Just a few quotes from the mayor and commissioners at the Commission meeting last night.

It’s with great sadness listened to these comments last night from our elected leaders about our City of Lake Worth’s historic preservation program:

• “We need to clean this mess up . . . we have egg on our faces.”
• “Every single day hear the problems.”
• “People are crying for some type of relief.”
• “Think this effort is to thwart the will of the Commission.”
• “Subjective use of guidelines.”
• “Status quo is not acceptable.”
• “Empower our local government.”

The quotes above are not the least bit surprising. Last year one of our historic neighborhoods reached the boiling point, homeowners screaming to “opt out” of historic preservation and talk of starting a petition to put the issue on the ballot. Meetings were then held and things quieted down for a bit. But everyone knew it wouldn’t last.

Everyone paying attention to this issue knew this time would come, when our elected’s finally had enough. It was just a matter of time. Many in our City have lost confidence, to put it mildly, in our City’s historic preservation staff and unfortunately, in the HRPB as well.

A little over two years ago I resigned as Chair of the Historic Resources Preservation Board (HRPB). Prior to becoming Chair was a board member. Listening to the Commission last night it’s important to remember the job of our elected leaders to express the voice of the public. Now here we are. And all of this could have been avoided. That’s the sad part.

Am going over some information and will have more about this later. My heart goes out to everyone who has been lining up at the Building Dept. to do the work they were hoping recent changes would give them the ability to do. And lastly, there’s this that sums it all up, from the City Commission meeting on August 2nd:

Mayor Pam Triolo asked City Manager Michael Bornstein, “You live in College Park. You don’t live in a historic district do you?”

Bornstein responded, “I intentionally did it that way.”