Above, January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Above, July 26, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
January 17th, 2009
Sometimes, coincidences happen for a good reason, and I think such is the case today.
I was already in the process of writing something that I was going to post this weekend about the deplorable conditions of the beach, when the Broward Palm Beach New Times' Juice blog did a piece yesterday afternoon that covers much the same ground.
It's just below my comments
Have you all read Hallandale Beach Commissioner Keith London's interesting email yet about developments at last week's HB City Commission meeting -which I didn't attend- regarding conditions at the beach? Here's the germane portion for this email:
There was a presentation from two high school students requesting the implementation and participation of a beach clean up in the City of Hallandale Beach. During the clean up, the waste will be sorted, measured and cataloged by type and volume of waste on the beaches. The students informed the Commission that in past clean-ups, cigarette butts accounted foe 46% of the waste.
Armed with this information, I made a motion requesting the city attorney the feasibility of a creating a future ordinance "to make smoking illegal on City of Hallandale Beach public beaches".
The Motion passed 3:2. London, Ross, Sanders for, and Cooper and Julian against.
I really commend these high school kids and only wish I'd been there to speak with them afterwards, to say so in person, since that's the kind of positive reinforcement they need.
If high school kids are so appalled by what even they can see at their beach that they actually feel compelled to show up at City Hall to complain about it -and we'll assume that they don't share that public policy gene like us- just remember they're NOT the only ones to notice, just the only ones with enough resolve to press the issue.
How truly embarrassing for this city!!!
I have dozens of photos, including many from the past two weeks, that are emblematic of the awful current reality and recent past of the beach, as evidenced by the photos below.
As we all know from our travels, in many if not most American communities fortunate enough to have a beach, especially those dependent on tourism, the beach is an invaluable resource that's esteemed, treasured and given
extra care and concern.
It's a place where city officials and elected officials constantly visit and hover around to keep track of not only its physical and aesthetic condition, but also to gauge the mood of resident and visitor beach-goers to see if there's any problems or concerns there they need to be aware of.
They are pro-active, NOT reactive and slothful and full of excuses as they are in Hallandale Beach.
That public sentiment is often an early indicator of the residents' collective feeling about the town itself, since when resident taxpayers feel that a place as high-profile as the beach is going downhill, and not being properly looked after, it's only natural that they suspect that other things in the city they can't see are falling apart, too.
It's only human nature, but it's something the City of Hallandale Beach has been in utter denial about for years, as one problem after another has been left to fester there.
Yet when confronted with the reality, they've instead put their heads in the sand.
The evidence is all around you.
That's why I and many other HB residents I've spoke to over the past 18 months want the city to emulate the City of Hollywood, where the city's Parks and Rec. Dept. manages their award-winning beach, doing a great job that makes them the envy of South Florida.
Just because our beach is so much smaller doesn't mean it has to be managed SO poorly and with so little regard for either safety or aesthetics.
(Ask yourself a question: If a well-managed but land-locked city like Coral Springs had a beach this size, what would it look like and how would it be managed?
Now compare that image in your head with the current reality of ours. 'Nuff said!)
To accomplish this in HB would require yanking responsibility for the beach away from Hallandale Beach's incompetent DPW and assigning it and the requisite money and personnel to HB's Parks and Recreation Dept., which currently is only responsible for the children's playground equipment and rental Chickee Huts down on South Beach.
(Not that you would know that, though, since there is NO signage of any kind at the beach letting patrons know just who is responsible for what or whom to contact.
Just like so much of the city, right?)
Everything else at the beach is the current responsibility of DPW, whose employees are consistently unable to perform their jobs in a timely, efficient or competent manner, as the evidence clearly shows, day-after-day.
For proof of that, see my blog post of last Monday on beach conditions:
Ron Gunzburger sees a LOT of amusing things at his beach; I only see incompetency at mine!
Ron Gunzburger sees a LOT of amusing things at his beach; I only see incompetency at mine!
Failing that sort of inter-dept. transfer, I and many others would prefer that the city simply request bids from private contractors to perform specific beach maintenance that will get the most out of that precious resource, which DPW's director William M. Brant clearly has shown no interest in doing.
To be kind, Mr. Brant seems to be like Aquaman: fine when dealing with water, but when he's on dry land for very long, he loses all his powers.
That's simply not good enough for the amount of taxes HB residents pay.
The citizens of this beach-side city deserve MUCH BETTER than they get with regard to beach maintenance and overall attractiveness, and over the next week or so, I will be posting numerous photos to my blog to illustrate the exact nature of the problems I've witnessed first-hand over the past two years.
And letting others in the South Broward area who have an interest know about it, too.
Self-evident problems of the sort that DPW consistently ignores, doing far less than the bare minimum acceptable in most American communities, but which the current crew at HB City Hall ignores completely and gives lip service to.
Make no mistake about it, DPW is a big part of the problem at the beach, not part of the eventual solution.
Just as is true with the city's recycling program, which is a laughingstock, as I was reminded of all over again last Sunday morning, when I saw the same broken glass on the ground next to the two poorly positioned dumpsters -with holes in their lids- at the facility next to Ingalls Park, as I'd seen last week.
And the week before that and...
See my Sept. 5th, 2008 post on the whole recycling mess in HB, complete with photos of the ever-widening disaster at Ingalls Park:
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BROKEN LATIN IN HALLANDALE BEACH, FL -SEAOATS
This descriptive nature sign on Hallandale Beach's north beach, regarding a supposedly protected environment, complete with Latin genus, is a particularly telling example of the kind of terribly myopic and non-existent mgmt. the beach has received for years from the City of HB and the State of Florida. This sign has been broken since at least October of 2003.
Even more galling, the area immediately around the seaoats has pile after pile of hundreds of old cigarettes dumped willy-nilly around it.
The day this photo was taken, the garbage below the sign and in adjoining areas had been there for WEEKS!
Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 11, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier
CLOSE-UP OF BROKEN LATIN
The Seaoats sign that's been broken since at least Oct. 2003 at Hallandale Beach's north beach, not far from the lifeguard stand.
In late June of 2008, due to the combined neglect of the State of Florida, Broward County and the City of Hallandale Beach, the sign was blown off and landed fifty feet away, where yours truly noticed it under a beer can. Now there are ZERO signs on Hallandale Beach's North Beach. Your government in action! May 16, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Two photos above from my blog.
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Below, beach memories of August 11, 2008: one of the areas replete with hundreds and hundreds of old cigarettes
punctuated by old condoms!
Photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Below, January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Snapshot of a poorly-maintained public beach: Finding a used condom near one of the only two park benches at 4 p.m., on a Friday holiday afternoon on a beach full of families.
If any of you all are interested in getting the royal Hallandale Beach Blog tour of the beach area some time, let me know, and I'll be happy to highlight all the problem areas for you, so you can see that I'm not exaggerating.
Trust me, there are MANY MORE problems there I don't even have time to get into here.
______________________________
By Amy Guthrie
Below, January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Snapshot of a poorly-maintained public beach: Finding a used condom near one of the only two park benches at 4 p.m., on a Friday holiday afternoon on a beach full of families.
If any of you all are interested in getting the royal Hallandale Beach Blog tour of the beach area some time, let me know, and I'll be happy to highlight all the problem areas for you, so you can see that I'm not exaggerating.
Trust me, there are MANY MORE problems there I don't even have time to get into here.
______________________________
By Amy Guthrie
Below, January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Snapshot of a poorly-maintained public beach: Finding a used condom near one of the only two park benches at 4 p.m., on a Friday holiday afternoon on a beach full of families.
If any of you all are interested in getting the royal Hallandale Beach Blog tour of the beach area some time, let me know, and I'll be happy to highlight all the problem areas for you, so you can see that I'm not exaggerating.
Trust me, there are MANY MORE problems there I don't even have time to get into here.
______________________________
Broward Palm Beach NewTimes
The Juice blog
Hallandale Wants to Kick Our Butts Off the Beach
January 16, 2009
By Amy Guthrie
