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Friday, January 30, 2015 The Lake Worth Tribune
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2015 Published in Lake Worth, FLVol. 1 • Issue 3
Resident to City: Need Money for Roads? Sell the Golf Course!
Tourists Rate Lake Worth’s Beach!Most Give It a 10Average is 9 out of 10
Lake Worth’s beach got high marks from tourists sunning themselves on the sand during the busiest week of the year – the week
Szerdi Demands McVoy Apologize for Calling Him Un-American
City Commissioner John Szerdi is asking for an apol-ogy from Commissioner Christopher McVoy for call-ing him “un-American” last year for walking out on the invocation by an atheist at the start of the Dec. 2 City Commission meeting.
“I just want to say that, I am not un-American at all,” said Szerdi at the Jan. 20 commission meeting. “I am a true-blooded Ameri-can. My family and people in my family have died for this country….I’d really ap-preciate an apology for that kind of a statement, because it was totally unnecessary and I feel offended by it.”
Szerdi, Mayor Pam Trio-lo, and commissioners Scott Maxwell and Andy Amoroso all stood up and walked out together on atheist Preston Smith before he began his invocation to start the Dec. 2 City Commission meeting.
McVoy told the media af-terward that he thought the walk-out was “un-Ameri-can.”
“I, as an elected official, have to be respectful to all of them,” he told the Tri-bune last week of listening to invocations by differ-ent clergy. Preston Smith, representing the American Atheists, had been given permission by the city to do the invocation.
“He’s looking for a public apology from me. He’s not going to get one,” McVoy said.
“All I did is exercise my ight to not listen,” Szerdi told the Tribune this week. “What’s un-American about that?”
Szerdi says the commis-sioners had all gotten notice about the invocation from a Lake Worth citizen, Mark Parrilla, head of the Genesis Neighborhood Association, and that he’d just decided to “peaceably walk away,” rather than listen to Smith’s address.
City Commission Meeting
Tuesday, February 3at 6 p.m.
in the Commission Chambers at City Hall
7 North Dixie Hwy.
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The Birthday Cake Castle at One 5th Avenue South, showing the work that is being done by the new owner, Scott Levine. In November, the city’s Historic Resources Preservation Board gave Levine the OK to replace all windows and doors, build a new loggia, replace many col-umns and expand the kitchen. Levine bought the Birthday Cake Castle last year for $1.9 million and is making it available to the Red Cross this spring to use as a designer’s show house. The castle was built in 1925 by architect Sherman Childs. (Photo contibuted)
Tim and Megan Mead
— City Commissioner John Szerdi
“I am a true-blooded American. My family
and people in my family have died for
this country….”
Need money for road re-pair? Street lights? Sewers? Don’t go to the bond mar-kets. Sell the golf course(!), Marcus Kelly, a resident of Lake Worth, told the City Commission on Tuesday night at a special meeting at the Compass Gay & Lesbi-an Community Center.
“I’ve been looking at the financial data for the last few years,…” he said. “I can’t really say exactly how much money the golf course is losing each year currently. But from 2007 to 2011 it on average lost about $100,000 per year.”
He said he found that the
city is spending about $1.2 million a year on the golf course, and that it plans to spend about $1.25 ev-ery year on the golf course through 2018.
“I understand the golf course is a big part of the community,” he said, “and it’s been here for a very long
City Slaps on 1.2 percent Fee for Online Utility Payments
A man pays his Lake Worth Utilities bill in person on Jan. 28 at the City Hall Annex, with the sign notifying residents of the new $2 ‘convenience fee’ at right.
Credit Card Fee Added 1 Month After $2 Fee for Paying in Person!
Like to sit home in your bunny slippers and pay your electric bill over the Internet using a credit card? You can keep doing it, if you don’t mind paying a 1.2 percent “convenience fee” for that privilege.
The City Commission voted unanimously on Jan. 20 to charge everyone pay-ing by credit card online or over the phone a 1.2 percent surcharge to compensate the city for the money it loses when the credit card compa-
nies charge a fee for “card not present” transactions.
The surcharge comes just one month after the
City Commission voted to charge everyone paying their utility bill in person a $2 convenience fee.
Interim Finance Director Steve Carr told the com-
time, but so have the roads.”“You know, we want to
talk about people coming to the community, living here... I don’t think many people are going to move here just for the golf course. There are a lot of golf cours-es in South Florida.”
The meeting at Compass
on Jan. 27 was held to get the public’s input on how to finance repairs and improve-ments to the city’s infra-structure in the wake of the failure of the $63.5 million bond last August. The may-or, commissioners and city
The Lake Worth Tribune Friday, January 30, 2015 Page 2
The Shuffleboard Courts in Lake Worth, now leased by the Armory Art Center for $10 a year through the Lake Worth Community Redevelopment Agency.
'I don't know that yet,' said Executive Director of the CRA Joan Oliva when asked this week whether the Armory's lease would be renewed this spring.
BLOTTERWEDNESDAY, JAN. 21
BURGLARY: A home on the 2100 block of Collier Ave. was burglarized, with several glass panels removed from the rear jalousie door. A number of items were stolen.
THURSDAY, JAN. 22
ARSON: Michael Kellock was arrested and charged with arson for setting fire to the home of a woman living at 529 South H Street. Kellock had thrown a brick into a window, according to a witness, and climbed in. Minutes later he was seen walking away from the house with the house on fire. Kellock had been accused of stalking the woman who lived in the home on numerous occasions. On the night of the fire, the woman had locked herself in the bathroom as Kellock climbed in the window. She’d fled the home unharmed. Damages were judged to be in excess of $10,000. THEFT: Two women were eating at Safire Asian restau-rant at 817 Lake Avenue when a man approached their outdoor table and grabbed one of their purses, which was on the ground. He said Thank You and ran south on Dixie Highway. The man was described as white, in his mid 30s. The two women were vacationing in Lake Worth, and are from out of state. The purse contained about $1500, according to the victim. STOLEN CAR: A man living on South D Street re-ported to a deputy that his 20-year-old daughter took his 2008 Chevy Cobalt without his permission on Jan. 14, and had not brought it back. STOLEN CAR: A man living n 15th Ave. North told deputies that his friend, Terri Barbei, had stolen his car after spending the night at his house. CHILD OUTSIDE: A deputy went to a home in Lake Worth where it was reported that a young child had been
seen wandering outside along, sometimes near the road, and that the mother sometimes drinks. The deputy found the child well cared for and the home clean. THEFT: Martial Marcellus told a deputy that he un-locked the door to the women’s bathroom at the Casino Building at about 8 p.m. and went inside to make sure ev-eryone was out. He left his keys in the door, and when he went back to retrieve them, they were gone. The keys, he said, open all of the doors at the Casino building and the bathrooms at the beach. A sergeant said he would leave someone at the beach for as long as he could.
FRIDAY, JAN. 23
MISSING KID: A woman living at 1102 South B Street told a deputy that her 13-year-old grandson is missing. She said her grandson had called her the evening before and said he was late getting home because the school bus had broken down. She told the deputy her grandson has a behavioral problem and a drug problem and has run away before. MISSING BOYFRIEND: A man living on South L Street reported his boyfriend, Corey, missing. Also missing is the man’s car and car keys. He said Corey suffers from schizophrenia and that he believes he is “relapsing on crack” and driving to Broward County. FAILURE TO APPEAR: A deputy spotted a man stag-gering in an alleyway on South E Street. A check showed he had a misdemeanor warrant for FAILURE TO AP-PEAR. He was arrested and brough to the Palm Beach County Jail, where a nurse said he needed treatment for a swollen eye. The man, Baltazar Miguel, said the swol-len eye was from a fight the night before. BURGLARY: The window of a garage was broken on an animal hospital, and a bolt cutters taken.
SATURDAY, JAN. 24
MISSING KID: Two grandparents living on 12th Avenue South reported their grandson missing. They said they believed he had run away, as he has run away before. The grandmother said the boy, Matthew Dean, “just does what he wants to do.” VEHICLE BURGLARY: A man called PBSO to report that his car, parked at 731 South H Street, had been broken into, the lower panel beneath the steering wheel removed, and blood spatter found on the seat. A bottle of
perfume was missing from the center console. STOLEN BIKE: A woman had her bike stolen from the fenced-in front yard of her home on the 900 block of North Palmway. She said that she heard her neighbor’s dog barking at about 2 a.m. that morning, and around 8 a.m., found the gate opened and the bike gone.
SUNDAY, JAN. 25
VEHICLE BREAK-IN: A man who’d left his car running on the 700 block of Washington Ave. came outside to find two young females in the car. He pulled them out and they ran west on Washington Ave. SQUATTER: A deputy checking on the vacant house at 727 South J Street, posted as an unsafe structure by the city, found a man named Dennis Foster inside. He was given a Notice to Appear and warned against returning. BURGLARY: A man and his girlfriend living on the 1400 block of 13th Avenue North told a deputy that they left the house earlier in the afternoon. When they returned after a few hours, it appeared someone had climbed into the house through a back window. Among items taken were a laptop computer, several televisions, cash, pills, a Coach wallet and a Chanel purse. The man told the deputy he suspected that the perpetrator was someone he knew. VEHICLE BURGLARY: A man living on the 1600 block of South Federal Highway told deputies he saw two black men in hoodies leaning into his Dodge Caliber. A Nintendo 2DS had been taken from the center console. VEHICLE BURGLARY: A woman living on the 1600 block of South Federal Highway told deputies her Volk-wagon Beetle had been broken into and ransacked. A two-fingered silver ring with the “Last Supper” en-graved on the top was stolen from a gold gift box inside the car. VEHICLE BURGLARY: A couple told deputies that a purse was stolen from their Nissan Xterra while they were watching their son play soccer at Memorial Park at 6th Avenue South and South A Street. The doors of the vehicle had been left unlocked. SHOPLIFTING: A deputy arrived at the Chevron gas station located in the 100 block of N Federal Hwy. in reference to a shoplifting that had just occurred. Upon arrival, deputy met with the clerk, who said that a young white guy with a shaved head had just stolen an alcohol-ic beverage and fled southbound on Federal Hwy. The clerk tried to chase the guy, but lost sight of him.
23-Year-Old Killed in Crash on 10th Avenue South
A 23-year-old from Lake Worth was killed last week when the Volkswagen he was riding in slammed head-on into another car at the intersection of 10th Avenue South and South C Street.
The Volkswagen, driven by Yves Janac of West Palm Beach, had been heading south on South C Street at 1:15 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24 “at a high rate of speed,” according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, when it hit a 1994 Mercu-ry Grand Marquis that was heading west on 10th Ave-nue South, went airborne, and rolled over before com-ing to a stop.
Two passengers in the Volkswagen, Dayna Apuz-zo, age unknown, and Al Charles, age 23, were eject-ed from the Volkswagen. Apuzzo had serious inju-ries. Al Charles was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Cen-
ter where he was later pro-nounced dead.
The two men who were in the car that was hit, Pe-ter Staniec and Gregory Lieber, both of 932 South B Street, Apt. 4, were un-harmed. Both were wearing seatbelts.
Al Charles, according the report, lived at 1222 South C Terrace in Lake Worth, the same home address list-ed for Apuzzo and for Gene-si Mondestin, the fourth person in the Volkswagen, who was unharmed.
The sheriff’s office said that alcohol is believed to be a factor in the crash, and that debris was scattered the length of three houses. The driver of the Volkswa-gen was 23-year-old Yves D. Janac of 880 Cotton Bay Drive, Apt. E in West Palm Beach. An accident inves-tigation is underway to de-termine the cause.
City of Lake Worth Job ListingsFollowing are a few of the current job listings for jobs with the City of Lake Worth:►LEISURE SERVICES1). Part-time custodian. Salary $8.05 -$9.36/hr. This position is responsible for the routine manual labor in the custodial care of pub-lic buildings and premises. Candi-date is at ease working as part of a team. High-volume, fast-paced en-
vironment. Responsibilities include cleaning, minor maintenance work in buildings and adjacent grounds. High school diploma or GED. Expe-rience will be considered.2). Part-time Recreation Center Assistant: $8.49/hr. This is a semi-skilled position in the care and main-
tenance of the recreation center and also involves general assistance with recreation center programs and activities. Specifically, involves set-up and operation of lighting and other equipment necessary to recreation center programs and collection of money for issuance of
permits and various program fees. High school diploma or GED.
►WATER & SEWER UTILITIES1). Finance and budget analyst: Salary Range: $21.44-$30.00/hr. This is a professional position re-sponsible for financial analysis and budget development and oversight in support of the Electric or Utility de-partments. Includes program man-agement activities, contract mon-
itoring, and analyzing requisitions and bid responses. Perform ex-pense analysis, variance reporting and provide trend analysis, applying complex governmental accounting. Must have considerable knowledge of utility financial operations, public finance and budgetary methods and techniques, contract laws, and city, state and federal laws governing the purchasing of commodities for the city and contract management.
Bachelor’s degree in accounting, business administration or related field, plus 3-5 years of experience in municipal utility accounting and/or budget management. Knowledge of Microsoft Office.
For more City of Lake Worth job listings, go to LakeWorth.org, visit the City of Lake Worth Human Resources Department at 7 North Dixie Highway, or call 586-1658.
Friday, January 30, 2015 The Lake Worth Tribune
Benzaiten Center Opens in Old FEC Railroad Depot
The Old FEC train depot was given to the city in 2011 by Wm. Theis & Sons, Inc., a beer distributor. It is being leased to the Living Arts Foundation, headed by JoAnne Berkow, for $1 a year.
Blown glass for sale at the Benzaiten Center.
A glass artist at work on creation of a vase on Jan. 24.
At the Grand Opening on Jan. 24: Dwight Hoffman, Barbara Hoffman, chair of the Cultural Council of Indian River County, John Beers, JoAnne Berkow, Igor Ilchuk and Rick Eggert, creative director of the Benzaiten Center.
Russian-Ukrainian painter Igor Ilchuk with his painting ‘Total Eclipse’ in the front room of the Benzait-en Center on Jan. 24. The painting is for sale for $18,000. “For this picture, it’s a reasonable price,” says Ilchuk.
Page 3
The Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts opened in Lake Worth last weekend with a packed reception on Friday night and a more subdued grand opening on Saturday afternoon, with a glass-blowing demonstra-tion, and a number of locals wandering through to check out the space.
The Benzaiten Center is located in a building most people never even knew was there – an old Florida East Coast railroad depot west of the train tracks on Second Avenue South. You can get there by going north on F Street from Sixth Av-enue South, or South on E Street from Lake Avenue, and then heading east on Second Avenue South.
“You have this unbeliev-able building…the city had this unbelievable building, and it was just perfect,” says JoAnne Berkow, the founder of the Benzaiten Center.
Berkow is the owner of Rosetta Stone Fine Art Gal-lery in Jupiter, Fla., a gallery that sells affordable art by a number of painters and arti-sans. She is also a painter.
“I just felt that we need-ed more professional fine arts facilities in Palm Beach
County,” she says when asked about her reason for wanting to open something in Lake Worth.
Berkow met with Lake Worth’s Community Rede-velopment Agency (CRA) a few years back to inquire whether the city had a build-ing that might work for the facility she had envisioned, and Joan Oliva, executive director of the CRA, told her about the old FEC de-pot, which had been given to the city in 2011 by Wm. Theis & Sons, Inc., a beer distributor. The city put out a request for proposals for an arts center in the build-ing, and Berkow and her nonprofit Living Arts Foun-dation were awarded the lease on the building for $1
a year for 20 years for the Benzaiten Center for Cre-ative Arts.
The building has a total of 14,500 square feet of space. It will be used for an art gallery and gift shop to dis-play art for sale, for a 4,500 glassworks studio with three workshops, and for a metal works studio, to include a metal foundry that can pour 69,000 pounds of bronze a year. Classes are to begin in a few weeks.
“The minute I walked in here I knew it was right,” Berkow told the Tribune. The natural light from high windows and the bay doors on both sides, that allow for ventilation and easy trans-port of art in an out of the center, were ideal for metal and glass fabrication, and display of art.
Berkow says the center will be self-supporting, with artists leasing space in which to work and people paying to take classes. All money raised from benefactors and other sources will go to com-munity outreach.
Wm. Theis & Sons bought the FEC depot in 1994 for $851,500, according to county property records. It is now assessed at $354,606. Property taxes are listed
at $0, but the Living Arts Foundation, by agreement, will begin to pay real prop-erty tax equivalents to the city as soon as it completes $1.75 million in renova-tions, which it must do by the end of 2015. It was es-timated by the Palm Beach County Business Develop-ment Board in 2013 that the Benzaiten Center will pay $42,458 a year in taxes.
Berkow says they’ve al-ready put about $600,000 into the building to replace many historic windows and fix the bay doors, which
were almost all broken. She says they’re planning to put another $500,000 into further improvements, to include a patio on the west side of the building.
Dolores Key, economic development manager for the City of Lake Worth, says the city was inspired to use the FEC depot for an arts center after looking at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Arlington, Va., and the Governor’s Island project in New York Harbor.
She said the Benzaiten Center is ahead of schedule
with renovations. “We gave them specific benchmarks, and they are exceeding ex-pectations,” she told the Tri-bune this week.
Lake Worth clay artist Tracy Rosof-Petersen, who stopped by the grand open-ing reception on Jan. 24, told the Tribune that the opening of the Benzaiten Center marks the culmi-nation of years of work by artists in the area, and is the best use for the old depot: “Things like this don’t start with artists: They start with communities.”
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The Lake Worth Tribune Friday, January 30, 2015 Page 4
“Resident to City: Need Money for Roads? Sell the Golf Course!”
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manager had promised to listen to all ideas, imposing no time limits.
The golf course idea was one of many floated by res-idents as a way to pay for infrastructure repairs and avoid plunging the city into debt for the next 30 years.
The golf course, said Kel-ly, may be worth $30 mil-lion, $45 million, $80 mil-lion – perhaps enough to pay for all needed repairs and improvements with money left over.
He said he realizes that the idea of selling the golf course might not go down too easily here, but it should still be considered.
“We just moved a quar-ter million dollars from the general fund last year into the golf fund, because it has a negative budget right now of like $220,000. So if we’re going to take money from the general fund and put it into a golf course that’s not making any money, shouldn’t we put that mon-ey at least into the roads?”
Katie McGiveron, founder of the political action com-mittee that opposed the bond, chided the commission for not having a meeting after the August vote where res-idents could talk about why they voted against the bond.
“I think that this meeting is premature,” she said. “I think you skipped a very important meeting that you should have had. Days, if not even a week, after the bond vote, you had a meeting where people were allowed to come forward and talk about how they’d had problems voting. I asked, but never got, a meeting with the same format, about how people could come forward and tell you why they did not like the bond, about what the problems of the bond were.”
She told the mayor, com-missioners and city manag-er that she didn’t think there was a problem of a lack of money; only an issue of “mismanagement” of the money that city has.
McGiveron said the city, if it is to bring back the bond, should leave off the $800,000 that was going to be awarded to each commis-sioner to address issues in his district, and should leave off funding for the Park of Commerce. But she had two main suggestions: use the money the city already has for infrastructure, and take back the Community Rede-velopment Agency.
“If you took back the CRA, we would have all the money that we need to do this project, and many more,” she said. “Right now the CRA is distributed in our downtown. That’s not really where their mission should be. I would strongly like to see this researched. It’s not that hard to do. It’s
been done in the past. Other municipalities have done it. And before you try to stick your hand in my pocket, you should search that option.”
Loretta Sharpe, a reg-ular at City Commission meetings, said she initially opposed the bond, but had changed her mind.
“I started looking around, I start talking to experts. I started talking to the staff. And I said, We’ve got to do something. Our sewers are bad. What was dumping into the Intracoastal is terri-ble. We don’t have enough water in hydrants to put out the fires. The potholes are everywhere, including in the alleyways. What are we going to do?”
She suggested assessing every house in Lake Worth, east, west, north and south to pay for repairs.
“I hate the word assess-ments…but we can do as-sessments. We can assess for the fire department, and we can assess for the police department, and we proba-bly can assess for hydrants. I would say that every house in Lake Worth, east, west, north and south get an assessment, and that money saved, take out the Bout-well, take out the $800,000, and that money saved from that, and the assessments, will pay for the bond issue.”
The issue of fairness came up again and again.
“I don’t believe we were told the truth when they told us that some will pay a little less and some will pay a lit-tle more,” Peter Timm said from the podium. “The truth is some will pay nothing while others will pay thou-sands of dollars a year for the next thirty years to pay off the $131 million loan with interest.”
He said the city should impose a non-ad valorem tax that every homeowner would pay, regardless of the assessed value of his home.
“Why would some people pay nothing, while others, who now pay the highest tax-es in the city, pay thousands more for thirty years?”
Michael Fox suggested something like a civilian re-view board for the bond, a board that he described as a “living group of individu-als…that can just provide a little oversight …to make this matter more palatable to the people who are resisting…”
Ginny Powell, a county employee, presented infor-mation about grants that could be used to fix roads.
“I won’t pretend I’m an expert, but I can tell you, based on my limited experi-ence, that grants could pay for a lot of this…”
She ticked off Snook Is-lands and Bryant Park as county projects done in conjunction with the city almost entirely with the use of grant money from orga-nizations such as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conserva-tion Commission.
She identified one grant in particular that might work: a grant from the Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Or-ganization called Transpor-tation Alternatives & Safe Routes to Schools. There was a workshop for those applying for the grant that would take place on Jan. 29, she said.
“I think it would be great if the city could send some-body to at least see what’s possible.”
The deadline for the grant is Feb. 27.
Jeffrey Morgan, who lives at 307 Dartmouth Drive, told the mayor and commis-
sioners that the bond, if it were to come back, would have to be fair.
“I got involved when this came up the last time, and I, like many people, found that when I got into it…the process of finding informa-tion was very deceptive,” he said. “And it took me a while, and if I sharpened my pencil and did it correctly, I found that I was spending tens of thousands of dollars over a period of 30 years for two properties in Lake Worth. One of them I’ve built with those two hands. The other one I renovated with those two hands. So the money, to me, means a lot. I’ve done a great deal for this city. I’ve put a ton of money on the tax rolls. I don’t want to pay for some-one down here that’s run-ning a rental slum and not paying their fair share.”
He said anything that pun-ishes people who take care of their property would be a deal-breaker, and that he would fight to stop it.
“I’m prepared to pay. I will happily open my wallet for whatever time period it takes to fix my city. But I’m not paying for the slumlords anymore,” he said.
John Rinaldi, the owner of the Sabal Palm House bed and breakfast on Golfview Road, told the mayor and commissioners that the bond would have increased his taxes by $3,000 a year.
The business community, he said, is under a “great deal of pressure” and can’t af-ford a higher tax burden.
He said the city should focus on the most-need-ed projects, and ditch the “wish list” of infrastructure projects that made up Lake Worth 2020.
“What do you really need and how bad do you need it?” he asked.
He also said he wanted a guarantee that the mon-ey would be spent for the things the city was saying it would be spent on. He talked about first moving to the city in 2003 in a time of quick-ly-rising property values, with many millions of dollars flowing into the city coffers.
“During that time, the leadership of the city did not use that money to fix the roads,” he said. “They didn’t fix the roof of the house that they had.”
“I would like to see any bond be very, very specif-ic,” he said.
Mayor Pam Triolo ad-dressed the crowd of about 50.
She said it’s difficult to classify the “worst” infra-structure in the city.
“What do you classify as the worst?” she asked. “Is the worst the things, the streets that have nev-er been touched, paved, sidewalked, traffic calmed or anything. Is that the worst? Because the city never cared enough to put the infrastructure in there. That’s number one. Or is the worst where there’s a problem with infrastructure that already existed and is now being torn up or now pot holes are coming up? Is that the worst? Is the worst what affects you, only? Or affects the whole communi-ty only?”
Triolo says the conver-sation about Lake Worth 2020 started over two years ago when city staff came forward with a long list of things that needed to be fixed in the city. This list, she said, got pared down.
“It was perhaps am-bitious, it was perhaps naïve,” she said of Lake Worth 2020. “Whatever it is, we’re all comin together now. We have to figure out a way to do this.”
A follow-up meeting is scheduled for March 21 at City Hall. City Manager Michael Bornstein said the city will present more de-tailed plans for infrastruc-ture improvements at this meeting.
Lake Worth resident and county employee Ginny Powell tells the mayor, city manager and commissioners that the city should look to finance infrastructure repairs with grant money.
Katie McGiveron, founder of the Citizens Against Unfair Taxation PAC, said the city should look into taking back the CRA to fund infrastructure improvements.
College Park resident Marcus Kelly said the city should seriously consider selling the municipal golf course to raise money to fix the roads.
Commissioner Christopher McVoy and Mayor Palm Triolo listen as residents speak out on the bond on Jan. 27 at Compass Community Center.— Marcus Kelly,
College Park resident
— Jeffrey Morgan
“We just moved a quarter million dollars from the general fund last year into the golf fund, because it has a negative budget right now of like $220,000. So if we’re going to take money from the general fund and put it into a golf course that’s not making
any money, shouldn’t we put that money
at least into the roads?”
“I’m prepared to pay. I will happily open my wallet for
whatever time period it takes to
fix my city. But I’m not paying for the
slumlords anymore.”
Friday, January 30, 2015 The Lake Worth Tribune Page 5
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NEW
S
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30
‘South Pacific’ at the Lake Worth Playhouse at 8 p.m. Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Broadway musical about a group of American sailors and Navy nurses stationed in the Pacific during WWII. Through Feb. 1. Call 586-6410 for tickets or go to the Box Office at 713 Lake Ave.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31
Lake Worth Farmers Market, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Old Bridge Park, on the northwest corner of Ocean Blvd. and Lake Avenue. Fresh Florida grapefruit, vegetables, honey; homemade pastries and fresh-baked bread; fresh-caught fish, coco frio, gifts and treats. Live music.
‘South Pacific’ at the Lake Worth Playhouse at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. (two shows). Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Broad-way musical about a group of American sailors and Navy nurses stationed in the Pacific during WWII. Through Feb. 1. Call 586-6410 for tickets or go to the Box Office at 713 Lake Ave.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1
‘South Pacific’ at the Lake Worth Playhouse at 2 p.m. Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Broadway musical about a group of American sailors and Navy nurses stationed in the Pacific during WWII. Call 586-6410 for tickets or go to the Box Office at 713 Lake Ave.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4
Patsy Cline Tribute Show at 8 p.m. at the Lake Worth Playhouse. Tickets $25-$30. Call 586-6410 for tickets or buy at the Box Office at 713 Lake Ave.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6
The Doo Wop Project at 3 p.m. at Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach State College. Special matinee performance tracing the evolution of Doo Wop from the classic sound of five guys singing harmonies on a street corner to the biggest hits on the radio today. All seats $29.
Evening on the Avenue from 6-10 p.m. in the Cultural Plaza, featuring Bluegrass music by The KillBillies Trio, with an intermission spotlight by acoustic duo Cannon & Cohen. Beer garden, food vendors.
Daddy-Daughter and Mother-Son Date Night from 6-10 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 6 at the Lake Worth Casino Ball-room at 10 South Ocean Boulevard. Dinner, dancing and games. Tickets are $25 per person, $10 each additional per-son if purchased in advance. $35 per couple at the door and $15 each additional person. Call 533-7363 for details.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7
Lake Worth Art League Outdoor Art Show from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Cultural Plaza.
Wild West Fundraiser at 7:30 p.m. at the Lake Worth Playhouse. Tickets are $40.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8
Lake Worth Art League Outdoor Art Show from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Cultural Plaza.
** Coming UP ** The Lake Worth Street Painting Festival on Feb. 21 and
22 in downtown Lake Worth – Lake Avenue and Lucerne.
Taste of Lake Worth from 6-9 p.m. in downtown Lake Worth. Tickets are $20 in advance, and $25 the day of. Food and drink from Lake Worth vendors. Live entertainment. Organized by Compass Gay & Lesbian Community Center.
Send information about your events to The Lake Worth Tribune for publication on the EVENTS Calendar! Email [email protected] or bring information to the newspaper’s offices at
129 N. Federal Hwy, Suite 200A.
A woodworker from Delray Beach poses with his girlfriend and his wares, including wood skateboards, at the Lake Worth Farmers Market in early January. The market is held every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Old Bridge Park, next to the Lake Worth Bridge on Ocean Boulevard.
RECREATION
1699 Wingfield Street • Lake Worth, FL 33460 • Phone (561) 533-7363 City of Lake Worth Recreation Department
FLAG FOOTBALLRegistration is now open for anyone ages 7-15 who
wants to play flag football through the City of Lake Worth Recreation Department this spring. The cost is $65 per child. No partial payments. Games are March 17-May 23, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6-9 p.m. at Memorial Field, 520 Sunrise Court in Lake Worth.
Register Monday -Thursday, 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the Osborne Community Center at 1699 Wingfield Street. Registration ends Saturday, March 7. For more informa-tion, call Coach Osborne at 540-5133, 533-7363 or 721 - 5319 from 12:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., Tuesday-Friday
YOUTH SOCCERRegistration is now open for anyone ages 3-17 want-
ing to play soccer this spring through the City of Lake
Worth Recreation Department. The cost is $75 per player. Practice begins on Feb. 14. Games will take place March 7-May 3. Registration runs through February 13.
Call the City of Lake Worth Recreation Department at 533-7363 to sign up, or email [email protected].
YOUTH BASEBALLRegistration is now open for children wanting to play
baseball this spring through the City of Lake Worth Rec-reation Department.
T-Ball, for ages 3-6 - $90 per playerCoach Pitch, for ages 7-9 - $95 per player. Practice
begins on Feb. 16. Game schedule: March 7-May 2. Reg-istration runs through February 13.
Call the City of Lake Worth Recreation Department at 533-7363 to sign up, or email [email protected].
Organic Gardening Class on Jan. 31
Local organic gardener Tony Guerrero is offering a num-ber of organic gardening classes in Lake Worth and invites all those interested to contact him for more information or to sign up. All classes are held at his garden at St. Andrews Episcopal Church at 100 North Palmway.
On Jan. 31, from 4-5 p.m. he’ll offer a “Tropical Contain-er Organic Gardening for Small Spaces/Patios” class for beginners. The cost is $20. Children under 12 are free. RSVP to [email protected].
A listing of other upcoming organic gardening classes taught by Tony Guerrero can be found at www.localharvest.org/farms/M20618.
Organic gardener, Tony Guerrero
The Lake Worth Tribune Friday, January 30, 2015
OPINIONLetters to the EditorHouse Editorial
Page 6
P.O. Box 85 • Lake Worth, FL 33460Published in Lake Worth, Florida at the offices
of The Lake Worth Tribune. 129 North Federal Highway • Suite 200A
Lake Worth, Florida 33460
Editor and Publisher / Margaret MengeCreative Director/ Nancy Pobiak
Account Executive/ Donna Aderman
Corrections: An article in the Jan. 23 edition of The Lake Worth Tribune gave the incorrect name for the builder of the 75 townhomes to be built north Wayne Akers Ford in Lake Worth. The builder is D.R. Horton.An article in the Jan. 23 edition of The Lake Worth Tribune incorrectly stated the number of townhouses to be built at the corner of Second Avenue North and North J Street. There will be 23 townhouses built on the property, not 26, as was stated in the article.
The Lake Worth Tribune welcomes Letters to the Editor.
• Letters should be no more than 250 words* and should pertain to something that has been published in the paper.• Letters should include the name, address and phone number of the letter writer. (Addresses and phone numbers are for verification purposes only, not for publication.)• Letters may be edited for space.
Letters should be sent to: [email protected] or mailed to The Lake Worth Tribune, P.O. Box 85, Lake Worth, FL 33460
* Those wishing to write a longer piece for the paper on a partic-ular topic related to Lake Worth may call the newspaper offices at (561) 586-6643 to inquire about writing an Op-Ed.
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To the Editor:
My wife Lorrie and I, who enjoy living in Lake Worth, wanted to share with all our newfound discovery….Benny’s on the Beach and the great food Chef Jeremy Hanlon is serving up for all to enjoy. Chef Jeremy’s long experience working with world renowned Chef Dan-iel Boulud and others sure comes through in his cook-ing and arrived he has.…Fortunate we have been to have traveled the globe and enjoy the meals of so many fabulous chefs. Chef Jeremy is one of those chefs!!! I am Chairman & CEO of one of the largest beer / beverage distributors in the coun-try. In this capacity, I serve and call upon thousands of restaurants and bars. Chef Jeremy’s cooking, especial-ly his seafood, is as good as
Truth and Advertising you will find anywhere on the planet!!! Clean, simple, fresh, fabulous flavors come together in his cooking. Grab your wife and friends and treat yourselves to this relaxing setting at the beach on a sunny day or into the evening…..Ken, who man-ages the whole affair superb-ly, will find you a great table to enjoy this great jewel in our backyard!!! Give a big applause to Lee Lipton and his son Max and the en-tire team @ Benny’s on the Beach for the experience they are bringing for all to enjoy!!! I know in my busi-ness the time it takes to open a new restaurant and make it hum….If you listen, you will hear the “hum” coming from the beach!!! If you truly en-joy fresh, fresh seafood...and don’t miss his specials... and the luxury of having Benny’s on the Beach join the ranks
of our other great restaurants in Lake Worth….break-fast @ The Pelican, Calla-ro’s great steaks, Paradiso’s Italian….Downtowners for pizza….and so many more to choose…..plus the new addition of The Lake Worth Tribune....well, how lucky we are….the smorgasbord is right here in our own back-yard!!! Check it out and help support them all!!!
— Tim & Lorrie LaRose
Dear Ms. Menge,
Thank you for the nice photo of the Raging Gran-nies marching in the Lake Worth Dr. Martin L. King Tribute Parade which ap-peared in the January 23rd issue of your newspaper.
For folks who might not be familiar with our mis-sion, the Raging Grannies
are a group of women “of a certain age” who dress in outrageous clothes and bring our message of Peace and Justice to the public through street theater and song.
While our methods might make some people uncom-fortable, we feel that we have a responsibility in pres-ent day America NOT to re-main silent on the many seri-ous issues facing our citizens today. To quote Dr. King: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Thank you again for in-cluding The Raging gran-nies in your coverage of the Dr. Martin L King Tribute march....keeping his dream of equality for all Ameri-cans alive.
— Sincerely, Ms. Carole Fields, a South Florida
Raging Grannie
Jon Faust of Coastline Realty has been appointed the head of the Neighborhood Associations Presidents Council, a position he’ll take over this month from Mary Lindsey. Faust is currently president of the Downtown Jewel Neighborhood Association.
I’m in the business of tell-ing the truth. And this, and you might imagine, is a very hard business. Because when you tell the truth, people get angry. Some people enjoy the truth a great deal. Crave it, need it, are grateful to hear it. I’m one of these. I’m guessing you are, too.
But others get angry, and it never works to try to tell them about the newspaper business, about how you have to tell the truth, otherwise you don’t have much of a newspaper.
Oh, people say, you can just modify the truth so as to keep anyone from getting angry. No, you can’t really. Because once you go down that road, you’ve given up your deter-mination to tell the truth, and you can’t be trusted anymore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You’re a fibber. A member of the half-truth society. No better than the rest of them.
And what’s truth?Truth is something you can
pin down pretty securely with a few facts.
I more or less started out in journalism at U.S. News & World Report in New York, and there I learned something about being sure of your facts. We had a fact-checking desk in Washington, and every-thing in every piece written for the magazine had to be faxed to Washington, with ev-ery fact underlined, and back-up documentation provided for every fact.
The fact checker, Michael, said the desk used to laugh about the amount of mate-rial that I would send down for even a very small feature piece. I did not want to be wrong, not in any detail, and not in the larger storyline that was being advanced in the piece. This was U.S. News & World Report, after all, a magazine that I grew up with.
My mom had read it in the evenings, sitting on a corner of the couch under the lamp-light. I used it to write reports using it in middle school, and maybe high school too. I re-member turning in cards at the local library, and the li-brarian coming back with old issues for my research.
So this was good training, getting used to underlining facts.
But then also I like to sit and think for a moment whether it’s at all possible that something I’m writing, a sentence or a whole idea, could be wrong, even though it seems well-supported.
Lots of newspapers tell lies every day. Not that they get facts wrong. But they turn away from what is true, and what they know, but don’t want to say. They don’t re-port things they think would make people angry at them, because they are cowards. Or they don’t report things that they view as impolite.
Media bias is often more to do with what newspapers decline to cover than what they do cover. There is al-most no coverage whatsoev-er of churches or of faith in most American newspapers, except in articles about the African-American communi-ty. Churches don’t get written about. Looking back at old newspapers one time, I saw newspapers reprinting whole Sunday sermons from a local church as a regular thing.
I’m not planning to do that in these pages. But I do want to write about our church-es, and the faith of the peo-ple who attend them. And I want to write about many other things, as well, to tell the larger truth of our com-munity, and to make a more complete record of what is happening here. I think it’s for the best.
— Margaret Menge, Editor
Friday, January 30, 2015 The Lake Worth Tribune Page 7
“City Slaps on 1.2 percent Fee for Online Utility Payments”
“Tourists Rate Lake Worth's Beach!”
missioners that the city paid $220,000 in fees to the credit card companies last year for these transactions. In 2013 it paid $184,000. In 2012 the city paid $195,000.
In 2014, of the $75 mil-lion the city collected in utility payments, $21 mil-lion was paid by credit card, $16 million of this with a credit card not present.
“I brought this to Steve last year,” said City Com-missioner Andy Amoroso, “because, as a merchant, we pay every time someone uses a credit card.”
He said he knew of a business that had its power turned off for non-payment, and when the business own-er went to have it turned back on, he had to pay a $6000 bill. He paid with a credit card, and the city paid the surcharge.
“We as a city would lose a lot of money if people were paying those amounts of money with a credit card. And, the taxpayers in es-sence are paying for it.”
Commissioner Scott Max-well said he thought Lake Worth residents would “em-brace” the change.
“220,000 last year the tax-payers kicked in so folks could sit home in their bunny slippers and pay their bills,” he said.
He also said he wanted to remind everyone that the city had cut utility rates four years in a row. They’ll be able to cut them another half of a percent this year if the city can recoup the $220,000 that it’s losing in fees to credit card companies, said Carr.
Art gallery owner Rob-ert Pardo had an unpleasant surprise last week when he went to pay his electric bill. He wanted a receipt to show he’d paid. But he couldn’t get one. Not without paying for it, anyway.
“He looked at me and said, ‘No, the city commission had a meeting, and if you want a receipt you have to pay $2.’”
Pardo says he buys things all over the world, and hasn’t ever, anywhere, been asked to pay for a receipt.
He went to Commissioner
Andy Amoroso, and he says Andy told him it was a con-venience fee for the conve-nience of being able to pay your utility bill in person.
“This was the silliest re-sponse,” said Pardo. “I said, ‘I don’t even think it’s le-gal.’”
“It’s totally insane. It’s laughable, really.”
Amoroso says there’s no fee for a receipt. The $2 fee, passed by the City Commis-sion in December, is for the convenience of paying your bill in person.
“I tried to explain to him
that he could mail it in and keep his receipt,” Amoroso told the Tribune this week.
But Pardo’s not the only one upset.
“It’s outrageous,” said Louie Novak, standing in line to pay his electric bill on Jan. 28, when asked about the $2 convenience fee. “They’re the highest utility company in the area. I can’t wait to move out of the city and move somewhere else.”
“I hate it too,” said Marsha Barnes, when asked about the fee. She was waiting in line with a $333 bill for
Residents Rankled by $2 ‘Convenience’ Fee— Louie Novak — Marsha Barnes
— Beverly Powery
— Lane Arnold— Eric Saiani
“They’re the highest utility company in
the area. I can’t wait to move out of the
city and move somewhere else.”
“I’ve dealt with FPL, and I’ve never had
such high utility bills before. I want to move because of the bill it-self, unfortunately.”
“Totally ridiculous.”
“Things are changing, and
they’re going to push people out
of here.”
“Isn’t it more convenient to just mail your
check in?”
CLASSIFIEDS5000 copies of the paper distributed every week to homes and businesses in Lake Worth! Call (561) 586-6643$12 For up to 22 Words ($1 Each Additional Word) Ad must be Pre-paid by Wednesday at Noon. Boxed Classified: $9.20 Per Column Inch.
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a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment that she doesn’t spend much time in, as she works all day.
“I’ve dealt with FPL, and I’ve never had such high utility bills before. I want to move because of the bill it-self, unfortunately.”
“Totally ridiculous,” said Beverly Powery of the $2 convenience fee. She com-plained that Lake Worth Utilities makes “a lot of mis-takes.”
Lane Arnold was leaving after paying his bill, includ-ing the $2 convenience fee,
on Jan. 28. “The thing is that, I’ve been living here in Lake Worth for quite some time,” he said. “It’s always been a reasonable place to live. I can’t complain.” But, he says, now, with more fees, he hears neighbors talk of leaving town.
“Things are changing, and they’re going to push people out of here,” he said.
And what about that term “convenient”? Is it really a convenience fee?
“Isn’t it more convenient to just mail your check in?” asked Eric Saiani.
between Christmas and New Year’s.
Megan and Tim Mead were visiting from Chica-go. They said they came to the Lake Worth beach be-cause it was the closest to where Megan’s family lives in Palm Beach County.
“We like the amenities: Mulligans, Benny’s, Kil-wins,” said Tim. “If you can handle the crowds, it’s great,” said Megan. They did find parking, but one day last summer they weren’t so lucky. There were no spaces available, and they had to go down the road to the Lantana beach instead.
Tim rates Lake Worth’s beach a 7 on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best. Megan gives it a 6, explain-ing that they were in Bora
Bora recently for their hon-eymoon, so their standards are high.
Their only complaint, besides the crowds and the parking, was that the beach is “narrow.”
“It’s beautiful,” Ed Far-
rell, a resident of Charlotte, N.C., said of Lake Worth’s beach. “And I’m used to some good beaches in North Carolina.
“It’s a little crowded. But that’s OK. It’s Christmas-time in Florida,” he told the
Tribune.He also took his family
to South Beach, Miami. “It wasn’t our deal,” he said.
Allison Leff, from the Philadelphia suburbs, was walking near the surf with her son Max, age 9.
“Oh my gosh, I love your beach,” she said. “We’re having such a great time.”
She told the Tribune that it was her first time in Lake Worth, and that they came here because they saw Ben-ny’s on the Beach featured on the Food Network.
“I’d give it a 10,” she said, when asked to rate Lake Worth’s beach. “There’s nothing lacking here at all.”
Max, her son, had one word to say when asked what he loves most about the Lake Worth beach: “Shells.”
Joe and Becky Walsh from northern Wisconsin also gave the Lake Worth beach a 10. “It’s clean, it’s quiet, it’s got shells….The parking lot could be cheap-er,” said Joe. But he says he’s not complaining, not when it’s 35 below up north.
The Lake Worth Tribune Friday, January 30, 2015
Map Illustration by Alex Hall
Wonderful Lake Worth
COMICS & COLLECTIBLES
of Lake Worth
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The Lake Worth Tribune recommends to our readers these outstanding Lake Worth businesses found on the map below, chosen by the staff of the newspaper to participate
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BEACH CLUBOn the Waterfront
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20 Ft. Screen TV! + 12 High Def TVs!Surround Sound! • Raffles! • Giveaways!
Drink Specials During the Game!
Awesome FREE BuffetDuring Halftime!
Carving Station • Shrimp... Wings and MORE!
Superbowl Sunday!
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