Tim Smith's Fort Lauderdale

      I just got off the phone with Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley.

     I asked him about the charge of Police intimidation leveled by the homeless feeding group
Food Not Bombs. I’ll get back to the Chief in a minute, but here’s what I’ve been able to find out about Food Not Bombs.   

     Food Not Bombs is one of the key feeding groups that have been feeding the homeless in Stranahan Park for the last few years. The feedings have caused friction with many City residents and City Leaders, because the park has now become a haven for the down and out, a few just out ( of prison that is), and a smattering of the mentally disabled and sober – living – challenged folks. 

     Food Not Bombs Fort Lauderdale is the local chapter of nationwide group that bills itself as the “fastest growing revolutionary movement in North America.”

                                  

     Started 30 years ago in Cambridge Mass. as an anti-nuclear group, the group’s mission today is to protest war and poverty, and share free vegetarian food with the homeless.
     The San Francisco chapter of Food Not Bombs boasts that they have over “1000 arrests in the governments’ efforts to silence it’s protest against the city’s anti-homeless policies”.

      The group is affiliated with other anti-government policy groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross, Free Radio Movement, and Homes Not Jails.

                                    But back to Police Chief Adderley

     Adderley says the groups claims of Police misbehavior are hogwash. He says his officers responded to complaints from the South Middle River Civic Association about a “squatters residence” in their neighborhood. The association has been fighting crime and blight in their neighborhood and complained of unsavory characters and possible illegal drug activity at the home.

     Adderley says his officers found the home in poor condition, without electricity and water. He says his officers gave the residents a short time frame to clear up those problems or move out, but after the group threatened a lawsuit, the Police “backed off”,  until the City’s legal department had a look at the situation.

     I haven’t gotten any return phone calls or e-mails from Food Not Bombs.

      I’ll continue to follow the story –   ……  Tim

     Winter in Fort Lauderdale…….. we are very lucky, eh?

     But sometimes, even the beautiful weather, the peaceful easy feelin, is just not enough.

                             What’s a restless Fort Lauderdalian to do?


     Set off to see the in-laws?   ..




     …I know, ….that’s not nice,   …..

     ……  anyway, sometimes it’s nice to get out and wander around  South Florida,  …  enjoy the sights….

          …..but where to go … and, do we really want to fight  the traffic !!!

           

                …… the things you see out there on the roadways !!

                     ……  those bully drivers, road rage and all !


            


        ….so I’m conflicted, do we go, do we stay? …nothing’s ever black and white !

             

          …….  hell, lets go   ….. how bad can it get?


         


        ………  maybe we’ll just walk to the beach….      
    

     There’s something a little different about this 21 year-old.

      We’re talking about well known, local aspiring rap artist Chris Wilder, a.k.a. –  Sneetch.

     The Fort Lauderdale native, and  Fort Lauderdale High School alumni, has done something that might give you a chuckle. At least it gave me one. Let’s play kind of a ” Where’s Waldo” game in his picture below and see if you can tell what I’m talking about!

                              Here’s Chris !!!

                       

     Yup ! ……. Chris is such a fan of his hometown, that he has a tattoo with the logo of Fort Lauderdale right there on his bicep ( his guns, he calls them).

     The State of Florida is also represented, but he says he mostly loves the City, says there’s nowhere like Fort Lauderdale. He says he hopes the City keeps going forward, but gets back to it’s “splendor of the 1980’s” ( I’m confused too!).

     Chris told me that all rap is not ” drug dealin and gang bangin”, and invites you to hear his stuff at youtube.com/sneetchtv.

     He says you might even like it!

    

     The Time Machine buzzed and chirped, and out from behind the marked up, king size bed sheet, famous Fort Lauderdalians, long dead, emerged !

             

                  Chief Billy and the Brave One were the first to arrive ( fitting eh?)

           

     Frannk Stranahan and Virginia Schuman Young took the stage next, explaining lots of important Fort Lauderdale history. Stranahan was still wearing the sewer grate around his waist that he used to drown himself a hundred years earlier !


        

     The first town Doctor, Thomas Kennedy, was there with his hacksaw, Annie and Alfred Beck opened their lovely 1916 home ( they looked great for being 147 years old!), Ivy Stranahan nagged Frank, and the crowd hooped it up with delight!  

            ….  Fun it was !!!

     I know this sounds crazy!

     But our City turns 100 years old next month, so this coming Sunday afternoon, at the monthly meeting of the Middle River Terrace Neighborhood Association, some very famous, but very dead Fort Lauderdalians will be coming back from the past to share some historical tidbits – and you’re invited!

                                     

                                               
                                                Frank and Ivy Stranahan
     
      Frank Stranahan ( who you’ll think bears an uncanny resemblance to Mayor Jack Seiler) will be there to tell us why he jumped in the river !

                                     
                                             mysteries finally solved !

     And former Mayor Virginia Shuman Young, though she’s been gone for decades, will be there also.
 
     You might think Young looks an awful lot like Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom, but Rodstrom hair isn’t stark white and it’s not up in a bun! We’ll have to ask Young what it feels like to be the only female Mayor of Fort Lauderdale (to present!)

                                   
                                          after the 1926 hurricane
    
      You’ll hear fascinating facts about our City, from the first Doctor who cut off limbs with a hacksaw, to the hair brained scheme to drain the everglades, to the man who got stabbed with fingernail clippers at Joe’s Bar! Other famous historical figures will also join ( and they’ll look a bit like some current people you know also

     And after the historic greats entertain and enlighten us and disappear back to the past, 

                                                  ( picture courtesy of Art Seitz)
    our current elected officials, Jack Seiler and Charlotte Rodstrom, will show up and answer a few questions from the crowd about our fair city.

     And wait…wait…. there’s more !  ..  get there at 4 pm,
 
     ………………….   eat free pizza

                           Place: Middle River Terrace Park
                             1329 N. Dixie Highway

                  this Sunday, Feb.13th – 4 p.m. – 5 p.m.

                               ( e-mail questions to Tim@TimSmith.com)

                          
            

     

      

     Former Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Cindi Hutchinson has been “temporarily” removed from her job as President and Director  of the Riverwalk Trust.

     The move comes as a reaction to Hutchinson’s arrest last week on public corruption charges.


     Hutchinson

     “The removal is temporary”, says Mark Budwig, Chairman of the Board of the Trust, while Hutchinson “attends to personal matters” (we all know what those matters are!) Hutchinson will be paid while on a 30 day administrative leave.

     Budwig added that Cindi has done an “outstanding job” as Director of the Trust, and when asked if he expects her to return, he strongly said he did.

                                
                    Chair Budwig , Cindi,  and George Mihaiu ( publisher of Go Riverwalk magazine)

     The Director position at the Trust has been “temporarily” filled by dynamo and city activist Genia Ellis.

     The move was made official just this morning, and Ellis’s name already replaces Cindi’s on the Trust’s web site. But as of this morning, you still hear Hutchinson’s voice mail message if you hit the President’s extension- 202 -when calling the Trust.

     Ellis is best known as the long term President of the Council of Fort Lauderdale Civic Associations, but has spent the last few years in many other volunteer endeavors including working at the Riverwalk Trust. Most observers I’ve talked to think Ellis is the perfect fit for this Interim appointment. Budwig says bringing in Ellis ” assures a smooth transition” for the Trust.

     Ellis could not be reached for comment for this story! ( but she can’t hide forever!)

     Thirty days falls on March 9th – we’ll check back in then … 
    

….. A lot of my friends are wondering why I haven’t blogged on the Cindi Hutchinson matter……

     …..You say you’re looking for answers….you want me to weigh in….. I get it ….. but truthfully,

    ….I really haven’t known what to say!


     … I’d like to have some brilliant thoughts on why these things happen, why humans can be so weak….. why  …… just why…..but this is all I have ………

     …..  some very unsolicited advice for Cindi…..
 
        I served with Cindi on the Fort Lauderdale City Commission for 3 years, from 2000, to 2003, so I do have standing….. 
 
  …. I was a City Commissioner from 1997 to 2003….. Cindi had beat Commissioner Jack Latona in 2000 for the southern side of the city, and I served with Cindi for those last three years of my service…

     … she had earned her election…..  and  she  was a damn good neighborhood president before that….

…….  when I first met her, back in the 1980’s,  we were both neighborhood presidents, neighborhood activists, ( in the best sense of the word) ……. we served on the Council of Neighborhoods together….we fought for our friends and neighbors …. her heart was pure…. 

                                                            ….. so what happened?

 ……  this much I can tell you, this much I know … when you get elected  to the Fort Lauderdale City Commission, you become a real bigshot, overnight,…… the richest, most important people in the City come out of the woodwork to kiss your behind…….

     … if you aren’t careful, you might start to think that your behind is special, but it’s really not…it’s just a behind…   I’m thinking Cindi missed that……

              ………………………….

       Here’s my completely humble advice for  Cindi Hutchinson

     You made some serious mistakes…..you’re screwed  …. don’t do what the others did, what human nature will tell you to do….deny ! … fight  …. deny !!

                                                         NO  ….. don’t do it !!!

    …..  you know what’s ahead….. just throw yourself on the mercy of  the court …… on the mercy of your fellow citizens…. apologize…  fire the lawyers ….. .do your time….live again…

                      Good luck………… Tim

    By the time George Gretsas left as the Fort Lauderdale City Manager last summer, the only question remaining was ……..
 
       ” how many of his upper management will he take with him?”


                                               
                                          Gretsas’s new City of  Homestead  picture

      Gretsas surrounded himself with loyal underlings from the day he came to Fort Lauderdale.

     Many of those loyalists came from his old job in White Plains, N.Y. ( as Assistant to the Mayor there), and criticism of those high paid assistants he brought with him dogged Gretsas throughout his tenure with the City.

      Word leaked out today that the first of those assistants, Assistant City Manager Ted Lawson, would be leaving at the end of February. The short, one paragraph city memo said Lawson would be leaving to accept a position as Director of Operations and Support at the Cleveland Clinic. The memo said one of Gretsas’s other insiders that still remains, Kathleen Gunn, would be serving “temporarily” in Lawson’s spot.

                                 
                                            Fort Lauderdale City Hall 
                                                      
     City Hall insiders, (who spoke anonymously, of course) say they expect the rest of the “Gretsas Mafia”, (as they were sometimes referred), would most probably go soon… A hunt for a new permanent City Manager is in high gear, and most people expect the person chosen would arrive in the city with a clean slate.


     

Dateline – January 20, 2014

     Mayor John P. “Jack” Seiler and his entire Fort Lauderdale City Commission received the prestigious Real Solutions Award  today at a White House recognition ceremony from President Barack Obama.
                               
                       Obama yucks it up with Jack,Bruce,Charlotte,Bobby, and Romney

     The award was bestowed after the Fort Lauderdale Commission was the first in the Nation to find a solution to the chronically homeless, hard to reach homeless population that had taken over parts of their Downtown.

                            
                       Commission swearing to continue providing “Real Solutions”

     The homeless had taken over Stranhan Park, which sits next to the Woman’s Club,
which is in the heart of the Downtown.

     The ingenius, celebrated program found a way to deal with this difficult group of homeless that had proved very hard to help.

     The Commission determined that these homeless were left out of the already successful Homeless Assistance Center on Sunrise Blvd. due to several reasons. A large percentage had mental health needs, many were current alcoholics and drug abusers, and some were wanted by the law. This left them unqualified for the help doled out at the HAC.

     The Commission developed their  ” City Without Any Homeless Plan” or CWAHP and against all odds, it worked!
 
            This is how it went down –  

     The Commission started by commandering the Police Department’s Mobile Command Unit”, and parked it next to Stranahan Park. They put up a big banner on it that said “We’re  Here To Help”, and filled it with Mental Health Professionals, Substance Abuse Counselors, VA specialists, Apartment Finders and security.

                           
                              Chief Adderley gets word he’d be loaning out his Command Unit

      The professionals, many who donated their services, moved among the population and found solutions to their situations. The Commission had sought out private sector help for the initial funding, and two very respected small developers, R. Opine, and Elaine Pooper, stepped up to the plate and donated $10,000 in seed money for the project to begin. (They were at the White House Thursday with the Commission, and were expected to receive other local recognition next week at the Commission meeting).

     Hundreds of the homeless that had been considered  “nomads”, and unhelpable, found relief and a new life due to the brave Commission’s actions, and the City got back their parks! 

           …. ( this doesn’t have to be a work of fiction, does it? ) ….Tim