City Hall Brawl
A few years ago, two women dressed head to toe in leather and latex were led into a Fort Lauderdale City Commission meeting on a leash while a third got up to ask the city to spend taxpayer money on a dungeon.
“You may call me mistress,” the speaker told commissioners before suggesting Fort Lauderdale put $250,000 toward a dungeon for “doms and subs” in Fort Lauderdale.
The commission laughed it off and moved on.
Looking back, maybe they didn't hate the idea. Maybe they just wanted to hold the leash themselves.
Fort Lauderdale had four top executives in just as many years.
Chris Lagerbloom left in 2022. Greg Chavarria took over next. Susan Grant stepped in as interim manager after Chavarria's abrupt resignation. Then came Rickelle Williams, who started in April 2025.
Now Williams is just one year into the job, and the same machinery is grinding again.
This is not about whether any city manager is perfect. None of them are. Lagerbloom had critics. Chavarria had critics. Grant was temporary. Williams has critics too. That's just how it goes in government.
But when every manager becomes a problem, the manager is not the problem. You have to look at who's holding the whip. In Fort Lauderdale, the commission doesn't seem to want a professional partner. They want a sub.
Part of the problem is a culture that demands staff absorb the pain elected officials create. This time, the pain came with a specific number.
About $720 million dollars.
Fort Lauderdale is weighing a new City Hall project. The public had already heard smaller numbers, but Williams allowed the full cost to surface. Not just the shiny brochure price, but the real number that includes financing, maintenance and the long-term debt taxpayers will eventually have to carry.
When the public pushed back on the $720 million bill for a new City Hall, the commissioners didn't look in the mirror. They looked for a scapegoat.
During the May 5 commission meeting, in a preview of her evaluation, Mayor Dean Trantalis scolded Williams for presenting the full burden of the project in a way the public could understand.
“When we talked about the City Hall, I thought that that $720 million number was not only inaccurate, but was distracting from a credible conversation,” Trantalis said.
Commissioner Steve Glassman compared the number to a car dealer. He pointed out that dealers don't advertise the final cost of a car after years of financing.
He's right. But the finance office is where you get ripped off.
Dealers try to hide the true price behind a manageable monthly payment. They want you focused on the short term so you ignore the massive interest and fees piled on the back end.
Our government shouldn't take tips from car lots on how to fleece the public.
“If we are going to tell the residents that we are spending three quarters of a billion dollars on a City Hall, it is a little disingenuous,” Glassman said.
NO IT'S NOT.
What's disingenuous is pretending taxpayers are only responsible for the part of the bill that sounds politically survivable. If elected officials want to build a three-quarters of a billion dollar monument to bureaucracy, they shouldn't blame the manager for reading the invoice out loud.
While the commission bickers over the $720 million price tag, they are ignoring the hidden cost of the dirt itself. Putting a massive, tax exempt government fortress on one of the most valuable development sites in downtown is a double hit to the taxpayers.
You lose the massive windfall of a land sale or a long term lease, and you lose the decades of property taxes a private developer would have pumped into the city's coffers. In a city that prides itself on being a destination for luxury and innovation, using prime real estate for a bureaucratic bunker is the ultimate failure of imagination.
Even the Broward County Commission, rarely a model of fiscal restraint, had the sense to pivot. They started kicking the tires on the Spirit Airlines headquarters building in Dania Beach. It might be an unrealistic long shot, but at least they are looking for an exit ramp and acknowledging that the world has changed since the first blueprints were drawn.
A CITY MANAGER'S JOB IS NOT TO PROTECT ELECTED OFFICIALS FROM STICKER SHOCK.
A good city manager isn't supposed to massage a number until the public stops paying attention. That may feel satisfying in the moment, but it's poisonous over time.
It teaches good people to keep their heads down, and it teaches residents that the real conversation happens only after the meeting, in whispers, texts and side rooms.
About a month ago, a prominent lobbyist suggested to me that “Ft. Lauderdale is on the verge of a Boca-style populist revolt.” I thought they were crazy. Now, I'm not so sure.
People get frustrated. Then they talk quietly. Then they compare notes and realize they are being led into a bargain they never agreed to. Finally, one person with nothing to lose says the thing out loud.
And that's when the glass breaks.
Fort Lauderdale is not there yet, but it is closer than people think.
The numbers are building. The frustration is building. The quiet conversations are already happening. The commission might still think they have the leash in their hands, but they are forgetting how much tension it can take.
When the public finally snaps that leash, glass will shatter with it.