City ocials have been accused of diverting funds meant to maintain those pipes on other budget items, including new parks. Rodstrom and Roberts have also made infrastructure part of their platforms but Trantalis has been much harsher in his criticism of the city. We dont need to look far to see the poor stewardship of our city these last few years, he said in a statement.
Sewer and water pipes break constantly, leaving raw waste in peoples yards and leading the state to impose a repair plan and threaten nes. Money for upgrades to our utility infrastructure is pilfered to cover an unbalanced budget. Debris remains piled up from a hurricane that occurred over a month ago. Trantalis also said there was absentee leadership at City Hall and blamed a commission majority for not putting a temporary halt on development until infrastructure needs could be assessed.
He also promised to address issues related to aordable housing, and mass transportation. We need meaningful change, not supercial change. I promise to be the peoples mayor. The citys municipal primary election will be held on Tuesday, Jan.
If one of the mayoral candidates gets 50 percent of the vote plus 1, he or she will be elected mayor. If not, a run-o of the top two vote getters will be held during the municipal general election on Tuesday, March 13, LGBT activists have criticized the mayor over the years for not supporting marriage equality and more recently for attending a prayer breakfast that featured an anti-LGBT speaker.
Photo courtesy of Dean Trantalis. First, lets talk about the Pride Center and where we have been. There was a time not too long ago in South Florida, when gay men and women met in dark alleyways, not in Cadillac dealerships along Federal Highway. Your willingness to stand up and be counted as conscientious citizens, not closeted queers, has built new lives for countless generations of gay men and women. Our legacy tomorrow and our history today has been written by your courage, and dont let anyone ever take that away from you. It was not always an easy road. Wilton Drive was no rainbow.
They were raiding gay bookstores and bars, arresting gay men at every turn. The South Florida gay community has grown from fringe groups with bullhorns standing on the corner of the streets to owning them. At the end of this month the display of gay humanity celebrating Halloween in Wilton Manors will be nothing short of remarkable. For the Pride Center: it is demonstrative proof that our community has leadership which embraces and enhances our lives, making us players who are a part of our cities, not apart from them.
There is a second group of people to celebrate and call attention to during this history month, and though they did not make our cover this week, they are all cover girls. We are not just anymore; matters. Its because you have made our community consequential. Whether it is gay professionals expanding their law rms, or LGBT guest houses lining our beaches, the greater Fort Lauderdale Gay business community is drawing national attention and international tourism.
We are fortunate to have the backing and the bullhorn of the Broward County Convention and Visitors Business Bureau behind us.
Thank you, Richard Gray. All of you have played a part in being stakeholders in our lives. Be proud of your role in building our corner of the world, whether you boldly advertised yourself as the rst openly lesbian candidate for oce or the rst gay realtor to lead the Fort Lauderdale board. Maybe, like George Castrataro, you have used your rm to advocate civil rights. We each do our part. You see, you bucked the tide, you dealt with adversity, and now you are entitled to an ice cream cone from the Wilton Manors creamerybecause the two proud gay parents who own that place are only there today because of what you did yesterday.
With every gay dentist that opens and advertises his practice in Oakland Park on the pages of SFGN, you lend authenticity to our lives and advocacy to our cause. You become our history.
The Miss Florida Pageant celebrates years of hard work by courageous performers whose cutting edge politics paved the way for our progress today. When the gay community needed voices to speak out or fundraisers to generate revenues for HIV patients, they were our rst responders.
The Miss Allysons of our world have done so much for so many with class and distinction; grace and honor along the way. Cant say enough about our ladies in lace.
Long before there were Pride centers, there were Tiny Tinas amongst us donning the mantle of activism to ght for our rightsto pave the way and set our course. They put themselves out there when a lot of us were still afraid to do so. Last week I was thinking how far the gay community has come in my own lifetime. We were all outsiders looking in. Not any more. I remember Alan Schubert pitching a shovel of dirt to kick o the groundbreaking of a new Pride Center on Andrews Avenue.
I remember when the LGBT community was an afterthought, heck, an after birth. I saw last week that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has led a charitable endeavor to bring relief, supplies and sustenance to our friends and families in Puerto Rico. Not too many years ago, Father Bill was pleading with cities to allow us to open food banks for people living with HIV in South Florida.
Now we have men like Michael Weinstein at AHF stewarding worldwide non prots which enable relief eorts for the needy around the globe. I saw a new gay kickball league being founded and written about in our newspaper last week.
I wondered if they knew about the gay softball league so many guys like myself, Jim Stork, Stan Butler, Dave Liddy and a score of others provided the impetus for 35 years ago. Go to the Village Pub and read the plaques saluting those pioneers. Its our history, and whether you were a plumber or a painter, you helped color our lives, Jerry Polis. We cant and all wont make headlines. But we can all make and have made headway.
Its not just gay history month.
Its a celebration of how far we have come from being Boys in the Band to the leaders of it. We are architects of the new tomorrow. We tear down closets. We dont build them. Our community has gone from dark alleyways to civic celebrations and block parties closing down streets and opening doors. We are about social organizations, charitable ventures, and community involvement. Our paper and community now celebrates businesses who make a dierence.
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Tell us about the pet project you sponsor, not just the 2 for 1 special you are promoting this weekend. To those who are 20 and struggling with who you want to be and where you want to go, let me share this about gay history month. What matters most is not where we have been. Dont worry about me reminiscing about what happened once before.
What matters most is where you want to go, and the history you want to create.