Shelly, Hollywood residents, talks about why she supports Cat Uden Shelly, Hollywood resident, on why she switched her support to Cat. Vote Cat Uden for Mayor on November 5th. Early voting is ...
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Upscale projects, including high-rises, are going up across Hollywood. At the same time, however, residents of this South Florida coastal city notice that quality of life services are being neglected.
I learned about this problem firsthand by knocking on doors with Catherine "Cat" Uden, who wants to replace Josh Levy as mayor on November 5.
We've walked in Parkside, just south of downtown Hollywood, where development is spreading from one area to another. We've met people in Hollywood Hills, a middle-class neighborhood, in Boulevard Heights in the western part of the city, and in Rotary Park, just south of the Hollywood YMCA.
I expected to hear people say they're voting for Mayor Levy one last time. But that hasn't been the case most of the time. Over and over again, we've heard complaints about quality-of-life issues: It takes months to get a permit to put up a fence at my house, is one refrain. Yet major developers get permits fast; garbage pickup is sporadic on some streets, sidewalks are not being fixed; and flooding has occurred even in middle-class neighborhoods, not just older parts of Hollywood. Adding insult to injury, I keep hearing that folks can't always count on getting help when they call the city or even sometimes from an elected representative.
This series of concerns explains why I'm supporting Cat Uden for mayor, even though I voted for Josh when he ran the first time in 2016. The young, intelligent, competent attorney won a second term unopposed four years later.
But after eight years of Josh, it's clear that we need fresh blood. We need someone whose major focus isn't development or what I view as support for over-development. We need a mayor who will question how much development we need to build a stronger tax base and ask exactly what kind of construction makes sense for a city hammered the past two springs by epic rainfalls that caused flooding.
Of course, the visits from Mother Nature are perhaps a prelude to what awaits us as sea-level rise and climate change continue their inexorable march.
So we need a full-time mayor as Hollywood prepares to celebrate its 100th birthday. If elected in November, Cat will quit her full-time job to help pass environmental legislation. Instead, she will devote her energies full-time to the six districts that comprise the City of Hollywood. Cat will continue knocking on doors and visiting community groups. Equally important, she will take the information she collects back to City Hall. And Cat will meet with the City Manager, who runs Hollywood daily under our system of government. She also will be a voice for all residents, including long-time homeowners who can no longer afford dealing with escalating property values that generate higher property tax bills, or homeowners just to the north and south of booming downtown who don't want to live near a condo that was built next door after their neighbor sold an aging home to a developer. The noise, pollution, and increased congestion are some of the byproducts of what is happening here.
In short, it's time to address all of these concerns.
Still, make no mistake, Hollywood desperately needs development. After all, dealing with sea-level rise and climate change will cost us an unknown amount of money over the next few decades. Of course, it's unrealistic to expect an indebted federal government to print enough money to meet our needs. It's also unlikely the state and county governments have the means to provide the necessary financial support.
So, it's up to us to build a stronger and sustainable tax base.
But saying it's up to us creates responsibility; it doesn't simply grant permission to offer knee-jerk support for upscale project after upscale project.
No. From my perspective, we need leaders who ask questions in public: How much is enough? What type of development best serves our needs as flooding continues to get worse and scientists warn parts of South Florida are sinking? What happens if we have another 100-year hurricane, as we did around the time Joseph Young founded our city? That hurricane devastated Hollywood in the years before the Great Depression. Population declined, and the real estate market suffered, according to Marla Sherman Dumas, a long-time Hollywood resident and planning consultant who has served as a Broward County Historical Commissioner. You can find her article, "An Early Neighborhood in Hollywood Worthy of Historic Designation," online.
So, even as we are living in boom times, I want our leaders to ask: Can what happened 100 years ago happen again? And if so, are we making matters worse by flooding downtown Hollywood - and Young Circle - with high-rise buildings? The traffic in the area is already difficult to negotiate. What will happen if people in the high-rises need to evacuate? Will the early warning systems we have these days be enough? And will the people with money who move into our luxury properties seek safer places to live?
In other words, let's not support short-term gain at the expense of possible long-term pain.
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