Public Comment

Honorable Mayor and Commissioners, Wes Blackman, 241 Columbia Drive. Although I know you, like me, enjoy the beauties of the Commission Chambers room as much as I do, I chose to not attend the meeting tonight as I have attended meetings in the same room two nights in a row. I hope that comments offered here are heard with the same degree of interest as if I were there in person. I also hope that they fall within the list of ten that are read during the meeting.

We must recognize short term rentals are a critical issue for residents, property owners and visitors to the City of Lake Worth Beach alike. Many have invested in their residential properties. We must also acknowledge that there are significant costs such as property/casualty insurance, utilities, property taxes and increasing interest rates that challenge even the most thrifty of property owners. These all affect affordability and the ability of working families to remain in their homes. We should be finding ways to allow property owners with homestead exemptions to periodically rent out their homes, whether it be a room, an accessory building or while they are in another location.

I urge you not to adopt some of the more extreme proposals of Option 2 offered by staff that require licensing through the DBPR, meeting of fire and accessibility codes reserved for hotels and motels. We do not need to further burden our residents with these requirements and having to pay a staff to operate this regulatory structure.

Deal with the bad actors, yes, but allow for people to entertain guests to our City who otherwise would be housed in other communities. No quality alternatives exist at this time.

Thank you.

My name is Nicholas Parks and I am a homeowner in College Park. I reside at 322 Cornell Drive in Lake Worth Beach. I support the ability of homeowners to offer our homes as short-term rentals on sites like Airbnb. I recommend that the City place no limitations or restrictions on short-term rentals. I believe that short-term rental availability within Lake Worth Beach will encourage increased tourism, visitor spending and generate positive economic activity throughout the city. We should embrace tourism as a driver of economic growth. Short-term rentals are the best way we can attract valuable tourism dollars and visitors to our beautiful city!

At a time when rents are almost double what they were two years ago, it's inconceivable that Lake Worth would allow 800+ AirBnB's to operate illegally in the city. That's 800 houses that are taken off of the market and causing all kinds of problems for neighborhoods. There has been no problem in the past utilizing code enforcement aggressively against residents for having unmowed grass or a flat tire, why do "investors" who run illegal hotels in residential neighborhoods get a free pass? Can I just open a car repair garage out of a house on Palm Way?

I would think this city would be using every tool at it's disposal to soften the blow of the latest real estate greed-convulsion on residents who actually have to work for a living to pay their rent and mortgages. If the commission does not enforce our own codes against airbnb then they are a party to the brutal displacement happening in Lake Worth that has caused much pain for many residents here.

I want to thank you for your reaffirming your support for preserving and restoring 24 S L and 26 S L and preserving 17 S M in situ at the January 24th Special Meeting. I applaud Mayor Resch's call to save the Art Deco contributing historic resource, which Betty endearingly refers to as the dentist office (501 Lake Avenue.)

I ask that each and every one of you line up to support Mayor Betty's call to preserve the charming Art Deco structure.

I write to ask each of you to rescind the City Commisiom's unanimous January 24, 2023 motion made on
“Motion made by Vice Mayor McVoy and seconded Commissioner Malega to approve city staff in partnership with CRA staff in developing the parameters of a solicitation based upon the recommendations in the proposal from the Final Master Plan from the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council and to present those findings to the Commission by the end of March for review. Staff is also directed to proceed with the previously recommend demolition of the following properties: 30 S L Street, 32 S L Street, 25 S K Street, 704 1st Avenue, 710 1st Avenue S.”

In my opinion your vote was reckless and imprudent.

The City, unless it wisely changes course, sets a terrible precedent for the private sector. Your actions indicate that you reward the CRA for pursuing Demolition by Neglect and Speculative Demolition. Your unanimous vote reinforces to the public that these are acceptable actions with no consequences. The orderly process of our excellent historic preservation ordinance, which states that contributing historic structures shall not be demolished unless a concurrent plan has been upended.

I appreciated Commissioner Melaga's back of the hand calculation reasoning to save 24 and 26 S L, but her call for demolition is flawed. One reason is that an estimate for the contributing resources at 509 Lake Avenue was never sought. Two, neither Community Sustainability or CRA staff properly informed the City Commission of critical historic preservation grant opportunities, such as the $500,000 x 2 matching grant (CRA and City both eligible to apply concurrently that is open April 1st to June 1st, DOE energy efficiency and conservation block grants opportunities and other energy efficiency grants, nor the ability of the Commission to utilize the one-cent infrastructure revenue for "energy efficiency improvements." This omission is especially frustrating since the Director of Sustainability, William Waters earned a masters degree in Historic Preservation at the University of VIrginia and once worked for REG architects a noted historic preservation firm . Rick Gonzalez, Mr. Waters former boss, recently called the sad state of affairs in Old Town "Demolition by Neglect."

Its time to reverse course from the ill-suited advice and actions you have have received from City and CRA staff and set a goal to carry out restoration of more structures and thoroughly examine all grant opportunities.

Its time to scrap the Treasure Coast plan. I would instead ask that you employ Ramon Trias, a former Treasure Coast employee, to carry out an intensive grant search and open up communications with Anne Fairfax and Richard Sammons to prepare a new unsolicited plan.

Now playing in Lake Worth Beach - The Redistricting
Commissioner D2: Let's hire yet another consultant - this time to advise us on updating our voting districts. We can trust the experts.
Consultants: Okay - the consultants from The John Scott Dailey Florida Institute of Government at Florida Atlantic University will study the situation, provide you with our expertise, and make a recommendation.
Commissioner D2: Great and then we will have workshops to review the recommendations and get our constituents to weigh in
Constituents: Thank you - we like Options 5. Seems to be the most equitable across the board and will not displace any sitting Commissioner.
Commissioner D2: Ok - on second thought, let's go back out and look for an expert who agrees with me.......

We are tired of watching this play over and over again. Listen to the experts and your constituents and move forward with Option 5, and let's live happily ever after.

The End.

Population changes make redistricting in Lake Worth Beach necessary. This is unprecedented and should be done with the utmost care to ensure that voters’ rights are retained. Therefore, Option 5 should be approved.

At the beginning of the redistricting process, the Commission’s goals were to keep neighborhoods intact and keep each Commissioner in their district. Input at Public Meetings supported these goals.

I am curious – what has changed? And why are some Commissioners once again ignoring the advice of the “Experts” and the will of the Public.

Voter representation is at stake, this behavior is appalling, dangerous and anti-democratic (small d).

Stop playing political games and approve Option 5.

There really shouldn't be anymore discussions about this, If you are paying attention and actually listening to the engaged public, Then pass map 5 and move on.

I support redistricting alternative option five. We need to keep the historic Osbourne community intact as well as keeping our city's finest commissioner Sarah Parr Malega in her seat.

This commission is the epitome of the phraseology “paralysis by analysis”. You want to study things to death and use taxpayers’ dollars to fund study after study, and then when you don’t like the results you want to toss it to the curb. I, for one, am tired of your abuse of taxpayers’ monies to fund your personal agendas.

This commission hired Florida Atlantic University Geoscience Department and its experts to guide you in the process of redistricting our city. This is a process that is critical to ensuring a fair and balanced representation of all residents of the city. Lake Worth Beach has never engaged in the redistricting process, and I commend you for having the foresight to hire the experts to keep you on the straight and narrow and protect you from a discrimination suit. As part of the process you wanted the public to weigh in, and weigh in they did. And those that spoke the loudest some of you now want to silence and marginalize – the Lake Osborne community, a district steeped in rich history in our City.

The Option 5 map that has overwhelming support of the Lake Osborne neighborhood achieves what you wanted as you embarked on this process, and that was to retain each commissioner in their district and keep the neighborhoods intact, while complying with the population criteria for redistricting. Some of you don’t want Option 5 for reasons only you know. One can’t help but wonder if the fact that the alternate option displaces one commissioner, Commissioner Malega, from her district, that some of you would be pleased with that for political reasons.

Let’s listen to the experts you hired who sanctioned Option 5 as a map that would comply with the even distribution of the population required for a lawful redistricting and keeps the neighborhoods wholly intact and each commissioner in their respective district. No more studies, no more public meetings, no more kicking the can down the road. Listen to the loud and clear voices of your constituents tonight and vote for Option 5.

I wish for the city to enforce their code on airbnbs and not pick and choose what ordinance they wish to fine a home owner. Its not right, all ordinances should be enforced or none at all Thank you.

Redistricting is a very serious issue and one that the City has never had a chance to consider. That’s why we have to get it right. Option 5 keeps the neighborhoods intact and retains each Commissioner in their district, which was the goal of this Commission when they began the redistricting process. Listen to the third-party experts you hired from Florida Atlantic University and vote for Option 5.

Please support the Option 5 redistricting map that keeps the Lake Osborne Community intact and retains each Commissioner in their district. The alternate map if chosen will disenfranchise voters. The Commission's stated goals at the beginning of this process were to preserve the neighborhoods as they currently are and retain each Commissioner in their district. Option 5 does both. Option 3 will displace Commissioner Malega, which some of the Commissioners want for what can be seen as only political reasons. Those same Commissioners want to throw out the public input garnered at the public meetings because they don't like the resulting map which best represents the neighborhoods, that map is Option 5. This past election the residents voted to change the City Charter to allow single member voting districts, which was done to ensure representation from all four corners of the City. Option 5 is the best choice to accomplish that goal and does not divide the Lake Osborne community, a historic neighborhood with deep roots in the City. I urge you to support and vote for Option 5 tonight.

We moved here permanantly in Sept 2019 after buying our condo in 2015. We are here because we love this town, our neighborhood and community. We were saddened to see what was happening during the height of the pandemaic and are very happy to see Lake Worth Beach being re vitalized.
We are concerned that our neighborhood is transforming into a transient, tourist, activity center due to the proliferation of unregulated Air B & B. The influx of very short term visitors is changing the very nature of our community. Obviously, these transients have little investment in the quality of life on our streets and neighborhoods.
Of Course there are benifits to increased tourism in Lake Worth Beach, but the regulations need to be clear and clearly enforced before our town becomes Ft. Lauderdale during spring break, with Vape shops and Kava bars on every corner. Barry & Irene Katz
Parrot Cove