Well, not really. Bernie is in prison for scamming people with dreams of making tons of money. He took them for a ride at a tune of $65 billion. We don’t have scams of this magnitude but we are taken for a ride almost on a yearly basis.
Why do we allow ourselves to get involved in these “money making schemes?” We are desperate and we need money and we are not alone. A vast majority of cities throughout the country are in the same boat. Smart people get scammed every day and believe that any possible source of revenue must be good. It’s not just Lake Worth.
When times are tough, the scam artists multiply and the City continues to open itself up to be stepped on and abused and taken advantage of over and over again. We can never rise from it. Staff presents proposals from vendors (salesmen) and accept all of it as gospel and we say, “Wow,” what a great idea and seldom is there any supporting documentation from anywhere--EVER-- other than from the guy coming into town wanting to take our money, selling Staff on a pipe dream that we might make—wow--$1.4 million or thereabouts (there is never any back-up on-line) on red light cameras as an example, when the proposed Budget estimates us making $100,000.
We expect Staff to bring us the facts of the matter. They don’t. Any stupid salesman can come into our city with a scheme. We need to be protected. We need to be protected from Staff that presents it to a City Commission that relies on facts and professional judgment. They vote and get us into big trouble. The FAB several months ago said it did not want vendors making presentations. So, instead, now we have Staff making presentations for them.
This is the same sort of thing that got us into the mess with Greater Bay. This is what sold us down the garden path with the Billboard Mafia. We never got the $2.310 million from them. They continued to sue us for one thing or another and we eventually settled for $765,000 less than the Contract. And we have this blight for 20 years because we fell in love with the potential of $$$ versus sense.
As Dee McNamara said last night, Florida is the SCAM capital of the country and she probably isn’t that far off.
If anyone from Staff comes to the Commission or to the Financial Advisory Board, please have all of the facts—do the homework—do the research—call the Better Business Bureau at least. Do not rely on sales pitches presented by salesmen that want to take our money for a service that will mostly be to their benefit, not ours.
Red light cameras, Money over Sense
Keep speed trap van off road
And the idea of parking stations in the five downtown parking lots is a terrible idea...that's another blog.
1 comment:
Lynn is exactly right. More scam artists laughing all the way to the bank while the taxpayers have to live with the results. How are those BILLBOARDS working out for everybody ?!?
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