The Poll is now over and the results were interesting to the point that we STILL have a division in the City on what we feel important, or do we? If 15 people out of 42 thought that Cara Jennings was the biggest screw-up, then it would stand to reason that the rest of the majority Commission consisting of Golden and Mulvehill would have received more votes. Instead, we have Jeff Clemens as the top and Cara Jennings tied at 2nd place divided by 14%—two people on the other side of the political spectrum. So, it was about other things that we all consider important. All in all, Clemens, with Jennings, Lowe and the CRA tieing for 2nd place, taking the top spots for Screw-Ups 2009.
Last year the R word was tossed around a lot. We had Retha calling people "racist." We had Cara calling people "racist." We had other commissioners denying that they were "racist." We had a candidate for Mayor calling all of us "racist." It really was like a yo yo. A slur that originally was offensive became comical.
THE WINNER
1. Jeff Clemens--47%. I thought that Jeff Clemens would be much farther ahead of the rest as the top screw up of 2009 but 14% is significant. If you take into consideration, dollar for dollar, all the millions that he cost the City of Lake Worth and all the bad decisions that now have resulted in a few law suits or agreements yet to be settled, he is by far the worst-- Greater Bay, the 40 year PB County Water deal fiasco, giving away our valuable waste water, not knowing that we had our own generation, eliminating our Police and merging with the Sheriff with NO thought to the high cost of service or how we were going to pay for it, his desire to dismantle our City after being a City for nearly 100 years and wanting to silence the public. I can’t see how anyone else has come close. Near the end, he did vote for Casino restoration and reversing the Sunset Ordinance. His vision was shortsighted in many ways when it came to Lake Worth and he voted for the benefit of his own political career—he was going to run for a State level position and needed to massage the County and certain contributors at the expense of the City he served.
2. Cara Jennings--33%. Even if you want to blame Cara Jennings on the entire Third World locating to Lake Worth, (that has not happened yet!) Jeff Clemens also voted for The Mentoring Center, his “solution” to the illegal alien problem. She does her own research and takes an analytical approach and tries to be fiscally responsible. She can debate with the best of them. When she is thinking about the overall welfare of the City and not her own personal agenda, she is TOPS. About the biggest screw ups of Commissioner Jennings this year were 1) Michael Singer and redesigning our beach parking lots wasting $5 million and losing control to the County for 30 years 2) saying that it was the will of the people when it came to the beach design when she knew perfectly well that less than 200 “green” friends of hers decided on the plan 3) calling Scott Maxwell a “racist” and her threat to boycott a local business 4) getting herself arrested and 5) catering to the illegals. Not cool. Her refusal to recite the Pledge still bugs me.
3. Retha Lowe--33%. should have been right up there with Jeff but she got a few less votes because everyone knows that she was a lackey. Not only did she look to Dave Vespo for guidance, after he was defeated, she relied on Jeff. She relied on Loretta who incited her and she was easily convinced by her supporters who knew they could always count on her vote. She seemed to always be on the 3 to 2 vote against the best interests of the City. Even after she gave commentary leading you to believe that she had a grasp of the situation, she voted with the majority. It was always amazing. She cared about her immediate neighborhood but failed them when it came to the landfill. She did vote against the Compass and Shuffleboard leases which had nothing to do with protecting the Seniors and nothing to do with racism. No one out of her neighborhood ever heard from her—she never returned calls and never answered e-mails. She always showed up for the Martin Luther King Walk but you never really saw her anywhere else. She thought all the rest of us "racists" even going so far as to label Commissioner Jennings and Commissioner Mulvehill as such. She got in trouble with The Ethics Commission and had to pay $2,500. Besides her one-liners, there was something about Retha that was likeable...just not her decisions.4. CRA--33%. Placing it on the back burner, the CRA put aside its mission years ago, and the culture continued even with the latest Director-- eliminating slum and blight. I no longer even find that purpose on its web site. The corruption and bad decisions were exposed and several members were replaced. It is still paying for the bad decision regarding The Lucerne. We can't forget the Pugh property. But following course, the TIF money is being spent on the possible attraction of downtown development by allocating $500,000 to Publix, $250,000 to the PB Cultural Alliance and $700,000 to the Cultural Redevelopment vision. It spends nearly $1 million a year on principle and interest on The Gateways. There is no money left over for anything much less slum and blight. This is a Board that has been a developer's dream. It caters to the merchants at the expense of the neighborhoods that pay the majority of taxes.
5. Susan Stanton--30%. took on a big job when she agreed to be our City Manager as we are a City in crisis--lots of money going out, less coming in and assets/funds missing. Her biggest obstacles/faults are 1) not knowing who to trust 2) controlling information and manipulating the Commission behind the scenes 3) fired some employees who told the truth and retained some who didn’t 4) wants to out-source just about everything and 5) no understanding of our Utility. She has been here for 8 months now and we are hoping (praying?) that she will figure it all out and not think too much about the politics.
6. Rene Varela--21%. was a surprise to come in as the 6th biggest screw-up out of 9 as he has only been in office for one month. It was the dolphin trafficking I guess. He really should not have denied it and should have condemned it and disassociated himself from Ocean Embassy. He didn't. Instead, he made excuses and lied from the beginning. No more lame excuses from our elected officials. No one believed you Mayor...not a good start. Sunday's Sun Sentinel says he is one of the top 20 in PB County to watch in 2010 (right up there along with Kevin McCarthy) and says that Varela will have ample time to stake his claim as a municipal leader. It also mentioned something about our "mal-functioning" electric utility. I wonder where they got that idea? Does he still want to "re-tool" it? Don't forget, it was Jeff Clemens who convinced him to run and he does have higher political ambitions. We will take the Sun Sentinel's advice--we will be watching him.
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8. Scott Maxwell--11%. was near the bottom of the list. There are still a couple of people that believe him to be a "racist," their favorite mud-slinger, when you disagree with them. Maybe next year he will be right up there at the top if he continues to listen to some of his mentors. He has attempted to make his supporters proud. We hope that he will evolve into his own skin and not get "jerked around" like Retha. We expect good things from Scott.
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