A Look Back.

Below are excerpts from Mayor Pam Triolo’s 2017 State of the City Address held last January 3rd at the Casino Ballroom.

For the entire speech use this link on the City of Lake Worth’s website; scroll down for the video and PDF.

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. The more I dug into the many problems facing our City, it was as if Lake Worth got distracted 30 or 40 years ago.

and. . .

     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.

and. . .

     Undoing that slide and bringing this City back has been our goal and it has been nothing short of difficult. 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.
     We have dragged the baggage of failures, controversies and infighting for too long. We have made too many excuses for the years of neglect, petty bickering, and unnecessary controversy. We need to no longer be lulled into thinking that Lake Worth reached its peak in some past era with some previous generation. . . .


It is now time to join together and own a period of time that will be looked back upon by future generations as one of success, responsibility, accountability and positivity.