Two years ago today, Nov. 8th, 2016:

The Lake Worth Neighborhood Road Bond went to the voters.

Pull quote:

“Its current road repair projects amount to little more than covering the potholes that emerge daily through the city. In short, it has no way to pay for the massive repairs it has neglected doing for decades.”

—Quote. Editor at Palm Beach Post, August 11th, 2014. More quotes below.



The editor(s) at the Post did not make an endorsement for the Neighborhood Road Bond vote two years ago. They decided not to get involved.

But this City of Lake Worth was not alone. Because in November 2016 the editor(s) at the Post did not make an endorsement for President of the United States either.

The 2016 Neighborhood Road Bond passed by a “whopping 69 percent” possibly because of what happened two years prior. Let’s set the stage.

Going back to August 2014. . .

On August 11th, 2014, the editor(s) at the Post had a lot to say about the very first bond vote to fix our roads in this City of Lake Worth. But despite that endorsement that bond vote in 2014 failed.

It failed by just 25 votes.

Just imagine for a moment how far ahead our City would be right now had that bond vote passed fifty-one months ago.

What follows is from this blog. . .

Posted on Sunday, Nov. 6th, 2016.

Two days prior to the General Election that year.

Following what the editor wrote in 2014 (see below) there’s not much else left to say.

It was so on-point the editor has nothing further to write on this topic and let stand these observations from 2 years ago. However. . . it would be interesting to know what the editor thinks about those critics who had all this time to create their own plan, but instead sat on their hands and did nothing ever since they won and defeated the bond vote in August of 2014, by just 25 votes.

The editor wrote on August 11th, 2014. . .

But it really didn't matter what the Post editor wrote. In the weeks and months preceding, their very own beat reporter “on the ground” had confused and misinformed so many people the PR damage had already been done by then.

Below are more excerpts from the Post editorial on August 11th, 2014. The editorial that didn’t matter.

This was 15 days prior to the vote on the LW2020 bond vote which ended up failing by just 25 votes. Here are excerpts from that editorial:


     Residents will vote on the matter Aug. 26 [2014], and it’s hard to overstate the stakes for the city, which badly needs to invest in fixing its crumbling infrastructure. To pull Lake Worth from its underperforming past, The Post recommends a vote For Bonds. [emphasis added]    
     Despite the popularity of its downtown strip and public beach, Lake Worth struggles to support basic city services. This city of 36,000 has the second-highest poverty rate in Palm Beach County, and many roads and sidewalks are crumbling and collapsing throughout it. Some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods have been so neglected that streets there have never been paved. 

and. . .

     Its current road repair projects amount to little more than covering the potholes that emerge daily through the city. In short, it has no way to pay for the massive repairs it has neglected doing for decades. 

and the editor continues. . .

     [T]he city needs to fix itself, and the cost of doing so will only grow if repairs are further delayed. The price tag for bringing Lake Worth into the 21st century is staggering, but this is a testament to just how long previous commissions have ignored the city’s basic needs. No one should expect road and sidewalk repairs alone to usher in a renaissance, but it is difficult to imagine one happening without them. 

The price tag for bringing Lake Worth into
the 21st century is staggering. . . .

     In a way, it’s a microcosm of a city that possesses so many attractive assets — a charming downtown, a public beach, waterfront parks, historic neighborhoods brimming with Old Florida charm — and yet has failed to improve its residents’ lives by fumbling or ignoring the hard decisions. This vote is a chance for the city to turn that disappointing history on its head.


Couldn’t have said it any better myself, especially these words that sum up the entire problem:

“. . . this is a testament to just how long previous commissions have ignored the city’s basic needs.”

Here’s one of those former City administrations. Recognize anyone? All that money used up for the Casino — legal fees, a $1.6 million settlement, Greenwashing, and construction mistakes — how many potholes would that money have fixed?