Keeping it all in Check

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Unless you are top dog, everyone has a supervisor. With our Commission it is we the people. The City Manager reports to the Commission and I understand that she does a bang up job in that area having meetings with each Commissioner on a regular basis. She keeps them informed on what’s going on in the City. Not only that, she, thanks to citizen intervention, provides a weekly report to the citizens even though Staff moaned that it was too much work to report to their boss.

So, everything seems to be open and transparent. Why is then that the Commision can’t get accurate information from Staff in order to make the correct decisions? Why are citizen's questions ignored? If I were a boss and got no answers or got the wrong answers or someone evaded the questions, who do you think would still be working?

In thinking over Tuesday night’s Commission meeting, certain items stand out that are worthy of mention. I will talk about three.

We already know that the Commission negotiated with PB County on the Water Contract and got them down to $4.1 million. PB County first wanted over $20 mil, then $16 mil, then $9.1 mil and finally where it ended up with threat of law suit if we didn’t agree. Still a rotten deal and PB County put the screws to us. No wonder most of the County Commission now says that they have our best interests at heart. Sure they do…no skin off their backs…they socked it to us. Thanks to Commissioner Mulevehill for not giving up as a previous Commission elected to do as well as Bill Coakley for his continued interest and support.

So, let’s go on to smaller things that have a heck of a lot of significance too. One is making money at the pool which really isn't a small thing but it is in the abstract.

It was stated that our pool needs to make money. Joe Kroll said that "no pools are making money" and indicated that even the one at Lake Lytal might have to shut down. Where did he hear that? The City Manager seemed to agree with “no pools are making money” theory because she suggested an aquatic park in place of our Olympic competitive pool, discounting the vision and why we just spent nearly one-half million dollars.

The Commission was attentive with Cara Jennings agreeing that an aquatic park would be good. There are other commissioners who are mulling over the justification of spending money that we don’t have in order to fix our pool. We have to “fix” our pool no matter what we do, unless, of course, the vision has now changed and we bulldoze it down.

When you incorporate and become a city, you agree at that point to provide certain services--police, fire rescue, street sweeping, playgrounds, etc. Not all of these services make money: The library, all of our parks, our baseball fields, the beach, the soccer fields, the Osborne Center, our golf course, roads, and street lighting as examples. We had a trolley for the elderly, the poor and the infirmed. It didn’t make money so one of the worst commissions we ever had eliminated that service.

Not everything we do as a City must be self-supporting. We pay taxes to cover all those that are not. Susan Stanton says that the pool is a liability. Our pool is no more a liability than any other service or recreation that we provide and we can turn it around to make money. Most of all, the citizens want the pool.

We have had a pool for years. I remember when it was a salt water pool. Because the pool has not been managed or marketed, it has not been sustainable. The purpose of the pool renovation and spending $425,000 was to attract national meets that could have brought in plenty of money to Lake Worth. Our businesses would be booming. Our motels and bed and breakfasts would be at capacity. Swim teams would come here to train. Perhaps it could be a motivating factor for the Gulfstream to reopen.

We all know how the pool got screwed up. Joe Kroll says now we need to pay $275,000 to fix the pool instead of his original "guesstimate" of $150,000. We just got finished “fixing” the pool. What gives? Who was in charge? Who is responsible? Why was staff not checking these things all along?

Next was Commission Liaison Reports. Scott Maxwell drifted off focus and started to challenge the City Manager regarding an audit that she is conducting on the Bryant Park Rehab program of which Joe Kroll is in charge. It seems that there were many cost over-runs on this project. Why would anyone be against an audit on a construction project? This just makes good sense and should become standard procedure on any large project. Maxwell also brought up Stanton's annual review. Our City Manager does not have a contract. Performing this job is bad enough and no one needs this sort of "political" pressure. A contract will give her peace of mind and allow her to fully concentrate and solve the magnitude of problems.

The Commission is there to keep the city manager in check. It is our job to keep the Commission in check. It is the city manager's job to keep staff in check.