Bring Commissioners out of the Trance

Comment Up

We know who is King, errr, Queen in Lake Worth. We know who rules the roost. The following is my "rant" for the day.

The problem here is that 1) the citizens get NO respect and 2) the commission gets no respect. The Commission has allowed this situation to occur so I don't have much sympathy here. The problem is, they don't even know that they are being jerked around! As someone said to me after I had left the meeting (the earliest I have ever left a meeting), "We need to bring them out of the trance."

Being committed to so many meetings, the commissioners have willingly given up important powers to the City Manager because of time constraints. Work them to death so that they become totally dependent upon the city manager for every decision many of which, I am convinced, are made out of the Sunshine during those weekly city manager/city commissioner one-on-one meetings. The Commission says, "Thank God that we have a great city manager and one who is informing us on everything." Out of sight, out of mind--something less for them to consider. This is manipulation behind the scenes and I still challenge whether or not this is a Sunshine Law violation--acting as a conduit. Naturally, I never got the city attorney to answer that one. If it were 100% legal, don't you think that she would have said so and put me in my place?

This past November, we elected a whole new majority in Congress to make the changes that we, the people, knew had to be made--major cuts to the budget as well as eliminate all the little things, all the waste, the pork. Our national government is heading towards bankruptcy and the new Congress just reduced the Budget by $1 billion. It was budgeted but they said "no."

Last night, the Commission passed $764,821 budgeted items that were on Consent. They gave Becky Mattey, Utilities Director, her membership fee to FMEA in the tune of $34,000 without blinking an eye. It was budgeted so why not? No one challenged whether or not these orders on the Consent Agenda were over the Contract, nor did they challenge the cost or whether they were even necessities. The City Manager said that they were and that is enough. Do you remember Boyer? What about Baldwin? Waiver of bids occurred with frequency and so did cost over-rides.

On several occasions, the city has announced that we will have a $4.5 million dollar short-fall this year to operate our City. Don't you think it just common sense TO STOP THE BLEEDING and say "no" to nonsense. The public does not buy the excuse, "Well, it's budgeted."

Everything is less transparent for the public; we are the pests in the eyes of Staff. We no longer have the condensed version of public commentary in the Minutes. We now have to buy a CD and listen to the audio. This saves the city clerk time who is having more and more difficulty doing her job that she has always been able to do in the past for $90,000 a year. What has happened lately that the public now has to go through hoops to get what they deserve? Our comments are not important so why bother?

The City no longer subscribes to Muni-Code and all new Ordinances are listed to the right of the Code on-line where you have to scroll down to possibly find what you are seeking...all for a $7,600 a year savings. Is this really cost-effective? The only savings is to the city clerk who no longer has to do that aspect of her job. Backup documents to the Agenda are now inputed differently...too much time for the clerk to be efficient even on this regard or to make things accessible to the Public, a public that doesn't count in any way, shape or form.

The public has been sacrificed and I ask you why do you want to put up with it?

The Commission gave away its right to control Contracts and now the City Manager's signature must be on all signed Contracts before they become official. She no longer has to even give offers presented to the City to the Commission to evaluate. Luckily the Commission had the good sense to insist that all offers to Lease the Casino be presented to them. Why just these offers Commissioners? You willingly gave away your power.

Commissioner Maxwell when querying an expenditure for the Casino ground breaking said, "That's a lot of money to put a shovel in the ground and pop a can of Sprite." Words are fun but we want action. If we didn't have the Freedom of Information Act you can bet any amount of money that the public would NEVER get information from the City of Lake Worth.

The only thing transparent within our city government is the lack of it.