Construction on 10th Avenue North I-95 Interchange

I-95 Interchange Improvements at 10th Avenue North

Construction on this 0.579-mile project will begin Monday, November 2, 2015, in the City of Lake Worth. Work consists of widening 10th Avenue North, from Barnett Drive to “A” Street, including roadway approaches and bridges over I-95 and the railroad tracks to provide dual eastbound turn lanes onto I-95, widening the I-95 northbound entrance ramp to receive the newly constructed dual eastbound left turn lanes, and widening the existing three-lane I-95 southbound exit ramp to four lanes to provide dual left and dual right turns.

Other improvements include utility relocation, bridge construction, installation of barrier walls, curbs, sidewalks, guardrail, drainage, overhead signs, signing and pavement markings, signals, lighting, and retaining walls. This is the third of five interchange improvement projects throughout Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The combined project cost for all five projects is an estimated $32.5 million.

Work is being performed by Community Asphalt Corp. and is expected to be completed summer 2017. For more information, please contact Andrea Pacini, 561-214-3358.

James E. Addison

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In Memory

James E. Addison

Kevin's father, Jimmy Addison, was a lovely man who cared deeply about Lake Worth. He had lived here most of his life. A graduate of Lake Worth High in 1953, he came to all of the fundraising events and was a lifetime member of the Alumni Association.

I learned he passed yesterday. He was in Hospice care and living with his daughter in Atlantis. Occasionally he would speak in front of the city commission, walking slowly to the lectern. One memory I have of him was when he was talking in front of the Clemens commission after the CRA had spent $5.8 million dollars on 6th Avenue South in order to attract development. The Gateways were Clemen's claim to fame when he was chair of the CRA. Mr. Addison said that the road looked like sh*t.  He was immediately ejected from the meeting.

But he never was ejected from the hearts and minds of his friends who cared about and loved him. He will be greatly missed.

Man killed crossing 6th Avenue South and the CRA

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We knew it would happen; it was just a matter of time.

A bicyclist attempted to go from the sidewalk to the median on Sixth Avenue South and E Street in order to cross the road and was hit by a west-bound vehicle and killed.

There are no stop lights on this street between A and Dixie. There are no pedestrian walkways from one side of the street to the other.  There is a 35 mph speed limit and in most cases, drivers do obey the law. But it is a dangerous street for pedestrians and drivers alike.Children walk across this street daily coming and going from school. To get to the other side of the street is often a challenge.  This time a life was lost.

The CRA, that used taxpayer money in the tune of $5.8 million, ($15 million in all) has always blamed this pedestrian unfriendly stretch of road on 6th Avenue South as the Department of Transportation's fault for not putting in cross walks and stop lights. It was the CRA's desire to have this corridor "pedestrian friendly" or so they said then and continue to say now. Walkways across 6th Avenue were not installed because of "drug dealers" hanging out in that area it was said. The CRA expected Mixed-Use development to begin on the Gateways (6th Avenue South and 10th Avenue North) and wanted the traffic to flow smoothly.

Until free money came along from the government to build more affordable houses, the CRA bragged that the Gateways was their number one and greatest achievement. I  believe they are still paying the loan. So far, nothing has been developed on either street even though the commission keeps harping on development and growth for Lake Worth and playing the political blame game.

Our Pool is a "Bastard!"

High school and college competitive swimming is 25 yards. To envision this, think of lanes going across on the width on the above photo, not the length as shown. For international swim competitions, they swim 50 meters which is the length of our new pool.

Tonight the commission will be voting to approve a contract with Lincoln Equipment for a pool cover. Pugh Pools, the guys who originally screwed it up, was one of the bidders. Our contract with Greater Bay (the company that is suing us) provided for a removable pool cover with two reels; they gave us some "bubble wrap."

Joe Kroll, Public Services Director, says that having a pool cover will enhance the marketing opportunities to pursue agreements with local and out of state college swim teams. Yes, a pool cover will certainly help retain the heat, however, Joe Kroll and Cory O'Gorman were told the truth about this entire design on several occasions while the pool was being redesigned but no one listened. They were told where to go for information. No one bothered because if they had, they would have known that we were heading for a non-standard pool and that we were getting a pool cover that would not do the job and all of this would limit the City from ever attracting competitive meets.

According to an authority on pools, our new pool is a “bastard” pool. For it to be a competitive pool, the swim lanes must be marked side by side. Our lanes are separated by a diving section. No one checked on this design and according to my source, they were told. Cory O’Gorman, the project manager, never was there when the City signed off on the pool. To this day it was done incorrectly; some pumps have to be replaced, they never got automatic timers and the two battery operated time clocks do NOT work. These are the wrong mechanisms for a competitive swim pool. We paid for work that was either not up to our expectations or never done.

At the time, they should have known what would have attracted a national swimming meet because that was the intention--national swim meets that would bring in revenue. If they didn’t, then they should have found out. Afterall, it did end up costing $450,000. That is why we hired a project manager to oversee our interests. According to my source, instead of 8 lanes that are not contiguous, they should have installed 10, side-by-side lanes each with automatic timers.

I listened to a talk show last night and the host said, "once we make decisions, let them go--let's see how they work out." He was talking about the Gateways and that some of us out here have totally missed the mark--implying that we have no vision for the future because now with our spending $15 million on two roads, (money bonded out with no taxpayer vote, something the CRA can do) we will be ready for the recovery. In other words, he was saying that we are all just plain "visionless" or living in the past.

These road projects were decided when the economy was thriving and had nothing to do with a recovery. How do you ever justify this sort of debt with no guarantees? Is that sort of like gambling with tax dollars, something that governments do well. Let's push it through, we can't pay for it but we just have to have it. Gambling on the "Field of Dreams?" Now that heights are limited to 35 feet, we are forced to see how "it works out."

I have never prescribed to that cliche, "the decision has been made, let's move on." It's another one we hear all the time in Lake Worth..."let's move forward." Bad decisions are made all of the time and they have cost this city millions of dollars. We pay Staff and a City Manager to make the right decisions and we elect officials to do the same. How many officials in PB County went to prison? To say, "Oh, well, let's see how it works out" is no solution. Do we tell a criminal that? Sweeping things under the rug is something Lake Worth does. These costly mistakes should be pointed out over and over again so that hopefully they will never be repeated. A bad decision was to hire Greater Bay and we are still paying for that mistake. The good news is, our pool design can be rectified but it will cost us.

So tonight, we are voting to spend another $27,000 on something that should have been done correctly in the first place. This is just another example of out-sourcing and its short-comings. It is another example of staff not checking the facts. It is an example of a project manager not looking after our interests. Staff recommended and allowed us to get involved with Greater Bay, a company with NO experience in beachfront restorations and certainly a company with no pool experience--a company that didn't even have to provide plans and specifications for the pool renovation--a company that hired a sub-contractor that owed the city thousands of dollars in code violations. Will we ever learn?

Gateway Dedication

10th Avenue North under construction
Photo 8-27-09

Usually when you want to feel better about yourself, you go out and have a pedicure, a manicure or perhaps a new hair-do…something within your budget. Not the City of Lake Worth. It spends $15 million dollars without blinking an eye on two streets to attract development.

Today at 1:30pm at 10^th Avenue North and N E Streets will be the dedication of the northern gateway to our city. When you tell people that tax money of $8.8 million went into this street, the answer is from those who spent it, “no it wasn't, it was TIF money.” At least that is an answer I got. Whatever you want to call it folks, it is one heck of a lot of money for a street and a former city commission approved it.

$8.8 million was spent on 10^th Avenue north and $5.7 million was spent on 6^th Avenue South. Former Mayor Clemens likes to brag that the CRA was under budget on 6^th…probably those puny trees they planted and no pedestrian crosswalks. The CRA took out a long term bond to pay for this and now spends $1 million a year on the principal and interest to pay it off—this is YOUR money, or it WAS. Now it belongs to a street—a street for developers who may or may not come. You can’t cross the street unless you want to get killed in the process. Neither roads are what you would call pedestrian friendly for the very ones who actually paid for them.

So today we will hear people clapping and cheering, a press release expounding on Lake Worth’s accomplishment. I hope the developers read it. The cheers will be for the decorative street lights, brick walkways and let’s not forget the pedestrian benches, a street that will not have too many pedestrians. They will have all forgotten the $15 million dollar debt. Money is NO object in this city unless it is to take away a trolley for the aged, poor and handicapped. Past officials, Nadine or Jeff will probably head up the cheerleading squad, who knows. I hope that they cheer loudly enough to wake up the dead because that’s what has happened to development, not only here but everywhere.

Build higher where it is appropriate

In the City of Lake Worth it is always the guy looking to make a buck. The developers and those who love them are struggling to regain their control of Lake Worth. They honestly believe that building higher is the answer to our problems. Building high on the Gateways will make Lake Worth better they say. Better for whom? Their pocketbooks?

Some candidates want to go back to the Romano regime when there was a growth vision for Lake Worth and they are doing everything behind the scenes to assure that their pro-development candidates are elected in November. I wish there was just one person willing to tackle the slum and the blight throughout our City. Building higher will not do that. I wish that there was just one person stating that we need to hire a marketing firm to attract businesses to Lake Worth.

Ask yourself, do we want another Lucerne built in our downtown? Our strategy on height and density is all in our Comprehensive Plan and should be controlled there. Smart growth is coordinated there. This is what Commissioner Jennings wants to do tonight.

Developers do not care what our city looks like. All they want to do is build out, build high with as little setbacks as they can get away with. Also, they don't want to even consider the impact on our resources such as water, sewer, electricity and roads. Generally, constructing higher buildings will yield more tax revenue but even with our downtown now, we have a lot of empty storefronts and a lot of empty office space. The tenants won’t come when the building is lower in height so what makes them think they will come when it is higher?

There are always public officials who go around our Comp Plan, however. They did that when they all approved of The Lucerne. There was to be a public benefit here—parking. It never happened. Instead, the developer was the only one getting a benefit and the taxpayers in the CRA are still paying dearly for that politically wrong decision. That building is the prime example of what we don’t want in our downtown.

They try to tell us that it is a matter of fiscal necessity for Lake Worth's health to build higher. They forget to tell you that it is developer profit that is the driving force behind this move for higher buildings in Lake Worth. They want our City. They always have. Let’s start looking at the Park of Commerce, an area that will be appropriate for higher buildings, and keep our downtown heights low thus keeping our small-town charm.

Just Ask and you shall Receive

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Lake Worth About to get more culture

Just come to Lake Worth and you can have it all. That is the message that is out there and it is very loud and clear. We are very generous folks. We don’t ask too many questions if the proposal sounds good. We love to give away buildings. We love to give away assets. We negotiate nothing. We love to waste money. We have all sorts of dreams of green space. We love to re-design parking lots and literally take away potential income at our beach for a tree. We have little thought about taking away decal parking for mangroves. We continue to screw the resident taxpayer in every way possible in order to plant a seed that may never grow from this blighted hollow ground.

What about the CRA’s main mission of cleaning up slum and blight. Somehow over the last several years, that has fallen by the blighted wayside of our city streets and has now been replaced by the visions of total metamorphous.

We have a CRA that just can't figure out how to spend its money fast enough and the other night, simply takes it over the top. The entire room was stacked and packed (I have been told) with business folks and Chamber folks and all those who think that spending all of this money will improve their lives. Perhaps the CRA’s thoughts are, bring more businesses and these owners and visitors will just fall in love with our garbage ridden neighborhoods that have been taken over by criminals ... they will actually buy a house or start a business here.

Instead of starting at the foundation for building this “new house” of ours, the CRA is starting at the top…building the roof first over a bunch of hot air coming directly from the Field of Dreams mentality for which the CRA has paid Hands On Consulting $200,000. Tuesday they agreed to hand over another $700,000 to the Palm Beach Cultural Council, that incidentally, has twice the budget of the CRA. This decision is based on nothing quantitative that the PB County Cultural Council can really do for us only what they tell us they can do-- just hopes, dreams and wishes.

Their presentation was great but give them $700,000? On top of that, the CRA agrees to give away all this money to a group that hasn't even decided on a location. What sort of crazy is that? Just come here...we don't care where you land. That is the reality of what the CRA based its decision. The CRA is in a world of its own when it comes to spending huge sums of money. Immediately the Gateways come to mind.

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To me the sensible decision would be to buy the 14,381 SQ FT building at 1000 Lake Avenue for $900,000--that's two hundred thousand more to actually own something. Give a reduced rental rate to this Group to locate to this building. Give them some perks. After two years, if they have proven themselves to Lake Worth, extend their favorable lease. We then house our Code Department (if we have a code department still in effect) or use the extra space for other city departments. The CRA can then use this building as its headquarters and stop paying $2,500 a month rent where they are. In the meantime, we own a building on an important corner of an area that the City wants to develop in the future for a downtown government center. It is right across the street from City Hall. That building is on the market at half its value. The property is already very valuable but in five years it would be priceless and owned by us.

It really is time to stop this endless pipe dream of the CRA and all its give-aways and non-negotiated "deals." Prior to this it was the Gateways. It was a bunch of give-aways for those "scam" homeowners and others who took advantage. Now it is the artist’s destination. What next? For a city that is rapidly turning into garbage haven and one that can’t even afford its code officers anymore, you really have to wonder about the priorities.

Sotomayor endorsed by Judiciary Panel 13 to 6

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Lake Worth is very divided just like our national politics is.

There are people within our city who keep wondering why we all can't get along. They keep on wanting to promote meetings and "get togethers" like that will make a difference in where I stand on an issue. They believe that they will be so convincing that they will make me do an about face all of a sudden and love pavers. They forget all the blasphemy of the past. They want to ignore the horrible decisions that have led us to where we are: our water, our beach, Sunset, The Lucerne, the Gateways, etc. They want us to have short memories, forgive and move on and treat all the injustices of the past like they are no big deals.

So, no surprise here on the Sotomayor confirmation--13 to 6 with all Democrats on the Judiciary Panel voting for her with all but one Republican voting against her nomination.

City and CRA Budget

The Workshop was held in the City Hall Conference room last week and it was broadcast. A 53 page handout was prepared by the Finance Department and passed out to the Public at the meeting. Finance will be hiring two new employees in the coming budget—a cash investment manager and a secretary. The Audit will be finalized by the end August due to the delay of the outside auditors starting late on the process.

The City Manager said that we were $8 million behind where we wanted to be. There will be NO salary increases this year and there will be a re-alignment of staff. She will be recommending that several positions be deleted. She wants to develop a Budget and Management Office and allow Finance to concentrate on Finance.

I am not sure if the CRA Budget was discussed (I left early) but its Director, Joan Oliva was present for this meeting. Her contract already factors in a 5% raise so she will not be subject to the City government’s moratorium on raises as the CRA does not fall under the City. With the huge decrease in ad valorem this year, we have to question whether the CRA is actually costing the city money.

Susan Stanton says that what they discussed at the budget workshop will NOT be the final budget.

After looking over the proposed budget of the CRA for 2009/10 based on its latest projections of TIF, etc, they are still being as ambitious as possible even going so far as to dip into an unreserved Fund Balance for $1,558,051 and listed an expectant $500,000 from the City in order to meet their budget.

In view of personnel, office and all programs estimated to cost $3,831,900 for this coming year’s budget, it seems that the CRA will not have the money for this very aggressive budget based on Mark Bates’ suggested millage rate of 5.9999. The City Manager has already said that the city’s budget will be adjusted (which means it will probably go lower) so the CRA should be looking to cut a lot of programs, if not all.

Proposed Budget for CRA:

Cultural Redevelopment..........$700,000

Maintenance Fund Transfer......$ 25,000

Office Expenses......................$209,008

Personnel...............................$250,212

Principal & Interest..................$958,346

Program-Capital......................$507,124

Program-Grants.......................$725,000

Program-Operating..................$457,300

The above totals ..................$3,831,990.

Based on Finance's projections and the millage that was approved last week of 5.9999, the CRA will be getting $1,121,886 from the County and $1,459,563 from the City for a total revenue of $2,581,449.

The CRA says it will get the following additional revenue:
Interest $13,000
Supplement from the City of Lake Worth: $500,000
And it lists a Fund balance (what fund?) of $1,058,551

You can see by looking at the above figures that office and salaries are costing $$459,200 and principal and interest on the Gateway debt is nearly $1 million a year. So the sources of funding for the CRA are TIF funds, a small amount of interest earnings, reliance on the City giving back $500,000 to them and on top of all that, they plan on using a portion of the unreserved Fund balance to operate this budget.

Although the Cultural Redevelopment Program was rated as the TOP priority of both the CRA and the City Commission out of 20 categories, receiving 92 points out of 110 total (Commissioner Lowe was absent for that meeting), they still want to go forward with this program which will cost $700,000 this coming year, of which $210,000 is obligated under a Contract. No where on the rating list was slum and blight, the main objective of this Board. Without eradicating blight, any amount of money spent on redevelopment of a cultural destination is foolish. To me, the priorities are backwards. Clean up the neighborhoods, clean up the blight, clean up the slum, get homeowner occupancy, allow property values to rise and get the city healthy BEFORE you worry about an artist’s center in the City.

Prior to the Cultural Redevelopment Program, the top priority of the CRA was 6^th Avenue South and 10^th Avenue North beautification programs which have cost us nearly $15 million with a projected cost on 10^th Avenue North when completed of $8.8 million.

There are a handful of residents here, some of whom are rumored to be running for office this election cycle, that still believe that spending this kind of money was a good decision even though it has not met the objective and probably will not, if ever, until this economy turns completely around years from now. Obama is throwing everything at the economy to make that happen and banks are starting to free up a little of the Stimulus. To have attractive Gateways is a nice idea but come on--$15 million dollars nice?--but it still will not be any deciding factor for people to move into this city and actually live here or establish a business here. We must clean up this city first. That should have been the priority.

This has been the problem with the CRA all along as you can see. The Board has not changed its direction even during a time when its budget is down nearly in half. It still wants to go forward on development with money it does not have, rather than cleaning up what is already here.

Tonight the CRA will discuss its 2009/10 Budget.

Gee, City Commission--won't you see the light?

Show us the results -- Lake Worth CRA

The future of the Community Redevelopment Agency will be on the July 20, 2009 Agenda at the City Commission Meeting. Will the Commission allow the Board to remain as is? Will the Commission take it back and appoint two Lake Worth residents to serve along with them? What exactly will happen?

Unfortunately, the present CRA gave out money like it was candy to any Tom, Dick or Harry who applied. Having been founded in the 1980’s with its original focus on the downtown area, it has been a total farcical Board in recent years. It is impossible to see where tax dollars have gone. The City is blighted in nearly every segment. Don’t get me wrong. The CRA operated legally in the decisions it has made under an approved redevelopment plan. It had the authority to do what it did. The question really is, were the decisions they made in the best interest of Lake Worth? Did the decisions help eradicate blight? Did the Board really do a thorough background check on some of the applicants for public money? Should they (the Grant programs) have been redefined and revised? The questions abound.

Just to consider the wasted money through the years even on various merchants, the recipients of thousands of dollars some of whom were and are members of the CRA, but it is the debt they got us into on The Gateways. We are obligated to spend nearly a million dollars a year in principal and interest. It is all mind-boggling and now the brakes have come to a screeching halt.

The reason that the existence of the CRA as a volunteer Board is in jeopardy is not just its disrespect for public money but its disrespect from some of its members to the very people who appointed them in the first place, the City Commission. No one is trying to grab power on the City Commission. I am rather confident that not one commissioner needs any more work or wants it, for that matter. The reason to have volunteer Boards is to free up some of their time with people they can trust to make good, sound decisions for the City.

This is a “volunteer” board, yes, that’s true. But you don’t publicly attack the very people who put you in office and call them “un-objective as a body,” get a waiver on a lien and then turn around and bad-mouth the Commission. This is the sort of behavior that got this Board in trouble. Instead of trying to kick Wayne Marcinkoski, the most outspoken member of the CRA off of the board with the excuse of him missing a meeting because he was out of town, the CRA should have censored some of the other members or asked some to resign for being disrespectful and not focusing on its goal—that of “utilizing appropriate private and public resources to eliminate and prevent the development or spread of slum and blighted areas within the city pursuant to the adopted redevelopment plan.”

The citizens have not seen any significant changes within the City and Code Enforcement personnel are working very hard just to keep up with all the slum and blight. When you are an organization with over $3 million of tax money each year, the people are not saying, “show me the money; they are asking “where are the results?”

Dawn of a Brand New Day

There was talk of sunsets last night but actually it was a dawn of a brand new day for our CRA.

A couple of residents, Annabeth Karson and Laurence McNamara, said it well--last night’s meeting was the absolute best. I agreed with everyone there even when they had differences of opinion. It was strange but definitely made me feel that we all had hope here with the CRA as a Board and members really tying to “get it right” and make things fair. There was a free exchange of ideas and no one got upset with anyone for their difference of opinion. The Board really worked as a team.

I don’t understand why a financial requirement is too cumbersome as reported. Grants really should be by need and Mark Rickards thought so too. Ed Grimm was right when he said that the CRA should fund programs that have universal value to the City. I like Shanon Materio’s suggestion about focusing on a section and cleaning it up. I also liked everything her husband said. The public at large would see the benefit and as Donna Ross reminded them, people “want our money to be seen.” Wayne Marcinkoski wants to focus on more things that affect our City and eliminate the first come, first serve entitlement in the grant programs.

I agreed with Brendan Lynch that rental properties should not be considered for residential rehab grants and could see Ed’s point that matching funds might not be fair, that we were asking poor people to come up with money. The only way that would work would be full disclosure of financials. When it comes to virtually free money, there are always people out there ready to scam the system.

CLICK HERE and scroll to page three to see the financial requirements for the Home Repair and the Beautification grants. It will be an eye-opener to understanding what “poor” means for these programs.

Ed was also opposed to having an applicant come up to the lectern and discuss his financials. Anyone going for a grant should not be shy in discussing his income, however, and the people do have a right to that information. Wes said that he was not married to the Residential rehab grant, Wayne was for sun-setting the Commercial grant and Shanon for sun-setting both of the programs.

The CRA’s attorney had one statement last night saying that the Board did not have to allow the public to speak. Thanks for earning your fee last night, Mr. Tolces. Mark Bates, our Financial Director, gave his report and not one CRA Board member cried “foul.” The CRA will most likely have $600,000 less in the coming year to work with. The payment on the Bond for the Gateways is $950,000 a year which includes principal and interest. They accepted the news and talked about it rationally and non-emotionally with Joan Oliva, CRA Director, even telling them that it will be very difficult to fund either program next year.

Herman Robinson was sitting next to me and I asked him if he was trying out for this Board. He answered, “yes,” but that the present Board was great. I think everyone there observing, and those who have applied to this Board, would have to agree to that assessment after last night.

As this CRA Board will be changing soon, the present members actually saw the dawn of a new beginning. Too bad they didn’t see the light sooner. Will it be too late for their redemption?

Santa in Lake Worth every month

Tuesday night I attended the CRA meeting and watched as they voted to give away over $60 thousand dollars for such things as a hot water heater costing $1,000, pavers for a driveway that could have been repaired much cheaper. How many of you can afford pavers for your driveway? Well, move to the CRA district. "That is one of the advantages of living in the CRA District," said Ms. Materio.

A sprinkler system was thrown into the mix of discussion. The owner will come back later for that one. $15,000 for ONE owner who has the nicest house on the street. This is what the CRA does—gives money away to whomever applies and who presents the correct documentation, according to CRA staff, proving that they are qualified to receive “free” money with few strings. Oh, did I mention that she wants a new front fence because school children sit on hers on their way home from school?

The owner, Mary Demers of 501 S B Street only presented, per the back-up docs, one estimate for each item for the work. Her Santa wish-list amounted to over $40,000. In the Residential Rehabilitation Grant, the CRA on a 5 to 1 vote, Donna Ross dissenting, gave her $15,000 non-matching funds towards improvements to her house. There was NO copy of her tax return in the back-up only an altered copy of her W-2. The CRA has agreed that she will have one of our city employees, Martin Cybulski, City Horticulturist, assist her in planning additional landscaping. Once that is done, she will re-submit an application for MORE money from the CRA, ($7,619.82 in matching funds) for pressure cleaning, paint and extensive landscaping. She wanted a Queen Palm. This is a photo of the house at 501 S. B Street. So any of you living in the CRA district who want expert landscaping advice for FREE, call Martin.

Maybe she can get a free tree from the Tree Board,
if she can find room for it.

The five members who voted to give away our TIF money to this property owner were: Brendan Lynch, Wes Blackman, Ed Grimm, Shanon Materio and Wayne Marcinkoski. If I were a tax payer in the CRA district I would be pretty miffed about TIF.

The CRA was formed to eliminate BLIGHT. From the CRA's web site it states: "Tax dollars in the CRA district are spent to help revitalize blighted areas of the city." Is there anything blighted about this house? Yes, agreed, it is in a "blighted" area but this house is NOT blighted.

When will we stop this delving into the cookie jar mentality that the CRA has. "Let’s give it away," says one member of the Board. “I am surprised that you did not ask for more,” says the same member talking about another grant given to a different owner. “Come back for more money.” Recently the CRA and the Commission had a Joint Meeting to set their priorities. There were 20 categories. Residential Rehab Grants ranked 11th; Commercial Façade Grants ranked 13th, and Community Aid Grants ranked 17th.

It’s easy to hand out money when it is NOT yours. Policy must be changed for all Grants within the CRA. There should be a requirement for at least two estimates if not three. The owner should provide a copy of the tax return, not a copy of a W-2. A W-2 does not prove the amount of total income. Standards need to get tighter and if the Grants persist, then the CRA needs to stop handing out money like it is X’mas in Lake Worth every month.

Remember the Gateways, 6th Avenue South and 10th Avenue North where we are spending over $14 MILLION DOLLARS? Well, on the priority list of the CRA and City Commission, maintenance of the Gateways was ranked number 18 out of 20. CRA members Ed Grimm (kudos to Ed) gave it as one of his top priorities (6 points) and Mark Rickards (1 point) and Jeff Clemens (3 points). These were the only members who ranked Gateway maintenance at all. That's why our city looks as it does. We totally neglect our assets or have low priorities for general maintenance. We give money to a woman who does not need it. We give $16,000 to an owner of a commercial property to fix up his parking lot who lives in a waterfront home worth over one million and we vote to neglect maintenance of The Gateways.

Santa, stay in the North Pole and send us a plan that will make sense on how we give money away to eradicate BLIGHT, not to people who are allowed to take advantage of a bad system and a Board whose hands are tied because of it.

What is going on?

Prices must come down so that the consumer can afford to buy if we are going to get out of this recession. Even OPEC decided not to cut production. What really is going on with some of the decisions being made here?

If we don’t have the money, we are not going to buy. If prices continue to rise, we will never buy anything but the essentials such as gas and food. Our habits will and have to change drastically. Retailers out there just don’t seem to be getting that. Take Publix. Everything is up other than eggs I was told by the store manager on Lake Worth Road. Such a deal! Movie houses are losing revenue. No one can afford to see a movie these days. What do they do? Yup, raise the cost of a ticket; raise the price of popcorn. The State of Florida doesn’t care either because the price to ride on our State Highways as well as traffic tickets are going up so that the State can generate over $63 million in new found revenue.

Our City, as well as other governments, is so strapped for cash, it is implementing creative ways to get money. Lake Worth has raised ALL recreational fees, as an example. They will not even consider taking money away from the CRA but would rather sock it to the little guy. Planting a seed is fine during a healthy economy. They make a decision to unman our beach, eliminating lifeguards two days a week during the height of tourist season, finally deciding that was a dumb move.

Now they have out sourced our Fire Department to Palm Beach County with every taxpayer here paying 2.95mils for fire rescue. Prior to that it was the Police and then our stormwater fee. What else can we expect while no one will take a cut in salary but instead, management implements raises, laying off other workers to pay for them.

They still talk about a new government center and a new library but put a match to $14 million dollars that we have already invested into our Reverse Osmosis Plant. Hopefully, that fateful decision will be overturned and we will end the County water deal. Water, in the future, will be our most valuable commodity. The Mayor voted to give away our waste water to Palm Beach County. Is there anything else to give, Mayor? The only things left are the golf course and the beach. What about our entire city?

Some people are really struggling to stay in their homes; others live on social security and fixed income watching the value of their money drop in half. They worry whether they will even make it to the end of their normal life. The government should be considering these things when they get creative, not worrying about how the CRA can give away our money to people who want hand-outs. There is no reason why someone living in a property valued at over $1 million, as an example, should get free money from the CRA and pay the same as a poor person for storm water or why some poor working stiff has to worry about taking his family to the beach. I don’t buy the argument that “the beach is still affordable.” Everything, right now, is a big question mark when you take out your wallet. Lake Worth politicians still think it a-okay to spend nearly $15 million dollars on the Gateways. How do they justify that?

So, it seems, as we are in this severe recession, and people have no work; they are losing their homes; they have no health care, that the government, the protector of the citizen, continues to devise ways to sock it to us, giving hand-outs to deadbeats while the average citizen pays the price. And what Stimulus money did Lake Worth get?

The CRA Cookie Jar, full of Crumbs

The Lucerne, in the CRA District

One reason why we get in so much trouble in this City is that the decision makers do not have all of the facts, do not remember all of the facts or all of the facts are not revealed to them by Staff and by their politically appointed Boards. Decisions are then made. The Commission depends on Staff to give correct and complete information. There are so many factors that go into the process of decision making and when there are bits of information that are covered up or just conveniently left out of a staff report in order to subjugate the Commission, then we are in a whole lot of trouble.

I am constantly bothered by some who “spin” the argument without telling the entire story. Take the CRA’s hiring of an additional sheriff deputy for $90,000 for eight months left into their budget year, as an example. Some on that Board continue to give the argument that it had a budget of $350,000 for their own deputy and only spent $90,000 therefore it has saved $250,000. It is a line item. You saved nothing. Just because it is budgeted does not mean that you absolutely MUST spend it there.

If you take the entire cost of going with the Sheriff’s Department, we have spent so much more money than we ever realized to get the SAME ninety-one men. The CRA’s argument had no merit the other night. Actually there are members on that Board who don't have to try very hard to find ways to spend our money, like 10% raises during the worst recession, probably depression, in our life time.

Right now the Sheriff decision has cost Lake Worth taxpayers over $1 million a year for the next three years. Plus, we gave them all of the assets we owned relative to police. It just cost us police radios for which we still owe $450,000. Now on Tuesday’s agenda, the Sheriff Department is requesting that we turn over forfeiture funds in the amount of $212,109.46.

If there are members on the CRA Board who continually have tunnel vision and only think things through to this extent, then take back the CRA. They have not brought anything to the bottom line. If abolished, we will still get millions of ad valorem that is much needed in our City, not for questionable projects that may or may not ever happen or are not needed now. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on projects in addition to the millions on The Gateways for their vision of what Lake Worth should look like or become, is ridiculous at any time but especially during this economy.

We have a city in shambles but the CRA is spending $13 million on 6th and 10th. The CRA is in control of a big budget. At least with elected officials we can vote them out of office if they are doing a lousy job. Those on the CRA Board are appointed for 4 year terms--way too long in anyone’s book but theirs.

I get a kick out of you

I got a kick out of reading about Lois Frankel’s problem with a budget shortfall of $8.2 million for 2010! Poor Lois. I wonder if she thought about the ever increasing housing market and its values plunging down, down, down when she went around her citizens and built her new city center anyway. She didn’t care about what the residents of West Palm Beach wanted. It was all about Lois. Now she says everyone must make sacrifices.

It seems, the only people working for the City of West Palm Beach who are not in jeopardy (if they negotiate like Lake Worth) are those Union workers whose contracts come up this year and negotiations begin December 2009. Personnel costs are estimated to rise by 9% with the police and fire taking one-half of their budget right off the top.

I wonder if our Mayor here in Lake Worth is thinking about ad valorem when he keeps talking about building a new city center here which would include a new library in one of the highest millage rate cities in PB County and certainly one of the poorest. I wonder if the CRA thought it out when they committed over $13 million to the Gateways to attract development.

Our CRA and on Ethics Policies

Our City, along with every other city in the State, is facing a loss of revenues due to the sluggish economy and Amendment One. Development impact fees which finance many cities’ capital improvement projects have become stagnant or better said, non-existent. Our CRA has given incentives to developers for homeowner financing in Hammon Park, as an example. Our CRA also gave to an owner on 6th Avenue South by way of an Option. Our CRA is always looking for ways to spend our money. The biggest project here is the Gateways. Use of the CRA’s tax increment capacity is a way to keep public improvement projects moving forward whether the tax payers want them or not.

One of the big dream projects now for our CRA is the TOD, Transit Oriented Development as well as a new City Center. They are determined to get these projects done, sooner rather than later. The City can't seem to find money to maintain one single asset but the CRA can come up with capital projects that cost us multi-millions.

Today, with the Supreme Court’s ruling, once again CRA’s will be allowed to proceed with bond issuance for their pet projects without voter approval. CRA’s are ecstatic today knowing that the citizens will have no voice on how their money is spent. This is just another reason to take back the CRA as it puts too much power in the hands of an appointed Board.

On another note, Randy Schultz of the Palm Beach Post today says why have an ethics policy when no one has to abide by it and sites Tony Masilotti as an example. First of all, with an ethics policy, you have publicly committed yourself to a higher standard. Second of all, if an elected official tries to pull a fast one, you can demand that he rescue himself from a public vote and know that right is in your corner. That public representative will not just be allowed to sit in her/his seat pretending to not understand or be impervious to unethical behavior. Elected officials will have to rise to the new standard of conduct as other commissioners and the public will hold them accountable. We will all benefit by that commitment. Having an ethics policy will allow us to have better government and we all want that.

Our CRA

Months ago, the Commission attempted to take back the CRA due to gross mis-management by the Board and bad decisions affecting our tax money. Politics is the only reason this Board is in place today.

Now, with the new Director, Joan Oliva, the power of the CRA Board is being eroded rapidly. I won’t go into it as I have written about it previously. We no longer have to worry about politics keeping this Board in place. Staff is doing it for us.

Now, they have finally started their $8 million dollar project on 10^th Avenue North right at the start of our tourist Season. Great going guys! Just to spend this sort of money on a street, especially when our city can’t figure out how to pay the bills, is obscene in itself.

The Gateways project was voted in by the CRA Board during the real estate boom. But even after the bust, certain Commissioners along with the CRA Board voted it as their top priority. Times changed and we now can’t even pay for our own police retirement or fix the Casino building but our Commission did not care. $8 million can be spent on fixing up a street so that some people can have something pretty to look at driving home.