Last night's Commission Meeting

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It was a hard decision—what graphic to use on this blog. At first I went with a graphic of someone getting his teeth pulled (that one I probably need to explain). The next one I considered was a “Vote Yes.” But you get the drift here. Staff would rather devise ways to raise fees, AGAIN, than to take care of what we already have.

For all of you who do not attend city commission meetings--don't ever worry that you might make a difference. You will not. Everything has been decided by the Commission before it is discussed at a public meeting. They always vote "yes" on everything presented by Staff. Trust me when I say that. The City Manager, in spite of low reviews from our newest commissioners, has wrapped them all around her little finger.

Last night there were 21 items on the Agenda to vote on and ALL 21 got a YES vote. These items were talked to death and finally the pool, after over two hours of discussion, got a consensus to fix the pool pump house, not to exceed $60,000. We can’t even fix our parking meters and keep them operational. Try that Public Works. We are losing income there.

Whatever happened to our policy that dictates anything taking over one-half hour go to a workshop? This is by Resolution but we have a problem at times abiding by our own policies. Take the Pod at the illegal hiring hall as an example. Although I did mention this last night, I still get the blank looks and it was ignored. Lake Worth can do what it darn well pleases.

Where Staff and the Commission believe that every service we have in Lake Worth must make money, I don’t know. Perhaps next we will be charging to have a library card (Lake Worth residents get one for free), charge for all of our Parks, our soccer fields, our basketball courts, our shuffleboard courts, etc. NO where does it say that our pool must be run like a business: if it doesn’t make money we shut it down. This is OUR pool, a municipal pool for all our residents and it needs to stay affordable. We need, I agree, to get the pool operational where we can attract people to it--heat the darn thing. We had an extremely cold winter. The entire month of March it rained. The water is freezing. And staff gives us a chart "proving" that our attendance is low.

The Lake Worth pool is paid for by the taxpayers who live in Lake Worth. We are the ones who should have decided whether or not fees should have gone up and should be the ones to decide what happens to our pool. We just spent nearly a half million bucks getting it ready and no one looked out for us that were in charge--Greater Bay, Staff or the project foreman. To even consider not fixing the pump house and keeping the pool closed is unbelievable.

Some of the fees that are up--Not all by a long shot--

Parking at our beach rose last year…up 50%

Decal parking rose last year…up $100%

Pool discount cards eliminated from $15.97 a year to a membership fee of $250.00 a year…up BIG TIME

Daily usage fee…up 150% from $2 to $5 if you don’t have a membership card. That is a raise of 150%.

We spent over 2 hours discussing the recreation department’s proposal to raise fees and give away control of our pool to some guy with some scheme of having robotic sharks for kids. He wants our pool completely but will settle for every Saturday from 11am until 4pm. EVERY Saturday. Please introduce him to Peter Willard. Ya'all come to Lake Worth now.

So, what happens then to the national meets we are trying to attract? I suppose they will consider coming all the other days, right? WRONG. Also, the proposal was to only have our pool opened in the Spring and Summer. Whoever came up with that? We have a huge snowbird population in the Winter.

So, all of you who elected not to come to City Hall, you were smarter than all the rest of us who did. And you probably don't feel hung over today after a meeting that lasted close to 7 hours.