Point of View: Lake Worth’s ‘no’ vote was the wrong choice | www.mypalmbeachpost.com

Click title for link to an article which appeared in yesterday's print edition of the Palm Beach Post. It is by Daryl Glenny, who the city hied for public relations work associated with the bond issue. She seems to have an accurate perspective that infrastructure is not an easy sell, especially when you are asking people to pay for it through a general obligation bond. She makes many strong points, including the fact that conditions will get worse and repairs will get more expensive. From her article:

Sometimes, however, the ballot choices – and the arguments for and against them — are more difficult. A case in point is the City of Lake Worth’s “Lake Worth 2020” referendum on Aug. 26 asking voters to approve $63.5 million in general obligation bonds to fund infrastructure repairs.
I worked for the city in its effort to educate voters, and in my opinion, voters made the wrong choice. In the long run, they are likely to pay a higher price as the city’s infrastructure disintegrates further. But infrastructure is hard to sell. Eliminating yawning potholes, replacing crumbling sidewalks, and enhancing neighborhood safety with street lights and fire hydrants would seem to be desirable projects, but infrastructure repairs are not perceived as life-threatening and don’t lend themselves to provocative sound bites.
Marketing wasn’t the real challenge, however. The question that Lake Worth property owners ultimately had to ask themselves was this: “How much am I willing to pay to subsidize improvements that would help the whole city but would not necessarily benefit me personally?”
By a margin of 26 votes, Lake Worth residents said, “Not so much.”

This also points out that the notion of "community" and that "we are only as strong as our weakest link" did not get adequately communicated during the campaign.