Excerpts from Lake Worth Mayor Pam Triolo’s State of the City Address on Jan. 31st.

Check back over the next few weeks for more excerpts from the mayor’s State of the City Address, some short and others not so short. The three quotes below sum up quite well how Lake Worth ended up with many of the problems that still have to dealt with today, problems created starting over thirty years ago when many people turned their backs on Lake Worth and moved west: 

“You may already know that I am the only woman Mayor to be re-elected in our history. But did you know that I am the only Mayor since 1967 to serve three consecutive terms? This tidbit of history isn’t going to get me a statue on Lake Avenue but in Lake Worth it hadn’t been done for 50 years. As I think about it, I am reminded that in Lake Worth there are still so many achievements and opportunities for us as a City. With the right amount of effort, creativity and drive we can and should set the bar higher.
     That mindset is actually in stark contrast to what I found when I was first elected as Mayor.”

     “Unfortunately, the City we inherited has suffered greatly from changes in the market as people’s taste shifted to larger homes on bigger lots and they moved west. The retail businesses left our traditional downtown to move to malls and strip centers or they went out of business altogether. And there have been the ups and downs of the larger economy which the City was ill prepared to either take advantage of an upswing or combat against a downturn.
     The migration of people, money and jobs from our City left a vacuum and our poverty rates climbed, unemployment rose, and political bickering and animosity became the norm. Squalor, crime, and dare I say a sense of desperation followed. Lake Worth, that quaint little beach town developed a not so nice reputation. It was a slide that lasted over 30 years.”

     “Since becoming Mayor, along with my fellow Commissioners I have set a course to stop the decay, focus on the fundamentals, and no longer coast on latent value of what our predecessors did before us.
     Each year, for the last 5 years, I have stood before you and reported on the ugly statistics we face, on projects and programs that demonstrate we were moving in the right direction and that Lake Worth is on its way. And again, this year I can tell you we are improving and getting better. But this year I want to focus on a different kind of change that happened this past year.
     Something changed in our demeanor and attitudes. Something that says all that hard work of the past 5 years fixing the basic foundations of the City Departments, and re-writing the multitude of ordinances and rules, and improving our operations, and, yes, finally addressing 30 years of benign neglect, something is different.”