Prices must come down so that the consumer can afford to buy if we are going to get out of this recession. Even OPEC decided not to cut production. What really is going on with some of the decisions being made here?If we don’t have the money, we are not going to buy. If prices continue to rise, we will never buy anything but the essentials such as gas and food. Our habits will and have to change drastically. Retailers out there just don’t seem to be getting that. Take Publix. Everything is up other than eggs I was told by the store manager on Lake Worth Road. Such a deal! Movie houses are losing revenue. No one can afford to see a movie these days. What do they do? Yup, raise the cost of a ticket; raise the price of popcorn. The State of Florida doesn’t care either because the price to ride on our State Highways as well as traffic tickets are going up so that the State can generate over $63 million in new found revenue.
Our City, as well as other governments, is so strapped for cash, it is implementing creative ways to get money. Lake Worth has raised ALL recreational fees, as an example. They will not even consider taking money away from the CRA but would rather sock it to the little guy. Planting a seed is fine during a healthy economy. They make a decision to unman our beach, eliminating lifeguards two days a week during the height of tourist season, finally deciding that was a dumb move.
Now they have out sourced our Fire Department to Palm Beach County with every taxpayer here paying 2.95mils for fire rescue. Prior to that it was the Police and then our stormwater fee. What else can we expect while no one will take a cut in salary but instead, management implements raises, laying off other workers to pay for them.
They still talk about a new government center and a new library but put a match to $14 million dollars that we have already invested into our Reverse Osmosis Plant. Hopefully, that fateful decision will be overturned and we will end the County water deal. Water, in the future, will be our most valuable commodity. The Mayor voted to give away our waste water to Palm Beach County. Is there anything else to give, Mayor? The only things left are the golf course and the beach. What about our entire city?
Some people are really struggling to stay in their homes; others live on social security and fixed income watching the value of their money drop in half. They worry whether they will even make it to the end of their normal life. The government should be considering these things when they get creative, not worrying about how the CRA can give away our money to people who want hand-outs. There is no reason why someone living in a property valued at over $1 million, as an example, should get free money from the CRA and pay the same as a poor person for storm water or why some poor working stiff has to worry about taking his family to the beach. I don’t buy the argument that “the beach is still affordable.” Everything, right now, is a big question mark when you take out your wallet. Lake Worth politicians still think it a-okay to spend nearly $15 million dollars on the Gateways. How do they justify that?
So, it seems, as we are in this severe recession, and people have no work; they are losing their homes; they have no health care, that the government, the protector of the citizen, continues to devise ways to sock it to us, giving hand-outs to deadbeats while the average citizen pays the price. And what Stimulus money did Lake Worth get?
