Lake Worth sells short

Just for an exercise, treat Lake Worth like a word problem. It's OK to use a calculator, if necessary:

In February, the city commission sold a 30-space parking lot downtown for $532,000. In April, the city commission voted to buy 42 parking spaces downtown for $900,000. How much did Lake Worth make/lose on the deal?

Answer: Uh-oh. The city sold its spaces for $17,733.33 each, then bought new spaces for $21,428.57. That's a loss of $3,695.24 per space.

It's hard these days to sell any property in Palm Beach County for a loss, but Lake Worth recently has done it not once but twice. In 2000, the city paid $1.7 million for the First Union Bank building, which it sold last August for $1.47 million. The same company, JLS of Florida City, bought the cheap parking spaces and the cheap bank building. JLS is owned by Leslie Evans, the developer whose bargain-basement purchase of Old Bridge Park helped newcomer Marc Drautz defeat Mayor Rodney Romano, who supported the land deals. The excuse for taking the losses is that Lake Worth will reap a tax bonus from the shops and homes Mr. Evans builds. A better deal would have been to get the taxes and a fair price for the land.

Community Redevelopment Agency President Jeff Clemens acknowledged that the parking lot deal was lousy but said it was good to buy new spaces quickly because property "ain't getting any cheaper." Maybe not when Lake Worth buys it, but sometimes when Lake Worth sells it.