Petition in the Woodlands

By: Sharon Aron Baron

There is a petition going around the Woodlands that you may want to educate yourself on before you sign that piece of paper.  Several people are distributing this petition with many falsehoods about our newly formed District on it.

The Woodlands became a “Safe Neighborhood District” as approved by the Mayor and Commissioners at the City of Tamarac city commission meeting on June 23^rd, 2010.   Unfortunately, because news of the district was not conveyed to our community well before the vote, our residents read about this new taxing district in the Sun Sentinel.

So the way many residents saw it, the district was formed, and then was explained to them later.  People were very surprised by this and there were many letters with incorrect information floating around a few of the sections. A group was formed and a petition was started without verified facts.

Now I’m not going to get in to all the details of the taxing district, but I want to make clear that I am in support of it for a couple of reasons:

One, it would help us collect unpaid dues that cannot be collected due to the ways our by-laws are written in Sections 3 and 4.    Other sections would collect unpaid fees as well instead of waiting for years for partial payments from bank foreclosures.    This would help our community’s bottom line.

Second, I believe that we need security gates here in the Woodlands. Crime in Tamarac (and everywhere else) has gone up tremendously.   Security gates will monitor the flow of traffic in and out of our community by taking photos of each and every license plate.    Open vulnerable entrances in and out of our community would be shut off to non-residents.  No – gates aren’t going to stop crime.  They never do.  But they are a deterrent.

Another benefit for gating our community is the most important:   Our beautiful community needs to maintain its property values in this terrible market and surrounding neighborhoods.  We are an oasis in the desert.    Ask any real estate agent how they feel about gated communities:  I bet they would say that their clients find those communities more desirable.   We need every benefit that will keep our property values higher in this market.

So if a petitioner comes around your house or makes a call to your home, ask them this:   Do you know that crimes have increased in the Woodlands and in Tamarac this year?  (Many times our neighbors have no idea what is going on outside their home.)   Remember, if there is not a majority vote for gates or any other security measure in our new Safe Neighborhood District, the district will stand as is….unfunded and dormant.    So why waste your time with this petition?