The U.S. Conference of Mayors announced that Lauderhill has been chosen to be an Honorable Mention for the 2006 City Livability Awards for cities under 100,000. This award focuses on the positive efforts of mayors and cities who are improving the quality of life, and making a difference for their residents.
Following Hurricane Wilma, Fire Chief Ed Curran drafted a paper entitled "Hurricane Wilma Post Incident Analysis Preliminary Report." It outlined steps taken before, during and after the hurricane, in how Lauderhill responded. It contained significant detail of the storm, and provided not only a best practice outline of the city, but also provided a guidance of where improvements can be made. This report has been copied, and distributed to other cities in the county.
From this report, Mayor Richard J. Kaplan distilled the information and supplemented it into a shorter original application that was submitted to the judges. The original application was then chosen as 1 of 15 finalist in its category. The 30 finalist chosen between the two categories, were from 235 applications submitted. Following notification, Lauderhill was required to prepared a more detailed report for the second round of review.
The announcement was made at the US Conference of Mayors Annual National Meeting June 3. Also announced was the Grand Prize Winner, four Outstanding Achievement Awards, and the other four Honorable Mention Award Winners.
5 comments:
Congratulations! Now if we could just get the building permit people to tell you the truth about their game playing at the expense of the residents at:
1) Stonebridge Gardens, and;
2) International Village
For these FORMER residents, Lauderhill has not been livable at all. Why can't these complexes get permits in less than MONTHS? Don't ask the permit people 'cause they lie. Check for yourself and discover the games being played.
Yeh, they jerk people around and let residents believe that it's the construction companies dragging their heels instead of City Hall. Don't know if the Permit people are just dumb or...worse. Lauderhill must like the homeless 'cause it helped create so many of them. Hey, what's gonna fall down next? The Red Cross had better be standing by when the storms begin.
If you knew the truth, it has been the fault of the contractors, other beyond the city. Actually it is quite well documented what has been happening. International Village being a prime example. The city does not fix roofs, and permits are issued promptly when applied for (3 to 10 days). Based upon this, if properly applied for, the permits would have been available months ago, and repairs should long ago been completed.
So I do not know where you may be coming from, but the City is not the cause of the problems here. Honestly, since we do not get into private condo business, it has been stumping me on why there is such a problem with the contractors and their association to get together to do the job right and timely.
I have had to deal with this on other repairs in the city, and there we actually went to the extent of documenting the information to the residents proving delays by contractors, i.e., permits sitting in city hall for a month before being picked up, contracts signed but permits never being applied for a month later, etc. City Hall is just an easy excuse, and not a good one since everything we do is public records and documented for review to prove our point. I don't think that is true of any of the other parties.
Your Honor, Mayor Kaplan, I have been reading these posts and trying to assess whether a large number of Lauderhill residents do indeed have grounds for a proposed class action suit involving their mandated relocation.
We all know that Lauderhill does not repair roofs. We know that contractors repair roofs. In order to do those repairs they need the help of those issuing building permits. It might surprise you to know that said developers state that it is NOT true that permits are handled in a timely or efficient manner and that they were never given the assistance or information they should have had from the permit people who have been characterized as somewhere between rude and hostile. There are rumors of criminal complicity in costing people time/money in delaying restoration of large complexes in order to assist developers in the furtherance of proposed gentrification , I.e., 'acquisition by default.' In other words, "Let some older complex disintegrate so owners will bail by selling cheaply or go into foreclosure."
I speak specifically, Mr. Mayor, of the issue of Stonebridge Gardens, 55 Avenue, Lauderhill, which complex you failed to mention in your rebuttal. You will recall, I believe, this large, owner occupied complex. Sixteen buildings, 400+ units, were red-tagged last Halloween and residents ordered out. The Boards of Directors were told that all roofs would have to be totally replaced rather than restored due to extensive damage. So the various Boards representing this complex went through months of negotiation and re-negotiation before signing contracts with their respective builders. To date, Sections One, Two, and Three still have not been given permits to proceed with the necessary work. We wonder whether you would like to explain why this is so, giving specifics rather than broad generalities?
Next question. Why was the President of the Board of Directors of Section Four, one Lana Patterson, granted a permit allowing her Section to patch rather than replace the four roofs in her Section? If there was no permit, then why is work on that sector proceeding as if there were? How do other sections get leave to simply patch and get on with with it? Are there other special fees which one is able to pay to some official somewhere in order to commence work? I am not stating a fact but posing a question. Many of us wonder if this should not be checked into very thoroughly. Replace roof...patch roof, ummm. Interesting. Perhaps another International Village in the making; this Section Four at Stonebridge.
We need specifics, Mr. Mayor, if you will.
Stephen Benedict
There has been so much misinformation and blame being thrown around concerning Stonebridge that I am hesitant to potentially put more fuel on the fire.
I can only tell you this. When a permit is requested we timely issue it. Delays by contractors, etc., are not in our control. If this is in doubt, the requests and permits are all public records for anyone to review if they like. All are dated to establish what happened. If you, or anyone else questions it, come down and take a look for yourself. Therefore city blame can be averted. I have a clear conscious for the city in that we are doing everything we can to help. The rest is not in our control.
If repairs are not acceptable, we can only fail their inspection until they fix it right. If a repair is attempted which does not meet the code it will fail inspection. If a roof can be patched instead of replaced, well that is what it is. I do not know this is true or not. I only hope that the work proceed quickly and properly to get the residents back into the development.
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