On Monday evening, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis took to Facebook to share news of two new sewer line breaks in the city. The latest breaks are located in the Victoria Park and Coral Ridge neighborhoods. These latest breaks are further examples of a cascading failure of Fort Lauderdale’s aging infrastructure. Residents throughout eastern Fort Lauderdale are tired of the smelly mess in the streets and waterways.

While his supporters prefer to blame past administrations for the mess, one resident dared to point out Trantalis’ long tenure on the City Commission. Trantalis was not pleased and let her know about it.

Cass Riese wrote, “Before his election as mayor, Trantalis served as a city commissioner for Fort Lauderdale from 2009 to 2017…let that sink in.

11 years he’s been with the city and on his watch for the past 11 years this environmental and residency disaster could have and should have all but been avoided. We voted and pay our city officials for much better service then this.”

Trantalis replied, “Cass Riese you are incorrect. I returned to the commission in 2013.” Then, Trantalis tried to play the victim. He wrote,”I advocated funding the infrastructure plans but was overruled by the majority. Both water and sewer.” Then, Trantalis got sarcastic, telling Riese, “Now, let that sink in.”

Is that how Fort Lauderdale residents want the leaders handling a disaster?

Trantalis followed up with a comment stating he’ll make his plans to fix the sewers known to all at the next Commission meeting.

“We have started the process of rebuilding our systems and in 2020 you will see much more reconstruction of our infrastructure,” Trantalis wrote. “Tune in on Jan 9 at city hall at 6 pm where I will be giving a complete run down of what we have done and where we are going.”

Residents don’t seem willing to wait for political grandstanding.

One resident wrote, “Dean Trantalis you sound like joe Biden when he got caught!!!”

Something definitely stinks in Fort Lauderdale.