People will Support Business if you have a Product they want

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Political sign at Maryann Webber Gallery

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Commissioner Mulvehill has a lot of good ideas and spending local is just one of them. She declared last month Buy Local Month. We at our Condo Association always use Lake Worth businesses whenever we can. That is our commitment to our city.

I believe that it goes without saying that we all love our downtown and we love Lake Worth. In today’s business section of the Post was Maryann Webber and her gallery that participated in the 3/50 project that encourages consumers to pick 3 local businesses and spend $50 in each of them for a month. The paper shows a pretty and friendly photo of Mrs. Webber, in sharp contrast to her recent treatment at her store of two of my friends who are not aligned politically with her and a third one who was treated with distain. Businesses should not be political and if they are, they take the risk.

Some of the downtown businesses did suffer after the election when they supported the defeat of the SuperMajority even going so far as to hanging banners across the front of their business establishment against the initiative. The local Chamber of Commerce (that says it is NOT political) tried to get all of its members to vote against the initiative saying it "was bad for business." Some people actually believed that, not even understanding what it was about. Bizarre Cafe believed it. That business went south and the owners finally sold the restaurant and I haven't been there since that election.

Everyone should buy locally when they can. The problem is, Lake Worth does not have enough businesses that encourage people to return shop, many being specialty shops. Most people already have all the art they want and have accumulated way too many knick knacks and art pieces. The majority living in our city are lucky to have the money to make their car payment.

The CRA’s mission is now to make Lake Worth an art destination and has budgeted a lot of money to make that happen. The downtown is in the CRA district. I have to wonder about the rest of the CRA district that is struggling because the majority of it is comprised of residential homes and those people pay the most in ad valorem compared to the local businesses.

Our city is not just about business but it is about the people who live here whose tax money is being directed towards cultural redevelopment (an art community) who perhaps could be better served in their own neighborhoods by eradicating slum and blight. Perhaps then, businesses would want to come to Lake Worth. With Peter Meyerhoefer, a former business owner in our downtown and now the Chair of the local CRA, will that be his priority as he leads this Board?