“Hollywood City Commissioner Wants People From Kendall to Get Off Her Beach Already” blared the headline in the June 16 issue of the Broward-Palm Beach edition of New Times.
That such an accusation hardly raised a ripple in either the “East End” or “West End” of Miami-Dade was hardly a surprise because most county residents only read the Miami-based New Times.
Nevertheless, Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations president Michael Rosenberg was quick to respond to the question: Did you know that a commissioner in Hollywood believes that the people of Kendall have a reputation as slobs by making messes on their beaches?
“And that we actually drive all the way to Hollywood beaches to make that mess? We have so much traffic that I can’t even get to the Palmetto Expressway, much less Hollywood,” he added in response to Hollywood Commissioner Linda Sherwood who voiced her complaint of untidy beaches during a city meeting to discuss banning coolers as well as oversized tents and umbrellas along its oceanfront.
“We’re getting families from Kendall coming up here and our own residents can’t use the beach because they’re having these big family parties that last all day long” was her unfortunate choice of location, later pleading it was only a generic term.
“It could be Hialeah or Homestead,” she told New Times reporter Antonia Noori Farzan who quickly recognized the value of a good “hot weather” story to relieve dog day doldrums in the newsroom and seized the opportunity to call Miles Moss, Rosenberg’s long-time predecessor as head of KFHA.
“They think that the real problem isn’t coming from people in Broward County?” Moss asked. “It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me in terms of logic.”
So, too, with Miami-Dade County Parks Department media specialist Laura Phillips who immediately reminded everyone that Kendall has its own sandy beachfront, a sweeping sandy shoreline at Larry and Penny Thompson Park “where I once took my own little one for beach days. There’s a waterslide there, too.”
With its popular picnic areas and campgrounds, Thompson Park welcomes big family get-togethers and special events, the year-around, she said.
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