Appeals Court gives Trump the win

Eighth Circuit hands Trump administration a major win on ICE detention without bond

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a Minnesota district court on Wednesday and ruled that illegal immigrants detained by ICE do not have a right to bond hearings during removal proceedings, the second federal appellate court in a month to back the Trump administration's detention authority.

The split decision out of St. Louis struck down a lower court's habeas corpus order that had freed a Mexican national named Joaquin Herrera Avila, who was picked up by deportation officers in Minneapolis.

The ruling lands squarely in the middle of a legal war over whether the government can hold illegal immigrants without bond while their cases proceed, a question central to the president's mass deportation strategy.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called it a "massive court victory against activist judges and for President Trump's law and order agenda," as reported by Fox News Digital.

The court held that Avila fell under a category of the Immigration and Nationality Act that does not require bond hearings.

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Letitia James sought political vengeance against Trump

Letitia James got blindsided by this defeat that could cost her everything

New York Attorney General Letitia James thought she was on the precipice of delivering the death blow to Donald Trump’s financial empire.

But a last-minute development turned James’ case upside down.

And Letitia James got blindsided by this defeat that could cost her everything.

A New York appeals court greatly reduced the $464 million bond Trump had to pay to prevent James from collecting on the judgment imposed by Democrat Judge Arthur Engoron in her civil fraud lawsuit James filed against the Trump organization.

James couldn’t find any evidence of criminal activity nor could James find any victims claiming Trump defrauded them.

The point of such a large judgment was to put Trump out of business knowing no company would loan the money for such a large bond allowing James to seize and sell off Trump properties.

And to the lib who attempted to post here saying Jon Stewart's case is different from Trump's, NO it is NOT.

Read about the AG from hell

Lake Worth $52 million Utility Bond issuance

City Commission Meeting Tonight, April 19th, 6pm

Commissioner McVoy: "This meeting will have us decide if we're moving forward with the $52 Million Utility services bond (Resolution No. 24-2022 – Authorizing the Issuance of Series 2022 Consolidated Utility Bonds.) Most of this bond would go to our electric utility ($40 Million) and the rest to the water and sewer utilities.

The debt servicing on this bond will be nearly $3 Million a year."

AGENDA DATE: April 19, 2022 DEPARTMENT: Electric Utility, Water & Sewer Utility, Financial Services

TITLE:
Resolution No. 24-2022 – Authorizing the Issuance of Series 2022 Consolidated Utility Bonds

SUMMARY:
Resolution No. 24-2022 sets out the specific terms of the proposed Series 2022 Consolidated Utility Bonds.

BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION: The City’s electric, water and sewer utilities each have capital improvement needs based on the capital improvement plans for each utility. Some projects go back many years as the City was unable to properly fund and execute a consistent and appropriate infrastructure replacement and rebuilding program. While there have been great strides in each utility to do more to invest in infrastructure projects, there is still much left to address in order to assure utility services continue without significant threat of failure now and into the future. By issuing bonds pledged against revenues the City will be able to make the required investments into the utility infrastructure to insure safe, consistent and efficient operations for the customers.

Rittenhouse's next legal action may be former lawyers

The fight for the bond money

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Lake Worth (Beach) is broke

Blaming it on added expenses because of the coronavirus (according to the city manager), the entire commission voted to borrow $10 to $20 million to keep the city afloat.

The reasons to borrow:
(a) The City faces an unprecedented and temporary strain on its finances due to the financial impacts of the COVID -19 pandemic.
(b) It is vital to the citizens of the City that basic city services continue to be provided.
(c) The City desires to incur short-term Obligations to continue to fund essential City services as a “Project” vital to the needs of citizens of the City.

Commissioner Hardy interjected BS politics into the meeting when he said, that like businesses and individuals, state and local governments are in fierce need of their own stimulus. He criticized Florida Sen. Rick Scott for “politicizing” requests from states seeking federal help for coronavirus relief. "The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion aid package on May 15 to help state and local governments, but its been dismissed by the Republican-controlled Senate," he said.

Then the Palm Beach Post thought it was a good idea to mention the political party of a few of our commissioners even though this is supposed to be a non-partisan commission. Of course, we know it isn't...not with Robinson and especially Hardy on the dais. But then there is Maxwell who approves of spending and spending more and more and getting us deeper in debt which is not a Republican trait.

Read about it...

Let's figure out how to cut spending instead of more debt. And please explain how we will pay this money back.

Lake Worth Special Meeting tonight--Financing Scheme

Special City Commission Meeting tonight

The League of Cities did a survey and found that 96% of cities are seeing budget shortfalls due to unanticipated revenue declines, which are a result of lost revenue sources from services such as permitting fees, utility fees and sales taxes. Lake Worth is no exception. We just had a dust-up that went viral a few months ago about customers not paying Lake Worth Utilities.

So, the commission will vote to consider a financing plan to provide for the temporary funding of reserves for cash flow deficits brought on by the financial impact upon the City of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ORDINANCE 2020-04

(a) The City faces an unprecedented and temporary strain on its finances due to the financial impacts of the COVID -19 pandemic.
(b) It is vital to the citizens of the City that basic city services continue to be provided.
(c) The City desires to incur short-term Obligations to continue to fund essential City services as a “Project” vital to the needs of citizens of the City.

In the explanation, the City says:

Dependent on the borrowing process, the principle being considered is between $10 to $20 million thereby providing opportunity to fund capital projects. The annual debt service, interest payment, for each $10 million at 3% is $300,000, which will be allocated between each fund based on its use of proceeds. Additionally, I would recommend creating a sinking fund if the debt is structured with a balloon payment. This would equal $1million per year also allocated by fund.

Directly following this meeting, a workshop has been called to discuss vacation rentals, business licenses, and an update of the Independence Day celebration.

The Lake Worth Beach Redevelopment Project - A history

During the candidate forums, it was mentioned by the mayor that "we almost lost the $6 million for the beach redevelopment.," or words similar, insinuating that a former commission really dropped the ball. Actually, the former commission saved the day for our beach rehab.

To give you a little background on the money that we received from Palm Beach County for our beach rehab project, is as follows:

If you all remember, we were going through a recession in this country and it hit Lake Worth very hard. Property values plummeted but we still had to run this city. Severe measures were taken to cut costs. The Great Recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, which makes it the longest recession since World War II. 

On October 17, 2006, the County commission approved an Interlocal Agreement for the Lake Worth Beach Redevelopment Project in an amount not to exceed $5,000,000 from the Recreational and Cultural Bond that passed on November 5, 2002. It was to be matched by Lake Worth with $3,620,800 from the City of Lake Worth.

On October 16, 2009, four months after the recession ended, the agreement lapsed as we had not commenced the project and we no longer had the matching funds. We were still struggling to crawl out of a hole. Then four days later, the County discussed the conditions under which it would consider entering into a new project agreement. Our former city manager along with a few of our commissioners worked it out and it was agreed that there would be no matching funds requirement. Thanks to Cara Jennings, we got to keep some of our decal parking spaces. And the rest was history.

The only bad thing about it is the fact that we are obligated to the County until February 1, 2040 at which time Lake Worth will be able to call the shots on its own beach.