The holiday season is upon us and the city is bursting with activity. From Christmas on Las Olas to welcoming the New Year with our Annual Anchor Drop at the steps of the Museum of Science and Discovery, our community is no stranger to the spirit of giving and the embrace of visitors from around the world. We all look forward to great things happening in the months ahead.

At the beginning of December, the city swore in three new commissioners who won a recent round of special elections. Please welcome Dr. Warren Sturman as the new District 4 commissioner, Dr. Pamela Beasley-Pittman as the new District 3 commissioner and John Herbst as the new District 1 commissioner.

A lot of opportunities and challenges lie ahead for our growing and dynamic city, and I look forward to working with them and the remaining District 2 commissioner, Steve Glassman, on charting the future of Fort Lauderdale.

Under the prior commission, we made tremendous strides in addressing critical issues including the fiscal stability of the city, the need to upgrade infrastructure and the importance of ensuring the affordability of housing. I hope to keep the progress going.

We may not always agree on every issue, but we can work together for a better tomorrow. After all, we all can agree that Fort Lauderdale is a great place to live with a great quality of life.

Along that line, I’m pleased to report that progress is moving rapidly in the rejuvenation of the War Memorial Auditorium site.

I had the opportunity recently to join Commissioner Glassman in touring the construction and receive an update on its progress. Work is nearing completion on the pair of ice rinks that will be available to the public and used by the Florida Panthers professional hockey team for practice. The views of the rinks are incredible, with a restaurant being built overlooking the recreation areas.

The rinks should be ready for us to open in the first part of next year. I look forward to the city being able to offer yet another recreational opportunity to our children and families. You don’t often find the year-round option of ice skating and amateur hockey in this part of the country, but Fort Lauderdale will soon have it and it will be yet another part of the fabric that makes us such a vibrant cosmopolitan community.

Next door, War Memorial has been gutted to its frame. The old structure is amazing to look at stripped of its adornments and attempts at remodeling You really get to marvel at the work that went into its construction in the mid-20th century. The venue will be state-of-the art, and it will no longer be costing the city over $1 million a year to operate, thanks to the folks at the Florida Panthers organization. The site will be designed for future generations to enjoy. We can expect the return of family-oriented shows and concerts. The storied history of War Memorial in our community live on.

I’d like to take a moment to address a matter that has impacted the nation as a whole.

Right before Thanksgiving, our nation experienced another act of horrific and senseless violence. We again mourned the loss of life and the bloodshed of a mass shooting — this time occurring at an LGBT+ nightclub in Colorado Springs.

My deep condolences go out to the friends and families of the five people killed and the 17 injured.

For those of us in Florida’s LGBT+ community, the shooting at Club Q awakens painful memories of the grim events of June 2016 at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando when an armed killer took the lives of 49 people. Club Q and Pulse were supposed to be safe places where people could socialize and have fun.

Instead, they now stand as gruesome reminders of our nation’s failure to address gun violence. Action is long overdue to ensure everyone’s safety — in church, in school, at work, at a nightclub, at a movie theater and everywhere else. Year after year, the United States leads the industrial world in gun violence deaths. These staggering statistics must come to end.

While sensible gun regulations are needed, the shooting in Colorado Springs also speaks to the importance that we all respect the great diversity of this nation. Unfortunately, too often, the LGBT+ community and other minority groups are used as pawns in the raw state of our nation’s politics. Vilification and hate have become mainstream, a common tactic to stir up votes.

Instead of focusing on critical issues from the economy to climate change, too many politicians use their office to rail against marginalized communities. We saw it in our own state with the don’t-say-gay legislation targeting our public schools, the prohibitions on transgender athletes, and the restrictions on diversity training in workplaces and similar lessons in classrooms.

And then after all that talk and legislating is done, we profess shock when a hate crime of the magnitude of Colorado Springs occurs. We should not as a society enable hate.

Sadly, the day after the Colorado Spring shooting was International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

It’s a day created for us to reflect on and remember those who have been murdered as a result of bigotry against the transgender community. This year has seen at least 32 transgender and gender non-conforming people killed in the United States, with several being from Florida.

I ask everyone to respect the diversity of our society, and I urge federal and state lawmakers to do more to address gun violence. In this holiday season, let’s remember its meaning — peace on Earth and goodwill toward all.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and has plans to celebrate the upcoming holidays with family and friends. Again, please remember that on Dec. 31, Fort Lauderdale will again have its signature event downtown as we drop anchor on the year that has passed and settle in for the New Year ahead!