Town Council candidates’ forum March 3 — Incumbent Lantana Town Council Member Lynn “Doc” Moorhouse and newcomer Jesse Rivero will participate in a candidates’ forum sponsored by the Lantana Chamber of Commerce at 5 p.m. March 3 at the Palm Beach Maritime Academy, 600 S. East Coast Ave.
Moorhouse, 81, a retired dentist, has held the Group 1 council seat for 21 years. Rivero, a 50-year-old firefighter, has served 20 years with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. The election is March 11.
Kem Mason, who holds the Group 2 spot, was elected automatically when no one else filed to run for the position during the election qualifying period in November. Mason, 66, is a retired firefighter and is completing his first term.
Council terms are for three years.
Beach sand project delayed — Lantana Town Manager Brian Raducci told the Town Council he’s heard nothing new regarding a beach sand project spearheaded by the town of Palm Beach and including the town of South Palm Beach.
“The last conversation I had with the town of Palm Beach was they did not have enough sand, and they didn’t even know if they had enough time to get the project done,” Raducci said on Feb. 10.
Any work would need to be finished before sea turtle nesting season in March. “I know there have been some changes to that project, but the way I left it with them was that if anything were to change that would change our circumstances, please contact me.”
In the past, Lantana was part of an interlocal agreement with Palm Beach and South Palm Beach to add sand to the beaches. Since South Palm Beach has no public beach, it had, in the past, agreed to pay for the sand for Lantana in exchange for truck access at Lantana’s beach. But this year, Lantana wasn’t needed for truck access (plans called for the sand to be trucked over Lake Worth Beach or at a private Palm Beach condo), so Lantana would have to pay for sand, an idea at which Council member Lynn “Doc” Moorhouse bristled during a meeting last year.
“I don’t want it to reflect in any bad light that we’re not willing to pay,” he said in September. “It was supposed to be free. We were going to work with Palm Beach. We were going to let them use the beach, let them do all their stuff and we were going to get free sand.”
At the January meeting, Mayor Karen Lythgoe said Lantana doesn’t currently have an interlocal agreement.
“It was also decided that we don’t have enough sand on our beach to stage all the sand on, which before, they were not going to stage the sand there,” Lythgoe said. She also said that the people who had been working on the project in Palm Beach had changed and “nobody knows what.”
“Just so the residents know,” Moorhouse said in February.
Vice Mayor Mark Zeitler pointed out that the beach currently has a lot of sand because it had blown in from the north.
Fuel tax agreement OK’d — The town approved an interlocal agreement with Palm Beach County to re-adopt and ratify the existing distribution formula for 6-cent local option fuel tax. The tax will bring about $205,000 to Lantana this year.
Lantana has been part of the agreement since 1995. Developed with the PBC League of Cities, this agreement mirrors the 1995 agreement, adding provisions for new/dissolved municipalities.
Money received from the tax is primarily used for roadway maintenance, such as paving, but may also be utilized to cover other expenses like railroad-required maintenance.
— Mary Thurwachter
Comments