FORT LAUDERDALE — Flooding woes. A worsening homeless crisis. Vacation rentals that turn into wild and crazy party homes.
These are among the issues being debated by commission candidates running in the city’s Nov. 5 election.
Voters got a preview of the District 1 and 4 candidates during a forum hosted by the Fort Lauderdale Council of Civic Associations and moderated by South Florida Sun Sentinel Deputy Opinions Editor Dan Sweeney. A second forum for the District 2 and mayoral candidates is planned Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. at the L.A. Lee YMCA/Mizell Community Center, 1409 NW Sistrunk Blvd.
This news article focuses on the District 1 candidates, business owner Norbert “Norby” Belz and former city auditor John Herbst, the incumbent. Their comments have been edited for brevity.
Opening remarks
“We’re going to start with our District 1 candidates,” association president Mary Peloquin told the overflow crowd. “It may look to you like only one of them is here. But thanks to the magic of Zoom, they’re both here.”
With Herbst out of town for the commission’s summer break, Belz sat alone on stage, with an empty chair on either side. He made note of the fact that Herbst was not actually in the room.
“I’ve been knocking on doors in every one of our accessible neighborhoods and I hear the same concerns. They feel like their voices are not being heard and their city leader is not present, literally,” Belz said, gesturing to the empty seat beside him. “When we look at the challenges we’ve had, the 200 million gallons of (sewage) dumped into our Intracoastal, the homelessness on the rise, our challenge with the cost of living. All these things while my opponent here has been in office and was the city auditor. We need someone with fresh ideas, innovation and creativity who’s able to listen to what our residents need to actually get things done.”
Herbst apologized for not attending in person then launched into why he’s the better candidate.
“I’ve been in government service for 25 years now as a senior level executive, a finance director, a budget officer and then as the city of Fort Lauderdale’s first city auditor for 16 years,” Herbst said. “I’m not a politician. I’m a public servant. My depth of knowledge and experience within the city is unmatched. I know more about how this city runs and operates and the problems it has than anybody else. And I am the best person to continue the progress we’ve been making for the past couple years.”
How will you comply with the state’s new law on public sleeping and homeless encampments and what are your ideas for providing housing and services to homeless residents?
Norby Belz: “Number one, these are human beings. So we need to connect those who want help with services. I’ve literally been out in the middle of the night walking and connecting homeless individuals in the neighborhood with services so we can get them help.
“Then we have the other ones who are causing problems. Our businesses are very excited about the new law because it allows a little more teeth for the people who are causing problems. We treat homeless as if there’s one solution. There’s got to be multiple solutions. We do need to engage the county and we do need to engage the other cities. We need to come up with a solution that is effective and long term.”
John Herbst: “This is not something we can do in isolation. This is a regional problem. We need to engage with the county officials and sit down and work out a coordinated regional plan. This has to be something where our neighboring cities also buy into it.
“For too many years, Fort Lauderdale has been a dumping ground for all the other cities within the county that arrest folks for quality-of-life crimes. They get transported to the jail downtown and then they get released and it becomes our problem. This is something that requires a coordinated effort between us, the county and the other cities within Broward. Without that it doesn’t work.”
If you were on the City Commission, what would your top legislative priorities be?
Norby Belz: “Infrastructure is a major problem in Fort Lauderdale. When it rains it pours. In Fort Lauderdale, it floods. Homelessness is a major issue. Airbnbs are a huge issue in our neighborhoods and we need more ability to control things in our own municipality. The waterways are our lifeline. It’s important to our marine industry, tourism and our property values. We need to be doing much more to protect our waterways. Public safety. We have a lot of challenges. Our police do an amazing job. But they are short-handed.”
John Herbst: “The most critical issue I would say are the restrictions we have against Airbnbs and our ability to take proactive steps to reduce the impact they have on our neighborhoods. The second thing that is important to us is to continue to get funding to deal with resiliency. We’ve been fortunate in getting funding from the state but it is nowhere near to the level that we need to deal with the issues related to stormwater, water, sewer and sea-level rise.
“The third issue would be homelessness. The state has now created an environment where we can take action, but we still lack the funding to effectively address this problem. We need to build more affordable housing. We can’t arrest our way out of this. We need more funding from the state to facilitate building the types of shelters we need to address this issue. And the last thing, we need to focus on issues around job creation. We need to diversify our economy.”
The state preempts the right to ban vacation rentals. What can you do under current law to maintain quality of life in the face of the inability to stop vacation rentals?
Norby Belz: “I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop them. It’s a balance. We need to have more teeth. We’re limited by state legislation. I think we’re doing the best we can right now. But we need more resources dedicated to code enforcement so we can be out there 24/7 when these issues are happening.”
John Herbst: “We are preempted from doing a lot of the more effective things that would prohibit time, place and number of people. But we are focusing on the quality-of-life issues around code enforcement. For example, we set up a registration program. We do safety inspections. We limit the number of people that can be in a building based on bedrooms. We have rules related to where you can put out trash and where you can park.
“The city has been as effective as we can be within the confines of what the state allows us to do. We have created a nighttime code enforcement team. We are partnering our code enforcement folks with police officers. If we have a party house we can go out there and cite them if need be. We just need to continue to do more of that. And we are going to continue to do that to address this problem.”
High salaries
The winner will be among the highest paid elected officials in Broward County.
Come Dec. 1, commission salaries will rise from $88,500 to $89,100.
The commissioners are elected by individual districts and the mayor is elected at-large. Each serves a four-year term. Elections are held every four years and each elected official is eligible to serve three consecutive four‐year terms.
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
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