“I’m not going to take the sunshine away”, said Lake Worth Commissioner Scott Maxwell in 2011.

Within the 2011 Willdan Report (more details and a video below) there were clues a previous City administration’s effort to try and scuttle the contract with PBSO wasn’t the smartest of things to do.

The Willdan Report.

Click on image to enlarge:

“PBSO responded to the public’s demands
for better law enforcement.”

And below is an excerpt from an oft-cited 2012 blog post titled, “Why does Lake Worth have PBSO and not its own police department?”


Commissioner [now recently re-elected Vice Mayor] Scott Maxwell, who voted against the study in January, said he will continue to support the sheriff’s contract because the sheriff’s District 14 office has helped reduce gangs and the crime rate in Lake Worth.
     “The PBSO is the best thing that’s happened to Lake Worth since sunshine,” Maxwell said. “I’m not going to take the sunshine away.”

The Willdan Report was a huge topic in the City of Lake Worth and well-chronicled on this blog back in 2011. To learn more about this history in our City click on this link to read, “It’s not about the money; it’s about control” and about a City Commission Work Session in May of 2011 when,


“I [Wes Blackman] was one of the moderators at last Saturday’s “Voice of the Choice” meeting, along with Bob Lepa and Karri Casper. The major weakness of the Willdan report was the complete lack of public input in its creation. The meeting we organized Saturday to fill that void.
     We designed the meeting to be informational and friendly to all points of view. We included ways to contact all of you and talked about future meeting dates. There was overwhelming support for the sheriff by the over two hundred people in attendance.”


You see, a whole lot of people ‘back in the day’ didn’t appreciate one bit a previous administration’s efforts to,

“[T]ake the sunshine away.”

The video below is from May 2011. Yours Truly was there that day for this press conference and asked two questions at the 6:15 mark you can hear and see for yourself.

On the left at this presser is a former District 4 commissioner, Suzanne Mulvehill, along with Susan Stanton who was the former city manager. Stanton was fired later that year, in December 2011.

Enjoy the video.