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	A Not-For-Profit Corporation P.O. Box 493 Deerfield Beach, FL 33443 Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. Cree Indian saying

Great news! The Broward County Commission has just approved spending $3,550,000.00 for tree restoration, site preparation and berm creation at Quiet Waters Park. As you know, this once lush, wooded park is virtually void of trees in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma.

The commission and citizens of Deerfield Beach have been expressing their concern about the condition of Quiet Waters Park and I am pleased to report that our voices have been heard. The Broward County Commission is spending more than half of the $6 million it has approved for tree replacement, to plant more than 4000 trees in Quiet Waters Park.

This is Phase 1 of the project. Phase 2 of the Quiet Waters Park project will be to replace the destroyed campgrounds and rebuild the popular mountain bike paths.

I encourage you to contact me with questions, suggestions, complaints or just to say Hi. You can reach me at 954-480-4221, 954-553-1465 or pmilitello@deerfield-beach.com

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FOR HOMEOWNERS

http://www.mysafefloridahome.com/ For questions, call toll-free at 1-800-342-2762 in Florida

The “Florida Comprehensive Hurricane Damage Mitigation Program” will offer free home inspections and matching grants up to $5,000 for specific home improvements to qualified homeowners.

As required by the new law, our department must take certain steps before the program can be implemented and before homeowners can apply for inspections and grants

STEP ONE – Apply for a free home inspection The Florida Comprehensive Hurricane Damage Mitigation Program will offer free home inspections by specially qualified wind-resistance inspectors to eligible homeowners. You must apply to the Program and be approved in order to receive the free inspection. Requesting or obtaining an inspection does not guarantee or automatically qualify you for a grant.

STEP TWO: MATCHING GRANTS To help Floridians strengthen their homes against hurricanes and to reduce hurricane exposure in our state, the Florida Comprehensive Hurricane Damage Mitigation Program will offer matching grants up to $5,000 for specific home improvements identified in the home inspection reports. A completed inspection does not automatically qualify you for or guarantee you will receive a grant.

STEP THREE: TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR HOME Matching grant funds are available only for wind-resistance improvements in these seven specific categories, as follows:

Improving the strength of your roof deck attachment. For example, if your roof consists of shingles nailed to plywood sheets, the inspection may reveal that the plywood sheets are not adequately nailed to your roof trusses, and that additional nails and/or longer nails need to be added to prevent the plywood from being blown off in a hurricane.

Creating a secondary water barrier to prevent water intrusion. For example, using strips of “peel and stick-on” material that cover the joints between the plywood sheets on your roof to reduce leakage until repairs can be made if a hurricane blows off your roof shingles.

Improving the survivability of your roof covering. For example, upgrading to thicker and stronger hurricane-resistant roof shingles, attached with properly sized and properly applied roofing nails, to reduce the susceptibility of your roof shingles blowing off in a hurricane. Bracing gable-ends in your roof framing. This is usually done inside your attic to decrease chances that your roof will collapse under hurricane wind loads.

Reinforcing roof-to-wall connections. For example, installing metal tie-down straps that attach roof rafters to wall studs to decrease chances that all or a portion of your roof will simply lift your house during a hurricane.

Upgrading exterior wall opening protections. For example, installing hurricane-rated window shutters.

Upgrading exterior doors. For example, replacing a standard garage door with a hurricane-rated garage door.

Kimberly H. Spill Hazard Mitigation Specialist Deerfield Beach Fire Rescue Disaster Survival House 1345 FAU Research Park Boulevard Deerfield Beach, Fl. 33441 Direct: (954) 480-4249 Fax: (954) 429-3328 KSpill@deerfield-beach.com

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world" - Ghandi

"The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." - Chinese Proverb

The purposes of the Original Save Our Beach, Inc. include but are not limited to the following:

1. To engage in and promote, for the benefit of the general public, research, study and protection/preservation of the quality of life for residents of the city of Deerfield Beach.
2. To contribute to the orderly environmental management, conservation and preservation of the natural resources and natural areas of the shoreline region through charitable, educational and scientific endeavors, programs and assistance.
3. To educate the public on issues of the use, allocation and management of resources, and on land use planning, the effects of development, economics and socia1 concerns affected by growth management decisions.
4. To assist the public, developers, government agencies, businesses, neighborhood groups, land owners, environmental groups and other parties in reaching consensus on issues of growth management, development and environmental protection.

Useful Links

Deerfield Beach USA Website

City of Deerfield Beach Website

Hometown Democracy Amendment Website

Broward County Commission Website

Broward County Voting Information Website

Environment News Service

Sun Sentinel Website

Miami Herald Website

Ad-Ink: Custom T Shirts
(Printed OSOB's T-shirts)

 

City Tactics to Beware of

The following are tactics that are used by city governments to support their case for over-development, CRAs or RACs or other alphabetic over-development ploys: (Does any of this sound familiar?)

•  Planning is done in secret strongly indicating that the city administrators know full well the results of the plan are not the desire or in the best interests of the residents and property owners.

•  The threat of eminent domain is used as an effective tool for forcing property owners to sell out to the city or developers.

•  Timing is everything, when the commission is trying to move a CRA type project, or an over development plan along without public outcry, meetings are scheduled with minimal (only what they legally have to do)  public notice, or after a long holiday weekend, or during the summer when most residents are away.

•  CRA's bleed money from other public needs and projects, the profits from the increased tax revenue can only be used in the CRA designated district, leaving the rest of the city and schools with reduced revenue.

•  The designation as a blighted area is a bad, dangerous joke.  (The Deerfield Beach commission wants to declare the beach area "blighted" so it would fall under the umbrella of a tax district set up to fund city improvements. Once designated, the district diverts increases in property tax revenues, to pay for improvements to blighted areas. The problem, many agree, is that the law is so vague; almost any area can be considered blighted. Some of our beach area may be a little run-down but it's far from blighted.)  

• They demean the people who oppose the plan, accusing them of being against improvement implying that they are a small discontented group, calling them names, gadflies, “nimbys” (city speak for "not in my backyard" used when people have the audacity to oppose a project in their neighborhood against big brother), caves (citizens against virtually everything) etc.

•  They talk about what “we” want for the city, meaning the “we” on the commission, not the “we” who are the majority of the citizens. 

 Watch for these tactics, be aware of their use, and be ready to counter them.   

Thanks to Pete Colt for the research on this article.

 

 

Orlando Sentinel

cOMMENTARY

Lauren Ritchie

The woman -- and trend -- developers fear

Published March 16, 2007

That blonde in the classy lime green suit with pale pink lipstick has developers on the run.

They hate her. Lesley Blackner is anathema to them. And it's pretty amusing how their last frayed nerve is starting to show.

Blackner, a Palm Beach lawyer and mother of two, found herself on the cover of Florida Trend magazine and the subject of a catty profile in the March issue.

A headline on the cover asked, "Who's Lesley Blackner?" Another answered: "The woman behind 'Hometown Democracy' -- and why every business group in Florida hates it."

The magazine needn't have bothered. Its readers already know. For most of the rest of us, however, Blackner's life work is a mystery, and her name is unfamiliar.

Here's the short answer: She's the woman making a liar of every developer who ever repeated the mantra, "Growth is coming -- there's nothing you can do about it."

Blackner runs the organization collecting signatures for a ballot question on a constitutional amendment that would require a change in every local government's blueprint for growth: It would force elected officials to ask you, the voter, each time a developer wants to change land use to build a big subdivision.

Imagine being able to take control of the destiny of your community. What a delightful switch -- no longer would residents be condemned to life at the mercy of sprawl junkies.

Imagine what would happen to developers. Instead of treating residents with contempt or throwing condescending "town meetings," developers would be forced into building decent communities that voters would like to live next door to.

Oh, no! The party is up! Au revoir to the easy money!

Rather than spending a limited amount of cash on getting three elected officials -- or a majority -- to vote for the change, they would have to convince the whole county that their development is worthy.

No wonder they're coming apart.

Florida Trend quotes critics as saying that Blackner uses shallow sound bites to get support.

One of her favorite sayings is "We have government of the developer, by the developer and for the developer."

Certainly, it's clever, but is she wrong? I think not. And neither do they.

The magazine says Blackner appeals to emotion rather than deliberation. I guess that criticism doesn't apply to a Florida Chamber of Commerce executive who said that the Hometown Democracy initiative is "environmentalists using our Constitution to shut down jobs."

Oh, boy. They're scared. How scared?

Consider that Blackner's group has not yet come close to success. They have 250,000 signatures and need 611,000 by the end of the year. Yet, a consortium of folks -- made up largely of building and development interests -- successfully spent about $3.4 million last year to make it harder to pass a constitutional amendment like Blackner's. Now, approval of a constitutional amendment requires a 60 percent vote rather than a simple majority.

And yet, the development community remains clueless. Trend quotes a professor as saying that there is an "undercurrent" of anti-growth sentiment. Undercurrent? On which planet? People have been screaming at the top of their lungs about the degradation of their roads, schools, water supplies and way of life because of out-of-control sprawl. They're just not listening.

Want to help?

Go to FloridaHometownDemocracy.com for instructions and a petition. If you're not hooked to the Internet, write Florida Hometown Democracy Inc., P.O. Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170 or make a toll-free call to the 1-866-779-5513, and the staff will send you a stack.

What seems to bother developers most is that this one-woman threat has their checkbook in her hands.

They've attacked her -- in the press, in private and just about anywhere else.

They are in denial.

Blackner isn't their problem.

People are -- huge hordes of residents, many of whom live in the impersonal, scorched-earth subdivisions that developers created. She simply has tapped into the emotion.

If developers had three brain cells to rub together, they'd forget about Blackner and her nifty suit and start playing to the crowd. Regardless of whether Blackner and her group succeed, people have realized that they DO have power and that a better way of life is possible.

If they don't get a more reasonable growth rate, they're going to use that power, one way or another.

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.comor 352-742-5918

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-lritchie1607mar16,0,3641452.column

HELP SAVE WHAT'S LEFT OF  FLORIDA...
LET THE PEOPLE VOTE to control growth! 

Help put HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY on the 2008 ballot

Please download and SIGN THE PETITION  ! 

http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com

PO Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.  

 

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