[PINNED POST] The exciting “new” news that went largely unnoticed at last Tuesday’s City Commission meeting.

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While so many were distracted at this City of Lake Worth Commission meeting last Tuesday by the never-ending old news, the decrepit municipal pool at the Beach (aka, our City’s “White Elephant”), the new news went mostly unnoticed by so many in attendance. The blog post below is getting a tremendous amount of attention and you’ll discover why:

The prospect of the little City of Lake Worth becoming the research and development “epicenter” of Ocean Wave Energy Generation worldwide is a very real one:

Mayor Pam Triolo: “[W]e are no longer the ‘old’ Lake Worth.” Since this news first broke on Feb. 13th it’s gone unreported in The Palm Beach Post (but was reported in The Lake Worth Herald). 

The topic of the Southeastern National Marine Renewable Energy Center (SNMREC) and the Dept. of Energy was discussed last night by Mayor Pam Triolo and Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell. The reason why Maxwell missed the Commission meeting on February 7th was because he was in Washington, D.C. discussing this crucial topic with Federal officials.

How big is this news? Real big. County Commissioner Dave Kerner talked about this at his recent neighborhood meeting in the City and when it’s great news about the City of Lake Worth and The Palm Beach Post is ignoring it you know it’s big (note: this news was reported in The Lake Worth Herald on Feb. 16th ).

Below is what Mayor Pam Triolo* said at her recent State of the City Address on the topic of Ocean Current Energy, the City’s proximity to the Gulf Stream, having its own Electric Utility and existence of an outfall pipe that extends a ¾-mile into the Atlantic Ocean:

“On my recent trip to Washington [in January] I also met with the US Department of Energy about our partnership that began last year with Southeastern National Marine Renewable Energy Center, or SNMREC, at Florida Atlantic University. SNMREC is one of three entities created through the Department of Energy to promote private sector development of three types of power generation from the ocean. Wave, Tidal and Current driven energy has tremendous promise to provide clean and consistent power from the ocean.”

For more perspective, this important meeting at the Casino on February 12th was less than 2 weeks after the Post reported that Mayor Pam Triolo’s State of the City was “nowhere” which couldn’t be further from the reality.

This is as real as it gets. The prospects and implications for Lake Worth and the future of energy could be revolutionary. Below are photos taken at the meeting on Feb. 12th:

Recognize anyone? One of those in attendance was County Commissioner Dave Kerner (in blue shirt with back to camera). This “Ocean Energy Round Table Discussion” was led by State Rep. Kathleen Peters.

Lake Worth City Manager Michael Bornstein was part of the discussion as well as Mayor Pam Triolo.

Others in attendance were Florida State Rep. Lori Berman and State Senator Jeff Clemens.

Another quote from Mayor Triolo from her State of the City Address:

“We may become the place in the world that makes ocean current power a reality. We are also looking to change state law to be able to create an Efficient Energy Economic Zone in the City to encourage the companies to locate here and bring jobs. In many ways, this is about clean renewable energy and economic development.

     Coupled with increasing the availability of feeding renewable energy into our grid for use in the City, we may be able to add power from the Gulfstream to our solar and one day have the highest level of renewable energy of any city in the state or even the country. This is a strategic approach the old Lake Worth would not have been able to imagine much less make happen.”

The theme of Mayor Triolo’s State of the City Address was, “I believe we have truly turned the corner, we are no longer the ‘old’ Lake Worth.”

*Expect Commissioner McVoy, PhD, to “ride the coattails” of Mayor Triolo and Vice Mayor Maxwell on this issue. He’s already “riding the coattails” of Commissioner Andy Amoroso on the issue of Sober Homes, the Heroin Epidemic, and many other issues as well to try and get re-elected on March 14th.