Black Bean Mango Salad

John McNamara requested this after I made it for the June membership meeting – which in case you did not attend- your loss – as the Wild Life Care Center presentation was fantastic- I thought I knew a lot about the critters you encounter in the yard – but learned a lot. Who knew that possums actually faint from fright- not because they are trying to trick you.

Anyway, as I told John, this is the basic outline for the recipe – you have to add or subtract ingredients to taste and how many you want to serve. I have just given the basic ingredient list – play with it till it tastes the way you like it. If you make too much – it does keep well for a few days- and you can eat it with everything. It might sound odd - but it is terrific with scrambled eggs - and with pork tenderloin, steak, chicken – whatever.

If you don't like mango - you can leave it out or add pineapple. 2 large cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 mangos, or more, to taste, peeled and cubed (I make this a lot in the winter and use frozen mango – tastes the same and is already peeled for you!)
1 medium red onion – more or less- per your taste- chopped
1 or more red pepper – chopped
1 or more yellow pepper- chopped
8 oz. frozen yellow corn (or fresh from cob)
8 oz. frozen green peas
1-2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped, to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
Cilantro, chopped, to taste

Defrost the peas and corn and cook in microwave about 2 minutes- you want them to still be a little crunchy. Drain well, add to bowl with rest of salad ingredients except cilantro.


Dressing

All measures are approximate- you will just have to see how it tastes to you

4-5 Tbs. lime juice
3-4 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. honey
2 tsp. peeled, grated fresh ginger (I also buy the tubes of prepared ginger in the cold produce section of the grocery store next to the fresh herbs- last forever and tastes great)
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt & pepper
Dash or two – or more, hot pepper sauce

Whisk the dressing ingredients – taste for flavor and adjust if necessary. Add dressing to salad and toss to mix well. Best if made an hour or so ahead to let flavors settle. Add chopped cilantro just before serving and mix again.

Projected New Cluster Homes SW 16 Street

Hi All,

This message is from the city of Ft. Lauderdale:
Please be advised that this project will be going to the Planning and Zoning Board for review on July 16th, 2008. This project will be on west side of SW 4th Ave and north of SW 16 court. Not
directly on the corner but the 2nd lot up from the corner.

To see the project go to: http://civicgogo.com/SITEPOOLPLAN.pdf

I have sent the pdf files to you a few months ago, but I didn't get any response regarding the project.

If you have time, please review the previous site plan as well as the attached change which will show the proposed pool instead of the seating/grill area. <>

Yvonne M. Redding
Planner II
Planning Division
(954) 828-6495 (work)
(954) 828-5858 (Fax)
yredding@fortlauderdale.gov

IF this of interest to you, please contact Yvonne immediately !!!
God Bless,
John

It's Going To Be a Wild Night!

The Wildlife Care Center will be attending the Tuesday night meeting (6/24/08) to give a presentation. They are just down the road from Croissant Park and you really should come take a look at what they do in our community.

It is also "cold salad" night - so bring a favorite to share, or just come enjoy what your neighbors concoct for your enjoyment. Coffee by Expresso Coffee. The meeting starts at 7:00 in the Croissant Park Community Center (the south side of the school, next to the pools) Hope to see you.

June / July Online Croissant Park Newsletter

Hi All,

Click here to see the Newsletter for June / July 2008.

http://civicgogo.com/08Junenews.pdf

I hope to see you at the next meeting this Tuesday, June 24 at 7pm, @ the community center.

Bring your Favorite Cold Salad and we will have the Wildlife Care Center there !!

God Bless,
John

Starlight Musicals

Hi Everyone -

Last night Loren and I had all the fun managing the recycling for the Starlight Musical in Holiday Park. Best seats in the house, nearly no work, we earned almost $400 for the Association while relaxing and being served free Starbucks frozen coffee drinks. Next Friday we could use two volunteers. It's the Valerie Tyson Band - Rhythm & Blues. 6:30 to 10pm. A lot of fun. E-mail Loren or I at Loren.Colburn@gmail.com or slgkerr@aol.com - to volunteer. First come, first served.

Thanks,

Suzanne Kerr, CPCA Recycle Committee

Yet another stray dog

has been noticed between 4th Avenue and 6th Avenue- 14th Court-15th Street- a brown and white pit bull looking mix- it was loose on Monday(Juen 16th) with its owners looking for it and yet again on Tuesday - hopefully it has found its way home- but if anyone knows who it belongs to - please let us know.

FOUND DOG & found OWNER

We think the little dog is a Schnauzer-poodle mix. Maybe around a year old. Male, not neutered. We found him on Friday 6/13.

Well Friday the 13th wasn't totally unlucky for this pooch. His owners were located, but it took awhile. His tags needed updating! Keep your pets info up to date so this doesn't happen to your precious pooch. A current phone # would have had him home a lot sooner.

Gore Nursery - from Bob & Fred Betz (owners)

Thanks for all you have done to help us with the greenspace park at Gore Nursery. Our final meeting we hope is this Tuesday the 24th. Commissioner John Rodstrom Jr. is supporting making Gore Nursery a park. We do not know how the other commissioners will vote. If you would contact them with your support for the park Fred and I feel this could finally seal the deal with the county. Here is a list of the commissioner's e-mail and phone numbers. Lois Wexler 954-357-7003 lwexler@broward.org , Sue Guzburger 954-357-7006 sgunzburger@broward.org , Stacy Ritter 954-357-7003 sritter@broward.org , Ilene Liberman 954-357-7001 , ilieberman@broward.org , Diana Wasserman-Rubin 954-357-7008 dwassermanrubin@broward.org , Kristin Jacobs 954-357-7002 kjacobs@broward.org , Josephus Eggelletion, jr. 954-357-7009 jeggelletion@broward.org , Ken Keechl 954-357-7004 kkeechl@broward.org . We would love to see the nursery a park thanks for all you have done in the past. Calling or e-mailing these commissioners could make the difference in your neighborhood or our city getting some much needed green space. Thanks again Bob and Fred

Traffic Signal at the "T" intersection of SW 9 Avenue and SW 17

Hi All,

This came to me from Cindi Hutchinson:

The County has advised on the following action:

The traffic signal at the "T" intersection of SW 9 Avenue and SW 17 street had been dewarranted, therefore they are recommending it's removal before the new school session begins. The intersection will be signed as a three-way stop operation after the signal removal. They also noted that the Commissioner had relayed safety concerns from the HOA on speeding vehicles trying to clear the intersection before the red phase.
______________________________________________

The traffic signal operation at the Davie Blvd overpass at I-95 has been modified, thus allowing east/west traffic to flow simultaneously as opposed to the previous operation. This change will improve on traffic flow along the corridor by decreasing delay.

God Bless,
John

The Iceman Doesn't cometh.....

Attached is a portion of an article by Scott Wyman in today's Sun Sentinel- warning people that Broward County will not be giving away free ice in the event of a hurricane.

If a hurricane hits, don't expect Broward County to provide free ice.Emergency management administrators want residents to look to grocery chains rather than government to meet their ice needs during any major outage. They are promoting a program in which hurricane-ready decals identify supermarkets and gas stations that plan to use backup generators to be open for business.Widespread ice distribution has been a problem-plagued task. Officials had trouble quickly distributing ice after Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and then were stuck with $2 million in unused ice the next year because no hurricane hit.The county plans to instead focus attention on higher priorities that include helping those with medical needs. Those who need ice for medical reasons would receive it.

As If- the newest foreclosure scam

As if the mortgage/foreclosure crisis is not bad enough -it looks like it is going to get worse- and from a source that, had we been thinking, we would have realized was inevitable. I'll get to that in a minute.The average person hears in the paper and on the T.V. news that the current foreclosure rate is overwhelming, but it only takes a trip to the court house for the reality of those news reports to hit home. I was in the court house for over two hours yesterday on a foreclosure where I am representing the home owner attempting to get him some more time to work out a deal with his lender. The hearing I was in lasted 15 minutes. The rest of the time? In line at the foreclosure window of the clerks office. I was fourth in line but was behind three lawyers all with at least three file folder boxes filled with new cases. Only because a former student of mine who was third in line took pity on me and let me go ahead of her did I manage to get out of there after a mere 1 3/4 hours. My former student had her own file boxes of new cases to file and told me that by the time she got back to her office, there would likely be 100 new files opened.

As if the current waive of investor defaulted loans and subprime foreclosures weren't enough - we should start bracing ourselves for yet another new waive of foreclosures from what should have been an unexpected source- people with good credit who are current on their mortgages. Why would someone with good credit who is able to make their mortgage payments each month default on their loan? It is the latest mortgage scam - and when I say scam - I mean scam in the way of mortgage fraud. Who is doing this and how does it work? An example. Say you bought your small house in a nice neighborhood 4 years ago and paid $600,000 for it. You got an original loan of $540,000 and put in $60,000 in cash to close. Six months later, you got an appraisal saying your house was worth $700,000 - and you refinanced getting a new $630,000 mortgage, paying off your $540,000 loan, reimbursing yourself for the initial cash to close of $60,000 and getting $30,000 in cash back. This means that you have no cash of your own in the house. Fast forward a year or two, and your house is now worth $430,000. (I promise this is not going to turn into a math question having anything to do with what time the train arrives in Albany). You can stay in your house and continue to make payments on your $630,000 mortgage, acknowledging the fact that you now owe $200,000 more on your mortgage than the property is worth - or you decide to jump back into the market and buy a new house. After all, there are plenty of bargains out there, and you can move up from your small little house in the nice neighborhood to a big house in the neighborhood for less money than you paid for your first house - and with a lower interest rate on the new loan.

What's wrong with that you might ask? Well, in order to do that, people are representing to their lenders that they have a renter for either their existing house, or the new house, who will pay all the expenses. They indicate that the new, or old home will be held as an investment. The banks lend these people with the fabulous credit the money for the new house- they close on it and move in. The are now living in their dream house- and are going to stay put- so that sterling credit is not so important to them. So, and I'm sure you have already guessed this - they stop making mortgage payments on the tiny dream home and the lender for that house forecloses, further extending the foreclosure cycle and adding to the glut of homes for sale.

Sadly, given how quick government regulators were to catch on to what was going on in the subprime market, by the time this trend is noted nationwide, thousands of new foreclosure cases will have been filed.

Wyland's Sealife / Dolphin Mural in Ft. Lauderdale Moving Along

Hi All,

I stopped by yesterday, Thursday June 12, to see where Wyland was on his Sea Life Mural in North Lauderdale. He got a lot done but there still a lot of open spaces on the wall, so we will see if he will be done by Saturday June 14. But here are some photos of what I saw so far.


He seems to be painting a theme of the Florida Waterway Eco Systems, from the Mangrove area of Florida, to the intra coastal waterways, to the Oceans and the reefs. Because he has started the western portion of the wall with Mangroves and Manatees, then Dolphins Swimming along in brackish waterway which is the intra coastal, and then sea turtles and the coral reefs. Also, I think Wyland had some contribution from other artists to help paint the mural too.




Florida Manatees swimming in Mangrove Islands

Mangrove Islands of the Florida Keys





Dolphin's Swimming Along the Intra Coastal Waterway



Sea Turtles in the beautiful Florida Oceans



A Brain Coral of Florida and Another Artist Painting



Wyland Teaching Children to Paint Dolphins



Save Our Oceans - A great message !!

It was exciting to see the work in progress. I hope he is able to finish the Sea Life Mural by Saturday, but we will see. Let's pray the weather is with him, so far it has been pretty good.


God Bless,

John

Broward General Medical Center Thrift Shoppe May Close

Hi All,

My neighbor, Donya, who works at the Broward General Medical Center Auxiliary Thrift Shoppe at 1623 S. Andrews Ave, South Side of the Copper Kettle Restaurant, may close to lack of support and shoppers.

This thrift store helps support the Children's Hospital at Broward General Medical Center. They have plenty of small appliances, small funiture, knick knacks, books, and clothes. So if you don't want to see this store close, please go and shop.

Donya says, its hard to find, so call, 954-762-9477.
God Bless,
John

Famous Artist Wyland is in Ft. Lauderdale

Hi All,

This past Friday I went to see Wyland the famous Marine Life artist paint a huge Mural on McNab Road, just west of Rock Island Road. I am posting this because this is rare occurrence. It like seeing Dali painting. Wyland has a huge gallery on Las Olas in fact.

This is the last mural he is going to paint in North America. This is mural 99 and plans to stop with mural 100 that he plans to paint in China this year before the Olympics. When I got there, there were hardly any onlooker yet but they were prepared for many to arrive. They had many trucks with staff and materials, viewing stands and podium for announcements. So they were planning on a big affair.

I rushed around to see where Wyland was. I asked and there he was right in front of me. He was in the process of sketching out his design for the mural on a piece of paper. From what I have read, he never plans his mural. Only on the day of the murals, he designs the mural and then implement the design.

When I saw him, I introduced myself to him and mentioned that I stayed at his hotel, the Wyland Waikiki this past month. It brought a smile to him. He was gracious and said to me "hey, you want to take a photo with me". "Of coarse",I said, I obliged him and had a photo with him. He was really chatty and nice. He said "stick around I am about to start my work".

I did not get to see the design but I hope he gets lots of dolphin swimming around in his mural, because these are my favorite marine animal. But I will have to wait till next Saturday to see the final outcome of his work.

Here are some photos of what I saw the other day.



Wyland's Truck with All His Supplies

Wyland taking a photo with me

Wyland getting ready to start his Mural

Base coat done and Wyland letting the airbrush fly

They said he will be finished in 1 week, Saturday, June 14th, so hopefully I will be there by Wednesday or Thurdsday to see the 1/2 way point to report to you all.

I have to say I was pretty excited to see and meet him. He seems to be doing a lot to help promote sealife awareness. You may want to check out his Wyland Fondation to see what he is into and stand for.

Do you like what Wyland is doing for the Ocean and Marine life?

God Bless,

John

Gore Nursery - Park or Townhomes - You decide!

No time to waste! The County Commission has approved the purchase price for this site. Now it goes to the City Commission TOMORROW (Tuesday, June3)! These monies are earmarked for preserving greenspace in our county. Would you like some of that greenspace to be in our neighborhood? Now there's a NO BRAINER - unless you happen to be a developer.

But - this is NOT a done deal. The City Commissioners could say NO to the purchase and spend the money elsewhere.

Neighbors who attended the April neighborhood meeting of the Croissant Park Civic Association voted to support the purchase of this property to be used as greenspace.

Now you can help too. Send an email (RIGHT NOW) to the city commissioners expressing your desire for a YES vote on the purchase of Gore Nursery for greenspace. The email addresses are as follows:

MayorJames@aol.com

cteel@fortlauderdale.gov

crodstrom@fortlauderdale.gov

cmoore@fortlauderdale.gov

chutchinson@fortlauderdale.gov

don't wait - speak now - before it is too late!