Let us Remember our History

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Letter to the Editor writer Joanne Kelly said, "Let us remember our history." Mrs. Kelly was speaking about past commissioners, who in her mind, made some historical and good decisions for Lake Worth.

I believe in remembering our history. We can learn from it. I believe in concentrating on the positive as Ms. Kelly has done but frankly, I don't remember a whole lot of good from some of the commissioners she wrote about. It is always the bad stuff that lingers, many of which haunt us to this day. When ending relationships there are always very good reasons. Even the mention of Rodney Romano failed to say that he was voted out of office because he was just too close to and supported a favored developer who wanted to build condos at Old Bridge Park, something the people did not want.

First credit was given for the new downtown Publix to the CRA and to State Rep Jeff Clemens, our former mayor. What was left out of her letter was that the CRA doled out our money like candy by giving Publix, a billion dollar corporation, 1/2 million dollars of taxpayer money, a magnanimous gesture that was uncalled for and not asked for by Publix. Publix was going to build there regardless.

Next, the Gateway project was mentioned giving credit to Jeff Clemens and the CRA again. She failed to say that it cost us $15 million dollars for developer friends to get rich. We ended up with some pavers and some skinny trees and the CRA is struggling to pay the loan. The idea to spend all of this money was to attract development to the City. This was a failed pipe dream of the CRA, Jeff Clemens, and those on the Commission back then, one of the worst commissions ever.

She said that Jeff worked with the County to get the Snook Island boardwalk into existence. Perhaps so; who knows? Clemens was Mayor from 2007 to 2009 and the Snook Island project was completed in 2005. The boardwalk along with a fishing pier, floating docks and kayak launch just started in April of this year and Vice Mayor Suzanne Mulvehill had a lot to do with that.

Total credit for the beach redevelopment was given to former mayor Rene Varela which is far from the truth. In actuality, Cara Jennings was the leader in this endeavor. The only thing that Rene Varela brought to the table was Michael Singer (that cost us much more money) and Varelas' vote to proceed.

Mrs. Kelly is a member of the Lake Worth Democratic Club where several Officers and Directors of that club didn't even support Democrat Varela in his first run for office but instead supported a Republican. They did the same thing this year when they supported Tom Ramiccio, a Republican. As an officer/director of the Lake Worth Democratic Club, the most dysfunctional political club around these parts, this is contrary to the oath they swore to uphold.

Everyone brings something to the table; there is always something a commissioner did that was beneficial for the city, like falling asleep at the dais. That helped a lot. However, we also must remember that many of the commissioners that were mentioned in this article were either inept, corrupt or just made some horrible decisions for Lake Worth that we are paying for to this day and for years to come.

So looking at a few good things is dandy but the historical facts support costly and detrimental decisions from those who were cited in this Letter to the Editor that allowed our city to get to where it is today--at last we have a new, progressive commission that is finally leading us out of the messes of the past. Standing independent of the city manager is all that I ask from them.