By Angie DiMichele
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
LAUDERDALE-BY-THE-SEA, Fla. — After hundreds of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea residents told town officials in a recent survey they don’t want lifeguards on their unguarded beach, the commission on Tuesday night nixed any further discussion of getting them.
More than 300 residents completed a beach safety survey, which closed at the end of June, and they made it clear they don’t think lifeguards are necessary and don’t want their tax dollars to pay for them.
Commissioner Theo Poulopoulos, who has been the most vocally in favor of lifeguards, wanted the commission to vote Tuesday night on including lifeguards in next year’s budget, which begins in October, but his attempt failed without support from the others.
A preliminary plan to conduct a study to get information on how many lifeguards the town would need and the cost was also dropped at Tuesday’s meeting.
Elected officials have repeatedly discussed beach safety since Feb. 20, when 7-year-old Sloan Mattingly died in an accident on the sand. She and her brother were visiting from Indiana with their parents and spent the day at the beach. As they were getting ready to leave, Sloan and her 9-year-old brother Maddox ran and jumped into a 4-foot deep hole they dug, and the sand collapsed in on them.
Sloan was completely buried underneath her brother for 30 minutes before they were freed from the sand. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Sloan’s death prompted immediate discussion about whether the town’s beach, which is periodically patrolled by the Broward Sheriff’s Office and Pompano Beach Fire Rescue, should finally get lifeguards. One man died in May and another died in June after possible drownings. Bystanders tried to help both men.
As a result of Sloan’s death, the commission passed an ordinance that bans digging holes deeper than 18 inches on the beach, created a beach safety campaign in the girl’s honor and at meetings have debated the viability of lifeguards, including discussing three different lifeguard or beach patrol options and cost estimates.
Commissioners’ opinions differ
Town manager Linda Connors said there were enough responses to the survey to be considered a statistically accurate representation of the majority of residents.
The overwhelming majority said the beach is safe, they don’t want lifeguards or a code enforcement officer to enforce ordinances on the beach and were not willing to use their tax dollars to pay for either option.
Mayor Edmund Malkoon said Tuesday night he still supports adding a code enforcement officer who would act as a beach ambassador to enforce ordinances on the beach, including the new one on digging holes, at least during the busy tourist season. Malkoon said with Pompano Beach Fire Rescue and Broward Sheriff’s deputies intermittently patrolling the beach, they have as much coverage “if not better” than when volunteers with the former volunteer fire department patrolled.
Pompano Beach Fire Rescue typically attempts to patrol the beach twice a day for a total of about two hours a day, Ashley Zalewski, the department’s fire inspector, said at the meeting.
Broward Sheriff’s deputies patrolled for just over 520 hours last year, according to a report attached to a February commission meeting agenda. Volunteers with the town and BSO’s Citizen Observer Patrol program also monitored the beach for 126 hours in 2023.
Poulopoulos said the beach is less safe than it has been in the past, now that the town relies on BSO and Pompano Beach Fire Rescue to “randomly scope” the shore. Currently, the firefighter-paramedics and deputies patrolling the beach are not contractually obligated to provide rescue services and are not specifically trained in water safety or water rescue, he said.
“I’ve heard members of our community tell us that by adding lifeguards, we’re going to have big brother watching over us,” Poulopoulos said. “That’s not the point of a lifeguard … So, as a town as pristine as ours, as beautiful as ours, as clean as ours, I still can’t believe that this commission will not acknowledge the issue that we are facing, directly in the face. We have almost no beach safety. Everyone swim at your own risk in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.”
Despite the survey results showing residents don’t support lifeguards, Poulopoulos believed it was something the commission should approve.
“I’m dumbfounded by the results of the survey,” he said. “I accept the results of the survey, but sometimes I believe that those of us who have been elected need to make very difficult decisions and sometimes unfavorable decisions. And I believe that this is one of them.”
Vice Mayor Randy Strauss suggested having more Citizen Observer Patrol volunteers, who are equipped with two UTVs to patrol the beach, and conduct sweeps. BSO’s district commander Capt. William Wesolowski supported the idea.
Commissioner John Graziano said the town should provide written beach safety information to condos and hotels and said the onus is on beachgoers to be safe.
“I would love to see lifeguards who would save everybody who has a problem. But there are a lot of people (who) create their own problems, and we have to recognize that … I’m reluctant to accept that 75% of the people do not want lifeguards. But that’s the reality. Seventy-five percent of the residents of this town do not want lifeguards.”
Residents want other measuresThe survey asked residents and business owners if they’d support lifeguards from Anglin’s Pier to El Prado Park, a busy stretch of less than a mile, for an estimated $1 million a year. Residents didn’t support the less expensive option of the beach ambassador code enforcement officer at an estimated $150,000 a year either.
Only 13 businesses responded to the survey, which was not enough to be considered statistically representative of the town’s overall population. However, the business responses were at odds with those of residents.
Most of the 13 businesses said they feel the beach is not safe. Half said they did not want lifeguards, while half said they did. The majority did not support the code enforcement officer option, and more than half said they were willing to use tax dollars to pay for lifeguards.
Many residents who responded to the survey voiced the same opinions: wanting more signs informing beachgoers of risks and ordinances, flags to reflect water conditions and increased beach patrols with the already existing options, according to the responses obtained through a public records request.
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