Lake Worth's finances: City must begin to reduce pay and benefits

Click title for link to another utterance by the PBP editorial board.  The PBP is cheering on our city manager for stopping the bleeding before the city has no blood left.  To not do so, they say, would be the equivalent of malpractice.  What they don't realize is that their darlings of the dais have done everything in their power to make Lake Worth an unattractive and risky place for anyone with money willing to invest in building or establishing a business here.  To face the worst declines in property values over the past three years of any one of Palm Beach County's 38 municipalities calls into question whether these wounds were more than partly self-inflicted.  We have the disciples of the dais majority championing lower property values and targeting those with very low income to come to our city.  They have been successful, but they don't want another obstacle to lower property values by having to feed money to unionized employees that bargained in good faith - only to be told the city has no money.

Meanwhile, let's use $6 million from the city's cash portfolio to improve the casino building at the beach.  This will not be the economic panacea those on the dais say it will be.  Look for the same tenants to be there, in a slightly improved format.  This is what is going to send legions through our downtown and single-handedly raise property values all across the city?  Look at our shuttered downtown stores, our vacant lots along Dixie Hwy., entire buildings and lots mothballed along Federal Hwy and the long road to payoff from the Park of Commerce.  High utility costs - including WATER - are part of the unattractiveness of a Lake Worth location - whether a residence or a business.  But these high rates are not the only thing turning people and businesses away - much of it is the sum total of the decisions made by the PBP darlings of the dais.