Jacob Wrestling The Angel?

According to Lake Worth resident Gail Shepherd who writes for the Juice Blog at the New Times this almost occurred the other night at the Tropical Ridge Candidates Forum.  Click here to read her blog.

A Neighborhood Past The Brink. . .

This morning we decided to walk through Tropical Ridge and take a first hand look at the blight affecting the neighborhood.  We walked around for quite a while and yes there is blight and the area needs help.  But there are still nice houses and owners who maintain their property.  The conditions are in many ways similar to near where I live.

We decided to walk south down D St. and conditions steadily deteriorated the closer we got to Lucerne Ave..  The amount of abandoned and shuttered houses increased as well as litter and debris in the yards and street.

City owned property at 325 N. D St.. According to the Property Appraiser’s website the city has owned it since December, ’06.

Note the neighbors mowed yard against the overgrowth on the city owned property.

With no maintenance the house is falling apart.

Looking at the condition of this city owned property you have to wonder why no effort to rehab or sell it has been made.  We wait for news about the Neighborhood Stabilization Grant while these properties crumble.  Couldn’t it be donated to Habitat for Humanity or an organization like Adopt a Family?  Certainly that would be better for the community than simply letting it rot.

Crossing Lake Ave. on D St. we saw that it was garbage pickup day in the area.  As we walked south we saw rotting garbage spilled on the streets and at times the stench was overpowering.  Beer bottles and other trash was everywhere.

Rotting garbage littering the street.

Mattresses and beer bottles.

Beer bottles everywhere you look.

Weeds growing around inoperable vehicle.

South of Lake Ave. rundown, abandoned, shuttered and burned out buildings far outnumber adequately maintained properties.

While we were walking in Tropical Ridge we noticed many campaign signs, but once south of Lake Ave they seem to disappear.  This is a neighborhood without an association, in essence without a voice.  This is a neighborhood that has slipped past the point of no return and apparently off the collective radar screen.

What are we as citizens going to do here?  What are our current leaders going to do here?  And what do those running for office propose to do here?

These questions are every bit as valid as those posed by other neighborhoods.  It just seems that there is nobody to speak for this part of our city.

Tonight 7:00 PM

Radio Free Lake Worth debuts at 7 tonight. Click on the Radio Free Lake Worth image at the top right hand of the page to listen, or Click Here.

Lake Worth sculpts image as cultural capital. . .

It is nice to see Lake Worth portrayed in a positive light in the news.  Click Here to read article in the Palm Beach Post.

Excerpt:

Take a walk in most downtowns on a random Tuesday night, and you’ll be greeted by closed stores and a lot of quiet. But in downtown Lake Worth, all you hear is music.

Stroll up Lake Avenue past the woman singing soulfully to a packed house at Havana Hideout’s weekly open mic night and dollar taco special. Make a left on J Street and pop into Propaganda for a cheap beer and game of pool with the 20-something hipsters nodding along to the Ramones.

And this is just Tuesday night.

“There’s a lot of culture here,” says Ximena Cordero, host of The Cottage’s weekly “Night Under the Stars” party, which draws in the fashionable crowd from Palm Beach. “There’s so much potential here.”

And the potential of culture to drive and transform the city is part of a novel experiment in Lake Worth.

Where In The World?

Lake Worth’s very own globe trotting Commissioner sends this cryptic message home from Sopot Poland:

I am sharing the comment below with you regarding new construction and compatibility in Gdansk and Sopot Poland — please keep in mind that these cities receive more than 2 Million tourists annually. They are small towns – less than 40K residents in Sopot. I met with one of their Vice Mayor’s today to explore twinning our cities. I look forward to having a town hall meeting when I return with pics of the town and similarities between our town and how a town ATTRACTS 2 million tourists….

I was AMAZED today to see a new Hilton being built here in Gdansk, Poland = 4 stories. Shocking actually – it CONFORMS with the existing structures. Also, a brand new Sheraton Conference Hotel and Spa just opened a few months ago in Sopot – the city I am working to twin Lake Worth with. Again – it CONFORMS with their 1920 Casino – now called the Grand Hotel. I am more than ever CONVINCED that height restrictions make us MORE – not attractive – to developers and tourists.

After reading Commissioner Mulvehill’s message I looked up Sopot Poland at Wikipedia and found these interesting facts:

Sopot is currently undergoing a period of intense development, including the building of a number of five star hotels and spa resorts on the waterfront. The main pedestrianized street, Monte Cassino, has also been extended by diverting traffic underneath it, meaning the whole street is now pedestrianized. Sopot, aside from Warsaw has the highest property prices in Poland.

Godspeed commissioner, and travel safely!

Seen Downtown Early Friday. . .

Sittin’ on the dock of the bay. . .

High Tide Bryant Park Boat Ramp.

I am taking the entire day off to relax and explore.  Back to our regularly scheduled programing on Sunday.

No Losers at Environmental Coalition Forum?

I attended the first of Lake Worth’s candidate forums tonight at the Organic Music Cafe sponsored by the Environmental Coalition.  Three candidates for Mayor attended; William Coakley, Laurence McNamara and Javier Del Sol.  Two candidates for Commissioner also attended; Jo-Ann Golden and Ron Exline.

Panagioti Tsolkas served as moderator for the Coalition.

It was, as they say an intimate venue, so intimate in fact that the lack of air conditioning had me thinking global warming was making its presence known.  There appeared to be speculation that the “house would be stacked” in certain candidates favor and from what I saw and heard this was not the case.  With one  exception all the questions were fair and no bias was evident.  And when the biased question was posed to Rene Varela (who was not there) it fell flat on its face when the other candidates made light of it and came to his defense.

I have to say that in my opinion every candidate did a good job answering the questions and expressing their views.  I was pleased to hear what each one had to say and frankly, in my opinion,  there was no clear “winner” in tonight’s proceedings.

Let’s take a look at a few photos of the evening before talking about the other part of tonight’s story:

Panagioti Tsolkas

A packed house

Willie Howard from the Palm Beach Post

Laurence

Javier

Bill

Jo-Ann

Ron

Okay, as Paul Harvey used to say, “And now the rest of the story”.  Several candidates chose not to attend tonight’s forum.  Two of them, Rene Varela (for Mayor) and Wes Blackman (for District 3) made public their reasons for not attending.

Rene explained his reasons in this letter:

Click to enlarge

Click here to read what Wes had this to say on his blog.

Despite their reasons I am profoundly disappointed that they chose to stay away from tonight’s forum.  Yes it was a small and uncomfortable venue, yes Organic Music Cafe endorses Javier Del Sol, and yes there was a perceived bias by the group sponsoring the forum.

However, those hoping to hold public office here in Lake Worth need to be able to step into situations that are not necessarily a level playing field.  A person’s best traits are displayed when they choose to enter an unfair arena and speak their truths.  If elected to office there will be plenty of unbalanced and biased situations to contend with.

I received an e-mail from someone who brought a friend to the forum because they had not heard Rene speak and they wanted to hear from him about the environment.  Judging from the e-mail Rene lost two votes by not attending.

It would have been far better for them to have attended and shown how they can stand up for themselves and their beliefs.

Radio Free Lake Worth. . .

With the debut of Radio Free Lake Worth just around the corner I’d like to get your input.  What topics should we cover and who should we invite on the show?  You can reach me directly at TLMCGOW@aol.com or post comments here.

Thanks,

Tom

Publix Comments. . .

A while back I posted on a neighborhood friendly Publix I visited in Fort Myers and how well it fit in to the community.  You can read that post by clicking here.

I live close to where, hopefully,  a new Publix will be built on the site of the failed Hammon Park on Dixie Hwy. I welcome the addition as it will go a long way to help clean up the neighborhood and increase the desirability of  living here.

Let’s take a look at the site:

View from 2nd St.

Aerial View (click on image to enlarge)

Take a good look at the aerial view.  There are people saying that the Publix is going to be too close to a single family residential neighborhood.  I wonder if they really know the make up of this neighborhood?

Directly across from the site is a private school and  parking lot.  5 out of 6 of the structures to the north of the school are multi-unit rental properties.  Right across 3rd St. is another multi-unit rental.  Looking at the aerial view or walking the neighborhood you can see that there are at least 8 large  multifamily properties and many smaller multifamily units in the immediate vicinity.

The single family units that are there languish from the same issues that many of our residential neighborhoods do; most are rented and far too many suffer from neglect and lack of maintenance.

Those who beat the drum of  “protecting single family residential neighborhoods” are wrong in this case.  In essence they are holding back the revitalization of this and the adjacent areas.  The addition of a Publix like the one in Fort Myers would have an immediate and positive impact.

Would you rather have this across the street?  N. J St. Sidewalk at Hammon Park.

Or this?  Sidewalk bordering residential neighborhood at Fort Myers Publix.

Access for customers and deliveries to the facility will utilize 2nd and 3rd streets and I believe that the traffic impact will be minimal.  Also using an enclosed receiving area like the one at the Fort Myers location will prevent having to look at the unsightly “backside” of the supermarket and greatly reduce any noise impact on the area.

If we want a return to owner occupied single family neighborhoods we need to make them attractive to buy and live in.  I shop at the local stores nearby and like that I can walk or ride my bike to them.  But they do not have all the items I need on a day-to-day basis,  nor are their prices as low as a major chain store like Publix.

I would suggest that the people who are against this project actually take a walk around my neighborhood and ask the residents their feelings.

After all it’s about what the citizens of a neighborhood feel is best for them, isn’t it?