Monday, July 22, 2013

The FEMA Fiasco

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It is no wonder that the public never heard about the FEMA fiasco until lately. What does a city do when they have taken money from the government in the tune of $26 million for three hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, and now FEMA wants the city to return multi millions ($8 mil now reduced to right under $4 mil) which FEMA says the city is not entitled? I wouldn’t want that to get out in the public either. Lake Worth has enough problems with its reputation as it is.

Last Tuesday night, the city gave more attention to the Fourth of July event and the raft races as well as a report from one neighborhood association than it did on one single important issue that came before the body. Having said that, not much comes before the commission these days. Their goal is to get the heck out of there by 7:30pm and never let the public know what's going on. This attitude probably reflects why the public NEVER was informed about the FEMA fiasco until management could no longer keep it under wraps.  The city management obviously had made a decision not to discuss this dirty laundry. This seems to be the method of operation on what goes on in the city as management is reluctant to talk about things unbecoming a city government or just about anything specific unless they have to. Eventually the Finance Director was given the direction to go ahead and give a full report a few weeks ago.

As previously stated, if you look over the biggest part of the FEMA claim, the utility is the culprit. This is the one area of our city where no one knows what's going on. I would imagine that management has interviewed every single employee who was working here during the three hurricanes who are still in our employ and all those who signed off on and submitted bills to FEMA—all those who made the decision to include the various materials for submittal, who approved the payroll and who determined the work schedule and levels of personnel.

If the city manager has done that in conjunction with a utility expert that he can rely on to be candid and forthcoming, someone should have been able to readily identify erroneous or even false submissions to FEMA. If he had interviewed staff even briefly, his utility expert would have been able to ascertain what the invoices were for and if they pertained to hurricane damage. We don't expect the city manager to understand what specific equipment was relative to the hurricanes, but staff at the time will know, and there lies the rub. No one is going to fess up and commit themselves to any specific known or faulty submission. It’s a disgrace, and it all started and ended at the top of management at that time.  From what a source told me, they felt that "everyone else was doing it" so it was a-okay.

They had purchased inventory items such as poles and transformers and billed them against the storms, so says a source who was there at the time. 400 poles!  I am also in copy of an invoice submitted to FEMA that was for work on the Lucerne Condo project being built at that time. My source says this had nothing to do with hurricane damage. Some claims were already paid by insurance and still submitted to FEMA. Some people believe, after reviewing the docs, that fraud was committed and some people need to go to jail. Strong stuff.

Now we have a city government and a city commission that has to deal with the ills of the past under Paul Boyer where every damn thing went missing while the city feels that they are forced to claim that no funny business took place back then in order for our city to maintain some sort of credible reputation and more importantly, stay afloat.

In reviewing the current storm plan it does not address the major issues raised by FMEA and how the current staff has put policies and procedures in place to mitigate a reoccurrence of the city’s past failures. In fact the plan is not current even though the cover page indicates it is the plan for 2013.

But just like everything else that is unpleasant, this too will be kept quiet. The city will hope their next FEMA appeal will be favorable too as the number of years that have passed since the hurricanes will be advantageous to their objective. The Commission has a moral duty to get to the bottom of it and the truth. However, this commission has showed no outrage and seems to be acting in open, undeclared, but blatant bureaucratic complacence and is going along with Staff's explanations.

11 comments:

  1. Just ONE needs to go to Jail to teach the rest a lesson - isn't that what OUR REP told US (Just TAKE ONE House to teach US) from the dais? If it is good enough for US then let's just JAIL ONE of Them and see how long that boat floats!

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  2. This commission doing what's right? You have to be joking.

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  3. You are correct on the FEMA cost to the City. The elected officials were notified in August, November and December but chose not to tell the citizens for months. Why hide the fraud.
    In regards to the budget, instead of meetings to lower and save taxes, we have play boat races. No wonder we are in trouble. The City says they have no money, yet they don't collect overdue Utility bills, code violations, sewer fees that they swept under the rug, etc.
    We need new blood to straighten this continuing mess out, enough games and ribbon cuttings.
    We tax payers will pay Millions in costs while they play games and misinform us about the problems
    Time to change, we are going the way of Detroit.
    Stealing from the Library Trust Fund, specifically written up and left for the Library for the city to raid it to operate the City is a crime. Shame on them for not knowing how to handle money.

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  4. You have to be kidding right. This commissioner is cleaning up the mess left by former commissioners.
    They have just passed 14 new regulations that will let them collect code fines. The library Trust Fund was a previous commission, the sewer charges is on your tax bill. You have such an evil heart you can stand to see anyone have fun in this damn city.

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  5. The Simpkin Trust raid can be ended right now. The above commenter was correct about the Sewer customers and you are correct that we are paying for the entire mess. Let's stop the name calling--"evil hearts" and all. Please address the FEMA subject.

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  6. Can anyone get serious about a serious subject? Is having fun what it's all about? You can have fun when this city gets out of near bankruptcy. Go out and clean up your stinking yard. Sorry, I forgot, all those new ordinances will now finally solve the problems. Almost forgot, going to sixty-five feet in our downtown will also bring vast rewards and bring in tax dollars. Oops, forgot, that tax money goes to the CRA. Sons of guns.

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  7. Who was the city manager and elected officials when all this mess was going on?
    Thank you

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  8. Paul Boyer CM
    Drautz, mayor
    Retha Lowe,
    Nadine Burns
    Mac McKinnon
    Joe Egly

    However, the commission can only go with what they are told. If the CM does not tell them what's going on, how are they to know? The commission relies on the truth, not misinformation or cover-ups.

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  9. Anonymous 4:10 p.m. . This is no Joke.The Commissioners have never said committed fraud on FEMA and how they will cure this crime. They cover up City problems as fast a cat can cover up his problem in a cat box. No talk about unfunded millions in our retirement funds. No time given to the waste of money from the CRA.or the cover up of the cost to clean up our landfill.
    We don't need people to cover up, we need people to clean up and we need change.

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  10. WHOOOAH, Wait just a minute my friends.. Let me take another point of view here.

    FEMA is NOTORIOUS for doing damage to local city governments after an emergency. They have been doing it all over the country. FEMA represents the Federal government, and just like the IRS targeting, they will target what they want to gain political and stragegic edge, or property.

    Lake Worth remains fairly independent from the county. This means that we can get ourselves solvent without giving our city over to the county and thus, to the larger "grid".

    We have our own parks, our own utility, our own water without fluoride and the likes, our own power over our own stuff. We don't have smart meters which hurt children and make utility bills skyrocket. They want to take ALL that from us and make us part of the county. Piece by piece if they have to. Make no mistake about it.

    FEMA has NO business having ANYTHING to say about how we run our city. NONE. In fact, its probably illegal.

    This is a minor debt to Lake Worth. They need to hire a fantastic legal team that is not in bed with FEMA back door, and defend the city like people with the "big pants" on.

    And then, continue to deal with OUR utility, making it responsible more and more, and THINK TWICE when the government comes to offer help. This is what happens more than not. Especially now.

    Detroit was all about stealing the pensions.

    Remember when Rodney and Reetha used to tell us we couldn't have our tax dollars, collected by special referendum from the county (with specific promises... someone could go to jail over that one...) unless we matched the money? Pure lies and deceit.

    This is more of the same crap. But the city better shape up or much will be stolen from the unsuspecting... And you wouldn't like the kind of city that would come after that, too late...

    Mary B.

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  11. Fema is not targeting Lake wroth. They gave us 26 million dollars and we padded bills. They are trying to get their money back or I should say, other people's money back. Paleeeeze. Is it ok to take money that you are not entitle to? Sounds like why our country is in dire straits.

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