Lake Worth wants our money but not our input

Letters to the Editor
Palm Beach Post
August 23, 2014

Lake Worth 2020 needed citizen input

Today, I received a mailer “provided … by the City of Lake Worth” titled “There’s more to Lake Worth 2020 than just rebuilding our roads.”

In it a photo of a streetlight with bright blue light producing sky glow and light pollution exemplifies why on Tuesday I am voting against the $63.5 million bond measure.

This lack of attention to detail creates doubt about the city’s effort to upgrade the city’s infrastructure. Unfortunately, there was no design charrette to gather public input. To formulate a sound plan, City Hall needed to hear from citizens as to the type of infrastructure that would best serve the city and how best to pay for it.
The plan calls for replacing petroleum-based asphalt that increases the “heat island effect,” with the same paving product, which is a decidedly undesirable outcome for South Florida.

“Design by Nature” principles, such as “native plant swales” to manage water runoff, filter pollutants and increase rainwater infiltration, have not been incorporated into the plan and no design review was undertaken by the city to use “context sensitive solutions” to evaluate how streets can become “complete streets.”

Accepting the 2020 plan as is will put Lake Worth at a competitive disadvantage with cities such as West Palm Beach and Delray Beach for decades to come.

RICHARD STOWE
LAKE WORTH