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*Community Voices: A Q&A on Oakland Park's Challenges and Solutions.
Connecting with my neighbors and hearing their concerns firsthand has been the most rewarding part of this campaign. Whether it's at a town hall, a coffee shop, or just knocking on doors, I'm committed to truly listening to the people of Oakland Park.
It's an honor to have these conversations, address their questions, and work together to find solutions that make our city a better place for everyone.
What attracted me to Oakland Park was that it was a small town (over 30 years ago). When I drive around today, I can barely see that small town. I understand the need for development, but what are your plans to keep/restore/retain our small-town reputation, or is your vision to have it be developed and ‘city-fied’?
I appreciate that question because the potential character and charm of a small town is what drew my family here to Oakland Park. While Florida and in particular South Florida has seen excessive growth, I think too often we look at what is immediately around us for comparison, when I believe we should be utilizing other cities around our size within the state as a beacon. I look at cities on the West Coast like Dunedin, or on the East Coast like Cocoa Beach, they have managed to retain that small town charm while becoming a destination city for food, culinary, events and experiences. In cities like those they didn’t need to build excessive high-rises, and made their allure the facilities, events and the opportunities they provided through parks, trails, well-lit streets and small businesses, which is a pathway toward success I believe Oakland Park can achieve.
Building is out of control and green space is disappearing. How can we preserve our green space while dealing with this overgrowth?
I believe you must keep the Parks in Oakland Park. I believe in this so much so that I helped the city to come to an agreement on a contract with the Archdiocese of Miami to keep Cherry Creek Park open for our residents to enjoy, when it was on cusp of being closed off completely to our neighbors.
I also worked with the city on restructuring their original layout of the new Greenleaf Park when the original plans called for a playground right next to busy intersection at NE 13th and Park Lane. We made it more child and family friendly, by helping them to realize the safer decision would be to move the playground to the south side where it will now be constructed.
Many citizens believe that past spending on new city offices has been grossly mismanaged, leaving residents on the hook for luxury city offices. What would you do to make sure taxes won’t destroy the quality of life once enjoyed in Oakland Park?
I agree that the new City Hall being leased is an unfavorable situation, and the city should own the land their City Hall resides on. I also believe the city does a tremendous job by offsetting costs in acquiring grant funding that goes unheralded when in comparison to tax dollar spending.
Oakland Park can do a better job to be fiscally responsible and I’ve pointed that out multiple times in particular ways over the years in commission budget meetings.
Building and construction costs have skyrocketed over the last couple of years due to inflation, which inevitably ate up our tax and bond approved dollars for our new library that won’t be coming until some time in to the future. I would’ve made sure the promise made with the 2018 Bond money approval by residents was fulfilled in building the new library residents approved.
Would you support or reject ingress and egress onto NW 38th St. if it was proposed by a developer? And would you commit to re-opening the gate closed off on NW 39th St and 21st Ave?
I would get all the powers that be in a room to discuss this thoroughly, with City and County Development Review Committees as well as neighborhood association Presidents and business leaders and pour over reports illicited from public safety and transit authorities in order to come to a decision that is representative of what the community wants and needs.
This has been a big topic of discussion over the past couple of years, and there is no clear cut answer other than getting everyone in a room to figure out what works best and achieves what the area necessitates..
What is the plan to alleviate flooding?
Due to our population size, we are capped on how much federal funding we can actually procure, and tax dollars and grant money only goes so far.
Our partnerships with the City of Wilton Manors, the City of Ft. Lauderdale and Broward County are vital in order to help us build a pathway to obtaining more state and county funding. That would allow Public Works and our city planners to build better drainage systems in all our neighborhoods and roadways.
We need to push for more outside the box opportunities to bridge the time gap until Oakland Park reaches its goal of possessing 50,000 residents by the next census in order to become eligible for more federal funding to help fix our infrastructure.
Do you have any plans for saving money by putting solar on all schools, government buildings, and the library?
I am a big proponent of solar energy being installed on city and county structures.
I’ve stated this on numerous occasions, speaking at city commission meetings in suggesting installing solar street lighting while they lay new sidewalks throughout the city. This would assist not only in public safety, but elevate property value, provide tax breaks plus the city could generate more revenue by saving money on electricity and selling solar stored electric back to the power company.
While it would be up to the school board to install solar on the schools, when it comes to city buildings and solar opportunities, I would advocate as a commissioner to put solar paneling on structures in order to save the city money in the long run.
Is there a timeline on when the permitting department will fully understand their roles?
The city is working currently on a plan to fix the permitting problems that have been persisting for years.
Yet, I don’t believe their plan of website consolidation goes far enough. On multiple occasions I’ve mentioned to city staff that they need a liaisons who answer to residents and commercial builders to assist in the process of getting updates and making sure that permits are going through smoothly and on time.
The timeline on which permits take to get closed has been a financial and mental burden on those who have weathered the process, and while strides are being made, I think it needs to be pressed upon the city to hire more permitting employees (who themselves are over burdened) which inevitably would make it a smoother process.
Given the impact of increasing condo assessments, what can city commissioners do to help alleviate this impact?
Too often our city commissioners stop at just the title “City Commissioner”. A Commissiner needs to have the wherewithal to contact county and state reps or even reach out to the federal level if need to in order to resolve a situation.
I didn’t stop when it came to helping out small businesses in our downtown of Oakland Park in trying to find grant money to keep their lights on and doors open. I reached out to county commissioners and state legislators to provide avenues for grant money and even spoke with their landlords. There is always more that can be done.
Residents who moved here in the 70s, 80s, 90s and even 2000’s are spending their nest eggs hoping to retire comfortably while on fixed incomes, yet now they are left struggling just to pay the bills and put food on the table. I think this is a very pivotal policy topic not only here locally in Oakland Park, but at the state level because our baby boomers and golden generation are bearing the burden from gross oversight in Tallahassee. It’s something that needs to be addressed and it can be started right here in Oakland Park.
Traffic is bad and getting worse. What would you do to make our roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists?
Multimodal is a term the city has been using a lot as far as bicycling, walking, ride sharing, and all different forms of transportation, it’s a goal they want to achieve.
We’re seeing sidewalks go in neighborhoods, but I think the biggest aspect as far as safety for pedestrians would be in creating the opportunity to have much safer crosswalks and overpasses built on busy roads, as well as providing additional bike lanes. Our population is only growing while the future Brightline commuter train stop will be nice, we have to think more pragmatically.
Residents don’t want to worry about a driver staring at their at their phone and not paying attention as they or their children cross the street. Our local businesses need more walkability to be safely accessible.
I believe safer crosswalks and overpasses on busy roads, and more space for bike lanes will be a wonderful initiative to continue along with the sidewalks that are presently being installed in the neighborhoods .
All of you are required to live in the city, so you are familiar with the strengths and challenges of being a resident. Do you think a city manager should also be required to live in the city they serve?
While I believe it would be beneficial, the City Manager of Wilton manors lives in the Coral Heights neighborhood of Oakland Park. Our city manager, as I understand it lives in very close proximity to Oakland Park. It was an allowance written in to his contract by commissioners years ago when he was hired despite what it is state in the City Code.
And it’s my hope in the near future, through his vision and efforts that he will deliver all of us a city in which he and we are proud of and want to live in.
What is a policy in Oakland Park that you think needs to be changed, and why?
Many come to mind, but I believe our city code needs to be updated when it comes to livable space. The smallest allowable unit designation is 600 square feet.
Today we have a housing shortage, and with the state handcuffing the ability of municipal governments to limit the amount of vacation rental properties, people are having a hard time finding an affordable place to live.
By taking down the minimum livable space to a micro unit designation, it would create more opportunities for affordable and obtainable housing. We already have micro unit designation in new buildings like Oaklyn, but allowing it to be zoned throughout the city, would offer more opportunity for residents, incoming tax dollars and a place for folks to call home.
*Oakland Park Candidates Forum Q&A - Royal Palm Acres