‘The Agitator’ determined to clean up the Hollywood City Commission
HOLLYWOOD, Fla.— To many Americans, local government is an afterthought. Local elections have significantly lower voter turnout than presidential elections because citizens don’t realize how impacted they are by their city officials.
For a long time, Itzhack Feldman was one of these people. An immigrant from Israel, Feldman has lived in Hollywood for 30 years. He owns his own business and has raised a family here, but it was relatively recently that he gained an interest in local government.
He was a member of the Israeli Navy and saw action during the Lebanon War. He was honest about his involvement, “I was scared to death on that ship,” he chuckled, “I saw my friends get excited to see combat, but I didn’t want to die and I didn’t want to kill anybody.” He reached the rank of First Sergeant during his time in the military, during his mandatory service.
After some more time in Israel, he moved all the way to Hollywood, Florida. Explaining why he left his home country, he said, “It’s a beautiful country, but the neighborhood just isn’t very nice.” He feels that the people in Hollywood are much kinder to one another and there isn’t nearly as much political unrest.
Once in Hollywood, Feldman would go on to start his own video production business. He’s had himself a productive career but never batted an eye at local politics for most of his life in America.
Of all things, it was his passion for table tennis that would snowball into him running for office. He jokes that his start was “ping pong diplomacy,” as his first truly direct interaction with the city government was when he tried to start a table tennis program, though he was told there wasn’t enough interest in it.
However, Feldman didn’t give up without a fight. So with persistence, he was able to open a table tennis club that is only a few years old and now home to dozens of members. He is also now trying to open his own facility for his favorite sport.
This taste of how activism can influence change, as well as the insight he achieved into how the city runs, inspired Feldman to aim higher. He decided to run for commissioner of his district, Hollywood’s District 1.
He believes that the city commission has become detached from the desires of the people. “They forget who elected them,” he says. “Once they get into office, they all become friends.” He believes this results in officials becoming complacent and less likely to hold one another accountable.
Feldman ran for office last election and garnered 30% of the vote as an independent without any funding. He believes he had a unique campaign strategy, and it’s hard to argue that it was different. For a full year prior to election day, Feldman rode his bike up and down Hollywood Beach’s boardwalk every weekend, offering rides to people.
“I believe I would make a good commissioner because I know many of these people, and they know me,” Feldman says. “I gave people rides home when they were too old, or tired, or drunk,” he said. He even gave rides to people in recovery from surgery and unable to put too much strain on their body.
“I love people,” he says. “I believe most people are naturally good as long as you come to them with good intentions.”
Feldman’s run at the office wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. He says he was met with harassment, vandalism, and even sabotage. A police officer married to a commissioner took down some of the campaign signs that Feldman had posted, he says, as well as calling Feldman multiple expletives in a video that he still has.
He has been referred to as an “agitator,” a title he has embraced ever since it was attributed to him. Someone also keyed Feldman’s car and wrote a vulgar insult into his bumper, which he is sure had something to do with the election. “It got nasty,” he explains. During and after his loss, he received hateful comments on his active Facebook page, such as when he was told to “crawl back to his hole” after the election.
Feldman just shrugged it off. One of his biggest goals is to inspire his kids and other young people to get involved in local government in the future. “The average person at these meetings are like 60,” he says. This is likely because Hollywood’s public city commission meetings occur every other Wednesday at 1 P.M. when most younger constituents would be at work or school.
This is something Feldman wants to see change.
He believes these meetings are held at such an inconvenient time, intentionally, to minimize backlash towards moves that could be viewed as unpopular. The commission operates in the open but without many average citizens really noticing.
“The youth is the future,” Feldman says. He believes it is important to push Hollywood’s youth to pay attention to local politics, so it becomes normal for them and they don’t become complacent like much of his generation has.
As an immigrant from Israel, Feldman is very grateful for the life he has had in Hollywood. “This country has given me so much, and I want to give back to it,” he continued, “that’s why I will run for commissioner again, again, and again until I win.”
For now, Feldman’s latest project is growing a fully edible garden in his front yard, but he intends to continue his boardwalk biking in the future, all the way to his 2022 campaign for commissioner.
