The Camel's Back - What is Breaking Lake Worth

Besides overwhelming BLIGHT, the Unions take the prize

Palm Beach County wants a 13.4% increase in the property tax rate. As City Manager, Susan Stanton worries about our budget, what can we expect in Lake Worth?

Our property values are down again for the 2nd year in a row...a whopping amount of 25%. According to a recent article in the Post, Mayor Rene Varela blames Lake Worth's sinking values on years of neglect of its water and electric utilities, roads, sidewalks and the sewer system. "Infrastructure is the backbone we need to grow," Varela said. "We're sorely lacking in it."

The above is what's causing property values to drop

We have endured all of that but the worst offender, besides the Unions, is the gross neglect by property owners and blatant contempt for our code, allowing properties to become blighted beyond belief. In many parts of our city, it looks like a Third World country. This is not from bad roads or broken sidewalks. The lack of code enforcement by the City, with no teeth, contributed and exacerbated the problem to where we are today--having the distinction of being the city in Palm Beach County with the biggest drop in property value.

The City allowed properties to deteriorate to a level that caused homeowners to move out of town, selling their houses if possible but mostly forced to rent them out for anything they could get to whomever they could rent to, illegal or not, in this down market. Infrastructure is fine but it does not solve the deadbeat property owner who looks the other way to blight just because he doesn't want to spend the money it takes to own it. City code must be adhered and the process must be accelerated. Management is the problem. Being poor is no excuse for the gross neglect of property in the City of Lake Worth.

The next problem was the City staff itself. We allowed city assets to fall into the same disarray. Staff did not do its job thus causing the City millions upon millions of dollars. There was no oversight from past city managers. They just assumed staff was doing the job. They were not. Management has been the problem.

Our Budget will soon be presented and we will learn that the Unions won't even talk about it. They are holding steadfast to their contracts and negotiations do not seem to be in the picture. The Mayor says that sidewalks, infrastructure and sewer upgrades plus public safety "will eventually turn around our falling taxable value, increase our quality of life and provide a safety net against future economic declines." It might just do that in the long-term but right now it is the blight and it is the Unions and we can't afford the premium "public safety"--never could.

The decision to go with the Palm Beach County Sheriff and allowing our Fire/Rescue to go with them as well, are decisions breaking the camel's back. Fire Rescue now wants the County to raise its sales tax by one cent to pay for their raises, etc.

Until we solve the problem and actually do something about the contemptuous neglect by those property owners and their disrespect to our laws and ordinances thus bringing down our values, nothing is going to change. Until we do something about the unreasonable demands by our three Unions during these hard financial times as well as our bad decision to go with PBSO, sidewalks and all that other stuff will not matter.