South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 21

38 SUN-SENTINEL, Monday, Dec. 6, 1982 Alligator Alley will close Thursday for eight hours 5 Dick Poivsrs Traffic Watch The state Department of Transportation will do an encore of its Alligator Alley engineering feat Thursday, closing the major cross-state highway from 7 a.m. for eight hours as it moves the second half of an administration building into place. Delayed but without incident except for angry motorists, DOT hauled the first half of the substantial building across a bridge last week to relocate it near the Andytown toll plaza. Motorists complained they had not been adequately warned the road would be closed before they made plans including Alligator Alley.

Mail to Traffic Watch: Mrs. William G. Meader, Fort Lauderdale, complained of what she called the the hazard, confusion and "questionable signals" at the intersection of West Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest 31st Avenue. Cliff Yasek of the Broward County Traffic Engineering Division agreed. "It's all torn up," but he explained the construction is temporary and when the major improvements to Northwest 31st Avenue are completed, the lights will be restored to proper cycle and timing.

Dr. Richard L. Foster, Fort Lauderdale, called attention to the "extremely hazardous traffic on Broward Boulevard at Northeast Eighth Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, where the boulevard (going east) narrows from seven lanes to four causing a bottleneck. Complaining of excessive speeds and abnormal loads during peak hours, Foster suggested a "great need of a traffic light." Yasek, although recognizing the hazard, said a traffic light would make matters worse. A red light, he said, would back up heavy traffic to the major intersection of Federal Highway, causing greater problems.

Relief is a police matter with more enforcement. In response to a letter to Traffic Watch concerned with Northwest 17th Terrace in Oakland Park, John Stunson, city manager, said he finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Cyndi Goodwin of Fort Lauderdale complained of pot holes, dangerous flooding, the need for extensive repairs and a storm drain. She said trucks using the north half of the commercially zoned street make matters worse. Acknowledging the poor condition of the street, Stunson told Traffic Watch that the problem of excess water had been relieved by swaling the road but that money still is needed for further action.

Calling "for big bucks," he said the plans were presented to the Oakland Park City Council, which has discussed assessing abutting property owners or using city funds. "Some of the bigger property owners have threatened to go to court if we Stunson said, "and, as most cities, our own money is tight." In Hollywood, streets that will be used for the filming of Smokey Is the Bandit will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday. The movie, starring Jackie Gleason and Paul Williams, will be shot in downtown Hollywood. On both days, the eastbound lanes of Hollywood Boulevard, between 19th and 21st Avenues, will be closed from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Eastbound traffic will be re-routed to Harrison Street. Also Tuesday, 20th Avenue between Tyler and Harrison Streets will be closed from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., while 20th Avenue between Harrison Street and Hollywood Boulevard will be shut down from 2 p.m. to sunset. On Wednesday, 20th Avenue between Harrison Street and Hollywood Boulevard will be closed from 7 a.m.

to 2 p.m. A guard rail will be installed this week on another stretch of Flamingo Road, from Griffin Road to south of State Road 84. One traffic lane along that stretch of Flamingo Road will be blocked off in the daytime while crews work. A guard rail already has been placed on Flamingo Road between Hollywood Boulevard and Griffin Road. The guard rail will block Flamingo Road from a deep canal parallel to the highway.

In Miramar, resurfacing of Southwest 26th Street, between State Road 7 and Southwest 62nd Avenue, should be completed by today, according to city officials. Staff Writer Willie Fernandez also contributed to this report. If you know of a road condition or traffic situation you think dangerous, write to Traffic Watch, in care of the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel, 101 N. New River Drive Fort Lauderdale 33302. The report will be brought to the attention of the proper authority.

ri '7 1 v-''f 1 J. v. Staff photo by CHRIS WALKER want After the pfesentation of awards, Deputy Nick Brown had to console Michael Davis, 11. PAC-team joins students, police in attack on crime By Linda Jones Staff Writer POMPANO BEACH When police officers paid visits to Drew Elementary School, Michael Davis used to run scared. "I thought they were going to take me to jail," the fifth-grader said.

At age 11, Michael was considered "captain of the 1 I I I i 1 -J principal promoter of the PAC-team. Because of Brown's particular interest in children, he was assigned to make goodwill visits to 13 schools in Broward's north district. "I try to make myself not a deputy or a police officer," Brown said. "I try to make myself more of a friend." At a special assembly at Drew, "good citizen of the month" certificates were issued, as well as T-shirts to winners of a PAC-team poster contest. Appropriately enough, the T-shirts portray the video game celebrity Pac-Man with handcuffs chasing after bad-guy ghosts.

The takeoff on Pac-Man was an idea dreamed up by Brown and Lt. Tom Slattery, commanding officer of BSO's District Three. "We tried to relate to what kids in school today relate to," Slattery said. Although only two months old, the PAC-team approach has significantly boosted the police officer's image in the children's eyes. At Drew, it was reflected in short essays students wrote and in pledges they made to their new friends with badges.

"I promise to be a good boy. I will follow police rules. I will help the police. (If) I see a robbing I will call the police. I will stop every rape and killing," wrote Jerome Gordon.

Principal Dorothy Wooten said students have become "less inhibited" around police officers. "Threaded through all the pledges was the theme: I can help the police, because they are my friends and they need the help," Mrs. Wooten said. school," a title passed down by the tough guys who preceded him. If any altercations broke out, Michael somehow managed to be involved.

"Every time somebody got into a fight, they'd come and get me and put me in it," he claimed. But that was before Michael became part of the school's PAC-team. He still displays a tough exterior, but because he is now chief of the school safety patrol, preventing fights is more his style. Michael credits the same officers he used to fear with turning him around, so much so that he has aspirations of becoming a karate expert, a policeman or even a minister. "They changed me by talking to me," he said.

The PAC program, an acronym for Police And Children, is sponsored by the Broward Sheriff's Office and seems to have had a positive influence on many school-age children. The program's concept is to "eat up crime" and improve relations between police and youths in Pompano. "Our biggest problem was our relationship with the kids on the street," said Deputy Nate Brown, the 17 11. -I Lights dim in group's battle against Florida Power Light On Thursday, a new effort was to have begun. The discussion was to have centered on plans for starting a co-operative power company, one controlled by its customers.

But not enough people attended. A "jf climb. It takes sweat and tears and blood. But they want instant gratification, and when they can't get it, they leave." For Mrs. Novak, that lesson was a hard one.

Fighting first against FPL's rate increase request to the state Public Service Commission last fall, then battling this spring to have the PSC members elected rather than appointed, and campaigning recently against another rate incease, she has run out of enthusiasm. She is no longer willing to run up her phone bill with calls to Tallahassee lawmakers, she said. She has no further desire to race from one small-town function to another spreading the word. She Is tired of going it alone. Now, she said, she will continue to help Mrs.

Tuttle try to overcome the conflicting egos and in-fighting that has divided the many groups who had joined the fight. But even that may be too late. "If all the groups would have been functional, Florida Power Light wouldn't have gotten the Increase they Rot this time," Mrs. Novak said. "If I thought we could get everyone together and there wouldn't be any ego problems with one group wanting to be the leader, I really don't care who runs things." But If the groups remain divided, Mrs.

Novak said, the same lack of money and time and Interest will eventually silence them all. "I don't think all hope Is lost," she said. "But If people don't wake up and do something, they'll get what they deserve." By Kevin Allen Staff Writer Charles Fidler kept telling the half-dozen activists how windmills are the perfect energy source. But Florida Power Light wouldn't let him put up his own private windmill four years ago, Fidler said. And now he wanted to do something about it.

He was angry and he was letting everyone know it. That's why he was at the meeting. For Sharon Novak, however, this windmill-tilting game had grown tiring. The woman who had led the fight against the utility companies had. heard it all before.

And the movement she helped start to crusade against FPL increases was dying. Discouraged, she listened to Fidler rant. "That's the way I sounded two years ago," Mrs. Novak said. "I just thought the whole world would be thrilled to have someone to be a mouthpiece for them.

"What really got me irate after a while was they were constantly telling me to hang in there, to let 'em have it, let it rip. I finally asked myself, 'What in In hell do you think you're Why get out there and keep pushing when no one cares? "I had an accute attack of reality earlier this year." A meeting Thursday at the Miramar home of Phyllis Tuttle, herself an antl-FPL cursader, was perhaps the death rattle of the grass-roots movement that Mrs. Staff photo by DAVE MURRAY JR. Novak, a 42-year-old Hollywood housewife, led. Her particular group, Outraged Citizens of Florida, and about 10 or 15 others for the better part of two years have organized petition drives, staged rallies, passed out leaflets, even held a garage sale in the effort to check what they see as the utility company's monopoly and the government's failure to regulate lt.

On Thursday, a new effort was to have begun, The discussion was to have centered on plans for starting a co-operative power company, one controlled by its customers. But the number of participants who attended was a disappointment. And then the man with the plans called to say he couldn't make it. Except for the shouting, the meeting and maybe the movement was over. "That's what usually happens when you have a meeting," Mrs.

Novak said. "People complain a lot and then they drop out. They raise holy hell at first, and then they find out It's a long, lonely Several hundred people "braved" warm weather and clear skies to attend Christmas in Old Fort Lauderdale, an activity designed to educate modern folks about how Christ-mas was celebrated here years ago. The site was the city's historic district, located on the north bank of the New River between Southwest Second and Third Avenues. Playing Mrs.

Santa Claus was City Commissioner Virginia Young, who handed out candy canes to children, including Whitney Gillespie, 3, of Pompano Beach..