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³Lake Worth gets OK to pay missing stop sign settlement

By HECTOR FLORIN

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, May 19, 2008

A Lake Worth family will receive the rest of a $500,000 settlement from the city, from a 2004 missing stop sign car accident that killed their 5-year-old daughter.

Gov. Charlie Crist signed the bill into law on Monday, directing Lake Worth to pay $342,208 to the parents of Alexandria Salazar.

The city, which agreed to the bill's language, already has paid $157,792, but Florida law says cities are immune to liability claims of more than $200,000, unless the legislature approves payment.

Road construction required Alexandria's mother, Lisa Freeman-Salazar, to take a detour and drive her van on an unfamiliar route after picking her daughter up from South Grade Elementary School on Oct. 26, 2004.

The city later acknowledged a stop sign was missing at Seventh Avenue South and South H Street, the intersection where Freeman-Salazar crossed and collided with another van.

An air bag deployed and struck and killed Alexandria, who was sitting in the passenger seat and not wearing a seat belt.

City officials knew for more than a day that a stop sign was missing from the intersection where there previously had been one.

State Sen. Carey Baker, R-Eustis, sponsored Senate Bill 50 supporting the claim's payment.

Reps. Jack Seiler, D-Wilton Manors, and Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, sponsored House Bill 765.

Lake Worth Mayor Jeff Clemens, elected last year, was not familiar with the bill becoming law, but offered sympathies to the Salazar family.

"My heart goes out to the family," Clemens said Monday.

 

³Palm Beach Post

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Updated 06/19/08