Functioning Junction

After last night’s debacle at the Community Relations Board meeting it was a pleasure to attend tonight’s Community Redevelopment Agency meeting.  On the agenda were a discussion of traffic calming for the neighborhoods impacted by the Gateway Projects and the resulting rerouting of traffic, a discussion of an inter-local agreement with Palm-Tran for the construction of bus shelters at zero cost to the city and taking action to form of a 501(c)(3) not for profit board to facilitate fund raising for the 1000 Lake property.

The Board reached consensus to move forward with exploring several ideas regarding the traffic calming as well as the bus shelters and after an interesting discussion the Board voted unanimously to start the process of forming the not for profit board.

At the end of the meeting Board member Michael Hyde announced that it was with great regret that he had to resign from the CRA Board. Michael’s wife has been offered wonderful job in Homestead and they will be relocating.  Michael was an outstanding contributor to the CRA and his depth of knowledge, calm demeanor and insightful comments will be missed.

With Chair Peter Meyerhoefer’s term ending this summer the CRA will have two vacancies to fill in the upcoming months.

Dysfunction Junction. . .

I’m still collecting my thoughts about last night’s bizarre Community Relations Board meeting and will likely post more later (plus I have some McFixit work to do this morning).

In a nutshell the highlights were:

Vice Chair Carla Blockson resigned to pursue her campaign, and immediately left the room to attend the Sun Recycling meeting.

Brooke Bailey gave a presentation on Hate Groups with local ties and activities.  Several residents and a few board members remarked about Boarder Control now and Commissioner Scott Maxwell’s old radio show Connecting The Dots.  The CRB is going to work with Ms. Bailey’s group in the near future.

Residents Lynn Anderson and Victoria Pearson sent letters and e-mails to the Board expressing concern about Chair Mark Parrilla’s participation on local blogs.  The letter and e-mail were added to the agenda so that they could be on record.  However the attempt at discussion was derailed by Chair Parillia’s constant interruptions and badgering of the Board.  At one point Chair Parillia told a board member to, “shit or get off the pot”.   Several members pleaded with Parrilla to please stop interrupting them and at one point asked him to leave the meeting.  During this part of the meeting Board member Maria Uribe resigned saying that she would rather be home reading a book and got up and left.

The Chair’s actions never allowed a full discussion to take place and the e-mail and letter were never read out loud so as to be entered into the record.  Several motions were attempted by Board Members including voting to replace Parrilla as Chair.  After several almost incomprehensible exchanges between  Board Members and Chair a vote was taken to elect all new officers at the June 11th meeting.  Electing a new Vice Chair was necessitated by Ms. Blockson’s resignation and the current Secretary’s term expires this summer.  The board can vote for Mr Parrilla as Chair or choose to replace him.  The Board also voted to have someone else other than Chair Parrilla facilitate that meeting.  The Chair said that he would be checking with the City to make sure that the Board could take these actions.  The meeting was then quickly adjourned.

Okay I really need to go back to work now.

Vegging Out

Click here to read Gail Shepherd’s article in the Juice Blog about Commissioner Mulvehill’s green vision.

Lake Worth Gothic

Javier Del Sol on N. J St. this morning.

April Showers Bring. . .

May campaign signs.

The corner of 2nd Ave N. and N. M St. this morning.

Who’s on First?

Local Blogger Wes Blackman is crowing about Cara Jennings being awarded $1,500 as part of a settlement with the City of Miami to 34 people as a result of the  2003 protest of  Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Mr. Blackman states in his post, “I’m not sure if anyone is aware of this, other than the recipients and the City of Miami.”

Yes Mr. Blackman a lot of people are aware of what happened November 2003 at the FTTA protest in Miami.

Many lawsuits were filed due to the police actions on that day, the ACLU filed at least 7, and from what I have found the majority have been successful.  Here are a few excerpts from articles on the internet:

Miami-Dade and City of Miami officials acknowledged their use of vast and unnecessary police force, also disclosing regret that their actions had prevented Amnesty International’s attempt to communicate an important message to the public. Link

Several similar lawsuits (involving the FTAA in Miami, 2003) have been settled to date, amounting in almost 1-million dollars. The FTAA’s (Free Trade Area of the Americas) police presence turned Miami unrecognizable and uninhabitable. Link

Killmon, et al. v. City of Miami, et al. is a lawsuit brought on behalf of 21 activists to challenge the government’s assault on the civil rights of protesters through a deliberate and coordinated disruption of lawful political protests during the meetings of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Miami, Florida during November 2003. CCR celebrated a victory in April 2008 with a settlement totaling $895,500 for all plaintiffs in this case. Link

An Independent Review Panel established by Miami-Dade County conducted an investigation of citizen complaints of police conduct during the FTAA protests and, eventually, “strenuously condemned and deplored” police for “unrestrained and disproportionate use of force” where “civil rights were trampled.” Link

Tom’s Page has not always agreed with Commissioner Jenning’s actions, however trying to cast her in a negative light for standing up for civil rights and the First Amendment, along with many others,  is a low blow indeed.  By the way Mr. Blackman was Ms. Jennings an elected official in November, 2003?

Lake Worth’s favorite puppet Community Relations Board Chair Mark Parrilla has jumped aboard with comments at Mr. Blackmans site.  This is not the first time Mr. Parrilla’s comments have belied his thoughts, including making fun of the term “undocumented” (click here to view).   In light of his continued behavior, Tom’s Page suggests that Mr. Parrilla is uniquely unsuited to remain as Chair of that Board.

Who’s Going To Clean Up This Mess?

Kudos to Commissioner Jennings for taking the initiative and doing the groundwork to investigate Sun Recycling and its impact on our residents.

Click here to read Willie Howard’s article in the Palm Beach Post; Palm Beach County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor is scheduled to meeting with with residents of the Osborne Community on Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Osborne Community Center to discuss the Sun Recycling construction debris plant in Lantana.

Worthy!

Click here to read Willie Howard’s article in the Palm Beach Post about “Dress For Success” located at 128 S. Dixie Highway in Lake Worth.

LAKE WORTH — There’s a new place on Dixie Highway where women can go for help finding a job.

Dress for Success Palm Beaches opened in April after renovating a former consignment shop at 128 S. Dixie Highway. The organization’s Career Transformation Center takes over the Dress for Success role from a similar affiliate of the national organization that operated in Lake Park until last summer.

In addition to providing free clothing to wear to interviews and jobs, Dress for Success offers its clients networking through a professional women’s group and skills classes taught by volunteers.

Let’s get behind this  worthwhile organization.

Shady Characters

Tom’s Page was unable to make it to the 3rd Annual Shade Tree Giveaway this past Saturday but we caught up with the Tree Board’s Chair, Gael Silverblatt who passed along these photos.  Gael told us that just about every single one of the 400 trees were given away and after entering the names of the recipients in her database she found that nearly 50% of them were new to the giveaway.  It looks like a lot of this years trees will be spread out in new yards across the city.

Gael added that the event went off very smoothly thanks to the work of the board members, volunteers and city staff and wanted to thank them all:

Vicki, Josette, Martha, Erica, Steve, the volunteers Howard, Walter, Steven, Lynda, Audrey, Ashleigh, Donna, Rafael, Pete, Cary, Debra, Sophie, David McGrew, Grounds Maintenance Supervisor and Martin Cybulski, City Horticulturist.

Thanks Gael for all your hard work and dedication.

City Hall parking lot full of trees

Native trees were featured this year

Samples of each type were displayed to make choosing easier

The Crowd waiting to sign up

And then select their tree

By 12:00 the parking lot was virtually emptied of all of the trees

The Golden Door. . .

More than 100 in Lake Worth protest Arizona’s new immigration law. Click here to read Palm Beach Post article.