Florida Hometown Democracy Ballot Language - Has to do with Future Land Development

Because more and more politicians, builders and the Florida Chamber of Commerce are spouting bullet points of lies and distortions, I want to post the exact language of the Ballot initiative for Amendment 4.

Amendment 4 has to do with land use changes ONLY. Even David Levy, politician from Palm Beach Gardens threw up our own ballot language to us at the debate held at the Lake Worth Democratic Club in order to make a point to a group and people that did not have the information to know what he said was just flat wrong.

Florida Hometown Democracy explains --The plain language of Amendment 4 establishes voter referendum only over comprehensive plan changes that concern “future land development.” Nothing else. Other types of plan changes that do not address “future land development” will not be subject to referendum. As Floridians know, “future land development” changes often determine the future of a community for decades to come.

Ask yourself the following question--Why is it that most all politicians, ALL builder groups, developers, Realtors and the Florida Chamber of Commerce oppose FHD? And why do they have to lie?

Q: What does Amendment 4 say?
A: This constitutional amendment will give Florida voters the right to decide whether their city or county Comprehensive Land Use Plan should be changed. Currently, city councils and county commissions exclusively make those decisions.

Here’s the ballot title and summary you will see on the November 2010 ballot:

BALLOT TITLE
Referenda Required For Adoption And Amendment of Local Government Comprehensive Land Use Plans.

BALLOT SUMMARY
Establishes that before a local government may adopt a new comprehensive land use plan, or amend a comprehensive land use plan, the proposed plan or amendment shall be subject to vote of the electors of the local government by referendum, following preparation by the local planning agency, consideration by the governing body and notice. Provides definitions.

Susan' s Story

From Steven to Susan to air on CNN on March 13.

What does a Zippo lighter, a Harley Davidson, Toby Keith and a Lake Worth resident have in common?

2010 Harley-Davidson Iron 883 motorcycle

Every little kid dreams of getting his first bicycle. Every big kid has a dream to own a Harley-Davidson. One of our Lake Worth residents' dreams has now come true.

Paul DiPrima had originally gone to Zippo Corp looking to buy lighter fluid – he’s coming away-- make that riding away-- with a lot more than that.

This Friday at Palm Beach Harley-Davidson®, Paul DiPrima will be handed the keys to his brand new 2010 Harley-Davidson Iron 883 motorcycle. Paul entered the “Red Hot and Ridin’ Sweepstakes” on Zippo’s music website, ZippoEncore.

He was chosen randomly from thousands that entered the contest. Paul is a motorcycle rider but doesn’t currently own a Harley-Davidson. He bought a Zippo lighter at the Zippo-sponsored Cruzan Amphitheater in West Palm Beach during a Toby Keith concert. He was going to give the lighter to a friend and needed to buy fuel for it so he went to Zippo.com where he got his fuel and entered the contest. I never thought twice about the contest after that,” said Paul. His wife and riding buddies thought he was crazy when he told them he had won.

One of his first stops will be Thursday Bike Night on Lake Avenue in Lake Worth. Next trip? Key West for Bike Week. “I am looking forward on bringing my new Harley down to Key West."

Thank you to Brent Tyler of Zippo Corp for this story.

Lake Worth Manor

Lake Worth Manor located at 12 Avenue South and directly across from S F Street, is in the news—defrauding Medicare and Medicaid and preying on the elderly.

It's bad enough to be old, but old, sick and abused is even worse. Nothing surprises me when it comes to nursing homes. I worked for a man years ago in Palm Beach who owned a string of nursing homes. I always suspected it was just a cash cow type of business with the government picking up the “padded” bills.

Lake Worth Manor was where JFK sent my Mom right after a stroke. She was there for a few months where she got worse, never to recover. It, of course, may be all coincidental but I have ill feelings for this nursing home as well as nursing homes in general. Don’t ever send a loved one to a nursing home if you can have any other alternative. They, for the most part, are nasty places. Also, don't take a hospital's recommendation. Check out the facility for yourself. For the elderly, you are ignored and in some cases, abused. You are there to die. You are a dollar sign only. If you don’t have a family member looking after you day and night, chances of death are quicker.

This particular facility is one of the worst around having a 1 star rating. It is in the bottom 20% of all nursing homes in the area. On the outside, it looks great. Even the interior is nice. The rooms are spacious and the food was good back in 2004. The problem I had was that there was never anyone around or concerned enough to do the basics for the patients. Ringing that little buzzer on the bed was totally ignored.

Read about Lake Worth Manor, its unsavory staff and the racketeering charge.

Keeping it all in Check

Comment Up

Unless you are top dog, everyone has a supervisor. With our Commission it is we the people. The City Manager reports to the Commission and I understand that she does a bang up job in that area having meetings with each Commissioner on a regular basis. She keeps them informed on what’s going on in the City. Not only that, she, thanks to citizen intervention, provides a weekly report to the citizens even though Staff moaned that it was too much work to report to their boss.

So, everything seems to be open and transparent. Why is then that the Commision can’t get accurate information from Staff in order to make the correct decisions? Why are citizen's questions ignored? If I were a boss and got no answers or got the wrong answers or someone evaded the questions, who do you think would still be working?

In thinking over Tuesday night’s Commission meeting, certain items stand out that are worthy of mention. I will talk about three.

We already know that the Commission negotiated with PB County on the Water Contract and got them down to $4.1 million. PB County first wanted over $20 mil, then $16 mil, then $9.1 mil and finally where it ended up with threat of law suit if we didn’t agree. Still a rotten deal and PB County put the screws to us. No wonder most of the County Commission now says that they have our best interests at heart. Sure they do…no skin off their backs…they socked it to us. Thanks to Commissioner Mulevehill for not giving up as a previous Commission elected to do as well as Bill Coakley for his continued interest and support.

So, let’s go on to smaller things that have a heck of a lot of significance too. One is making money at the pool which really isn't a small thing but it is in the abstract.

It was stated that our pool needs to make money. Joe Kroll said that "no pools are making money" and indicated that even the one at Lake Lytal might have to shut down. Where did he hear that? The City Manager seemed to agree with “no pools are making money” theory because she suggested an aquatic park in place of our Olympic competitive pool, discounting the vision and why we just spent nearly one-half million dollars.

The Commission was attentive with Cara Jennings agreeing that an aquatic park would be good. There are other commissioners who are mulling over the justification of spending money that we don’t have in order to fix our pool. We have to “fix” our pool no matter what we do, unless, of course, the vision has now changed and we bulldoze it down.

When you incorporate and become a city, you agree at that point to provide certain services--police, fire rescue, street sweeping, playgrounds, etc. Not all of these services make money: The library, all of our parks, our baseball fields, the beach, the soccer fields, the Osborne Center, our golf course, roads, and street lighting as examples. We had a trolley for the elderly, the poor and the infirmed. It didn’t make money so one of the worst commissions we ever had eliminated that service.

Not everything we do as a City must be self-supporting. We pay taxes to cover all those that are not. Susan Stanton says that the pool is a liability. Our pool is no more a liability than any other service or recreation that we provide and we can turn it around to make money. Most of all, the citizens want the pool.

We have had a pool for years. I remember when it was a salt water pool. Because the pool has not been managed or marketed, it has not been sustainable. The purpose of the pool renovation and spending $425,000 was to attract national meets that could have brought in plenty of money to Lake Worth. Our businesses would be booming. Our motels and bed and breakfasts would be at capacity. Swim teams would come here to train. Perhaps it could be a motivating factor for the Gulfstream to reopen.

We all know how the pool got screwed up. Joe Kroll says now we need to pay $275,000 to fix the pool instead of his original "guesstimate" of $150,000. We just got finished “fixing” the pool. What gives? Who was in charge? Who is responsible? Why was staff not checking these things all along?

Next was Commission Liaison Reports. Scott Maxwell drifted off focus and started to challenge the City Manager regarding an audit that she is conducting on the Bryant Park Rehab program of which Joe Kroll is in charge. It seems that there were many cost over-runs on this project. Why would anyone be against an audit on a construction project? This just makes good sense and should become standard procedure on any large project. Maxwell also brought up Stanton's annual review. Our City Manager does not have a contract. Performing this job is bad enough and no one needs this sort of "political" pressure. A contract will give her peace of mind and allow her to fully concentrate and solve the magnitude of problems.

The Commission is there to keep the city manager in check. It is our job to keep the Commission in check. It is the city manager's job to keep staff in check.

DEA and FBI in Lake Worth

DEA and FBI at Pain Clinic

Tonight, the Planning & Zoning Board will have an up-date on the Pain Clinic Ordinance. 6pm City Hall.

Read what the Sun Sentinel has to say.

Top 6 Architectural Firms for Lake Worth Casino

One of the conceptual drawings by REG

After a mis-communication on how to fill out a matrix, that was resolved in one-half hour. The Commission came up with their top 6 choices out of 13 presentations that were given on February 13. Some residents were confused, as these architects responded to a Request for Qualifications. The choice was not based on any conceptual drawing that they had originally presented, only their qualifications to do the job under our criteria--similar projects, historical significance on a coastal environment, economic viability and sustainability, and commercial experience.

All 6 firms will now come back to the Commission sometime in April--date to be determined. At that meeting, they will make a presentation and the architectural firm will be chosen for our Casino building. The Commission will give them a set criteria to follow. Hopefully, that means comparing apples to apples as to the vision.

Song & Associates did lobby the merchants at the beach. Commissioner Maxwell, after my public commentary, had Mike McManaman, Purchasing Manager, explain that it is only an ethics violation if a firm had communicated with Staff or the Commission. It is apparent that public input is important to Commissioner Maxwell. He said that it should be "what the citizens want; we should have a Charette process and leave egos at the door; it should be the will of the people." Therefore, a firm up for consideration that lobbies any resident or merchant is not appropriate. We, the citizens, will or may have direct influence on the Commission's decision. This was the only firm that resorted to that practice. Also, the fact that they low-balled the cost estimate, puts them under scrutiny.

In order of rank:

1. REG 307 Evernia Street, WPB, FL

2. Song & Associates

3. Beilinson-Gomez

Three firms tied for 4th rank

4. BRPH

4. Slattery & Associates

4. Living Designs

The Whistleblowers- -Andres, Howard and Larry

Comment Up

I was just thinking about Andres Reyes, former Director of Engineering at LW Utilities being the bravest guy in the world right along with Howard Jordan and Larry Drenski. Crazy-dudes all three of them—crazy-brave and much admired!

This security breach that was covered up was first noticed nearly one year ago when one of these men noticed that a test RTU set-up in the office was connected to the SCADA system. It was disconnected as it was not configured for the system at that time. Not only did this happen once but twice. Who was in there messing with the SCADA system? No one fessed up. That is when it was reported and that is when all hell broke lose and subsequent loss of jobs and livelihood and a law suit that continues today. They even had Mayor Clemens, on more than one occasion, in a public meeting saying that they were "liars."

Larry Drenski joined the Reyes/Jordan complaint later to the objection of the City. However, the Judge ruled that he could be a part of the suit. CLICK HERE to read the Docket Report.

We all know that when you are a whistle-blower, the risks are all weighted like the bottom end of a see saw. All three of these men had no self-doubt, however, when they blew the whistle. Committing economic suicide for principle is not an every day occurrence. To put your life on-hold for what you consider "right" is to be admired.

Now I hear that Tom Rutherford has been terminated. I was told by a source that Becky Mattey told him a a week ago that it was her intent to fire him. Some at the Utility say there are more firings to come--that she is on the war path.

If politicians had half the guts of Andres, Howard and Larry, our country would be in better shape. You have to be principally driven, not personally driven. By standing up for what is "right" and taking the high ground, everyone else is coming at you from a lower place.

Nathaniel Brazill

I just got another comment on an old opinion piece on Nathaniel Brazill from someone who for whatever reason wants to believe that I have been too hard on this cold blooded murderer. Regardless of whether he was tried as an adult or as the punk kid that he was, he DID get a second chance--he got 28 years in prison for shooting his teacher, Barry Grunow, at close range. The reason?--he was having a rotten day. Luckily he didn't get life.

He left school, got his grandfather's gun, walked back to school and shot his teacher. This was done with forethought. This has nothing to do with the fact that the kid is black. It has nothing to do with the fact that who he shot was white. Racism has nothing to do with what this kid did or the sentence he received as the poster implies. I don't care if he were a green Martian. He was a killer. Hopefully he is getting the help that he obviously and desperately needs for taking a life--killing his teacher that day. Anyone who did what he did has the capacity for more violence.

The Court decided this case. Nathaniel Brazill is paying the consequences. The Court will decide if his penance is enough should he be so lucky as to get out of prison early. At least he is being given a chance at life. Barry Grunow will never get his chance.

David Merrill in support of Florida Hometown Democracy

Former Sarasota Mayor and City Commissioner David Merrill is supporting Florida Hometown Democracy, a measure on the statewide ballot this November also known as Constitutional Amendment 4.

Read more about it.

Lake Worth Media message

Lake Worth Media has new message in its Marquee (crawler).

The Billboard Mafia II

CBS Outdoor earned $2.17 billion in 2008.
One of their Billboards in California
Let's ban Billboard Blight

When people tell me that if I don’t like what an elected official does then vote him out of office. Nothing is that easy or that simple. Elected officials can do a hell of a lot of damage in a very short time. Just take Lake Worth as an example.

Originally the Billboard Mafia had requested 9 signs be installed along I-95 and the City denied them. It was against our Code. That’s when Interstate Outdoor Advertising threatened to sue and presented a “settlement agreement” to Larry Karns, then city attorney to the City of Lake Worth. Larry Karns said that he thought that the City could win this suit but……….if we accepted the settlement it would mean revenue to Lake Worth. We settled before a suit was filed. It was game playing by slick lawyers and a company that had done it many times before, just a component of its Business Plan.

Just the sound of $ rang in the Mayor’s ears. He didn’t care that it would be the worst blight imaginable making Lady Bird Johnson turn over in her grave. On the table was an offer to take a lump sum of $2,655,000 or $2.31 million up front plus payments. Mayor Jeff Clemens supported the payments and the Interim City Manager, Bob Baldwin agreed.. They both persuaded the Commission to “settle” a law suit that wasn’t even a law suit--all for the almighty buck.

Pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement, Interstate assigned its rights to three of the billboards to CBS Outdoor, Inc. We had some problem with CBS because they wanted a LED billboard, not in our Code either. We “settled” with them too. They got their digital sign that glows all night long and we just received their check dated February 24, 2010 for $1,240,000.

I do not know if Interstate has ever paid us. We got strong-armed and the entire city government was weak kneed and submissive, putting aside their integrity for the worship of greenbacks. Voting for this was Clemens, Lowe and Vespo, supported by the former City Manager and City Attorney. Two lone commissioners, Jennings and Golden, voted NAY. They voted right.

Right now $150,000 of the money needs to be re-directed to our pool repairs. Let’s do some immediate good with it as we all will suffer billboard blight for the next 20 years.

Our local High School Artists

Art at the Norton
Student Photography will be featured at The Norton Museum of Art. The Norton will showcase the works of forty students submitted by eight photography teachers on February 27, 2010, at 1:00 PM. the exhibit is on view until April 4.
Lake Worth HS photographers:
Ileana Lopez, Brittney Head, Sarah Lishen, Erin McKenzie, Taylor Collister

Art News:
Several LWHS Students have been selected to be in the Women in Visual Arts Juried Art Show. Located at Sugar Sand Park in Boca Raton. Show starts this weekend with artist award ceremony/reception in April.

Nick Schuettler ( 11th grade) Photo “Charlottes Web”
Sarah Lishen ( 11th grade) Photo “ Sir Lexus”
Daniesh Patterson ( 11th Grade) Mixed Media “ The Suffering of Love”
Shawn Botello ( 11th grade) Acrylic “ Portrait of Eve”
Claribel Gonzalez ( 11th Grade) Acrylic “ Portrait of Adam”
See Art teacher Brent Bludworth for more details

Street painting wrap up:
The following LW High School students participated in the Street Painting Festival this past weekend.

Yane Exantus (12th grade) “ Sea Turtle”
Pedro Andres – Juan (12th grade) “ Mayan Art”
Darian Matos ( 12th grade) “Eye-Skull”
Perla Silva ( 12th grade) “ Monet- Figures with Glass of Wine”
Erdjy Louissant ( 12th grade) “ Grim Reaper”
Yane Exantus ( 12th grade) “Sea Turtle”

Volunteers/Art assistants:
Taylor Barahona (12th grade) “ For the Love of it ( surfers)” and “Rhino Surfers”
John Dunfee ( 11th Grade) “For the Love of it” and “ Rino Surfers”
Miguel Tomas-Manuel ( 10th grade) “ for the Love of it” and “Rhino Surfers”
Lauren Redgate ( 12th Grade) “Rhino Surfers”
Elizabeth Osborne ( 12th Grade) “Rhino Surfers”
Taylor Adams ( 10th grade) “ Eye-Skull”

New Kid

There's a New Kid in Town e-newsletter on Lake Worth. Welcome!

Our Beach and Pool

Comment Up

Tonight on Lake Osborne

Health-Care "Reform"

The President's Proposal

Doctors are screaming bloody murder as their rates of reimbursement are being lowered. Seniors are worried that their rates are going to go up and their coverages will be down. The Republicans are yelling that it is a government take-over. Insurance companies are raising their rates. Polls indicate that the majority of Americans do NOT want it. There are already doctors who refuse to treat Medicare patients. There will be thousands more.

Sunday, Fox News had on Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who said that President Obama is ignoring the wishes of the American people and that he is jamming his health-care plan down their throats.

Women in Politics

Panel Discussion on Women in Politics
Thursday, March 4
Old School Square Museum
51 N. Swinton Avenue, Delray Beach
Admission: $10.00

Lecture Presentation--
Alicia Jencik, Visiting Instructor, Dept. of Political Science, Florida Atlantic University

“Women in US Politics: Review of National, Regional, and Local Trends”

PANELISTS:
Dr. Jean L. Enright, Commissioner, Port of Palm Beach
Anne M. Gannon, Tax Collector, Palm Beach County
Addie Greene, Former Commissioner, Palm Beach County
Tara Laxer, Former Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Deutch
Suzanne Mulvehill, Lake Worth City Commissioner-District 4

Moderator, Dr. Kitty Oliver, Consulting Producer, Writer, T.V. Host and Adjunct Professor

Greater Bay and our Lake Worth Pool

When you hire a project manager, you expect him to understand the project that he is managing and everything in the Contract. This is standard. That is what we pay him for—to be on top of every aspect of the project.

There are still some in this city, for whatever nutty reasons, take Greater Bay’s side of our beach redevelopment even though they never performed and never had any intent to perform. They even go so far as to claim that it was Greater Bay that discovered the grant timeline for the pool.

This is what someone said: Well, when Greater Bay told us of the Grant time problem, they also told us that the City had negotiated a construction schedule at the beach that called for the pool to be addressed well after the expiration date. So in the spirit of getting the money spent before the expiration date, City Staff and Greater Bay set out to address the problem.

That is then that they started to get help from the Western LandPlanners who insisted on returning the pool to days long expired when we had diving and other swimming events. Can we forget the righteous indignation at any attempt to explain that rules for swimming events required dramatic reconstruction of the pool that was well beyond the amount of grant money. Nor will we forget the insistence by the WLPs that we put in the diving boards and redo the hardscape around the pool so we could return to our historical past.

The above is fantasy. So, let's stick with the facts.

To put everyone’s mind to rest, the original Developer agreement signed on November 21, 2006 mentions the Grant. The construction schedule was Greater Bay’s. Everyone knew about the Grant: Greater Bay, City Staff and Cory O’Gorman. None of these ever brought the deadline to the forefront until time was running out. Where was Staff? Where was the Project Manager? In fact, on November 6, 2007, Peter Willard gave a presentation on the Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program Pool Grant. Mr. Willard didn’t first discover there was a Grant. He knew about it one year before!

At that meeting, the project manager’s contract was extended. Commissioner Jennings was the ONLY Commissioner that had good sense when she voted NAY. Clemens, Lowe, Golden and Vespo voted to continue on with O’Gorman’s company, Place Planning & Design that was supposed to be watching out for Lake Worth's interests.

The “western land planners,” as this writer calls them, had nothing to do with the desire of restoring the pool to attract swim meets. That was the vote and the will of the Commission although not the goal of Greater Bay’s. First, Willard wanted to demolish the pool because he said that “it was not structurally sound.” Then he suggested filling in the middle of the pool from 12 feet to 6 feet and have 3.5 feet at the shallow end which would have been too shallow for competitive swimming. In fact, these people wanted to demolish everything.

The “western land planners” had no desire to “return to our historical past” because we agreed with the Commission to renovate and design it so that we could bring in money to our City by attracting national swim meets. National meets bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

FACTS:

• We never had national meets at the Lake Worth pool from inception.

• We never bid for a national meet.

• We never had the facility for a national meet.

• Therefore, there was no historic past as charged by the above critic.
  

All in all, we allowed Greater Bay back on our property for the pool renovation against the advice of our city attorney and now look at what we have. A pool closed indefinitely because of shoddy work and an inferior filtration system along with a myriad of other costly problems.

Ed Lynch for Congress

Comment Up

Ed Lynch, Candidate for Congress District 19
on right

Constitutionalists were out on Saturday with the South Florida 912org political rally at 441 and Okeechobee.

The Mission of 912 Org is to “ partner with local, state, and national public servants, or candidates for those offices, and to stand together to protect the Constitution of the United States of America, and the principles and values therein that created and sustained this nation since 1789.” They have endorsed candidate for District 19 Ed Lynch.

I recall the other night at the LW Democratic Club when someone said we don’t want to support Ed Lynch. I guess not. First of all he is a Republican and an Hispanic American and lives right here in West Palm Beach; he is a life-long fiscal conservative; he is against waste and wants to end corruption; he is appalled at the poor treatment of our veterans; he is for acting on citizen concerns, not just listening; he is pro business; he is a Constitutional candidate. Ed Lynch has no tolerance for illegal immigration. He is pro-Israel and pro-victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why would any Democratic Club support a guy with these high ideals? Why would any Democratic Club support a Republican? Maybe Ed Lynch can count on PB County Republican Chair Sid Dinerstein's support. After the last Lake Worth election, who knows?