen taxpayers to use now for 41 MONTHS as of January 2011. (And where's the American flag on the Fourth of July weekend? Missing in action as it had been for months!) July 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Hmm-m... where have I seen this photo before...

My July 3rd, 2009 photo of the HB Water Tower as seen on the City of Hallandale Beachs website, via their computer next to the public notice board at HB City Hall. The city's website has contained numerous of my photos for well over a year without ever asking for my permission and without ever paying for them. That's how they do things under the current crew running the city. February 10, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

A FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD DOWN, AND SO DOES LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN BROWARD COUNTY, FL

City of Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex: A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL. This monument sign on U.S.-1 and S.E. 5th Street, across from Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex, alerts you to your proximity to way from the HB City Hall and Police Department. 

It's a government that by their words and actions has given taxpayers every impression of holding itself apart and above from the citizens it's supposed to serve, often acting like they don't have to follow the laws that govern everyone else in the state of Florida and the U.S., whether of logic and reason, contracts, or, more to the point for this blog, the Florida Statutes on Sunshine Laws and Public Records. 

City employees in Hallandale Beach routinely refuse to answer reasonable questions posed to them by resident taxpayers, and as I have found out myself, often berated you for even having the nerve to ask! Comm. Dotty Ross has a solid record for her put-downs of the public even before they speak. 

As it happens, it's also not a very safe area, despite who's supposed to be there, and in the past few years, the public parking lots have been pitch black for 6-9 months at a time, even next to the Police Dept. HQ. The then-Police Chief just shrugged his shoulders, even at City Comm. meetings. As if they couldn't make a worse first impression, at one point, even the lights on this sign didn't work at night for over FOUR YEARS, either. March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

HALLANDALE BEACH. ACTUALLY, IT'S A CITY OF GROSS INCOMPETENCY, RED-TAPE & MYOPIA

Hallandale Beach, City of Choice. The sign that greets northbound drivers on U.S.-1/South Federal Hwy. as they leave the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County in the rear window; one of the three main streets into Hallandale Beach. Unfortunately, it's the perfect metaphor for the City of Hallandale Beach and its elected officials and employees: short-sighted and lacking in common sense. This sign was originally placed so far west on the median strip -and practically BEHIND a palm tree- that drivers can't actually read it even if they wanted to. In any case, because of the longtime gross incompetency and negligence of the city, the spotlights that are supposed to illuminate the sign at night HAVEN'T worked since about mid-January of 2004. 

Which is to say, yes, LONGER than the U.S.'s involvement in WW II. 

Welcome to the City of Hallandale Beach! Begin heavy traffic, chronic red tape and mis-adventures in government! Hallandale Beach, FL; Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 8, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier. 

The three palm trees that had been in front of it on the median are gone, so now you can REALLY notice that it DOESN'T work! 

February 2009 update: In order to make room for a left-turning lane at S.E. 5th Street into The Village of Gulfstream retail complex, the 'invisible' sign was removed and placed farther north. As of June 19th, 2012, the lights on this sign STILL don't work! In fact, the light fixtures have been gone for months. Yet another sign of the ruinous reign of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager's Mike Good & Mark A. Antonio. No attention to detail!

------

Well, as people are always saying, you only get one chance to make a good first impression.

Not to worry, though, within the next week, I'll get to the self-evident and serial copyright thievery of City Manager Mark A. Antonio at Hallandale Beach City Hall, which goes back more than a year.

Gridlocked traffic? Bad drivers? Bad roads? Hallandale Beach has got that covered -and preserved on Google Maps! And next-door Aventura remains gridlock city, too!

View Larger Map

U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway & S.E. 5th Street, Hallandale Beach, FL as seen by Google Street View, April 2011. Looking west from Village at Gulfstream Park. For those of you who live far from me, there's no traffic light there, rather it's just traffic going in four different directions all at the same time! SNAFU!

The image above is of the intersection directly in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall, to the upper right, and the Main Post Office to the left,

(Correct, the Post Office whose parking lot was pitch-black at night for over an entire year,)

How perfect is this image for describing what things are really like here in chaotic S.E. Broward County, where someplace four miles away can take 20 minutes to get to?

From my perspective, the only thing that's really missing above are the cars making the illegal left-hand turns south onto U.S.-1 from The Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex -near Crate & Barrel, Container Store, Pottery Barn and West Elm- which I observe a few times a day, but which the HB Police, located across the street next to City Hall, never EVER notice.

Even though the vast majority of the thousands of seasonal French-Canadian residents this area gets every Fall and Winter have long since started making their trek back to Québec and Ontario, in the late afternoon here, there is still often gridlocked traffic on U.S.-1/Federal Highway/Biscayne Blvd. from Hallandale Beach Blvd. all the way south to the Ives Dairy/N.E. 203rd Street exits in Aventura, a few blocks south of Aventura Hospital, a place that as many of you know, I have become all-too-familiar with over the past two years.

That's a distance of just barely below three miles, one I frequently walk when the weather is nice and I'm going to catch a movie or do something at the nearby Aventura Mall, but it's often at least a 15 minute drive, since there is no other way available to get to that part of HB because of the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway and Gulfstream Park.

(Most smart people in Aventura needing to get to I-95 North know that to beat the impossible traffic on Ives Dairy, it's much quicker and less-stressful to simply make a left on N.E. 208th Str. and catch E. Dixie Highway north -parallel to the FEC Railroad tracks- which becomes S.E.1st Ave. in HB, then hang a left across the RR tracks at County Line Road (N.E. 215th Street/S.W. 11th Street) and then take it to S.W. 8th Ave., turn right and go north, coming come out on Hallandale Beach Blvd., with 1-95 a half-mile to your left.)

These physical and geographical hindrances to easier and more common sense driving in this crowded area are made worse by the inadequate and myopic planning by the City of Hallandale Beach the past 45 years, as I'll be discussing in much more detail soon, since there has not been a single new road going north-south or east-west in that area to relieve the stress on U.S.-1 in the past forty-five years.

This is made all the worse by the deal struck years ago by the officials of Gulfstream Park with the City of Aventura -and the silence of FDOT- to NOT create a road extending N.E. 213th Street west from U.S.-1 to E. Dixie Highway, despite plenty of space to do so, to get traffic onto secondary roads with no residents.

Gulfstream's deal with the City of Aventura forces all north-bound cars to pass Gulfstream Park.

It's no mystery why there's gridlock around here, since there's plenty of blame to go around.

View Larger Map

Elsewhere in the state, over four hours north of us, we have news about the the logical result of living in Florida for too long: Bad Florida drivers, Bad Florida gridlock and Bad Florida roads equals...VERY BAD Judgement

Cops: Girl's Kin Towed Her Toy Car Behind SUV. Drunken Florida grandparents busted for child cruelty

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/grandchild-towed-behind-suv-578912

In 98 more days/14 weeks from today, oblivious Hallandale Beach City Manager Mark Antonio goes buh-bye! And take your myopia with you, too!

Looking south from U.S.-1/Federal Highway towards Hallandale Beach City Hall and HB Police Dept. HQ. March 21, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.  


Can you make out what those shiny adhesive letters at the bottom of the street light pole above spell out?
That is to say, the store-bought adhesive reflecting letters that were clearly placed there on purpose with attention to detail by people who wanted to make sure that everyone driving into or past the HB City Hall and HB Police Dept. HQ noticed their handiwork, esp. at night.
After all, they're perfectly positioned to catch headlights, just like others throughout the city.


No?
Okay, well, here's a slightly closer look...

 

March 21, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. 

Yes, it reads "HGS."
Do you remember them?

Or their opposition hereabouts, "est," "Doloe Greys," "AQ"...

Sure you do, if you're a regular reader of the blog or a HB resident or business owner, since they're the same folks that for years who have left their unmistakable tags on the vast majority of available traffic signs, traffic poles, mail boxes, parking lot signs and writable surface in Hallandale Beach, whether walls or sidewalks.
No, they don't discriminate on surfaces since they just want everyone to know who did it.

The tags, reflective letters and regular spray paint, are most noticeable, though, to both residents and visitors alike, when driving, biking or walking along U.S.-1/Federal Highway, as you leave or enter Aventura in Miami-Dade County, where it's Biscayne Blvd., and leave or come into Broward County and Hallandale Beach, with the Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and the upscale Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex right there, the largest employers in the city.

Above, "HGS" on the bottom of the street light pole next to the U.S.-1/Federal Highway (southwest) entrance to Village at Gulfstream Park. The graffiti has been there for well over three years, the same amount of time one of the two street lights on the pole has been COMPLETELY MISSING. This is yet another one of the many things that the geniuses at Gulfstream never quite catch onto that create a very bad first impression of the place. And for good reason! February 23, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The persistence of the graffiti problem along the main streets of this city for YEARS paints not only a very bad impression of this city, it creates an even worse one for the people who are paid to manage this city and supposed to be able to TRY to resolve self-evident problems.


Those crews responsible for the graffiti are also over-represented all along Hallandale Beach Blvd., whether in the nooks and crannies of individual stores, like the doors of Little Caeser's Pizza, or parking lot signs, where they have long since taken over the Nick's parking lot off N. First Avenue, just north of HBB, a popular place for cops.

I've written about them and their unattractive handiwork here a few times, posting photos.

But as it concerns "HGS" today, I mean to reference the graffiti tags that are in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall and Police Dept. HQ right now.
Like right this second.

And just like yesterday.

And last week.

And last month.

And last year.

And... so on. 

Yes, last year, 2011.

I've never previously mentioned it here on the blog but in the Fall of 2011, during the Public Comments part of one particularly frustrating HB City Commission meeting, I walked to the microphone and quite enthusiastically scolded Hallandale Beach City Manager Mark Antonio for how truly oblivious he'd been -and ineffective- in resolving numerous self-evident Quality-of-Life problems that have plagued and frustrated HB residents, families and business owners for YEARS.
And I specifically mentioned the very ones that they and their neighbors have been forced to look at every day for YEARS -graffiti.

Old Dixie Highway & S.E. 9th Street, across the street from Bluesten Park, the largest city park, and four blocks from the Police Dept. HQ and City Hall. March 21, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. 

Problems with rampant graffiti that Antonio (and his highly-paid assistants) either consciously ignored or pretended not to notice from their bunker on U.S.-1, since noticing would actually require some tangible action on his/their part and the city's, not to mention, the HB Police Dept., so famous for otherwise generally shrugging their shoulders when presented with a problem to solve, as has been noted here on the blog previously.


Well, as you might imagine, Antonio didn't take the public criticism of his unsatisfactory performance very well, esp. since I was somewhat detailed in describing the hard-to-miss tags at well-known locales all over town, a point that was reinforced by all the nodding heads in the audience as I spoke.

But I saved my big guns and sarcasm for the end, which is why I and so many other HB residents I know who were there, or who watched the proceedings online, were literally incredulous at hearing City Manager Antonio admit that he had never noticed all the graffiti along U.S.-1, from the Aventura-HB city line/County Line up to Hallandale Beach Blvd.and beyond, which has been omnipresent for YEARS.

Including the graffiti that was near, adjacent to and in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall and the HB Police Dept. HQ.

Like this other one on the sidewalk, DIRECTLY even with the public entrance to HB City Hall and the HB Police Dept.

 
March 21, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

And across the street from this scene and HB City Hall...


The Village at Gulfstream Park.  March 21, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier.  

You would've thought that I had super-vision or something, rather than 20/15 vision -until a few months ago- because the one thing I never expected was for Antonio to admit that he hadn't noticed it.

I expected the usual litany of excuses that we residents in HB have become accustomed to hearing to explain why we all just had to live with negative results, while other cities at least try to actually solve their problems, not just accept defeat.


Getting angrier than I have been at any South Florida public/civic meeting, before or since, I said something along the lines of that admission of his speaking volumes for how little attention he'd really been paying all these years as Assistant City Manager, given his responsibilities to actually do something positive, and reminded him and the audience of the fact that he had worked in that building ever since it opened.

Readers with a good memory will also recall that I also told his assistant, Jennifer Frastai, all about these sorts of problems four years ago, when I spent almost an entire hour with her and former Asst, CM Franklin Heilman in a conference room in the CM's office, explaining the source of longstanding citizen frustration in this city,.

I gave very detailed explanations and a reminded them that they could always look at this blog for contemporaneous photos to prove it, since the problems weren't exactly secrets.

The two of them did NOTHING with the information.

I concluded my remarks by saying that to me, Antonio, who wears glasses, was incredibly myopic, perhaps conveniently so, and needed to open his eyes for a change to see what was right in front of him.

Not just the graffiti, but all the other many messed-up things in this city, starting with how his own dysfunctional and uncivil bureaucracy and red tape dispenser continually angers citizens, playing favorites as I've mentioned previously, with special rules for special people.

And then I told everyone in the room that all the City Manager needed to do to see how accurate I was was to walk out the Chambers door and walk over to the nearby sidewalk and see what was right in front of City Hall, even as I spoke.

That, of course, was the proof positive of his longstanding myopia.

It's clear months later after saying that that Antonio had no genuine interest in ever opening his eyes and now, he's on 'cruise control,' more oblivious than ever, with him recently acting more like he's a sixth city commissioner trying to persuade a colleague of something, rather than an un-elected administrator who is supposed to work for the city commission and carry out their policies, not his own.

Why 'cruise control'?

Because he knows that after June 29th, this city is not his problem anymore.

March 21, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. 

Minutes before taking the photographs above on Wednesday outside the current HB City Hall, I swung by the old HB City Hall on Dixie Highway, between S.W. 3rd & 4th Streets, and it too looked like it has for well over ten years: a filthy eyesore of a black hole to the nearby  middle-class neighborhood, and a completely wasted economic opportunity for the whole city, even though it's just feet from where an FEC commuter train station will be located in a few years that connects downtown Miami and Palm Beach County, which could really re-energize this city in multiple ways. 
How would you like to have to look at this every day from YOUR house?

Do you know another name for wasted opportunity in HB?

Yes, "another Joy Cooper and Mark Antonio success story!"


One almost down, one to go in November -Cooper.