Historic Preservation board meeting

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I attended the Historic Preservation Board last night. I can't make a judgment from one meeting but  my impression was that the HRPB and more than likely the P&Z members are not the ones changing the face of our city as I had thought--it is staff.  When you think about it, that has been true of our city commission as well.  There is little discussion, if any, on anything that appears on an agenda...another reason why the meetings are so short.

Under Public Hearings 3--
HRPB Project Number 13-00100228: Consideration of a request for local historic landmark designation for the subject property located at 1105 2nd Avenue South; PCN# 38-43-44-21-15-079-0170.

This is fine and dandy but the legal notice as published in the Lake Worth Herald on October 24th is STILL descriptively wrong. The boundaries of the property are incorrect and this is not a minor error. See page 10 of the back-up.

The reason for this designation is because of the city's lease of the building to the Living Arts Foundation, Inc. and it had asked staff to spend many hours to support an historic designation more than likely to make it easy for government grants, otherwise, why bother? Kelly Christensen, Preservation planner, did a great job. The National Register of Historic Places does not have a grant program. However, Heritage Preservation Services (a different division of the National Park Service, Cultural Resources Program) does have a tax credit program that may be of assistance. The website for the tax credit program is: NPS government. Additionally, sometimes State historic preservation offices may have state run programs that could help. Also see Florida Statutes.

Per Florida Statutes, an error in the notice placed in a newspaper or on the statewide website (they have to do both by law) shall be considered a harmless error and proper legal notice requirements shall be considered met if the notice published in the newspaper is correct.  Our legal notice was incorrect. A legal description of a property is more important than its physical location.  Legal descriptions, as the name implies, are the way and means by which real property, or real estate, is legally identified, conveyed, assessed and taxed.

And to paraphrase the former Richard Daly when he said, "Report what I mean, not what I say," the response from the city attorney was that the CORRECT legal notice will be published prior to it coming before the city commission. Although with a legal description wrong by 5 blocks, it is "sufficient" in their eyes because they meant to get it right...the physical address and the PCN number were right.  But, they had plenty of time to correct it.  They didn't. Apparently an incorrect legal description of the property coming before the Historical Resource Planning board is "no biggie"...A-OK and they feel the public was properly noticed. I would bet that a legal challenge could be made here.

So, in essence, Lake Worth made a "boo boo," and one they consider unimportant.

Q: Since when is something so wrong, so right?  A: It was a legal opinion that happened in Lake Worth. “Your opinions are your symptoms,” as said by Tom Stoppard, author.