By Agrippina Fadel
A routine survey by the city leaders is gathering negative attention, despite the seemingly good intentions behind it.
The City of Tamarac shared the survey link on its Facebook page with the message, “your opinion matters,” and residents didn’t hold back from sharing what they really think about local politics.
The short survey asked the residents to choose the top issues for the city to consider, including public and traffic safety, community appearance, city parks, quality of life, and transportation.
The commentators on the post said the survey is “not going far enough” and questioned whether the city is looking for improvement or “just another way to spend hard-earned tax dollars for nonsense.”
Resident Nedra Moore-Gabriel said that while her property taxes increased by almost $6K annually, the lake in her community is “disgusting,” and she must travel to neighboring cities for shopping and dining. (Both community beautification and commercial plazas are on the list of issues that the survey discusses.)
Tara Yudenfriend, in her comment, asked for more events for kids and more healthy food options, to which another resident Frank Zender said, “it is not possible” because Vice Mayor Marlon Bolton and former Vice Mayor Mike Gelin voted to cut city events during the last year budget meeting, stating they were not attended well enough.
Zender added, “if we want more events, we need to budget differently next year,” and asked why the survey doesn’t give residents an option to write in an answer or address commissioners “acting like clowns” at the meetings.
Residents had even more to say during public participation at the city commission meeting on January 11. Darcy Schiller said the survey questions had “nothing to do with people’s concerns,” adding that residents keep coming to the meetings to address their misgivings about the city budget, how the money is being spent, and the fact that the commission does not work well together.
“Who put this survey together, and why wasn’t it based on issues that are brought before the commission? That was very disappointing,” Schiller said.
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