Hijacking the planning process in the City of Lake Worth

Probably no better explanation of this than what occurred in October of last year. A road project had been in the works for some time, 7th Ave South, and at the very last opportunity every objection that could have been made earlier in the process (but wasn't) suddenly became an issue near the end. The political process was hijacked and the plan was stalled yet again. You can read about what happened here.

Here is an excerpt:

The crowd at the city commission meeting on October 7 included former commissioner/Anarchist Cara Jennings, Anarchist Panagioti Tsolkas. Former Commissioner Jo-Ann Golden (and Cara-clone) had her comments read into the record in absentia, a petition was presented from "23 mothers in the area", and neighbors claimed they had no idea a road was being proposed.

Lake Worth Commissioner McVoy sat through all the meetings on this project and the suddenly "saw the light":

Commissioner McVoy was in office, taking in everything that was happening and thought to have been keeping tabs and displaying tacit approval of what was going on. Not until nudged by his narrow group of supporters, did he protest about the lack of community engagement and need for more planning and study - prior to the money being spent. Money already simmering on the back burner for years.

Here is the video of that meeting; go to the 14:48 mark to see Tuesday Gilliam and her comments:

Which leads us to the city commission meeting tonight. For years now many in the city have complained about 6th Ave South, myself included. The city has responded and has come up with a plan to fix the situation. Will that be acknowledged by the community and the commission thanked for taking all this into consideration? Probably not.

More likely than not the line to the podium will be critics of the project and cries to spend the money on more worthy projects somewhere else. And when those projects come before the city commission the cries will be to spend the money somewhere else once again. And the process grinds to a halt and nothing gets done. You can see the result of that inaction. Call it what you wish: monkeywrenching, paralysis by analysis, hijacking the process, etc.

Note that at the last meeting the City set with the residents of that area to discuss the 7th Ave South project no one showed up I'm told. Isn't that telling.

Hopefully tonight some residents of the City will stay for this agenda item and show their support for this 6th Ave South project. No doubt Cara Jennings, Panagioti Tsolkas, and many others will show up on their bikes to register their displeasure. And also note it's usually all the same crew.