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March 9, 2012 -- “In typical fashion, Lake Worth narrowly dodged trouble with a missed deadline last month on its decades-long quest to fix up its public beach. Thankfully, the problem was averted, and the city may complete the work this year. The beach improvements involve transforming the dilapidated concrete-and-asphalt site into a lush space filled with benches, walking and bike paths, a playground and trees. The work is meant to accompany the $6 million overhaul of the beachfront casino, which was all but torn down and is being restored into a stunning Mediterranean Revival-style home for restaurants and shops. The improvements to the surrounding site were supposed to be paid primarily by a $5 million grant from Palm Beach County. But for Lake Worth to receive the money, the work had to get under way by Feb. 2. The city spent so long fumbling, plagued by unexpectedly high cost estimates, that it missed the deadline. Fortunately, county officials let the city slide, telling Lake W...

How can we be sure we're moving forward if our leaders don't care where we are or how we got here? Last night the Commission unanimously approved the new and improved G uaranteed M aximum P rice for the B each R e-development P roject.  $6,712,591 . . . and Yes, I said unanimously. Oh, there were lots of lips paying lots of service to the sorry state of affairs in which they found themselves staring down the barrel of another drop-deadline, and several even went so far as to inquire if the deadline was, you know, actually real or arbitrarily set to force their hand. Not wishing to climb out any further on that shaky limb, the Commission chose to heed the dire warnings of the in-house Project Manager, Kathleen Margoles and approved the 34% increase that guess who is going to have to pay over and above the $5,000,000 County bond money.  Who? Why the City of course, and by "the City", they mean us. The Commission will simply reach a little deeper into the Costco size may...

Whenever things go awry in Lake Worth, and maybe anywhere else too, one of the reasons most often sited is the changing of the guard. That was then and this is now and ne'er the twain shall meet under an umbrella of accountability. The beach project, under discussion again tonight, is the quintessential example. How much time will be taken up with the "I wasn't here" or the "I told you so's." How many charges and counter charges of sabotage, delay and ineptitude will fly around the room only to land us back where we started. How much effort will go into defending prior positions and back-pedaling on unfulfilled promises.  I'm sick to death of parades being led from behind; pushing old agendas rather than pulling the pieces, however fragmented, together into a project that can be salvaged. Telling the truth would be a nice place to start. The gig is up anyway. Pretending that all's well, when it clearly is not, is an insult added to the injury we...

Photography by Stacie Lee On Tuesday, February 28th at 6:00 PM , the City Commission will hold a Special Meeting to approve the latest G uaranteed M aximum P rice ( GMP ) for the B each R e-Development P roject ( BRP ). This is the part of the project that DOES NOT include anything related to the C asino R e-Something P roject ( CRP ). It's an open meeting. The public may attend and may be allowed to comment. The first GMP was $5,000,000 but that was before it was called a G uaranteed M aximum P rice. That's back when it was called a campaign promise . You know, that thing about the B each R e-development P roject not costing the voters, I mean the taxpayers, of Lake Worth one dime above the $5,000,000 bond money from the County. Remember that? Remember back in 2006 when the taxpayers of Lake Worth had $3,620,800 socked away in a Beach Fund to add to the $5,000,000 County bond money to do something really nice up at the beach? And then somehow that money was all gone and in 20...

The Commission is holding a Regular Meeting tonight at 6pm. Highlights include: On Consent: Two different grant applications. One for $500,000  for the Electric Utilities from the US Dept of Energy with a City match of $410,000. This is for the "Beat the Peak" program and probably should be pulled. This is a good opportunity to explain what "Beat the Peak" means and how this software will work and what it means for the average customer.  The second grant application is for $30,000 from the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection and is slated to pay for educational and interpretative signage at the Beach. This grant has a one to one matching requirement and part of the $5,000,000 County bond that was budgeted for native landscaping will be used for that purpose. Also on Consent is a proposal to accept a labyrinth as a donation to Bryant Park to be located near the water south of the boat ramp parking lot. Several citizens have asked for this item to be pulled in o...

"In her first term, Commissioner Mulvehill pushed to save the beachfront casino building from demolition and fully supports the innovative restoration plan that could begin next year. So does Dr. McVoy, a soil scientist with the South Florida Water Management District. Ms. Blockson has qualms, and Ms. Maxwell - no relation to Commissioner Scott Maxwell - even more so. She says the financing plan, under which Lake Worth in two years will take a loan to repay itself for up-front construction costs, won't work. The city's financial experts say it will. Moving ahead on the long-stalled project makes sense." Just in case the above quote doesn't seem familiar, allow me to refresh your memory. Click Here  to read the  Palm Beach Post editorial endorsing Cara Jennings' hand picked successor, Chris McVoy, for the office of Commissioner District 2 and Suzanne Mulvehill, running for re-election as Commissioner District 4.  Oh. By the way, if you do click on the link and ...

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 p...

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. U...