Showing posts with label Wazir Ishmael. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wazir Ishmael. Show all posts

Monday, November 7, 2022

Did the Pandemic Change How You Feel re #HollywoodFL? Yes. Hollywood residents and stakeholders no longer see the city as "special" and they personally blame the Mayor, City Commission, City Manager, and City Attorney for abusing their trust and sending the city in the wrong direction

Did the Pandemic Change How You Feel re #HollywoodFL? Yes. Hollywood residents and stakeholders no longer see the city as "special" and they personally blame the Mayor, City Commission, City Manager, and City Attorney for abusing their trust and sending the city in the wrong direction


This post today is the Reader's Digest version of what dozens and dozens of well-informed people from every part of Hollywood have been telling me and my friend and fellow civic activist, Catherine "Cat" Uden in detail for well over a year: they believe that the city has gone completely in the wrong direction, and that self-evident fact has led increasingly larger number of Hollywood citizens, residents and stakeholders to get more angry and feel bitter at Hollywood City Hall than they ever imagined they could. 

That's especially true for Hollywood's most involved residents who follow every move the city makes publicly, and who, in the past, had always thought of these elected officials as simply friends and neighbors in a position to positively influence the future direction of this city.

Now that's NOT anger at the City Hall building, obviously, but rather at the very people there who've been entrusted with running the city in the best and most transparent way possible, people like the City Commission's members, all of whom took an actual oath to follow, protect and defend the Florida constitution. But they aren't doing that. Far from it.

Based on our one-on-one conversations in-person, over the telephone, and in the many emotional and exasperated emails and texts Cat and I receive, a very clear majority of the city's best and most informed residents personally believe that the Mayor, the City Commission and several people in the City Manager and City Attorney's offices, have knowingly and deliberately lied to the public and abused their longstanding trust in small and subtle ways that has left them shaken, if not in despair for this city's future. 

Now, they no longer believe that "Hollywood is different."

There in no one I know and respect here in Hollywood who feels the city's elected officials and  top bureaucrats response during/after has been anywhere close to satisfactory. 

Even people who always disagree with each other AGREE on this!

More on this matter at length after the election. An election that has been without any organized in-person candidate debates or forums of any kind, which has only angered people more, because they wonder where the groups are that in the past were involved in hosting those very things at locations throughout the city, and especially in Downtown and over on Hollywood Beach.  

There are a lot of people in this city who have an awful lot to answer for.



https://twitter.com/UdenCatherine/status/1580530579807748097



https://twitter.com/UdenCatherine/status/1585436563634520064




------------------

Read the whole thing in its original form: https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/status/1586756350184398850

2/ Instead, #HollywoodFL has INCREASED secrecy re PUBLIC info/facts/context, and is ACTIVELY avoiding normalcy, INSISTING on online mtgs. for important matters -inc. P3's- instead of returning to in-person engagement. ALL to avoid PUBLIC accountability!


3/ For 10 months, #LindaSherwood, a #Macon #GA-area woman has been VOTING as elected official in #HollywoodFL, city she's NOT been legal resident of since B4 roughly mid-January at latest, based on HER signed @FHAgov docs re primary residency.


4/ #HollywoodFL's City Mgr/City Atty/Mayor/City Comm. have engaged in a criminal conspiracy to keep #LindaSherwood on dais, meaning her one-time constituents are repped by a no-show #GA resident, yet gets salary/benefits fm taxpayers while violating #FL Constitution.

5/ Instead of #HollywoodFL citizens being fully represented @ City Hall by a person who legally LIVES in city where they do -as they are legally entitled to- they are, instead, "represented" by #GA resident who CONTINUALLY breaks multiple state/federal laws w/impunity.



6/ Why is this #SoFL town's City Mgr./City Atty./Mayor/City Comm. seemingly engaging in a criminal conspiracy -against their own city's citizens- to keep #LindaSherwood on dais @ #HollywoodFL City Hall, despite KNOWING she has/is breaking MULTIPLE #FL + U.S. laws?


7/ The answer, like so many criminal cases involving public corruption @ #SoFL City Halls is #RealEstate. These #HollywoodFL officials need to KEEP her YES vote to build a luxury condo tower -on public land!- for multimillionaires, 5x's higher than zoning allows.


8/ Say hi to #LindaSherwood, a Lizella, #GA resident for 10 months, yet STILL a voting member of #HollywoodFL City Comm. She LIVES 570 miles away -and city KNOWS it! I + public wonder when this charade ends and someone is ARRESTED.

Monday, September 13, 2021

What is the empirical data from Memorial Regional Hospital that the City of Hollywood is relying upon to re-open, and no longer be the only city of 58 in South Florida whose City Hall is closed to the public?




What is the empirical data from Memorial Regional Hospital that the City of Hollywood is relying upon to re-open, and no longer be the only city of 58 in South Florida whose City Hall is closed to the public?


As I noted, among other things, in my blog post of Tuesday August 24th, 2021, Intentional misdirection and shell games at Hollywood City Hall. Closing of City Hall is leaving #HollywoodFL residents and stakeholders irate at seeing their ability to attend so-called "public meetings" in-person and hold elected officials and staff to account. 

https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/intentional-misdirection-and-shell.html, for the record, there are a total of 58 incorporated cities in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.


But of those 58 incorporated South Florida cities, Hollywood was the ONLY city that consciously chose to close its City Hall to the public.

That blog post was the followed-up to my first post on this subject on Tuesday August 17, 2021

It's more than a little convenient for the City of Hollywood to decide to close City Hall again. Yes, just as another key Hollywood City Comm. mtg. is coming up on Wed. the 25th re The Related Group's controversial, incompatible 30-story luxury condo building on public land.
Early on, even before it happened, suspicions among fellow Hollywood civic activists were that the city closed City Hall, seemingly, based on lots of anecdotal evidence among the public about the number of city staffers who got COVID19 or more likely, got sick enough to not be able to work.
Based on personal observations before the closing, it was abundantly clear that far less than 40% of city employees who had worked at Hollywood City Hall before the pandemic continued toiling any time recently.

So now that you mention it, Dave, what IS the total number of city employees working at Hollywood City Hall right now? And what percentage is vaccinated?
The city is coy and refuses to say, but we do have eyes, don't we?

And our eyes don't lie, especially when they were at Hollywood City Hall in the middle of the afternoon, trying to get answers from people there because nobody-but-nobody was answering their phones. Hello Planning Dept.!

But the city's decision to close City Hall was made with ZERO empirical data that was shared WITH the public.

Not only did the City of Hollywood fail to place a required public notice on its Sunshine Board -outside of City Hall's south public entrance door- but ominously and egregiously, utterly failed to publicly disclose ANY info regarding what data and evidence would be needed in the near-future to change the status quo and open up again.
No publicly-disclosed parameters of any kind.

In short, the powers-that-be at Hollywood City Hall have decided that they alone will set and monitor whatever parameters may exist, and then let us know when they want to, absent any independent or objective data or evidence.

I contacted the offices of Gov. DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody in advance of the closing to apprise them of what was going on here, as well as on the first day City Hall was closed to the public, letting them know the city was failing to follow Florida's Sunshine Laws.
Laws, NOT suggestions.

There has been little mention of it on the Hollywood Residents - Speak Up group site on Facebook that I joined last month 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1023412084491625/ or elsewhere, but several well-informed people in Broward suggested early on to me that the REAL reason Hollywood City Hall was closed to the public was because of communications and pressure from Hollywood-based Memorial Healthcare Systems that was placed on City Manager Wazir Ishmael and Mayor Josh Levy.

In short, in the opinion of many, and myself, MHS apparently felt the city wasn't doing enough to show solidarity with MHS' continual dire warnings that they've been trumpeting on every single South Florida TV station for weeks. To wit, The Sky is Falling.


Subsequent to my Open Letter to Hollywood City Hall, I received a response from both Mayor Josh Levy and City Manager Wazir Ishmael on August 24th, printed below


Hi David, the widespread transmission of Covid right now, in the entire county, is at as high a point as ever before and including within the pool of 1,300 city employees.  Lots of cases, with personal impacts and which also cause quarantines of other employees.

By restricting access, the City government is protecting the public and the employees from non-essential contacts and gatherings that may cause more transmission and may put people in a health emergency, when that could be avoided.

All residents rely on the city to continue the function of essential services of the local government.  Residents would also expect that we do not facilitate situations where are not advisable for public health, such as creating indoor gatherings at community centers at this time.  That is the intent here, to protect the public, and it is with guidance from health professionals at Memorial and beyond.

As soon as the case numbers and rates go down, the City Manager will reopen the buildings.  


Josh Levy, Mayor

City of Hollywood

------------

Good morning David,

Thank you for writing to express your concerns about the restrictions on public access to City of Hollywood facilities that went into effect Monday, August 23, 2021. We share your frustration with the situation we currently find ourselves in pertaining to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning late Spring/early Summer 2021, signs of lower hospital admittance for COVID-19, as well as a lessening of the local positivity rate, afforded us the opportunity to restore public access to City Hall and other City facilities and with that, a return to normal procedures for in-person participation and attendance at public meetings. Unfortunately, we now find ourselves in a much graver situation than we experienced during previous spikes in this pandemic.

The recent surge in positive cases, fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, has caused the positivity rate in Broward County to skyrocket to 17.8% during the Florida Department of Health’s (FDOH) most recent reporting period of August 13-19, 2021. To put that into perspective, the average positivity rate during the same period in 2020 – a time when City of Hollywood facilities were completely closed to public access and the prevalent COVID-19 viral strains were not as aggressive and contagious as the Delta variant – was 7.48%. Just two weeks ago, Broward’s positivity rate was 15.9%. The City received a report this week from Dr. Randy Katz, Medical Director of the Hollywood Department of Fire Rescue and Beach Safety and the Director of Emergency Medicine at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, that nearly 50 percent of the hospital’s bed capacity is occupied by COVID-19 patients. Additionally, City employees, particularly our first responders, have been testing positive for COVID-19 at a higher rate in recent weeks.

Recognizing that official scientific data clearly demonstrates a situation that continues to deteriorate, the City administration deemed it logical and prudent to reinstate restrictions on public access to City facilities as a protective measure to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the City administration has prided itself on being proactive in implementing sensible protective measures. Though we work closely with our municipal and County partners, the City has never been reluctant to implement protective measures when the administration has deemed it necessary to protect public health.

The notifications regarding these public health restrictions have been widely distributed on the City’s social media sites, posted at entrance points to City facilities, included in e-mail notifications and posted on the City website.  These notifications contain an explanation of the need for the current measures and information on how to access City services and reach City staff.  Each of the public meeting notices on the Sunshine Board provides information on how the public can participate in the meeting by contacting the meeting coordinator.  Additionally, the public is welcome to come to City Hall to provide in-person comments at meetings of the City Commission/CRA Board by registering online so that we can accommodate the need for physical distancing.  During the past 18 months, City staff has been working diligently to refine and offer services to our residents and businesses through our online platforms and portals. These procedures have worked and public participation has not been curtailed. In fact, the ability for residents to easily provide their feedback to the City Commission via our online public participation comment submission portal has increased participation in City Commission, CRA, and Planning and Development Board meetings.

Please note that the restrictions and procedures we have put in place are strictly in the name of health and safety to our residents and City staff and by no means should be perceived as any deliberate attempt to suppress public participation. These measures are temporary and shall remain in effect until scientific data demonstrates that the situation has improved enough to lift the restrictions. We certainly take your comments to heart and will continue to change and adapt as conditions dictate. We appreciate the public’s patience and understanding as we continue through a pandemic that, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has claimed approximately 628,000 lives in the United States.

Thank you again for expressing your concerns.


Wazir
Wazir Ishmael, Ph.D.
City Manager

--------------------

I am not persuaded by what I received and my objections remain.
In fact, they are even stronger than before, as every day since then has shown that the concerned public is being inconvenienced for reasons that fail the logic and common sense test, since there's no reason for any extraneous city employee to be in the Commission Chambers during the 4-5 meetings a month the public wants to attend.
But it's the public that has to cool its heels outside.

And you'll notice that the City Manager says nothing about the important TAC meetings, which I used to attend faithfully.

Nearly every Hollywood civic activist and civic association president I know -and I know a lot of them- has told me that they believe Planning Dept. Director Leslie Del Monte much prefers the TAC meetings being ZOOM meetings, even though the public hates them because they can not see the interaction of people in the room, esp. the lobbyists and attorneys schmoozing with TAC participants before and after the meetings.
Plus, I've heard complaints that when you are hooked up to a TAC meeting, your screen does NOT list everyone who's watching, so you have no idea who is hearing your comments.


Dr. Ishmael, having brought up MHS in his response to me, surely must know that at any point in time, 15-20% of the patients at Memorial Regional Hollywood consists of Miami-Dade residents, a figure that I pick not out of thein air, but rather from a TV interview I watched within the past two months. Don't need to make up the numbers.

But neither Dr. Ishmael or Mayor Levy actually disclose what the numbers are or what they need to be, do they?

On Tuesday I'll be placing a Public Records request with the Hollywood City Clerk on for all correspondence over the past 6 months between anyone at Hollywood City Hall, both the City Commission and administrators, and executives at Memorial Healthcare Systems.
Should provide some interesting reading.

And I'll share what I find here with you on my blog, since I believe you deserve to know the truth about why your city seems unable to adapt like 57 other South Florida cities.

By the way, not that it matters, per se, but my niece is an ER doctor at Yale New Haven Hospital, a facility in a city and county with a higher COVID19 rate than Hollywood's and Broward's. 

The City of New Haven hasn't closed their City Hall.
And, of course, neither has any other city in South Florida.

Just Hollywood.




Wednesday, May 17, 2017

BREAKING: #HollywoodFL - Contentious City Comm meeting: City Manager Ishmael directed to negotiate a separation agreement for City Atty. Jeffrey Sheffel

Developing story...

The Hollywood City Commission was set to reconvene at 4:30 today after contentious 1:00 PM City Commission meeting results in call by Comm. Richard Blattner -supported by Commissioners Traci Callari and Peter Hernandez-  for Hollywood City Manager Wazir Ishmael to enter into negotiations with City Attorney Jeff Sheffel for the purposes of creating a separation agreement for Sheffel, following months of drama and reports of chronic complaints in his office.


These reports included unhappiness with turnover within City Attorney's office due to existing culture there -i.e. Sheffel himselfSheffel's arrest in March for DUI,  and 
more recently, as was discussed at length today, an email from the Assistant City Manager to Sheffel alleging that the City Attorney's Office was behind in paying legal bills to outside counsel defending the city, and also was exceeding his spending authorization in settlements.

Much debate on what true facts were and whether facts were subject to interpretation. 
No seemed to be the consensus - the facts are black and white.

City Attorney Sheffel later said he was short-staffed and that was part of the cause for some of the highlighted problems but Comm. Traci Callari quickly shot back that the reason that he and his office were short-staffed was directly because of his own actions and behavior at the manager.

In his motion, later rescinded after Sheffel agreed to meet with Dr. Ishmael, Blattner was supported by longtime Sheffel opponents Callari and Peter Hernandez, who called for Sheffel to resign at the first City Comm. meeting following his March arrest. 

Publicly supporting Sheffel at the meeting were Mayor Josh Levy and Comm. Debra Case,
while Commissioners Kevin Biederman & Linda Sherwood seemed more on the fence but not at all happy at the various reports.

Update: Before the end of the second half of the 4:30 PM session, Hollywood City Manager Wazir Ishmael announced that he and the City Attorney Sheffel have reached a meeting of the minds regarding a Separation Agreement.
Commissioner Traci Callari made clear following this bit of news that she would like to discuss this development in more depth at the next City Commission meeting, on June 7th.
May 31st, 2017 Update
I will be updating this story tonight with some insight and quotes from from some of the parties involved, including their public comments during the early afternoon meeting, where I was the only person from the media(!) present.
CBS-4 News came by for the continuation after I sent them an email.

I had the opportunity to talk to Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy for a bit following the recent Young Circle Roadway Study at the Lippman Multi-Purpose Center, and naturally, the situation with the City Attorney was one of the subjects we discussed. 
Also in attendance Thursday night at the event were Hollywood Commissioners Debra Case and Richard Blattner.

From the City of Hollywood:

UPDATED: Meetings of the City Commission
Tuesday, June 6, 2017

A Special City Commission Meeting and a City Commission Workshop have been planned for Tuesday, June 6th at City Hall in Room 215. The meeting is at 3:00 p.m. regarding a separation agreement with the City Attorney and the workshop is at 4:00 p.m. regarding the proposed Safety Enhancement District in Emerald Hills. City Commission meetings and workshops are broadcast on the City’s Government Access Channel, Comcast Channel 78, AT&T U-Verse Channel 99 and streamed online on the City’s website at 

http://www.hollywoodfl.org/146/Watch-Commission-Meetings [http://www.hollywoodfl.org/146/Watch-Commission-Meetings 

Saturday, September 26, 2015

The Tri-Rail Coastal commuter train in South Florida offers a dynamic opportunity to change and IMPROVE old ways of thinking and living. So why is Tri-Rail doing such a poor job of letting the public know what's REALLY going on? I ask Hollywood's City Manger that very question, since the cities of Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Aventura are ideally positioned to benefit economically more quickly than any other cities on the commuter line

The Tri-Rail Coastal commuter train in South Florida offers a dynamic opportunity to change and IMPROVE old ways of thinking and living. So why is Tri-Rail doing such a poor job of letting the public know what's REALLY going on? I ask Hollywood's City Manger that very question, since the cities of Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Aventura are ideally positioned to benefit economically more quickly than any other cities on the commuter line

Below is a slightly-expanded version of an email about the Tri-Rail Coastal commuter train that I sent on September 18th to the Hollywood City Manager, Dr. Wazir Ishmael
It follows a previous letter that was sent to him and dozens of other people in South Florida about the same subject. I've deleted some email addresses below for obvious reasons.



An Open Letter to Mayor Carlos Gimenez: A World­Class Community Must Have Open Data Governance http://miamiopendata.org/docs/open-data-letter.pdf

Dr. Ishmael: 

Just a note to let you know I'll  be writing you next week with respect to how/when Hollywood might adopt some of the sort of innovative thinking described above in the tweet from Miami Open Data to Miami-Dade Mayor Gimenez.

Thanks also for your quick response to my recent email re the Tri-Rail Coastal, below.

As a result of my years taking the El train into downtown Chicago everyday from my home across the street from the Bahá'í Temple in suburban Wilmette, three blocks from the end of the EL line at the Linden CTA station, https://goo.gl/maps/84tDQ  https://goo.gl/maps/jGZHz 

and years later, from my upscale neighborhood in Arlington into Washington, DC via METRO 
everyday from the Ballston station next to the National Science Foundation HQ, 


I became over time, without realizing it at the time, a strong advocate of well-planned and sensible 
public transit. And have only gotten more personally involved in the subject once I was in DC. and then down here.

But I get VERY frustrated at what I perceive to be the snail-like pace I and other observers see from Tri-Rail these days, and the even slower public engagement approach taken by them to share what's actually happening with respect to tangible milestones with the public and the business community.

Just as is true in parts of Hallandale Beach along the FEC Corridor, it's absurd to imagine that there's an entire army of people chomping at the bit to invest in some business or property development along N. 21 Avenue and Adams BEFORE some definite word comes from Tri-Rail as to when an actual station will be near there, and making sure that everyone knows what's what.

And yet Tri-Rail now pretends that everyone in the community is psyched, and that Tri-Rail can just keep doing what they're doing.
Whatever that actually is...

Dr. Ishmael, based on my conversations with people who keep their eyes open, everyone is, most assuredly, NOT psyched NOR convinced that Tri-Rail is doing everything they can to best effectively communicate the truth/facts to the public, whatever that is.

Seriously, they were so slow to get going on Social Media that they could NOT even get the Twitter name they wanted because other people beat them to the punch.
That damning fact is one I have shared in emails with lots of people as well as on my blog and in a few tweets.
It's indicative of many things about their counter-intuitive approach.

Most people who come to know me at least reasonably well come to appreciate that just because I'm pro-transit, doesn't mean that I will support or make excuses for truly half-assed plans, efforts or results of the sort that the public too frequently sees from transit groups and agencies down here.

I refer you to this pertinent May 6, 2013 blog post of mine:

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!


To me, in short, Tri-Rail's sitting on their hands far too much.
That is, when they aren't prematurely patting themselves on the back for being the proverbial engine bringing dynamic economic changes to the under-developed and under-utilized FEC Corridor area
Something that has YET to actually happen.

Meanwhile, in Miami, as you can see below, looks like some developers are pricing out people whom I suspect would look perfect in Hollywood, Hallandale Beach or Aventura taking the Tri-Rail Coastal to work, whether that's in downtown Miami or downtown Fort lauderdale - or neither.
But who want to avail themselves of opportunities.



@SFlaBizBandell New Wynwood could price out hipsters who made it thrive
http://
Opportunities.
Just something to think about.

Dave




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wazir Ishmael
Date: Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 9:13 AM
Subject: RE: re Redevelopment in Hollywood, tonight's public meeting re proposed RAC, and the role of Tri-Rail Coastal

Hello David!

Thank you for the valuable input.  We will certainly reach out to the folks at Tri-Rail to ensure their participation in any future RAC events.

The rail portion could prove to be an integral component to the future success of the RAC and having spent time in Portland, Oregon and the UK I am very familiar with the incorporation of multi-modal opportunities as significant catalysts to development and redevelopment.

Once again, thank you for your insights and suggestion.

Sincerely,

Wazir Ishmael, Ph.D.
City Manager
cid:image001.png@01CE03C1.B20C11F0
City of Hollywood
2600 Hollywood Boulevard
P.O. Box 229045
Hollywood, FL  33020
Office:  (954) 921-3201
Fax:     (954) 921-3314


Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 4:06 PM
To: Wazir Ishmael
Cc: Patricia Asseff; Jaye Epstein
Subject: re Redevelopment in Hollywood, tonight's public meeting re proposed RAC, and the role of Tri-Rail Coastal

August 24, 2015 

Dear Dr. Ishmael:

I'm writing you today to follow up on an email -below- that I sent out last week 
to a few hundred concerned residents and Small Business owners in Hollywood
and Hallandale Beach regarding tonight's public meeting re a proposed RAC 
for Hollywood, a plan that includes U.S.-1, Pembroke Road and what I believe 
continues to be the greatly under-developed and under-utilized area along the 
FEC corridor, which could and should be a dynamic that adds much to the city's 
future success.

I quite realize that at this point that it's too late for the city to arrange for some 
well-informed reps from Tri-Rail to be present at tonight's meeting -so that they 
can add some valuable information to the mix so that everyone attending has 
THE most-recent and accurate information.
Rather, I'm writing in part today to encourage you to do whatever you have to 
do in the future to make sure that subsequent public meetings on this important 
subject include them.

That is, so long as they are prepared to state specifics, since my experience 
over the past few years as a longtime civic activist and public transit advocate 
-borne of experience in Chicago/Evanston/Wilmette and Washington,D.C./
Arlington County, VA- is that Tri-Rail seems to often hedge their bets depending 
upon whom their audience is.
Upbeat and somewhat specific to the local news media, but reticent and evasive 
when the public wants some specific answers to simple questions that are not 
available on their website and which their officials do not respond to.




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 4:13 PM
Subject: Thoughts re role of Tri-Rail Coastal on HB/Hollywood development, per City of Hollywood community meeting on Aug. 24 for Regional Activity Center Re-zoning that includes U.S.-1 & Pembroke Road


My comments follow the announcement.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: News and Announcements <listserv@civicplus.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 5:38 PM
Subject: Community Meeting for Regional Activity Center Re-zoning - August 24


Email Notifications
Learn About Proposed Zoning Changes in the Regional Activity Center
The City of Hollywood invites you to a community meeting on Monday, August 24 at 6:00 p.m. at Hollywood City Hall, 2600 Hollywood Boulevard, Room 219 to discuss the planned re-zoning of the Regional Activity Center (RAC).

The RAC encompasses Downtown Hollywood and includes Federal Highway from Sheridan Street to Pembroke Road and Hollywood Boulevard from US-1 to Interstate 95. The Regional Activity Center land use designation is intended to encourage attractive and functional mixed living, working, shopping, education, and recreational activities, in areas of regional importance. To guide sustainable development, the City is undertaking ambitious zoning changes in the RAC to accommodate future growth, while preserving the character of existing neighborhoods.

The Hollywood Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), Department of Community and Economic Development and Department of Planning have hosted a series of community meetings with residents living in and around the RAC to review the proposed zoning changes. This community meeting is open to all residents interested in the RAC re-zoning.  

For additional information, contact the Department of Community and Economic Development at 954.921.3271 or go to RAC Re-zoning.


      
I'm going to make some phone calls and find out who will be speaking
at this meeting next Monday at Hollywood City Hall.

I'm especially interested in finding out if anyone from Tri-Rail will be present
to publicly speak about the latest estimates and deadlines about the Tri-Rail
Coastal service, since from the looks of things, there doesn't seem to be anyone
locally following up on that and holding them to account in turning big words
into some tangible action.

Most of you know from experience that I'm someone who has been a longtime
public advocate for much-better public transit service and facilities in SE Broward
County, and have long lamented publicly at both City Halls how often Hallandale
Beach and Hollywood residents seemed to constantly take it on the chin on 
common sense matters that are relatively easy to resolve policy-wise and would
be supported by the public, but, for whatever reason, always seemed to lack an
advocate for the public at City Hall willing to push their own bureaucrats into action.
Perhaps because they are not considered sexy issues.

For instance, to mention but a few things I've written about frequently with
photos to show the sad reality of what SE Broward transit riders are forced
to put up with,

1.) How about making sure there are actually some bus shelters on the east
side of U.S.-1 in Hallandale Beach, instead of just one, located one block south
of Pembroke Road, practically in Hollywood? Really.

2.) How many years has the Buzz #1 Express to downtown Fort Lauderdale
-that begins at Aventura Mall on north-bound trips- used the two small bus
benches opposite the McDonald's on U.S.-1 as their ONLY Hallandale Beach
stop on the northbound trip, instead of the under-utilized SuperStop bus 
shelter in front of Gulfstream Park, opposite the Flashback Diner?

Yes, the expensive, under-utilized SuperStop bus shelter that the County
and the City of HB required Forest City and MAGNA/Gulfstream Park to build 
as part of the development agreement to create The Village at Gulfstream Park.
You'll recall that the developers said they'd provide shuttle service from that
site to the Tri-Rail station on Hollywood Blvd. -but they never did, did they?
NOPE!!!

Yes, as some of you may recall, that would be the same SuperStop that was 
used as a de facto home base by an army of homeless people for at least 
six-to-eight months from late 2013 to 2014, despite being located less than 
two blocks from Hallandale Beach City Hall and HB Police Dept. HQ.
Both looked the other way at what was happening, which made both bus riders
and bus drivers angry since it was pitch-black at night -on purpose. 
How did HB City Hall and HBPD ignore what was right in front of them???

3.) Honestly, how is it that so many years after the Hollywood ArtsPark was
created by Broward County that Hollywood residents have had to tolerate
ZERO bus shelters at Young Circle, near the Publix, to keep them out of the
sun & downpours?
That should have been done at least eight years ago, with advertising revenue
used to defray the costs of several attractive state-of-the-art bus shelters 
at the site that's not only where the largest number of passengers south
of downtown FTL get off and on, but also right near the two corners of the
Circle where Hollywood City Hall and the Hollywood business community
have long claimed that they wanted to see interesting upscale retail and
residential living located, to give the city some dynamic activity.

As I've written many times before on my blog and said aloud at transportation
forums throughout South Florida, one of the most positive things that can help
jolt the Hollywood and Hallandale Beach economies -not just the downtown
areas of Hollywood and HB but especially the under-developed and under-
utilized areas along the FEC tracks that are perfect for Transit Oriented
Corridor related development, i.e. mixed-use building with retail on the
bottom floor and reasonably-priced residential above- is reliable and safe 
Tri-Rail Coastal service to Downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

(Yes, as many of you know from past conversations with me, because
I've seen how beautifully it works like a charm in Stockholm (especially
in the fascinating and trendy Södermalm neighborhood that I vacationed
in two years ago, which is everything that Coconut Grove and parts of 
Coral Gables near the University of Miami wish they were now but aren't.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel, just make it possible for it to succeed.)

Why? Because giving people the option to be able to relax in the morning and drink
their coffee/smoothies and read a newspaper or zone out on their devices on a train
before they get to work beats the hell out of driving to work thru frustrating gridlock.
And people will pay for that option.

I know because when I lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area for 15 years,
my housing options always put a premium on access and proximity to the a Metrorail
station. That's why I lived where I did in Arlington County and paid a premium in rent
for the privilege of always being a 15-20 minute walk to a Metro station.
Those last seven years, that meant living in a great residential area of hilly Arlington
less than a mile from the Ballston Metro station, which itself was located below
Hilton hotel and a block from the National Science Foundation HQ and several
federal govt. agencies.

(And as longtime readers of the blog know, that was the townhouse that President
Ford's daughter Susan used to live in, which still had the Secret Service intercom
system in it when I was there.)

As most of you know, I have long felt that Hollywood and Hallandale Beach could 
benefit from that Coastal service faster and in more tangible and positive ways than
any other two cities in Broward.
So why aren't we hearing from our elected officials about what's really going on with it?