Resident urges council to block high-rise housing at old Plantation General Hospital site, raises pension and CRA concerns

Resident Dennis Conklin addressed the City Council and the CRA at the May 21 meeting with multiple requests and observations. At the CRA portion he said he visited the demolition groundbreaking at the old Plantation General Hospital site and asked commissioners not to allow high-rise residences in that location, citing privacy concerns for adjacent homeowners. Conklin told the council: “Please do not put high rise residences in that place. Looking into my neighbor's backyards and homes.”

During the city-comment portion Conklin also raised fiscal concerns. He asked the council to review municipal pension funding and distributed comparative information for 10 cities’ pension funds, urging the city to fully fund the general-employee defined-benefit pension plan. Conklin said Plantation’s general-employee fund was “down $74,000,000” as reported in his materials and provided the council with CAFR excerpts for comparison. He also urged the city to stop mandatory DEI/CRT/ESG training, halt EV purchases and EV infrastructure spending, and to divest Treasuries — requests the council did not act on at the meeting.

Conklin also returned to CRA oversight in public comment later in the meeting and questioned recurring weekly CRA expenditures for water and wastewater in the Gateway 7 overlay, noting the amount exceeded $1,300 weekly and that the TIF this year exceeded $4,000,000 (Conklin referenced the CRA CAFR). He asked the council to reduce the overlay district’s additional millage; no action was taken during the meeting.

Council response and outcome: Council acknowledged the comments and accepted Conklin’s materials into the record; no motions or directives were recorded to change development approvals, pension funding policy, or CRA millage at the meeting. The council referred some items to administration-level follow up and proceeded with the agenda.