I have been a resident and landowner in Loxahatchee Groves since the late 1970s. I have seen a lot of changes here, some good, and some not so good. But nothing that has happened here has been so appalling as what I witnessed at the last town council meeting relative to the suspension of the future services of the current town manager.
I was thoroughly appalled to watch the newly appointed fill-in council member, Anita Kane, take the reins from the mayor and vice mayor’s hands, after only a couple of months ago chairing the Loxahatchee Groves Water Control District and fostering the district’s dissolution and ultimate closure in the name of dependency, to Underwood Management.
Now, as a non-elected appointee, she made all of the council members heed to her will to pick the next town manager.
Did nobody else think it odd that the mayor and vice mayor didn’t seem surprised that she suggested she found a replacement for the new manager position?
Did it not seem odd that she said she wanted approval of her choice before she would even give the name of the choice she made?
How does anyone justify the actions of the elected government officials who would accept that type of choice and representation?
As a taxpaying resident, I feel cheated. I feel misrepresented and taken advantage of. I also witnessed several council members, in an attempt to represent the taxpaying residents, request that the current town manager produce documents relative to grant applications. I applaud their efforts.
As it turned out, the town manager suggested he would produce the requested documents for a price that he would reveal only after contemplating their value.
Only after being pressured to give the price then, he blurted out that the number would be $25,000. That’s extortion. When someone else suggested that there may be another copy of the documents, the mayor said it wouldn’t be right to shortcut the manager’s request. Does that seem right? Not to me. That seems complicit to the manager’s extortion request.
The mayor also suggested the manager’s release, should be without cause. That doesn’t seem right either. Maybe it’s just me, but it smells foul to me. I don’t like the choice that was made, or the way it was made. The look on the council’s face resembled that look the Romans gave the Christians just before they turned the lions loose. Our town needs a clean slate, council and management.
Mark Jackson, Loxahatchee Groves
