Welcome Friends and Neighbors:

I am very proud to be serving on the Broward County Commission. I was first elected by the people of District 3 in 2006 and I’m currently serving my second term. I came to the Commission after serving eight years in Tallahassee as a State Representative where I served as the Democratic Floor Leader and as the Vice-Chair of several standing committees. I was prevented from running again in 2004 due to term limits. I still have excellent relationships with policy makers at the State level and I believe I bring a very unique perspective to the County Commission because of my service in the Florida Legislature.

I was an early supporter and chair of the Broward County Campaign for President Barack Obama. I traveled across the country, meeting voters and working to elect the President. During that time, I made many outstanding friends and created close relationships with people now serving in the White House administration. These relationships will benefit Broward County and help bring us the help we need to face the challenges ahead.

District 3 is located in the far northwestern portion of Broward County and includes portions of Parkland, Coral Springs, Tamarac and Sunrise. The population of District 3 is estimated to be 201,000. It includes two County Library branches, 19 elementary schools, 6 middle schools, 4 high schools and 10 public charter schools, along with 3 hospitals; Coral Springs Medical Center, University Hospital and Medical Center and Health South Sunrise Rehabilitation Hospital.

In 2009, I was honored by my colleagues to serve a one year term as Mayor of Broward County. The Mayor is the official representative and ceremonial dignitary of the County, responsible for providing leadership, assigning Commission standing committees and determining the weekly agenda. I’m proud that during my term, we dealt with many pressing issues facing the future of the County without raising taxes on our residents. As you might imagine it was a very challenging undertaking in these exceptionally difficult times.

As Mayor, I fought to expand Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport by getting the Commission to support construction of a new south runway. This was a critical move to insure the growth of FLL.

While Mayor, we also saw a new terminal at Port Everglades that was able to accommodate the world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. This ship and its cousin which will arrive next year, add close to 10,000 tourists to Broward County each and every week.

Also while Mayor, I felt we needed to tackle the issue of our old and failing central courthouse. To address the issue I created a task force to look at and review all of the possible options to make sure that we would have a facility that our residents could be proud of. Our task force recommended a scaled down version of a previous design and we created an economic construction plan that makes use of sensible and responsible financing. We are now moving forward to build that new courthouse.

The county also passed more initiatives to be “greener” in every department across the board while I was Mayor. All this was accomplished while tax revenues were falling due to the drop in real estate assessed values, yet I helped to close a $100 million budget gap by working directly with the Sherriff and to balance the budget for 2010. Yet we still helped our homeowners see a lower property tax bill. All this was accomplished with only a minimum of county job losses.

Unfortunately Broward County’s financial crisis is not getting any better. That really is the responsibility of every elected official. Yet, we all know that next year is going to be the most serious challenge that Broward County has ever faced. We must continue to re-invent ourselves and search for innovative solutions as revenues will continue to fall. As always, I will do my best to make decisions that will help the people of District 3 and all citizens of Broward as we face these tough times.

I believe it is a privilege to be one of the nine people who are chosen by voters to govern this large urban county where we live and raise our families. I appreciate any innovative and creative suggestions that you have as we move forward together. Please contact me with your questions, concerns, and requests by calling my office at (954) 357-7003 or e-mail me at sritter@broward.org.

Thank you again for your overwhelming support!

Sincerely,
Stacy Ritter
Broward County Commissioner
District 3