Tamarac threatened with subpoena over 911 tower

Tamarac public officials were threatened with a subpoena Wednesday for failing to approve a taller radio tower that would improve Broward County’s emergency 911 system.

Terse-talking members of the Public Safety Commission, set up to review the Parkland school shooting, said the new tower is critical, and the city is not moving quickly enough to approve it.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd suggested the commission use its subpoena powers to compel Tamarac Mayor Harry Dressler and city commissioners to appear at one of the Public Safety Commission meetings to be confronted about it. The commission was empowered by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to review the Feb. 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in Parkland and recommend safety improvements by January.

"Here’s a news flash,” Judd said. “This is an urgent matter that we’re dealing with, and people need to start acting like it was their child who was shot on Valentine's Day."

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the state commission, said he would try asking Tamarac officials to come voluntarily. After a previous meeting with similar comments, the commission sent a letter to Tamarac. That didn’t work, commission members said Wednesday at the meeting in Sunrise. The Tamarac mayor has said the tower would be an unsightly “monstrosity,” and a city spokesman said Wednesday that the city is cooperating.

Under what is proposed by Broward County, the current 185-foot communications tower near Tamarac City Hall would be replaced with one 325 feet tall.

Max Schachter, whose son Alexander was one of the 17 killed in the school shooting, said he met with the Tamarac mayor and was disappointed the city does not “understand the urgency.”

Tamarac spokeswoman Elise Boston said public forums are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday evenings so Tamarac residents can get more information. She said city and county officials are still negotiating terms of the lease, which is expected to get a City Commission vote on Aug. 22.

“Any suggestion that the City is not acting in good faith and with urgency is simply uninformed,” she said Wednesday in an email.

The county’s radio system used by first responders was overwhelmed during the Parkland shooting, and the January 2017 Fort Lauderdale airport shooting, leaving officers unable to communicate with each other or receive information from supervisors.

Gualtieri said Wednesday “there’s no doubt” the county’s emergency 911 problems impacted the response to the Feb. 14 mass shooting.

“That is something that absolutely can be changed,” he added. “It can be changed expeditiously.”