Twisted Vision

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I guess we all have vision. In politics it is just more mumbo jumbo for an excuse to do what you want to do. In my personal case, it is more like "hope" to age in good health, body and mind.

The best vision anyone could possibly have would be to follow the Golden Rule. A key element of the Golden Rule is that a person attempting to live by this rule treats all people with consideration, not just members of his or her in-group. In the recent firing of the city manager, the "rule" was lost in translation because Susan Stanton was not treated justly nor do I believe was she treated ethically. The new commission kept hearing "fire the witch" from the Dirty Dozen, their loud supporters.

Does power get in the way of the "rule?" Often times it does. We read about people everyday who have gained some power and have turned around and ripped off the system or have voted in a way that is unrepresentative of all of the people--personal visions get in the way. They don't take the time to understand any other point of view. They don't care.

We know that we can not trust many politicians. They say one thing to get elected and then turn right around in 3 weeks and vote to do something totally ridiculous that cost the taxpayers a heck of a lot of money. They always said that they would give the city manager a chance to go along with their directives.

If you can't trust your preacher, who can you trust? We all remember Obama's preacher, Jeremiah Wright, the preacher who hates "whitey." We grew to despise him for saying, "God Bless America. No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating our citizens as less than human." He had a weird vision and he's still preaching racism when the rest of us have been over that for 50 years.

Now we have churches into the act of grabbing the cash and I'm not talking about the collection plate. Redemptive Life Urban Initiatives an arm of the Redemptive Life Fellowship Church, is under investigation for having a vision to grab the cash and put it in their pockets. HUD money in the amount of $1.6 million was used to build 22 houses in the Coleman Park area. Think about that a minute. 22 houses for $1.6 million comes out to $72,727 a house. Not bad.

In June, HUD ordered the city of West Palm Beach to repay over a million dollars where much of it went to the Blue Roof program where no bids were sought. Redemptive Life has paid $2.2 million to various directors, employees and companies without properly documenting the transactions. The preacher man, Bishop Harold Ray, who has surrounded himself around celebrities, just hired celebrity lawyer Willie Gary because West Palm Beach has ordered Ray to return $1.1 million in monies that were not properly administered.

Our very own CRA got $23 million in a HUD grant to build $130 houses. Do the math. The are having all sorts of fun figuring out where to spend it next. Funding here in Lake Worth will be primarily used to purchase, rehabilitate and demolish foreclosed homes within the City of Lake Worth so says the CRA. They are building houses on these itsy, bitsy lots of 25 feet in the hood mind you. Some funding will also be available to provide homebuyer counseling, "green" maintenance says the CRA. We are attracting the poor to our city...just what we need. That will really turn the city around as well as our tax base.

This new commission is backed by those who just love the CRA and spending money. So, it can't be that vision that they want to change...starving artists and poor people. What is this new vision?

On December 20, this visionary commission will be voting on moving forward (oh, that's something else they are telling us of late that they want to do), to vote on the uniform method of collecting non-advalorem special assessments so just in case they want to special assess all of us next year, all their ducks will be in a row. Isn't that vision just a little twisted?

The Mayor just said that she has her own vision...that people are still angry and there was so much mistrust still in the community...her justification to can the city manager. I thought her vision was to stop the fire assessment, ensure that an independent auditor be hired (that was approved by the former commission), fix outdated infrastructure to prevent outages at our Utility (that's already in the CIP that the former Commission approved) . She further talked about her vision and the vision of those who joined her along the way...those who voted for her.

I don't mean to single out the Mayor here, personally I like her, but she was the swing vote to fire the city manager. As you represent all of the people Mayor, just keep the number in mind--222--all those others who did not come to the polls or did not vote for you have some sort of vision too and they aren't coming up to the lectern every other week spitting out fire and brimstone.