Hallandale Beach Master Plan meeting tonight at 7 p.m.

Hallandale Beach Blog will be at the meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at the HB Cultural Center about HB's Master Plan, and will likely have some questions about City Hall's priorities in the process, and the city's absurd signage situation within that plan.

I'll be curious to see whether tonight's meetings addresses an issue that everyone in the city knows about that -but which the Commission never talks about at their meetings- and that's whether or not ant logical signage improvement will occur so that the city can stop being a laughingstock.

Will it be directly addressed, or punted for YEARS down the road because current officials lack either the competency, common sense or will to see to it that those longstanding problems are finally addressed?

As to the Master Plan itself, while I agree with most aspects of it, in my opinion, the Hallandale Beach Town Center area near the Hallandale Beach City Hall should be the lowest priority, not among the first, which is what I fear will be the case with the current cast of characters.

That's certainly not what citizens from northwest Hallandale Beach want to hear after feeling that they've been getting the short end of the stick for so long.

Or anywhere else in the city, for that matter.

The very thought of it is rather preposterous, given how much open space the city currently wastes in the area between HB City Hall and the Cultural Center, as I have discussed before with many other city residents.
Would it kill them to put a picnic table out there somewhere?

I was in Hollywood yesterday morning at the meeting of the South Florida Regional Planning Council -saw DPW Director Brant and some HB city employee's faces I recognized- and I later took some photos of the signage in the immediate area around Hollywood City Hall for purposes of contrast.

I then posted the photos to the HBB blog last night, if you haven't noticed them, so you could see what sort of simple, common sense Hollywood employs in helping people get around town.

As to the timeline for the Master Plan and what gets funded first, it seems to me that it's now time for members of the Hallandale Beach Commission to weigh in and state what their priorities are, so that citizens can decide whether or not that reflects the popular will or not.

It's key for purposes of comparative advertising for this November's election and beyond.

Lest the Commissioners and the Mayor talk in such a way tonight that you would think otherwise, to avoid making the hard decisions of what aspects of the plan are initiated first, it's NOT the job of an un-elected City Manager like Mr. Good and his staff to make those final decisions.
he's an administrator.

Policy decisions are to be made by elected officials.

That's what elections are for.

Conveniently for everyone, there are two seats up in November.

Fran Schiller's seat and Dorothy Ross, with the latter running for re-election.
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If you can't make it to the meeting, here's the info from late December's presentation at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center, which doubtless has been modified slightly since then after input from citizens and city staff:

Homepage of Designer of Master Plan: http://www.edaw.com/

HDR Engineering's Transportation Plan:
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/DocumentView.asp?DID=604

Power Point Presentation: http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/DocumentView.asp?DID=645

If you have any comments on the Master Plan, direct them to the city at: MasterPlan@hallandalebeachfl.gov

If you can, please send a cc of your email to me here as well, at hallandalebeachblog@gmail.com
I won't run your comments without your approval, but will mention what aspects of the plan are deemed positive and which ones need to go back to the drawing board.