Author: commtims

     Everybody’s got something to hide but me and my monkey!

     Now there’s a cryptic clue for you of what I did Yesterday !

     Hello ? Goodbye ! …….. figure it out yet?

     Alright – here’s a pictorial clue :

                              

     Yes, I went to a concert ……. it was at the former Dolphin Stadium, former Joe Robbi Stadium, currently the Sun Life Stadium….. So who was playing? Now don’t let me down ! Come on, please, please me !

     Some of you got it, some don’t, ( I do have some pre – 30’s readers!)

                               

   
     The day in my life started out as quite a good morning, good morning. I decided that this boy had a ticket to ride. How did I get there? Drive my car, silly!

                                   

     The concert was really rockin. The crowd was moving. The wife’s out of town, so I was alone, and I turned around and I saw her standing there !

                                     

     OK, so she was sitting – this can’t all work our perfectly! ……. anyhow, I told her to just let it be, I said I’m happy just to dance with you, and we were up in the aisles boogieing!

     The concert was truly an inspiration. Three and a half hours of great music. I just hope I can perform like that when I’m 64 !

    ……….. He’s still an idealist !

                            

           ……..  and a workhorse ! …. three encores !….  he tried to ignore our chants for more….

                             

      It was exhausting, for him and us, but in a good way. 
    
      You know, life can be a long and winding road.  So from me to you, if you ever have a chance to see him, do it, it’s quite worth it. 
   
      It gave me Golden Slumbers…..

                            …… the end

     

     
     

    

     National Politics came to Fort Lauderdale’s Victoria Park neighborhood this afternoon, with the first local gathering of the new movement ….

            ………  the Coffee Party        

     The Coffee Party is a political response to the rather new, but very well known national movement, the Tea Party. This afternoon, a diverse group of citizens gathered at the Brew Coffee Shop in the Winn-Dixie shopping plaza on Federal Highway at NE 6th Street to get acquainted and plot! They quickly out-grew the coffee shop and moved out onto the sidewalk.

     The well mannered group, about three dozen strong, included mostly white, though some black, mostly middle-aged, but some older, and a tiny smathering of young blood!

                                   

     The make-up included war vets ( two Korean and one Viet Nam), old hippies (still in the fight), and the one man that singularly faces off the giant group of Tea Partiers at the intersection of Oakland Park and Federal many weekends ( he got a big round of applause). 

     There was some talk of boycotts, ( tea mostly!) and a big showing of frustration at the condition of the national dialogue.

     Here are a few of the comments from the attendees:
               
     ………….. ” I’m a sadist, I watch Fox TV”

     …………..  ” they’ve taken control of the American flag”

     ………….   ” I came to have a civil discussion”

     ………….    ” the dirty things they do in the name of religion”
   
     ………….    ” I’m scared of the people on the other side”

     ………….    ” my wife says I love pain – I watch Oreily!”

    ………….      ” they’re out – shouting us“

         
      The meeting lasted just short of an hour, and no immediate plans for the future were decided. The event’s organizer, Evan Rowe ( evanrowe@gmail.com ) , told the attendees to make sure to sign-in and he’d be in touch.

     I’ll keep you posted ……..  Tim
    

     Fort Lauderdale Beach is a special place! ….. Known the world over!

            


     And if you’ve been to the beach in the last few years, there are some things you know.

     You know the wave wall, you know the  five-star resorts, you know the giant dactilifera palms  ……and you know ………


                                            
                             CALVIN

     Calvin has become one of the beaches self- made attractions. Seems everyone has a Calvin story. People say he can cause a lot of trouble. I decided to go down the beach to see what makes Calvin tick.
    
     First, we all suspect that Calvin is homeless, though he wouldn’t confirm that. You’ll usually find him lounging on the wave wall, somewhere across from the Elbo Room. What I do know for sure is that he’s a giant man with a giant grin and a giant tale to tell as long as you’ll listen.

      Here’s how my interview with Calvin went:
                                   
                                ………………………………………………………………….. 

     Tim: Hey Calvin, would you talk to me for a few minutes ( I handed Calvin a couple of bucks)

     Calvin: not for that I won’t, how about fifty bucks.

     Tim: can’t do that Calvin, what else will seal the deal?

     Calvin: low cut army boots, size fourteen …… WIDE  ( he says to punctuate) ..  and no new ones, I want them already broke in.

      Tim: deal, ….now tell me about yourself 

      Clavin : Calvin Williams, Marine, 53 years old, live right here on the beach, never going anywhere. I own the Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel, right there, and I love Brittany Spears and Lady Gaga! 

      Tim: Are you doin’ alright …. health OK? …gettin’ plenty to eat?

      Calvin: health is great, love my York Peppermint Patties and Hooter’s Fried Chicken

      Tim: Can I take a couple of pictures?   Calvin gives me one of his goofiest looks.


                                  

     Calvin: how’s that? ( I tell him he cracks me up!) 

     [ According to a retired Police Sergeant that worked the beach area a few years back, Calvin is fine as long as he’s “on his meds”. The Sergeant recalled a sand beach brawl a few of his colleagues had with Calvin a few years back. 

     “Calvin was off his meds and getting abusive to the tourists. Two Officers tried to take him off the sand, but got caught under his giant frame ( the seargent is laughing wildly at this point). From then on, we’d get him off the beach if we had to, but by bribing him with his favorite – Mcmuffins!”] 

     Tim: Calvin, you’re quite a cut-up, anything else you’d like to add?

     Calvin: yea, tell everybody I’m a beach boy, a beach bum, and a walrus ( he erupts in laughter !)

     Tim: OK buddy, hope everything works out for you – (  I say as I head off)

     Calvin: don’t forget my boots, ( he yells after me)
                                         ……………………………………………………………………
     ……… Calvin seems in his own world, but appears to like it there. I hope he’s OK, hope he stays on his meds… hope everything works out for him….

      I’m off to the thrift stores…… size fourteen low cut army boots, WIDE !!!

     

    

     Give ’em hell Harry is historically known.

     Give ’em hell Tim is my attempt at a local version!

  As you might recall, I have been battling some of the Downtown Power Structure that want to solve their problems with aggressive vagrants in Stranahan Park by shipping them up towards my neighborhood off Sunrise Boulevard.

     Well it came to a head last week at a meeting of the Downtown Development Authority. The Sun-Sentinel was there to capture the battle.
        
                 

     Click here  http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2010/03/downtown_developers_protect_ur.html  to see Brittany Wallman’s take on the meeting and the video.

     Mayor, you done good !

                              
                                            Seiler and Parade Grand Marshall –  Governor Charlie Crist

     Yesterday’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was a blast. And it was Seiler’s blast!

     Seiler wants a happy city. Yesterday it was. The Mayor had been the Parade’s biggest cheerleader, pushing it wherever he went. Today I’d bet he’s Smilin’ Jack! 

     The Parade should have made everyone smile. It was good old fashioned fun. The line-up was chocked full of neighborhood associations, local school bands, floats, loud music, local politicians finding face time ……. and would you believe  …………..

                                                     ………   the Pope

                                                     ………   the Easter Bunny

                                                     ………   a Leprechaun



                                     

     Geez Jack, if you could just add Abraham Lincoln,  Julius Caesar, Santa Claus, and  Ben Franklin next year, maybe we could make you ………..

                                                           the Governor !
                         

     

    

       It’s known as the “Junkyard Wall”.


                             

        It’s located at Sunrise Boulevard and Interstate 95, an important gateway to our City. 

      It’s in Commissioner Bobby Dubose’s political district, and was artistically painted about a decade ago by some 200 volunteers, one of the first projects of the City’s Citizen Volunteer Corps.


                                          
                                                     Commissioner Dubose at his desk at City Hall


    The sprawling mural, some 300 feet long and 10 feet high, has a mixed  ‘tropical and under the sea’ theme.


                                                


     The painting  took place on a Saturday, and was a fun community-wide effort, and of course one volunteer made sure to put their own particular “signature” on it. 

                                                               
                                                                                get it ?
    
      But unfortunately, more and more areas in the mural are looking like this….

                                    
                                                   

   
     So,  it’s time for a new effort. …… Let’s clear the canvas, Commissioner Dubose, let’s get ‘er done!

     Since it’s our City’s 100th birthday, just a year from now, here’s one idea to chew on. 

     A Happy Centennial Birthday theme – we have had quite an interesting 100 years, and I bet we could come up with one interesting mural!


     The volunteers will be there for you. Here’s a stunt I used to get the 200 volunteers signed up last time around…



                                        
                                     Smith wouldn’t come down until 200 people signed up to help!

 
      Commissioner Dubose …. let me know when to bring the ladder over !

    While decriminalization of marijuana in NJ is being discussed, here is a story that deserves the same attention. This is going to be a tough story to report, and an even tougher one to read, but the victim wants it told, and thinks it’s important.  If you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip this one.

It’s about Fort Lauderdalian Kathy Young, a victim of a crime so vicious, so terrible, that it might haunt you who should have contacted the attorney defending against drug charges immediately to help her in this case and also bring the real criminal into light to get rigorous for this harsh incident.

Kathy’s torture happened in 1993, but this week’s arrest of homeless child – murderer Gary Kerpan got Kathy reengaged in her anti-crime activism that she started after that horrific night. In case of crime, people can contact criminal defense attorneys from Miami, to solve their criminal cases. 

child murderer Kerpan

When Kathy read about the Fort Lauderdale City Commission’s plans to move the homeless feeding out of Stranahan Park and into the Downtown fringe, she decided to tell the City not to make the same mistakes that contributed to her vicious attack in 1993.

Kathy before the attack

It was in the early 1990’s, and Kathy lived in a modest bungalow a few blocks from the infamous Tent City.

Tent City was one of Fort Lauderdale’s most failed experiments. The problem of large populations of homeless filling the Downtown were escalating every winter, and the citizens wanted action. The City decided an open air, tented parking lot across from City Hall was the solution. It was a wild place, few rules, little control. People were found dead under the tent, crime reports were an everyday occurence, and it was far too scary for many of the homeless to stay there. The California roberry crimes are scary enough and one might need legal assistance and help.

Bad as Tent City was, it was just the ticket for Rodney Wayne Jones. It was July 1993, and Jones had just been released from a Washington State Prison, where he had served 7 years of a 13 year sentence for abducting and raping a nurse from a city bus stop. He hopped another bus bound for Tent City, Fort Lauderdale, a place that had gained national notoriety among the country’s chronically homeless population. . He settled in, no questions asked.

A few weeks into his stay in Fort Lauderdale, Jones found an odd job repairing the rentals where Kathy lived.

Kathy says Jones was a ” deaf and dumb crackhead” who creeped her out from the moment he began working around her little cottage. ” He was looking in my window, and I told the landlord about it and made plans to move, but it wasn’t soon enough”.

Kathy says on that fateful night, “she heard her front deadbolt turn”, and knew she was in trouble. Jones had a key he had gotten from the landlord. He attacked her with such viciousness, that she says the crime scene photos clearly showed “human tissue on the wall”. The crime was defined as “sexual torture”, because she wasn’t raped. Kathy says his crack addiction kept him from performing, and that frustration led to a more vicious attack. The attorneys for appealing a criminal charge are always there to help the victims to bring an end to their sufferings and humiliations faced in the society.

Seventeen years later, Kathy is able to describe the shocking crime without emotion. She says he “stabbed me in the vagina 14 times”, which also ruptured her intestines. He “smashed my face with the butt of a rifle he brought along with the knife”. He then sodomized her with the barrel of the rifle as Kathy screamed and fought with all she had. Her neighbor, unable to get in to help, smashed the window with his fist, and that helped scare the attacker off.

Kathy says the original call to 911 classified it as a homicide, no one thought she could survive.

an hour after the attack

Kathy says the aftermath was nearly as bad as the crime. Much of the evidence was thrown out due to a lack of warrants, and Jones’s original confession was thrown out, as his Miranda rights were violated due to his deafness.

Eventually, Jones accepted a plea agreement that offered him a 23 year sentence. Though he qualified for release March 1 2008 (Kathy says that date is burned into her memory), the Jimmy Ryce Act has him still civilly committed.

Kathy seems OK now. She embroiled herself in anti-crime activities when she had recovered enough, trying to make some sense of the brutality she endured. She joined the City’s Volunteer Police Academy, the Homeless Task Force, the Broward Sheriff’s Victim Advocate Program, and the Citizens Crime Alert, and bought her first home in a new area she says ” doesn’t have any crackheads”.

Kathy says she hasn’t been active lately, but that she decided to  “step back into the ring” to try and contribute to the City’s plans for the homeless feeding programs. If it has to be done, she says she “wants it done right this time”.

Expect to hear more from Kathy. She can be reached at 954-689-7571.

 

     Proving that it is entirely possible to push a very heavy object up a very steep hill……..
 
     ……former Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Tim Smith (that’s me), finished his sixth half-marathon Sunday at the Fort Lauderdale A1A Marathon.

     

                                                                                                  
                                                         Smith rounding the turn to the finish line

     After the race, Smith said that the effort was a “walk in the park”, but then quickly added that he was lying through his teeth!

     Smith also said that he finally figured out, after finishing 6 half-marathons and 2 full marathons, why his wife always prepared a T-Shirt for him to wear during the runs with POPS emblazoned across the front.

     The onlookers, whenever Smith began to slow down or even think about walking, kept yelling out 

                                           “GO POPS”
    
       and Smith would pick up the pace. Smith said that as soon as he can walk again and chase his wife down, he was going to  “have a chat with her about that”!

     Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley has had a tough year.

     Today, he had an exceptionally good day.

                                                 
                                                                                    the Chief

     Adderley’s Department jointly announced today the culmination of a successful year-long undercover operation it conducted with Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the US Marshal’s Service, and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

     The operation, named “Operation Smoking Gun“, was aimed at  “crime and violence associated with gang activity”.

     Here’s just a snapshot of some of the results:

     ……  320 guns seized, including a machine gun and 3 sawed- off shotguns

    ……  2956 Oxycodone pills seized
 
    ……  1616 Percocet

    ……   7762 Ectasy pills

    ……   stolen personal I.D.’s of 300 theft victims

    ……   1.5 kilos of crack cocaine

    ……    100 violent gang criminals arrested

     Adderley celebrated the good news tonight by going out on Patrol. Adderley is known to patrol the city after dark, (usually on Fridays) after a full week of Police administration and mind-numbing city politics.
 
     He says he has fond memories of his work “on the streets as a Patrolman and Raider ” ( the Police street crimes unit), and enjoys these night patrols.

     Tonight, I rode with Adderley and clicked a few pictures of him checking out the streets.

                                                 
                                                      Adderley checking on his house off Sistrunk Boulevard

                                                  
                                                               Chief checking in on a recent crime victim


                                              
                                                   Adderley yucking it up at the local Haitian barbershop

                                                                          
                                                                          the future of Fort Lauderdale

     The City Fathers (and Mothers) hope you can see it. As a matter of fact, there are counting on YOU to tell them what the future of Fort Lauderdale should look like, act like, be like!

                                                  
                                                           key city fathers and mother!             

   The Fort Lauderdale City Commission has appointed a group of citizens to ……………………………….

          ” develop and recommend to the City Commission an initial model plan that outlines a process to seek the perspectives of under-represented individuals so that a citywide vision will reflect the hopes and viewpoints of all residents in the City of Fort Lauderdale; and to organize a broad-based, community focused process and produce a vision plan for the next century that will guide the City Commission in their policy and decision making.” 

     That’s government speak for …… figure out how to get input from all the Citizens, to produce a Vision for the Future, so the Commission can have an idea of what the peeps really think! ( and then make it happen!) 
     
     The Visioning Committee, ( which some are now calling VisCom!) is clearly a capable group. It is made up of well known local figures, leaders in their fields. Included in the group are some notables, a pillar, a business baron, a couple of big shots, a bigwig, and a nabob.

     Not to mention a charming and capable Chairperson! (see pictured below)

              Chairperson Smith
   ( Jeez, I wish I still looked like that!)

     The panel has held their first meeting and planned their second.

     The second meeting will feature experts in the field of Visioning, and then the Committee will hear from local experts that will give them the current conditions in the City on major topics  like Public Safety, Economic Development, Waterways and Beaches, Neighborhoods, Green Initiatives, and the like.

     You should attend. The public is welcome, meeting to be held on the 8th floor of City Hall on Tuesday March 9th at 4 p.m. You can always call me if you have questions at 954-822-4727

                                 See you there  ……   Tim