The Benefits Of Membership!

Each year people ask, "Why should I be a member of The Las Olas Association, Inc.? How do I benefit?" It's a good question and many times it seems there is no benefit.

While I was working to renovate Mangos, my new neighbors would come and ask me if I was going to join the association. I didn't know what they were talking about. Was it some kind of secret organization where here would be a special handshake and other rituals that were completely unfamiliar to me? I'd never been involved in anything like it before. As it turned out, on of the Mangos' principal owners was the President of the Association, so I was coerced into joining and getting involved whether I liked it or not.

In the summer os 1993, the association, with the help of some friends, procured 'on the street parking' as an experiment. My business was better as a result, and at the end of the probation period they were able to make it permanent. Later we found a program called Business Capitol Improvement Program to make permanent improvements to the city right-of-way. Our first planned improvement was the decorative concrete planters and refuse containers on the street.

About the same time, the City of Fort Lauderdale announced that it was going to replace all the sidewalks on the street. Whenever there was an event on Las Olas Boulevard, there would be extensions cords everywhere, which irked code enforcement to no end. So we decided that while the city had the street under construction, it would be a good time to install permanent electrification to all the palms and laurel trees lining the boulevard.

I mentioned these particular types of improvements initiated by the association only because they are impossible without the association. The city will no listen to you and me as individuals, but they will listen to an association. The greater the number of members in the association, the more impact we have when making a request with the city. That is one of the reasons that I am glad that Mangos is a member of the association.