Joe CapozziBut the provision was overlooked when commissioners approved a deal with Palm Beach.
Lake Worth Beach voters changed the city charter to block sand transfers on its public beach in 2009. But the city neglected to record the change in the actual charter document.
That put the city in the unenviable position of violating its own charter when it agreed Dec. 3 to take $80,000 in exchange for letting Palm Beach transfer sand to the city beach before redistributing it along town beaches.
As ByJoeCapozzi.com reported, the deal came to a screeching halt last week after Cara Jennings, a city commissioner in 2009, wrote to remind the city that residents voted to ban the town from using Lake Worth’s beach as a staging area for the town’s dredge and fill projects.
What happened? The charter change came from voters in 2009. But the city never updated its charter to reflect the change, an apparent error by the city clerk.
No one at City Hall remembered it, even as they negotiated a deal with Palm Beach and brought it to the City Commission for approval.
But Jennings did.
The impact: Palm Beach trucks were supposed to start dumping sand on the south end of the city beach on Jan. 1, a project that would have lasted up to 45 days. But that’s not going to happen, Lake Worth Beach city attorneys said after the city received the former commissioner’s letter.
Yes, but. The saga isn’t over. Palm Beach is insisting on using the beach anyway.
Read Joe’s exclusive coverage of the sand snafu here.
Read more about Lake Worth Beach from Stet contributor Joe Capozzi:
- Lake Worth Beach considers shift to paid downtown parking by 2026
- Iguanas share blame for closing of Lake Worth High swimming pool
- $60 million museum-apartment project could be ‘crown jewel’ for downtown Lake Worth Beach
- An in-depth profile Arthur Wiener, the Brooklyn-born art-collecting developer who wants to build the museum-apartment project
Joe Capozzi is an award-winning reporter based in Lake Worth Beach. He spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers, mostly at The Palm Beach Post, where he wrote about the opioid scourge, invasive pythons, and Palm Beach County government. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020. He publishes the Lake Worth Beach Independent on Substack, covering the town where he lives.
