Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Last Night's City Commission Meeting - You Can't Help Stupid

Comment Up
I stayed until 11pm without speaking on any agenda item other than public commentary. I really felt that after the City changed its set-up on downloading the back-up and supporting documentation for agenda items, that it didn't give a flying flip.

The City forced the public to download 1/2 gigabytes of backup. Do you know how huge that is? It is unbelievable to me that the City would force us to download any file at any time that is that massive. Not only does it put stress on their Server should many try to download at the same time, but it is totally unreasonable to ask the public to do this. I am not that bored with my life to sit here for over an hour and 15 minutes to download a document, and once having done this, look at graphics that are sideways on the page. The IT Director should know better.

The excuse given was that it was their Firewall. Does anyone believe that? It is some cost saving time "efficiency" for someone on staff.

I listened at home until close to Midnight. That was it for me. I love dogs. I was a dog owner for 40 years. Discussing where they should be walked for another two hours is really insane. If owners don't pick up after their pets, then slap them with a huge fine or put them on a leash and send them to a puppy mill, I don't care. The Commission did enact an Ordinance prohibiting Puppy Mills in Lake Worth. Good move.

The exclusive broker contract with Compass Realty on our Casino was put back on the agenda for discussion from the last meeting in order to make changes. Compass' client list consists of national corporations (chains) and something we do not want at our Casino. Going into the discussion, I thought for sure that they would rescind the Contract and go out on an RFP. The Mayor said that he already executed the Contract but not one Commissioner challenged that as a final action. You have to wonder if anyone read the Contract, even the Mayor. The Commission has the right to bring it back at the next regular meeting so executing the Contract was pre-mature, AND, this one is important, the Contract says that it can be terminated "upon five (5) days prior written notice of termination by the CITY to Broker without cause. WITHOUT CAUSE! Somehow they are going to incorporate these changes in work-orders. The best thing that came out of this discussion was the insistence from Commissioner McVoy that the city manager bring forth all offers to Lease at our Casino for Commission consideration. They recently gave away that power to the city manager just a short time ago. She no longer even has to inform them of any Contract. You do end up scratching your head.

I left the meeting before REG, Life is Beautiful Michael Singer, and the gang got to defend themselves on their Casino and beach redevelopment design. Thank God there will be no Jungle Jim for Suzie Q but bike racks seem to be a priority. They all believe that hoards of people ride their bikes to the beach instead of wanting easy upper level access to park their cars and taking away "anywhere" decal parking--two things that most all of us want other than Greg Rice who thinks we should love the exercise walking up the dune. You didn't change your mind on that did you Greg? Cement sidewalks (a cheaper alternative?) are still unattractive compared to pavers and I don't care what you say.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I attended the meeting last night and the place was packed. There were people hanging out all over the place. Someone even brought a little baby who is learning to crawl and scream. Not sure what they were there for other than allowing dogs to be on all our park property. Dogs and illegals rein in our city.

Anonymous said...

Just tried to download feb 1 agenda. the city has not corrected the problem. I doubt if they will.

Anonymous said...

Why is it so hard to solve. Why can't the city just have one designated dog park and have a dog run like most states/cities have all fenced in and allow dogs to run only in that fenced in dog run and be on a leash otherwise in this one park in our city. We need to stop all this madness. People and dogs are out of control, so many people let their dogs run free in Bryant Park now, although it says they need to be on a leash, their dogs might be friendly, but it is scary and intimidating to see dogs running free when you go to the park, you do not know if they are friendly or will act out. The city needs to be stricter about all these dog laws and make the dog owners take responsibility. Have a dog run and one dog park designation only, if the city wants to clean up the dog run, great, otherwise make the dog owners keep it clean, since they want this to begin with.

Anonymous said...

What about Maxwell being his normal pain in the butt self by saying he hates to break contracts? What a bunch.