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| This is an actual Facebook post that has since been deleted. The author lost her job in real estate due to this activity and she is quite offended by that. Most residents of the City are also offended, but for an entirely different reason. Our apologies Mr. President. |
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| Official White House photograph of our 44th and current President, Barack Obama. |
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| Main Level of Addition to the south end of the Casino building, replacing the existing pool and pool locker building. |
The cabana pool club would also have a workout facility and a family of 4 could be a member for $100/month. That also would get them $500 of spending credit at the restaurant or the Gulfstream hotel ( net cost at $700/year). A couple would have $80/month with $250 of spending credit for the year (net cost at $710/year). A single person member would be $60/month with no spending credit or $720/year. This is comparable to any gym with these facilities that you would have available to you….especially at the beach in a great complex.There are those in the city that "clutch the pearls" at the thought of "private development" at our "BEACH!", mostly pointing to the membership aspect of part of this proposal. WAKE UP! This is no different than, and even more favorable a deal, that what the city does when it sells a variety of "membership" options at our publicly-owned, waterfront golf course.
- Resident of The City of Lake Worth (pay member fee per round) $895 (36)
- Non Resident Dues (pay member fee per round) $1325.00 (29)
- Resident Unlimited Dues $2425.00 (15)
- Non Resident Unlimited Dues $2875.00 (16)
- Resident Walking Only Dues $1250.00 (17)
- Non Resident Walking Dues $1650.00 (22)
- Junior Golf Member (Under 18 years of age) $150.00
- Summer Membership (May 1–September 30) (pay $20 cart fee per round) $400
- Seasonal $950.00 (pay member fee per round) (18)
- Member Fee (tax included) $20.00
- Annual Trail Fee $1450.00
- Trail Fee with Spouse $2150.00
- Annual Locker Fee $50.00
- Annual Bag Storage $75.00
- Annual Pull Cart Storage $100.00
"Don't think for one minute that Mr. (Jack) Scarola does not have a very, very clear vested interest in this. He stands to make a very, very large paycheck off of this."
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| Mayor Pam Triolo with lineman from the Lake Worth Electric Utility who competed recently in the Lineman Rodeo. |
By building for cars, not people, have we designed the "free range" out of our communities? Have we denied the younger generation opportunities for spontaneous fun and nature exploration, as well as self-sufficiency? Have we designed physical activity out of our kids’ daily routines? Have we limited opportunities for the younger generation to really get to know their communities and feel safe and secure roaming around them?Later there are some recommended strategies to make communities more "free range". Here are a few:
It’s a hard time to be an olive. After a rash of terrible weather in 2014 and an actual plague of fruit flies, the latest blight to hit the iconic, enigmatic fruit is an actual blight. From the New York Times:GMO's to the rescue?“It is devastating,” said Enzo Manni, the director of ACLI-Racale, an olive cooperative in the heart of the outbreak area. “It is apocalyptic. I compare it to an earthquake.”The bacterium is an invasive species that has already taken down citrus trees in Brazil and vineyards in California. The omnivorous pest is now eating its way through the olive-rich “heel” of Italy, which means the rest of us will have a harder time doing so. Olives, like California’s much maligned almond trees, are slow-growing, which means they are an expensive investment up front.
Today, scientists estimate that one million olive trees in the peninsula, known as the Salento, are infected with the bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, a figure that could rise rapidly.
[Title] Special report hostile to law enforcement
It disturbs me that Sunday’s front page [4/26] said, “What we (The Post) found about the sheriff’s office was disturbing.” To whom?
The Post gives the impression that because “97% of all fatal PBSO shootings (were) cleared” that 97 percent is too high, and there is something sinister going on in the sheriff’s office. What is the acceptable percentage for “cleared shootings”? It may be higher than 97 percent. But The Post insinuates that the percentage should be lower and that there is wrongdoing at PBSO. [emphasis added]
The headlines also claimed “1 in 4 shot at were unarmed” and “More than one-third of people shot at were black.” The negative slant of these headlines could just as easily been written on a positive note: “3 out of 4 were armed” and “two-thirds of people shot at were white.”
The Post is slanting the article in a racially biased manner. The headlines are prejudiced and hostile toward law enforcement.
ROBERT G. BOURQUE, BOYNTON BEACH
WASHINGTON—In an effort to aid and inform local residents ahead of next year’s presidential election, officials at urban polling centers across the nation recommended Thursday that those intending to cast ballots in 2016 should begin lining up now. “Most polling locations will close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, so in order to ensure you have enough time to cast your vote, we suggest looking up your precinct online and planning to arrive sometime in the next few minutes,” Federal Election Commission spokesperson Judith Ingram said in a statement, noting that voters should be prepared for lines at inner-city polling locations that may back up as many as 12,000 or 13,000 hours.
Agatha Christie never wrote a novel about Applebee’s restaurant makeovers in Palm Beach County, but if she did, the title — for now — could have been “And Then There Were Four.”Here is Mr. Thompson's contact information: 561-820-4573 or KThompson@pbpost.com.
As in, four county Applebee’s have been given an extensive community-themed overhaul in recent months by Doherty Enterprises, the New Jersey company that bought 38 of the restaurants — 35 of them in Florida — two years ago.
Locations in Greenacres, Palm Beach Gardens and Boynton Beach have already been upgraded.
By next week, you can add the Royal Palm Beach location on State Road 7 to the list.
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| Image from the article in Walkable West Palm Beach by Baron Haussmann. |
On Saturday March 28 the Treasure Coast Planning Council held a public design workshop for the section of South Dixie Highway from Albemarle Road north to Okeechobee Blvd. On everyone’s mind was a road diet for this section of South Dixie Highway. The default road diet in these situations is to convert the existing four lane section to a three lane section with parallel parking on both sides. This is a tried and true method and it would be a fantastic improvement.A video from the blog:
The REAP series and grant opportunity is open to all neighbors in Palm Beach County, not only Neighborhood Associations. Individuals and non-profit organizations are also encouraged to participate.
In Lake Worth, two such groups were successful in their grant applications. The recently formed Cottages of Lake Worth non-profit volunteer organization received a grant in the maximum amount of $5,000 to fund new maps, brochures and bike card postcards promoting the cottages of Lake Worth as another great reason to invest and make Lake Worth home to even more families.
The new Lake Worth Visitor and Information Center, located in the old City Hall annex building at the Cultural Plaza downtown was conceived, organized and is completely staffed by volunteers. Susan Ona and Teresa Miller, who attended the REAP series on behalf of the Visitors Center, successfully wrote a grant requesting $2,000 for brochure racks, information boards and event calendars to share even more information with visitors and residents alike who frequent the Center. The Visitor Center is open Monday thru Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. As more volunteers from the Neighborhoods sign up to serve, the hours of operation will be expanded.
He has 30 years of newspaper and magazine experience as a writer, editor, reporter and blogger. Kevin joined the Post in January 1996 as an entertainment writer. He was the paper's television critic for 12 years (1996-2008) and theater critic for one (2008-2009). In his career, Kevin has held various positions – researcher, business reporter, small business editor, senior editor, entertainment correspondent, television columnist, education writer. He was an associate editor and small business editor at Black Enterprise magazine for six years in New York City and worked as a reporter and entertainment correspondent for People magazine for two years in New York City and Los Angeles. Kevin has also covered entertainment extensively and written celebrity profiles for such newspapers and magazines as the New York Daily News, the New York Post and Essence while working as freelance writer and before joining The Palm Beach Post.
The pattern could be seen across all genders, races and education levels. However, one demographic that stood out was an group. As Millennials replace previous generations, they bring with them their low religious affiliation: 34 percent of older Millennials and 36 percent of younger Millennials consider themselves religiously unaffiliated.
At the same time, Millennials are not the only age group to be losing their religious affiliations. “people in older generations are increasingly disavowing association with organized religion,” the report read. “Nearly a quarter of Generation Xers now say they have no particular religion or describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, up four points in seven years. Baby Boomers also have become slightly but noticeably more likely to identify as religious ‘nones’ in recent years.”
GMO opponents point to a highly controversial study which links GMOs to cancer in rats, but the health risks to humans is not clear.Here is a video that Suzanne Boyd references in her news segment:
“You can’t prove a negative. People have looked and looked for a problem with GMOs for years and haven’t found it,” says Dr. Curt Hannah, a Professor of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Hannah says we would have known back in 1996 when GMOs first were introduced if there was a problem with them. Boyd agrees. He says he has been feeding his genetically-modified corn to his beef cattle for years and has seen no health changes in his herd.
“There have been numerous studies done which look at what happens prior to GMOs and the number of deaths and after GMOs and there's no significant difference at all,” says Boyd.
Another huge argument with GMO opponents is labeling. The U-S does not require food companies to label their products if they contain GMOs. It’s only voluntary. The major GMO seed companies like Monsanto oppose mandatory labeling.
“It implies there is a danger that does not exist. Plus, the cost of labeling would be passed onto the consumer,” says Dr. Hannah.
Boyd says we need to be very careful if we do require labeling, but thinks transparency is always best. He says GMOs are the reason his family farm is still in business. It makes farming more efficient and cheaper and that is passed onto you in the grocery store.
MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) – Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life [emphasis added], a sobering new study reports.If any updates are forthcoming, such as an antidote, will let you know immediately. Now, about those red signs . . .
The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.
“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”
More worryingly, Logsdon said, “As facts have multiplied, their defenses against those facts have only grown more powerful.”
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| The 'architects' of the failed business plan at the Lake Worth Casino complex. |
After the meeting, several members said they were embarrassed [emphasis added] that Rep. Lori Berman, D-Delray Beach, was in the audience to witness the display.Maybe Mr. Timm from Lake Worth can go to Greenacres to try and bring some sense of normalcy to the proceedings:
In the end, nothing was changed, meaning the term “full council” is still open to interpretation — and perhaps the subject of more political infighting.
Ferreri [Mayor Sam Ferreri] and Rivera [Councilwoman Lisa Rivera] also got into an ugly exchange when Rivera suggested the city tweak its council travel policy to make it more transparent to residents.
“I want residents to see where (council members) would be traveling for the purpose of city business,” Rivera said. “And I want it to be on the council agenda.”
Ferreri said the city budgets $15,000 for council trips, with most of that money being eaten up by two conferences and committee meetings.
He said putting trips on the agenda is “a waste of time.”
“There is no excessive travel,” he said angrily. “Everybody here who travels is bringing something back. We’ve brought back millions of dollars in grants. Compared to other cities, we spend nothing.”
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| Lake Worth gadfly Mr. Peter Timm with mouth taped shut and holding Margaret Menge's now-defunct tabloid, The Lake Worth Tribune at a recent city commission meeting. |
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| Photoshop courtesy of the Tom McGow Archives and what inspired one of the most visited blog posts of mine in several years. Thank You Tom McGow! |
The city owns and maintains more than 20 empty lots in Lake Worth. William Waters is the director for Community Sustainability and says they don't add much to the city's appeal.
"May [sic] become places where trash is dumped, as well as undesirable people hanging out," said Waters.
But the city is trying to change that. They're putting the lots up for sale hoping for people to buy them and build homes or possibly parks to improve the area.
"Put back on the city tax roll, reduce burden on the city to maintain the properties," Waters said.
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| Image from the KQED website. |
A month ago, you may have read about an organization called Women On 20s, whose mission is to put a woman’s face on paper currency by 2020. More than 256,000 followers of the campaign voted to narrow the nominees down from 100 to four. They settled on Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Wilma Mankiller.You can read more about Harriet Tubman here at Wikipedia.
After another voting round, Harriet Tubman has emerged as the nominee that will be used to convince the Treasury Department to make history by better representing history.
For those who didn’t pay attention in school or are from Mars, Tubman was considered the “Moses” of her time. Born into slavery, she managed to escape to the North and then proceeded to return to the South (19 TIMES!) to lead 300 others—including her siblings and parents—to freedom, using her knowledge of safe-houses.
First formal worship service held on January 25, 1914. This original wood frame church, built in the fall of 1914, was destroyed during the great 1928 hurricane.
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| Credit: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. |
The diamond-shaped shingles have been installed as part of the restoration of the former Henry Flagler Railroad depot at Sawfish Bay in Jupiter.
The Loxahatchee Guild is aiming to raise about $200,000 to gut the inside, install the new roof, build new doors and a deck and do other repairs on the structure that was built in 1915 and was once a stop on Flagler’s railroad to Key West.
While used to load and unload passengers and freight, the single-story structure was on the east side of Alternate A1A just north of Indiantown Road, near the current site of Bell’s Mobile Home Park, according to Jupiter records.
Part of the reason GMO hysteria arose in the first place is that most people barely know what GMOs are [emphasis added]. Yoel Inbar, a psychologist at the University of Toronto who studies human judgement and decision-making, said consumers tend to perform just a bit better than a coin flip on simple true-false questions on the subject. “People are alarmingly bad at answering those sorts of questions,” he said. They fear GMOs because of all the images of syringes and tomatoes and evil-looking scientists that pop up when they Google the term, and because of the false specter of giant rat tumors. This fear has created a a gulf between the public's views on GMOs and those of the scientific Establishment. As Mark Lynas, a researcher at the Cornell Alliance for Science and former anti-GMO activist, pointed out in a Times Sunday Review article on how he came around to the technology, a recent poll showed that while “88 percent of ... scientists agreed it was safe to eat genetically modified foods, only 37 percent of the public did — a gap in perceptions of 51 points,” he wrote. That is significantly larger than the gap on climate change (37 points) or childhood vaccinations (18 points).There's a "March Against Monsanto" coming up in West Palm Beach. How many of those marching actually know what a GMO is?
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| Image from the City of West Palm Beach "NEWSROOM". |
"There’s no secret to what the states at the top of the list are doing: They’re providing bike lanes and wide shoulders, and allowing cyclists access to major bridges and tunnels. They’re lowering speed limits to 20 mph, and increasing penalties for drivers who injure or kill cyclists. Their leaders openly promote cycling as a healthy and safe way to get around. They produce and distribute maps of bike paths and trails. The results are equally clear: High rates of commuters who bike, with low cyclist and pedestrian fatalities."Florida is about in the middle-of-the-pack, which is likely an improvement over where it has been. Our Department of Transportation has started to adopt new standards that are more bike friendly, like the ones discussed above. It will take time to make up for sins of the past which included road designs clearly for only automobile traffic.
The last time a hurricane barreled into Florida — Wilma in late 2005 — a Bush was governor and space shuttles could still fly into orbit.This is as good a time as any for a reminder: Amnesty Week is coming soon to Lake Worth.
It's somewhat rare to go so long without a cyclone, and experts fear Floridians are catching "hurricane amnesia."
To spur memories, this year's Governor's Hurricane Conference in Orlando will have a session that looks back a decade to the record season of 28 storms, which included 15 hurricanes, seven major hurricanes and Wilma's romp across South Florida.
"It serves as a reminder that just because it's been quiet for the last 10 years doesn't mean it's going to continue," said Rob Molleda, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Miami, who will moderate the session. "It's also natural to look back to see what we have done since."
Opponents of genetically modified foods plan to march in protest on Saturday along Forest Hill Boulevard.
The first-ever “March Against Monsanto” in Wellington is one of nearly 350 such rallies happening this month worldwide. Another march is planned May 23 in West Palm Beach.
Monsanto is an agricultural company often affiliated with GMOs, or genetically modified organisms. It sells herbicide-resistant seeds to farmers, products known as “Roundup Ready.”
The march in Wellington begins at 9 a.m. at the Old Wellington Mall, at Forest Hill Boulevard and Wellington Trace.
Signs of a growing biotech industry could be seen in all directions this week during the 12th annual BioFlorida Celebration of Biotechnology on the grounds of RTI Surgical at Progress Park.[and. . .]
Three more tents were added this year to accommodate 94 tables, up from 80 last year, to house the trade show’s biotech companies and businesses offering lab equipment, patent attorneys and construction services, among others.
Nancy Bryan, president and CEO of BioFlorida, said industry growth is statewide, pointing to statistics which show that the number of biotech companies doing research and development in Florida grew 93 percent in six years, from 136 to 262 in 2014. [emphasis added]
Over the last year, two immuno-oncology companies from California have opened in the Tampa area and Lupin, an India-based pharmaceutical company, expanded in Broward County.
“The biotech sector in general is growing, but also Florida has been discovered as a good place to do business, and in biotech there’s a lot of research going on in Florida,” said Patti Breedlove, director of the University of Florida Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator.
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| Note that the Casino business plan is now officially a failure. This information was gleaned from the recent Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) process in the City. |
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| Here is one of those misleading signs AnnaMaria is referring to. |
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| Picture of REAP recipients from AnnaMaria'a blog. (I didn't ask permission but don't think she'll mind.) |
They are all dead now — probably; some of their names have been lost to time, so there’s no way to be certain — and there’s no way to ask them if they knew they were making history. But the seven black people who splashed into the water at all-white Haulover Beach 70 years ago this weekend set off ripples that would eventually turn into the most profound social upheaval in American history, the civil rights movement.Here is a "History Lesson" from former Lake Worth blogger-extraordinaire Tom McGow from July 2007. One of the news clippings he references from June 21, 1963, has this line about the Lake Worth beach:
“What they did was very, very significant,” said Miami historian and preservationist Enid Pinkney, 83, then a teenager who followed the events at Haulover closely. “I can’t say for sure it was the first act of civil disobedience for civil rights. But it was certainly one of the very early ones, not just in Florida but in the whole South.”
The protest, nearly a decade before the national civil-rights movement began to take hold, quickly resulted in what was then Dade County opening a beach to its black citizens for the first time. And it touched off nearly two decades of sit-ins and demonstrations to integrate restaurants, nightclubs, hotels and everything else in the county.
For the third time in as many days a handful of Negroes Thursday swam without incident in the ocean off this city's municipal beach.
![Dr. W. H. Cotton’s ode: “Oh, My Lake Worth, Florida!” [circa 1920].](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUL75cv6zJQFjX15ojOIIz9AjnbqH4asHJTYSDhnGnYr7rJZRha1NcNTirj2xPcId158vkz5Hw-wXgOfrlztj8Zr8jLFFCfuEN6PyV44ZlpMRmJ68xbtFL9vzxNiG7xDs_HJvm/s1600/LakeWorthPioneers.JPG)
