Lake Worth Beach City Limits

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Click here for link to Message from County Commissioner Steve Abrams

On how to go about finding the missing in Haiti.

GREAT NEWS! Lake Worth Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) gets $23 million plus NSP2 Grant!

Click title for link to document. Many communities and agencies applied and did not receive funding. Highly competitive and this will help stem the foreclosure crisis in an area of critical need within Lake Worth.

This is the grant that the CRA applied for in July while I sat on the board. A month later, the Board was called before the City Commission and chastised for acting independently. Commissioner Golden said that we shouldn't have applied for the grant as we know how to spend our money better than the federal government does - we don't need to be told how to do it.

She used the application for the grant in her campaign materials.

The amount of the grant is a little more than half of the city of Lake Worth's annual general fund budget.

Florida	$ 348,311,034
City of Sarasota	$ 23,000,000
Habitat for Humanity International, Inc.	$ 74,698,534
Housing Authority of the City of Tampa	$ 38,000,000
Lake Worth Community Redevelopment Agency	$ 23,237,500
Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida, Inc.	$ 89,375,000
Neighborhood Lending Partners of West Florida, Inc.	$ 50,000,000
Palm Beach County	$ 50,000,000

From this morning...

Lake Worth follows county's lead, begins charging for boat-ramp parking

Click title to link to PB Post article.

Go Rachel!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I am hearing that there is an emergency City Commission regarding aid to Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquake, 7 p.m. @ City Hall.

Reminders about how the Complete Count Committee conundrum became political...

Commissioner Golden suggested that her chief campaign organizer become the chair of the Complete Count Committee.
In a reflex reaction, the City Manager follows that suggestion, knowing that it pleased the "majority"
That person, Annabeth Karson, would not do it for free and required an assistant - another political campaign operative.
Not only would the "potential" be there for the "appearance" of unethical behavior in terms of gathering information for future campaigns, this highly visible position working with leaders from churches, community groups, civic organizations would undoubtedly elevate the stature of that person in the eye of the general public as someone of authority working for the city.
Before you know it, that lovely person (or persons) who organized the Complete Count Committee is knocking at your door in a future campaign.

Do not think for a minute that these indirect effects were not considered. This is the same Commission majority that didn't see a conflict with Commissioner Golden interviewing her boss for a position on the CRA, cares little about the amount of campaign contributions to Commissioner Mulvehill's campaign received from beach casino building tenants. There are more examples.

How is that Ethics Ordinance coming?

And did anyone on the dais last night who was "surprised" about the lack of respondents to the RFP ever think that it might be due to the city's poor reputation in abiding by its contractual obligations or its turbulent political environment?