The City of Lake Worth is just one little City. But why does news between our City and the Village of Wellington get mostly ignored?

The print edition of The Palm Beach Post’s Lake Worth Very Very Special Monday Collector Print Edition (LWVVSMCPE) is tomorrow. Every Monday. Each and every Monday. Again and again and again and no one knows why. Live in Greenacres and need phone number for the Lake Worth sewer department? Parks and recreation? That’s right. You’ll find it every Monday in the Post.

It’s never been explained why the little City of Lake Worth is so special and cities like Greenacres and Palm Springs aren’t.

Every Monday the City of Lake Worth is highlighted along with much larger cities. Greenacres is a little city too? So is Palm Springs. Why can’t those cities be special every now and then?

If you’ve been paying attention, read this blog, or get The Lake Worth Herald you have a real good idea what’s going on in Lake Worth. But imagine you live in Greenacres and have been trying everything to get the attention of their beat reporter (contact information below). You grab that morning’s paper and it’s the LWVVSMCPE again. Really? This question is certainly being pondered by residents, City governments, and politicians in Greenacres, Palm Springs, Atlantis, and other cities as well. But now imagine you’re an official in Lake Worth (either elected or not) and you find this City the focus, or target if you will, of the County’s paper of record. The logical question is why. That’s never been explained. Does Lake Worth deserve all this attention?

Six square miles. Six. 6. That’s the size of the City of Lake Worth. Palm Beach County is 2,386 square miles. Lake Worth is 0.25% of that. Lake Worth’s percentage of the County population? 0.0026. That’s it. However, if you’re a regular reader of The Palm Beach Post you’d think this City is a much bigger player on the stage. It’s not. We’re a blip compared to our neighbor to the north, West Palm Beach.

However, each and every week Lake Worth gets special attention along with 5 other cities and you have to wonder why (square miles/population from Wikipedia):

• Lake Worth 6/35,000
• West Palm Beach 58/100,000
• Boynton Beach 16/68,000
• Jupiter 21/61,000
• Wellington 45/62,000
• Palm Beach Gardens 55/49,000

Why the Post has decided to focus so much attention on this City is anyone’s guess. This is a disservice to the news reading public, especially to all those communities west of this City who get ignored for the most part.

The Lake Worth City Commission, City management, and staff have weathered this hyper-focus well and they should be congratulated for how professional they’ve handled this situation. Below is a blog post from last October. It’s about zoning and development happening close to Lake Worth’s western border. After you’re finished reading ask yourself this question: “Why is Lake Worth so special?” It shouldn’t be.

To the east and south of Palm Beach State College (see image below) is the County’s John Prince Park. The City of Lake Worth’s western border is Lake Osborne Drive, not shown on the map, on the east side of the park (click on image to enlarge).

Image from the October 20th Lake Worth Herald, page 5. Read more about this below.

This is the kind of news you don’t read about in The Palm Beach Post. If you didn’t know any better you would think real estate news of any significance stopped at the western border of the City of Lake Worth and picked up again out near the Village of Wellington somewhere.

Most everything between Lake Worth and Wellington gets ignored for the most part but every now and then real estate news from a city other than Lake Worth gets attention like this news from business reporter Jeff Ostrowski about Greenacres.

Then you have that cabal of malcontents here in Lake Worth opposed to any development whatsoever but they do make a lot of noise and that gets the attention of the press. They’re keenly aware of what’s happening in John Prince Park and not happy about that either. You know, they’re the one’s upset about Garlic Fest next year, want to eliminate all human activity because of Gopher tortoises, tied up in knots over the new dog park under construction, all twisted over the possibility of Spring Training baseball. . .

Well, guess what’s happening right across the road (Congress Ave.) from John Prince Park in Palm Springs? From page 5 of last week’s Lake Worth Herald, “Legal Notice No. 30862, The Village of Palm Springs proposes to adopt the following Zoning Ordinance” to:

"ADD A NEW SUBDIVISION X 'COLLEGE-HOSPITAL OVERLAY' TO INCLUDE SECTIONS 34-1081 THROUGH 34-1084 ENACTING AREA SPECIFIC DEVELOPMENT ALLOWANCES FOR THE SOUTH CONGRESS AVENUE CORRIDOR"

[and. . .]

"A Public Hearing on the proposed ordinance will be held at the Village Council Chambers at Village Hall, 226 Cypress Lane, Palm Springs, Florida. Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 6:30 PM by the Village Council."

So, you see, there’s much more going on in Central Palm Beach County than just what's happening in the little charming City of Lake Worth:

Just three of the cities in “Central Palm Beach County”. The areas in white are unincorporated Palm Beach County (suburban Lake Worth) and the Lake Worth Corridor.

Greenacres is “a lot of nothing”? A city “between the glitzier Wellington and the cooler Lake Worth”? The City of Greenacres and their residents deserve better than that.

Live in Greenacres? Palm Springs? Have news you would like to see published in the Post? Here is how to contact the beat reporter, Kevin Thompson (also the beat reporter for the City of Lake Worth):
Phone: 561-820-4573
E-mail: KThompson@pbpost.com
Twitter: @KevinDThompson1