Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Maintenance of our Front Entrance

By Sharon Aron Baron

I believe in giving credit where credit is due. This is true about the City of Tamarac’s maintenance of our front entrance.

Their work on our front entrance had made it look much better than when the Woodlands Country Club previously maintained it.

A bit of history: Back in 1991, a contract was signed between the City of Tamarac and the Country Club, which stated the Club would maintain the landscaping at the front entrance, fountain, and Woodlands Boulevard. At the time of the agreement, the Club believed they could do a better job beautifying the area than the city, which at the time, was not doing a great job of landscaping other city streets and medians.

For 20 years, the homeowners association and the country club shared the cost of maintaining the front entrance, which was around $20,000 a year.

At one time, I’m sure they were doing a great job keeping up with the landscaping; however, in the past few years, possibly due to lack of money or disinterest, the Club cut corners and let our entrance look shoddy.

The front fountain’s motor was maintained to keep it going but hadn’t been given an overhaul in some time. It would frequently stop working for months at a time until residents would complain. Repairs were expensive because the parts were hard to find.

Also, during this time, the trees were not being trimmed frequently, and the flowerbeds were full of weeds because there wasn’t any proper mulching and maintenance.

Last July, when the 20-year contract was up, the city had a job ahead of them when they took over. The biggest problem was getting the fountain working again. Not excited about the prospect of maintaining it, they initially wanted to get rid of it. However, after a meeting with Patti Fox and the WHOA last fall, they agreed to not only maintain it but to bring it up to their specifications which included making it more efficient like the other fountains in the city, which were aerating fountains.

Once cleaned and fixed, the fountain runs more efficiently, and Tamarac employees are proactively maintaining it, unlike when it had to break first. Occasionally, the spray will stop after a heavy rain, and it will need to be manually drained to run.

Prestige Landscaping, contracted by the city to maintain the landscaping, has done a great job. One of the first things they did last fall was trim all of the trees from the front entrance to the Country Club. The trees that were so overgrown they covered up the street lights were finally cut back. Dead palm fronds were trimmed and taken away. The beds were mulched, and weeds were pulled. New plants were planted at the front entrance.

In October, resident Doug Frens painted all the signs around the Woodlands to give them a fresh look. In January, the city promptly fixed it after someone crashed into the front entrance sign at Woodlands Boulevard.

Although the homeowner’s association no longer pays the maintenance for the front entrance, and the budget was reduced to zero for that account, unfortunately, there was a minimal reduction in the entire budget because the Security budget was then increased.