Thursday, March 19, 2009

We can't get Out of our own Way


Florida Municipal Power Authority stopped its payments to Florida Public Utilities for natural gas starting in January this year. They gave no notice to our City. They gave no explanation. We just found out when we got a past-due notice from Florida Public Utilities Company. This amounts to $60,600 a month that Lake Worth will now have to pay. FMPA based its decision on our Commission’s vote to exit FMPA’s All Requirements. The City is now preparing itself for an inevitable lawsuit as it contends that FMPA is responsible. This just cements the reason for getting out of FMPA.

It is always one thing after another here. Just when you think you have made strides to really turn it all around, something happens to jerk our city right back into the dung. We are continually attempting to climb out of the problems that we have made for ourselves by past bad decisions. We can’t seem to rise above it all. However, there is always something or someone that gets in our way.

Everyone out there wants all this money that we DO NOT HAVE. They seem to get it. Every contract is favorable to everyone but Lake Worth. We should learn a lesson—play hardball too!

Now comes our beach. Michael Singer has a survey on the lakeworth.org web site. I took it yesterday. They should have skipped it. It is totally unbelievable to me, particularly when two commissioners just got elected on what the people wanted for our beach, to go through these hoops once again. It is one bad joke on the citizens of Lake Worth. Putting this obstacle in our path at the pretense of gathering public input is just like walking backwards. We are back to square one.