Would anyone like to talk about civility today?

Tonight at Lake Worth City Hall could potentially be a very contentions one. However, this meeting could be potentially less contentious if everyone — and that includes the elected leaders and the public in attendance as well — all follow the rules how public meetings should be conducted.

What are those rules? They are at the end of this blog post. But first, let’s discuss civility.



“Commissioners are fair game but it’s just so far from the truth that unfortunately some people will believe it”.

—Lake Worth Commissioner Andy Amoroso, January 2015.



Back in June 2015 former CBS12/WPEC reporter Jonathan Beaton did a news segment about this terrible incident in the City of Lake Worth and, coincidentally, left that news organization a short time later. The link to Beaton’s news story was deleted a short time afterwards. But the text from that news is later in this blog post.

This, sadly, is protected Free Speech.

One City resident in particular expressing support for former Lake Worth Commissioner Ryan Maier. And then-Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell and Commissioner Andy Amoroso depicted in KKK robes. Not very charming, is it?

Now 3½ years later Andy Amoroso is the vice mayor in the City of Lake Worth and Scott Maxwell is the vice mayor pro tem. At the end of this blog post is the current City Commission.

Here is an excerpt from the text of the story which was deleted by CBS12:


A Palm Beach County community is being rocked by a disturbing photo, depicting two local lawmakers as members of the Ku Klux Klan.
     CBS12 is investigating and learned the photoshopped picture first surfaced on a local Lake Worth blog and later spread on social media, sending shockwaves throughout the town.
     Disturbing, troublesome and downright despicable are just a few of the words residents and lawmakers are using to describe the photoshopped photo, which shows Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell and Commissioner Andy Amoroso wearing white KKK garb. In the middle is newly elected Commissioner Ryan Maier.
     “Commissioners are fair game but it’s just so far from the truth that unfortunately some people will believe it,” said Commissioner Andy Amoroso.
     CBS12 first found the picture on a Lake Worth blog, run by a local resident.


All the information above comes from this blog in January 2017.

Will spare you the images of Lake Worth Mayor Pam Triolo being burned in effigy, a high-velocity bullet striking the head of a City Commissioner, and the names on bullets too.

So what’s the point?

Despite differences in opinion
the City Commission sets the tone.

The City Commission: Follow the rules of order.

The Public: Follow the instructions from the Chair, Mayor Pam Triolo.