Fort Lauderdale’s “Wish List” for 2010
Fort Lauderdale’s “Wish List” for 2010
Hi there! This is your City speaking! As the City of Fort Lauderdale, I have gone through a number of controversial changes over the last few years, most notably a condo building boom and some new larger hotels along the beach. But with the economic slump and hundreds of home foreclosures that I am witnessing now, our City Commission needs to become more pro-active in establishing steps that will allow me as a City to weather this economic downturn, and look to 2010 as a better year for all of us.
So what I have here is a “Wish List” of sorts that I would very much like our City Commission to take a look at and try to accomplish for 2010. Here are my “Top Ten” wishes for 2010:
1. Establish Benchmarks. I need to know how well I function and how efficiently your tax dollars are being spent by comparing me to other similarly-sized cities. Do other Cities provide services for less cost than I? I don’t know. An objective and independent comparison would help me know where I can improve departmental efficiencies for you.
2. Reduce my budget. I am too fat and sluggish and have been for years. I provided services to you 6 years ago for almost half of what it costs now. I need to be leaner.
3. Establish new infrastructure improvement programs that would help me, and help those residents in dire economic need. How about a sidewalk building program and a road repair program that pay residents here to do the manual labor? It would make me look better and feel better and help those with less income!
4. Help me find a new City Manager that is not so polarizing. Someone from the business community (as opposed to another government bureaucrat) who can balance budgets and reduce costs would be most appreciated.
5. Bike lanes. I’m a beautiful City! I’d love to be able to show myself off to those who walk and bike around town. Can’t our Commission identify and mark specific streets through my neighborhoods and make them bicycle-friendly? It could also help to get more people out of their cars for local trips.
6. Give me more retail stores. Consider providing tax incentives for business and property owners who set up new higher-end retail establishments along my beach, the RiverWalk and along Las Olas Blvd. These areas are starting to look a bit worn. I need to have more places for residents and tourists to visit!
7. New “Economic Destination Zones”. Besides the three areas I’ve mentioned above, it would be GREAT if I could have some more places for tourists and residents to go to. How about a new fine-arts “Destination Zone” for the South Andrews Business District? A Green “Destination Zone” (for all businesses promoting and selling “Green technology”) for the 13th Street corridor? A new ethnically-sensitive retail “Destination Zone” for Sistrunk. Defining and promoting areas like these, and providing more tax incentives for businesses to build there, would make me feel better!
8. How about making my non-emergency vehicles “all-electric”? Sure, most of these low-cost vehicles don’t go faster than 35 MPH and go 50-100 miles on a single charge. But I don’t need anything fancier here. Plus, it will make me breathe easier!
9. Please, replace my aging “Parker Playhouse” sign on Federal with a new digital sign. I’m embarrassed to show those rotten 2×4’s any longer! Tourists have been seeing that deplorable side of me for years!
10. And this last thing is something that all of us can do. Take more pride in me! I have more things for you to be proud of than just about any other City! Remember that, and let others (who don’t live here) know what they are missing!
Signed: The City of Fort Lauderdale
(With typing help from Earl Rynerson, www.abetterftlauderdale.com)
Reader Comments
11. Give me a new look. How long has it been since my logo was updated? How about something more modern and dynamic for the 21st century? And what’s up with that tired website? This is the face I present to the world and I want to be more enticing to all who might consider visiting our relocating here.
> The Wish List is a
> good thought and I’d like to expand on it and its distribution.
> >
> Let us not wait for the Broward County to provide or tak the lead on the distribution to information to the Tourists.Ft. Lauderdale needs to be the
> Most Friendly City the thousands of travelers from the two Ports encounter on their way thru the area and perhaps they will come back and spend money here rather than in the Bahamas.
>
> My wife and I have traveled extensively
> throughout Europe in the last 10 years and have become quite sensitive to what other cities provide in the way of welcoming info for those who are visiting.
When we come home all we see is tourists wandering around trying to find out where they are and how they can get to wherever they think they might want to go around our waterways, which while interesting, are formidable barriers.
>
> There are no map kiosks, no signs or directories and no one to ask for help for those who speak little English, for after all we are as citizens, very busy with our own interests.The city has a great map which I found two weeks ago but they are buried in the various City buildings and not on the corner where it’s needed.
>
> Why isn’t there a Tourist information stop on ever other corner or at least at strategic locations where one can find info on places of interest, hotels, motels and rates, attractions, banks, grocery and liquor stores, and probably the most important information for those walking, where to find and how to use our minor league transportation system. How about some stimulus money for shelters along Las Olas.
We have free concerts almost every week end..All kind of cultural events at the Performing Arts
> Center.Does anyone ever tell the tourists were they are and that some are free?
>
> I could go on and give examples of other cities examples but I think what thoughts have been provided are sufficient to start the ball rolling for inclusion on the Wish List. >
>
>
> Fred
>
> Frederic E. Stresau, ASLA
I visited Seattle WA in the late 80’s. They have a wonderful transportation system. They have small shelters to keep dry in the rain. Inside these shelters are maps of the bus routes. There buses run on time. I went all over the city and never needed a to use a car. When I returned to Fort Lauderdale, I contacted Broward County Transit and asked why we could not do the same here. There response was we cant have shelters as people will live in them or use them as trash receptacles. I said it could just be a large umbrella they said the same thing, no way. Well I said, how about a map of the transit system on a pole, response we will think about that. I asked about why the buses did not run on time, response bus drivers are independent contractors cant do anything about that. I spoke to five or six different people only one had ridden the bus and that was only one time. This was twenty years ago. Good luck getting anything changed in this County.
One thing I have always wondered is why we don’t have a monorail run from the airport to the port for our booming cruise ship business. It is so close and we own the land. What a great draw to Fort Lauderdale. I was told because Jessie Gattis does not want it as it would cut in the his crappy cabs fairs. Could this be true?
About 10 years ago, the City under the George Hanbury administration wanted an “Welcome Station” for tourists on the beach, to be located on a piece of property they own at the south end of Seabreeze Blvd (now leased by the Oasis Cafe). So they put out a Request for Porposals for someone to run a Welcome Station and also offering the opportunity for an “ancillary” business to exist with the Welcome Station. The Oasis Cafe people won the bid by offering a nice Welcome Station format (on paper), getting a commitment from the County Tourist Develop. to run the Welcome Station side of things and wowing King George and the committee with pretty architectural renditions. Oh, and they wanted to have a cafe, too.
However, less than a year later, the County backed out and the City had forgave the clause requiring a Welcome Station to be part of that lease, and now we have a bar/restaurant (paying a pitance in rent) for a piece of PRIME City property that COULD have been a great Welcome Station, had some smarter people been in charge. Talk about pulling the wool over someone’s eyes!
The ONLY person who saw through this charade of imcompetence, collusion, and fraud was commissioner Carlton Moore, and his was the singular against allowing this to happen.
This City reaps as it sows…
I realize one should not comment on an unfinished job, but the road widening project currently underway on 47th Avenue from 21st Street to Oakland Park Blvd is an example of shoddy workmanship and poor planning. The finished lane is full of deep potholes and drivers are forced to drive that lane because they’re widening the opposite side. Wonderful! Why does something have to be fixed twice? Why can’t the workmanship be perfect at every level? It’s not a long road! Who, I wonder, is getting paid off?
I would like to see some, well deserved and over looked, work done to the tunnel befor we have major problems in that department. I have been traveling the tunnel for years. My grandchildren love going thru it with the windows down and they yell woooooooo all the way thru. I have in the years had the car hit with a tile her and threre on my older vehicles, I now have a new vehicle and don’t want that to happen again. I have also noticed how dirty she is and that she has a steady leak in the east lane on the south side. She needs somne TLC and I believe 2010 is the year to do something about it.We let people to know to take other routes when the bridge is up for the parade, why not let them know the bridge will be closed for cleaning and repairs. Also why not let those inmate that are supposed to be better than the rest be the ones to clean it. Just a thought but I believe it is an overdue thought.
Sorry that the spelling on some words were incorrect. Having some problems with the new keyboard. I meant here and there and the tunnel needs to be closed for cleaning. Thank you
I read your posting about the signs at the War Memorial. You are so right on about the lack of aesthetics in Ft. L. I love this city but just hate the look of all of the fences that are surrounding empty lots. Tearing down property and putting up fences seems to be the norm in town. Everywhere you go you see fences, some in complete disrepair. I can name at least than 20 places where this has happened. Should I? I think you know what I am talking about. Also, broken side walks seem to go hand in hand with the properties that are fenced off. What the Heck is going on?