To all those who continue to come over here and call me the most horrible of names, I want to tell you that, yes, we are happy. We are happy that we put you off from building 20 additional feet in our downtown. We are happy that we derailed and turned over the 100 feet west of Dixie to A Street, a section of town that will now be relegated to 3 stories and a section that is surrounded by single family homes. We are all for growth at 4 stories and welcome any developer who wants to build within the Charter that now reflects the majority's desires who were not tricked by deceptive campaign material of the development crowd.
An anonymous poster, a reasonable one with his own views said, "The days of sleepy little beach towns in south Florida are far in the past." We disagree and there are many examples of small cities that are extremely prosperous, that will remain small and retain their character, reasons why people visit them and spend their money. I called someone on election day and she was in Key West which reminded me of just another example of a beautiful sleepy but vibrant town.
This anonymous commenter also said that we, by winning, were just delaying the "inevitable." We disagree again unless we simply roll over and allow the development crowd to hijack our city. It is true; they have much more money and much more influence but the fight is over, for the moment. This NO crowd has been trying for the past 15 years to hand over our city on a silver platter to developers, from the beach to our downtown. We encourage development and suggest they begin with the Dixie corridors that have been blighted for far too long.
Why you rallied so hard and so bitterly and so dishonestly for 20 more feet is the mystery. If you look at our downtown, many of the buildings are one and two stories. You kicked the former Planning & Zoning board to its knees that agreed that 45 feet would remain. The Historic Preservation Board agreed to this. The city commission agreed as well. You changed the comprehensive Plan from 45 feet to 65 feet by the flick of your Bic and a group formed a PAC saying, okay, that is unacceptable and went out on a referendum under the most stressful of conditions to have the people vote on this most important issue for Lake Worth that has been a small city for 100 years. You did everything to delay the vote and stall the people and it cost this city money. You are now in office for 4 extra months and we worry about the damage from your future decisions that could bring harm to the residents and Lake Worth over this next year.
This commenter also said, "Lake Worth, in the not to distant future, will be forced to compete economically with the rest of Palm Beach County, or it will die." 20 feet is not the catalyst here to our success and prosperity. Good leadership and fulfilling the desires of the people are. We have everything going for us here in Lake Worth to be the most successful city on the east coast. A small, boutique, four story hotel is highly encouraged by all of us who said that we want to maintain our small town charm. It's time that this city commission listen to the people.
Lynn, I bought a place here in 197 because we like this small town. This same issue has been going on all these years. I am happy that you won. I can't vote here as I am a snowbird, but I admire all that you accomplished fighting the most horrendous lies against you. Congrats.
ReplyDeleteAnd the overwhelming majority of those who came here did so to enjoy the small town feeling that has disappeared from much of the rest of the state, country, and world because of overdevelopment, much of which takes away skylines with height.
ReplyDeleteThey also did not come to have to vote regularly to protect it as can be seen from the low turnout.
Thank you Lynn and the Respectful Planning PAC for all that you did to preserve what we cherish about Lake Worth by getting out the vote against all the NO people distortions and lies.
That's true. Their message should have been, We are for 6 story buildings. They are for 4 story buildings. Vote yes or No. They might have had a good reason to vote no but people saw past it all because of the tricks, dirty ones at that. Instead, they all lied to achieve an end. These are the types of people we don't need running our city. We deserve so much better.
ReplyDeleteI bought a small cottage in 1999 and I took a risk buying in Lake Worth (some people said I was loopy) but I loved the feel of the town, the historic buildings, the mix of people, the mix of cultures, the walkability, the quirkiness.
ReplyDeleteI do feel like every few years we are fighting the same fights again. First it was over the beach, which I think is now down, now its over tall buildings. Most people who participated in the planning sessions for our comprehensive plan did not want tall buildings, and its distressing to see those citizen plans overturned by special interests.