The University of Central Florida's economic outlook for the state for 2012-2042 shows a tough climb out of the Great Recession, with unemployment remaining "obstinately high" and not falling below 8 percent until the fourth quarter of 2014. A new housing peak, the report says, will be reached in 2026. So if you're looking to sell your Florida home and get maximum dollar for it, you only have to wait another 14 years!
But note -- UCF forecasts that home prices won't reach the highs they saw during the bubble at any time in the next 30 years. The highest they'll come is 74 percent of the housing bubble high. In 2026.
http://iec.ucf.edu/file.axd?file=2012%2f8%2fflforecast_jul2012_s.pdf
Friday, August 3, 2012
Former Havana Hideout Owner Opens Restaurant in Boynton
Chrissy Benoit, the former owner of Havana Hideout in Lake Worth, restored and moved a tiny historic home in Boynton Beach, which she's just opened as a restaurant on Ocean Avenue. It's called The Little House.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/2012/08/little_house_boynton.php
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/2012/08/little_house_boynton.php
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| The Little House restaurant, 480 E. Ocean Avenue, Boynton Beach |
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Did Lake Worth Have a 'Bath Salts Kingpin' and Not Know It?
Channel 10 says Lake Worth local Dylan Harrison is a "bath salts kingpin."
http://www.local10.com/news/Bath-salts-kingpin-facing-33-years/-/1717324/15935552/-/gsx3mh/-/index.html
It's possible, of course(!) but this doesn't seem right to me.
Kavasutra, the Lake Avenue cafe owned by Harrison that was raided by law enforcement last week, sells a drink made from the root of a plant called kava that grows in Hawaii and Micronesia. It is a sedative and anesthetic, said to relax a person without reducing mental clarity.
The drugs known as "bath salts" are stimulants -- gonzo stimulants that seem to have an ether-like affect on people, making them feel super-hyped and incredibly violent.
The guys (and sometimes girls) I see outside of Kavasutra are always very, very, very, very chilled out.
 |
| A cup of kava |
I hate this conflation of things that are wildly different -- almost opposite.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
The Post is Fine with Six-Story Buildings on Lake Avenue!
It's nice of the Palm Beach Post to point out the raw deal that was served to the people when the Lake Worth City Commission refused to put the building heights initiative on the ballot in November, as we're now going to have to hold a special election which will cost taxpayers about $30,000.
But the Post editors see no problem with six-story buildings in Lake Worth's downtown and see no reason the 65-foot height limit decided on by the mayor and two commissioners should be changed.
"We see no need for voters to alter these height limits," writes Andrew Marra, for the Post's editorial board. "A 65-foot building (about five or six stories) east of Federal Highway would not be out of character with the Gulf Stream Hotel and the condominiums around it..."
But no one builds anything like the Gulfstream Hotel anymore. That's part of the problem.
Read the editorial here:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/editorial-lake-worth-goes-low-in-delaying-height-l/nP7fx/
But the Post editors see no problem with six-story buildings in Lake Worth's downtown and see no reason the 65-foot height limit decided on by the mayor and two commissioners should be changed.
"We see no need for voters to alter these height limits," writes Andrew Marra, for the Post's editorial board. "A 65-foot building (about five or six stories) east of Federal Highway would not be out of character with the Gulf Stream Hotel and the condominiums around it..."
But no one builds anything like the Gulfstream Hotel anymore. That's part of the problem.
Read the editorial here:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/editorial-lake-worth-goes-low-in-delaying-height-l/nP7fx/
Amoroso: Go After the Churches
Commissioner Andy Amoroso says it's time to go after the churches and their tax exempt property to find more revenue for the city.
"As we grow, churches continue to buy up property. So that's a problem," he warned during the budget workshop at City Hall last night.
Forty percent of properties in the town do not pay property taxes, Community Development Director William Waters told the commissioners. Some of them are churches.
The proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2013 shows a deficit of $421,000, which will be taken from the city's fund balance in order to "balance the budget."
Property tax revenue to the city has dropped off dramatically since the housing bubble burst and many properties in the town have lost half their value or more.
In Fiscal Year 2010, the city raised $7.7 million from property taxes. This year (Fiscal Year 2012) it's on track to bring in just $5.8 million. In Fiscal Year 2013, which starts on October 1, it's projected to bring in $5.5 million in property tax revenue.
"As we grow, churches continue to buy up property. So that's a problem," he warned during the budget workshop at City Hall last night.
 |
| Calvary United Methodist Church at 301 First Avenue South |
The proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2013 shows a deficit of $421,000, which will be taken from the city's fund balance in order to "balance the budget."
Property tax revenue to the city has dropped off dramatically since the housing bubble burst and many properties in the town have lost half their value or more.
In Fiscal Year 2010, the city raised $7.7 million from property taxes. This year (Fiscal Year 2012) it's on track to bring in just $5.8 million. In Fiscal Year 2013, which starts on October 1, it's projected to bring in $5.5 million in property tax revenue.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Florida is in Bottom 10 for Underemployment
Seventeen percent of people in Florida who want to work are either unemployed, or working part-time when they prefer to (and, presumably, need to) work full-time. This puts Florida in the bottom 10 states in the country for underemployment. Nevada and California have the highest underemployment rates in the country, with 22.1 percent either unemployed or underemployed in Nevada and 20.3 percent either unemployed or underemployed in California.
The Tampa Bay Business Journal has a story here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/blog/morning-edition/2012/07/florida-is-in-bottom-10-for.html
The Tampa Bay Business Journal has a story here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/blog/morning-edition/2012/07/florida-is-in-bottom-10-for.html
Monday, July 30, 2012
** 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."
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."
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Meet Our New City Attorney. He's good. But maybe too good.
The city commissioners voted yesterday to hire Glen Torcivia and his law firm as interim city attorney for Lake Worth for the next 6 months, given the twin resignations of the city attorney, Elaine Humphreys, and assistant city attorney, Melissa Anderson.
Here's the first thing Torcivia says as he steps up to the podium to give his pitch at the special meeting at City Hall:
So that got everyone's attention right off.
Torcivia was sharp. Really sharp. And smooth.
He's got a New York accent (Brooklyn, I think) that he can't hide. So he hits on his homeboy credentials next, talking about his parents buying a home in Lake Worth way back when, and spending some part of his boyhood here.
In the 90s, he told them, he was Lake Worth's labor attorney, handling all negotiations with the unions, of which there were many more then.
He's good on code enforcement issues, he says, mentioning the overgrown grass on 10th Avenue North that you see when coming into town from West Palm Beach. "That's not the image you want," he tells the commissioners.
...At which point one might begin to ponder the breadth and scope of the job Torcivia is applying for.
Is he going to be running everything around here? It seems he might be.
He would monitor all spending on outside counsel (i.e. litigators who are handling the big law suits against the city), saying, "It's not Donald Trump's money. It's taxpayer dollars."
He would also help the commissioners work more efficiently, working with the city manager, Michael Bornstein, to do better prep for meetings so that they don't last five hours, or six.
"Most of our cities are two hours or less," he says of the commission meetings of the six cities his firm represents (Wellington, Palm Springs, Highland Beach, Belle Glade, and two others).
So what parts of the five-hour commission meetings won't be occurring any longer now that Torcivia isin charge serving as Lake Worth's interim city attorney?
With an attorney's communication with his client (Lake Worth) protected by attorney-client privilege, a lot of things of interest to the public can easily, could easily, (will easily?) slip behind this veil. The documents held at the offices of Glen J. Torcivia & Associates will not be public. Or at least not presumed to be public. So with this attorney seeming to be willing to handle so many things on behalf of the hapless commissioners, it's all a bit concerning from the perspective of the public's right to know.
It won't necessarily a problem. But it could be. There are municipalities where long-term city attorneys become so powerful that they begin to act more like the mayor, with the elected officials following orders. This isn't democracy. Those who are elected by the people have to be in charge, with the attorney just giving advice on matters of law.
Glen's good. But he might be too good. Watch him. He just might take over.
His basic bio: He's a graduate of SUNY New Paltz (1976, majored in political science) and got his law degree at Albany Law School). In addition to running Glen J. Torcivia & Associates, which he founded in 1989, and helping serve six cities as city attorney, he's a special counsel for the Health Care District of Palm Beach County and wrote what became known as the "Palm Beach County Health Care Act." Before starting his own firm, he was an assistant attorney with the Palm Beach County Attorney's Office (1984-1989).
"I think they got it right," he told Channel 12 a month ago about the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare.
http://www.cbs12.com/news/features/raw-news/stories/vid_68.shtml
**********
Best line spoken by Torcivia yesterday: "Doing what?"
He said this in response to Commissioner Andy Amoroso, who asked how Torcivia can do all of the city's legal work on a part-time basis whereas until this point the city has had two full-time attorneys, with each working 40 hours a week, so together putting in a total of 80 hours...
And that's when Torvicia said: "Doing what?"
He walked it back a bit, saying he knows Elaine (Humphreys) and she's a nice person, and his firm could just do things more efficiently...
But he didn't walk it back that much. So I'm left wondering: Doing what? What were the two attorneys employed by the city doing all day, Monday through Friday? Just hanging out, waiting for someone to call with a question?
And I'm wondering also: Why didn't anyone else ever point out that a $1 million legal budget for a town with a population of 34,910 is out of whack? What else could those millions have been spent on? It would have been nice to just return it to property owners, or to cut out some of the outrageous building and permit fees and give our local contractors a break for once.
Seems it's probably time for a someone who really knows municipal budgeting to comb through Lake Worth's budget. It was supposed to be trimmed up as much as it possibly could be. Guess it wasn't.
Here's the first thing Torcivia says as he steps up to the podium to give his pitch at the special meeting at City Hall:
"I was looking at your web site this morning and I was amazed at your legal budget -- a million dollars. It shouldn't be anywhere near that."
So that got everyone's attention right off.
Torcivia was sharp. Really sharp. And smooth.
He's got a New York accent (Brooklyn, I think) that he can't hide. So he hits on his homeboy credentials next, talking about his parents buying a home in Lake Worth way back when, and spending some part of his boyhood here.
In the 90s, he told them, he was Lake Worth's labor attorney, handling all negotiations with the unions, of which there were many more then.
He's good on code enforcement issues, he says, mentioning the overgrown grass on 10th Avenue North that you see when coming into town from West Palm Beach. "That's not the image you want," he tells the commissioners.
...At which point one might begin to ponder the breadth and scope of the job Torcivia is applying for.
Is he going to be running everything around here? It seems he might be.
He would monitor all spending on outside counsel (i.e. litigators who are handling the big law suits against the city), saying, "It's not Donald Trump's money. It's taxpayer dollars."
He would also help the commissioners work more efficiently, working with the city manager, Michael Bornstein, to do better prep for meetings so that they don't last five hours, or six.
"Most of our cities are two hours or less," he says of the commission meetings of the six cities his firm represents (Wellington, Palm Springs, Highland Beach, Belle Glade, and two others).
So what parts of the five-hour commission meetings won't be occurring any longer now that Torcivia is
With an attorney's communication with his client (Lake Worth) protected by attorney-client privilege, a lot of things of interest to the public can easily, could easily, (will easily?) slip behind this veil. The documents held at the offices of Glen J. Torcivia & Associates will not be public. Or at least not presumed to be public. So with this attorney seeming to be willing to handle so many things on behalf of the hapless commissioners, it's all a bit concerning from the perspective of the public's right to know.
It won't necessarily a problem. But it could be. There are municipalities where long-term city attorneys become so powerful that they begin to act more like the mayor, with the elected officials following orders. This isn't democracy. Those who are elected by the people have to be in charge, with the attorney just giving advice on matters of law.
Glen's good. But he might be too good. Watch him. He just might take over.
His basic bio: He's a graduate of SUNY New Paltz (1976, majored in political science) and got his law degree at Albany Law School). In addition to running Glen J. Torcivia & Associates, which he founded in 1989, and helping serve six cities as city attorney, he's a special counsel for the Health Care District of Palm Beach County and wrote what became known as the "Palm Beach County Health Care Act." Before starting his own firm, he was an assistant attorney with the Palm Beach County Attorney's Office (1984-1989).
"I think they got it right," he told Channel 12 a month ago about the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare.
http://www.cbs12.com/news/features/raw-news/stories/vid_68.shtml
**********
Best line spoken by Torcivia yesterday: "Doing what?"
He said this in response to Commissioner Andy Amoroso, who asked how Torcivia can do all of the city's legal work on a part-time basis whereas until this point the city has had two full-time attorneys, with each working 40 hours a week, so together putting in a total of 80 hours...
And that's when Torvicia said: "Doing what?"
He walked it back a bit, saying he knows Elaine (Humphreys) and she's a nice person, and his firm could just do things more efficiently...
But he didn't walk it back that much. So I'm left wondering: Doing what? What were the two attorneys employed by the city doing all day, Monday through Friday? Just hanging out, waiting for someone to call with a question?
And I'm wondering also: Why didn't anyone else ever point out that a $1 million legal budget for a town with a population of 34,910 is out of whack? What else could those millions have been spent on? It would have been nice to just return it to property owners, or to cut out some of the outrageous building and permit fees and give our local contractors a break for once.
Seems it's probably time for a someone who really knows municipal budgeting to comb through Lake Worth's budget. It was supposed to be trimmed up as much as it possibly could be. Guess it wasn't.
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