Lake Worth's 2020 - Hell or High Water - Going with the odds

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Sign built on taxpayer money to "sell" the LW 2020 plan?

Does it say on the sign "Paid political advertisement?" Is the city registered as a political action committee... do they have to promote the "fors" and the "against" when it comes to a ballot initiative? When I talk about the "against," I am talking about the term and the cost of the debt.

First of all folks, it's a 'vision' filled with dogged tenacity by this commission and if you disagree, the odds are you will be ostracized. The odds are stacked against you on any initiative put forward by a local government  because most of them pass. Even when the voters WON an election in 2013 and told them what we thought, our politicians told us to drop dead using tax dollars and the city's legal department to come up with a law that was signed three months after the election that reverted back to 2011.

This commission is betting on their vision by playing the odds. They need your cash. The city needs the cash even more. Winning is all in the strategy and in the language and on top of all of that, the city has the money to spend on its success...your tax dollars working against you, if you will.  Even though our highly informed residents in Lake Worth know we need some road improvements, they are wondering if we need $63.2 million worth right now for a bond that really costs $131 million.. Do we really need to vote them ALL this money at once? I believe that the majority of the electorate is being very cautious regarding this huge debt along with its term. They know it's so much more than the cost of a hamburger. Stupid, we're not.

The one thing that the city did do throughout this process, was change some of the numbers, some of the strategy.  They learned through their mistakes and listened to the criticism that they were getting from their political friends. The rest of us, forget about it.  The one thing that all of us learned throughout the process is that the bond referendum is going forward in August, hell or high water.  This could possibly be the lowest turn-out in history for a vote of this magnitude but it's anyone's guess.

The city is counting on low turn-out and therefore they have reached out to those who always take an interest in what's going on. They have appealed to demographic areas that need roads by erecting signs. They have conducted community meetings where a possible 200 people total turned out all over the city in order to spread their word. They know that very few people ever turn out for meetings and are apathetic but they can say, in all good conscience, we held the meetings for all who were interested--we did our bit.

Many in our community don't read the daily newspaper nor do they go to the Lake Worth web site and have no idea that they soon could be in more million dollar debt with a tax increase for 30 years.  The city is urging their political cronies to spread their word throughout the community and are hoping for their help to bring the vote home. They, more than likely, have even come down hard on the local media to go softer on Lake Worth when reporting the dilapidated houses, the slum and the blight and to give them a break. You can witness this on Channel 12 as its direction has changed. It's the "poor Lake Worth" syndrome..."give them a break; they are trying." Through these probable and likely appeals, they have stifled the press and have received a positive editorial from the Palm Beach Post.

Everything is going their way...they are appealing to the pot-hole mentality not the long-term consequences of tremendous debt--living on ad-valorem taxes of $5,646,125. There is no more time for them to answer the hard questions if they even knew the answers.