Keith London writes re "Concerned Citizens of Hallandale" request JLAC to order a CRA Audit and seek an AG opinion; Hallandale Beach citizens wonder if the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) will come to the rescue of Hallandale Beach's beleaguered taxpayers after the "gross mismanagement" of millions of CRA dollars by Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew, or will they punt?

"Concerned Citizens of Hallandale" request JLAC to order a CRA Audit and seek an AG opinion

Csaba Kulin and I on the future path for Hallandale Beach taxpayers to get overdue accountability on the HB CRA from JLAC, since Comm. Anthony A. Sanders has once again refused to do the right thing by taxpayers, just like he has dozens of times the past few years, where he's actively worked against HB residents/taxpayers best interests, esp. re CRA oversight and accountability

The following is a letter that my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach and Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin and I have been working on the last week or so.

-----

Last week, some of you finally got the opportunity to see Csaba's e-mail to Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders about the important July 10th meeting of the CRA Board of Directors.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/csaba-kulins-spot-on-email-about.html

When Csaba was walking up and down the streets of the west side of town last Fall, and bore witness to the angry comments of Hallandale Beach taxpayers and voters, more than once he told me that he wished he'd had a camera crew following him so they could record some of the things he heard residents express to him as he asked for their vote and told them about his position on the issues facing this city that has been so poorly run.

One frustrated Hallandale Beach resident after another said something along the lines of, “We don't see any visible changes as a result of the $70 million spent by the CRA”

Many of those same residents said “all the CRA money is spent on the east side of the city.”

You'd hardly be surprised to discover that residents on the east side of town did NOT see any signs of CRA-funded improvements, either.

In our opinion, considering how very poorly and incompetently the HB CRA has been handled for so many years by the HB Commissioners acting as the HB CRA Board, which we have made a point of saying out-loud at meetings, the changes that Commissioners Julian and Lazarow asked for regarding the report -which HB City Manager Miller, City Attorney Whitfield and CRA Attorney Zelkowitz co-wrote, that had to be sent to the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, the JLAC- were extremely reasonable and logical from the perspective of ALL of the city's residents.

But unfortunately, despite being given a golden opportunity to do the right thing, yet again, Comm. Sanders failed to step up to the plate and do the right thing by the community so they could get the truth that has long been denied them.

His failure on July 10th, to NOT support the common sense motion made by Julian and seconded by Lazarow, has once again shown him to be someone who is completely tone-deaf to the best interests of the entire community, which is bad for everyone concerned, though he seems not to realize it.

To us, Comm. Sanders seems genuinely in the dark about the true level of his unpopularity across town, and seems to have mastered the art of actually making things worse, and he did just that again last Wednesday night.

Here is what we believe we as a community need to do: 

1.) Ask the JLAC to perform a complete audit of the HB CRA. The residents of our city, especially residents of the CRA district, have a right to know, once and for all, where did the $70 million go? Do you agree?

Dave has already been busy sending certain members of that Committee information about what has been routinely going on here for years, especially the two Co-Chairman, Rep. Ray and Sen. Abruzzo from Palm Beach, as well as Sen. Jeremy Ring, who is from northern Broward.

They are fact-filled emails that really do make the case for JLAC to do an audit that HB residents can all trust.

Dave also believes that HB residents need to take the initiative and should be writing members of JLAC directly, not only about the need for a CRA audit, but also for them to strongly consider the possibility of the Comm. having a "field hearing" here in Hallandale Beach in the coming weeks, like September.

That way, the members can see for themselves how badly things have been done so contrary to what is supposed to be happening, and hear directly from HB residents themselves. 
The Committee members know from what they see and hear around the state that if they don't get ahead of this issue now of what is and isn't appropriate, they will have lots of requests from other CRAs in the future, so better to deal with it now while they can.

Here are the names of the committee members, which is equal parts Democrat and Republican, Senators and Representatives:

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/&File=index_css.html&Tab=committees

2.) Ask the office of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for an opinion as to what type of expenditures are appropriate for a CRA, especially one for a city our size and with the amount of money we have. We are NOT Orlando or Miami Beach or Gainesville and what we do here should be logical and sensible for this community, not just copying what other larger cities do.

Chapter 163 is the Florida Statute that covers CRAs, so don’t we want to hear what the FL Attorney General has to say?

Mayor Cooper has an opinion, but we're convinced like so many other residents that her's is based almost entirely on her own political self-interest and ego, so that she can brag to her mayoral friends and Florida League of Cities pals around the state about what "her" city is doing. It's always about her.

Meanwhile, the mayor’s hired guns at City Hall have an opinion, but to nobody's surprise, it's the same as her's.

Is it really too much to ask that we get another legal opinion, one that's free of bias and that is also free of charge? 

"What's the harm?" 

That's exactly what Comm. Sanders should've realized and said in voting for the Julian motion but didn't Wednesday night.

3.) Commissioners Julian and Lazarow wanted the City to do the right thing and pay back to the CRA Trust Fund some $400,000 that was specifically identified by the Broward Office of Inspector General (OIG) as NOT being CRA obligations. 

They didn't make it up out of thin air, they got it directly from the report that was so critical of the city's abysmal management controls.

Don’t we want to ensure that every penny illegally spent by the City from the CRA Trust Fund be properly refunded to the CRA for its future use? 

On that count alone, you'd think Comm. Sanders would support the Julian motion, but Comm. Sanders didn't and didn't seem to care what the logical result of that would be.

How many times can we watch him make one bad judgment after another, one bad vote after another, which does real harm to this entire community?

Csaba didn't know who exactly was at the meeting in the Chambers since he was watching via his computer up in Strongsville, but he figured that since this was a chance to make things right for both the CRA and the community at large, and since the above proposals were so obviously beneficial to the CRA district, even Comm. Sanders would be able to see it and support common sense.
Csaba told me the next morning on the phone that like many of you, he, sheepishly, admits that he was wrong -again- in thinking that Sanders would finally do the right thing.

Well, trust us, that's a mistake that nobody in this town will ever make again -assume Comm. Sanders will actually do the right thing by the residents and taxpayers of this city.

While we've run into yet another easily-avoided roadblock to fundamentally reform this community and make it more responsive and transparent to all its residents and business owners, the cause endures and the hope will never die that one day, some day, we'll finally have a government in this city that's truly responsive, honest and fair to its own residents.

But it's going to take a lot of hard work from a lot of serious-minded people, because the people in charge at HB City Hall right now have no plans on changing their ways, and every incentive of trying to keep real reform as far away from City Hall as long as possible.

Please let us now what you think.

Broward County Ethics in Action! Sometimes the gravy train of cronyism leads you and your family to a yacht vacation to The Bahamas; Local10 investigative reporter Bob Norman asks Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel to answer questions about his family's yacht vacation after the Sheriff claimed paying $1,500 settled the matter. But websites say the value of that yacht trip is MUCH MORE!; @CityEthics

Local10 News video: Broward Sheriff Scott Israel won't talk about yacht vacation

Sheriff didn't disclose vacation, claims $1,500 footed bill

Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com

Published On: Jul 23 2013 05:35:26 PM EDT   

Updated On: Jul 23 2013 11:00:00 PM EDT

http://www.local10.com/news/broward-sheriff-scott-israel-wont-talk-about-yacht-vacation/-/1717324/21129710/-/im030b/-/index.html

I love a good story as well as the next person, more than most, actually, but that said, there's no way that five days on a top-of-the-line yacht for Scott Israel, his wife and three kids to The Bahamas cost Broward's Sheriff less than twice the cost for me -alone- staying at a very nice B&B -with absolutely delicious breakfast but without elevators to my 3rd-floor room- for four days in the Södermalm neighborhood of expensive Stockholm.

In January, the coldest month of the year, and, yes, definitely off-season!

Just saying...

A well-informed friend writes me that after watching this video and thinking about the high level of endemic corruption and longstanding culture of wink-wink back-scratching attitudes among elected officials and their bankrolling friends here in Broward already, the most-corrupt county in the country's fourth-largest state, their sad prediction is that Sheriff Israel will be making a lot of headlines in the coming years for all the wrong reasons.

I tend to agree, absent something big happening in the next year that causes his judgement to fundamentally get better.

I sent an email with most of this info to lots of people throughout the state to get their take on it, as well as to blogger Robert Wechsler of cityethics.org up in Connecticut, hoping that he will consider giving this matter that at first blush fails the smell test, his usual careful ethical scrutiny and give it the column inches it deserves, which he has given other Florida ethical situations, including a few I first alerted him to.

Check out his blog on the website at: http://www.cityethics.org/Blog-RobWechsler

Robert's blog posts re Broward County: http://www.cityethics.org/search/node/Broward

The City Ethics Twitter feed of @CityEthics is at https://twitter.com/CityEthics

Part 2 of 2 - re Hallandale Beach's groundbreaking tonight at B.F. James Park and the lingering controversy re the swimming pool situation in this small city. How a death at a city pool in 1991 -and race identity politics- continues to roil this city's political and financial decisions. How poor choices made today out of anger or opportunism by Cooper, Sanders & Lewy may sharply limit the options of a majority of city residents for years into the future

Part 2 of 2 - re Hallandale Beach's groundbreaking tonight at B.F. James Park and the lingering controversy re the swimming pool situation in this small city. How a death at a city pool in 1991 -and race identity politics- continues to roil this city's political and financial decisions. How poor choices made today out of anger or opportunism by Cooper, Sanders & Lewy may sharply limit the options of a majority of city residents for years into the future 

I've heard from a few different people regarding what I wrote yesterday about tonight's groundbreaking tonight at B.F. James Park, and how the cost of that park doubling up to $5 Million, as a result of what's being done with a swimming pool there, may well mean that there's now NOT enough money to fix South Beach Park, which is actually the busiest park in the city and the busiest part of the city beach.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/part-1-of-2-re-hallandale-beachs.html

Some of the readers who wrote thought I might be unaware of what happened here years ago, and how many of those negative attitudes I described in my email and subsequent blog post here might explain some things we are seeing now, so felt obliged to tell me what they remembered.

Long story short: Five-year old boy drowns at City of Hallandale swimming pool in 1995 that was later known as Peter Bluesten Park....Big lawsuit against the city...
This drowning comes four years after City of Hallandale closed and then covered-up a swimming pool at Dixie Park in Northwest Hallandale, outraging residents.

It's all largely in the 1995 Miami Herald article I have copied and pasted at the bottom of today's email/blog post so you know the facts as publicly stated.

Though I wasn't living in HB then, being up in Arlington County, VA -a 45-minute walk from Key Bridge and Georgetown- I have read lots of the newspaper articles about what really happened at that city pool and have met and heard people from NW and elsewhere complain about how indignant and angry they were that the HB City's Commission of the time's

ham-handed response.

This followed by four years the city closing and then covering-up of a pool in NW HB, rather than resolve the larger questions that existed at the time.

Like fixing and rehabbing the pool complex and not neglecting it so much in the future. 

(Though to be fair, there STILL seems to be a lot of misunderstanding and "mis-remembering" of the basic facts of the case, and some of that is responsible for the lingering and unsupported conjecture about what "really happened." 
In our community, just as is true with lots of others in this country, some people much prefer to have their own "facts" they choose to believe, and ignore facts they deem inconvenient.)

The NW community felt like they'd been taken advantage of and punished for the simplest of all reasons -they had been! 

I also know from first-hand experience that that incident was brought up A LOT when Comm. Sanders was running for office the first time in the weeks before the Nov. 2008 election, after he had been appointed in that sham procedure that summer that Arturo O'Neill, sitting next to me in the Commission Chambers, predicted moments before it happened.

The one where Mayor Cooper intentionally ignored the city's established rules and procedures for filling a vacancy that had been used the year before -with Keith London after Joe Gibbons was elected to the Florida House- and refused to let the public speak at the meeting.

That's a meeting that someone at Mike Satz's office should have been able to use as a stepping stone towards a big promotion if anyone there had been paying even the slightest attention, given ALL the illegality and fraud that intentionally and knowingly took place that night.

Sanders and his supporters specifically argued that if Sanders or another African- American from NW was not there on the dais, there would always be the possibility that the city's powers-that-be at HB City Hall, who in the past as well as today, continue to show a disturbing patronizing and  condescending anti-democratic, anti-resident attitude, would do the same

thing again.

That's a hard thing to argue against when you know it's 100% true, which is a psychological burden that anyone who wants better and smarter pro-reform people on the HB City Commission as a whole, like me and so many others of you in this city honestly DO, have to deal with, even though we had nothing to do with why that psychological burden is actually there from 18 years ago..

The problem, of course, is that the very person who is there from NW is so completely unsatisfactory and underwhelming, so consistently NOT up to the task of the very job he ran for and won -twice.

That's why I specifically mention online in my blog on how consistently and rather maddeningly unprepared Comm. Sanders is for meetings, his very poor communication skills with constituents -ignoring them for years by refusing to return phone calls and emails, and then, per the very controversial Diplomat LAC proposal, refused to come to the affected neighborhood in NE HB! 

Something I've mentioned many times on this blog when it happened.

In the days before that Diplomat LAC issue came before them, people from other parts of Broward County who served on Broward's Planning Council -like HB Comm. Michele Lazarow does now- actually drove to HB to see for themselves the area in question and see how it might be negatively affected by all the many condo towers the size of The Duo, esp. traffic, because THEY were so conscientious and keen to know all the facts and as much context as possible re such an important public policy decision.

A decision that they well understood would permanently change the face of this city, with its ONE east-west road thru the city.

Meanwhile, a member of the HB City Commission continually refused to meet with HB residents in their own NE neighborhood -Comm. Sanders.

Yes, Comm. Sanders, who runs for elective office only to ignore the majority of the city's residents -constituents!- from the start! 

Most people would do the exact opposite once they got elected to keep them motivated and in the fold, but his choice is to ignore them

I've really hit hard on Comm. Sanders lack of a work ethic when it comes to the most basic aspects of his job, regardless of where he lives: ensuring proper oversight and public accountability of the city's operations by the elected city commission.

Oversight, the one thing Sanders is supposed to do is the very thing he consistently is least interested in, because he's unwilling to do the work required, preferring instead to swallow whole everything he is told by the City Manager's staff, which comes with an agenda that is NOT positive for either HB residents, taxpayers or small business owners.

Comm. Sanders is, by any reasonable standards, woefully unprepared and even worse as his votes earlier this month re the HB CRA showed, unwilling to change, adapt or evolve.

Unwilling to do the right thing when the golden opportunity is just sitting there, waiting for him to put-up or shut-up after all these years, per the AG's Opinion or getting the FL JLAC to do an audit of the HB CRA.

Instead, Sanders did what he has always done -protect the mayor's flank and given in to the very city employees who are responsible for so very much of the longstanding problems in this city, problems that are NEVER properly and permanently fixed, solved or eliminated.

And so here we are... again, spending more money than is either logical or prudent, all because of what happened in the past in this small city.

Which will limit our community's choices in the future. 

-----

Miami Herald

ANGER BOILS TO THE SURFACE IN WAKE OF BOY'S DROWNING

By Greg Brown,

 Herald Staff Writer

August 13, 1995

Just five weeks on the job, Pastor Nathan Robinson finds his flock in turmoil -- engulfed in anger, grief and confusion.

Everywhere he goes, harried faces plead: What happened to 5-year-old James Lee Johnson, who drowned July 24 in Hallandale's City Park pool? 

Robinson will lead a candlelight vigil at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the pool. Another group led by Hallandale activists plans a community meeting at 5 p.m. today at St. Ann's Episcopal Church, 701 NW First Ave., Hallandale. 

The telephone rings perpetually at St. Luke Primitive Baptist Church in Carver Ranches. Some callers allege racism against James, who was black. While the camp counselors in charge of James were black, the lifeguards on duty were white. Others call to grieve or learn new information. 

"I have to address this church in the morning. I have to address the family almost every night. I have to address people when I walk down the street in Carver Ranches," Robinson said. 

"I have to give them answers. They ask questions. It's a position God has put me into." 

Anger is a natural reaction to such a meaningless death. James, under the eyes of four adults, drowned unnoticed in four feet of water at the pool at 202 SE Fifth St. in Hallandale. According to police documents, two minutes of inattention left James floating face down. 

James' death the next afternoon, July 25, at Miami Children's Hospital has been ruled an accidental drowning. He was buried July 29.

Some in Hallandale see the death as proof that the city's elected officials, all of whom are white, care little about what happens to the city's mostly black northwest section. 

Neighbors of the Johnsons in West Hollywood are numb with shock. They want answers. Now. 

"I'm both angered and appalled at the whole situation," said Lynnessa Wooten, 34, who lives near the Johnsons outside Carver Ranches. 

Wooten says racial issues divert attention from Hallandale's responsibility -- to explain how the boy died. 

"I think it started the instant they found that child at the bottom of that pool," she said. "I think at that instant somebody started covering the city of Hallandale's rear end." 

The commissioners say they are upset by the death, too, but can't speak in detail about the accident. They say they haven't been officially briefed. With a lawsuit likely to be filed against the city, they say, public comment would be improper. 

Karen Woodfin, 28, of Hallandale, is white. Her daughter, Amber Le-Master, 6, was in the swimming group with James on the day he died. 

A stranger to James' mother, Yvoncia, Woodfin attended the boy's wake July 28. She called Pastor Robinson to talk about the loss. 

She, too, says race is beside the point. 

"My daughter was in that camp from the first day. It could easily have been her," said Woodfin. "A drowning, a death, being hit by a car. It can happen to anyone. It doesn't hit that close to home until it happens to you." 

But civic activist Angie Glass, 58, has no qualms about raising the question of race. For her, James' death is the result of city negligence toward the northwest neighborhood. 

Before the civil rights movement, Hallandale's blacks were segregated in northwest Hallandale. Starting in the mid-1950s, Glass said, the neighborhood's dirt roads turned to gravel and were eventually paved. Road signs were installed. 

She prefers those days of a segregated community that blacks could call their own. Northwest "was an excellent community," she said. "We had our ma-and-pa grocery stores. We had our theater. We had a pool." 

The few amenities in the neighborhood have now deteriorated. The city has made no credible moves to rebuild them, Glass said. 

In 1991, the pool at Dixie Park, in the heart of northwest Hallandale, closed, deemed a hazard beyond repair. Today, a muddy crater stands in its place. 

"Everything we got in the '50s they've taken back," Glass said. 

For residents like Cathy Williams, 39, the disparities are crystal clear. 

"It's always considered another town," said Williams. "You look at the landscaping in the southwest section. You look at the pool in the southwest section. They refurbish the paddleball courts every other year. It's a big difference, and it's not a secret. It's lying right there." 

City commissioners adamantly deny that they've shortchanged the northwest. Between 1988 and 1994, the city obtained more than $3.6 million in federal grants to improve the neighborhood. 

Hallandale's city government faces more than criticism from some of its residents. It may face a lawsuit. 

James' family says it plans to sue. Under state law, a city must be warned six months before a lawsuit can be filed. A letter from a Miami law firm representing the family was received by the city this week, but City Attorney Dick Kane says it doesn't constitute a proper notice of intent to sue. 

Hallandale has been sued before for accidental drowning. In 1994, the city and county settled a suit filed by the parents of Willie Roberts, an 8-year-old boy who drowned at a county park under the supervision of a city camp program. 

And in May of this year, the city paid $170,000 to the family of Ramon Turnquest, a 7-year-old boy killed crossing under the care of a city-paid crossing guard. The driver of the car was considered primarily at fault in the Turnquest case. 

City negligence is not necessarily the cause of these accidents, Kane said. 

"The greatest swimmers in the world drown. The most careful people have accidents," Kane said. "My point is, you shouldn't attribute liability to the city because of an accident." 

Commissioner Dotty Ross campaigned in the northwest section before taking her seat in March. 

A volunteer water safety teacher at City Park in the early 1960s, Ross is flabbergasted to hear that people are complaining about the city's handling of James' death. Amid a dozen pink phone message slips on her desk, she said, not one is about the drowning. 

"When you're in public office, the telephone calls I get are not accolades. People call to complain about things." 

She takes the anger to heart. It's a tragedy, Ross said, and the city's image is important when emotions are involved. Hallandale is not taking the death lightly, nor the feelings of blacks who feel slighted. 

"If that's their perception, it's just as real."

Part 1 of 2 - re Hallandale Beach's groundbreaking tonight at B.F. James Park and the lingering controversy re the swimming pool situation in this small city. Why did the cost for this Hallandale Beach city park DOUBLE to $5 Million, which means that there's now NOT enough money to fix South Beach Park, the busiest part of the city beach?

Groundbreaking for the new B.F. James Park in Hallandale Beach
Tuesday 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. 
B.F. James Park, 101 NW 9th Avenue

So, why did the cost for this Hallandale Beach city park -B.F. James Park- DOUBLE, which means that there's now NOT enough money to fix South Beach Park, which is actually the busiest park in the city and the busiest part of the city beach?

Remind me again why B.F. James Park will place a brand new pool with bells-and-whistles 1.7 miles from the existing city pool at Peter Bluesten Park, the city's largest park, that's also scheduled to be changed and improved in the next few years? 

The city pool that in the nine-plus years that I've lived here has NEVER had even one directional sign on U.S.-1, two blocks away from it?
Which is why some people don't even know the city has a pool.
Even people who've been elected President of the HB Chamber of Commerce.

HB taxpayers can't seem to get answer for any of these simple questions.

A search for docs on B.F. James Park leads us here:
http://fl-hallandalebeach2.civicplus.com/DocumentCenter/View/7190

Take a good look at what it says there.

Hey, look at us, we can waste money AND win an award from a group that's directly associated with Mayor Joy Cooper!

There was nothing on the city's website last night about what this park will actually look like when it's finished, though we know what the city said they wanted most on the 2.35 acres in Northwest HB:
http://hallandalebeachfl.gov/documentcenter/view/2725
 Family orient pool 
 Basketball Courts 
 Passive Open Space 
 Pedestrian walkways 
 Playground 
 On and off site parking 

That is to say, at
http://www.hallandalebeach.org/Search/Results?searchPhrase=B.F.%20James&page=1&perPage=10
there's nothing that's more recent than 18 months ago -February  10, 2012!
http://hallandalebeachfl.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/2305

Oh, wait, that link to the city's Park Master Plan doesn't show what it will look like either.
Awesome!

The City of Hollywood, over four-times larger in both physical size and population than HB, has exactly one municipal swimming pool. 
It looks like Hallandale Beach and its 4.2 square miles may well soon have two, with the new one located exactly 1.7 miles from the other.

The reality of the matter is that if you want to go swimming in this city it is both cheap and convenient already. 
In fact, you can catch the city's mini-bus at O.B. Johnson Park and  be taken to Peter Bluesten Park and the existing swimming pool for free in less than ten minutes.
Here's a Google map that shows you what I've said is true.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Peter+Bluesten+Park,+501+S.E.+1st+Avenue,+Hallandale+Beach,+FL+33009&daddr=O.+B.+Johnson+Park,+900+N.W.+8th+Avenue,+Hallandale+Beach,+FL+33009&hl=en&sll=25.979959,-80.147796&sspn=0.012037,0.021157&geocode=FTBsjAEd1Ao5-yFxqf7UVASENykt18h6fKzZiDFxqf7UVASENw%3BFR6kjAEdkN84-yEoBldmyFOA5SljsI5NiavZiDEoBldmyFOA5Q&t=h&gl=us&mra=ls&z=15

While I have been a very strong and vocal supporter of the HB Parks Master Plan in general, 
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/final-hallandale-beach-parks-rec-master.html
and have attended 95% of all the meetings on it all over this city from the very beginning -even attending the Parks Advisory mtg. to hear the spiel from the consultants at Bermello Ajamil Partners Inc. before the public officially heard it at a City Commission did- you can't convince me thru the use of facts that a city this small having two separate swimming pools within two miles of one another makes financial sense for this city's taxpayers.

The money used for the second pool would be better spent being used to create something in the spaces that the city has already bought and purchased for park land for MILLIONS, esp. on Old Dixie Highway, since at present, all those acres of dirt have had nothing done to them other than, foolishly, a fence being erected around it in June of 2012, even though nobody was ever
there because, oh right, there's nothing there.
So why the fence?

In any case, the city left the gate open -there was no lock on it!!!

Which is why in no time, people were consistently dumping materials there that became hills.
That only got cleaned-up LAST MONTH!

It only took a year for the city to get that mess a block from HB City Hall cleaned-up!

Even worse, there is no sign of any kind along Old Dixie Highway indicating WHEN it will be an actual city park after MILLIONS of dollars have already gone out the door.
Where's the specific timetable and benchmarks?

Is it because they simply don't have a plan that makes sense, and are afraid to share THAT with the public, its true owners?

But then the lack of an actual logical plan is not something that has troubled mayor Cooper and the City Commission in the past, now is it?
Broward Bulldog

Hallandale Beach takes a bath on land deals; properties for redevelopment sit idle for years

By William Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org

OCTOBER 6, 2011 AT 6:13 AM

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2011/10/hallandale-beach-takes-a-bath-on-land-purchases-properties-for-redevelopment-sit-idle-for-years/

Yet again we are confronted with first-hand experience of seeing that everything in this city, esp. the simple things, seems to have a preference for being done in an obviously indifferent half-assed fashion.
When will it end?

To get some answers, I suggest some of you start calling the city's PR flack, Peter Dobens at 954-457-1493 or pdobens@cohb.org and ask him for some answers on why such basic information about the park is STILL NOT on the city's (second-rate) website for taxpayers and residents to see.


-----
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-02-08/news/fl-cn-james-0210-20130208_1_green-certification-leed-foster-park
City seeks green certification for park building
February 8, 2013
By Sergy Odiduro, Forum Publishing Group

Hallandale Beach is planning an environmentally friendly building at B.F. James Park.

The city is planning to seek a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification for the 3,800-square-foot building, which will house restrooms and administrative offices. Construction will start later this year, and the city recently approved two contracts (totaling about $70,000 and funded by Hallandale's Community Redevelopment Agency) to help with the LEED process.

The LEED standards are established by the U.S. Green Building Council and recognize eco-friendly designs, construction and other environmentally friendly projects.

"It's a whole new building, and when we put it up, we will be using renewable materials," said Rafael Perdomo, a city engineer and green initiatives coordinator. "The playground materials will also have recyclable content, and the lighting in the park will be high efficiency."

Renovations at the park, at 101 NW Ninth St., are part of a citywide master plan that involves the overhaul of several recreational facilities. Phase I of the project includes Scavo, South Beach and B.F. James parks.

"It's 60 percent complete and in the design phase," Perdomo said.

Plans for B.F. James also include a swimming pool, a playground, basketball courts and parking spaces.

Perdomo said the LEED project is part of a larger focus on being more environmentally friendly, including exploring eco-friendly alternatives to using chlorine in its municipal pools.

"At the Foster Park building, we have limited parking on purpose because we want to encourage walking or riding a bicycle to the park," he said. "We have bicycle racks, and we also have priority parking for hybrid vehicles and for those who carpool."