[Hugely popular post] Pineapple Beach Meeting—Comm. Maier and absurd comparison—Delray Beach and Lake Worth

[This post from yesterday generated a huge amount of traffic. The story of Commissioner Ryan Maier's appearance at this neighborhood assoc. meeting also gets reported in The Lake Worth Herald this week, page 6. Curiously, Pelican Pete had this interesting observation on page 1 that's completely irrelevant, or is it?:

Is it true there is a house in Lake Worth that was divided without permits...purchased with CDC funds... needs the Potty Doctor...and half of house is rented... more to come.

Hmmmm, I wonder what that's all about?

Here is the original post of Maier's attendance at a neighborhood meeting:]

The Pineapple Beach Neighborhood Association (a part of the greater Lake Worth NAPC) had their monthly meeting last night at South Grade Elementary. After an emotional attack on Hudson Holdings by Neighborhood Association President Pam Bergsma stating that our beach shouldn't be turned into a private club, she introduces Ryan Maier, Commissioner of District #4. Pineapple Beach is in his district.

In his talk, he talks about the comparison of Delray Beach to Lake Worth and concludes that Delray Beach is gentrified from what it was before development. Commissioner Maier seems not to understand Delray Beach is almost twice the size of Lake Worth population-wise. To get a dose of reality, here is how Google compares the various cities' populations:

Maier makes the claim that the people in Delray today are not the same ones that were in Delray 20 years ago "when Delray started to develop." The word "gentrification" is mentioned and he suggests that he wants Lake Worth to maintain its diversity and wants everyone who is here now to benefit from those changes. I would suggest to you that most people who have lived in Lake Worth a long time have seen a change in the population living here over twenty years, and it would not be a fair comparison to Delray Beach. Notice too (above) how the Lake Worth population line is flat in relation to the larger Delray Beach city population. Delray Beach is also about 2.5 times the geographic area of Lake Worth. These are city limit comparisons, not mailing address comparisons, again from Google:

So, we can conclude that Lake Worth is not and really can never be "another Delray" as Lake Worth really cannot get any bigger than it already is, with few exceptions. And can we conclude that population growth is flat in Lake Worth. Now let's look at income levels in the two cities:

Per capita income in Delray Beach is twice what it is in Lake Worth. These again are city-only figures. Is the message Maier is sending xenophobic or is it saying that current residents have to "get used to living in a ghetto" as former Commissioner JoAnn Golden once quipped?

He then segues into the residential crime rate, how it is high and says that Lake Worth has a lot of halfway houses. He then goes on to compare Lake Worth with Delray Beach again, this time describing Delray Beach in a favorable light related to how they are dealing with the halfway house/sober house problem. So here it's fine to look at Delray Beach as an example.

He then talks about the ITN meeting tonight and encourages people to attend. He concludes that the next big issue will be the lighting contract the city will be considering.

And he actually says, "I'm not just going to get in the way of things while I am on the Commission." He explains how he wants to open single family residential areas so that people can make art there.

At the 14:20 mark, he is asked a question about the Charter and if the city is precluded from selling the beach property. He says that the city can lease the beach for 99 years, by renewing 20 year leases (minus a day) four or five times to the same tenant. Here is what the charter actually says about the property east of A1A, the city's 19 acre beach property:

Sec. 3. - City-owned property east of the A1A roadway.
City-owned property East of the A1A roadway shall not be declared surplus property, and shall not be sold, hypothecated, conveyed, or leased, except for a lease of less than 20 years, without the affirmative vote of a majority of the electors of the City of Lake Worth at a properly noticed and scheduled referendum.
(Ord. No. 2004-5, § 3, 1-6-04)

There is nothing here that allows renewal of a twenty year lease (minus a day) lease to be extended and the city couldn't lease "the beach" for 99 years unless there is an affirmative vote of the electorate. This goes back to the same argument made in the McNamara lawsuit against the city's development agreement with Greater Bay. It was this lawsuit that cast a cloud over the Casino complex project so that Greater Bay could not actively solicit financing, thereby being unable to move forward with their redevelopment plan. The city's breach of that contract eventually ended up with a $1.6 million settlement to Greater Bay from the city, along with $900,000 of legal costs in defense of the city's breach of contract. Commissioner Maier then acknowledges that there are private entities at "the beach" now that have leases with the city.

Please listen and watch the entire video. It seems as though we are still in the same hamster cage with the same wheel.

This is the last minute of Commissioner Maier's talk, where he is "blinded by the light."

Let's conclude with this appropriate pop music classic: