A group of Lake Worth Beach residents trying to stop construction of a museum and downtown apartments sued the city on Feb. 3, claiming it illegally spent Palm Beach County sales tax money to build the project.
The suit argues that a city agency broke state law by buying city land with more than $1.6 million in sales tax revenue meant for public parking, then selling the site to a developer for $10 to build an art museum and apartments.
The nonprofit group Lake Worth For All, led by former City Commissioner Kim Stokes, filed the lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Mayor Betty Resch and interim City Manager Jamie Brown declined to comment on February 4.
Lawsuit: Lake Worth CRA used parking sales tax money to buy land
The sales tax money came from a penny increase to the county sales tax that voters approved in 2016 and that expires at the end of 2025. The money was intended to either fix or replace school buildings, roads and other public facilities throughout the county.
Lake Worth Beach commissioners in 2018 approved giving money the city received from the tax to the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency. The CRA used that money to buy about 2 acres downtown on Lake Avenue, mostly between South K and M streets, from the city government.
The heart of the downtown Lake Worth Beach plan involves the city giving 1.7 acres to the Wiener Museum’s development company, United Management. The property, valued by the city at about $3.3 million, is located at the southwest corner of Lake Avenue and South M Street.
The Lake Worth For All lawsuit argues that the CRA had to build parking lots on the site, and if it couldn’t, it must return the land to the city government. The CRA instead sold it for $10 to New York developer Anthony Wiener to build the Wiener Museum of Decorative Arts, a ceramics and glass studio museum.
“This is a blatant abuse of the “penny sales tax” funds that voters approved for education and infrastructure only,” Lake Worth For All attorney Robert Hartsell said in a prepared statement. “Voters absolutely did not contemplate that their hard-earned tax dollars would be used to fund a market-rate housing development.”
Lake Worth For All wants the courts to invalidate the museum land deal
Lake Worth For All wants the courts to invalidate the agreements between the city, the CRA and Wiener.
In a prepared statement on Feb. 4, Stokes said the city’s elected leaders let the voters down by selling the land to the CRA. If the City Commission wanted to sell the downtown land directly to Wiener, the deal would be put before voters citywide, she said.
“The remedy is simple: Put it on the ballot,” Stokes said.
The WMODA project includes 110 apartments and an $8.5 million public parking garage on K Street, to which Wiener has agreed to contribute $1 million.
Send messages and news ideas to Chris Persaud at cpersaud@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lake Worth Beach sued over sales tax money for downtown museum