Citizen's Advisory Committee - Bond Referendum

The purpose of this committee is to review all expenditures from the bond proceeds (40 million) for improving local roadways and eliminating potholes in the City. Ord. No. 2016-47 – effective October 15, 2016, a fourteen-member committee was created composed of seven members of the City’s Finance Advisory Board and seven members, two members selected by the Mayor and two members to be selected by the Vice Mayor and one member selected by each City Commissioner.

After attending Monday night's meeting, you would never know what their mission is.

The meeting began 24 minutes late at 7:24pm. I only stayed for 20 minutes as I had attended the Finance Advisory Board meeting prior to that. The back-up was impossible to discern as it gave project numbers and districts but did not identity the streets. There was no way to tell if the work to date was over or under budget.

The committee did not get the agenda or their back-up documents until Monday morning (the day of the meeting), insufficient time to study it. A motion was made by Kathleen McGiveron to post-pone the meeting to a time certain in order to give all the committee members time to analyze the information.. The motion failed as many members wanted to hear staff's presentation anyway as they had given up their time to be there.

Originally when this committee was formed, all members of the FAB automatically became members of this new committee. The Bond Committee meeting began with member Tom Copeland attempting to lead the meeting. As Richard Guercio had been fired from the Finance Advisory  Board (he learned about it by watching the city commission online) for supposedly having a board meeting out of the sunshine, he felt that he was still on the Bond Committee (which is a separate committee) as chair and took over the meeting saying that his appointment would be decided at the commission meeting on Tuesday.

Last night at the city commission meeting, Richard Guercio and Katie McGiveron both spoke about the Advisory Bond Committee, both having the same complaint--no documentation given to them in a timely fashion. As this is a most important board consisting of appointees by city commissioners to watch over expenditures of taxpayer money, there needs to be better communication between staff and committee members.

Mr. Guercio has not been notified whether he is also fired from the Bond Committee or if he is still Chair.  His name has been deleted from the Lake Worth web site as a member but no one from the City has officially contacted him.. And last night, Glen Torcivia never uttered a word. about the subject.  Is Mr. Guercio to assume he is or isn't on this committee?  Is this the way to treat volunteers?