Commentary: In her February – March 2020 Newsletter, District 1 City Commissioner Heather Moraitis opens by inviting constituents to attend the March 14 home opener of Major League Soccer (MLS), as David Beckham’s Inter Miami CF team was poised to confront the L.A. Galaxy (his former team) in the sports complex recently erected on the site that used to house Lockhart Stadium.
Taking a page from the NBA, the NHL the Miami Open and Major League Baseball, two days before the game, Major League Soccer postponed its season, placing the contest on hold. As the Coronavirus was still a cloudy enigma, a delighted Moraitis notes how events conspired to provide the City (and District 1 residents) with 2 new stadiums and an impressive laundry list of recreational amenities – courtesy of David Beckham’s Major League Soccer franchise.
Moraitis also looks at the first 7 of 150 planned Infrastructure projects, sewer repairs and tips that may help the city dodge future blockages, how the Reiss Report redefined the City’s Comprehensive Utility Master Plan, the Corollo Report recommendations for the Fiveash Water Plant, LauderBriefs that update City Commission meetings, a pictorial summary of recent events and how to flag FPL about street light outages. Ironically, about one week after the Commissioner issued this Newsletter, COVID-19 took the planet hostage.
Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry issued Emergency Order 20-09, effective Friday, May 8, stating that all beaches in Broward County will remain closed. This Emergency Order shall expire upon the expiration of the existing State of Local Emergency. The county gave no potential date as to when the beaches may reopen. This order applies to all public and private beaches in Broward County.
Gov. DeSantis announced that he would like to see Broward and Miami-Dade “move into Phase 1 on May 18” Both Palm Beach and Miami-Dade officials have targeted May 18 for beach re-openings. Earlier, all three counties had agreed to align their re-opening plans to deter people from overrunning the county with fewer restrictions. DeSantis said he was hopeful those counties could move into Phase 1 reopening by May 18, provided the trends for new coronavirus cases are downward. Beachgoers will be limited to “activities consistent with social distancing and exercise,” meaning walking, swimming, biking, running, fishing and surfing, according to the emergency order.
Gov DeSantis indicated that May 18 could be an option for reopening Broward County beaches and possibly Phase 1 of the reopening plan.
Phase 1 reopening, according to state guidelines, means elective surgeries can recommence at hospitals, and restaurants will be allowed to open at 25% capacity. Bars and gyms will remain closed, but barber shops, hair salons and nail salons will be allowed to open.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis stated, “I recently asked the governor for permission to begin a phased reopening with continued safeguards for our health. He had specifically prohibited Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties from any substantial reopening despite allowing the rest of the state to move forward. However, he now has indicated that could change soon. We have taken the limited steps to reopen some amenities that the governor and Broward County have allowed to this point. We have permitted passive recreation in our parks, opened golf courses, allowed multifamily associations to open their pools and expanded the operation of boat ramps and marinas.”
Trantalis concluded by saying, “I hope we can quickly continue to open more aspects of our society. Our economy has suffered with businesses shut down and unemployment rising. The status quo is simply not sustainable.”
*In his
November – December 2019 Newsletter, District 4 Broward Commissioner Lamar Fisher opens by
summarizing the County’s 2019 achievements and noting that Broward Vice Mayor Dale V.C. Holness replaced Mark Bogen as Broward Mayor
(Commissioner Steve Geller was named Vice
Mayor). Fisher also explains how a Federal grant and Broward
Capital Improvement revenues were earmarked for storm-hardening
Homeless Assistance Centers in Fort Lauderdale and Pompano
Beach, while funding renovations in the entrance and intake areas at the Pompano
facility. After listing the new shops and services in Fort Lauderdale /
Hollywood International Airport (FLL), the Commissioner warns
boaters about the seasonal increase
of manatees in County waterways, and how to report discovering a
manatee that is either sick, injured, or dead. Also in this edition, read
Commissioner Lamar Fisher’s November – December 2019 Newsletter in its
entirety. – [editor]*
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
Dear
Residents,
I’m thrilled
to have completed my first year as your County Commissioner. I look forward to
continuing to improve our resident’s quality of life by focusing on several key
issues in our community. Here are some recent headlines from around the County.
Broward
County’s State of the County and New County Mayor & Vice Mayor
Recently,
Broward County’s outgoing Mayor Mark Bogen delivered the 2019 State of the
County Address. Several accomplishments were made during the past year,
including; passing a $5.8 billion budget without raising taxes, raising the
living wage for County employees, setting aside an additional $22 million to
build affordable housing, launching Text to 911, expanding the Paratransit
Rider’s Choice Pilot Program, implementing the ePermitsOneStop in the City of
Pompano Beach, funding from the Transportation Surtax has resulted in a $146
million approved by the Oversight Board for transportation projects and
expenditures, and so much more.
After the
State of the County, the Board selected the new Broward County Mayor and new
Vice Mayor. Commissioners selected former Vice Mayor Dale V.C. Holness to serve
as Mayor and Commissioner Steve Geller to serve as Vice Mayor. Mayor Holness’
theme for 2020 is Broward 2050: One community moving forward together with
prosperity for all. I look forward to assisting my colleagues in building
on this theme as we work collaboratively with the community in order to ensure
our residents needs are met.
Broward
County Receives over $5 Million Grant for Homeless Shelters
Recently,
Broward County was awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
over $6.8 million under a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) to assist in
hardening the North Homeless Assistance Center (North HAC), located in Pompano
Beach, and the Central Homeless Assistance Center (Central HAC), located in
Fort Lauderdale. The HMGP funding will provide improved wind resistance to the
existing building. The work includes new or improved roofs, exterior walls,
doors and windows that will meet hurricane requirements per Florida Building
Code building. Funding also provides for the installation of new generators for
both facilities that will allow both facilities to operate during certain
emergencies.
In addition
to obtaining FEMA funding, the Construction Management Division, working with
our Community Partnerships Division, was able to secure an additional $1.8
million, to the already available $1.2 million County funding, as approved by
the Board of County Commissioners under the County’s Capital Improvement
Program. The additional $3 million County funding will allow for the
construction of a new covered, secured entrance and lobby for the North HAC
facility and will allow for upgrades to the intake areas, including new
processing and examination rooms and improved ADA restrooms. These improvements
are just another exciting step in the effort to continue to assist individuals
experiencing homelessness. I’m proud of the work our Human Services Department
does out in our community and proud of our Commission as we see the importance
of helping our most vulnerable residents.
For more
information on all the services provide by the Broward County Human Services
Department please visit www.Broward.org/HumanServices.
Fort
Lauderdale International Airport (FLL) Update
Next time
you fly through our wonderful FLL make sure to check out all the exciting
updates and changes happening which are helping to improve your flying
experience.
FLL’s
Rental Car Center (RCC) offerings will expand from 11 to 14 companies by the
end of 2019. The new providers coming are Sixt, Fox, and Ace. They will join
FLL’s existing RCC lineup of Advantage, Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar,
Enterprise, E-Z, Hertz, National, Payless, and Thrifty, all under one roof.
The restrooms in Terminal
3, Concourses E and F, will be getting a makeover in the coming weeks as part
of the Aviation Department’s ongoing efforts to enhance the airport’s guest
experience. The
restroom remodeling project is expected to be completed by December 2020.
New
shops and dinning:
Terminal
1, Concourse C opened a NewsLink store on November 8.
Shake
Shack and Flash Fire Pizza are slated to open in Terminal 2, Concourse D before
the end of the year.
Rocco’s
Tacos and Tequila Bar is also set to open before the end of the year in
Terminal 1, Concourse C.
For more
information about all the exciting news happening at FLL please visit www.Broward.org/airport.
Manatee
Season Has Begun!
Manatee
season runs from November 15th through March 31st. Due to
the cold weather up north, manatees begin moving south toward warm-water
refuges while seasonal and manatee protection speed limit zones go into effect
throughout the state. Boaters are cautioned to be on the lookout for greater
numbers of manatee presence throughout the County’s waterways.
If a
manatee is spotted, the sighting can be reported by using the County’s “I Spy a
Manatee” mobile app (available for free download on the Apple App Store and
Google Play). The app also provides maps of the County’s state-regulated
manatee protection and boating safety zones allowing boaters to immediately see
what zone(s) they are traveling through if using the location services of the
mobile device.
If you see a
sick, injured, or dead manatee, please call the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Wildlife Alert Number at (888) 404-FWCC (3922),
*FWC or # FWC on a cell phone or with a text to [email protected].
Once again, I’d like to thank you for giving me the
opportunity to serve you as your County Commissioner. Please sign up at Broward.org/Commission/District4to receive email updates from our
office. You can also follow me on Twitter and like
my Facebook
page.
If there is anything that we can do to assist you with your
vision for a better Broward, please do not hesitate to contact our office at
954-357-7004 or by email at [email protected].
City Commissioner Heather Moraitis’ November 2019
Newsletter
Commentary
*In her November 2019
Newsletter, District 1 City Commissioner Heather Moraitis addresses the
concerns of her Telephone Town Hall Meeting participants, outlining City plans
to mitigate the adverse impacts of sea level rise by implementing long-delayed
infrastructure improvements and citing detailed Master Plan
objectives to contain stormwater threats and strengthen seawalls. Moraitis also invites
constituents to attend the annual Light up the Galt, visit Santa on the Beach,
snatch a free tree from the City, and serve on a municipal board.
Public Works
Band-Aids or Resiliency?
In
aspiring to resiliency, Fort Lauderdale had to change the primary beneficiaries
of its municipal maintenance protocols. No longer solely placating the Developers,
speculators and other deep-pocketed transient property owners (mostly major campaign
contributors), the City Commission suddenly shunned a decades-long
predisposition for inexpensive firehouse-style repairs in favor of sustainable
development – finally addressing the needs of current and future long-term
residents.
Growing Number of Exploding Water Mains
For decades, City
Administrations neglected sewer systems, water treatment & distribution
venues, storm drains and seawalls for fear of how increasing the millage might
undermine their prospects for re-election. Also left to rot were roads,
sidewalks, traffic control systems, parks, municipal structures (i.e. FLPD
Headquarters, City Hall, etc.), canals, bridges, and other municipal
infrastructure.
Instead
of adapting inadequate infrastructure to meet the exigencies of advanced
deterioration, commercial expansion and population growth, Commissioners restricted
allocations to repairing catastrophic failures in aging sewers, storm drains
and water lines that were originally built to service the city’s population
when it was a fraction of its current size.
Despite repeated
City assurances of infrastructure sufficiency, the increasing frequency of
exploding water mains, sewer failures and backflowing storm drains often immersed
entire neighborhoods knee-deep in seawater. Minimizing the specter of
infrastructure collapse, water and sewer funds were annually hijacked and used
to balance the budget.
A
cyclone of public blowback pressured the City to empanel an infrastructure task
force, and quantify the structural and financial impact of ongoing chronic
maintenance failures. Official findings confirmed that the City’s future
functionality would minimally cost $1.4 billion to salvage
heavily eroded infrastructure, $1 billion for
stormwater improvements, and roughly another half $billion to upgrade roads,
seawalls, sidewalks, bridges, etc. Whether financed through bond issues or
direct levy, taxpayers and ratepayers will have to cough up roughly $3 billion to help secure
the City’s future.
Stantec vs. the
Galt Mile
Eleven years ago,
Galt Mile officials uncovered a shell game in a Water & Sewer rate schedule
created by City consultant Burton & Associates. While publicly applauding
the plan’s standardized rate tiers for all residential customers, City
officials never mentioned how an accompanying block rate schedule forced
multi-family homeowners to subsidize their counterparts in Single Family homes.
After a decade of
fighting to mitigate this abuse, Galt Mile officials finally achieved rate
parity for association homeowners in September 2019, when the City Commission
approved the proposed 2020 Water &
Sewer rates.
Since city consultant Stantec acquired Burton
& Associates in 2016, the same “expert” who created the billing disparity
in 2009 was integrally involved with the new rate schedule, and had attempted
to once again skew multi-family Water & Sewer rates.
With
the support of City Commissioners Heather Moraitis, Steve Glassman, Ben Sorensen, Robert McKinzie and Mayor Dean Trantalis, Stantec’s poison
pill was excised, and an equitable new rate schedule was enacted. However,
while Galt Mile water & sewer customers finally won a level playing field,
Stantec was planning to create a new billing disparity – in a proposed formula
for Stormwater rates.
Burton – An Old
Dog with Old Tricks
The City’s
projected $1 billion stormwater plan will allocate the
proceeds of an initial $200 million bond issue to control the watersheds in the
7 City neighborhoods most vulnerable to flooding – including Dorsey Riverbend;
Durrs, Edgewood, Progresso, River Oaks, Southeast Isles and Victoria Park.
Funding these projects will require a 54 percent increase in stormwater rates. Instead of assessing ratepayers
a citywide 54 percent price hike, the Wonder Boys in Stantec decided to impose
a 34% premium on Single Family
homes while burdening association homeowners with a crushing 84% cost increase.
Not surprisingly,
the basis for this new disparity has no relationship to a property’s exposure
to stormwater impacts nor the actual cost of mitigating those impacts. As such,
Galt Mile officials will have to educate Commissioners about the inherent
inequity in Stantec’s formula, while illuminating a predilection of Stantec
Guru Michael Burton to craft irrational criteria that fiscally abuses association
homeowners
Otherwise, association homeowners will once again be forced to subsidize their neighbors in Single-Family homes, an outcome that has long resonated with Mr. Burton. For District 1 Commissioner Heather Moraitis’ November 2019 message to constituents, see elsewhere in this edition. – [editor]*
High-rise associations across Florida (including those on the Galt Mile) threatened with an onerous assessment to fund an Engineered Life Safety System (ELSS) coalesced to form the “Florida Association of Condominiums to Support Self-Determination” or FACTSS. A statewide advocacy organization, FACTSS adopted a central legislative objective with the help of former State Senator Ellyn Bogdanoff – to provide association homeowners with a legal right to forego retrofitting a gratuitous, budget-busting ELSS (i.e. enacting an ELSS Opt-Out). Having authored the 2010 Statutory amendment that empowered high-rise association homeowners to opt-out of a fire sprinkler retrofit, Bogdanoff’s conversance with this issue is unparalleled.
Governor Ron DeSantis Signs House Bill 7103
On June 28, 2019, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 7103. Despite the efforts of Fire Sprinkler Associations finger-puppet Senator Ed Hooper and an army of well-funded lobbyists, Representatives Michael Grieco and Chip LaMarca, Senators Jason Pizzo, Jeff Brandes – and Tallahassee pundit Ellyn Bogdanoff – shifted a December 31, 2019 ELSS retrofit deadline to January 1, 2024, providing several million at risk Florida residents with a variety of regulatory and legislative opportunities to thwart this $multi-billion scam.
Senator Ed Hooper
However, when convened during election years (such as 2020), Florida legislative sessions typically degenerate into hotbeds of campaign fund-raising – as contributions are bartered for political patronage. In this mercenary slop sink, legislative outcomes typically succumb to the dictates of deep pocketed special interests – like the corporate juggernauts that anchor Fire Sprinkler Associations. In response to this prospective pitfall, FACTSS complemented its ongoing legislative struggle with a collateral legal strategy.
FACTSS has filed a petition for Declaratory Statement with Patronis’ Department of Financial Services. In short, it questions whether local Fire Marshals have the right to require that an ELSS include fire sprinklers in associations that legally voted to opt-out of a fire sprinkler retrofit. To help edify millions of Florida condo residents subject to this regulatory extortion, the following update was posted on the FACTSS website:
FACTSS Files Challenge to ELSS Sprinkler Requirement
FACTSS, the Florida Association of Condominiums To Support Self-Determination, Inc., filed a request for a declaratory statement from the Florida Fire Marshal to validate requiring sprinklers as part of the Engineered Life Safety System (ELSS) requirement.
The main question posed to the State Fire Marshal is this: “Under what authority can the State and/or local Fire Marshal require a fire sprinkler system, whether in the units or in common areas, as part of an ELSS if the association followed the proper procedures outlined in statute and opted out of retrofitting sprinklers anywhere on its association property?”
Galt Mile President Pio Ieraci Testifies
This challenge is in response to FACTSS member associations throughout the state being told by their local fire marshals that pursuant to the fire code adopted by the State of Florida, they may be obligated to install fire sprinklers as part of an ELSS. Many associations are being told by the local fire marshal that their ELSS plans would not be approved if it did not include a sprinkler system.
Associations affected by ELSS are those whose owners voted to opt-out of retrofitting their entire building under state law passed in 2010. Owners had until 2016 to conduct the opt-out vote. FACTSS’ argument is basically that if associations voted to opt-out of a sprinkler retrofit under state law, then an administrative decision by the State Fire Marshal cannot overrule state law by mandating fire sprinklers.
Digging Out the Truth
As questionably interpreted in a May 4, 2016 Declaratory Statement, the office of State Fire Marshal contends that although demanding fire sprinklers in associations that opted out violates State law, mandating fire sprinklers under the guise of an ELSS complies with the Florida Fire Prevention Code.
Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis
Although the Florida CFO (State Fire Marshal) and his Department of Financial Services have broad discretion in crafting Declaratory Statements, Patronis can neither ignore nor revise the Florida Statutes. As such, his agency’s response to this tactical inquiry should clarify that the current policy is based on the mistaken premise that an Administrative Code interpretation trumps a Statute enacted by the Florida Legislature. Needless to say, it doesn’t.
The impact of this strategy could resonate in the Legislature – and the courthouse – where several Florida associations have filed legal actions against their respective local fire marshals for allegedly exceeding their authority. Stay tuned!!!
succumb to the dictates of deep pocketed special interests – like the corporate juggernauts that anchor Fire Sprinkler Associations. In response to this prospective pitfall, FACTSS complemented its ongoing legislative struggle with a collateral legal strategy.
