District 1 Lake Worth 2020 Meeting - Osborne Center - 5/23/14

This turned out to be an interesting meeting in many respects. Commissioner Maxwell started it off by addressing questions that had come before in the other meetings held before the one last night. City Manager Bornstein led the group through the ever-evolving PowerPoint presentation. It was different from the one shown the previous night and I wish it was up on the city's website. Perhaps it will be later in the day.

By the way, I have been told by many, including computer/Internet savvy people, that they are having trouble in finding what is current information on the links found on the city's website. Here is a screen grab of how it looks as I am writing this:

It might be better to keep an actual page or sets of pages open with the most current information that does not rely on links. If you click on some of the older information, it can be quite confusing as much has changed from the beginning. It WAS a bigger scope at first and then narrowed down to the current proposal. It used to include building repairs. Last night's presentation included comparisons of millages from other municipalities in the region, which showed their debt millage in relation to their operating millage. That information should be accessible readily.

I went there without my better camera and tripod, thinking that I would just take a few stills of the meeting and then write about anything new. So, I had my handheld Canon, which also has a video function but is more limited than the other. As the meeting went on, things started going a little off track. At that point, I moved from where I had been sitting in the second row to a few rows back and took these three videos. These last about a total of 30 minutes if you watch the playlist. It ended up looking a little bit cinema verite, however I am sure that you will find parts worthwhile.

It was apparent that there were bona fide District 1 residents there and they asked some good questions. We also heard from Atlantis resident Dennis Dorsey who got started talking about the sheriff. John Rinaldi painted a "doomsday" scenario about what would happen if we have another double-digit recessison. Lynn Anderson reads off a list of debt that she believes the city has. Staff response was that the utilities have debt, the city does not and that the city had a general obligation bond issue before for the fire station that was paid off early. Suzanne Squires spoke as well as Peggy Fisher and others. The video is not exhaustive, but you might be exhausted after watching/listening to it.

As always, feel free to comment below. The other two videos from Wednesday night's District 3 meeting will be up shortly.