Beachgoer writes Letter to the Editor

Palm Beach Post
Letters to the Editor
May 11, 2011

$2 an hour an outrage for locals who support beach

I am responding with disgust to the May 6 article, "Lake Worth beachgoers will pay more to park." Lake Worth Beach has been my favorite beach for the past 20 years. I thought it was expensive at $1 per hour. When it rose to $1.50 per hour, I was miffed. With Lake Worth Beach being the most littered beach in Palm Beach County I thought maybe the extra money would pay for more garbage bins, or for an officer to actually ticket beachgoers too lazy to walk their trash to the garbage bins. It didn't. Now our wonderful city commissioners are going to raise it to $2 per hour. This is ridiculous. Who can afford that? Certainly not the average beachgoer.

The burden of $2 per hour will fall on the daily and weekly beachgoers, not the people who visit once or twice a year. Are the commissioners targeting the tourists who will pay anything to go to the beach while on vacation? I feel the city commissioners are going to out-price the actual local beachgoers who support the beach on a daily and weekly basis. And if we do not have enough money, then why are they replacing perfectly good working meters with new ones? Couldn't that money be used to pay for the lifeguards?

Something seems fishy here, and $2 per hour is just plain wrong. If our city leaders are trying to scare away the locals who support the beach daily, then they are succeeding.

CAMILLE DORAN

West Palm Beach