What Commissioner McVoy will not tell you...

This video above is from his introduction at the South Palm Park Neighborhood Association Candidate Forum held last Wednesday at the Lake Worth Golf Course Clubhouse. There is another one at the same location hosted by the Parrot Cove Neighborhood Association tomorrow night, 2/16, at 7 p.m.

In his introduction, he talks about his first involvement in city politics and mentions he was part of a political action committee to prevent "commercial zoning" at the beach. What he doesn't tell you is that effort didn't change anything to the zoning or the land use at the beach. The same zoning and land use designation at the beach property (Beach and Casino District) on the books and in full force and effect today is the same zoning that he led the petition against. This new zoning designation was needed in order to allow ANY commercial use at the beach. The ultimate project that we see today COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ACCOMPLISHED without the zoning and land use that he protested.

What it did end up doing was, along with another lawsuit at the time regarding the length of the lease for the Greater Bay project, was to delay any action. Other than improving the pool, Greater Bay was prevented from proceeding with their development plan. In the video below, Ms. Anderson claims that Greater Bay "made a mess of our pool." That is the same pool that I will be using later today and many say that it has never been in better shape.

Ms. Anderson's comments come at a time when the city was considering settling the Greater Bay lawsuit, which she and Commissioner McVoy were against. I guess they wanted to take the chance, by spending more money on attorneys than the $900,000 the city had already spent in defense of an indefensible lawsuit against Greater Bay, that the city could face up to a $20 million judgement: payable to Greater Bay. Here is Commissioner McVoy, the only Commissioner to vote "no" on the settlement, in defense of his vote.

The moral of the story here is that the very same people who support Commissioner McVoy and candidate Ryan Maier are the same ones that opened the door to spurious legal entanglements that this Commission is only now emerging from.

When all was said and done, the Greater Bay lawsuit cost the city $1.4 million to settle and nearly $1 million to defend. Far from being the White Knight that saved the city from commercialization of the beach, Commissioner McVoy was part of the group that wanted to take a chance (a gamble!) on a $20 million+ jury judgement in the matter. That was your taxpayer money at risk.

He also mentions his time on the Planning & Zoning Board. That period consisted of a total of three meetings that he attended before he resigned to run for a Cara Jennings' seat on the Commission. He was, and is, still supported by Cara and Company.