** Newsflash ** Mulvehill Getting Out, Announces She Won't Run Again

So much for Mayor Pam Triolo's contention that Commissioner Suzanne Mulvehill's attempt to limit downtown building heights to 45 feet is just election-year politics, meant to stir up her voters and get them to the polls.

Mulvehill announced today that she's stepping aside, and won't run for re-election this year.

I can't say I blame her after the last regular commission meeting where she questioned why it's taken so long to hire an internal auditor and why the city is now at a dead end and needs to start over looking for candidates. Commissioner Scott Maxwell's response (he was the one interviewing candidates) was sneering and bullying, and I'm going to guess that every woman in the room that night felt revulsion swell up inside her stomach as he responded to Mulvehill with barely contained rage.

How dare a woman question him.

Of the three mayors I've seen in action in Lake Worth and the nine or so commissioners I've observed, Mulvehill stands out as the most thoughtful, hard-working, and sane local elected official we have here. So to hear that she's stepping aside is really upsetting. She seemed to be the only one doing her homework most days, and the only one willing to stand alone to ask questions that needed to be asked, and take a closer look at something everyone else wants to just rush to approve.

It doesn't speak well of the current state of things in Lake Worth that she's leaving.

Is Lake Worth High School Really an 'A' School?

Smart people who live around here know the answer to that question: Of course it's not.

Lake Worth High School somehow managed to claw itself up from an "F" rated school to an "A" rated school in 2010. Does this mean anything? I guess not. Lake Worth High School isn't even prepping kids for community college. This is embarrassing:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/local-education/high-number-of-florida-high-school-grads-needing-r/nP6YH/

It would be amusing that the Lake Worth High School graduate who is quoted here knows, and is saying flat out, that the high school did not prepare her for that "next level" of coursework. But it's sad, really. She was cheated out of a decent education, and is having to do remedial math the summer before starting at Palm Beach State College (formerly Palm Beach Community College).

"High school, it was like: We need to get you graduated and that's it," 18-year-old Darian Matos told the Palm Beach Post of her experience at Lake Worth High. She'd passed all of her FCATs and recceived her high school diploma.

I'd like someone from the Palm Beach County School District to step forward and say to this young woman: "I'm sorry. We failed you. You deserved better."