Croissant Park Civic Association 

Minutes of the General Meeting October 26, 2021 

Hello Croissant Park Neighbors, 

The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Heather at 7:02 pm. —Board members attending were Pat Rathburn, Michelle DiMaria, Virginia Russell, Joe Russell, Rhonda Kramer, Heather Cunniff, Jodi Perraud, and Larry Jackson.

Officers Gowans and Lopez reported a changing of the guard as to the officers who will be patrolling Croissant Park. The restructuring will include more officers and manpower. They will continue to coordinate with the civic associations, keeping us informed of the crime that occurs in our area. We had three residential burglaries and two auto burglaries. The officers continue to remind us to lock our cars, including in our driveways/carports. Both auto burglaries occurred in unlocked cars. They also remind us not to leave desirable items in plain view inside the car because that will lead to a broken window and theft. Also, key fobs in your house are often close enough to the car to cause your car to be unlocked. Test it to see if this condition exists. If it does, move the key fob further away from your car. Be vigilant in your neighborhood: is there a pool service truck at your neighbor’s house and your neighbor doesn’t have a pool? Or a landscaping truck is parked at your neighbor’s property and they take care of their own yard? These are some of the scams to beware of. While someone is “cleaning the pool” where there is no pool, someone could be casing the property. Get to know your neighbors.

The election committee for the slate of the CPCA Board of Directors was Jean Ready, John Mangione, Michelle DiMaria, and Jodi Perraud. There were no nominations from the floor and the existing slate of the Board was approved by the members attending the meeting. 

Our speaker tonight was Evan McCarthy from Happy Bee Honey Club. He is our locally famous bee guy who will humanely remove a beehive from your property. Evan stressed the importance of saving the bees that pollinate our world, rather than exterminating them. Evan and his bee-stung crew carefully remove the hive and relocate it to one of the four bee sanctuaries in Ft. Lauderdale. Happy Bee Honey Club is a non-profit organization. They sell the harvested honey at local farmers’ markets. If you eat locally harvested honey it may help to prevent allergies. 

—A discussion about the Poinciana Crossing apartment building that is nearly finished on SE 1st Avenue, just east of the railroad track and the playing field at Croissant Park Elementary School. We feel that we may have been misled when it was presented to our CPCA meeting. It is not within our physical boundaries but it affects our neighborhood. Our Board member Heather will follow up with the City to answer our queries. 

—Board member Jodi will bring neighbor, Ron B. Wilson to our January meeting to talk about his photography book Resilience. Should be interesting. That will be at our January meeting at the Community Center on January 25th, 2022. Wow, time marches on! 

Minutes by Virginia-Secretary 

Pictures by Rhonda - director