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One of my favorite blogs for following Fort Lauderdale politics.

Update on Fire Station 35

Despite all the problems and the appointment of a special consultant to examine the overspending and delays with the 40M Fire Bond, Bruce Roberts assured me that there will be no impact to Fire Station 35.

And I quote:

"35 will be moving along as originally planned and without delay........."


Good news to be sure.  I'm still waiting for the minutes for the last committee meeting on July 16th to be posted.  I couldn't quite make that meeting.  Anyone know what happened?

http://ci.ftlaud.fl.us/documents/frbond/frbond_agenda.htm

Nazi Germany had “The Fuehrer”, Fort Lauderdale has George Gretsas. | A Better Fort Lauderdale

http://abetterftlauderdale.com/?p=360
Sorry for the hiatus in posting folks; multiple crisis at work an unplanned visit to the New York office kept me out of the Imperial Point orbit for a few weeks.

This gem landed in my inbox on Monday. As always Rynerson has a point, although rhetorical comparisons of our local government to the Nazis don't sit well with me and pretty much destroy all credibility.

Vice Mayor Newsletter July: From the Desk of Bruce Roberts

Now that Hurricane Season has started, this is a good time to remind everyone to make sure you are prepared. Though only a few lost power last year, we cannot forget the damage that even a tropical storm can do.The City is ready to respond, but I urge residents to make their own preparations for this hurricane season. Part of this preparation should include creating a disaster plan and assembling a disaster supply kit. The kit should include at least three days worth of water (one gallon, per person, per day) and non-perishable food for each person in your family. Other essential supplies you should have readily available include: a can opener, flashlights, a battery-operated radio, batteries, cash, pet supplies, medications, extra eyeglasses, contact lenses and supplies for people with special needs.

For a complete list of emergency supplies and other preparedness tips, visit the new City hurricane website at http://ci.ftlaud.fl.us/hurricane/index.htm.

If you are interested in helping your fellow residents after a hurricane, I encourage you to join the Community Emergency Response Team (or “CERT”). CERT is a highly trained, volunteer group that assists the City after local emergencies. Through Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue, you can receive free training that covers disaster terminology, standard triage, basic first aid, fire suppression, light search and rescue and disaster awareness. After graduation you will be prepared to care for your family and your community and you will be part of a team that may be called upon to assist the City during an emergency. Free beginner and continuing education classes are available. For more information please call 954-828-6832. Remember that after a storm is when we need to help each other! If we get prepared now and work together, the City of Fort Lauderdale will be a more disaster-resilient community where everyone can recover as quickly as possible.

Remember to mark your calendars for the Fort Lauderdale Parks and Recreation Department’s Starlight Musicals concert services. Even though they are not in our District it is a very fun community event. These FREE outdoor concerts provide a great way to enjoy the summer with family and friends. They are held in Holiday Park, Friday nights, 7-10p.m., June 19-August 7, 2009. The series will feature an exciting line-up of bands ranging from pop to country, rhythm and blues to tropical rock! Visit http://ci.ftlaud.fl.us/events/index.htm to view the schedule and to see what other special things the Parks and Recreation Department is offering.

Since becoming District 1 Commissioner, I have currently been appointed to serve on several Boards. The Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization is a federally mandated planning body responsible for transportation planning in the Broward County urbanized area. Established in 1977 by the Florida Legislature, the MPO was created to direct urban transportation planning and direct the expenditure of federal and state funds.  It is the lead agency responsible for developing and administering plans and programs to maintain eligibility and receive federal funds for the transportation systems in Broward County. The 19 members of the MPO include representatives from cities within the county, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), the Broward County School Board, and the Broward County Board of County Commissioners.  District 2 Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom also represents our City.

The Transportation Management Association coordinates the efforts of government, private employers, developers and property owners in addressing common transportation concerns; improves accessibility and mobility; provides transportation services; and works cooperatively with local and state government for the continued growth and development of downtown Fort Lauderdale while avoiding traffic congestion. The Downtown Fort Lauderdale Transportation Management Association (DFLTMA) was incorporated in 1992 to marshal business resources and expertise and to combine them with government efforts to solve local transportation problems. District 4 Commissioner Romney Rogers also represents our City.

I want to thank the numerous people who came out on June 25 to listen to the plans for building the new Fire Station 35 on East Commercial Boulevard. Some important upcoming dates to keep on your radar include:

• The City Manager’s budget proposal for next fiscal year will be presented at the July 21 commission meeting.
• Public hearings to discuss the consultants study re: water conservation, usage and fees on the two July commission meetings.
• Public hearings on the budget at the two September commission meetings.

FXE Noise Survey

Have you ever called the FXE noise abatement hotline to complain about noisy aircraft?

Always -- I call whenever I hear a loud aircraft. FXE is on my speed dial!

 

 5

Sometimes -- I call occassionally when my cell phone is close by

 

 2

Almost never -- who has the time; besides it's very infrequent

 

 0

Never -- the noise doesn't bother me

 

 1

I will in the future! There's a noise abatement hotline??

 

 1

Hurricane preparedness poll

Have you prepared for the 2009 hurricane season?

100% -- Everyting is ready; I have water, food, shutters and fuel. Bring it on!

 

 0

75% -- I have made some preperations, but still need a weeked to get fully prepared

 

 3

50% -- I've thought about it; I at least have shutters and impact windows

 

 1

25% -- I think I have some old water jugs from Publix laying around

 

 0

0% -- Hurricanes come here??

 

 1

May Crime Stats: the Neighborhood has no Crown

The Fort Lauderdale Crime Analysis unit released its latest numbers on HOA crime this Monday (see attached).  Like many other neighborhoods throughout Fort Lauderale Imperial Point has seem a substantial rise in part 1 crime.   These types of crimes include robberies, residential burglaries, vehicle burglaries, business burglaries and vehicle theft.  Symbolically, Imperial Points' own entrance signage has been vandalized three times this year.

But what makes Imperial Point's rising crime rate particularly troubling is that the rate of increase, when compared to previous years, is far greater than other neighborhoods.

Presently, we have the dubious distinction of having the 5th highest historical crime rate increase of the 83 neighborhoods for which these statistics are available.

The chart below shows the number of incidents from January through May in each given calendar year.  The last two column show the rate of increase from 2002 and 2008 respectively.

 

HOA	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	%02-09	%08-09
Rock Island		0	1	0	30	46	80	65	200	-19.00%
Palm Aire Village (WEST)	1	4	7	6	6	4	10	14	1300.00%	40.00%
Palm-Aire Village (EAST)	2	7	2	7	1	5	5	19	850.00%	280.00%
Harbour Isles	1	11	2	0	4	0	1	5	400.00%	400.00%
Imperial Point	16	28	29	31	40	23	38	58	263.00%	53.00%
Lake Estates Improvement	1	3	2	0	0	2	2	3	200.00%	50.00%
Knoll Ridge	7	11	14	15	9	14	13	20	186.00%	54.00%
Flamingo Park	13	17	30	19	20	8	27	31	138.00%	15.00%
Tarpon River	24	28	38	32	31	25	23	56	133.00%	143.00%
Shady Banks	10	10	8	9	18	11	11	22	120.00%	100.00%

In terms of overall numbers of incidents Imperial Point ranks only 18th out of the 83 HOAs.  Slightly unnerving is that eight of the higher crime HOAs have decreases in their historical crime rates and the remainder have far lower increases than Imperial Point.

HOA	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	%02-09	%08-09
South Middle River	216	170	162	282	176	170	189	163	-25.00%	-14.00%
Lauderdale Manors	162	129	149	159	160	151	194	131	-19.00%	-32.00%
Melrose Park			44	58	61	54	71	129	n/c	82.00%
Victoria Park	129	102	108	151	122	83	123	116	-10.00%	-6.00%
Dorsey-Riverbend	102	94	98	128	119	103	124	102	0.00%	-18.00%
Riverside Park	77	70	50	95	73	68	52	90	17.00%	73.00%
Progresso Village	111	85	94	127	106	84	94	85	-23.00%	-10.00%
Central Beach Alliance	176	134	130	118	106	92	91	80	-55.00%	-12.00%
Durrs	65	63	60	71	102	70	104	77	18.00%	-26.00%
Melrose Manors	49	51	47	82	36	51	64	75	53.00%	17.00%
River Oaks	48	49	56	68	69	63	39	73	52.00%	87.00%
Sailboat Bend	82	65	74	56	83	62	76	72	-12.00%	-5.00%
Flagler Heights	84	47	68	88	53	49	74	66	-21.00%	-11.00%
Rock Island		0	1	0	30	46	80	65	n/c	-19.00%
Middle River Terrace	83	51	52	61	56	44	68	63	-24.00%	-7.00%
Coral Ridge Country Club Estate	46	45	44	57	44	41	66	61	33.00%	-8.00%
Imperial Point	16	28	29	31	40	23	38	58	263.00%	53.00%
Sunset	48	64	55	45	50	28	47	58	21.00%	23.00%
Tarpon River	24	28	38	32	31	25	23	56	133.00%	143.00%

I have asked Commission Roberts about these numbers and what they mean for our community.  He assured me that Imperial Point is part of a city wide trend, exacerbated by a shortage in patrol officers.  Roberts believes the department has a severe office retention problem and aims to curtail this during his tenure.  He confirmed that the principal drivers in our crime increase were residential and vehicular burglaries.

While its certainly true that Imperial Point is not alone, these numbers should encourage more citizen vigilance.  Ultimately Imperial Point remains a relatively safe neighborhood with only 58 incidents in an area that includes 2500 homes.  But if we are, in fact, being more frequently targeted I would like to know that the police department and city commission are at least aware of our concerns.

Attachment: HOA_YTD-3.pdf

Commissioner Meeting Tonight

Don't forget the City Commission meets tonight; you can watch the proceedings on channel 78 if you have basic cable, or online here:

http://ci.ftlaud.fl.us/commission/live.asx

Please find the original agenda attached as well as an OCR'd version below.  Why, in this day in age, is the agenda a PDF?  Why not a nice searchable format like html or even ms doc?  But I digress ...

What appears to be missing from the agenda is the presentation from the Fire Bond Issue Blue Ribbon Committee.  I'm pretty unfamiliar with the whole process ... does anyone know when they will make their case?  Here is a little background:

http://imperialpoint.multiply.com/links/item/7/7

Attachment: 070709cc_reg.pdf
Attachment: 070709cc_reg.htm

“Checks and Balances” in Fort Lauderdale and the Fire Bond Fiasco.

http://abetterftlauderdale.com/?p=307
Rynerson's latest post -- and a must read if you are unfamiliar with the whole Fire Bond issue. Tomorrow's commissioner meeting should prove to be interesting when it come's to the advisory Committee's resolution. This issue directly impacts our HOA as our station (#35 located near the corner of Commercial and 18th) is next in line to receive funds from the bond issue for a rebuild.

Mark Antonelli wrote an excellent summary of the community meeting discussing the plans for our station here:

http://antonellimark.multiply.com/video/item/1/Fire_Station_35_Meeting

Here are the first ten minutes, although you will want to follow the link above to download the whole video if interested:

Commisioner Bruce Roberts resonds to our crime report

In case you missed it, I compiled some stats that quantitatively suggested Imperial Point was experiencing somewhat of a crime wave.  A partial report is here:
http://imperialpoint.multiply.com/journal/item/14/Fort_Lauderdale_Police_Crime_is_up_HUGE_in_the_Point.

I've been doing a lot of number crunching to compare us to other neighborhoods and the results are surprising.  I'm going to work some more on the report in the coming days and publish something comprehensive.

In the meantime, I asked Commissioner Robers for his reaction to this report; what follows is his response, verbatim:

Brett, 
I am having difficulty sending mail via the city server, so I had to redo
the email from home. Sorry for any confusion this may create.

At any rate, your analysis is correct. Two crime categories accounting for
the major increases are vehicular and residential burglaries. This also
reflects a citywide trend.

The reasons are twofold:
	1. Poor economic conditions
	2. Inadequate police staffing

During my tenure as Police Chief, we had 510 allocated police officer
positions. Currently, only 498 are budgeted. Of those, 42 are in the police
academy or in training with Field Training Officers; 10 positions are
vacant; 4 officers are on active military duty; and 14 officers are on some
form of light duty (sick, injured, pregnant, etc.). That equates to more
than 80 officers off the street.

As you can see, we do not have an issue with hiring (42 officers in
training), but we do have a problem with retention. We hire and train
officers for other agencies. I am determined to reveres that trend. In the
short term, I have directed that additional overtime funding be provided to
staff more officers for crime reduction action plans.

Rest assured that I will remain an advocate for our neighborhood and for
public safety citywide. In these difficult times, it is also incumbent on
all of us to step up our affirmative crime prevention precautions such as
locking car doors, removing valuables from plain view, being more vigilant
on our own streets and reporting suspicious activity.

Completely Outrageous Tax Increases on all things Vehicle related

Today a new fee structure went into place for all manner of state related vehicle licenses and registrations.  All told, these fees are expected to raise over 800MM in the coming budget year.  I feel like a big dummy, but this is the first I have heard of *any* of these fee hikes.  I thought the state and the state legislature were comitteed to preventing any increase in our tax burden?  So much for that plan ...

Fee	2008	2009	% Increase
First-time driver's license	$27	$48	77%
Driver's license renewal	$20	$48	140%
Late payment on renewals	$1	$15	1400%
Replacing a lost license	$10	$25	150%
Driver's license reinstatement after a DUI	$47.50	$60	26%
Commercial driver's license	$67	$75	11%
License plates	$12	$28	133%
Processing fees for specialty license plates	$2	$5	150%
Annual vehicle registration fees			35%
First time car registration	$100	$225	125%
egistration decal	$1	$3	200%
"Reflectorization" fee	$.50	$1.50	200%
Car title	$20	$70	191%
Driver's crash record request	$2	$10	400%