Jeff Clemens candidate for House District 89

Well let’s see—what does Jeff Clemens have going for himself?

He has youth. He has charm. He has personality. He is a good public speaker. He is what every politician would desire to be--good looking, friendly and persuasive. He knows what to say and has learned not to elaborate too much on issues where he has little or no knowledge. And he has a total lack of understanding as to why in heck he’s in political office.

While in Lake Worth he managed to:

• Continue the support of the flim flam man and Greater Bay take-over of our beach property for 20 plus years, causing citizen initiatives and law suits.
  

• Wanted to demolish the Casino building even though it was structurally sound making way for his developer "friends."

• Voted for The Mentoring Center thus attracting more illegal aliens into our City.

• Pushed for the multi-million dollar 40 year PB County Water deal fiasco after we had already spent multi-millions on our Reverse Osmosis System.

• Voted NO to even resolve it.

• Gave away our valuable waste water.

• Did not know anything about our Utility.

• Voted to keep us in FMPA.

• Voted to give away our golf course to a management company.

• Said that the employee whistleblowers were “liars.”

• Voted to allow Sun Recycling on our landfill, thus reclamation was over, wasting multi-millions of dollars already spent closing it.
  

• Voted no to the Commission taking over the corrupt CRA.

• Says he’s ok with Mojito’s staying opened until 5am...not the least bit sympathetic to the residents.
  

• Left the Dais right before the vote on the Sunset parcel to repeal the Ordinance on the property.

• Voted for Michael Singer plan to re-design parking lots at our beach for $5 million, taking away unlimited resident decal parking spaces.
  

• Voted to raise fees and taxes across the Board instead of reducing waste.
  

• Says that we didn’t give $500,000 to Publix; they are using it for infrastructure.

• Voted NO on adopting the Comprehensive Plan.

• Voted NO on Contract for temporary purchase of West Palm Beach water because he didn’t like the taste. Then votes to spend $21 million of our money unnecessarily and votes to burn $14 million dollars we have already put into our own Reverse Osmosis System.

• Dissolved our police department that had been in existence since 1913 under pressure of his friends and went with the PBSO, an expensive service that we cannot afford.

• Dissolved our Fire Department believing that it would save us money. It didn't.
  

• Sat on Pension Boards that were allowed to get totally out of control.

• Was dictatorial as Mayor…would not even allow the public to clap in the commission chamber.

• Voted against an ethics policy saying he didn't want to decide ethics from the Dais.

• Voted to keep on City Attorney Larry Karns, the one responsible for bad contracts.
  

• Voted to give away our Senior Center to Compass for $1,000 a year.

• While on the CRA, sold one of our downtown parking lots to an investor buddy for $545,000 and then forced the city to buy another lot for over $1 million.

• Also while on the CRA, voted to spend over $15 million dollars on 6th Avenue South and 10th Avenue North, a debt we are paying off at $1 million a year.

• An elderly member of Lake Worth's Pioneer Family who was born here, moved out of town because of abuse from Clemens while on the Dais, stating that Lake Worth has changed for the worst.
  

• Total lack of oversight that helped escalate our City into its present financial crisis.

There is so much more, but this gives you an overview on some of the decisions made by Jeff Clemens, running for State Representative District 89.

Last year, Jeff Clemens came in first in the polling on this Blog as the top Screw Up of 2009.

I have always said, Clemens has the best chance of winning for all the wrong reasons. The Palm Beach Post editorial just pushed that along today when it endorsed him for House District 89. All we can do is hope that Jeff Clemens has learned from all his mistakes rather than perfecting them as he advances in his political career. But Lake Worth has to live with the consequences of his votes for years to come.