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Friday, August 30, 2019

Hollywood City Commission makes great points about relative failings of independent consultant's report on placement of Broward's 911 radio antenna in Hollywood, but to what end exactly? Sadly, perhaps none. And in the end, the South Florida news media does not seem keen on giving the issue the impartial overview it always deserved; video

Hollywood City Commission makes great points about relative failings of independent consultant's report on placement of Broward's 911 radio antenna in Hollywood, but to what end exactly? Sadly, perhaps none. And in the end, the South Florida news media does not seem keen on giving the issue the impartial overview it always deserved; video



Today's blog post is a follow up to my August 19th post, 
So THAT just happened... for the worst. Broward County's 325-foot 911 Services radio tower at West Lake Park in #HollywoodFL just got the green light from an independent consultant. So now what? Don't hold your breath, Hollywood!
https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2019/08/so-that-just-happened-for-worst-broward.html

 Which followed this post of mine:
May 6th, 2019, The West Lake Park Radio Tower issue is rubbing #HollywoodFL residents the wrong way, esp. people who don't see 325-foot tall radio antennas, even for 911 services, being compatible for a nature park. Especially when there's a better answer available. @SAVEWESTLAKE

https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-west-lake-park-radio-tower-issue-is.html

 So, in the week since we last discussed it, I hope you didn't choose to disregard my sound advice and choose to hold your breath, perhaps believing that by doing so, somehow, common sense would suddenly prevail in the long-running battle between the City of Hollywood (and a majority of its citizens) versus Broward County and their insistence that the eventual placement of a 325-foot high 911 emergency services radio tower antenna in  West Lake Park , a very popular county park in northern Hollywood, off of Sheridan Street, was the best possible choice to be made.
Photo from @SAVEWESTLAKE

 Map here: https://goo.gl/maps/mM7qZd1Hz6aBHqx2A

That unpopular plan has been almost universally opposed by Hollywood residents and elected officials on many different grounds, usually, on environmental and financial grounds, though there are clearly many Hollywood citizens who were opposed to the radio tower being located there, near the Anne Kolb Nature Center, a county-run facility named after a former Broward commissioner and environmentalist who represented the southeast part of the county, where Hollywood is located.
idistr, for reasons involving health fears and simple aesthetics.

 And to quote myself last week: 
This all taking place despite the fact that it's clear to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that the 911 radio tower antenna tower, no matter where it was located in the greater Hollywood area to cover SE Broward, would NOT be complete until... NEXT YEAR.
Not that you would know any of this from the vast majority of the South Florida news media's coverage of this issue the past few months, but it's true. It will be finished NEXT YEAR.
So, why don't the press say that in their stories and newscasts?
Good question.

  but the radio antenna tower was needed to greatly improve First Responder communications via their 911 emergency services system, NOT to improve a citizen's efforts in reaching 911 and requesting help, as several Miami TV newscasts the past few months have allowed people to state on the air without anyone there knowing any better.
I know what you're thinking. Nonsense getting aired on South Florida TV stations?
Yes, continuing a longstanding tradition.

 So, no, holding your breath until only common sense reigned in Hollywood and Broward would be Mission Impossible, and the reasons why were on full display late Wednesday afternoon at Hollywood City Hall at the first Hollywood City Commission meeting since July 4th, following Ciizen Comments around 5 p.m.

So, in short, on June 19th, the Broward County Commission and the City of Hollywood City Commission agreed to hire an independent consultant to evaluate two proposed locations for a new radio tower in east Hollywood. The expert's report recommended the West Lake Park location just off of Sheridan Road -west of the West Lake Commons retail area on U.S.-1 that occupies the spot that was once home to the Hollywood Pontiac car dealership- and not the CIRC Hotel location that the city was urging. 
Per the terms of the agreement between the City and County, the independent expert’s decision is binding on both parties. 

 And so it was that a little bit after five o'clock on Wednesday, the consultant, Gary Monetti, came into the Lions Den at Hollywood City Hall and tried his best to defend his report, beat back the lions, and emerge largely unscathed.





Watch this debate here from the August 28th, 2019 City of Hollywood City Commission meeting


 So here is how I saw the discussion it from my seat in the chambers.... and what I thought.

Considering all the attention that the issue has received going back to last year -shocker!- there were no members of the South Florida press at the meeting, just yours truly.


Dave 
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Monday, August 19, 2019

So THAT just happened... for the worst. Broward County's 325-foot 911 Services radio tower at West Lake Park in #HollywoodFL just got the green light from an independent consultant. So now what? Don't hold your breath, Hollywood!

Today's blog post is the latest update to the neverending story regarding Broward County's longstanding effort to put a 325-foot high 911 emergency services radio tower and antenna in a very popular county park in northern Hollywood off Sheridan Street, West Lake Park. 
Map here: https://goo.gl/maps/mM7qZd1Hz6aBHqx2A

 That plan has been almost universally opposed by the the city's residents and elected officials on largely environmental grounds and financial grounds, though there are clearly many Hollywood homeowners who are opposed to the radio tower being located there for strictly aesthetic reasons, too.
Which is their right, of course.


This blog post will cover what's largely taken place since my last blog post on this issue of May 6th, 2019, The West Lake Park Radio Tower issue is rubbing #HollywoodFL residents the wrong way, esp. people who don't see 325-foot tall radio antennas, even for 911 services, being compatible for a nature park. Especially when there's a better answer available. @SAVEWESTLAKE
https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-west-lake-park-radio-tower-issue-is.html


The map above and the following infromation comes straight from Broward County's website:

Consultant Concludes West Lake Park is Best Site for 911 Tower Site

On June 19, Broward County and the City of Hollywood agreed to hire an independent subject matter expert to evaluate two proposed locations for a new radio tower in east Hollywood. The independent expert released his report earlier today and recommends the West Lake Park location (view site map) in lieu of the CIRC Hotel location. Per the terms of the agreement between the City and County, the independent expert’s decision is binding on both parties. Read Consultant Report.
Broward Comm. Beam Furr, a former City of Hollywood Commissioner -and a friend of yours truly- was very articulate and persuasive in pointing out these environmental and financial facts at a summer County Commission meeting, pointing out that having it placed atop The Circ Hotel at Young Circle on U.S.-1/Federal Highway is better for all Broward taxpayers because
a.) it would cost less, and, 
b.) there would be ZERO possibility of storm surge affecting the antenna tower during or after a hurricane, as would be more likely if it's located at West Lake Park.

 As is commonly known, the whole Broward 911 communications system has been a fiasco for many years, with the murders at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywod International Airport in January of 2017 - I knew someone who flew out of the airport shortly before it took place- and the massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas H.S. having revealed the self-evident dangers of the County Commission being  behind-schedule on updating and improving the 911 system for what seems like forever.
That being the case, actually having the radio antenna located in a site that is both cheaper and safer made a lot of sense to me and most of the people I know, whether they were Hollywood residents like me or not.

 But the rest of the Broward County Commission had little-to-no interest in listening to what Comm. Furr and the residents of Hollywood said, and to me seemed to have largely made their minds made up long before the meeting started, as evidenced by many their overly-dramatic self-serving, self-pitying, sanctimonious and sarcastic comments, especially those coming from Comm. Barbara Sharief and Comm. Michael Udine, the latter of whom I zinged on Twitter in late June, as you can see below.
Their whole Chicken Little "sky-is-falling" mindset was embarrassing, though predictable given where we are.

 This all taking place despite the fact that it's clear to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that the 911 radio tower antenna tower, no matter where it was located in the greater Hollywood area to cover SE Broward, would NOT be complete until... NEXT YEAR.

 I heard one of the county's own experts say that right in front of me at the June meeting in Hollywood.
But to not real effect apparently.
People who know better still claim it will be done this year.
It's simply a preposterous claim, especially if we get anything close to a minor hurricane before the end of November now that we have moved into the heart of hurricane season, where 85% of them emerge.





Photo from @SAVEWESTLAKE




































 

Dave 

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