Tim Smith's Fort Lauderdale

     ON (the agenda)…..

      The Fort Lauderdale City Commission is expected to pick a new City Manager in a few hours.

     There are three finalists, and it looks like it is coming down to a showdown between Michael Levinson, formally the Coral Springs City Manager,and Lee Feldman, the current Palm Bay City Manager.

     I’m finding many of the City’s leaders prefer this guy below, Lee Feldman. I do too!  Good Luck Lee !

                                                      


     Off  ( the agenda)……

      The latest plan for moving the chronic homeless out of Stranahan Park.

                             

     The City’s Homeless Task Force suggested the City try out the Commission’s agreed upon Mobile Feeding Program, using the Salvation Army’s Mobile Van this Friday.

     The location suggested was Tunnel Top Park, ( on the top of the tunnel, of course) next to Rio Vista.

     Needless to say, there was some opposition!

     A memo was issued pulling the item off the agenda. Can you see the shock on my face from where you’re sitting?

     Truth is, feeding this chronic population anywhere, without the necessary intensive services just won’t work. The Commission should adjust their plan.

     So you say you want a windmill?  You like the idea of cheaper electricity?

      And you live in Fort Lauderdale?


                           
                                ….. that white twisted thing on the roof is a windmill

        The jury is still out on whether or not you can have one.  The windmill pictured above is on a roof off of SE 16th Street in Fort Lauderdale.

       You see, that windmill had to be approved by the Board of Adjustment ( that’s getting a variance), because the law in Fort Lauderdale doesn’t allow them now.

      Another request for a windmill from the BOA was turned down a few years back, and a new one, asking for 14 windmills at 505 Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard was recently tabled by the BOA.

     “We need Commission input”, says Caldwell Cooper, a BOA member. “What’s the Vision for windmills here? There really needs to be a City policy”, Cooper added.

     Sure enough, said the City Commission, as they  sent the item off to the Utility Advisory committee for their opinion.

     Cooper says the 14 windmill request comes back before his committee next month, and he hopes to get some direction from the policy makers by then.
    

     Your tax dollars are about to pay a million dollars for this dump!

                             

     The property sits on Dixie Highway in Middle River Terrace. The City of Fort Lauderdale will own it, but Broward County is paying the tab through the old Land Preservation Bond. The City will have to develop it according to that programs’ rules.

     The Land Preservation Bond monies were expended long ago, but this property never closed, due to the arsenic poisoning found in the soil around the property !

                              

     No one is sure where the arsenic came from.
 
     This can in the back yard of the property is clearly marked Waste, but the mystery of the arsenic poisoning often points to an old plant nursery (fertilizer and insecticides) that was on the land and on the land of the adjacent Middle River Terrace Park land years ago, but the park land was tested when the park was developed in the late 1990’s and came up clean.

     The City says that they will make the owner remove the arsenic before they take ownership of the million dollar baby, but word on the street is that the Countyy may actually let the owner leave the slab of the house ( and any arsenic that resides beneath!)

     To be fair, this City Commission didn’t strike this bad deal, but they may be the ones left to mop it up!


                                  
                                          code actions are often taped to the building

     The house has sat abandoned and poorly maintained for years. There are 10 different Code Enforcement cases on the City’s website, with titles like open and abandoned, nuisance property,  lot clearing,  broken windows, broken fencing, and overgrowth.

     The Broward County Property Appraiser assesses the value of the property at $293,010, ( I suppose the arsenic is thrown in for nothing!)

    In my opinion, it’s clear that this property is not worth a million bucks. Some officials say that the deal was struck long ago when it was worth it, but it seems to me it’s time for a new deal!

     Maybe self proclaimed fiscal watchdog Earl Rynerson should sink his teeth into this real boondoggle!

     Here are some e-mail addresses you could send a  note off to if you agree that this is not money well spent!

                 JSeiler@fortlauderdale.gov
                 CRodstrom@fortlauderdale.gov
                 ale@DaleHolness@browardcounty.gov” border=”0″ laugh.png? emoticons blog.timsmith.com http:>Dale@DaleHolness@browardcounty.gov
                 earl@abetterftlauderdale.com

    

    City Manager Allyson Love’s  departure from Fort Lauderdale City employment didn’t happen this afternoon after all, only the announcement that she will not be staying around under the new City Management, expected to take place sometime soon.

      Apparently, the announcement was made at a meeting restricted to department heads this afternoon, and was not expected to leak out as fast as it did. ( and reported before all the facts were  known!)

     Love took the job on an interim basis, and was widely expected to stay after a permanent Manager was chosen, returning to one of her former positions.  Much of the upper management of the City has already left, which could be creating a void.

     The City Commission is expected to choose from a short list of three finalists for the Manager job at their next meeting. I haven’t been able to find out when the new Manager would start, and if Love has agreed to stay until that happens…. I’ll let you know when I do…

……….  In a surprising move sure to upset the apple-cart at Fort Lauderdale City Hall, City Manager Allyson Love tendered her resignation about 20 minutes ago. 
         
                                      
     Love has held the important post  since former Manager Gretsas left last year.

     I’m trying to get more of the story now ….Mayor Jack Seiler has been apprised.

      Who is Art Seitz ?

     If you have to ask, then you definitely don’t pay attention to politics in Fort Lauderdale.

                        
                                               picture courtesy of Cal Deal

     Art is a professional photographer, quite a good one, but is famous here as possibly the best known political Gad-Fly to ever work-over Fort Lauderdale City Commissions.

                Here are two definitions of gad-fly, from Websters! ( both could apply?)

    1.  .. “one who upsets the status quo by poising upsetting questions…by proving an irritant

    2. …… ” an insect that stings cattle, and deposits it’s eggs in their skins” !

     Art has quite a colorful history. First, for full disclosure, Art sued me over something he didn’t like in my best selling local book –  “Politics 101, I was robbed, mugged, blackmailed, and ignored, so I got elected and made a difference.”

     Art also sued the City of Fort Lauderdale, and Martina Navratilova, the famous tennis player. Art also filed an official complaint against former Commissioner Cindi Hutchinson (even a clock is right twice a day!)

     Art’s latest battle might be with Victoria Park Activist Charles King. King copied his e-mail below to the City Commission about his views on Art – 

                   ….. I know you view yourself as the “Patrick Henry ” of the beach  ….. the Hurricane Storm Surge Barrier Island or HSSBI for short …   ….  bankrupt this city by approving all your totally self-centered impractical dreams of a senior citizen Utopia and water park at the beach funded at the expense of this city’s hard working families” 


     My advise to Charles – call your lawyer, tell him to stand by !

                                             
                                               an Art photo

     

    

 

     1.    You could possibly have a different City Commissioner soon.
                           That’s because the preliminary Census figures appear to show that our Policital Districts in the City are unbalanced in population, and that’s a no-no according to our City Charter.

     Here’s a map of the Political Districts as they are today (excuse the ad plastered over it, I don’t have PDF to JPEG conversion software!). The green is Commissioner Roberts, the purple is Commissioner Dubose, the brown Commissioner Rodstrom, and the beige Commissioner Rogers.

                                                
     As it turns out, Rogers and Dubose have too many people, Rodstrom and Roberts not enough. Districts must be contiguous, so some neighborhood[s] in District 4 will have to move into either District 2 or 3, and some neighborhood[s] in District 3 will have to shift north to District 2 or 1……

      Any way you do it, someone will not be happy! Think Coolie Hammock represented by Rodstrom, Poinsettia Heights represented by Roberts etc. etc. The reshuffling has 100’s of possibilities.


 2.    We will also soon have a new City Manager. It will be one of the three finalists. The odds-on favorite appears to be Levinson, formerly of Coral Springs, but I was much more impressed with this guy …
               
                            

     Feldman, from Palm Bay, formerly from North Miami. Feldman seems much more people/citizen friendly, has some new creative ideas for the City, and is surely very capable.  If I was still there, I’d be voting for him.

3.  Visioning passed by a vote of 5-0, though Rodstrom tried her best to kill it before voting for it in the end. Stay tuned for Vision collectors coming to your neighborhood this summer !
     
                

     On Wednesday, after years and decades of bitching about how our City has never had a  clear     ………………

                              Vision for the future,

 
    …….. and after over a year of planning how we might be able to go to all the citizens of Fort Lauderdale, not just the inside few, and figure out a real plan, one that could really work,
 
     …….  we might just be ready to start planning a great future for all of  Fort Lauderdale.

                                          WOW ….. won’t that be great !

                                     

                                       
                    ……………..   Here’s what a few people have said about Vision


              …………. The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no Vision – Helen Keller

              …………. Some men see things as they are and ask “Why?”  I dream things that never were and say “Why not?” – Robert Kennedy  

              ………… Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others –Jonathon Swift

          ……….. Where there is no Vision, the people perish  – the Bible !

                                       
    
      The Vision planning work will take a year, go out to all parts of the City, both residential and business, and be organized by three professional companies that have done similar Visioning Action Plans for cities like …….

                                                  Philadelphia
                                                  San Jose
                                                  Sanibel
                                                  Hilton Head
                                                  New Orleans
                                                  Austin
                                                  St. Augustine
                                                  Fort Worth
                                                  Key Biscayne
                                                  Portsmouth

               …….. and lots of others  …

     It will cost the City about $300,000 for about a year of work …. finishes with a exhaustive, comprehensive Action Plan, and an Implementation Plan ( with a  roadmap of where to go after any money that’s needed and available to help completely accomplish it,) and a schedule of monitoring that makes sure the City Commission gets ‘er done!

     We really can’t afford not to do this   ………..

      Please call or e-mail the Mayor and the Commissioners now and tell them you are ready to help plan the City’s future ! Vote Yes !

                           (Their phone number is 954-828-5003)

                                            

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     I asked you all if you had any idea what this was.

                                          

     Well, of the answers I received (both privately and as a comment here on the blog) –  many  of you got it right, but an equal amount didn’t!

     The give-a-way clue was going to be “this blog looks at Fort Lauderdale through my eyes!”

     That’s what it is, my eyes, with a picture from the inside out, technically the Optomap ultra – wide digital retina imaging system. (It was time for my once a decade Eye Doctor visit!)

     Some of the best, worst answers were 

             …….. eyeball of a possum
           …….  the surface of Mercury
           …….  a tumor
           …….  a faraway galaxy


     Thanks for allowing me the diversion, I’ll get back to regular posting next!,,,Tim

      

      Anyone guess what this odd item is ?