Hollywood, Fort Lauderale bond proposals irresponsible

Next month, Hollywood and

Fort Lauderdale vote on tax hikes to build new police headquarters, both of which, at astronomical cost, are fiscally irresponsible and should be voted down.

With police budgets at an all-time high and crime near an all-time low, cops have never had less crime to fight and more resources to do it with.

No more taxes.

Fort Lauderdale wants to borrow $100 million in debt for its headquarters and Hollywood $73 million, or roughly a quarter of a million dollars per cop. According to city government, it'll take three decades of tax increases to pay down the cubicles and construction.

The exorbitant cost is puzzling, not least because nearby cities are paying far less.

The city of Miramar, with population and violent crime incidents equivalent to Hollywood, borrowed $23 million for its headquarters in 2016. That's less than one-third Hollywood's cost.

Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood officials themselves are skeptical.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a pot full of gold that we can just go and do these things,” Hollywood commissioner Traci Callari said of the March 12 ballot measures, which also include separate questions for parks and neighborhood upgrades.

Hollywood commissioner Kevin Biederman said, “I think it’s unfair to burden the residents."

The complaints from police are similar: leaky toilets, roofs, old elevators and cramped quarters.

What's not clear is why fixes cost many-fold more on the other side of the interstate, or state.

St. Petersburg borrowed $85 million last year, which, compared to the much smaller Hollywood, has four times the violent crime and nearly three times the property crime.

Fort Lauderdale's mayor Dean Trantalis said, "I believe that the price for the station can be achieved well below the bond amount."

Instead of throwing it back to the police, politicians punted to taxpayers.

But police should pay a fair share. Fort Lauderdale already puts one in three tax dollars into policing, and there's plenty to be saved in making policing better. That money can go to construction.

In Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood, the most common number of arrests per police officer for all of 2018 is one and zero.

That's a positive thing if cops are being smart with their arrests, but that's often not the case: the most common charge after technical violations in Fort Lauderdale is municipal ordinance violations (panhandling, marijuana possession). In Hollywood, it’s missing misdemeanor court.

Not rape, battery, or anything with a victim.

Instead of the low-hanging things they tilt after, day after day, police and prosecutors should trim down and improve focus on violence and victims.

Right now in Broward County, a person without an address is jailed every two hours. For those with one, the five most common personal addresses are for soup kitchens and shelters.

This disproportionately impacts people of color and LGBTQ people, who are three times more likely than heterosexual individuals to be jailed. At some point in their lives, half of homeless people are incarcerated and 70 percent of low-income LGBTQ people are homeless.

It's not right. In Hollywood, people are locked up too often for being homeless and begging. Last year, police arrested 19 adult men in an undercover operation for having consensual sex in a locked, pay-toenter back area of an adult shop.

Which is not illegal, only a stark reminder: things need to change.