OAKLAND PARK, FL – Oakland Park City Commissioner Suzanne Boisvenue has been sworn in as the new Mayor of Oakland Park. Boisvenue is origin ally from Vermont
and is serving her second four-year term as a city commissioner. She will serve her rotation as the city’s Mayor for one year. During her period in office, Ms. Boisvenue has been a tireless supporter of the LGBT community, not just in Oakland Park but throughout the area.
Dear Editor:
In the June 3, 2010, issue of Florida Agenda, Fred Reissner states that my letter criticizing the actions of Mayor Resnick and the City Commission of Wilton Manors was not factual in regard to Wilton Manors taking over Wilton Drive from the State of Florida. Mr. Reissner needs to check his facts.
I emailed my letter to both the South Florida Gay News and the Florida Agenda on May 5th, 2010, after it was published that Mayor Resnick and the City Commission had decided to put the decision before the voters rather than address the issue themselves.
My letter criticizing the mayor and commission was published in the South Florida Gay News AFTER that decision was made and BEFORE the May 25th City Commission meeting during which it was announced that the City Commission had decided to repeal the ordinance that would put the decision about taking over Wilton Drive before the voters. My letter was not published in the Florida Agenda until after the City Commission changed it’s mind about not letting the voters decide the issue. It seems Mr. Reissner is incorrect in believing that the Mayor and Commission acted out of some sort of benevolence for the residences, businesses and tourist to Wilton Manors by changing their minds instead of because of published criticism.
In his letter, Mr. Reissner chose to ignore the fact stated in my letter that in spite of several hit and runs on Wilton Drive, the City of Wilton Manors has not regularly placed any marked police patrol vehicle on busy weekend nights in the areas of the Drive where the hits and runs have taken place.
This lack of police presence definitely seems at odds with the Gay community as many Gay men and women pay property taxes which go to educate children in Broward County public schools where marked police patrol vehicles are regularly seen parked in the morning before school starts and in the afternoon when the schools let out, often times with police officers in uniform holding radar detection devices in their hands aimed at approaching vehicles, in order to try to prevent school children from being run over by speeding vehicles, yet this same type of police presence isn’t seen along Wilton Drive where several hit and runs have actually taken place.
I think the message that gets sent here is that the lives of tax paying Gay men and women don’t have the same value in Wilton Manors as school children do and since the fact stands that marked police vehicles are not regularly placed by orders of city officials in Wilton Manors in any of the areas where the hit and runs have taken place on Wilton Drive, I ask that Mr. Reissner not only check the facts about the Mayor and City Commission in Wilton Manors reversing their decision about the take over of Wilton Drive from the State, but also to check the facts about the lack of police presence along Wilton, along with the fact that Broward County has the highest incident per capita of hate crimes against Gays in the State of Florida.
Sincerely.
Richard Claycomb
PO Box 1676
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33302
richardkclaycomb@hotmail.com
954-773-4860