Since my opponent has not come forward with her accomplishments and plan for a second term...

You might want to review what she said when she ran two years and eight months ago. Click title for link.
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Interesting, albeit expensive, option...

Does anyone else think this is a little backwards?

This is from this past week's City Manager's report. The City Commission is having its first reading on the 2009-2010 budget on Thursday, September 3rd. The City Manager is asking for the Commission to prepare "extensive and comprehensive" goals within 7 days - and this is somehow supposed to be integrated into the budget process for this year. And it is interesting that the City Manager brings up the process for the Park of Commerce. There is $250,000 of city money that is supposed to be used as matching money for a federal grant to perform an infrastructure needs analysis - which is what the city exactly needs to do in order to go on with the development of the Park of Commerce. I am afraid that the grant-phobic Commission has other ideas. More on this later...
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As a contrast, click here for Punta Gorda's City Manager Report

Note that they are already preparing for the 2011 budget year and they will be applying for TIGER (transportation related stimulus funding) funds. Is Lake Worth?

Click here for City Manager's Report for 8/28

Above is the City Manager's discussion regarding a selection committee for the Community Development Director position. Just so everybody is aware, this panel would be subject to the Sunshine Law. I wonder who will end up on it?

Think about this: It is the City Manager's job to hire and fire department heads. But, here she is asking for the Commission to appoint people to review the applicants and make a recommendation to her. It's a way to give the City Manager cover for her decision, but it also politicizes the decision in a way the Charter does not allow. Hmmmm.

Margaret Wheatley - click for link to website "Turning to one another"

"When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness. Our seemingly separate lives become meaningful as we discover how truly necessary we are to each other."

"There is a simpler, finer way to organize human endeavor. I have declared this for many years and seen it to be true in many places. This simpler way is demonstrated to us in daily life, not the life we see on the news with its unending stories of human grief and horror, but what we feel when we experience a sense of life’s deep harmony, beauty, and power, of how we feel when we see people helping each other, when we feel creative, when we know we’re making a difference, when life feels purposeful."

"Over many years of work all over the world, I've learned that if we organize in the same way that the rest of life does, we develop the skills we need: we become resilient, adaptive, aware, and creative. We enjoy working together. And life’s processes work everywhere, no matter the culture, group, or person, because these are basic dynamics shared by all living beings."

"Western cultural views of how best to organize and lead (now the methods most used in the world) are contrary to what life teaches. Leaders use control and imposition rather than participative, self-organizing processes. They react to uncertainty and chaos by tightening already feeble controls, rather than engaging people's best capacities to learn and adapt. In doing so, they only create more chaos. Leaders incite primitive emotions of fear, scarcity, and self-interest to get people to do their work, rather than the more noble human traits of cooperation, caring, and generosity. This has led to this difficult time, when nothing seems to work as we want it to, when too many of us feel frustrated, disengaged, and anxious."

"There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about."

Her books include:

• A Simpler Way (coauthored with Myron Kellner-Rogers, 1996)
• Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (1999, 2006)
• Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future (2002)
• Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2005)

From Ted Kennedy's Celebration of Life Service

FYI - New Campaign E-mail Address

For campaign information and requests, please use the following e-mail address:

wesfor3@gmail.com

The wesblackman@gmail.com address will remain active and can be used for all other communication.

Political Advertisement Paid for and Approved by Wes Blackman for City Commissioner District #3

Three dead in Lake Worth shooting

This incident at 14th Avenue South and D last night - click title for link to PB Post article.

Taken yesterday in front of John G's; what they tell their customers about the building...

This is the "beautiful architectural rendition of the original 1920s building" to which they refer.

WARNING: We blocked a virus that was sent to you (by the City of Lake Worth!)

So says Gmail's virus catcher. And guess who the e-mail was from? None other than our own City of Lake Worth. See above - please be careful if you use an older computer or do not have web-based e-mail. This is HIGHLY irresponsible on the part of the city. And, it is something that almost never happens with e-mails sent by anyone!

One of the chief concepts behind "branding" - something that our Commission talks about - is that everything your organization does should reflect a morsel of that core "branding" message.

What does this say to every media outlet that receives this virus-filled email? That the City of Lake Worth doesn't know what they are doing, that no one is in charge and that it's dangerous to do business with them. This is exactly the same message that is sent through the City Commission or the City Administration actions or inactions - at least we are being consistent with our "branding" message.

But there is so much more that we could be if we demanded excellence and had, in this case, just a little more tech-savvy City Commission. There also seems to be a bias against digital communication - however green it is compared to the printed word - that it somehow only informs the elites due to the digital divide. The antidote to that attitude is to make sure that people that do not have access to computers be given the opportunity to obtain that access - which is one of the good things that the Resource Center is doing. Compass has a fantastic Cyber Center that is open to the public and the library is another good public resource for free Internet and computer access.

By the way, the City sent out another replacement e-mail on the same topic and included a "no virus" tag at the end of the subject line. That's kind of like shaking someone's hand and saying, "It's o.k., I don't have typhoid fever."
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2006 Lake Worth shooting linked to Top 6 gang member

Beat the Increase! Tax Collector Extends Hours to Help Clients Save Money

Tax Collector Anne M. Gannon is extending service center hours to accommodate clients who want to renew their tags before the fees increase on Tuesday, September 1. All Tax Collector service centers will be open an additional hour, until 6 p.m., on Friday, August 28 and Monday, August 31. All vehicle and boat owners with birthdays between now and the end of November can renew by August 31.

Tax Collector Gannon explained the effort to help clients save money, “These increases are significant - 35 – 60% in some cases - and the people impacted the most are those tied to their jobs from early in the morning until 5pm. We want to help those who need it most, save money before the fees increase.” Clients are encouraged to renew their registrations for 2 years to avoid increases until 2011.

Tax Collector Gannon also encourages tax payers to pay on-line at www.taxcollectorpbc.com. For vehicle owners renewing by mail, payments must be postmarked by August 31, 2009.

The Florida Legislature increased fees to address a $6 Billion budget deficit. These fees fund the State of Florida’s budget; they are not local Palm Beach County fees.

Wes on Customer Service:

Improve Customer Service:

• Focus on utilities customer service and building/code enforcement;
  
• Eliminate "us against them" attitude;
  
• Ultimate Goal - make doing business with Lake Worth a pleasure and then telling the world about it.

Political Advertisement Paid for and Approved by Wes Blackman for City Commissioner District #3

Don't try to pay your Lake Worth utility bill on line today - the system is down or maybe not?

It turns out that after I hit submit once my credit card information was in, I got the above message. Then I tried it again and got the same message. So, I went down to Utilities Customer Service to pay in person and was told that the on-line payment had registered twice. They backed one of the payments out.

Beware of this problem - wasn't the system down over the weekend for maintenance? Did they forget to turn off the message alerting people to that fact? Does anything surprise us anymore?