The Ever Moving Target

This coming Friday, February 17, at 9:00 AM, the City Commission will hold another workshop on how and how much to pay for the Beach Redevelopment Project (BRP). Frankly, I give up trying to keep track of how many times this "financing" has changed or the scope of the improvements themselves have been revised, reduced, expanded, eliminated or tweaked. The only constant seems to be the $5,000,000 grant from the County.

The original idea was to finally accept the $5Million from Palm Beach County to make the beach a nicer place to visit in exchange for giving up the premium parking spots dedicated to Lake Worth residents' beach decal holders. We couldn't take County money to improve the grounds and then "discriminate" against County residents when it came to preferred parking spots. 

OK. We signed an agreement with the County saying we would use the money for this that and this other thing. We wrote them all down and the County said, "Great, here you go. Use your own "seed" money to fix the place up and wd'll reimburse you as you go along." - up to the $5 Million.

But then it got weird as it does all too often when Lake Worth bites off more than they can chew or the taxpayers can stomach.  A few critical items were left out like "turtle lighting", the total cost for electric and water infrastructure, and now - a new railing for the seawall. In round numbers, the new "total cost" is $6.4 Million including  an additional $1.4 Million - just for the Beach Redevelopment Project. Or is it?

Have we really sorted out how much of the electric and water infrastructure improvements services the commercial interests of the Casino Re-Something Project and how much services the Beach Redevelopment Project. The County included, and we agreed, that infrastructure improvements would be covered by the County grant. 

But then it turned out that we didn't budget enough for infrastructure improvements to service the Casino Re-Something Project and somehow it all got lumped together and we, LWU rate payers, are footing the bill for all the infrastructure improvements. It seems we also sorta underestimated the cost of the whirly-gigs and pretty pavers for the BRP and something's gotta give. It's that old battle of "Nice to Haves" vs. "Gotta Haves".

Is the seawall really adequate to protect the new Casino building, or did this whole issue skate by on a technicality in the Inspector Generals office investigation? I guess that's a separate issue as this new "improvement" only relates to a new curb and new railing on the seawall. Or is it? Staff tells us it's prudent to move up this "delayed maintenance" item and include it in the Beach Redevelopment Project meaning something from the BRP is going to have to be eliminated or reduced in scope and that's only to keep within the new budget of $6.4 Million AND it means using up the "seed" money AND the "Magic Billboard Money". 

I call it the "Magic Billboard Money" because almost half of it has already magically disappeared and whatever is left has been proposed for so many different projects, this fund has become the "Loaves and Fishes" of LW. 

I understand the need to justify the moving target this financing plan has become. I really do. It's embarrassing for the City to keep coming up with items that were overlooked and underestimated.   Remember how all this was supposed to come in at a Guaranteed Maximum Price? "Except for this" and "Except for that" weren't mentioned at that time were they?

I don't think there were too many people who had a high level of confidence that LW could ever pull this thing off for the $5Million they said they could. Remember, "We can't paint the Beach!". It would appear that some were right to be skeptical. So now what?

The City can keep moving the price tag and the money to pay for it around from here to there or the City can just come clean and say something like:

"OK, We're not very good at this kind of stuff and never should have made promises we could never keep. But, we're in it now and we need to get it finished. So, This, This, This, This and This is what we're going to do to improve the public areas at the Beach because that's all we can do with $5Million and we just have to hope that the County won't mind if we cut back on some of the things we agreed to do; like windmills and pavers and attractive shade canopies." 

OR

"We're not very good at this kind of stuff and we never should have made promises we could never keep. But we're in it now and we need to get it finished. So we're going to spend more than we anticipated and we're not really sure how much that is going to be and we just have to hope that Lake Worth Residents won't mind if we pull money from Capital Improvements Projects for the whole city, the Utility Cash Cow and anywhere else we can find it."

"AND, By the way, we're sorry for continuing to insist that the Casino building was "Renovated". We realize that all of you could plainly see it was demolished and replaced with new construction that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Historical ANYTHING and we deeply apologize for insulting the intelligence of intelligent LW Residents and for those of you who continue to believe that this was only a "Renovation" despite all empirical evidence to the contrary, Thank You for helping to make our big fat lie "believable" for as long as possible."

We are a compassionate, tolerant and forgiving kind of people here in Lake Worth. We understand that this project has been subject to the whim and fancy of different Commission majorities, multiple reincarnations of Senior Staff, project managers, finance directors and one big honkin' lawsuit hanging over it all. Just tell us the truth; the real truth, the whole truth and not just what seems true at any given isolated moment in time. We'd all really like to enjoy a nice new and improved Beach "experience" without feeling like we've been had - again. 

Tell us what the new Beach is going to look like. Tell us what we're going to have to sacrifice to have that and then STICK TO IT.