For those of you who may have missed this blog post from earlier this week.

Ben Kerr, PIO and The Palm Beach Post: The tremendous irony “Worth Noting”.

Before we get to that tremendous irony about
Mr. Kerr, the City of Lake Worth’s public
information officer (PIO). . .

FYI: “Worth Noting” is the name of the City of Lake Worth’s newsletter and the most recent edition has big news about code enforcement the public needs to know, information thus far unreported in The Palm Beach Post. To sign up for the City’s newsletter for the news about code enforcement’s new tools and more news worth noting click on this link.

Whilst on the topic of information this week’s Lake Worth Herald is out. To see the front page headlines click on this link. To contact the editor send an email to Editor@lwherald.com or call 561-585-9387.

Without further ado. . .

Meet Mr. Kerr at the 2017 Veterans Day Parade
in Downtown Lake Worth.

This year’s Veterans Day Parade will be held on Saturday, November 10th. For more information call Mr. Kerr at 561-586-1631 or by email: bkerr@lakeworth.org

You may recall Kerr was recently big news in The Palm Beach Post, news as reported by Joe Capozzi:

“Swordsman who trained ‘Game of Thrones’ extras teaches broadsword in Lake Worth”

The tremendous irony is this: The position of public information officer in this City did not exist prior to beat reporter Kevin Thompson’s hit piece on Code Enforcement back in September 2016.

Because of Thompson’s “egregious” news reporting City Manager Michael Bornstein was forced to do something and he did it. He went out looking for an official City spokesperson but the first one, well, let’s just say it didn’t work out.

You see, when issuing a press release about the Sober Home Epidemic you cannot always rely on spellcheck. There is a very big difference between the words “heroin” and “heroine”. And that particular press release was included in each and every utility bill sent out that month by this City.

Oooops.

So the position of PIO went unfilled for a little while. And then came along a young man named Ben Kerr and the rest is history as they say.

So one can say now that Thompson actually did this City a big favor with that ‘news’ about Code Enforcement two years ago. And we continue to wait for that update about the PBSO merge with the Greenacres PD which was real actual news that made the paper a long time ago.

The other irony is, maybe as punishment for voting the wrong way, the Post pulled Thompson from the Greenacres beat after their elected leaders decided to merge with PBSO in 2015. Then shortly afterward the editor(s) began the weekly every-single-Monday Lake Worth Very Very Special Monday Collector Print Edition (LWVVSMCPE) and snubbed the City of Greenacres, their elected officials and local government.

The point is this. . .

The editor(s) at the Post may try and lay claim to the City of Lake Worth’s great success since 2015. But how do they explain the great successes and strides in the City of Greenacres? It’s sort of a conundrum for a paper that claims “REAL NEWS STARTS HERE” when Greenacres is defying everyone’s expectations and even the Village of Wellington is worried about Greenacres stealing their super-magical-mojo and the whole time the editor(s) were AWOL in Greenacres’ City Hall.

And please. Give the new owner and management team at The Palm Beach Post a chance to make their mark in Palm Beach County.

Cox Media, the former owner of Post put that newspaper up For-Sale in November 2017. The present owner of the Post, as of May 1st, is taking more control.

And hopefully a new editor and reshuffling of the upper management team will be in the offing. The Post was in trouble a long time ago, way before they were put on the market for a buyer. When three years ago the Post narrowed their focus to just certain municipalities and stopped reporting about other local governments, e.g., the City of Greenacres, that eroded their community support.

And the decision not to make an endorsement in the 2016 race for President of the United States was the worst editorial decision of all followed closely by their dragging of feet to cover the devastating situation of so-called ‘sober homes’ creating so much disruption and public angst in places like this City of Lake Worth.

Which delves in nicely with what happened in Sept. 2016, the very night of the first Trump/Clinton debate, and only two reporters showed up to cover one of the biggest events in recent City of Lake Worth history:

Did you leave that meeting two years ago thinking nothing would ever change?

The public demanded change. And your local government listened.