Elected Officials

Comment Up

Revelation #1: It does not matter who sits on the Commission. I used to think it did as we had so many devastating decisions from past commissions. Now that we have this commission in place, it is obviously evident that the City Manager has total control. It's as if she has taken over their minds. None of them are thinking independently and I am not even sure that Maxwell is an exception. He did go along with the stupid assessment which is now even more stupid than when first presented.

If this trend continues, we will get new people sitting up there; we always do--but nothing will change; it never does.

I am so discouraged right about now. No one listens. NO one returns phone calls. I wouldn't be surprised if my e-mail goes straight to spam. Does anyone get a reply to an e-mail? This was a commission that I thought really cared about the residents, all of them, not just a few.

If commissioners don't respond to the public they serve but are only up there to raise taxes and do really stupid things, then what in heck is this all about? All the reasons for which we get involved in politics are a waste of time. Why do any of us bother when everything we considered logical is getting more muddied and confusing every day.

Revelation #2: Special assessments are one of the ways a local government may collect money to pay for local improvements. A special assessment is a charge imposed on real property to help pay for a local improvement that benefits the property. That is the purpose for which it came about. The Legislature declared simply that cities had broad home rule authority to do whatever was necessary to carry out municipal purposes. (§ 166.021, FLA. STAT.) When the question returned to the courts, the Florida Supreme Court bowed to the Legislature's will.

In the case of Lake Worth, we have department heads dreaming up ways to special assess so that they can beef up their department. All of our special assessments do not improve our property unless you use a bogus argument that, yes, without garbage collection, our property values would go down. Without paying for fire pension costs, our property value might go down. Wrong. Fire/Rescue and garbage collection must be provided and they should be charged on our property tax bill and we pay according to what our property is worth less our exemptions provided by Florida law.

Until the Commission can learn what the word "fair" means and become intellectually honest instead of conforming to the city manager's established rule of what is fair and honest, then we are all doomed. Until they realize that all special assessments are about grabbing the cash based on nothing fair nor equal, we will be punished for the bad decisions that they have made that got us to where we are today. The only fair way to tax a property is by its value.

If the City had not pissed away and wasted money, we would not be in this pickle. $1.72 for pensions for every $1.00 we pay in Union payroll is what did it...bad Union contracts as well as the City squandering money. Now we all have to pay a special assessment that the city manager has sold as fair when it isn't. It is only the poor paying a much larger percentage of their income to get what should be a service but in this case it is paying for fire pensions as well as circumventing advalorem taxes.

And the biggest problem with all of this is that this will not be the end. This is only the beginning. The City of Lake Worth has Florida law on its side. The poor will get a whole lot poorer in a city already plagued by falling property values, 11% unemployment, foreclosures on the rise and a whole lot of waste from City Hall. Expect special assessments to continue as it drives out businesses and the working family.