The Colombian community in Florida has reached over 375,000, and their culture is an intricate part of the the South Florida area. The new plaza will be a center celebrating and embracing the Colombian heritage, featuring plenty of green grassy areas to run in, as well as park benches and other facilities. 

The plaza will be a “green” project, with solar power energy, designed by MGE Architects.   Other artistic elements will honor the Colombian heritage, and will include a mural wall with quotes from Colombian historical figures. 

This center is a great way to celebrate the Colombian culture in Miami.  The Plaza Colombian will be located in the Westwind Lakes Park.

Research is currently being conducted in the South Florida area, as well as a few other locations across the nation, on converting the gas tax into a tax on mileage driven.  Volunteers have been selected to put a small device into their car to monitor how many miles they drive each day.  The device will work somewhat like a cell phone or Sunpass device to calculate mileage.  The main purpose of the study is to calculate the difference between what the driver would pay in tax on gas, versus how much they would pay per mileage driven.  One of the main reasons for such a switch can be contributed to more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. Revenue received from drivers by the fuel tax was reduced by $70 million dollars from 2007 to 2008. 

But maybe the decrease in revenue from the gas tax was due to the fact that no one could afford to drive from 2007 to 2008 because the price of gas was nearly $5 per gallon in some places…Would you like your driving to be monitored by the government?  Or would you prefer an increase on the tax on gas?  Tough choice.  How would any of these changes affect your South Florida commute?

How will this affect you? Most likely you will see certain bus routes minimized to shuttle services provided by the city, or eliminated completely if the city cannot afford it.  Public libraries will be closed on Sundays, and most public parks will be shut down at least one additional day per week. 

The budget cuts in Broward County will be seen across all departments, from the cutting of social assistance programs, to reducing or removing routine county services.  Still, the final debate remains with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, where if too many cuts are made,  many streets will be left un-patrolled and unmanned, possibly producing great public safety risks. Let’s hope that the negotiations with the Sheriff’s Office ends well…

We provide real estate news and discuss various news and events that occur all over South Florida.  From news in West Palm Beach, celebrity homes in Miami, or events in Fort Lauderdale, we cover current happenings in your South Florida area.

If you are searching for real estate in South Florida, be sure to take a look at expertrealty.com, where you can view homes of your interest along side of a wealth of information regarding specific neighborhoods, local schools, restaurants, shopping, and more!

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With budget cuts already resulting in schools in Broward to suffer across the county, the least the school boards should have to worry about is having to pay for un-needed repairs or overpriced renovations from contractors.  

Auditors in Broward County are reporting double billing and overinflated lodging and food costs, among many other allegations against the two contracting companies hired to preform repairs on Broward County schools after Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Missing and falsified paperwork will prolong the investigation, however, auditors are currently investigating the situation as best they can.  Broward County taxpayers should not be happy, as the contractors may have ripped off more than $750,000!   With this amount, we could have had computers placed at every child’s desk in the Broward County schools, replaced old text books, or made expansions on overcrowded schools.

The Jr Olympics volleyball tournament will bring over 9,500 girls from ages 12-18 to compete for national titles.  Volleyball recruiters from colleges and universities across the nation will attend to search for prospectives students and players.

The Pan Am Cup will certainly be the highlight of the weekend, with a diverse audience.  The tournament will begin with group rounds first, which have been divided as follows:

Group A: United States, USA, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico
Group B: Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago

Scheduled games and events will begin Friday, June 26th, 2009.

The audience included many mentors that work for youth groups that mentor children without parents. Mourning and Wade work with many children on their free time in the South Florida area, and are inspiring to many fans, including the president.Dwayne Wade and Obama seem to relate to each other, having both grown up in Chicago, and both love basketball. 

After the meeting, Wade and Alonzo went to several centers in Washington to speak with hundreds of children, many of them growing up without fathers. An inspiring moment, and surely these children will never forget meeting Dwayne Wade and Alonzo Mourning.

Conservationist and protesters oppose the plan, mainly for environmental reasons.  The new plan puts forward parking garages, boat slips, and other such commercial use.  Despite the historical significance of the park being the first legal beach for African-American use during the early 1900’s, developers are still eager to create, level and build on the island.

An area of the park has already been restored and recently re-open to the public, however, the future of Virginia Key Park is still up for debate.  Currently, Virginia Key Park visitors can enjoy a playground and other restored facilities.

Notable Miami Community Charter School jumped from a dangerous ‘F’ rating last year, to an ‘A’ rating this year. This amazing accomplishment is not frequently seen, so kudos to all of the teachers, parents and students of Miami Community Charter School! 

Miami Dade increased their ‘A’ schools from a total of 171 last year, to 210 this year.  And Broward County also saw an increase with 141 ‘A’ schools last year, up to 162 this year.

Schools in Miami have been improving each year in their testing scores, and overall ranks as a ‘B’ rated county.  Broward County also shows improvement each year, and remains with an ‘A’ rated county grade.

To look up your schools rating go to schoolgrades.fldoe.org

The study also showed that the ratio of occupation of condos in downtown Miami comparing new leases to purchase contracts is at about 50:50.  So about half of downtown Miami residents are renters, while the other half are owners. 

The downtown area had not always been such a popular place, but with the redevelopment that has occurred over the recent years, the area is proving to be a great place for investment in Miami.