Category: Uncategorized

     Activist Penny got dreadful news – leukemia.

     To make matters worse, an old four acre chop shop behind her townhouse in Fort Lauderdale started a massive ground pollution clean-up soon thereafter.

                      …………………………….

     Penny says she can’t open her windows, can’t go outside. She says the smell of the diesel and the gasoline laden dirt is suffocating.

     She thinks something is amiss and has called the City and the EPA, (and me!). So far she says the assault just keeps going day after day.

     I told her not to trespass on their property, but if she could get some pictures from the street, I’d pass them along, maybe something could be done to lessen the intrusion …

                                     here’s what happened !


                 

     It was one of those Commission meetings that hurt. Police escorting leading citizens from the chambers!

     I remember them all too well.

     This painful meeting erupted after midnight last night. It pitted an area that looked promising for a come back before the economy soured, called Flagler Village, (around Searstown and south to the downtown), and the District Commissioner for our neediest area, Commissioner Bobby Dubose.

                                   
                                         Alan Jean, Commissioner Dubose, Senator Smith   

     The battle was all about affordable housing in Flagler Village.   

     First came the speakers who opposed the project, a 103 unit affordable housing project looking for a city government subsidy.

     The opposition was strong.

     One of the city’s leading pioneer developers, Alan Hooper was very upset.

     He said his developments, (heralded as pioneering developments in a once rough area), would soon be “sandwiched” by affordable housing. He said his customers say they will not buy next to affordable housing. He said that “we ( the area’s residents”) need to have a say on where to put them ( affordable housing)”.

                       
                    Hooper in happier times           Hooper’s Avenue Lofts in Flager Village

         (Ironically, Hooper once proposed moving the city’s vagrant population out of the downtown into other neighborhoods north of Flagler Village).
     
      Other speakers said they bought into a dream that was turning into a nightmare. They spoke of the neighborhood turning back into a “slum”. Said homeless were “lurking behind trees”. 

     One area owner said if the low income projects came in, the area would go downhill and never come back.

     Commissioner Dubose was incensed. He said the speakers comments were “troubling, disturbing, insulting”. He was clearly emotional – spoke of an “undercurrent”. He said that the folks in the Northwest (who weren’t allowed to cross east of the railroad tracks after dusk in the past, were just finally  “celebrating crossing the railroad tracks”. 

     He admonished the opposition that ” people that qualify for affordable housing aren’t bad people”.

     This harangue incensed Hooper in the audience. Hooper stood and started to rebuff Dubose, saying “I have to address that”. 

                

     Mayor Jack Seiler tried to restore order by banging his gavel, and saying no, no, no Alan, please be respectful, but it was too late.

     Hooper was being escorted from the Chambers by Fort Lauderdale Police.

     The Commission finished their deliberation and passed the subsidy 4-1, with Commissioner Rogers opposing. 

     It’s not the last we will hear of it. The Commission agreed that there needed to be a “strategy”, so Flagler or other neighborhoods wouldn’t be overwhelmed with the city’s affordable housing…

            Stay tuned ! 

     



     

    

     My latest reporting on the infamous Art Seitz drew a lot of attention, mostly from the folks that live on the beach – with him.

     And yesterday, Art himself called me to “set the record straight”!

     But I had a demand of my own first, for Art. I only had one picture of Art that I run when he makes news, and I needed something new, something fun. 

     So Art agreed, and here’s what I got !

            

     Whoa!….
 
     I guess that’s really Art Seitz, but it looks to me more like a cross between Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.!

     And just who are those babes with you Art?

     But back to the story.

    …… Art says that he wasn’t banned from speaking at the Central Beach Alliance , as I reported. He says ( and others back-up) that he was only silenced for the moment, because he wouldn’t stop talking when asked to by the President.

     Art says he was just trying to make the point that the Central Beach Alliance was “illegitimate” . He says the by-laws of the organization haven’t been followed since Mel Rubenstein was President…. and he says he “gave notice” to the President that he was coming to the meeting to do just that…

     And he says that according to the by-laws, there was no quorum present, and the meeting shouldn’t have gone on….

     And he says that a former beach President Steve Glassman is really running things from behind the scenes.. says Glassman has shanghaied the association.

     And he says that the current officers are pawns, reluctant to serve. Art says he tried to take the new president, John Weaver, on a tour, and “educate” him, but that Weaver wouldn’t go….
 
     Then Art started on the topics of ISHOF and the Bahia Mar …..

                     ….and I voted him off my blog island




    

     Fort Lauderdale property owners are getting screwed.

     I’ll prove it to you in just a minute. This is what is going on.

     The Sheriff of Broward County is demanding that we pay him 5 million dollars per year for Police Dispatch. The Fort Lauderdale tax payer would have to foot the bill.


                  Sheriff Wrong !

     It’s just not right, because the Fort Lauderdale property owners are already paying the county way more than our fair share in taxes. We’ve had a deal for years with the County to pay for our dispatch, but now they are reneging on the deal.
 
    

         ahhh! … Fort Lauderdale

      Broward County is made up of 33 cities. We are the most populous city, with a population of 165,000, but a very western city, Pembroke Pines, is catching up with 154,000 people. Hollywood has 140,000, Miriamar 122,000.

                           

      Fort Lauderdale has, by far, the highest amount of property value. The total value of our real estate is an astonishing 23 Billion, the closet competitor is Hollywood, with 9 Billion, then comes Pompano with 8 Billion, Pembroke Pines with 8 Billion, and on down the line.

     Therefore, we pay substantially more taxes to Broward County than all the other cities. The average amount of taxes paid by Broward County cities is 60 million dollars a year. Fort Lauderdale pays twice that at 120 million. Here’s a list of the where the bigger cities in Broward rank next to our donation! 

          
    Taxes paid to the County 
   
     Fort Lauderdale – 120 million
     Hollywood – 50 million
     Coral Springs – 37 million
     Pompano Bch – 44 million
     Miramar – 32 million
     Pembroke Pines – 41 million

     So, what does this all mean?
 
     It means we pay a ton more money into the County Coffers than we get back.
     It means the Sheriff is wrong to try and wring another 5 million dollars out of the Fort Lauderdale citizens.

     But, you ask, don’t we get things from the County that other cities don’t?   

     Good point!  

                                
                                 
       We get the traffic, which flows into the City in the morning, clogs up the roadways, runs back out in the afternoon.

                            

     And we get the Courthouse and the County’s waterfront jail, so the criminals can see where they can roam when let out the front gates.  

     The bottom line…..

     We should be treated more fairly, or maybe we should just practice saying 

        …the County of Fort Lauderdale ….ahh!

     

     

     

    

     It’s the first time it’s ever happened in Fort Lauderdale, maybe anywhere!

     A citizen has been voted off his island.
 
     Actually, the citizen, from the Central Beach Alliance, now has the unenviable distinction of being the only person ( that I’ve ever heard of) to have an association vote NOT to allow them to ever speak again at their meetings!  

                 

     You guessed it – Art Seitz!

     This is how I heard it went down. 
(To be fair, and for full disclosure, and because I don’t want to be sued by Art – again ! –  I wasn’t there, this is all second hand).

     ….. As usual, Art was participating in the discussion! … and participating  … and participating! Art has many great ideas, is passionate about the beach and what it could be, spends a good bit of his life trying to make that happen ….. it’s his delivery that could use some work! 

     You could say ( in my opinion), that Art has made an ART of combative civic encounters. He’s at times been rude, obnoxious, odious, even rebarbative!
        
     So, the Central Beach Alliance’s President, John Weaver, was gettting annoyed. He had been having problems getting Art to conform at other meetings, and Weaver appeared at his rope’s end. 

     He interrupted Art and asked for a motion to –

      never allow Art to talk again at a Central Beach Alliance meeting!

     The motion then passed, nearly unanimously, with only one person opposing ! ( and I don’t think it was Art!)

     Something tells me Art will still speak up at the meetings!
    

     Fort Lauderdale City Commissioners said last week that they are “frustrated” with the homeless problems downtown.

          

      … Yes, we know. Frustrated still would be a better statement. And so are we. It’s time for a new approach.

You see, the Mayor and Commissioners have been “frustrated” with this problem for their entire three year term. They have been throwing proverbial “stuff” against the wall every so often, seeing if anything would stick. Nothing has.

Now, the yearly onslaught of homeless, cold from up north, are about to arrive..

Here’s how the last three years have progressed for this Commission.

     In the beginning, it was the the First Baptist Church, ( near City Hall at Broward and 3rd Avenue)  feeding in the parking lot behind their church.

Commissioner Rogers said it became “problematic”, and that the City asked the Church to stop.

After that, the City has been trying to just relocate the problem from downtown. First, it was over off Sunrise Blvd., where one blogger said they should move the problem there, because that area just “didn’t matter”. The folks around that area disagreed.

Then it was proposed to go over in Flagler Heights, just across Federal Hwy. from Victoria Park.  You know how that turned out.

Then it was the roving roach coach idea. The Commissioners decided to let the Salvation Army’s Mobile Feeding Unit feed in different areas, so as to not overwhelm any area. Unfortunately, the first area proposed was south of the New River, across from Rio Vista! Needless to say, that program was pulled before ever getting off the ground.

Now, with the homeless-issue tension mounting, the Commission is once again scrambling for an answer. They asked new Manager Feldman and old  Attorney Stewart for a plan – quick !

new manager

A new approach

     We need to try something different. Lead the way!

In the old way of looking at it,  we have been calling all the folks in Stranahan Park, the homeless.

I propose that we stop that and realize a few things.

Most of the folks hanging out, waiting for a styrofoam container at the Park, are not “the homeless”, as we think of the homeless. We have a homeless shelter on Sunrise Blvd. for the unfortunate souls that lose their home/jobs etc. and need a temporary place to stay. I call these the “situationally” homeless, and they almost always find their way to the HAC (Homeless assistance Center) and are then helped, and make their way back into the mainstream.

The folks of Stranahan Park generally fall into the other following categories :

The Drifters – These are the 40% that wander around the country, looking for an easy life, free food, lax laws. We should convince this group that Fort Lauderdale doesn’t fall into that category of cities. Enforcing aggressive panhandling laws, public intoxication laws, private property laws and the like should keep them moving on. Add in a couple of hundred bus tickets out of town per month for good measure.

     The Mentally Disabled – These folks may very well not have a place to stay, but it is because they aren’t able to. We should help these folks. Daily trips to the park from mental health professionals and a program to house them and monitor their needs should do it. It will cost something, but not doing it may very well be more expensive ( and surely less compassionate).

 Criminals –  Hence, it is the perfect time to find an alternative to a jail sentence to uplift the criminal justice system and to protect the public at large as the bad guys like to mix in, to blend in the feeding areas. Many have warrants, some are on probation or parole. . The cops need to go in, maybe undercover, arrest the bad guys and remove them.

     Hopeless – This is an eclectic group, the toughest nut. Many are just unfortunates that need mentors, jobs, advice, and direction. Sometimes they live with their aunts, grandmothers, friends, sometimes not. They don’t travel, they live here – and there. They are often the unemployed. Most are undereducated.

Here are a few things we could try…   First,

Citizens need to be informed NOT TO GIVE TO PANHANDLERS! They need to be re-directed to other ways to help the homeless. Many cities have old parking meters around their downtowns with instructions to put money there to really help the homeless.

Then, we should form a volunteer group of citizens/professionals and send them into the park daily (or any other place this group begins to congregate), with job referral/training information, affordable housing lists, veteran- issues help, legal help, mental health professionals etc.. Look at it like a Big Brother/Big Sister kind of program.
This group of volunteers would need to have a law enforcement component attached.  The volunteers could be on call as well. The City could arr
ange a phone number –

CALL 1-800 GET HELP

     When a problem is seen, the TEAM would be called into action…

If you were expecting a simple answer, there isn’t one. But if we keep doing the same things – we can expect the same results!

     Next year’s Air and Sea Show plans are inching along, but a hiccup yesterday almost sent the progress in reverse… ever heard of a” waiver of a conflict of interest?” …. I’ll get to that goofy concept in a minute ….. read on

        Here’s the weird story

         

     In case you lost track of the Air Show’s unusual history, here is a brief version…

     The yearly extravaganza, that brought millions of people to the beach each May to see acts like The Thunderbirds and The Blue Angels, was side-lined, due to fiscal matters, complaints from some citizens, and the added fact that the promoter of the event, Mickey Markoff, was caught on numerous occasions peeping into woman’s bedrooms in the middle of the night !

                                              
                                             peeping Mickey                                                

     The event left town for the last few years, but this year, the City Commission, under the leadership of my friend Mayor Jack “who doesn’t love a parade ?” Seiler, the event looks to be coming back.

     In addition to Seiler, much of the success in bringing back the event is due to one beach family.

                                       
                                           the Motwanis                                         

     Romala Motwani is the matriarch of the beach hotel family. Her husband Bob (deceased) and Romola are throw backs to the old days of Fort Lauderdale Beach. 

     The Matwanis were there in the 1980’s, when college kids were busy throwing hotel washing machines in the swimming pools, and they are there still, trying to complete a multi million dollar Trump International Hotel !

     Ramola is one of a kind. You can find her serving on State Boards with the high munkity munks, and you can find her at a Citizen Volunteer Corp. effort, kneeling in the mud pulling weeds at a City Park.

     So on to the conflict.

     Today, the City Commission is entertaining contributing $100,000 to next year’s Air Sea event by paying for a portion of the City Police and Fire that will be required to staff the event.

     Ramola, and her son Dev, who have agreed to rescue the event, serve on two city boards. Ramola serves on the Beach Redevelopment Advisory Board
, or BRAB, and Dev is the Chair of the City’s Economic Development Advisory Board ( not called the EDAB for some reason?).

     Ramola has excused herself from any discussion on the BRAB, citing a conflict of interest. But City officials say her and son Dev still have a conflict of interest according to State Statutes. 

     But, the City was prepared to grant the Motwanis a waiver of conflict of interest!
     Two former beach area presidents were aghast. Steve Glassman called the waiver an “oxymoron”, and Fred Carlson e-mailed that maybe the beach should consider taking back their support for the event.

     The Motwanis had a smarter idea. I received an e-mail last night that the Motwanis would be resigning from their respective City Boards….. 

          no conflicts  … no waiver’s needed ! … gotta love those Motwanis!   
     

    

     
     I think you will enjoy this story …..

      ….  County Commissioner John Rodstrom  …..

         

     Rodstrom’s the only County Commissioner who opposes term limits, and is the only Commissioner that says if his friend Bill Scherer can get them overturned at the Florida Supreme Court, he might ignore the will of the people, and go ahead and run for another term anyhow.

     I’ve been talking to Rodstrom, trying to convince him to change his mind, but not really getting anywhere   … so …. 

     this crazy thing happened this morning !

     I decided to take John a book by well known conservative George F. Will, called “Restoration“. The book is George Will’s convincing case for Term Limits.  

     Rodstrom used to be head of the Young Republicans, so I figured he might give Will’s book a look.

     I drove down to the County building, put a quarter in the meter, and checked in with the guard.

                  

      I showed him the book, and he said, that’s good, that’s good, and handed me my entry badge.

     I walked up to the County Commission hallway, usually jammed with lobbyists, but empty this morning. I figured that meant no Commissioners were home.

     I took this picture in case Rodstrom wasn’t in to take the book.

                 

     I was right, John wasn’t in. I left the book with the desk, and asked that they get it to Rodstrom.

     I went to work.

     When I stopped home for lunch, a package was in front of my door, delivered by Comet Delivery Services, hand delivered ! 

     Yep, it was the book. And a letter from the County Attorney!

                  

     ….. the letter is signed by Joni Armstrong Coffey, County Attorney.

     It says “Vice Mayor Rodstrom has made the decision not to accept such gifts“!

     It goes on to say that “leaving an item at the front desk… would not constitute acceptance of an offered gift”.

     I’m almost speechless   ….. almost!





   

     It came as quite a surprise to me, probably most.

    

     Scott Wyman, long time, solid political reporter for the Sun-Sentinel, has done a total change-up, and instead of reporting on the doings of Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom, he’ll soon be working as her personal aide!

 

     Rodstrom is by most accounts a tough boss. She might also be the hardest working Commissioner. Leaders in her District aren’t surprised to get calls and e-mails late into the evenings and on weekends, and she seems to have burned through assistants like cord wood!

      And now Wyman will be signing on as her fourth assistant in 6 years.

     Her first assistant was Amber Van Buren, who now works as a manager at Art Serve. When Van Buren left, rumors circulated that Van Buren would talk about bad feelings with Rodstrom, but that never came about.

     Then there was Paul Falcone.



     Falcone was a former teacher of Rodstrom’s son John at St. Thomas Aquinas. Falcone only lasted months, and the rumors of a stormy employment relationship surfaced again. I called Falcone then, who told me to call him in a “a few weeks” after things cooled down, but he wouldn’t ever take my call after that.

     Then came Neesa Warlen. 
 
     The Warlen appointment drew some criticism due to the high salary she was paid by Rodstrom. Warlen made over $70,000 per year, while Mayor Seiler and the other Commissioners pay their aides in the $60,000 range.

     Warlen lasted a few years, and I’ve only heard that she is leaving to “spend more time with her family”.

     Wyman is a true professional, and a good catch by Rodstrom. I had a short conversation with him today, and he sounds really excited – ready for a new adventure! …

    I bet it will be one!