Saturday, July 6, 2013

Empty stores causing blighted conditions in Lake Worth

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Message from John Rinaldi, Planning & Zoning Chair to our city Commission and City Manager

Colleen and I were walking downtown last night and noticed that we have a number of empty stores with windows covered with nothing or brown paper.  This looks really sad and adds to the blight we are trying to improve. Many cities including Palm Beach, require that the owners put up some type of decorative window covering so that the empty stores look better. I also see this in malls and City Place.

I hope that we could do something similar and change our laws to require some form of store window covering when a store is empty. We need to do this as fast as possible. As a suggestion, windows could have coverings that depict scenes in Lake Worth such as our beach building, parks, pier, Snook Islands, golf course, Street Painting and more.

This is an easy fix that I hope you will consider. If I can help in any way, let me know.

John
Sabal Palm House Bed and Breakfast

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is a disgrace. Why isn't Andy amarosa doing something about this/ Doesn't he rule the downtown?

John Rinaldi said...

I spoke with Andy today and he has been trying very hard to work with the CRA to encourage the owners of these stores to cover their windows. They are working on it but the owners are objecting to the cost of some of these window coverings which could exceed $500. Perhaps we could get local artists to display their work in the shop windows at no cost to the owners. There has to be a solution that will help the city and the downtown look great without a high cost. If anyone has any ideas send them to the commission. I would also like to say that Commissioner Amarosa is one of the hardest working commissioners I have know. He is doing so much behind the scenes to make many of our downtown events a success. It's not easy folks especially when you own your own business and time is a priority.

Anonymous said...

our business would like to get paid what is owed us by the Tiki Hut, before they spend $$ blocking out their window.

Anonymous said...

Instead of bitching 1:06 on a blog, go see Andy. Help out, do something. If you notice a lot of complaining goes on this blog but little in the solution dept.

Lynn Anderson said...

If there was anyone who wanted our downtown to look pristine, it would be Commissioner Amoroso.

Anonymous said...

It's not up to me a private citizen to clean up the damn city. So I'll bitch all that I want. Have you gone to Andy and asked to clean up the crap? I see trash, empty bottles, cigarettes and crap all over the place.

Anonymous said...

When you hear that we have to take back our city it means pitch in and get your hands dirty. Yes 4:37 until this city turns around financially and hires more maintenance staff, we have to shoulder the slack. Yes I talked to Andy and found out neighborhood asoc. have frequent clean ups. I signed up. Even two or three hours a month is a big help. Venting may make you feel good but volunteering will make you feel great.

Anonymous said...

How ironic that the readers/commenters of this blog are the same group that was fighting for the height restrictions and you all kept calling the city "charming" and that the downtown was fine the way it was.
Now only a few short months later, that would be 8 months for Joanne Golden you're yapping about the blight. You must feel like a bunch of fools, or it must be a wonderful thing to be revisionist and unable to remember anything you posted 8 months ago.

Lynn Anderson said...

Sounds like Wes? Thanks for your input--it's always a joy and a joke! :)

John said...

This was a height referendum,dummy, not the fact that people throw their cigarette butts on the ground. Quaint has nothing to do with tall buildings. Go back over to that other blog and reinvent history. You love to make up sh*&. You're full of it.

Anonymous said...

8:20 your writing, meaning and who you were talking to are intelligible. Thats you John.

Anonymous said...

I wrote soemthing about your attacker, Wes Blackman and yu didn't psot it. How come?

Lynn Anderson said...

Sorry. The one thing that I will not tolerate are personal attacks on fellow bloggers. You can say what you want on any other public figure but keep it clean.
Mr. Blackman chooses to personally attack me at every chance he can get. This is the ONLY way he can get attention, that and being a revisionist. :)

Carol said...

Thanks, Lynn. I stopped going over there a long time ago. His blog is nothing but BS and more BS. He pretends that others are writing the BS but much of it is his BS. What a guy.

Lynn Anderson said...

Carol--some will say your comment is a personal attack on another blogger. I believe that it is truthful and therefore it stays in this particular instance. However, what someone writes or his opinion can be commented upon when it differs from yours or the facts of the matter, just not the comments saying a person is an overgrown jerk, over weight...fat, stupid, or using descriptives to denigrate another...you get the picture. Calling someone a bully blogger is 100% acceptable to me in this instance as well. :)

Anonymous said...

The Broken Window Theory:
the central theme of broken windows theory holds that when neighborhoods appear to be broken down, disordered, and generally unfriendly, they serve as a magnet to delinquent behavior and crime. This is essentially to say that communities that lack in any sense of social cohesion and mutual interest witness a significantly higher risk of criminality.

Anonymous said...

10:59 eloquent words. reminds me of the words, those that cannot do, teach. a lot of blame on this blog, but no remedies. elect qualified people would be a start. who i hear may run is quite discouraging. our neighborhood is very vigilant on keeping blight and crime out. we did it by organizing and communicating with the city. you will just get nowhere with personal attacks and threatening lawsuits. attack me, fine, i will retreat to my well maintained property and when asked,help where people help themselves.

Lynn Anderson said...

We elect officials to come up with the remedies, anonymous.
As far as a law suit is concerned, if you won an election and the opposition came up with some excuse to overturn the vote, would you just sit there and say, "thank you?"
I haven't heard about anyone running and that IS a pity. There sure are a lot of guesses from some and they are all erroneous. Suzanne Mulvehill, who by the way was one of our best and constantly attacked on that other blog, is going back to Romania to teach.

Anonymous said...

mam, i served on the citizen board of a large city. citizens come up with the remedies and city gov. performs the logistics. peaceful negotiations, in my experience, face to face, get much more accomplished than lawsuits. again, in my experience personal attacks stop any progress.

Anonymous said...

The DDA in the city of West Palm Beach has just started a program for empty buildigs in the downtown called I believe Pop-UP galleries. Where local artist display their work for a weekend each month. These are sponsored by local business organizations with the hope of bringing more art and people to the downtown. The first of the summer was very successful and there are two more to come thru july and august. Check them out.