Demographically speaking, Greenacres is nearly the same as Lake Worth. Their average citizen's income is a little higher than Lake Worth's. The major difference is that they don't have their own Utility as we do that substantially helps subsidize our operations to the tune of $9 mil a year. The Lake Worth Utility was one of the justifications that City manager Bornstein gave as to why our commission deserves to double their salary. I doubt if one of them can answer how much one kilowatt of power costs.
Back in 2012:
Greenacres: Mayor: $12,600; council members: $11,100. No allowance for car or cellphone.
Lake Worth: Mayor: $15,400; commissioners: $14,400. City cellphone or $1,200 allowance.
Tuesday night our commission voted in a raise for themselves which now will be:
Mayor: $29,500 plus $6,000 car allowance for a total of $35,500.
Commission: $24,500 plus $6,000 car allowance for a total of $30,500.
Back in 2012, Scott Maxwell believed that he should work for no salary and had said
this on more than one occasion. And he might have something there as
meetings are much shorter now and tons of items are thrown onto the Consent Agenda. Take Tuesday night as an example--$1,650,000 was on the consent Agenda with zero discussion.
Commissioner McVoy asked to pull two of the items off the consent Agenda for discussion but the Trio, consisting of Maxwell, Triolo and Amoroso would not second a motion to do so. Commissioner McVoy represents this city and it is bully behavior by this commission not to recognize a legitimate request. Those two items alone came to $163 thousand but it wasn't the cost that bothered him but the Mayor receiving a $300 campaign contribution from one of the sub-contractors, Sharon Merchant. We would not have known about it unless McVoy mentioned it.
Sec. 2-101. - Additional and
supplemental disclosures requirements.
Any elected official of the City of
Lake Worth, who is a current sitting member of the city commission and has
accepted an election campaign contribution in an amount that is more
than one hundred dollars ($100.00) from an individual or business entity having
an interest in a matter before the city commission in which the city commission
will take action, must publicly disclose, both verbally and in writing, such
contribution prior to any discussion or vote on the matter. The written
disclosure must be submitted to the city clerk.
