The gist of the matter...

• Cara Jennings is a sitting Lake Worth Commissioner, running for re-election.
• She regularly allows her house to be used by out-of-town guests, so much so that there are house rules, requests for donations for household expenses - Internet access, for one - and there are communal meals.  Most polite hosts do not ask their private house guests to contribute for Internet access.
• Gail Shepherd's piece identified 18 people paying $30 a head for dinner with the proceeds going to Haiti relief.
• According to the article, the house is called the "Canew" and is well known among Commissioner Jennings' broad network of anarchists as a place to stay when in Lake Worth.
• The Lake Worth Zoning Code defines a "Boarding House" as: Boarding house. Any building or structure that is used, maintained, advertised as, or held out to the public to be a place where sleeping accommodations are supplied for pay to transient or permanent guests, or tenants, in which nine (9) or less rooms are furnished for the accommodation of guests, and having one (1) or more dining rooms where meals or luncheons are served to transient guests or tenants. Such sleeping accommodations and dining rooms being conducted in the same building, and for the exclusive use by guests of the facility. 
• Commissioner Jennings' property has a single family land use designation.  As such, one "family" is allowed per dwelling unit.  Family is defined in the zoning code as no more than three persons that are not related.  This is a long-standing code definition - not one that is "proposed."  Technically, four or more unrelated people are not allowed to reside there.  This is then considered "over-crowding." Changes to the code and perhaps the Comprehensive Plan would be needed to allow either a boarding house or more unrelated people per dwelling in a single family zone.
• It is guaranteed that one of the bullet points in Commissioner Jennings' campaign materials will be something like "Support protection of our single family neighborhoods."  
• The character of our single family neighborhoods springs from only allowing one family per dwelling, at the size that is limited by the Zoning Code.
• Enforcement of the "over-crowding" rule has proven difficult and goes back to lack of effective Code Enforcement throughout the city.  There is one  house in my single family neighborhood that has at least 5 unrelated people living there.
• There is an apparent reluctance to enforce this rule as it relates to this sitting City Commissioner's property.
• The complaint made to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Hotel and Restaurants Division (which regulates rooming houses), referenced the article and simply asked: Is there a license for a rooming house at this location and is one needed?
• Around 80 percent of the City of Lake Worth carries a single family land use designation.  Increasing the number of un-related people allowed to live within a dwelling unit in single family neighborhoods would strain public services and the dwellings themselves.  It would do more to increase density and population than any individual rezoning or future land use plan change.
• The City, and Commissioner Jennings, defend single family neighborhoods in the courts and on the dais.
• Options to solve the issue include: Change the text in the zoning code and Comprehensive Plan - which would result in significant change to the character of our residential neighborhoods, stop the practice of routine stay-overs that exceed the three unrelated person limit, or proceed through Code Enforcement.
• To not do so is another "Do as I say, not as I do."  It also brings into question the Code Enforcement capabilities/loyalties of the city staff.