Pafford: State Budget Doesn’t Help Those In Need

Representative Pafford gives his take on the past state legislative session. From the article:

He acknowledged that some great projects were included, but questioned why 35,000 people in Florida were on waiting lists for healthcare and other aid while the legislature allocated money for road beautification.
“Thirty-five thousand people we chose not to help,” Pafford said. “We don’t report how many people die on wait lists. We’re talking frail, elder seniors.”

You can check out Representative Pafford when he was a recent guest on "High Noon in Lake Worth"  Click title for link to article. 

Using the “Transportation Revolution” to Sell Real Estate in Miami | Streetsblog.net

Some residential projects in downtown Miami are using car share and bike share programs, in addition to proximity to "premium" public transit.  This in place of including parking spaces as a physical part of the project off-site.  Arrangements are made with parking garages nearby for people with vehicles, but they are actively marketing the project as if people can live without owning cars themselves.  Click title for link.

Happy Saturday!

World's 50 best beach bars - CNN.com

Sorry, no Mulligan's or Benny's, sad to say.  Click title for link.  There is a place to leave comments for your own suggestions.

West Palm Beach and social media...

West Palm Beach has a Discover West Palm Beach FaceBook page that is run by City Hall.  They also use Twitter and are on Instagram, which is more of a photo sharing app.  This came up today on the FaceBook feed:

Earlier in the day they had posted this red emergency announcement for their cover photo:

What is Lake Worth's procedure?  Do we have social media capability as part of the new website? Other than the CRA, does the city have a regular stream of press releases?

Example of what the Town of Palm Beach sends out on a regular basis...

This is by e-mail through Constant Contact:

They probably come out 2 to 3, sometimes more, a week.  The point is, there is a constant drum beat of information being dispensed to the public.

It happens to the best of us...

Koskoff at the Stonzek (6/3/13)

Sharon Koskoff with the Art Deco Society of the Palm Beaches gave this talk at the Lake Worth Playhouse's Stonzek Theater last Monday (6/3) night.  There were about 70 or so in attendance.  She recently participated in the 12th International Art Deco Conference in Havana, Cuba.  You may also want to check out her recent guest appearance on "High Noon in Lake Worth."  In this video, Ms. Koskoff shares pictures of the architecture she encountered in Cuba, and in Havana in particular.  She distributed the following guidelines to look out for when identifying buildings with Art Deco elements.

Note that there were some technical problems at the end of her presentation which prevented those pictures from being shown.  So, this is a truncated version of the entire presentation.  She mentioned that she will be doing a more exhaustive presentation next year during  the "season" at the Armory Art Center.  I'll be sure to keep you posted on the time and date for that.

Florida Municipal Electric Association releases April 2013 average rates for electric users in Florida

Lake Worth's residential rates for households that consume 1000 kilowatts of electricity equals the state average.  Beyond that, things change.  Good idea to bookmark this website for future reference.  Click title for link.

High Noon in Lake Worth - Hiatus for 6/7/13

Sorry, the stars didn't align this week in scheduling a guest, so if you haven't listened to one of the recent shows you can check these out below.  Working on next week's guest now.  Note that on June 21st, we will have Senator Jeff Clemens on the show to talk about this past legislative session, how is it different to be a Senator compared to a Representative and any future plans he may have in the coming years.

Again, thanks for visiting this blog and enjoy listening to the following shows.

Listen to internet radio with High Noon in Lake Worth on BlogTalkRadio

From last Tuesday's City Commission meeting - State legislative updates from Representatives Berman, Kerner and Senator Clemens:

Due to redistricting, we have five different state representatives in the House.  We heard from two of them at the June 4, 2013 meeting:  Representative Lori Berman, District 90 and Representative Dave Kerner District 87.  We also heard from Lake Worth's former Mayor, now Senator Jeff Clemens District 27.  All are Democrats.  Interesting to note that Senator Clemens' district includes a population of 650,000 people!

They talked about their various achievements and regrets.  One of the regrets was the failure of the Lake Worth Enterprise Zone to make it through as law this past session.  It seemed to be no slight on Lake Worth, but that the majority party simply does not want to provide sweeping tax incentives.

Cities urged to embrace crowdfunding - San Francisco Chronicle

Interesting way to fund public projects through donations and not through traditional taxation or special assessments.  Click title for link.  From the article:

He co-founded Citizinvestor, a crowdfunding site that started in Philadelphia in September. Rather than raise taxes or issue bonds, the idea is for municipalities to submit "shovel-ready" projects for the public to fund via voluntary donations.
"People are willing to pay above and beyond taxes for the projects they really care about," he says. "We're building a platform to empower citizens to invest in their communities at a time when government has no other way to pay for them. ... Municipalities are really, really broke."
While he couldn't provide specifics yet, Raynor says Citizinvestor will expand to at least 10 municipalities in California, including a few in the Bay Area, in the coming months.

Keeping Venice Weird — Los Angeles Ordinance Bans Commercial Activity Except Art | Untapped Cities

I can envision some people here in Lake Worth thinking that this would be a good idea.  This restriction relates to the actual Venice Beach area, and not the entire city.  Click title for link.  There is also a related Wall Street Journal article.

Forgot your beach umbrella? Lake Worth will soon have rentals... | www.palmbeachpost.com

This a good idea to bring back.  I remember for a long time there were rentals for collapsible cabanas, umbrellas, etc.  In some of the older pictures you can see them being used by many people.  Don't know why this went by the wayside for a while.  Click title for link.

Compass celebrates 25 years...