West Park needs these leaders
Residents of West Park, Broward’s youngest city, should be pleased with the choices before them in the November general election.
Two of the four candidates running for commission seats are models of civic virtue.
The other two are decent and wellmeaning, but until they filed to run, they had not shown a hint of interest in the civic life of West Park.
The two worker bees are incumbent Kristine Judeikis and challenger Kristina Touchstone. It’s a toss-up as to which of the two is more tenacious, better prepared or more passionate.
They have a firm grasp of the city’s many problems and strong views on how to attack them. They seem undaunted by the challenge. Hearing them offer their assessments of those challenges is almost inspirational.
The other two, Anthony Dorsett and Brandon Smith? Not so much.
Anthony Dorsett is a 62-year-old educator and son of Thomas Dorsett, who at 83 is stepping down from the seat he has occupied since the city was formed in 2005.
Dorsett the younger is a soft spoken, good-to-the-core fellow who by his own admission has steered clear of the city’s civic life because he wanted to avoid fatherson controversies.
Brandon Smith is a church-going good neighbor and life-long resident of the area that became West Park. He chose not to respond to the Sun Sentinel questionnaire and did not attend the interview. But by all
accounts, he’s a nice guy.
Some of West Park’s problems are right out of the catalog of small town politics. We hear the city manager is unresponsive, the city manager plays favorites, the commission is split 3-2, commission conflict stymies problem solving.
But West Park, in Southeast Broward, also has unique problems. For example, its tax base is nearly all residential and efforts to grow the commercial sector are practically out of reach.
A plan to rezone the transportation corridor along U.S. Highway 441 could trigger business growth, but would endanger the homes of approximately 900 residents, argues Touchstone.
Police service, provided by the Broward Sheriff ’s Office, costs the city approximately $5 million. Fire-rescue service is another $2 million. Ad valorem taxes raise a mere $4 million. It takes no genius to see how that equation comes out.
Neighboring Pembroke Park, a south Broward oddity that should have been part of West Park when discussions were underway to create it, has been a source of conflict for decades.
These days the most immediate source of antipathy is payment for police and fire protection. Pembroke Park and West Park split the sheriff ’s bill 60-40 and fire-rescue 55-45.
With so much revenue going to public safety, there’s little left for the fundamental components of life in a multi-cultural city — parks, recreation and cultural activities.
Touchstone believes the feasibility study used to support incorporation of the city was flawed, an argument hard to refute. But what’s the remedy? Touchstone calls for a legislative fix. Judeikis looks to expand the commercial life of the city with the help of creative thinking and perseverance.
All three, Dorsett included, think capitalizing on the city’s ethnic diversity holds promise for the future. The city of about 16,000 people is 56 percent black, 32 percent white and 28 percent Hispanic. Within those broad segments is still more diversity, Bahamian, Haitian, Puerto Rican and multi-ethnic.
The commission itself is less diverse. Judeikis is white and from West Park’s south side. The other four commissioners are black and all come from the Carver Ranches section. Commissioners file for a numbered seat, but run at large. Changing to a district system would guarantee geographic diversity and, consequently, better representation from all corners of the city.
Judeikris, especially, sees a need to increase community involvement and engagment. She estimates that only 100 residents of the city’s population participates in its civic life. With challenges so great, she argues, West Park needs all the help it can get.
Consolidating the neighborhoods that constitute West Park was probably a good idea. But as Touchstone asserts, it was fatally flawed in execution. The real solution to the West Park dilemma is to give it the boundaries logic dictates: U.S. 441 on the west, I-95 on the east, Pembroke Road on the north and the Miami-Dade line on the south.
Pembroke Park would be subsumed and would howl in protest. Broward’s legislative delegation would blanch and then do nothing. But it would be right thing to do.
But until that happens, we have Kristine Judeikris and Katrina Touchstone holding down the fort. They deserve our endorsement and the votes of West Park residents.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O'Hara, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.