Chocolada sold to the people behind The Greek Joint

The city is warning residents that king tides will come and go through December. These are unusually high tides caused by the moon's close approach, and they flood low-lying areas that stay dry the rest of the year. Hollywood has seven miles of shoreline and 7.9 miles of canals, and the land is flat. Rising seas and bad weather make the problem worse. Rain, wind speed and wind direction all push the water higher or lower than the forecast. Translation: check your street before you park overnight, and do not assume a sunny day means dry pavement.

Extreme heat season is underway, and the city has places for people to go when the temperature climbs. Hollywood runs cooling centers for residents, and they cost nothing to use. This matters most for people whose air conditioning is broken, expensive to run, or nonexistent. It also matters for anyone checking on an older neighbor this month. The city posts the details on its site, so it is worth knowing where the closest one is before you need it. A hot afternoon is a bad time to start searching for an address.

The Hollywood Beach Theatre has live music five nights a week, and none of it costs anything. The stage sits on the Broadwalk at Johnson Street, which means the show comes with ocean air and no cover charge. In late August, that combination is rare. Almost everything else worth doing right now involves paying for air conditioning. The city runs it, so there is no ticket to buy and no list to get on. Bring a chair, or come early enough to claim a bench. Plenty of people who have lived here for years still have not walked down and tried it.

The city released its Recommendations Report for the Washington Park Industrial Area Redevelopment Program. That document sets the direction for what the industrial stretch beside the neighborhood eventually becomes. Staff shaped it with community feedback and technical analysis, so what residents said at meetings should be somewhere in the pages. Reports like this land long before anything is rezoned, funded or built. That is exactly why they matter. It is far easier to push back on a recommendation than on an approved plan. If you live near that corridor, read it now, while the language is still soft.

Emerald Hills residents get an actual vote on how their neighborhood looks. The city is hosting a virtual meeting on Monday, August 24, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. It runs on Teams, so you can attend from the couch. On the table: the design of the new neighborhood signage and walls. Signage sounds like a small thing until you drive past it every single day for the next twenty years. Meetings like this usually draw a small crowd, which means a small crowd picks. If you have opinions about how your street reads from the road, this is the night.

The African American Advisory Council meets Thursday, August 27, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. The meeting is at 2600 Hollywood Boulevard, and it is open to residents. Advisory councils do not pass laws, but they are where concerns get put on the record and passed up. That is often how an issue reaches a commissioner's desk in the first place. Ninety minutes is a short window, so people who show up with something specific tend to get further. If you have been meaning to raise something and never found the room, this is a room.