SoRoPA - South Royal Palm Acres

January Issues of Interest to SoRoPA Neighbors

Janaury 2007 Meeting Notes, etc.

SoRoPA Neighbors United January 2007 - Monthly Meeting Summary.

January’s meeting was very well attended and one neighbor went home $7 richer for the night thanks to our new 50/50 drawing! The food and drinks provided at the meeting will be paid for with the other $7 from the drawing.

Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue attended and spoke about the efforts to preserve the OakTree Golf Course property from high density development. The OakTree COunrtry Club residents have hired an attorney and are attempting to purchase the remaining 50 years of the 100 year lease to prevent the land purchase by developers. The lease buy-out price is estimated to be $6 million. She also heard the neighbors’ frustration with the City’s decision regarding the matter of leashed dogs in Veterans Park and the traffic problems at the intersection of NW 21st Ave and Oakland Park Blvd. The issue will be brought back to the City Commission after the Veterans complete the installation of their monument, which is scheduled to take place mid-February.

She explained that she had spent some time observing the traffic at the Amoco station and had gotten held up in the queue while trying to make the right-hand turn onto NW 21st Ave to attend our meeting. She explained that the Commission would be reviewing the situation in the very near future.

Brian Hopper and Steve Mattair from our city Parks and Recreation Department attended to discuss the developments in hurricane repair at Veterans Park and the efforts on the part of the city to bring more activity to the west side of town. FEMA has tentatively given word that as much as $75,000 of the repairs to Veterans Park should be eligible for FEMA funding. Brian hopes to see the repairs completed by the end of 2007 or early 2008.

Steve Mattair would like to plan City based events at the westside parks and mentioned the possibility of recreational events such as fishing outings, volleyball, tennis or Bocci tournaments at Royal Palm Park, etc. He requests input from the residents. Have you been to Royal Pam Park to see all the improvements? What would you like to see Parks and Rec do on our side of town? Let me know???

We also talked about our nature preserve, Sand Pine Park which they hope to open to the public on a regular schedule in the near future. Several residents requested a tour which Brian said could be arranged with some notice. Some residents requested a Monday tour while others need a weekend to accommodate the working folks. There is no reason we can’t set up two tours. Please email your interest and preference of days…

Its time to coordinate another 21st Ave. street clean-up. If we have it on a Monday, as Richard Bernhardt suggested would there be enough folks to make it happen? Please email me your thoughts. Otherwise we will do the clean-up on Sunday afternoon, January 28, 2007 – Mark your calendar for 5pm. We’ll meet at the playground and work our way up one side of the street and down the other. Afterwards, we’ll gather and share some tasty treats either at the park or at our house on NW 34th Ave.

The Zone Commander for our section of Oakland Park, Sgt. Calvin Phillips, came to introduce himself and speak about neighborhood safety. He discussed the recent spate of generator thefts in North Andrew Gardens and the break-in on NW 33rd St. If you watched the news this past weekend, you may have seen the story of the woman, claiming to be a Plantation resident who was arrested with her 17 year old daughter and 9 year old son. She used her 9 year old son to crawl through windows and over fences to let her in to steal what she could. Oakland Park BSO was able to track back to her by way of pawn shop records and at last count she had confessed to more than 20 burglaries, mostly in Oakland Park!

Did you know we had 2 registered sex-offenders whose residential address was a bus stop on NW 21st Ave??? The Probation Department of BSO was made aware of this and corrected the situation. When the sex-offenders were not “at home” at the required hours, they were taken into custody. At the time of the meeting, they were sitting in county jail without bond. They will not be back to our bus stop!

Sgt. Phillips reminded us that the best defense is to be alert and call if you see anything suspicious. Be sure to thank your hard-working BSO-Oakland Park Police when you see them!!!

During our meeting. Brian Hopper took a stroll through Veterans Park in the dark. He returned and addressed the group to share his observations. You may have noticed the new lights in the Park and he has promised to remove the cozy little corner in the hedges that was home to unsavory activities.

Following the neighborhood meeting, I attended a quarterly meeting with the Mayor, Steve Arnst and Oakland Park Homeowner Presidents. Some of the issues discussed were the permitting department and the inequitable fee structure, which will be addressed at an upcoming Commission meeting, as well as the Amoco Station, the use of warehouse space for music events and the failure of the directional arrows to provide improvement, Father Bob’s Soup Kitchen off Powerline Rd. and the single sale initiative, promoting the ban on single cans of alcoholic beverages. The Commission Meeting this coming should have some interesting topics of conversation. If you are interested in watching, you can see it on Comcast Channel 78, beginning at 6 pm.

An item of great concern to our neighborhood is the proposed opening of NW 44th St through to 441, a proposal that will benefit Westminster Academy and provide direct access from 441 to NW 21st Ave. Oakland Park is working to come up with an alternative but the potential for horrendous traffic problems that will directly affect us exists. Please let your commissioners know that they need to take action prevent this from becoming OUR PROBLEM!!!

The next neighborhood meeting will be February 6th at 7:30 pm at the Fire Station. We are still working on a place to meet that is a bit quieter but in the meantime we have a search out for a Mr. Microphone to make the discussion easier to hear. Any suggestions?

The new sales manager for the Days Inn has suggested that a new meeting room might be available with the renovations, but that would require that we drive around the Amoco Station…

As always, I am available for suggestions for speakers, items of interest and problems to address to city officials. Please don’t hesitate to email me at aesallee@yahoo.com or call 954-253-0850.

- Anne Sallee

Links

Oakland Park City Government