NOW Ya Tell Us?


While none of this qualifies as news to Panda Fans, it seems the rest of the Lake Worth is waking up to learn in the Palm Beach Post that the Beach Redevelopment Project is 32% over budget, even after cutting the components that would have made it special and before the first shovel hits the sand, or the first new parking spot gets a fresh new stripe. Here's the Link to the Post article, that sadly continues to refer to the Casino portion as a "renovation". 

If it's not criminal, it's at least shameful that this should come as news to anyone at Lake Worth City Hall or Palm Beach County Commission offices. The "budget", ha ha ha, is the $5,000,000 bond money the County waited for years beyond all understanding for Lake Worth to accept (since 2006), to pay for a cleaned up public beach with working showers, bathrooms, nice picnic areas and an attractive boardwalk. The trade-off for Lake Worth was having to give up City Resident decal parking in the most preferred spots. THAT part, Lake Worth did, thanks to the negotiating skill of former Commissioner Cara Jennings. 

Maybe we should send her comrade in anarchist arms, Panagioti Tsolkas, while he's still represents the City on the Community Relations Board, to the County Commission to smooth over any feathers that get ruffled when the County Commissioners wake up this morning to read the news.

Maybe we should send the current Commissioners McVoy and Mulvehill to explain how Lake Worth has such a problem with inconsistent leadership that there's no one to hold accountable. Maybe Mulvehill can organize another Circle of Light around the County offices, this time to "Save the Five Million Dollars" just like she did around the Casino to save that historic building and it's iconic tenants. Maybe McVoy can wax poetic on the virtues of Paspalum vs. St. Augustine grass, a subject he actually knows something about.

We could send Scotty, but what for? He's been saying all this for a long time and no one has heard a damn word he's said. NOW that the public is waking up to guess who is going to have to come up with the extra $1,600,000, maybe it's safe to question the beach financing "plan" without being accused of trying to sabotage the project. And if anyone thinks that $1.6 Million is ALL this project is over budget before it's even begun, they too are in for a few more surprising articles over their morning coffee.

What will happen is this. The project will be "streamlined" to the point of ridiculous to accommodate the absolute maximum the City can get away with taking from utility revenues, capital improvement projects and whatever change is left in the Costco size mayonnaise jar that used to hold the $67,000,000 cash portfolio. Every possible word in the Interlocal agreement with the County for the $5,000,000 will be squeezed and tortured into meaning less than what we agreed to spend the money on. That's already begun. Yesterday, at the Workshop, "Alternative power generation or energy saving systems", (Exhibit A1, Project Description, of the Interlocal, Item No. 15) was re-engineered to mean LED light bulbs. Now there's some groundbreaking energy conservation fer ya!

If you'd like to read the Interlocal Agreement for yourself Click Here. Scroll on down to the February 2, 2010 meeting and click on either the pdf or the html version.  The agreement is 32 pages more or less. Page 8 is interesting. That's where you'll find Article 8: Termination for Non-Compliance. See why February 2, 2012, two weeks ago was such a big deal? 

Really, take the time to read the agreement. The first page alone is worthwhile. That's where you'll find out that in 2006, the City of Lake Worth had $3,620,800 in a dedicated beach fund and that was WAY WAY before there was any Magic Billboard Money. That's when we signed the first Interlocal Agreement to accept $5,000,000 from the County giving us a total of $8,620,800 to spend on just the beach and public areas - not the Casino - JUST THE BEACH.

So that agreement expired in 2009, because LW had not met one single condition and had done exactly NOTHING except screw around with Greater Bay so we could pay half a million dollars and counting in legal fees with no end and no settlement in sight and went back to the County, hat in hand, to beg for another bite at the bond. Hence the new agreement, signed February 2, 2010. Only THIS time, Lake Worth had to say: 

"Gee County Commissioners, you know that $3.6 Million Dollars we had socked away to fix the beach? It's kinda gone. Actually, it's all gone, so we won't be bringing any matching funds of our own to this project at all. Can we still have the $5,000,000 bond money?" 

And the County Commission said Yes. Amazingly. Yes.

So I can't tell you Panda Fans, where the money the City says is somehow in the beach fund now came from. I can tell you where the money to make up for what we don't have in the beach fund is going to come from. But I don't have to because Panda Fans already know and everyone else can just read about it after the fact in the Palm Beach Post.

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