It was absolutely fantastic. The most boring show on Television last night was the City Commission Meeting. Nothing worth mentioning was on the agenda. We should all be proud of it since everything seems to be back to normal following the September 11 attack.
I sat through the whole meeting. Sally James, a reporter from the Sun Sentinel commented to me that she couldn’t understand why I show up at these boring meetings. After all, she had to because she got paid for it. This is really my non-job that pays me nothing. A few weeks ago I had an argument with myself over a pay raise I didn’t give me. It did no good. In fact, for the money I don’t pay myself, I am expecting better results. I even wanted to fire me, but I couldn’t . It was a paradox. If I fired myself, who would fill out the pink slip?
Why am I babbling about nothing? It is in the spirit of the city commission meeting of this night that I do so. What really didn’t excite me was the issue brought up by a few Coral Springs residents about the widening of University Drive from Sample Road to Holmberg in Parkland. This happened to be the most boring part of the whole evening. 3 residents who live near University Drive and would be affected by the widening got up and spoke of how they weren’t consulted. They said that they will have a harder time selling their property up against a soon to be 6 lane highway. After 6 minutes of listening to this, the City Commissioners decided to speak about nothing.
‘This is terrible ‘ a commissioner remarked. ‘ Parkland once again is reaping the benefits of Coral Springs without paying for it. ‘
‘Why can’t they straighten their 2 lane non-main downtown street. Holmberg road is a haven for Parklanders that want to travel through our town! We can’t have none of that!” said another.
This continued for more than 1 hour and twenty minutes, without commercials. It was like a bad nightmare. Several times people left the room to smoke a cigarette. Several had never smoked before. Then finally the Mayor perked up and asked the Traffic Engineer to speak about the process involved in approving the roadway expansion. He said nothing at all, really. He mentioned that the DOT and BCTED had to arrange for a meeting of the TD, whatever that stands for. He stated that the public will have plenty of opportunity not be heard at any of these meetings. Then, despite what anyone thinks or wants, the roadway will be built anyway. Since this is a county road, Coral Springs City Commissioners have no say in it anyway. One hour and twenty minutes listening to speeches by the City Commissioners on something they can’t do anything about…great. It sounded like an election was coming up. It is. March 2002.
The mayor finally woke up and said more about nothing. ‘The roadway will be built so let’s get on with the rest of the unimportant items of the agenda.’ he said. “After all, the expansion will be constructed in 2020…we got plenty of time to discuss it at the other one thousand and ten city commission meetings until then. ”
So there I was. Doing my non-job and not getting paid. No one but myself to complain to. I didn’t enjoy talking to myself. Neither did the people beside me. But, they were happy to be at this ‘nothing to do about nothing’ City Commission Meeting. All of us can be thankful that everything is back to normal here in sunny Coral Springs. September 11th is in the past now. There are more unimportant things to do at these City Commission meetings. It’s the Same Old Same Old..thank God!!
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