What is the empirical data from Memorial Regional Hospital that the City of Hollywood is relying upon to re-open, and no longer be the only city of 58 in South Florida whose City Hall is closed to the public?
As I noted, among other things, in my blog post of Tuesday August 24th, 2021, Intentional misdirection and shell games at Hollywood City Hall. Closing of City Hall is leaving #HollywoodFL residents and stakeholders irate at seeing their ability to attend so-called "public meetings" in-person and hold elected officials and staff to account.
But of those 58 incorporated South Florida cities, Hollywood was the ONLY city that consciously chose to close its City Hall to the public.
That blog post was the followed-up to my first post on this subject on Tuesday August 17, 2021
It's more than a little convenient for the City of Hollywood to decide to close City Hall again. Yes, just as another key Hollywood City Comm. mtg. is coming up on Wed. the 25th re The Related Group's controversial, incompatible 30-story luxury condo building on public land.Early on, even before it happened, suspicions among fellow Hollywood civic activists were that the city closed City Hall, seemingly, based on lots of anecdotal evidence among the public about the number of city staffers who got COVID19 or more likely, got sick enough to not be able to work.
Based on personal observations before the closing, it was abundantly clear that far less than 40% of city employees who had worked at Hollywood City Hall before the pandemic continued toiling any time recently.
So now that you mention it, Dave, what IS the total number of city employees working at Hollywood City Hall right now? And what percentage is vaccinated?
The city is coy and refuses to say, but we do have eyes, don't we?
And our eyes don't lie, especially when they were at Hollywood City Hall in the middle of the afternoon, trying to get answers from people there because nobody-but-nobody was answering their phones. Hello Planning Dept.!
But the city's decision to close City Hall was made with ZERO empirical data that was shared WITH the public.
Not only did the City of Hollywood fail to place a required public notice on its Sunshine Board -outside of City Hall's south public entrance door- but ominously and egregiously, utterly failed to publicly disclose ANY info regarding what data and evidence would be needed in the near-future to change the status quo and open up again.
No publicly-disclosed parameters of any kind.
In short, the powers-that-be at Hollywood City Hall have decided that they alone will set and monitor whatever parameters may exist, and then let us know when they want to, absent any independent or objective data or evidence.
I contacted the offices of Gov. DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody in advance of the closing to apprise them of what was going on here, as well as on the first day City Hall was closed to the public, letting them know the city was failing to follow Florida's Sunshine Laws.
Laws, NOT suggestions.
There has been little mention of it on the Hollywood Residents - Speak Up group site on Facebook that I joined last month https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023412084491625/ or elsewhere, but several well-informed people in Broward suggested early on to me that the REAL reason Hollywood City Hall was closed to the public was because of communications and pressure from Hollywood-based Memorial Healthcare Systems that was placed on City Manager Wazir Ishmael and Mayor Josh Levy.
In short, in the opinion of many, and myself, MHS apparently felt the city wasn't doing enough to show solidarity with MHS' continual dire warnings that they've been trumpeting on every single South Florida TV station for weeks. To wit, The Sky is Falling.
Subsequent to my Open Letter to Hollywood City Hall, I received a response from both Mayor Josh Levy and City Manager Wazir Ishmael on August 24th, printed below
Hi David, the widespread transmission of Covid right now, in the entire county, is at as high a point as ever before and including within the pool of 1,300 city employees. Lots of cases, with personal impacts and which also cause quarantines of other employees.
By restricting access, the City government is protecting the public and the employees from non-essential contacts and gatherings that may cause more transmission and may put people in a health emergency, when that could be avoided.
All residents rely on the city to continue the function of essential services of the local government. Residents would also expect that we do not facilitate situations where are not advisable for public health, such as creating indoor gatherings at community centers at this time. That is the intent here, to protect the public, and it is with guidance from health professionals at Memorial and beyond.
As soon as the case numbers and rates go down, the City Manager will reopen the buildings.
Josh Levy, Mayor
City of Hollywood
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Good morning David,
Thank you for writing to express your concerns about the restrictions on public access to City of Hollywood facilities that went into effect Monday, August 23, 2021. We share your frustration with the situation we currently find ourselves in pertaining to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning late Spring/early Summer 2021, signs of lower hospital admittance for COVID-19, as well as a lessening of the local positivity rate, afforded us the opportunity to restore public access to City Hall and other City facilities and with that, a return to normal procedures for in-person participation and attendance at public meetings. Unfortunately, we now find ourselves in a much graver situation than we experienced during previous spikes in this pandemic.
The recent surge in positive cases, fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, has caused the positivity rate in Broward County to skyrocket to 17.8% during the Florida Department of Health’s (FDOH) most recent reporting period of August 13-19, 2021. To put that into perspective, the average positivity rate during the same period in 2020 – a time when City of Hollywood facilities were completely closed to public access and the prevalent COVID-19 viral strains were not as aggressive and contagious as the Delta variant – was 7.48%. Just two weeks ago, Broward’s positivity rate was 15.9%. The City received a report this week from Dr. Randy Katz, Medical Director of the Hollywood Department of Fire Rescue and Beach Safety and the Director of Emergency Medicine at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, that nearly 50 percent of the hospital’s bed capacity is occupied by COVID-19 patients. Additionally, City employees, particularly our first responders, have been testing positive for COVID-19 at a higher rate in recent weeks.
Recognizing that official scientific data clearly demonstrates a situation that continues to deteriorate, the City administration deemed it logical and prudent to reinstate restrictions on public access to City facilities as a protective measure to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the City administration has prided itself on being proactive in implementing sensible protective measures. Though we work closely with our municipal and County partners, the City has never been reluctant to implement protective measures when the administration has deemed it necessary to protect public health.
The notifications regarding these public health restrictions have been widely distributed on the City’s social media sites, posted at entrance points to City facilities, included in e-mail notifications and posted on the City website. These notifications contain an explanation of the need for the current measures and information on how to access City services and reach City staff. Each of the public meeting notices on the Sunshine Board provides information on how the public can participate in the meeting by contacting the meeting coordinator. Additionally, the public is welcome to come to City Hall to provide in-person comments at meetings of the City Commission/CRA Board by registering online so that we can accommodate the need for physical distancing. During the past 18 months, City staff has been working diligently to refine and offer services to our residents and businesses through our online platforms and portals. These procedures have worked and public participation has not been curtailed. In fact, the ability for residents to easily provide their feedback to the City Commission via our online public participation comment submission portal has increased participation in City Commission, CRA, and Planning and Development Board meetings.
Please note that the restrictions and procedures we have put in place are strictly in the name of health and safety to our residents and City staff and by no means should be perceived as any deliberate attempt to suppress public participation. These measures are temporary and shall remain in effect until scientific data demonstrates that the situation has improved enough to lift the restrictions. We certainly take your comments to heart and will continue to change and adapt as conditions dictate. We appreciate the public’s patience and understanding as we continue through a pandemic that, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has claimed approximately 628,000 lives in the United States.
Thank you again for expressing your concerns.
Wazir
Wazir Ishmael, Ph.D.
City Manager
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I am not persuaded by what I received and my objections remain.
In fact, they are even stronger than before, as every day since then has shown that the concerned public is being inconvenienced for reasons that fail the logic and common sense test, since there's no reason for any extraneous city employee to be in the Commission Chambers during the 4-5 meetings a month the public wants to attend.
But it's the public that has to cool its heels outside.
And you'll notice that the City Manager says nothing about the important TAC meetings, which I used to attend faithfully.
Nearly every Hollywood civic activist and civic association president I know -and I know a lot of them- has told me that they believe Planning Dept. Director Leslie Del Monte much prefers the TAC meetings being ZOOM meetings, even though the public hates them because they can not see the interaction of people in the room, esp. the lobbyists and attorneys schmoozing with TAC participants before and after the meetings.
Plus, I've heard complaints that when you are hooked up to a TAC meeting, your screen does NOT list everyone who's watching, so you have no idea who is hearing your comments.
Dr. Ishmael, having brought up MHS in his response to me, surely must know that at any point in time, 15-20% of the patients at Memorial Regional Hollywood consists of Miami-Dade residents, a figure that I pick not out of thein air, but rather from a TV interview I watched within the past two months. Don't need to make up the numbers.
But neither Dr. Ishmael or Mayor Levy actually disclose what the numbers are or what they need to be, do they?
On Tuesday I'll be placing a Public Records request with the Hollywood City Clerk on for all correspondence over the past 6 months between anyone at Hollywood City Hall, both the City Commission and administrators, and executives at Memorial Healthcare Systems.
Should provide some interesting reading.
And I'll share what I find here with you on my blog, since I believe you deserve to know the truth about why your city seems unable to adapt like 57 other South Florida cities.
By the way, not that it matters, per se, but my niece is an ER doctor at Yale New Haven Hospital, a facility in a city and county with a higher COVID19 rate than Hollywood's and Broward's.
The City of New Haven hasn't closed their City Hall.
And, of course, neither has any other city in South Florida.
Just Hollywood.
