Category: Town of Davie Releases

The Town of Davie is proud of its rural character and equestrian lifestyle. Davie is home to thousands of horses and wants to help you keep them safe in the event of a hurricane.

No one can guarantee where your horse will be safe. The decision is yours. If you cannot make your property safe because of the condition of the barn, trees, power lines, low lying land prone to flooding, or general condition of the neighboring properties, plan on evacuating your horse at least 48 hours before the storm.

For Rescue After the Storm

Contact Broward County Emergency Operations Center at 954-831-3900.

Designated Post Hurricane Triage Sites

• C.B. Smith Park
• Markham Park
• Tradewinds Park

On a local level, we have concentrated our efforts in directing the development of a temporary neighborhood center to serve as a holding area before and during a hurricane. Register your horse for the Town of Davie’s Temporary Housing for Horses. This program is for Davie residents or for horses boarded in Davie only. 

Locate the Animal Registration Form here. 

UPDATE: Due to COVID-19, we will be accepting the forms via email, and the fees have been waived at this time. Please email completed forms to Anna Francis, Event Specialist, anna_francis@davie-fl.gov. 

No registration will be available at the site or after a storm watch is issued!

Important Information:

You must obtain and complete the following forms prior to bringing your horse to the hurricane turn-out site:

1. A completed and signed Animal Registration Form.
2. A completed, signed, and notarized General Release Agreement.
3. A completed and signed Good Samaritan Act: Immunity from Civil Liability Form.
4. Proof of your residency (current utility bill).
5. An original copy of your horse’s current negative Coggins report that clearly shows the owner’s address.
6. Photo (profile) of your horse with your horse’s name, owner’s name, address, and emergency contact number on the back of the photo.

Please register your horses well in advance. The number of horses accepted is limited.

Stallions will not be permitted. Please do not bring hay or feed for your horses during their stay, water will be provided. Secure horse trailer arrangements for your horses now. If you have a trailer, try to buddy up with other horse owners going to and from the site.

Local Hurricane Turn-Out

You are encouraged to visit the site for yourself before completing your registration form to determine whether you feel it is safer than your current situation.

Once a hurricane warning has been issued, Robbins Preserve Park Lodge site for horses owned by Davie residents or for horses that live in Davie will open. This site will reopen to retrieve your horses when the winds have subsided to a minimum of 40 mph, or when it is deemed safe by emergency personnel.

For a full map, click here.

Horse Identification

Identifying your animals well is a crucial part of getting them returned to you in the event that they get loose during the disaster. There are a number of recommended ways of clearly identifying your horse(s):

• Spray paint your telephone number, including area code, on the side of your animal(s) with a contrasting shade of acrylic paint.
• Braid luggage tags into the mane and/or tail of your horse(s) with your name, address, telephone numbers, and possibly with the numbers of out of area contacts. Be sure the information is written in waterproof ink, and tape the tags to waterproof them further.
• Fetlock or mare bands with the appropriate information in waterproof ink.
• Include your Equine’s micro-chip Identification number on your application.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Anna Francis at (954)797-1153 or anna_francis@davie-fl.gov. In order to save a place for your horse, please complete the following forms and mail them back with your payment. We ask that you call with questions now as opposed to when the storm warning is issued.

Rodeo Grounds Information
For more than 40 years, the Davie Arena at the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds, located in the historical western theme downtown district, has served as Davie’s main tourist attraction. This indoor/outdoor facility has been building and establishing itself as one of the up and coming multi-cultural locales in South Florida. Originally the center was established as a rodeo arena, but as the need for a more versatile activity increased, the arena expanded to meet the demands for such diverse events as top name concert entertainers and family events that include horse shows, dog shows, car shows, air boat shows, specialty shows and industrial shows. There is always something happening at the Davie Arena at the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds.

Whether you are staging a rodeo, concert, horse show, corporate convention or tradeshow, we can make your event a five star attraction!

The facility is a 72,000 square feet indoor/outdoor venue with a 5,000 maximum seating capacity. Its high intensity lighting creates a perfect setting for television and video taping. Off-street shuttle parking is available for more than 1,000 vehicles. The Davie Arena at the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds is available for rental 365 days a year. For information regarding rentals, contact Simone James, Special Events Coordinator at sjames@davie-fl.gov.

Location
The Davie Arena at the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds is ideally located at the hub of transportation corridors. We are West of the Florida Turnpike (the Griffin Road exit), State Road 7, I-95 and South of I-595, State Road 84 and East of I-75. The rodeo grounds are located near the corner of Davie Road and Orange Drive at 4201 Rodeo Way.

Note: Events listed may be cancelled without notice. For event information or facility rental, please call 954-797-1181.

Although protecting our children is a natural instinct, we offer these helpful child safety tips for parents.

General Child Safety for Parents

• Straight talk with children works best when discussing the serious topic of personal safety with your children. Do not rely completely on puppets, coloring books, gimmicks, and cartoon characters.
• Instill in your children a sense of self-worth and dignity at every opportunity.
• Teach your children basic sex education, (i.e., the areas of the body that are covered by a bathing suit are private).
• Establish that inappropriate touches are against the law. This gives your child confidence to assert themselves with those who try to abuse them.
• Allow children to express affection on their terms. Do not instruct them to give kisses or hugs to people they do not know well.
• Stress that there should be no secrets from you, especially those involving another adult.
• Explain the importance of reporting abuse or attempted abuse to or another trusted adult. This would also apply to inappropriate touching.
• Do not rely entirely on the buddy system. In many documented cases, sisters, brothers, and playmates have been victims of terrible crimes when together.
• Make it a priority to get to know your children’s friends and their families.
• Encourage involvement in extracurricular activities. Children with many interests are less likely to experiment with drugs or other negative influences.
• Teach your children to respect, admire and celebrate the differences in people.
• Ask questions about what your children are doing, where they are going and whom they will be with.
• Set times to be home or check in. Have a back-up plan.
• A child’s room should not be considered their private, personal domain where parents are not allowed to check them.
• Monitor computer and Internet usage, daily, if possible.
• Above all, encourage your children to recognize, trust, and follow their instincts about people and situations. Listen to their instincts.

Good parenting is asking the hard questions and caring about the answers.

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Stranger Safety Tips for Children

What is a stranger?

A stranger is someone that you do not know or your parents do not know. Strangers are even people you see every day. Not all strangers are bad, but it is very difficult to tell bad strangers from good strangers

Examples of strangers:

• A person you have never met before.
• A person you may see often, but know nothing about; e.g., the ice cream person, mail person, newspaper person, or a neighbor.
• A person whose name and address you do not know.
• A person your parents do not know.
• Strangers can come in all shapes, sizes, colors and ages. Even a teenager could be considered a stranger to you.

If approached by a stranger:

• Don’t talk or go near that person.
• Don’t accept gifts or rides from that person.
• Don’t go anywhere with that person.
• Step backwards if a stranger comes toward you. Turn around and run away.
• Report strangers to your parents, teachers, bus drivers or a responsible adult you know well.
• The main rule to remember: Stay away from strangers.

Examples of stranger scenarios:

• What should you do if a stranger asks you for help or offers you candy, a toy, or a pet?
  Say “NO”, turn around and run away.
• What should you do if a stranger asks you to go for a ride in their car?
  Say “NO”, and run in the opposite direction that the car is going.
• What should you do if a stranger tries to grab you?
  You can yell for help! You can kick, scratch, or bite! You can run away as fast as you can.
• What should you do if a stranger has a gun and tells you to go with him?
  Yell for HELP! Run away as fast as you can, and continue yelling for help. Go tell an adult.

Always remember to tell your parents, a police officer, a teacher, a bus driver, or another adult you trust and know about what happened as soon as possible.

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Being safe at home when you are alone

• Always lock the door. Do not answer the door if someone knocks. Never let strangers into the house.
• If the telephone rings, answer it. Do not tell anyone that you are alone. (You can tell them your parent cannot come to the phone right now). Ask who is calling, and offer to take a message.
• If there is a storm, stay away from the windows.
• Leave medicines and poisons alone, they can really hurt you.
• Do not play or touch any guns that might be in the house.

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Other rules for safety

• Never go anywhere without first telling your parents, or the person in charge, where you are going, who is going with you, how you will get there, and when you will be back.
• Always use the buddy system when playing outside or going places.
• Always say “NO” if someone tries to touch you in ways that make you feel frightened, uncomfortable, or confused. Always tell a grown-up that you trust about what happened.
• Always go directly home from school or the bus stop.

The FREE SaferWatch App gives residents and visitors in the Town of Davie a direct line to the Davie Police Department. Using the SaferWatch App, individuals can report incidents and receive real-time safety alerts directly from law enforcement. This is all accomplished directly from your mobile device.

Click here to download the SaferWatch App to your mobile device.

News from the Davie Police

Find the latest news from the Davie Police Department.

The Davie Police Department is currently in the process of obtaining reaccreditation through the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA). The culmination of this process will take place from April 21, 2020 through April 23, 2020, as our agency will be hosting a team of assessors who will conduct a final assessment of our policies, practices and facilities. The Davie Police Department is required to comply with approximately 250 standards in order to receive accredited status. Many of the standards are critical to life, health and safety issues. Over the course of the assessment, the department’s policies will be reviewed, staff will be interviewed and physical inspections will be made to our facility.

As part of the assessment, agency members and the general public are invited to offer comments to the assessment team. A copy of the CFA standards are available to view online at http://www.flaccreditation.or/standards.htm.

Our Accreditation Manager, Angela Madias, will be facilitating the assessment process for our CFA assessment team. For more information regarding CFA or for persons wishing to offer written comments about the Davie Police Department’s ability to meet the standards of accreditation, please write: CFA, P.O. Box 1489, Tallahassee, Florida 32302, or email to flaccreditation@fdle.state.fl.us.

Through the Davie Police Department’s dedication to excellence, and the assistance of our CFA Program Manager William Walls, we are committed to exceeding the requirements for each CFA standard.

Upon the completion of the CFA assessors’ on-site examination, all findings will be submitted to the CFA to determine if the Davie Police Department has satisfied all requirements to obtain reaccreditation status. Once obtained, accreditation status is valid for a three (3) year period.

Verification by the team that Davie Police Department meets the Commission’s standards is part of a voluntary process to gain or maintain accreditation–a highly prized recognition of law enforcement professional excellence. We wish to thank our residents, business owners and local media for their assistance during this process. Should you have any questions or comments, please contact Angela Madias at amadias@davie-fl.gov.

Updated: March 19, 2020

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The Davie Police Department is excited to be part of Neighbors, which aims to reduce crime in Neighborhoods.

Neighbors is a digital neighborhood crime watch that is free to download, free to join, and free to use.

Anyone can download the neighbors app on iOS or Andriod, join their neighborhood, and use the app to: monitor neighborhood activity; share crime and safety-related videos, photos, and text-based posts; and receive safety alerts from local law enforcement – all in real time.

Please follow the link below to download this free app: http://download.ring.com/daviepd

The FREE SaferWatch App gives residents and visitors in the Town of Davie a direct line to the Davie Police Department. Using the SaferWatch App, individuals can report incidents and receive real-time safety alerts directly from law enforcement. This is all accomplished directly from your mobile device.

Click here to download the SaferWatch App to your mobile device.

The Davie Police Department is excited to be part of Neighbors, which aims to reduce crime in Neighborhoods.

Neighbors is a digital neighborhood crime watch that is free to download, free to join, and free to use.

Anyone can download the neighbors app on iOS or Andriod, join their neighborhood, and use the app to: monitor neighborhood activity; share crime and safety-related videos, photos, and text-based posts; and receive safety alerts from local law enforcement – all in real time.

Please follow the link below to download this free app: http://download.ring.com/daviepd