Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Long-overdue reality check for FDOT re Tri-Rail Coastal on FEC tracks: When is the Tri-Rail Coastal Station Refinement Report FINALLY going to be released?

Wednesday March 2nd, 2016
What follows below is a predicate for better understanding my tweets this afternoon to the Florida Dept. of Transportation, District 4, which covers Broward County, Florida, which are at bottom of this post.
 



Well, the facts speak for themselves.
Facts that I as a longtime public transit advocate and supporter of the SFECC Study and a Tri-Rail Coastal commuter train system between downtown Miami and Palm Beach, via the FEC tracks, find extremely frustrating and exasperating.
To say the least.

But then I've always been consistent about the fact that just because I've been a strong pro-transit advocate wherever I have lived -because I actually used it myself almost everyday in Chicago, Evanston
and Washington, D.C./Arlington- didn't mean that I would sit back quietly and accept a lack of public candor, transparency and level of public accountability from transportation officials and consultants
regarding proposed public transit projects.

Especially if they clearly have some flaws worth pointing out or exhibit a lack of common sense, logic and utility. Or, are clearly projects engaging in fanciful thinking about the public's expected behavior and future usage of a prospective system, link or improvement, because some special interest group stands to benefit
inordinately from its construction and prefers the public pay instead of an appropriate fee paid for only by actual users.
To quote myself, "Just because you're pro-transit doesn't mean you have to ignore displays of transit incompetency or mismanagement when you see it!"

The latter, sadly, are things that have been FAR too plentiful in South Florida since I returned to the area from DC in 2003, and I've continually used my blog as a forum to communicate the facts with the public and
interested parties about the problems in detail since 2007, including most recently, the lack of public engagement in Broward of officials associated with the All Aboard Florida project, who backtracked
from their initial plans to NOT having a public meeting in Broward County after I got the attention of the public, the news media and angry local public officials who were surprised to discover they were
being ignored -until I pointed it out to them.

 A refresher on that issue if you need one:

May 6, 2013 - More Transit Policy Woes in South Florida: With stealthy and self-sabotaging friends like All Aboard Florida and SFRTA/Tri-Rail, pro-transit advocates in South Florida don't need any more enemies; 'All Aboard Florida' fails to schedule a single public scoping meeting in Broward County this Spring despite Fort Lauderdale being a proposed station, while SFRTA chief refuses to answer a simple question -Will Hallandale Beach have a station under the proposed Coastal line plan?; Just because you're pro-transit doesn't mean you have to ignore displays of transit incompetency or mismanagement when you see it! 

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/more-transit-policy-woes-in-south.html

May 16, 2013 -Reverse engines! Reluctantly but prudently, All Aboard Florida wises-up and agrees to have a Fort Laudedale scoping meeting after all, on May 29th; 5 weeks later, still no response from SFRTA Executive Director Joseph Giulietti about whether or not Hallandale Beach will have a station as part of their proposed Tri-Rail Coastal plan

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/reverse-engines-reluctantly-but.html

March 26, 2015 -South Florida has once again redefined the meaning of "Free Ride." But shouldn't we all realize by now that when it comes to #TransportationPolicy in #SoFL, there's no such thing as a free ride? But #Miami pols, @Tri_Rail & @AllAboardFla can't help themslves when it comes to taking taxpayer dollars and taking credit for something BEFORE the facts are ALL in

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/south-florida-has-once-again-redefined.html

August 5, 2015 - Common sense questions about public policy, process and public engagement -to say nothing of financial risk- continue to dog @AllAboardFla and the Fortress Investment Group as they seek $1.75 billion in tax-exempt bonds from the Florida Development Finance Corporation for their planned Miami-to-Orlando express train, via Fort lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Some observations on what we know and what reporters should have been asking all along, but were NOT.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/common-sense-questions-about-public.html

August 22, 2015 -Thoughts re role of Tri-Rail Coastal commuter rail on HB/Hollywood redevelopment, per City of Hollywood's community meeting on Monday Aug. 24 for its Regional Activity Center re-zoning, which includes U.S.-1 & Pembroke Road

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/thoughts-re-role-of-tri-rail-coastal.html

So, that said, I could have written the tweets below I sent today to FDOT over a year ago, 9 months ago, 6 months ago or at Christmas, and whenever I did so, it would be 100% true.
Just as it is today.

There's been nothing useful to the general public at the Tri-Rail Coastal website for over a year about the most important and most-anticipated information -the location of stations for the
initial stage of the project.
Instead, they have been content to do ZERO updates and leave it marked "Coming Soon."
No, a year is not soon!

And it's NOT how you properly engage and inform the citizenry about a project that completely depends upon public funds for its creation and maintenance.

Station Refinement Report
This report provides a summary of the planning analysis conducted to identify recommended initial station area locations on the FEC corridor. It also outlines a recommended phasing strategy for subsequent station development to assist project stakeholders with future planning efforts. The report recommendations will form the basis for the alternatives to be analyzed during the next phase (Project Development.) Coming Soon
 
And though I could have said something particularly critical about it, I chose NOT to comment in my tweets about how the information on their website labeled Station Area Opportunities reads more like like
fiction, esp. the material about Hallandale Beach.
Frankly, it's as if they swallowed whole the city's PR Kool-Aid without blinking, instead of posting objective information because they understood implicitly that area residents and business owners would both rely upon
the information to be accurate.

Station Area Opportunities

The Tri-Rail Coastal Link Station Area Opportunities publication is intended to summarize the station area visions created by many communities for their station areas, as well as provide information about the development potential for the area surrounding each station.

Download PDF (32MB)
http://tri-railcoastallink.com/downloads/Station_Area_Opportunities.pdf

So tell me, how can it be that after all this time that FDOT STILL hasn't released the initial locations of Tri-Rail Coastal stations in South Florida, and as it directly affects me and so many of you receiving this email, the location of those sites in NE Miami-Dade and SE Broward?
I know from MANY phone conversations and emails to and from many of you that station locations have been guaranteed by local city officials and Electeds to be part of the initial operation of the commuter line, when, in fact, they WON'T be?

And just as I state below in my tweets from this afternoon, I DO know the names of people who has been misleading the public and Small Business owners, trying to sell them a bogus bill of goods.
People who deserve honesty are instead receiving duplicity from public officials who are supposed to be working for them, not against them.
Another question that comes to mind is WHY is the local South Florida news media, print and electronic, has largely been snoozing on this important storythat directly affects important issues like South Florida's transportation gridlock and the local economy -and parts of local cities near the FEC
tracks that remain in a funk and economically depressed- instead of properly demanding honest answers and a thorough justification from public officials (and consultants) in charge at FDOT for their lack of candor, public engagement and snail-like pace?

Project Manager 
Amie Goddeau
FDOT Project Manager, FDOT District 4
3400 West Commercial Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33309-3421
Read the tweets below from the bottom up.






































Dave 
Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog
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Sunday, February 28, 2016

Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!
















Importance of public engagement & transparency in South Florida govt. policy: After DECADES of #SoFL sports fans & taxpayers getting the shaft, City of Miami Comm. Ken Russell demands MORE reform, transparency and oversight over #SoFL's crony-laden sports Establishment: Is #Broward next? Let's hope so for taxpayers' wallets and sports fans' best long-term interests, after YEARS of Broward Commission caving-in to powerful special interests -read Florida Panthers!; A reminder of what has come before...

Miami Today News
Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority losing power
Written by John Charles Robbins on February 16, 2016
Miami city commissioners have begun altering the powers of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority, building in more oversight.
What some see as a shakeup of the 11-member authority comes on the heels of a delayed and prolonged review of a lease of prime city-owned waterfront property to a private company.
The authority leased property on the southwest corner of Watson Island as part of a plan to revive a seaplane base and heliport.

 Read the rest of the article at;
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2016/02/16/miami-sports-exhibition-authority-losing-power/

 Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority
http://egov.ci.miami.fl.us/Legistarweb/Attachments/64346.pdf

After years of my writing/blogging/tweeting countless fact-filled emails/blog posts/tweets and attending innumerable public meetings throughout South Florida about the latest efforts by the owners and lobbyists of the Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers and Florida/Miami Marlins to improve THEIR bottom line directly via taxpayer funds or hotel tax revenue, it's great to see someone like new City of Miami District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell pushing back against the entrenched and well-heeled sports establishment that for DECADES has seen South Florida taxpayers as an obstacle to be manipulated and overcome, not a legitimate stakeholder whose interests demand respect -and first priority.





















My first Dolphin game at the Orange Bowl came in Dec. 1970, aged 9, a 45-3 win over Buffalo that propelled them into their first ever playoff appearance.
I attended 99% of every home game -preseason, regular season and playoff after that until leaving for Indiana University in August of 1979.
My first season as a Dolphins season ticket holder, at the Orange Bowl, was... the Perfect Season of 1972.





Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.) 

 My first U-M football game at the Orange Bowl was in 1972, age 11, against Tulane in the infamous "Fifth Down" game. In order to drum up support and attendance for the U-M at the Orange Bowl, that game had a promotion whereby South Florida kids who were school safety patrols could get in for free IF they wore their sash. 
I did, driven to the game by a U-M alum who happened to be the librarian where I then went to school, Fulford Elementary, in North Miami Beach. 
Clearly they knew that it was better to let kids in for free, knowing their parents would give them money to buy food and souvenirs, perhaps even become a fan and want to return for future games. 

 The ballgame made an interesting impression on the New York Times, resulting in this gem from the "View of Sport" column of Oct, 14, 1990, labeled 'Fifth Down or Not, It's Over When It's Over.' -"
In 1972, aided by a fifth-down officiating gift in the last moments of the game, Miami of Florida defeated Tulane, 24-21. The country and the world was a much different place that fall because The New York Times took time and space to editorialize on the subject. ''Is it right for sportsmen, particularly young athletes, to be penalized or deprived of the goals for which they earnestly competed because responsible officials make mistakes? The ideal of true sportsmanship would be better served if Miami forfeited last week's game.' 

 I hardly needs to tell you that this was YET another New York Times editoral that was completely ignored!

 After that first ballgame against Tulane, as l often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl. Onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio. 
A few times, I was just about the only person onboard besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. 

 Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside. I probaly had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on everyone's list of things to do. Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!) 

 For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?) 

 I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual-national champion Notre Dame (under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0. Their rationale? 
To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0. 
Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl. 

 A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Alabama and Bear Bryant, a rematch of the '73 national title game. 

 I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out -september 10, 1973- with Texas on the cover.
I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.

 Any reader who is new to my blog and wants to see of what I speak the past nine years here, simply do a search in the search box of this blog in the upper left corner for past posts about the ham-handed and duplicitous efforts of the Dolphins, Heat, Marlins and Panthers, esp. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross.
 
And you can also check https://twitter.com/search?q=%40hbbtruth%2C%20marlins&src=typd

Dave 

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Friday, January 29, 2016

#OpenGov -Since facts still matter... Blocked, but not bowed. Or even the least bit dismayed, since being Blocked on Twitter by govt. officials continually engaged in unethical & unprofessional behavior is almost like being given a medal... @browardschools and Supt. @RobertwRuncie are still unable to take public criticism and respond appropriately. Don't hold your breath that will change!

#OpenGov -Since facts still matter... Blocked, but not bowed. Or even the least bit dismayed, since being Blocked on Twitter by govt. officials continually engaged in unethical & unprofessional behavior is almost like being given a medal... @browardschools and Supt. @RobertwRuncie are still unable to take public criticism and respond appropriately. Don't hold your breath that will change!
Above and below, July 13, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier, looking south at the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved


















To quote myself about the following news I was, admittedly, somewhat surprised to receive this morning from Angela Greben at Stanford Law School...
"At times like this, it's very hard to recall that Supt. Runcie works for us, not the other way around.And I remind you that I was a Runcie supporter initially, but at some point you have to admit that it's not working out the way you hoped."

 http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/broward-schools-supt-robert-w-runcies.html
Above, Supt. Robert Runcie after a public meeting of his Listening Tour at the City of Hollywood's  Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center, which was the second time I'd heard him speak in-person, having previously heard him in March at Hollywood Hills High School, also in Hollywood. May 14, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. 


Tweets below are in sequential order:








In case you might've somehow missed those last three posts, the most recent of several dozen over the past 9 years, they are:

OCTOBER 22, 2015
Since facts still matter... Important facts & context NOT revealed in Sun-Sentinel's account of Broward County School Board 
hiring Leo Bobadilla from Houston to head its "troubled $800 million bond program." Charlotte Greenbarg, Buddy Nevins & Ericka Mellon help me connect some dots on the 'bigger picture' and what it reveals is NOT positive about Broward School Board members' public accountability. Surprise!


JUNE 3, 2015
Broward County residents increasingly dismayed by brazenness of Broward County Schools Supt. Robert W. Runcie & Broward School Board's Ann Murray and Rosalind Osgood's actions re bond $$ transparency & oversight; @Florida_Bulldog @Buddynevins
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/broward-county-residents-increasingly.html

MAY 13, 2013 
Spring 2013 Observations re Broward School Board: controversial District 1 member Ann Murray gets a challenge from someone who'll go right at her, Felicia Brunson -will a third viable candidate join them by 2014?; Broward School Auditor Patrick Reilly finds more appalling evidence of School system's waste of taxpayer dollars, and as usual, Broward civic activist and Audit Comm. member Charlotte Greenbarg is 100% correct in analyzing the situation and saying it's what we think, too -it's the usual toxic combination of insubordination, entitlement and longstanding incompetency
---


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Wednesday, January 20, 2016

That troubling Trump supporter as "authoritarian" poll you're hearing about today - More proof that U.S. presidential polling is biased, unreliable and full of ideoological traps designed to prove... "something." But showing something once in a poll is not PROOF, just a one-time result. Reliable polling is getting the same/similar results over and over consistently thru objective means





The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter 

And it’s not gender, age, income, race or religion.

By Matthew MacWilliams
1/17/2016
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533
It's not so surprising that such an ideological survey would first appear in Politico.
But it naturally leads to the questions not asked or mentioned, like...well...
Question: What's the one trait that predicts whether you're a Hillary supporter?
Answer: They are NOT interested in that answer.

(Though it once was, "And in the 2008 Democratic primary, the political scientist Marc Hetherington found that authoritarianism mattered more than income, ideology, gender, age and education in predicting whether voters preferred Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.")
 
Politico is no more interested in revealing that than they are in knowing and publicly disclosing whatever the supposed one magic trait about supporters of Bernie Sanders is.
Especially if that were to be something like, oh, people who despite saying very liberal and progressive things in front of strangers and the news media, when it comes down to it, do NOT want to live near people who are similar to them, which is the most plausible answer one can infer from facts like Sanders' support being strongest in almost entirely 100% White enclaves around the country, something Hillary is currently exploiting in South Carolina with its large Black population.

In case you did not know, the only state in the U.S. with a lower percentage population of minorities than the state Sanders represents, Vermont, is Maine.
I know because I checked it out via the latest census info a few months ago, and even found similar numbers on ye olde Wikipedia, though the latter says Montana instead of Maine, two states that could not otherwise be more dissimilar from one another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_African-American_population

It doesn't bother me, per se, that people with particular biases have opinions and want to sound off on them, since everyone is free to believe whatever they want, however crazy or different from my own POV it might be. After all, it's a long campaign...
But what I hate seeing and find troublesome is the way this story is already being played up nationally as evidence of... well, "something."
But all it really is is a SINGLE snapshot in time.

It's like predicting the Miami Dolphins making the NFL playoffs every year based on them frequently beating the Patriots the past few years when they have been one of the best NFL teams. 
But in those years when they do beat the Patriots -almost always at home- they STILL fail to make the playoffs, don't they? (This year proved that all over again!)
 
Experienced football fans who have some real knowledge and historical perspective, like political junkies with the same qualities, know that one result is often an outlier. 
What you need to see is consistency (of effort) and results.  
Results plural.

Right now it's a theory that will not be PROVEN until it can be successfully replicated in multiple objective polls. And the article doesn't even have any links to check the poll numbers and questions yourself.  
WTF?

We seem to be at the point where someone who wants the public to believe something in particular about a candidate, and try to be seen as above reproach, and merely relying on cold hard numbers, can write something ascribing far-reaching significance...after just one poll.
Well, it doesn't seem like anything resembling polling Best Practices to me.

And now that you think about it, if this sort of designed poll is such a great thing, how come we never heard from the U.S. news media about the results of the same designed poll in 2008 and what it supposedly "said" about Hillary's supporters?
Why am I only hearing about it eight years later?
Here's more irony. T
oday, hours after seeing lots of tweets about the above, I saw this:




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Saturday, January 9, 2016

Three years ago today, I landed at Stockholm Arlanda Airport, via excellent service from @SAS, and look who was there to greet me, one of their biggest fans? ABBA, @ABBATheMuseum















http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-is-for-awesome-and-abba-as-new-abba.html
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Tuesday, January 5, 2016

The view from here: Connecting the collective energy of a community and channeling it into positive results has never been easy. But in Hallandale Beach, city officials are USUALLY a big part of the problem, not part of the solution. And that behavior continues apace...

May 20, 2012 photo of Hallandale Beach's very own "South Beach" by South Beach Hoosier. 
© Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
The view from here: Connecting the collective energy of a community and channeling it into positive results has never been easy. But in Hallandale Beach, city officials are USUALLY a big part of the problem, not part of the solution. And that behavior continues apace...
The following post is an expanded version of an email that I sent out last Thursday afternoon to about 300-plus concerned residents, Small Business owners, civic activists, politicians and members of the news media in Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Broward County and South Florida.

It's an email that I actually wrote many weeks ago and have kept in cold storage, waiting until last Thursday to send out, chiefly, for reasons concerning the calendar year that make perfect sense from my point of view.

Last Thursday, Dec. 31st was, officially, Renee C. Miller's last day as City Manger of Hallandale Beach, where, three-and-a-half years after being selected over candidates that I thought were better, and after she promised me and her many other doubters in this community to tangibly change the culture -and pathology!- of the city's bureaucracy and management style, top-down, she was finito.

It's clear in retrospect, as it was to me after just six months on the job, that Miller accomplished little of the things that she promised me and other concerned residents and small business owners to directly improve the quality of life in the city and the city's management. 

Those of you who were at the city's poorly-attended Town Hall meeting over on the beach in January of 2013 who saw Miller alternately ignore or obfuscate when I asked her some fact-filled questions that directly called her out on unfulfilled promises she had made to city residents -and to me to my face- including ones about Dept. heads ignoring longstanding citizens complaints that were self-evident, even after they were told about them or shown contemporaneous photos of the problem, know exactly how pathetic it was.

 Yes, continuing the pattern in Hallandale Beach where ignoring a genuine problem was treated by City Hall as the same as actually solving it.
Like it was a question of psychology, not competency.

Yes, the red tape at HB City Hall is as exhausting and thick as ever, and the mood is as autocratic as ever, too. Which is why Small Businesses continue to move out of the city rather than continue having to jump thru hoops -or continue hitting their heads against the wall.

 All of this continues to take place while the city's poorly-run and crony-filled HB Chamber of Commerce acts like an ostrich, with its head buried in the sand, instead of being innovative and proactive.
That is, unless it's time for its president and its Board to play the role of taxpayer-subsidized cheerleader for certain entrenched pols and business interests in the city who already have undue and outsized influence in this city of under 40,000, relative to their contribution to making it better.
Or at least as good as it ought to be already -but clearly isn't. 

My blog post about new Hallandale Beach City Manager Daniel Rosemond will be up on the blog later in the week. Teaser Alert for you newcomers to the blog -I'm NOT a fan of Rosemond.


My comments are below the article



South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Hallandale city manager quits
By Susannah Bryan, Staff writer
October 15, 2015

After more than three years at the helm, Renee Miller plans to step down as city manager by the end of the year.

Her resignation will take effect Dec. 31.

Miller, 38, cited a desire to spend more time with family in a resignation letter to her five City Commission bosses.

"I know it was a surprise to most of the members of the dais," said Miller, who is married and raising a two-year-old daughter. "But as family people, they understand the need to seek a better work-life balance. And that's what I'm really looking for."

In her resignation letter, Miller described her past three years as city manager as both a blessing and a challenge.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-city-manager-quits-hallandale-20151012-story.html

Connecting the collective energy of a community and channeling it into positive results has never been easy.
But it’s especially difficult when the people running the city at City Hall have a LONG track record of NOT being either particularly competent or inspired, consistently DON’T follow Best Practices -or even Common Sense- and NEVER feel the slightest bit of public remorse for continually refusing to be held personally accountable to the public for their actions, words and votes.

No, unfortunately, the people currently at HB City Hall DON’T sweat the details the way they should, nor do they show any tangible interest in dramatically improving the city’s present and future Quality of Life and capture its true potential, thru either proven sensible ideas or meaningful innovation, to satisfy the citizenry and the Small Business community.

Year-after-year, the powers-that-be at City Hall have rejected adapting to new realities and making the overdue needed changes or improvements, despite concerned citizens and business people conscientiously pointing out the many, many self-evident problems at public meetings that anyone who lives and work here see and experience every day, but which City Hall continues to ignore.

Because this city has the wrong caliber of people making policy AND carrying it out, lots of potential opportunities to markedly improve and revitalize this city in exciting and innovative ways come and go –completely unrealized, leaving others to benefit from the city’s myopia and indecision -and bad judgment.

To this city’s current and future residents’ detriment, we’ve seen a culture take root at City Hall of arrogant,  self-interested elected officials and bureaucrats who are demonstrably anti-democratic and anti-accountability in their mindset, and impervious to change, even when it’s obvious to everyone but them.
It’s the difference between selflessness and selfishness.

The current crew prefers to continue doing things in the same old unproductive and unsatisfactory way that they have done them for years, even when it’s clear to everyone concerned that these tired, old methods and practices simply DON’T work and produce positive results and outcomes.

That reluctance to change was highlighted by their years of denial of the facts and engaging in completely self-serving and promiscuous behavior with respect to employing crony capitalism with limited public (CRA) funds, so that their friends and political supporters benefited.

In fact, more than three years and a half years later, many of these very same officials who did NOT provide anywhere close to the level of oversight and accountability they were legally bound to perform, still can NOT bring themselves to posting onto the city’s website, the Broward Inspector General’s damning report about their years of completely negligent and unsatisfactory oversight of the city’s CRA.

You have to be willing to imagine a different future and strategy for success before you can make it a reality.
Faking it, as this city has done for so many years, simply doesn’t work.

Me? I’m just someone working hard to spark and accelerate change for a better and more dynamic South Florida for EVERYONE, not just certain favored people, or forces in town who think they have a veto on every good idea that comes into town.

I'll have some more thoughts to share with you next week about the city and some thoughts about the caliber and quality of people we need to be willing to step up to the challenge of confronting the longstanding idiocy and incompetency that has held this city back, and as we are all too aware, kept its beleaguered residents unhappy with the results HB City Hall has continually portrayed as "normal," but which would clearly be unacceptable in 99% of this state's cities and towns.

My most recent previous blog post is here:
Happy Holidays from Hallandale Beach: A taste of chutzpah, hypocrisy & incompetency with your eggnog -again!- thanks to Mayor Joy Cooper

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