Fort Lauderdale

Pickleball has been in South Florida for the past five years or so, but it was just last year that the sport virtually exploded in  popularity Broward County parks. 

It took a few hurricanes, some delays, and more than 14 years of volunteer work to turn what used to be South Side Elementary School into the new South Side Cultural Arts Center.

From Delray Beach to Virginia Key, South Florida is spending millions of dollars to fix old sewer systems. 

Sewage has been spilling into Fort Lauderdale’s streets, neighborhoods and waterways for more than three years now. Millions of gallons of waste on the roads and in canals are the product of old sewage pipes and cracked infrastructure. 

But at a regular City Commission meeting Tuesday, commissioners agreed to borrow $200 million  to start updating the areas with the worst pipes. 

The vote was 4-1, and it was commissioner, and mayoral candidate, Dean Trantalis who voted not to borrow the money.

All of Tuesday’s votes are in and counted and  Fort Lauderdale is one step closer to having a new mayor. 

The debate over a long-running gun show in Fort Lauderdale’s Holiday Park has carried over into the new year. 

Fort Lauderdale's troublesome, aging sewage system just got a major update, according to a new city report. 

A 30-inch force main--a main support sewage line--that runs underneath SW 2nd St. started to repeatedly break near the end of 2016. So, the Public Works Department's Go Big, Go Fast campaign started with an emergency declaration to replace the pipe at the end of September this year. 

In 2016 alone, The Broward County Housing Council counted more than 2,300 homeless people living inside county lines. 

So, the civic and business group Tower Forum, in Fort Lauderdale, hosted a panel for local business people to get a glimpse into what’s being done at the county level to solve homelessness, especially in Downtown Fort Lauderdale. 

Fort Lauderdale is upping its fire rescue game. Last Friday the city christened  Fireboat 49, a high tech response boat for the fire rescue team.

Fireboat 49 is replacing a much smaller vessel that the Fort Lauderdale Fire Department was using to respond to fires and rescue missions on the water. That could be anything from looking for something or someone underwater to helping out a cruise ship.