No more Scratching Backs

Our two major Boards in this city, CRA and Planning & Zoning, are getting an over-haul. Along with a new city manager who is making major staff changes at city hall, the interviews for P&Z followed suit. Described as "turmoil" by one present P&Z member, former members up for re-appointment were terminated other than the two alternates, Ron Exline and Lynda Mahoney. There were many highly qualified applicants.

I believe that this Commission was looking to appoint people with certain skill sets. They were also looking for "virgin" applicants--those who were untarnished and untouched by developers, Realtors, and the good-old boy system of scratching backs where decisions are made behind closed doors-- a perception, real or unreal, of many.

As one member of the public put it—the commission appointed and re-appointed some well qualified and “progressive” members to the Board. As a conservative, the word “progressive” always sends a red-flag up my spine--however, it means different things to different people. I believe what she was saying is that these new members are people with values who do not just care about a certain segment of society--that they value the integrity of the Board over personal profit or gain or quid pro quos and that the Commission will get some respect from Board members and not have a Board working behind the scenes, undermining the Commission at every opportunity.

The P&Z Board should be working within our Master Plan. It should not be giving waiver after waiver and variance after variance to certain people such as the owner of the Gulfstream, as an example. That hotel should have been opened nearly four years ago. It never should have annexed a parcel into the City in a single family residential neighborhood and give favorable zoning to a developer, a zoning and use inconsistent to the neighborhood. It never should have allowed a building such as The Lucerne to be built in our downtown. The P&Z should be deciding fairly and working within a guideline-- the present Comprehensive Plan.

While discussing each applicant Monday night during the review process, the Mayor referred to one as flighty and flaky, an interviewee who is highly educated and an authority in their (his/her) profession. I was rather stunned by this remark. Each applicant was qualified, trying to do a service for the city, and to interject personal opinion on their personality rather than their qualifications was not kind or appropriate.

As far as Planning & Zoning is concerned, the citizens of Lake Worth are not expecting them to discover or re-invent the wheel here—we just want to have a Board that will make rational decisions, ones that are fair to the applicants, to our residents and to the City of Lake Worth during this tumultuous economic time...a balancing act of sound decisions. The few that were not re-appointed just got caught in the cross hairs of cleaning house, something that often times happens during a new administration.

Two questions remain: Now with a new P&Z Board, will the Comprehensive Plan reflect the changes that the Commission wants to make on heights and zoning before it is sent up to the DCA or will the new city manager impose her will? And what in the world is happening to the CRA?