Crime and Code in Lake Worth

Crime 33460

If you click on the above link from Crime Reports and then type in 33460, you will see all of the crime in Lake Worth from theft, to robbery to assault, you name it, from the period beginning May 10 through May 24.

It is great that our PBSO, a top organization that we can not afford (and never could) has a magnificent public relations team and is interacting with and "snowing" the neighborhood associations. They can fly to Haiti and their response time, when a crime has been called in, is quick. Facts remain that we still have a lot of crime in this city that is, in my estimation, a direct cause of property value decline (another 23% this year). Blighted neighborhoods attract the criminal and others to this city. We enact ordinances allowing cooking facilities for motels on Federal that will only encourage more of these people. We ARE the problem.

Houses need owner occupancy. We need tougher code compliance. It is difficult to digest at every commission meeting that a property has been coded for 3 years and finally the owner has done something to fix it up and then you go to a special magistrate meeting and all of the fines disappear.

We cut our Code Department and created another bureaucracy that shows residents how to be more energy efficient. This is budgeted at $1 million. And we are paying for this every month on our electric bill as an additional tax. This is money that should be going towards code enforcement. Even Commissioner Maxwell took advantage of the program. Stanton was to have another Plan when she eliminated half our Code Department and started this Conservation Program. Surely this can't be it. This is an unnecessary department and information on energy efficiency can simply go out in a pamphlet with our electric bill.

Susan Stanton has directed Wayne Bergman to put on a Power Point presentation at every meeting so that we will all feel like something is actually getting better. Let's appease the sheep. Why does this code process have to take so long? Why can't we get these people to pay fines? Why do they always seem to get amnesty from the City of Lake Worth?

Does any other city around here look this bad? We finally have the eyesore on N "A" and 3rd Ave N demolished. How many years has this taken?

There used to be a Typical Code Complaint Process on the City's web site. It showed the process from the original complaint to the final disposition. It was revealing and shocking. It has been removed. In fact, many things have been removed from this "updated" Web site, another story.

Top 10 Code Violations