Mayor Stacy Ritter Acceptance Speech
November 18, 2008
Broward County Commission

Thank you.

First I wish to express my appreciation to my colleagues for their confidence in me to serve as Mayor for the next year. Let me also express my thanks to Mayor Wexler for her leadership during the last year.

I am lucky to be able to serve you with the support of our talented professional staff. Many of them have worked hard to educate me on issues over the last two years. I am excited to have Mrs. Henry, Mr. Newton and Mr. Lukic here on the dais. I appreciate their efforts. I also think we have amazing senior staff like Mr. Allen, Mr. George, Pam Madison and Pat West just to name a few. My door is open and I urge you to visit and talk to me.

Serving on this Board has been an amazing experience. Coming from eight years in Tallahassee, I had a certain perspective on local government. I really did not realize that every week, this Board deals with issues that affect the quality of life of every resident of Broward County.

The decisions we make contribute to the economic success of this county. When you stop and think of the impact we have on our citizen's lives, it's humbling. Public safety and the court system, transportation, the environment, our public libraries and our parks, safe drinking water and emergency preparedness. These are serious challenges and the county deserves the serious attention paid to them by each one of us.

Today our challenges are even greater.

Broward enjoyed years of strong growth that fueled our economy. Because of the worldwide economic crisis and the crash of the mortgage industry, the development opportunities have diminished greatly.

Broward has to re-invent itself and I believe County Government can and should play an important role in identifying and encouraging the development of new economic engines.

I recently had the chance along with Commissioner Wasserman-Rubin, to spend a week in Denver. That City had experienced a real financial meltdown several years ago. Yet that local government decided to invest in itself. Three new professional sports franchise facilities were built. A new Performing Arts Center and a new convention center complex and 1500 room convention center hotel have all come on line. And to reach it all, a new light rail system was added to complement existing public transportation. Today the cranes rise in downtown Denver. Businesses are opening and the once crime ridden downtown is full of restaurants, galleries, shops and newly redeveloped housing that spans the gamut or price ranges. Denver convinced me of the value of government investing in a community to achieve economic success. So too has our new President made investing in our local government infrastructure a national priority.

I hope to take a page from the Denver playbook. During my short term as Mayor, I hope to use the bully pulpit to advocate for a few things.

FEC Rail Corridor Access

First, I believe it more important than ever to work with Miami Dade and Palm Beach County, the State and the new administration in Washington to gain access to the FEC rail corridor. I believe that by linking the downtowns of our east coast cities with the airport, seaport, courthouse and transportation center, we can create exciting redevelopment opportunities. If we can, we will help our residents get out of their cars and travel between home and work by rail. The FEC has been difficult to work with in the past. I believe that the door has now opened just a bit. We need to seize the opening and bring all the parties together to make it happen. The FEC corridor is the beginning of a comprehensive mass transit system in Broward County.

Creation of an Inland Port

Two, we have been presented with a proposal to participate in the creation of an inland port in western Palm Beach county. This creative idea would maximize the rail and truck shipping opportunities for Port Everglades without us having to find more land for container storage. The Port would need to modernize and create rapid off load capabilities so container ships could off load directly to rail and be transshipped to the inland port for storage where land is abundant for later redirection throughout the country. We need to take advantage of these kinds of business opportunities so that Port Everglades doesn't lose business to other east coast ports. Port Everglades has demonstrated its ability to be innovative in the past. We need to stand up and stop reviewing master plans and take action to make things happen.

Greening County Government

Finally, Greening the county government. I have asked the County Administrator to instruct each department to come back with a plan to substantially reduce the County's carbon footprint by the year 2015. We are not talking about planting trees. I am talking about converting County facilities to solar power, double paneing windows to reduce cooling costs and other money and energy saving initiatives.

We must lead by example. We cannot ask developers and builders to invest in smart building technologies if we are not committed to it ourselves.

I am going to be announcing a few procedural changes over the next few weeks. They are designed to streamline Commission meetings and ease our overburdened scheduling issues. I hope they will be greeted with enthusiasm.

I think that is enough for today and with that I will entertain a motion to adjourn.