"We need to take back our City" - Lake Worth

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With property values dropping like a rock, Lake Worth's fell more than any other city in Palm Beach County. We have just too many homes that are non-occupied by owners. Until we can clean up the crime, the blight and once again allow home owners to feel pride in the place where they live, we will continue to have this problem. If taxes and fees continue to escalate, it will be devastating for our goal of achieving economic prosperity here in Lake Worth. We are already one of the highest taxed cities in Palm Beach County.

The Financial Advisory Board met last night and we got an earful on our financial state of affairs. We all know our budget is full of doom and gloom. As City Manager Stanton said, “We need to get back to the tools of government that city management has given away. We need to get it under control.”

Through the years, Staff has made some horrendous decisions that set us up for failure and where we are today—bad, one-sided Union contracts that are the main cause of our economic collapse. The Unions came in, asked for it; got it; and we all sat back and said, “yes, we made our employees happy; the Unions are happy; we will all have one happy little City. We never had anyone negotiating for the City of Lake Worth nor did we ever have anyone in management say, “no.” We never saved money during the years of prosperity but spent it all. Staff brought forth horrible ideas that past Commissions voted on. We have had missing millions of dollars and no accountability...missing copper wire worth a fortune. There were no controls on anything. The Utility is still a mystery and the biggest part of our budget and NO one knows anything about it.

Today, because of a decade where everything was done wrong or nothing was done at all, we gave away the farm to the Unions. We essentially “mismanaged prosperity” said Vice Chair John Pickett. Susan Stanton admitted that all the bad decisions were Staff decisions and referred to them as “legacy mistakes.”

Right now, the Unions have ignored the City’s request to bargain. If they refuse to sit down at the bargaining table, the following will occur:

1. Big lay-offs.
2. less services
3. higher assessments and more “creative” ways to tax us
4. thus higher ad valorem

If you recall, the City got creative last year and are contemplating it once again by throwing the police costs over on our tax bill as they know that they will be way above the 10 mil cap stipulated by law if the Unions don't budge.

As the biggest component of our budget is tied up in public safety involving Unions that really run this City, we can, as member Bill Thrasher suggested, “define the level of service that we have...contract our own fire department through Metro Rule and form our own police department again." I have always said that it was a management problem when we over-reacted and went with PBSO.

If we do not reduce Union pensions, etc. by $4 million, the City will have to take drastic action. The proposed Budget will come out on June 8 and we must reduce the cost of our city government. It was mentioned last night that we need to determine the “right battle.” This one is clearly defined: it is the Union. We have one year of “burn rate” before we are financially out and have to close our doors.

As goal # 2 of the City Commission is to have a balanced budget, I don't want to see it off the backs of the taxpayers of Lake Worth because our Unions will not step up and do the right thing during the worst financial crisis ever in Lake Worth. Let's "take back our city" and get very aggressive as far as things we need to do. If we don't, it is all over; it's that simple.