Last Night's Commission Workshop

Watch, if you dare!  What an unbelievable meeting that took 4:03 to conclude. Scott Maxwell is still against the pool. Nothing has changed with him in 17 years.  The pool question will come back to another workshop with the design professionals and a task order. The city should have repaired what we had at the time the estimate was given by Kimley Horm to repair the pool that also included the locker rooms, around $504k. Now we're up to a new facility that will cost at least $10 million. As Juan Ruiz reminded us, "We have champagne tastes on a beer budget."

Important Lake Worth Workshop Tonight

This is a most important Workshop. I would expect that they will allow the public to speak on this issue.

Commissioner Omari Hardy has started a petition on change.org FOR allowing ADU's, entitled: PETITION SUPPORTING THE LEGALIZATION OF ACCESSORY DWELLING UNITS, KNOWN ALSO AS ADUs OR GRANNY COTTAGES, IN ALL RESIDENTIAL ZONING DISTRICTS IN LAKE WORTH BEACH, FLORIDA.

Read all his WHEREAS's here...

• I am against allowing Accessory Dwelling Units:

• It will bring more Sober Homes

• It will bring more Airbnbs

• Our residential neighborhoods will be over-crowded

• Density in our 6 square miles is already one of the highest in the county. The population density is 6,303 per sq mi which is 2047% higher than the Florida average and 6857% higher than the national average.

• Allowing ADU's will possibly triple our density.

Lake Worth Commission Workshop Thursday night

SUMMARY: The Commission may consider placing items on the March 12, 2019 ballot for the citizens of Lake Worth to vote on as part of the regular Municipal Election cycle.

BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION:
The upcoming March 12th Municipal Election ballot offers the Commission the opportunity to place questions on the ballot for consideration by the Citizens of Lake Worth. The deadline for submittal of ballot questions by the City to the Supervisor of Elections is January 11, 2019. Additionally, the actual ballot language for each question must be finalized and voted on by the Commission prior to this submittal date.

The following issues have been mentioned publically [sic] by the Commission as well as during individual discussions with the City Manager as potential ballot questions. These include, but are not limited to:

 Authorization to sell City owned property(ies) per City Charter (Be sure to tell us what you will do with the money and what they are all worth)

 Change the name of the City of Lake Worth to include “Beach” (Can't wait to hear about this one.  We have been the City of Lake Worth since we were chartered in 1912 and now some bozos want to change our name...why do politicians always want to change things, change history? Does anyone have any idea on the cost of a change such as this? If this is being considered because the left-wing Palm Beach Post credits Lake Worth with crimes that actually happen in the county, then it is a lame reason indeed Commissioner Maxwell)

 Authorize a long term lease with County for the Jewell Cove/Steinhardt properties
(Read my blog of July 2017) on this property. What a complete mess.

This discussion will provide much needed input for staff necessary for the development of any subsequent Commission Agenda Items for public review and Commission consideration before potentially being placed on March ballot for vote by the Citizenry.

Last night's Workshop on Land Development Regulations and Refuse Operations

I watched the entire meeting at home and it was much more interesting than I expected it to be. Commissioner Hardy had some good questions that made some on the dais including William Waters uncomfortable and annoyed. Hardy, once again, dominated the meeting with his ideas and queries. He was against the FAR, the Floor Area Ratio, in particular. No one could tell him why it was substantive.

I did not see the agenda on the city's web site until Monday. It never was on the calendar. I first found out about this meeting from a friend who pointed out the excerpt in the Sunday Palm Beach Post. The city manager is under the impression that it was up on Friday at 1pm. If it was, I totally missed it. The public spoke to this issue. Personally, I believe it was just an oversight, as generally the city does a good job getting information to the public..

I agreed with Janet Serrano when she spoke at around 2:49:21 into the video. Actually there were great comments by all.

The next time the LDR's come back will be at a public hearing when the commission will vote on the changes.