Note from a Friend re Commemoration of 1928 Hurricane and Cemetery Dedication

Received from Charlie F.

On Tuesday, Sept. 16th, I attended the dedication of the plaque and cemetery at the site of the interment of 674 nameless victims of the 1928 hurricane. It was the 80th anniversary of that horrible disaster, which claimed at least 2,500 lives in total. A friend of mine, Steven Sunday, was instrumental in making the site into a beautiful memorial garden, which had previously been a neglected tract. The ceremony took about an hour and was very well attended.

Some pictures from the day are atteched. One shows Steven and Mayor Lois Frankel next to the wreath which was placed at the site by the WPB Honor Guard. This is an excellent example of private citizens having a vision, and partnering successfully with government and charitable institutions to make that vision come true. Well done, Steven and all others who had a part in development of the site.

Most respectfully,
Charlie F.

Invitation to artist's reception: Thurs Sep 25...

Auditors advise Palm Beach County elections supervisor to fix process before November

Ethics Seminar - Save the Date - 11/7/08

History museum in Lake Worth saved by the chamber of commerce

I have offered to volunteer as staff or whatever else is needed to make sure that this resource continues to be available to the public. If you are interested in volunteering your time and helping to organize the museum under this new arrangement, please contact me at wesblackman@gmail.com

Anti-'Pay-to-play' law proposed for Lake Worth

This item failed on a vote of 2-3 at the Commission meeting tonight. Look for more later on this topic.

Introduction to Corruption - 101

Thesis statement to be developed and supported over a series of posts: Our problems in Lake Worth are not due to corruption as much as ineptitude, selfishness, incompetence and lack of transparency. These combine to produce a similar result as would occur from real acts of corruption. Real corruption often rises to a level of criminal activity. Falsely accusing good people of corruption is nearly as bad as the act itself. Using the term routinely can mask and divert attention from actual and real corrupt activity - something about which we need to be vigilant.

One should not throw stones in glass houses.

From Wikipedia:

Corruption is essentially termed as an "impairment of integrity, virtue or moral principle; depravity, decay, and/or an inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means, a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct, and/or an agency or influence that corrupts."^[1]

Corruption, when applied as a technical term, is a general concept describing any organized, interdependent system in which part of the system is either not performing duties it was originally intended to, or performing them in an improper way, to the detriment of the system's original purpose.

Its terminological usage possesses connotations of evil, malignance, sickness, and loss of innocence or purity.

Classifications

Specific types of corruption include:

• Institutional corruption, as corrupt actions or policies within an organization that break the law, serve to subjugate humans in unlawful manners, discriminate against humans based upon race, ethnicity, culture, or orientation, or serve to degrade other humans or groups for that institution's own profit.
• Political corruption, as the dysfunction of a political system or institution in which government officials, political officials or employees seek illegitimate personal gain through actions such as bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. Political corruption is a specific form of rent seeking, where access to politics is organized with limited transparency, limited competition and directed towards promoting narrow interests (rent seeking is not to be confused with property rental).
• Data corruption, as an unintended change to data in storage or in transit.
• Linguistic corruption, as the change in meaning to a language or a text introduced by cumulative errors in transcription as changes in the language speakers' comprehension.
• Putrefaction or decomposition of recently living matter. This physical process is the primary model of the metaphorical meaning of corruption, so advanced states of corruption in, e.g. a political structure are said to result in their putrefaction.

References

1. ^ Merriam Webster Dictionary. Corruption - Definition of. Retrieved August 30, 2008.

Human's Best Friend

Opportunity to learn about various November 4th amendments:

NORTH PB COUNTY NOW PRESENTS:

“KNOW YOUR BALLOT,

AMENDMENTS TO WATCH OUT FOR”

....a forum on this year’s proposed FL Constitutional amendments that will be on our ballot in November.

Featuring Rep. Susan Bucher,

Rep. Shelley Vana,

David Ganim of FL ACLU,

and other advocates for public education and individual liberties!

When: Tuesday September 16, 6:30 PM

Where: Classroom Teachers’ Association, 715 Spencer Drive, West Palm Beach FL.

Directions: I-95 to Palm Beach Lakes Blvd , drive west ¼ mile to

the Spencer/ Village traffic light, left on Spencer 2 blocks to the gray building on the right that says “CTA.”

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Save these dates for outreach and leafleting against proposed Amendment 2!

Friday Sept 20, 6 PM, Evenings on the Avenue, Lake and M St., downtown

Lake Worth, meet by the clock

Thursday Oct 2, 6:30 PM, Clematis by Night, end of Clematis St, downtown West Palm Beach, meet by the fountain.

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Funny...

I'm listening to the City Commission meeting with Commissioner Golden going at it on the water contract and my Windows Media Player says "Song: City Commission Audio" and "Artist: City of Lake Worth."

I don't think it'll make the Hot 100 list.

Some key descriptive terms:

The word sandbagged is a colloquial expression used to describe a situation in which one is publicly rejected or corrected in the presence of peers, often causing embarrassment.

ambush

Lake Worth CRA's Press Release: Park(ing) Day - 9/19

Press Release: 2008 National Park(ing) Day

"Lake Worth, Fla. The Community Redevelopment Agency and the City Tree Board are hosting nearly 30 Park(ing) Day parks in downtown Lake Worth. There will be a park design contest and each Neighborhood Association creating a park will receive 50 Oak Trees from the City Tree Board, to be included in the City's goal of planting 10,000 trees by 2013, Lake Worth’s 100 Year Anniversary."

Click title for link.

My prize catch from Friday night's fishing expedition...

The fishing wasn't that good - see picture. We threw all we caught back for another day, but we had fun none-the-less.

Stop Sign at Wellesley and Pennsylvania?

This is another item on the New Business portion of the City Commission agenda this coming Tuesday (9/16). It asks that a three-way stop sign be placed at Wellesley and Pennsylvania Drives and was placed on the agenda by Mayor Clemens in response to neighbor concerns about the speed/volume of cut-through traffic on the street.

There is a traffic study that accompanies the staff memo. The study, performed by MacMahon and Associates, dated June 9, 2008 recommends not placing a stop sign or other traffic calming measures on this section of the street. See below:

Mr. Kim, P.E., P.T.O.E. finds that neither the volume or speed of traffic warrant the placement of a three way stop in that location. I am sure the city paid for the study and the staff recommendation is counter to the findings of a professional to install a stop sign in spite of the traffic engineer's recommendations.

I live at the other end of Pennsylvania Drive where it dead-ends into Columbia Drive - I happen to be on the southeast corner. Not too sure of the traffic volumes on Columbia, but we do get a lot of cut through traffic between Federal and Dixie. There is a three-way stop there now. Recently, the city came through an repainted the stop lines on the pavement by the stop signs at all three points of the intersection. My living room and courtyard (which I like to make my telephone calls from) face Columbia and therefore I usually have a direct view of the traffic going through this intersection.

Most cars going east or west on Columbia blow right through the intersection without a stop. Some at least slow down but very few make a complete stop. As far as enforcement, I have only seen a police car sitting on Pennsylvania waiting for someone to run the stop sign once - and that was the day they caught me doing it about two years ago. I was told "It's zero tolerance from now on." - it looked like DEFCON 3 in front of my house, by the way.

At one time, it was needed due to the traffic volume that Columbia experienced when Olive Avenue was five lanes - most people used Columbia to switch over to Dixie. Since Olive is two lanes, the volume has noticeably decreased - even with the addition of the Courtyards townhouses at the end of the street. I think now we could actually do away with it completely, but that probably isn't in the cards.

So, I really don't think we need to put stop signs on Wellesley as it is ineffective in a similar location to the north, it creates an enforcement problem and is not justified by the traffic study. Things like this should also be channeled through the neighborhood association and reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Board for its recommendation. There was time for that given the date of the study.

What is this doing on the Commission Agenda (9/16)?

This is sponsored by Commissioner Golden and it deals with supporting a proposed state law that would require horse (equine) riders under 16 to wear a helmet. While a good idea generally, what possible relationship could it have to do with anything that would affect the City of Lake Worth? There are other burning issues of our time that require legislative support. Offering our support on issues that directly affect the City of Lake Worth would be much more meaningful than jumping on this bandwagon.

Let's try to be relevant and focus on issues that make a difference within our city limits.