Pompano Unity Project

Organized Crime 1.1: A Thirty day challenge to CONSISTENTLY post an update on our efforts to organized and catalog our work. Here is Searstown during its last days. That Poinciana was such a beauty to meditate under. Recently I found out a friend is in Prison, so I mailed the original out to him. While they scan letters now I’m hoping he gets the original when released.

Stand up Pompano or bend over no l**e.

Hey, 🌴 Palm Aire ⛳️ & Collier City! Let’s talk about ALPRs (tag readers) which were quietly added to the City’s 2026 budget at a cost of $900,000 yet only recently (and just as quietly) discussed and initiated for installation (as election season heats up).

You may (but likely may not) recall that Palm Aire United, the private organization inside our community created years ago as an association of Palm Aire presidents, tried to sell our community on footing the bill for tag readers. It was largely a flop.

However you feel about tag readers, you should object to the way ALPRs have been promoted to Palm Aire residents as if they were a proven crime-prevention solution, when the materials posted by Palm Aire United describe them as tools for investigation and data collection, not a guaranteed way to stop crime. Solving crime after the fact is not the same thing as preventing it.

What is most troubling is the lack of public transparency. Commissioner Darlene Smith, who also serves as treasurer of Palm Aire United, has pushed this project forward in the CIP at a cost of $900,000 without a real, widespread public discussion, without a full accounting of alternatives, and without meaningful openness about what residents are being asked to fund.

That is not responsible public process.
Residents were never given a serious chance to weigh whether this money should instead go to other district needs, other safety measures, or other community priorities. Instead, the project has been handled as though the decision was already made, which is exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes approach that damages public trust.

ALPRs can be useful investigative tools, but they should not be marketed as if they automatically prevent crime. Their value depends on how they are used, what rules govern them, and whether the public is given honest information about their limits.

The privacy issues are just as serious. ALPRs create a record of where people go, when they go there, and what vehicles they use. That kind of surveillance should never be adopted casually, especially when the public has not been shown a clear policy on retention, access, sharing, and oversight.

Palm Aire residents deserve better than vague assurances and limited disclosure.

If this project was truly worth the cost, it should have been able to survive real scrutiny, open debate, and transparent documentation — not as a City expenditure and marketing language that overstates what the technology can do…now conveniently being celebrated by PAU as a great achievement by our commissioner.

Regardless of their aspirations and claims, PAU does not speak for this community.