Breaking my New Year’s Resolution of not staying late at Commission meetings, I left at
11:50pm. So much for resolutions. I didn’t stay long enough last night to see if Commissioner Retha Lowe fulfilled her threat to leave the dais at
Midnight.
She should leave permanently, but that is another story or past stories.
Tom Ramiccio managed to stack the chamber once again last night on the Gulfstream Hotel issue, having sent out e-mails to various people. Some of his friends did not stay that late, so their comments were not read into the record. Rachael Bach, when asked how the Historical Preservation Board voted, replied that their vote was “unanimous.” It wasn’t. I asked the owner of the hotel, after the Commission voted to table it, why he did not just open the hotel. His answer, “I can’t…the appeal is holding it up.” I then asked him, “It’s been holding you up since the day you bought it?” “Yes,” was his reply. I guess he has P&Z believing that too, a Political Board that seems to grant him his every wish. Let’s get the hotel opened but not break our own laws/ordinances to allow the owner to do whatever he wants. The City should not be in bed with developers. Charles Celi did a great job on his appeal.
Choosing the Mercer Group was a good decision to find a new City Manager. Colin Baenziger, a company that was turned down this time, gave us Paul Boyer and Bob Baldwin. The Mercer Group's presentation was well made and hopefully this company will consider some of our home-grown qualified people for this position.
Our Museum will stay opened for another 9 months until we find money to support it. That was another good decision. Of course our Mayor wants us to spend millions building a new library and was hesitant when he voted Yes.
The red-light cameras were defeated. Good decision. The Mayor voted for them, the only dissenting vote. They will not generate that much revenue for the City as we are on a sliding scale down…the more violations, the less money we get. We would have been known as speed trap city. Writing an Ordinance forbidding red-light cameras in the City of Lake Worth was definitely the way to go. Mr. Karns said he thought that our ordinance would take precedence over a PB County ordinance if it decided to put in red-light cameras on County roads.
We have a billboard ordinance too but the City did not pay attention to that and allowed billboards near I-95. For the amount of money they generate over 20 years it was another awful decision. Maybe the red-light camera people will threaten suit as well and our City attorney will capitulate like he did with the billboards. That was another Clemens and Lowe decision. She should step down. Do I sound like a broken record?
The Palm Beach County Water deal was an interesting segment, to say the least. Brian Shields from Palm Beach County was there and he told us that we are now $1 million dollars into the project when just 30 days ago we had only received an invoice for $57,000. Brian must have hurried like heck to do all that work so that it would make our decision to stop the County water deal very difficult. He never said we owed $1 million. He said that the County had spent it. The Commission, the day after the election, should have immediately contacted PB County Commissioners and set up appointments. They didn’t and it’s now 48 days later. It only took 6 days to create the earth. We now have a big problem because of their inaction. The mayor said that West Palm Beach had a “terrible history” and that we were “treading on dangerous waters” even considering using their interconnect for free, just paying for the cost of the water. Spending $21 million dollars is a better deal than NOTHING Mayor? What is really going on with the Mayor? The Assistant city administrator for West Palm Beach, Eduardo Balbis, spoke briefly telling us that they had made major capital improvements to their water system and that the quality of water is better now than in the history of the city.
Allowing the Boynton Beach Community Church to hold a special event at Bryant Park was voted in with no discussion. The Church wants to hold an Awareness of Hunger in Palm Beach County. Past events, held in another location, attracted only 300 people. This event is estimated to attract between 500 and 600 people. Is there anyone out here who does not know that there is a homeless problem? Is anyone unaware? Anyone? These events should be handled by charities and faith based groups holding them anywhere but public property. This event will be on March 15th. That month we have the Reggae Fest and Pride Fest.
