Letter to PB Post Editor: Lake Worth needs leaders who will help businesses

Click title for link to Letters to the Editor section where Greg Rice's letter appears.  There is another local blogger that uses the Royal We to describe her fondness for the incumbent Commissioner Mulvehill.  For some reason that is beyond comprehension, this other blogger thinks that this Commissioner's record is pro-business and claims there are new businesses are opening in Lake Worth.

This blogger asks, "Where?"  She can't mean the downtown where long time businesses are shuttered and the vacancy rate is more than 50%.  It can't be along Dixie Hwy where the most common sign along the stretch in Lake Worth is "For Sale" or "For Rent."  The south end of West Palm Beach looks downright prosperous in comparison.

Could this apparent economic disparity be due to the exorbitant commercial electric rates made possible by the City Commission making sure that they are the highest in the state of Florida?  That's part of it.  The other part may be due to increasing water rates that punish heavy commercial users of water - rate increases that were voted for by the incumbent Commissioner Mulvehill.  Or is it due to the inefficient building permit process?

Lake Worth - for the past two years - has had the largest decrease percentage-wise in property tax value of any Palm Beach County municipality.  Maybe having a Comprehensive Plan that is still not in compliance and a lack of a workable zoning code contributes to investors choosing other locations, without the inherent strengths of Lake Worth's location - to build or establish places for employment of Lake Worth residents.

The other blogger also places a lot of importance on the rehabilitation of the Casino building at the beach as being some sort of economic salvation.  This relatively small project will only be slightly larger than the building that is there now and won't attract many more than the current facility.  It's also being financed internally by the city through the use of what sounds to the common resident like "playing the float" or "kiting checks" - with the promise of some White Knight bank financing that will come in when the project is finished.  Really?  Prove it.

So yes, we need to move from the past and emerge to a new economically prosperous future.  Commissioner Mulvehill had her chance and failed miserably.  The other candidate, McVoy, sits at the right hand of current Commissioner Jennings.  We can expect the same results from him.