Volunteer board members, sacrificing their time and effort to chart our City’s future.

What volunteer board members need to hear more often, “Thank You”.

Some of you may be surprised to learn how much responsibility, knowledge, and research is needed to be a volunteer board member. The work doesn’t begin when they show up at the meeting and open the agenda packet provided by the City staff. They need to be prepared ahead of time, just like City commissioners or any professional conducting serious business would need to be.

Here is an example:

Coming up on November 1st and November 8th will be very important and potentially very time-consuming agenda items (see 3 of these items below) on the City of Lake Worth’s Planning and Zoning Board (P&Z) and the Historic Resource Preservation Board (HRPB). One can expect a large attendance from the public at both meetings and likely a contingent from the press and news media as well.

It needs to be pointed out often volunteering on City boards takes up a lot of time, effort and inevitably over time, some will have to step away to attend to their own pressing business and family matters. So it’s worth considering whether or not the City needs a C-51 Advisory Committee (it’s only met once in a year) or a Recreation Board (inactive for a decade) and offer these volunteers a seat on another City board (for list of advisory boards use this link).

The official agendas for both these upcoming meetings are not yet available — but already 3 items have been publicly noticed for the P&Z or both the HRPB and P&Z — and there very well may be more agenda items to come. Here are the three we know of:

#1. At the P&Z:

Below is from a notice published in The Lake Worth Herald on Oct. 19th; to learn more about this agenda item use this link for a post on this blog:

[T]he Planning & Zoning Board City of Lake Worth, Florida, will hold a public hearing in the City Hall Commission Chambers . . . on November 1 . . . A request for a Major Site Plan to allow for the construction of a +/- 85 unit apartment complex The subject site is located at 315 North A Street. . .

#2. At the P&Z and HRPB
(use this link):

PZ/HRPB Project # 17-0000006 – A collaborative request by the City of Lake Worth, Lake Worth Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and Cultural Council of Palm Beach County for Murals to be placed on the blank walls of the buildings in the general vicinity of downtown Lake Worth including, but not limited to, the following addresses:

• 604+612 Lucerne Avenue
• 500 N. Dixie Highway
• 824 Lake Avenue
• 10 S Ocean Blvd
• 100 Golfview Road
• FDOT Intracoastal Bridge
• 521 Lake Avenue
• 7 North Dixie Hwy
• 601 Lake Avenue

Note, “[B]ut not limited to, the following addresses”.

#3. P&Z and HRPB:

And just today (Sunday, Oct. 22nd), published in The Palm Beach Post, excerpts from a Public Notice on page A16, below the fold:

“Ordinance 2017-25 of the City of Lake Worth, Florida, amending the City’s Comprehensive Plan to adopt Evaluation And Appraisal (‘EAR’) based amendments pursuant to Section 163.3191, Florida Statutes, which provides for a Comprehensive Update to the Goals, Objectives, and Policies of all elements, including revised text and maps necessary to update the data and analysis of the Comprehensive Plan; providing that the text and maps as amended shall replace in full the existing text and maps in all amended elements”

and. . . 

“Ordinance 2017-26 of the City of Lake Worth Florida, amending the City’s Comprehensive Plan by repealing the current Future Land Use Map and adopting a new Land Use Map with amendments”

Remember. The members of the P&Z and
HRPB are volunteers.

These people are volunteering their time and effort for our City of Lake Worth. They will value your input and listen to what you have to say, but always be respectful and follow the rules at board meetings.

However, very soon it will be Election Season once again and candidates will be pounding the streets looking for votes. So if a candidate or somebody from a political campaign tries to “make hay” of these board meetings, e.g., claims about “secret meetings” or “they’re trying to steal!” this or that, just remember what happened to a former candidate for City Commission in 2016 and what happened to a former City commissioner too in 2017: Use this link to find out.

These volunteers are not “political footballs” and they will defend themselves — if they have to — like Mr. Greg Rice did in March 2016 leading up to the elections last year:

But I would also like to say that. . .