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OPINIONSEPTEMBER 3, 2009 THE OBSERVER 7

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By David VolzResidents of west Deerfield

Beach may have to wait a longtime for a Turnpike sound wall.

Todd Drosky, an active mem-ber of the West Deerfield Com-munity Alliance, contacted theFlorida Turnpike Authority andwas told that the results of anoise study had not been com-piled at this time. This means apublic hearing planned for earlySeptember has now been tenta-tively moved to Oct. 19.

Drosky brought this infor-mation to Alliance members atan Aug. 26 meeting. Even if thesound wall is approved, it maytake a long time before it isactually built. “The TurnpikeAuthority said that, due to thedeclining economy, there may

not be enough money in theAuthority budget to start con-struction on the sound wall un-til 2017,” said Drosky.

Drosky said the hope is tohave a sound wall from AtlanticBoulevard in Pompano Beachnorth to Atlantic Avenue inDelray Beach. It would costabout $1 million per square mileto build it. “This is expensivebut necessary to preserve thequality of life for the residentsof West Deerfield Beach,” saidDrosky. “We will continue tomonitor the progress made bythe Turnpike Authority so thatDeerfield Beach is not excludedfrom a sound wall like we havebeen in the past.”

Also, members of the Alli-ance discussed their website and

ways to improve it. The websiteis www.wdca.info. The min-utes and agenda from meetingswill be posted online. Handoutinformation from guest speak-ers will also go online.

“One of the purposes of thewebsite is to share informationamong the neighborhoods,” saidDrosky. “There is no better toolfor that than the Internet. Wewant to provide as much infor-mation as possible. People canfind out more about thehomeowner’s associationsthrough our website.”

West Deerfield residents mayhave to wait for sound wall

By Diane EmeottThe City Commission’s di-

rection to cut $6.4 millionfrom the proposed FY 2009-10 budget at a budget work-shop on Aug. 31 sent City ofDeerfield Beach departmentheads scrambling on Tues-day morning, Sept. 1.

The directive was to makeup $3 million collected withinthe city from a proposed fire

assessment fee increase [from$99 to $149] which commis-sioners unanimously nixed.The commission, with the ex-ception of Joe Miller, alsomade it known they did notwant to do a “rollback rate”on property taxes from thecurrent 5.3000 to 5.8901 —for another $3.4 million.

City Manager MikeMahaney instructed depart-

ment heads Tuesday morningto come up with 5 percentcuts by noon. At the Tuesdaynight commission meeting, hereported: “I’m at 4.7 percentright now. If you want to getto 5 percent, we’re going tohave to look at public safety.”

Commissioner Bill Ganzasked where the 5 percent camefrom. “It should’ve been crys-tal clear. I said last night we

could not responsibly do thisacross the board in each de-partment. It’s dangerous andirresponsible for us to do that.”

He said because there wereacting people in many of thejobs, there was no way to do atrue counting. Additionally,the city has always done abottom line concept ratherthan line item when it comesto departments. “They [de-

partment heads] and he [thecity manager] know moreabout exactly what they needthan we do.”

Miller commented: “Ithought there was wisdom indoing the rollback rate andthe city manager was of thatopinion. I don’t call that a taxincrease. I’d like to have alittle money in the bank ifthere’s a hurricane. I thought

that was reasonable and goodstewardship. I’m the one whohas the business – since I was24 years old and I’ll be 60 –and I haven’t had any lay-offs.”

Budget revisions totaling$6.4 million will be availableto commissioners by Friday,said Mahaney. Public hear-ings on the budget are sched-uled for Sept. 8 and 15.

No fire assessment fee hike or rollback rate for Deerfield;$6.4 million to make up in budget