Mayor's Message for May - Parkland Life

Property Tax Reform is upon us. As many of you know, the State Legislature will be thrusting their might on our priorities in the future. While the target is continuing to move, we anticipate at least a $6 million hit to our budget and possibly as large as $10 million. While this will be a challenge for us to meet, we ask for your patience and understanding as we put forth our budget proposal shortly after the Legislature concludes its special session this month.

I am pleased to report that from my preliminary meeting with our City manager that we have some strong suggestions to present to the Commission that will not impact the primary services we provide to you in any substantial way. I appreciate the comments of our parents on the Parent education Committee to keep the SRO's in our schools as a priority of the City. I also appreciate our City's commitment over the years to provide these wonderful School Resource Officers to our schools and I thank Sgt. Drew Mangini for having led our program in such a meaningful way. While I hope that the budget will allow us to have an SRO for each elementary school, we may have to assign one officer to two schools while making sure we lift our proactive approach to safety in the schools in other ways.

I think that it will be important for our Commission and our citizens to push the School Board as hard as possible for funding for SRO's (and for guidance counselors) as the Board currently does not provide for them in any city in the County. I also believe that we will all have to push the Legislature for true education reform in the future as FCAT's, funding for schools, teachers and our overall commitment to education leaves much to be desired. If you are interested in helping me lobby for education reform, please email me at my law firm at Scottbrook@scottjbrookpa.com.

Thank you Jack Bloomfield, Joyce Campos, Rabbi Gross, John Dennison and all of the other volunteers for your contributions to our National Day of Prayer. It was another fantastic event. The City appreciates the diversity in our community and it is such a blessing to share our gratitude with all of our residents of so many different faiths.

As some of you may know, I am often invited to give motivational speeches to groups. This month, I will be speaking on "Balance" at a conference in Bonita Springs. Here are a couple of suggestions for you: Identify the weakest areas of your life and focus on them for a two-week period. For those two weeks, practice "Instant Forgiveness" and saying "no" powerfully. Briefly, the concept of "Instant Forgiveness" is as simple as forgiving others and your own mistakes immediately. That will allow you to focus on your priorities with swiftness and greater strength. Many people don't realize the power of forgiveness. We also lose a lot of time and sacrifice the balance we strive for because we don't say "no" clearly and/or directly. Just say NO!

With that I wish all the Fathers Happy Father's Day! As always, please look at the City's website, www.coralsprings.org, for any City information you desire (including job opportunities) and email me at SBrook@CoralSprings.org with any thoughts or questions. It is a pleasure to serve you.

Posted: Monday, May 14, 2007