"The blogs will always complain. These blogs are 15 individuals who lie to one another." - Mayor Rachel Waterman

"Honesty is as much saying everything as it is saying what is true" - Richard A. Snelling, elected five times to the Office of Governor, State of Vermont.

The top quote, in the title, is from the August 29, 2011 City Commission meeting made by our Mayor for-three-and-a-half-months Rachel Waterman and showed up in the Lake Worth Herald this week.  Ms. Rachel Waterman better study the quote, placed below her's, of a person who was no stranger to the electorate and understood the importance of the public input in our almost 250 year experiment in self-government.  For me, it underscores the importance of transparency in everything involving the city of Lake Worth.

We need, and have a right, to know everything and our elected officials and city administration need to know what the public is thinking...good, bad or indifferent.  This cannot be solely through the 2 minutes selectively dispensed to the public that is interested and engaged enough to attend City Commission meetings.  It cannot be the generally one-way communication by people challenged by the truth at the doors of likely voters during campaign time.  The people knocking at those doors are selling a product, only instead of a Fuller Brush, they want you to buy what they're saying and get you to the voting booth for their candidate.

So, what tools does the public have left to be informed about what is going on in their local government, arguably the  level of government that most impacts them?  Can they rely on the "local paper of record" that endorsed all five of our current City Commissioners?  Can it rely on a local beat reporter for that paper who has a cozy relationship with the city administration? Can we rely on a small local paper with a small circulation and no Internet presence, with little interactivity?  No, we can't.

So, in this day of the Internet, personal computers, laptops, I-Pads, smart phones and any other electronic device capable of sharing information, it is logical to think that people would find their own way of following what is going on in their local government through the use of any of these tools.  And, this can be frightening to those that we elect since it allows for the democratization of information distribution.  In a state that has at its foundation something called the Sunshine Law, this can be a very powerful tool for the public - but, unfortunately, our elected officials like to see it more as a weapon than a tool.

For a long time, I have maintained that if we can agree on the facts, we can have different opinions about them and have that as the basis for public debate.  The problem comes when facts are manipulated by those in power to such an extent that we are no longer dealing with reality.  Instead, we are left to see the world through someone's eyes as how they would like us to see that world.  That is no way to run a representative democracy - that is a way to run a totalitarian regime.  Any organ that dispenses a truth contrary to those in power is dismissed as either unimportant or the source of distortion.  See Mayor Rachel Waterman's quote above for proof.

I maintain this blog, and have for the past 5 years, in order to encourage public discussion and distribute information.  I don't do it for financial gain - hardly! Regardless of what some might think, I have been to more than a few rodeos in my day and know my way around local government.  I try to bring that expertise and experience to this forum to try to make this city a better place to work, live and play.  It's where I call home and that is the extent of my self-interest in doing what I do.

I try to do a good job at backing up my opinions and pronouncements with research and references to original sources - if I am not doing that, I expect my "15 readers" to tell me.  I am not even going to go into how much traffic this blog gets.  I just know that anyone that is running for "re-election" for Mayor should at least show respect to the resident(s) of her city that spends the time and effort in providing a public forum for her citizenry to discuss what is going on in her city.

If she chooses not to, then use your right to vote in November accordingly.