- Joined
- Aug 9, 2010
- Location
- Coral Springs, Florida
Here is a story about the County taking over and changing a fixture in the Everglades in the hpes of modernizing it. Although the story is interesting I'm posting it because of the comments from the Commissioners about the people who live and use the area. These are some of the most elitist comments I've seen in awhile.
A remote park in the Everglades that's part Old Florida campground, part tourist trap will soon become Broward County's newest regional park, offering an official county destination as far from the beaches as it is different.
A longterm lease on Everglades Holiday Park, west of U.S. Highway 27 and Griffin Road, ends next year. And the county is taking its park back.
Out here at the park, the very thought of it causes skin to crawl. County officials say they'll modernize it. At the park, modernize is a code word for "ruin."
Video: Dania's Tropical Acres damaged by fire
Indeed, Broward County's designs on Everglades Holiday Park set up a culture clash that will reach a crescendo in the coming six months.
On the one side will be Broward parks and recreation officials and county commissioners in suits speaking in Fort Lauderdale offices about master plans and interactive educational displays. On the other will be people like Justin Hiteshew, who stood outside the park's convenience store Friday wearing an alligator-tooth necklace and talking about cherishing the park the way it is.
"They're going to ruin what it is,'' he said, "the gateway to the Everglades. They're going to come put new buildings and make it modern. And this is how it's been since the early '60s.''
Everglades Holiday Park is hugely popular with outdoorsmen and – women. Bass fishing tournaments are held here regularly, duck hunters access the Everglades marshes during duck season. Tourists from all over the world experience the Everglades on airboat tours and then watch alligator wrestler Chris Gillette manhandle the gators.
Bird watchers and frog giggers and all kinds of others whom the county calls "Gladesmen'' use this park and enjoy its ample parking, boat launches, food, cold beer, bait and campground.
The county owns the land and has leased it for the past three decades to the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which in turn leased it to Bridges Inc., to operate the concessions. All that comes to an end in June, when the concessions lease runs out.
Broward County commissioners say the park will then be brought up to county standards, with the same amenities, even 24-hour access, but cleaner and better. That doesn't sit well with folks who think things here are just fine already.
"If I had a cat or a dog,'' Broward Mayor Sue Gunzburger said last week in the county's Fort Lauderdale offices, "I don't even know if I'd let them eat there.''
Already, rumors are popping up that Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry is seeking to tamp down.
"Someone said we're going to have a carnival ride or something,'' Henry said. " We're not looking to do anything like this. We want it to retain the rustic nature of what goes on there. But we just need to bring the amenities up to today's standards.''
There's one other big problem Broward commissioners see: "squatters.'' That's what some call the people who live at the campground.
Hiteshew is one of them, and like the other campground residents, he never leaves. The campsites aren't free. The charge to the public is $576 per month for a full water, sewer and electricity hookup. But there's no maximum stay.
That makeshift community must be cleared out in 2012, county officials said. The county's vision is for rentable resort-style cabins, with air conditioning.
For camping, not year-round living.
The campground has such permanence now, that a Broward County school bus comes each weekday morning to get three kids, school offices confirmed.
Many of the park's 30 employees live at campsites in this 29-acre tract of Broward marsh, canals and sawgrass. Life's circumstances, the allure of Old Florida and the tenacity to tolerate mosquitoes have led them here.
Hiteshew had a good job welding, he said, and a nice trailer in Davie. But then the economy soured, his job dried up, and now he lives and works at the park.
"I have nowhere to go,'' he said, "unless someone gives me $10,000 and a truck so I can tow my camper. … I'm here until the last minute.''
That minute isn't far off. Five years ago, Broward officials warned users of the park this day was coming.
The county hosted a meeting for input. As county Commissioner Lois Wexler remembered it, the room was set up with tables with pencils and paper on top, and participants were asked to map out what they'd like to see in a park master plan.
Nothin' doin'.
Wexler said the "aggressive'' crowd wasn't about to help government engineer something they loved out of existence.
"They were in there in torn T-shirts, I mean it was really earthy,'' she said. "I don't want to judge people. But it was scary for me. I'm a city girl.''
"We got their input,'' she said. "Which was, 'Leave us alone and we don't trust government. You're all lying bums.' "
Wexler will ask for security for the next meeting. She said she is worried park residents and others who don't want Everglades Holiday Park disturbed will be in an uproar when they learn that changes have been made to the master plan since they last saw it. She said she's worried, too, that people who live here, who she said will become "homeless'' when Sheriff's Office deputies show up to evict them, haven't been sufficiently warned.
She is insisting another public meeting be held in the very near future, though nothing has been scheduled yet.
"There is going to be an outcry,'' Wexler said. "The ultimate decision is ours, but how it transitions is critically important.''
Gunzburger said she understood her fellow commissioner's point about getting more input from people who love the park the way it is, but said, "I don't want to let them dictate the future
A remote park in the Everglades that's part Old Florida campground, part tourist trap will soon become Broward County's newest regional park, offering an official county destination as far from the beaches as it is different.
A longterm lease on Everglades Holiday Park, west of U.S. Highway 27 and Griffin Road, ends next year. And the county is taking its park back.
Out here at the park, the very thought of it causes skin to crawl. County officials say they'll modernize it. At the park, modernize is a code word for "ruin."
Video: Dania's Tropical Acres damaged by fire
Indeed, Broward County's designs on Everglades Holiday Park set up a culture clash that will reach a crescendo in the coming six months.
On the one side will be Broward parks and recreation officials and county commissioners in suits speaking in Fort Lauderdale offices about master plans and interactive educational displays. On the other will be people like Justin Hiteshew, who stood outside the park's convenience store Friday wearing an alligator-tooth necklace and talking about cherishing the park the way it is.
"They're going to ruin what it is,'' he said, "the gateway to the Everglades. They're going to come put new buildings and make it modern. And this is how it's been since the early '60s.''
Everglades Holiday Park is hugely popular with outdoorsmen and – women. Bass fishing tournaments are held here regularly, duck hunters access the Everglades marshes during duck season. Tourists from all over the world experience the Everglades on airboat tours and then watch alligator wrestler Chris Gillette manhandle the gators.
Bird watchers and frog giggers and all kinds of others whom the county calls "Gladesmen'' use this park and enjoy its ample parking, boat launches, food, cold beer, bait and campground.
The county owns the land and has leased it for the past three decades to the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which in turn leased it to Bridges Inc., to operate the concessions. All that comes to an end in June, when the concessions lease runs out.
Broward County commissioners say the park will then be brought up to county standards, with the same amenities, even 24-hour access, but cleaner and better. That doesn't sit well with folks who think things here are just fine already.
"If I had a cat or a dog,'' Broward Mayor Sue Gunzburger said last week in the county's Fort Lauderdale offices, "I don't even know if I'd let them eat there.''
Already, rumors are popping up that Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry is seeking to tamp down.
"Someone said we're going to have a carnival ride or something,'' Henry said. " We're not looking to do anything like this. We want it to retain the rustic nature of what goes on there. But we just need to bring the amenities up to today's standards.''
There's one other big problem Broward commissioners see: "squatters.'' That's what some call the people who live at the campground.
Hiteshew is one of them, and like the other campground residents, he never leaves. The campsites aren't free. The charge to the public is $576 per month for a full water, sewer and electricity hookup. But there's no maximum stay.
That makeshift community must be cleared out in 2012, county officials said. The county's vision is for rentable resort-style cabins, with air conditioning.
For camping, not year-round living.
The campground has such permanence now, that a Broward County school bus comes each weekday morning to get three kids, school offices confirmed.
Many of the park's 30 employees live at campsites in this 29-acre tract of Broward marsh, canals and sawgrass. Life's circumstances, the allure of Old Florida and the tenacity to tolerate mosquitoes have led them here.
Hiteshew had a good job welding, he said, and a nice trailer in Davie. But then the economy soured, his job dried up, and now he lives and works at the park.
"I have nowhere to go,'' he said, "unless someone gives me $10,000 and a truck so I can tow my camper. … I'm here until the last minute.''
That minute isn't far off. Five years ago, Broward officials warned users of the park this day was coming.
The county hosted a meeting for input. As county Commissioner Lois Wexler remembered it, the room was set up with tables with pencils and paper on top, and participants were asked to map out what they'd like to see in a park master plan.
Nothin' doin'.
Wexler said the "aggressive'' crowd wasn't about to help government engineer something they loved out of existence.
"They were in there in torn T-shirts, I mean it was really earthy,'' she said. "I don't want to judge people. But it was scary for me. I'm a city girl.''
"We got their input,'' she said. "Which was, 'Leave us alone and we don't trust government. You're all lying bums.' "
Wexler will ask for security for the next meeting. She said she is worried park residents and others who don't want Everglades Holiday Park disturbed will be in an uproar when they learn that changes have been made to the master plan since they last saw it. She said she's worried, too, that people who live here, who she said will become "homeless'' when Sheriff's Office deputies show up to evict them, haven't been sufficiently warned.
She is insisting another public meeting be held in the very near future, though nothing has been scheduled yet.
"There is going to be an outcry,'' Wexler said. "The ultimate decision is ours, but how it transitions is critically important.''
Gunzburger said she understood her fellow commissioner's point about getting more input from people who love the park the way it is, but said, "I don't want to let them dictate the future