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Thursday, May 31, 2012

City of Deerfield Beach and Commissioner Care More About Promoting Pride than Safety of its Residents...

Question:


If your City had the money would you want them to fix an inconvenient problem or would you want them to fix a safety problem.


Especially, if you know that the safety problem has a 90% chance of not being looked at until 2015.


This is the dilemma the residents of Deerfield Beach are faced with.


City of Deerfield Beach has about |$150,000 of funding which is about to expire at the end of September (according to a Community  Development rep).  The City wants to use those funds and build Ben Preston's archway of pride over at DBHS and fix an engineering problem that causes an inconvenience the parents who are dropping off and picking up their kids from the High School.


I wonder how many of those parents are actually residents of the low-income CDBG district and residents of Deerfield Beach...


So to me that is an inconvenience, not a necessity.  There has been no accidents and no deaths that can be attributed to this engineering problem and a lack of pride has never killed anyone..at least I don't think.


Ben Preston and Beulah Hill are more concerned about fixing the City's inconvenience and leaving a legacy for themselves than fixing a safety problem, which has has and can be attributed to deaths and that is the lighting situation over on Hillsboro and MLK.  


Ben, the legacy that you leave is not an archway by the High School, but the man who let his people "DIE".  The man who was more concerned with appearances than safety, The Man who had no "Pride" and who could care less about the safety of the residents he swore to protect.


Now, the City is holding to and using as an excuse as to why they will not look at using CDBG funding is because they think and "WANT"  FDOT to fix the problem.  FDOT has already stated that they won't even begin any project until 2015, even if a study reveals that it needs to be done.  This study was slated to begin in November of 2012 for possible implementation in 2015, at least that is the info that I received from FDOT.  Through lots of effort and hardwork since October 2011 working with FDOT, a fatality in February 2012, and then finally embarrassing the City Staff and Commissioner Preston into actually taking action, they finally stepped up and joined the residents and in March 2012 the City asked FDOT to perform a full street study analysis, which FDOT says should be concluded by the beginning of June...but who knows when the work will actually begin if any is recommended.


We do know, as of now, that the City of Deerfield Beach has the money to correct part of safety problem for its residents and why they would choose not to, is beyond me.  Waiting for a could be to happen three years from now..while putting our lives at risk is unacceptable.


Now, so both issues are for work that should have been done a long time ago, the DBHS engineering inconvenience for those dropping off their kids and the Hillsboro and MLK 0 lighting which may be attributed to fatalities, accidents, and other.


So, which do you think should be a priority of a City that claims to care about "ALL" it's residents.


The funding is there, but the City Manager, Burgess Hanson, and staff stubbornly want the residents, pedestrians, bicyclist, and motorist who utilize that area at Hillsboro and MLK to do so at their own peril, or at least until 2015 when funding may become available through FDOT to correct the safety issue that should have never been.


How many street corners on major highways and thoroughfares have 0 lights installed.  I mean come-on there are 7 alone at Hillsboro and Federal.


Ben Preston keeps talking about pride at the high school.  What about pride in the fact that YOU fixed a thirty year old problem that could save lives.  We have already lost one Deerfield Beach resident this year in that area, after the City was warned, how many more lives need to be needlessly lost for the City to act.


It is obvious you have the money through CDBG-R funding and/or CDBG funding.  It would be money better spent to protect the safety of the City's actual residents than for promoting pride and fixing an inconvenience for people who are mostly just passing through to drop off their kids to the IB/Magnet High School that just so happens to be in a low-income district eligible for government funding.


The residents safety should come first...



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