That’s Lake Worth. Sometimes this phenomenon happens from good intentions; sometimes it is from a Commissioner's insistence that he/she gets his own way; sometimes it just plain stems from lack of understanding. But whatever motivates commissioners in Lake Worth to get in their own way, this is the norm. It is the one single thing for which Lake Worth excels.
In December 2008, we finally had a consensus on the Casino. The Commission agreed to go forward on restoration of the Lake Worth Casino, go out for bid on the rest of the beach park and get a plan into the County so that we would not lose the $5 million. The motion was to select a Design Criteria Agent for the design/build portion of the Casino and the engineer work for other public improvements. Everyone agreed.
Within a few weeks, Commissioner Jennings was commenting that she wanted whatever was CHEAPER for our building. Within a few weeks she had forgotten what the people had petitioned for—saving the beach from further development and commercialization and retaining the PROS zoning. Commissioner Jennings was a petitioner for We Love Lake Worth and being that she is barely past the age of 30, I don’t think she has a memory problem.
Last night Jennings and Golden introduced Michael Singer Artist who reminded me somehow of Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful. It was the same sort of “enthusiasm.” He showed slides he has done on other projects--Athens??-- and personally, I thought it all dreadful. The Mayor liked it. He was allowed to give a Power Point presentation although not on the Agenda. The guy doesn’t like grass! He likes Xeriscape like Commissioner Jennings. That set well with the tree huggers. Will we have no more beautiful grass at our beach? Weeds? This presentation as well as this guy came as a total surprise to me, introduced to the two commissioners by Rene Varela, someone for whom I never hear from or see these days.
During the presentation a woman sitting in front of me passed me a note—“Snake oil for the dais…goes down smoothly. What happened to independent thinking?” I guess the dais is reluctant to make a decision all on their own because they now agreed to pay this guy up to $25,000 to give HIS vision as to what WE SHOULD HAVE AT OUR BEACH. Of course, he met with Jennings who has in the past expressed that the building be built down on A1A. Golden, well I have no idea what her vision is but we know she was not in favor of Greater Bay. The Mayor will be meeting with this guy soon. We know he is insistent on a parking garage. It definitely will not be Commissioner Mulvehill’s vision or the vision of the people who elected her to office or those who petitioned to vote on our beach. It won’t be why Jennings won with a large margin that was all because of the beach.
One of the citizens who spoke congratulated the Commission for “thinking out of the box.” Great thing to do, when the timing is right. This is not the time to bring forth something like this at the last 98 seconds that could delay the project indefinitely. So, here we are, again, getting in our own way to move forward, get a site plan in on time to the County, bringing another layer to the project, another hurdle to jump, another obstacle in our path that WE DO NOT NEED. What if, and that is a big IF, and a big possibility, we don’t like Roberto Benigni’s vision for our beach? What then?
Remind me to never campaign for or contribute to anyone running for a seat in Lake Worth. I am not sure that an elected official here can really represent the people or even wants to.
