Veteran's Parade today in Downtown Lake Worth

EXCLUSIVE — Cameraman: CBS 12’s a Mickey Mouse Operation!

Things are not looking good at Channel 12 these days. We, in Lake Worth, went through a rough period with them. Things have improved since then as far as Lake Worth coverage. But we had to live through shoddy reporting and lack of research being the top two complaints. It seems things at the station may have gone from bad to worse. Now we have this from Jose Lambiet of Gossip Extra (Click title for link) about Channel 12 being a "Mickey Mouse Operation!" From the article by Jose Lambiet:

A cameraman recently hired by WPEC-CBS12 up and quit this week after blasting the station as a Mickey Mouse operation with poor equipment and little guidance.
CBS12 is so low-grade, Vince Norman wrote his bosses in an email, that he walked out before the end of his three-month probationary period.
“I have reached the limit of what I’m willing to put up with,” he wrote.

In a media world where jobs are few and far between, that’s a hell of a statement! Here is part of the email Vince Norman wrote to his bosses at Channel 12:

Unfortunately, talent and creativity aren’t enough to run a successful news operation, without adequate support from a technical and logistical standpoint.
Too often in the three weeks I’ve been in the field, WPEC has consistently failed to provide theses two critical points.
Whether it was the third day of my employment, working a double with no gear, using a mostly destroyed camera to attempt (and fail) two live shots using a liveU; or simply being run all over creation due to the complete lack of situational awareness demonstrated by the assignment desk; I have reached the limit of what I’m willing to put up with.

Channel 12 was one of the stations which reported on yesterday's Briger protest. Here's two screen grabs from previous Channel 12 reports, both with appropriate captions, that show two esteemed Lake Worth citizens.

In U.S. and Florida, water use is down thanks to conservation - Sun Sentinel

In an article in the Sun-Sentinel, there appears this surprising news-bit which contradicts what you would expect from population increases in south Florida. Meanwhile, our city continues to waste water due to ancient water lines and stagnant conditions in the north-end of the city by routine flushing of hydrants. Click title for link.

In Florida, increased water demand has been anticipated for years but has failed in nearly spectacular fashion to materialize. Earlier this year, a USGS report for Florida stated that freshwater use in the state decreased 22 percent from 2000 to 2010, while the state's population increased 18 percent.
In South Florida, the amount of water used is about the same as it was in 1995, even with 1.1 million more people in the region, according to the South Florida Water Management District.
As a result, per capita water use in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties also dropped about 22 percent from 1995 to 2010, according to the district. In 1995, the average person in southeast Florida used 184 gallons of water per day. That dropped to 142 gallons per day by 2010.

Vegans for the homeless, trying to change their animal eating ways

PETA, along with its Christian outreach division -- Jesus People for Animals -- sent Love Thy Neighbor [90-year-old Ft. Lauderdale homeless advocate Arnold Abbott] a shipment that include spice, peanut butter, textured vegetable protein -- which is basically vegan "ground beef" -- vegetarian chili, soy milk, Primal Strips vegan jerky, and vegan cookies.

"Christian compassion should be extended to everyone, from Fort Lauderdale's homeless community to the chickens, cows, and pigs killed by the billions for food every year," Sarah King, PETA's director of Christian outreach, said via a news release. "PETA is pleased to donate a supply of healthy and delicious vegan food in support of Arnold Abbott's inspiring effort to practice kindness to his neighbors."
PETA's aim with the shipment of food is to not only help the homeless but also spare "animals immense suffering on farms, in slaughterhouses, and on the decks of fishing boats."

Not sure what to file this item under.

The Publix Sabor on Lake Worth Rd

From Susan Salisbury at the Palm Beach Post we have this news about the Publix Sabor on Lake Worth Road:

The Publix Sabor in the Town and Country Shopping Plaza at 1910 Lake Worth Road is slated to close the day after Christmas, the Palm Beach Post has learned.
An employee at the store confirmed today that employees were notified Tuesday about the pending closing, which is due to “slow business.”
The 36,000-square-foot store opened in July, 2012 as the first Publix Sabor in Palm Beach County. It was an existing Publix that was converted into a Sabor.

When I lived at 7th Avenue South and H Street, this was the store to go to. I hope that another grocery store takes its place. They dig stick it out for about four years after the new Publix opened downtown.

Meanwhile, in Greenfield, CA, a gruesome find. You may want to cancel your plans to visit there.

Coincidentally, this comment was left under the post "Master and Commander" just this morning. It appears to be from a Greenfield resident.

"No, he is not an oath keeper and does not have a college degree..none of our cops do. He has a checkered past fraught with embezzlement allegations. He helped Susan get her own chief and this joke is quid pro quo. Meanwhile, since Susan and her puppet council terminated shared services, which did provide us with an excellent, professional and well educated Chief, we have had seven homucides this year alone, armed robberies and other delights which no one seems to take seriously..it's all rainbows and lollipops out here according to everyone."

Some sort of elaborate Chinese Fire Drill protest near Briger yesterday

Yesterday, Panagioti Tsolkas and his EarthFirst! friends staged a protest at the Briger Tract in Palm Beach Gardens. Before reading part of the story by Linda Santacruz below, it might be helpful if you read my post describing a trip I took to the area recently, just 11 days ago.  In my post is a map showing where the Briger Tract is. Note the the tract is east of I-95 and most people concerned about our environment in Florida agree that western sprawl west of I-95 is getting out of control.

The Briger Tract is seemingly ideal for a community and there are existing communities east of the tract. The video that is part of the Palm Beach Post article has Mr. Tsolkas mentioning the Mandell JCC and Grandiflora Rd. You can see both of these locations on the map I provide (see link above).  Palm Beach Gardens says that all development approvals are in place.

Here is an excerpt from the article by Linda Santacruz:

The group blocked the forest’s construction entrance with a disabled van with two women chained to each other through the windows. The vehicle’s battery was also removed and dumped in a nearby lake.
PBSO deputies cut the chain connecting the women and they were both arrested. Another man was arrested after he admitted to parking the van in the location.
The trio faces additional charges of resisting officers without violence, unlawful assembly and traffic citations for blocking and damaging a roadway.
The battery was recovered from the lake to prevent any chemical spills. [emphasis added]

Here is a picture from the Palm Beach Gardens Police Dept. that shows the battery from the van Everglades EarthFirst! threw into the lake. Hopefully no Green Indigo snakes were injured or poisoned!

Now that some of our EarthFirst!/anarchist friends are in the legal system they may want to reference this article here in the Everglades EarthFirst! journal about a protester accepting a plea deal and his collaborators journey on their way to court some day soon.

Just another day at the office.

Coming up on 11/13, the Lake Worth City Tree Board presents...

Dixie Hwy. is our own Stroad...

The "Grocery Store" challenge

From Jesse Bailey at the Walkable West Palm Beach blog we have the "Walk to the grocery store challenge". Pick a day, maybe even today, and go to the grocery store without your car. Walk, ride your bike, or take public transportation. If you want you can send a description of your walk and I'll publish it here on my blog: the good, the bad and the downright ugly. In today's car culture the pedestrian had 'taken a back seat' if you will. Take a camera with you too, you'll be surprised what you see.

From the article by Mr. Bailey:

Strong Towns recently issued a challenge for its readers to walk to the grocery store. The idea is to get out of the car and experience this essential activity from a different perspective that doesn’t involve driving, whether it be walking, biking, or taking public transportation. There will be more of these “Strong Citizens” challenges and the hope is to involve increasing numbers of people in everyday ways to make our communities stronger places. If you have a Strong Citizens idea, you can submit it here.
I’m well situated to walk to the grocery store because my neighborhood makes it an easy choice. Notice I didn’t say “I’m lucky to live near a grocery store”. Living in a neighborhood with a high walk score and low car dependency was very much a conscious choice, a lifestyle choice. I would go as far to say that I choose the kind of place I’d like to live, then choose a job in that place or as nearby as possible. This strategy allows one to be rooted in the community, rather than having little ties to the neighborhood because the experience of it is always behind the wheel of a large automobile.

Did not know this...

Interesting article yesterday in the Post about Flamingo Park in West Palm Beach. From the article:

In fact, at least 100 bodies lie on this ground [Flamingo Park on Dixie Hwy in West Palm Beach], just beneath the green grass and towering banyans that lure kids, dogs, and anyone else seeking a respite.
There easily could be twice that many, said Mary Brandenburg, who lives across the street in the El Cid neighborhood. She should know. The former city commissioner (1999-2002) and former state representative (2002-2010) was a member of the city’s historical preservation board in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Brandenburg said many families who couldn’t afford formal burials dug graves in the dead of night. As a result, there’s no way of telling how many bodies are there.
The Lakeside Cemetery Association bought the property from the city in 1902. It was used as a separate cemetery for blacks, although it never got an official name. By 1913, some 100 people had been buried there. That year, the city tried to buy it back so it could resell it. No less than the Florida Supreme Court blocked the effort.

The Mulvehill Monologues, Part III

The re-posting continues from August 2012. I forgot how traumatized Anna, the transcriptionist, was while she was doing this. I hope this doesn't trigger a PTSD episode. This one is particularly labyrinthian.

And the transcription continues...., bracing myself, Wes, 

Mulvehill continues her monologue to the commission on 8/7/12 about her trip to Germany:

"To look at it from the angle of how do we, how do we turn this into something that we can benefit from, how do we brand the fact that we can become a city of (unintelligible) ten thousand people a year move to Copenhagen. OK. So they invested 15 million euros before new legislation was even passed and what to do about this so they were very proactive. This initiative, they formed several initiatives, the cloud burst initiative which you can google and the Danish water forum and one of the angles that, ahhh, the team had presented, the entire staff of this particular department flew in to present this. There were several, there were teams from Taiwan that flew in, there were teams from Denmark, ummm, La Paz, Mexico, they had staff, and, that would come in and present these case studies for (unintelligible) but this angle of policy challenge, so rain falls on the road and she says, "that's sewage money," you pay for that from your, your water and sewer. But when rain falls into the lakes you can't fund it with water management money, you couldn't fund it with any money. So it's like well it's not my job, it's not my job, it's not my job. Rain didn't fall here, it's all or just rain that's coming down! [Mulvehill raised voice] It's just funded through different channels, and, so they had to work, they looked at that angle, of, OK, well, it's just, it's rain. Just depends on where it's falling in terms of how we're going to deal with it and having to make policy changes so that it can be addressed whether it falls in the lakes, whether it falls on the roads, so that the problem can be addressed, ummm, as almost a turnkey solution through policy setting. It was a very, very impressive and [mumbling] you can actually find their presentation for this, and the whole report from [unitelligible], ummm, the conference on line. OK. So they, their, their, to answer that question of whether you can use adaptation strategy to promote green growth and promote investment in your city they have their, their branding it that a climate proof city is more attractive to investion [sic], ummm, a resilient community secures existing investments and attracts new investment. Adaptive capacity is a competitive advantage and cities capable of protecting businesses and citizens from climate related threats are more attractive places to live, work, and invest. So they are using adaptation strategy and their capacity to deal with the flooding, and to deal with a natural disaster that happens to them regularly with rain to become a competitive advantage. OK. Mainstreaming resilience was another term that, ahhh, if you google it you won't see a whole lot on the term of mainstreaming resilience but basically what it is is when you make it part of your overall, what, what Copenhagen did. It became part of their overall plan of attracting business, of attracting investment, of green, providing green jobs. And it allows cities to take advantage of synergies between communities, even between departments, where they were solving the problem of, this isn't our, water, the water on the lake. So we're not going to use that money for it. 

Sorry, Wes. All I can handle today. Usually transcription is fairly straightforward, a person has a thought and follows through and it is easy to transcribe. But this is something entirely new. Every once in a while there is a thread of a thought and then it goes, nowhere. Are you certain you want people reading this? Will try to do a few more minutes later on. Am beginning to feel a terrible headache coming on. Call me later on, Anna. 

“Sister Cities;” let’s stay with Treasure Coast planning council | www.mypalmbeachpost.com

This issue related to Palm Beach County staying within the auspices of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council came up at last Tuesday's (11/4) City Commission meeting. You can hear the discussion that took place at the end of the meeting in the accompanying video. The push for a change seems to be coming from the County Commission. Mayor Triolo also discussed this "sister cities" group that the city is a part of earlier in the meeting. Some of the larger, central Palm Beach County municipalities have gotten together off and on for a while on issues that they share in common. Click title for link to the article:

Since 1976, Palm Beach County has been part of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, one of 11 such councils in Florida. On Oct. 7, county commissioners voted 4-3 to give serious thought to joining the South Florida Regional Planning Council. Also an option: splitting the county north and south, with each half gravitating toward the appropriate council.
Any move would take 18 months.
West Palm Beach Commissioner Ike Robinson was against going with the south group, which covers Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.
“You’ll be a new kid on the block, dealing with the big boys on the block.” Robinson said. “Their issues are theirs, and we have to become part of what they’re doing.”
Lake Worth Mayor Pam Triolo said the Treasure Coast group, which also includes Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties, “take our interests seriously.” She said that, with the southern council, “we’re such small fish in that very large pond.”

Here is our Commission's discussion on the topic. It also included a resolution to urge that the County remain with Treasure Coast.

The National League of Cities

This year is the 90th anniversary of the National League of Cities (NLC). This latest conference is in Austin, Texas, one of the fastest growing cities in the USA. Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell and Commissioner Amoroso will be attending this year. From the Austin NLC website:

"The annual Congress of Cities and Exposition is coming together, and this year’s 90th Anniversary conference is shaping up to be big, bold and perfectly adapted to the needs of today’s local elected officials and staff. We are celebrating NLC’s distinguished history and legacy at this special anniversary conference while looking toward the future, with content designed around the theme 'The Future of Cities.'

You can learn a lot about the Palm Beach County League of Cities here.

The past president of the Palm Beach County League of Cities is our own Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell. He is currently the Lake Worth liaison to the PBC League of Cities.

When our elected officials travel, it is comforting to know they are going to a conference with fellow Palm Beach County representatives sharing ideas and getting ideas from others all across our country. It helps our electeds "think out of the box." Many of the ideas Vice Mayor Maxwell and Commissioner Amoroso learn of in Austin will be shared with other electeds, the city manager, and staff. If you watched the last commission meeting, you would have heard the perennial critic (Peter Timm's successor?) Katie McGiveron tell the commission they should spend more time "listening to her." Mrs. McGiveron is challenged when it comes to having a calm and civil discourse about the operation of our city and pumps from a dry well which lacks new ideas. She seems more intent on smearing and disparaging our present Commission and City Manager.

Vice Mayor Maxwell and Commissioner Amoroso are going to Austin, Texas to learn some of the tools that make officials better at what they do. As you go about your life in Lake Worth, do you feel the benefit of former-Commissioner Suzanne Mulvehill's trip to Bonn, Germany? We are still waiting on the International shipment of goodwill and foreign investment from that trip.

To everyone's dismay, the other blogger, and her cozy cohorts, were big proponents of Suzanne Mulvehill and the other blogger gushed about the former Commissioner's trip to Bonn, Germany. As you read the intellectual gymnastics, worthy of six gold medals, the other blogger uses to support Suzanne Mulvehill's trip to Bonn, keep in mind Lake Worth is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida. We don't see well-heeled Germans landing on our shores with suitcases of cash, ready to buy property, invest, build and create jobs here. And you don't see them lining up at the Ixora for rooms with mirrors on the ceiling. I don't hear German being spoken at the pool.

In her own words, here is the other blogger, justifying Suzanne Mulvehill's trip to Bonn, Germany:

Large batches of Kool-aid are still being made along Lake Osborne Drive.

Good times, good friends!