Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall Municipal Complex monument sign, September 9th, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier. This is where historical revisionism doesn't needs years, decades or even centuries to evolve -just a few minutes!For your edification and perusal today, I've got excerpts from the ongoing dialogue the past few days between myself and my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach activist, Csaba Kulin, regarding some all-too-typical low-lights of Hallandale Beach self-governance.
Which is to say, comments that accurately describe the longstanding myopic vision of a few and not the foresight one expects from elected officials at least once-in-a-while, even here; banal pettiness instead of an urge to respect the wishes of the community; plus the usual feinting and spinning by the Usual Suspects who, as always, are averse to any sort of public criticism, constructive or otherwise.
You'd think in the abstract, wouldn't you, that if you're going to spend almost $40,000 to get answers from the general community -most of whom already have a VERY LOW opinion of the city's elected officials, administrators and employees for valid reasons, and thus, already disinclined to respond at all- you'd at least make sure that you asked questions that elicited the highest-possible response rate by having questions that addressed their underlying concerns and which would reveal the most usable data.
But that's NOT what they did, as Csaba subtly alludes to below.
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RE: 2011 Citizen and Business Survey.During July and August of 2011 the City of Hallandale Beach, the first time ever, surveyed its residents.The seven-page survey was mailed to 2,500 residents.About 800 residents replied to the survey by mail or phone.That sample size gives us a precision of at least +/-3.4%.The Survey did not provide any great surprises to anyone familiar with our City.Overall residents were satisfied with the EMS and police services.The residents were dissatisfied with City’s storm water system and the over flow of traffic in the City.Overall importance of the services for the City to provide in the next two years were; (1) flow of traffic, (2) storm water system, and (3) the appearance of streets, buildings and facilities.In the Public Safety Services area residents were satisfied with the EMS, fire and police responses.The three public safety services residents though were most important for the City to emphasize over next two years were; (1) visibility and frequency of police in neighborhoods, (2) the City’s efforts to prevent crime, and (3) the use of red light cameras.Other areas of City services are very close to the average of other cities in Florida and nation.I encourage everyone to read the entire survey results.I like to concentrate on the responses to the Public Safety Services questions.Visibility of police and crime prevention is important to all of us but they are very hard to significantly improve over the next two years.The third one, the red light cameras are the “low hanging fruit” of the issues to resolve.The red light cameras can be removed by three votes of our City Commission.Question (Q6) Satisfaction with Various Aspect of Public Safety ranked the use of red light cameras at an “unsatisfied” rating of 45%. According to ETC Institute, the entity administering the survey, any rating above 20% requires the City’s immediate attention.The Public Safety Importance-Satisfaction Analysis (Section 3, page 4) red light cameras rates “High Priority” ahead of visibility of police and crime prevention.Hallandale Beach City Commission (HBCC) on September 7, 2011 was presented with the report, had a chance to ask questions and comment on the results.Most of our Commissioners did not have any questions on the content and recommendations of the report.Mayor Cooper interpreted, educated us and spinned the results of the survey the way she liked it.On the “highest priority” in public safety area, Mayor Cooper said "the longer the cameras are in use, the more the residents will like it.".That's like saying "the beatings will continue till morale improves."What is the reason behind spending $38,000 on a survey when the City ignores the most unsatisfactory aspect of public safety?That happens to be also the easiest to remedy, the "red light cameras."The insensitivity of our City Commission to the desires of the residents is off the scale of good government.Unfortunately, questions on what the residents think of our elected officials were not asked.In conclusion, "the beatings will continue till morale improves", maybe past November 6, 2012 unless we all stand together and say "we had enough."I have attached a link to the City's web site to see the Survey Results.Pages 11, 68, 106 and 135 deals with red light cameras.Page 18 shows that 12% of our residents (4560) attend City Commission Meetings in "person". We better build a bigger CC Chamber.Pages 23 and 24 that 52% of our residents are over 55 years old.Page 24 say that 33% of our residents have an income over 60G, 33% is between 30 to 60 and 33% is under 30 thousand a year.Page 27 say that 46% of our residents have a college degree or higher.Csaba Kulin
In response to that shorter email of Csaba's and some informed conversations I've had with about a dozen or so other HB citizens who closely followed what happened at Wednesday's meeting, as well as the collective promises by the City Commission and City Manager's office at their FIASCO of a Visioning meeting in January to be more attentive and responsive in the future to HB citizen taxpayers' concerns and complaints, some phone calls with Csaba himself about a rather curious and perplexing message he received from Comm. Alexander Lewy, after Lewy received Csaba's initial analysis of the survey results, I composed the following and sent it to the 75 or more citizens, news media types and area elected officials whom I regularly share my thoughts with.
I've added a few words here and there just to add some context.
Dear Csaba:The Brittany Wallman article on red-light camera expansion in Broward County that I was referring to on the phone Thursday night is this one:I still hope to run your expanded thoughts on Saturday re the city's survey and the City Commission's seemingly blasé attitude Wednesday night towards Mayor Cooper's vituperative and bullying comments, so give me a head's up if you'd prefer to wait for Sunday instead.Comm. Lewy's comments to you re your email are par for the course for him, and exactly what I would've expected from someone who seems to be in perpetual campaign cycle.He seems to be genuinely upset that people actually expect anything from him other than his attendance at Commission meetings!Just like fomer Comm. Julian's defensive lament after he lost!The very idea that Lewy would email you and criticize you for complaining about the Commission's sleepwalking on the red-light camera issue after the survey team explained in detail Wednesday how upset the community was, of his actually expecting you to contact him to get his opinion BEFORE you say anything, when he had all the time he wanted on Wednesday night from the dais to say something of consequence and didn't...Yet another five-hour meeting where he, Ross & Sanders played the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew role to the hilt, yet he gets upset that you actually noticed?Really, how many more times can I say that Lewy is exactly what I said and wrote he'd be if he actually got elected?-----
