City Commission Meeting

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This was another City Commission from hell. Most of the back-up was missing. Whoever thinks it is perfectly A-OK to put six presentations on the Agenda is out of their tree. Although each presentation is supposed to be 10 minutes, they undoubtedly last much longer particularly when you have a city commission that asks question after question..."gee, I love to talk." We all in the public had to sit through these for one and one-half hours of complete boredom.

We have Mock Roos sitting there for 1.5 hours before he got to speak on two contracts being awarded to him, one in the amount of $51,800 for design and inspection services to the 2nd Avenue North water quality baffle box installation. Does anyone know what a baffle box is? And the other in the amount of $$35,800 for a site investigation and the impact of Sun Recycling’s dumping of RSM on our landfill. I have no idea what he makes per hour but it is ridiculous if we are paying Biggs to sit there while we discuss Haiti Relief efforts or listening to Mary Brandenburg for one half hour.

The Commission had an opportunity to bring back the Down To Earth vote for reconsideration. They didn't. The Mayor said that well, West Palm Beach thought they did the right thing or some sort of words of wisdom to that affect. Gosh. A couple of the principals did some bad deeds one even going to prison. Why would we want to get in bed with any shady people? It's that smell of money and the smell of "green" that really drives some of this Commission and it stinks.

Back in 2004, the City Commission headed by then Mayor Rodney Romano and commissioners, Burns, McKinnon, Lowe and Egly, passed an Ordinance 02-2004 on a 5/0 vote that said that current immigration laws, policies and enforcement do not appear to be meeting the security or economic needs of the American people. It said that it was an unfair tax burden on citizens and businesses and mentioning over-crowding, costs to the public, exploitation and that we needed to “fix the current immigration mess.” It went on to say that “farm owners and other stakeholders should receive some sort of immunity from prosecution as an incentive to come to the table and work on realistic solutions.”

They gave amnesty to those employers who were hiring illegal aliens. This was and still is against U.S. Law. I said it last night and I firmly believe that this was the start of what has now lead up to Lake Worth becoming a “sanctuary city” and being lenient on United States immigration laws. This is why we have possibly one-half of our city now occupied by illegal aliens...slum, blight, crime, gangs, you name it.

The 2004 Commission went round and round about the word “illegal” and with the word “alien.” Commissioner Nadine Burns asked that “undocumented aliens” be changed to “undocumented workers.” Romano wanted it changed to “undocumented residents.” They were all trying to be politically correct instead of calling a spade a spade. And this is why every time I use the word illegal alien, Commissioner Golden corrects me because of this Resolution.

Javier DelSol was still, in 2004, talking about erasing all borders. Other citizens talked about massacres forcing out the Guatemalans from their country with another open border advocate saying that we should make undocumented residents feel welcome. Loretta Sharpe asked for a clarification of “farmholders and stakeholders.” She supported the resolution and asked the City to request that the County provide decent housing. She asked the City to provide soccer fields and pave unimproved alleys to provide basketball courts. Are you surprised?

Although our city is in dire need of street repairs and perhaps even sidewalk repairs, to vote on a 5/0 to spend $1,045,782.50 (I just love that 50 cents) with the vast amount being spent on Auburn and Harvard Drives in College Park is irresponsible when you consider that it has been announced that we have a $2.7 million budget deficit and that our property receipts will be down over $1.2 million for this year. This vote was about politics, not principles.

When people suggest to me that we should be de-annexed back to Palm Beach County, I can’t help but believe that they might have something there.