This latest message from the 'Common Ground' (no 's') Southern Baptist church in downtown Lake Worth was posted on their Facebook page on October 31st. This is the same 'church' that waged the 'War on Jesus' in the little City of Lake Worth:
"War on Jesus"?
Here are two more charming messages for the tolerant, open, and accepting City of Lake Worth:
On Sunday's, 'pastor' Mike Olive and his recovery church host service in a bar/nightclub in the City. Maybe his sermon this week will be more specific on what "useless religion" is here in Lake Worth. If you want to learn more about pastor Mike Olive's church service on Sunday mornings use this link:
Remember: Stay away from the bar, behind the curtain, and don't forget to tip your server!
There is a lot of good news coming from the Central American immigrant community both here in the City and throughout Palm Beach County. There are two centers that support the Guatemalan/Maya community: one is El Sol in Jupiter and the other is the Guatemalan/Maya Center (GMC) here in Lake Worth. Other news is the NAPC's Tropical Ridge Neighborhood Association and the GMC are working together to solve problems such as crime, code enforcement, bulk trash pickup, and keeping the streets clear and well lit at night.
The Post's Kevin Thompson has an article about the Guatemalan/Maya community you can read here. This follows news from the Lake Worth CRA and their new exhibit to be featured at the Grand Opening of the Armory Annex:
Exciting news: the Armory Art Center's Grand Opening is November 12th.
In partnership with the City of Lake Worth, the Armory Annex, the Palm Beach Photographic Center, the Guatemalan-Maya Center and LULA, the CRA is thrilled to announce the opening of the Discovering Our New World—Immigrant Children’s Look at Lake Worth and the Armory Arts Annex Grand Opening at the Lake Worth Arts Center on Nov. 12, from 6–9 pm.
Read more about this event here. You do not want to miss this one of a kind exhibit that features 50 prints from our very own local teens who are recent immigrants from Central America. Here is an excerpt:
The Armory Annex in Lake Worth reopens its doors to host Discovering Our New World. For this photographic exhibit the Armory is privileged to collaborate with the renowned Palm Beach Photographic Centre of West Palm Beach. The show is part of the Photographic Center’s Picture My World program.
For those of you in the Central American immigrant community (or those helping their efforts) in the City of Lake Worth, suburban Lake Worth (including Palm Beach State College) and Greenacres here is how you contact the Post reporter to tell your story:
Email: kthompson@pbpost.com
561-820-4573
Twitter: @kevindthompson1
Once again, Jacqulyn Powell and TV news at its best. Here are two earlier segments she did about the Lake Worth Triathlon and another on efforts to solve a senseless murder. NBC5 is putting together a powerful group of reporters keeping CBS12/WPTV and ABC25/WPBF in the rearview mirror where they rightfully belong. Charlie Keegan, Jason Hackett, Gabrielle Sarann, and Andrew Ruiz are just a few of their talented staff.
If you're going to get your news from TV then watch WPTV although it's truly entertaining now and then to watch how many times the weekend anchor at CBS12 looks at the wrong camera. It's belly busting hilarious. I'll scream at the TV, "We're over here!".
Jacqulyn Powell joined WPTV as a multimedia journalist in April of 2015. She was born in Florida, but at a young age moved to Kentucky, where she grew up. After 20 years, she’s glad to finally be able to call herself a Floridian again. Jacqulyn grew up knowing she wanted to go into broadcasting. With parents in the radio business, she had her own talk show at age 12. In a high school broadcasting class, she discovered that pairing videography with her love of presenting was even more exciting and decided she wanted to go into TV news. By her senior year, she’d won a Robert F. Kennedy Award for humanitarian journalism and was flown to a ceremony in Washington D.C. to meet the Kennedy family.
Here is her latest news segment which is partly about Compass and their efforts to aid the transgender community in Palm Beach County:
If you don't have online access to The Palm Beach Post you can still read about EarthFirst! leader Peter Tsolkas' three clan members who were found guilty yesterday (11/6). Post reporter Daphne Duret's article is in today's (Saturday) print edition, below the fold, under an article about Santa and his merry band of elves:
Note that the "Briger Forest" is now called the Alton Tract in Palm Beach Gardens.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
Afterwards, the activists said their friends’ convictions will only serve to continue their case. Panagioti [sic] Tsolkas echoed the sentiments of Schlesinger [Assistant Public Defender Brad Schlesinger], who in his closing arguments compared the Everglades Earth First! agenda to the civil rights movement. [emphasis added] “It’s our responsibility to stand up to injustice and whether the law recognizes that or not is secondary,” he said. “We’ve seen that throughout our history.”
The "battery in the lake" is not mentioned in the article, but if you're interested in learning more about that use this link.
The van used in the protest by EarthFirst! was disabled by removal of the acid-filled battery which was then thrown into a lake. Thankfully, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Dept. was there to contain the environmental damage.
Compass invites you to attend the First Annual Women’s Health Conference on Saturday (11/7)! Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (LBT) women can be at greater risk for certain health disparities, but often face significant barriers to addressing them. The first step to overcoming these barriers is through education. This conference is designed to address the unique and diverse needs of women in our community. A free box lunch will be provided to those who register in advance. To learn more about Compass located in downtown Lake Worth use this link. They have a new website that's a big improvement over the previous one. The Post's Kevin Thompson wrote an article about the conference tomorrow and interviews Julie Seaver, Compass' Operations Director.
If you have community news you want to share from the City of Lake Worth, suburban Lake Worth (including Palm Beach State College) and Greenacres, here is how you contact the Post reporter: Email: kthompson@pbpost.com 561-820-4573 Twitter: @kevindthompson1
Daphne Duret at the Post has the latest: All three Everglades EarthFirst! members were found guilty. [UPDATE: The Postis all over this story and so is CBS12/WPTV. The New Timesalso did an article that's long and repetitive, multiple cut & pastes from previous articles by a former writer who likes to tell people he used to write for the Village Voice. Check back to this blog later for more on the trial of the century. Oh! And one more thing, see if you can spot one of the EF!ers on trial in this video from a Lake Worth City Commission meeting: Continue reading the blog post from earlier in the week about the EF! protest last November that could have benefited from additional training and planning:]
Just when you thought. . .
Last November my good friends here in Lake Worth, Everglades EarthFirst!, had a protest in Palm Beach Gardens. It was a chilly morning I recall and everyone in Palm Beach County was riveted to the TV screen. The NBC5/WPTV helicopter caught the entire protest from the air. There was a beat-up old van in the middle of the road with two women attached to it. But they screwed it up.
The protesters disabled the van and for some inexplicable reason, with the 1,000+ ways to disable a vehicle, these radical environmentalists chose to remove the battery and throw it into a lake. Not kidding. There was no word if any gopher tortoises or green indigo snakes were injured in the throwing process.
Here is my blog post from last November about all this.
Here is the latest news: the three that were arrested that day are on trial this Thursday:
Spread the word. This should be one hell of a fun rally.
And one more thing, on that day of the protest last November, EF! made another really big mistake. When they stopped the van in the middle of the road blocking the Mandell Jewish Community Center they didn't know this center also served as a school for little children. As you can imagine the authorities are not too keen on little frightened kids being sent home for the day. Oooops.
Canned goods will be collected on the NAPC Front Porch TODAY (11/6) at Evening on the Avenues. Proceeds from popcorn sales will also be donated to the First Congregational Church to purchase fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy items. The First Congregational Church at 1415 North K Street serves our less fortunate neighbors wonderful dinners at Thanksgiving and all year round.
It's my understanding that Commissioner Maier is moving his salon from Stella's on North Federal to South J Street. I hear that The Obtuse Blogger (TOB) is a regular now. She's lookin' sharp!
Here's a retro idea for the new salon that would be Lake Worth-y. Groovy, baby! British accents optional.
Below is a video of TOB at a recent City Commission meeting. Look how her hair keeps its body despite head bobs and shakes. Great job, Ryan!
If you live in Lake Worth, FL, don't be alarmed. Both WPTV and WPBF got it wrong again. Haven't checked CBS12/WPTV yet but wouldn't hold out much hope they got it right either.
If you have a child in a school in Lake Worth such as the high school or Barton Elementary and you feared for the safety of your child here is how you contact WPTV and let them know you're not amused. I'd give you the contact info for WPBF but it wouldn't make any difference.
All in all though, if you're going to get your news from TV your best choice is NBC5/WPTV. At least they acknowledge the challenges of accuracy of news reporting in suburban Lake Worth:
@WesBlackman Twitter only allows for so many characters so you'll have to bear with us! T to be as descriptive as possible.
Here is an excerpt from the article that also appeared in the Post's print edition yesterday (11/4):
Discover The Palm Beaches, the county’s official tourism marketing organization, is set to unveil its plan to representatives of the local tourism and hospitality industry. About 200 people are expected to attend the annual presentation, which will be held at the Harriet Himmel Theatre in West Palm Beach. Roughly 6.3 million travelers visited Palm Beach County in 2014, and industry officials have said the county is on pace to beat that record this year. For the first eight months of the year, the countywide hotel occupancy rate was 75.4 percent — a number that has risen slightly, even as the county’s inventory of hotel rooms has grown. [emphasis added]
Discover the Palm Beaches recently produced a new video you can watch here. There's a little city in central Palm Beach County that doesn't have an abundance of hotel rooms but it does have a spectacular BEACH!. Stop by and visit some time:
First a question: Would natural gas availability influence a home buyers decision to purchase a home in Lake Worth located in central Palm Beach County? Read about that surprising answer later. First, here is the news from Margie Menzel at the News Service of Florida:
The bill would set up a state permitting process for fracking and require oil and gas companies to register the chemicals they use on a national website. It would also require the companies to inform the state Department of Environmental Protection of chemicals they inject into the ground — after the fact, not before. And it would set aside $1 million for a study on the impact of fracking. "I believe that it improves our environment here in Florida," Rodrigues [Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero] said. Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples, is sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate. The proposal is backed by the Florida Petroleum Council, Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which contend that fracking would boost jobs and energy independence. "It's transformed America," Dave Mica of the Florida Petroleum Council told the House panel. "It's made us an energy-producing nation. It's showing up in the prices your constituents pay at the pump." [emphasis added]
Now for the answer, would someone choose to purchase a home in Lake Worth as opposed to other cities in Palm Beach County because of natural gas service? Yes. Many areas in the City of Lake Worth have natural gas service and it's a huge benefit to lower a homes energy costs. An electric dryer is an energy hog, for example.
A few months ago talked to a home buyer in the City and she told me that access to gas for a stove and a grill was the tipping point in her decision to buy a home here. The energy savings are enormous and cooking with gas gives better results than using an electric stove. Another benefit is if the electric power goes out you can still cook meals.
However, it's not all good news for natural gas in Lake Worth. There's still the issue of that capped gas line that no one in the media will touch that's costing the taxpayers $64,000 a month:
Interesting isn't it? Not even The Palm Beach Post will do an article about this.
"On the shoulders of Harvey Milk" says the Salt Lake City Tribune, in announcing the election of the first openly Gay Mayor to the city that is home of the conservative Mormon Church. Mayor elect Janet Biskupski, "Hope is never silent!"
Here is a blog post from Tuesday (11/3) with some history on how we got here. This story can't be told without mentioning that "battery in the lake". What began as a protest to get people thinking ended up having everyone scratching their heads instead.
Here is an excerpt from Linda Santacruz, The Palm Beach Post reporter on the scene that chilly day last year:
The protesters were activists with Everglades Earth First, demonstrating against The Kolter Group development taking place in Palm Beach Gardens’ Briger Forest. Two women chained themselves to a disabled vehicle that blocked the site’s construction entrance and, unintentionally, the school’s access road. The two women stood on either side of the van, reaching through the broken windows with their wrists chained together, police said. A pipe was placed over their arms to prevent authorities from cutting the chain. The protesters also removed the van’s battery and dumped it in a nearby lake. It was later recovered to prevent any chemical spills, police said. [emphasis added]
[And about the school that was forced to close. . .]
Head of school for The Meyer Academy, Nammie Ichilov, said he canceled school to not scare the children. Protesters apologized, saying they meant to solely target the forest. “We’re sorry to the parents, the kids and the workers that were affected today,” said protester Tuesday Gilliam of Lake Worth.
This protest, along with all the others ended up a moot point. The Alton Tract, formerly known as the 'Briger Forest' was approved for development by the Palm Beach Gardens city commission.
The Palm Beach Post's Staci Sturrock came out with an article last March about historic structures in Palm Beach County's past that are no longer with us. Some were included on the National Register of Historic Places, which shows placement on that list is not a guarantee against demolition. The number one example is the Brelsford House. I believe it was this family that deeded the land for the Lake Worth beach.
Here is the definition of a "soul patch" from Wikipedia. If you're not already aware, were under a rock or in outer space, the iconic Bamboo Room in Lake Worth has reopened and you can expect to see more than a few soul patches around town. To "Follow" the Bamboo Room on Twitter click on the Follow icon below:
Don't miss our $5 Tito's Thursday along with our 1st Annual Broom-ball Tournament @ 7pm for the Toys… https://t.co/sua1qifZV9
![Dr. W. H. Cotton’s ode: “Oh, My Lake Worth, Florida!” [circa 1920].](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUL75cv6zJQFjX15ojOIIz9AjnbqH4asHJTYSDhnGnYr7rJZRha1NcNTirj2xPcId158vkz5Hw-wXgOfrlztj8Zr8jLFFCfuEN6PyV44ZlpMRmJ68xbtFL9vzxNiG7xDs_HJvm/s1600/LakeWorthPioneers.JPG)
