More on the pool and the beach from last Tuesday's City Commission meeting (5/21/13)

City Manager Michael Bornstein from last Tuesday night's City Commission meeting:

I just want everybody, please, we're not "anti-pool." We're not trying to do anything to the pool, we're trying to figure out solutions, honestly. We hear that people want to use it. The ducks use it for God's sake...Don't think for a minute, magically overnight going to start paying for itself or making money. Don't think that the beach is now magically curing our ills as a city.
     I use the example, you get one of those new Cadillac STS cars, that you lease, you park it out in front of your house, the curb, where you got code violations, you're in foreclosure, you're in a divorce, your mother-in-law is moving in. That Cadillac STS is our beach. We haven't fixed what's behind the car or at the curb. And it has the appearance of success. It is a very successful project. We don't have a problem with it. We need to not, by default, all of a sudden assume that everything else is healthy and normal in this city because we got that [the beach] or that is somehow magically curing everything for us.
     So, I am not "anti-beach", I love the beach.

There are a series of three videos that you really have to watch. This is the last one.  I've transcribed what Bornstein has said for the most part in each of them, but it is also important to listen to what the Commissioners and the Mayor say.  There is much talk about the need to get the word out, but how?

What word needs to get out you ask?  On how the beach is successful, but it hasn't proven to be a financial success, yet. We are not paying back what we borrowed from ourselves to the tune of $500,000 this coming budget year since we can't afford it.  The assumptions that went into the hallowed business plan crafted by a previous administration (eh hem) which  did not include enough staff to maintain the beach that is being used more than it has been in recent history. There was no provision for adequate staff to run a potential money-making operation  in the ballroom space.  After MUCH discussion by the City Commission during the summer of 2011, the city made the decision to have a separate second floor restaurant, instead of combining it with the anchor restaurant on the first floor.  "Build it and they will come!  It is such a beautiful space everyone will want to be there."

Well, where are "they" Commissioner McVoy?  The space remains empty and is not paying any rent in its current condition.  Personally, it would have made sense to connect the two spaces - the ballroom and the restaurant space so it could be rented as one large space.  You could use the extra space as staging area during smaller events for the next event, or just have the option of a large ballroom.  As it is now, the ballroom seems a little small, but that is not going to change any time soon.
The point is that, as nice as it is, we were all sold a bill-of-goods on how financially successful this project was going to be and that the city would have no trouble maintaining the beach when it was re-done.  We see now that wasn't the case, as we have seen that the building wasn't "preserved", that it was actually torn down, many of the much touted "green" items of the building went un-built (cistern, wind turbines, etc.)  and there were many problems with the build "quality" of some of the materials used in the building.  Has anyone heard anymore about the status of the punch list?

So, there you have it.  Lake Worth has re-done its beach.  Good. Fine.  Let's find a way to make it pay for itself and move on to addressing the real, intrinsic problems that the city has like high electric rates, depressed economic conditions relative to our prime location in Palm Beach County, Florida and a City Commission and administration that struggles with getting the most simple of concepts out to the public.

West Palm Beach uses social media to the fullest extent: FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube and its own state-of-the-art website.  Lake Worth has nothing that compares with that and therefore can't consistently communicate a message.  This blog is an attempt by one resident to do that.