Watch out for Negative Nellies...

On February 22/23 the annual Street Painting Festival will kick off in our downtown Lake Worth. This will be the 21st year of our signature City event. The festival that helped put our little City of Lake Worth on the map.

Last year's festival was the best attended Street Painting Festival ever, by most accounts. However, some were not happy. What if I told you on February 21, 2014, the day before last year's Street Painting Festival, a Lake Worth resident and blogger included a picture of a Hispanic male "conked out" drunk on Lake Avenue?

Well, that is exactly what the other blogger did:

Many bloggers use "keyword manipulation" to drive traffic to their blogs. Notice along with her tags of "street painting festival, city of lake worth", the other blogger also includes the tags "addictive substance, illegals, third world". This is intentional.

By adding the extra tags, that blogger was trying to increase that blog's traffic and attempting to manipulate visitors to her blog to not attend the Festival. Why include a picture of an 'illegal, third world' (according to the "tags"), Hispanic male 'conked out' on the day before the Festival, on Lake Avenue? That blogger tried to damage the image of the Festival. Some people can't help but spread their miserableness.

Some readers of that blog were tired of the antics and childish behavior and they let its author know it:

As we get closer to the Street Painting Festival, a small cadre of troublemakers may try to drive wedges in our community for their own petty political objectives. When you hear or read criticisms of the Festival and its organizers, understand their motivations aren't objective or ideologically pure.

Stay positive. Help your City. Leave the politics of envy and hate out of OUR STREET PAINTING FESTIVAL. Choose carefully that which you choose to read. The city you save may be your own.