The fields for the March 19 elections in Boca Raton and Delray Beach are set.
With the respective qualifying periods over, nine candidates are seeking three seats in Delray Beach—a majority of the city commission. Four candidates are seeking two of the five city council seats in Boca Raton. Many of the names in both cities are familiar.
The most important race in Delray Beach will be to succeed Shelly Petrolia as mayor. Term-limited, Seat 3 City Commissioner Ryan Boylston is the heavy favorite. He has the most name recognition—having served six years on the commission and several years before that on advisory boards—and had raised roughly $111,000 through Sept. 30. He also owns a Delray Beach-based marketing company.
Also on the ballot are two former commissioners—Tom Carney and Shirley Johnson, the only Black candidate in the race. Johnson had raised only about $23,000, almost all of that from a $20,000 personal loan. Carney didn’t file his paperwork until Oct. 27. The next fundraising reports come after Dec. 31.
Johnson must deal with lingering anger over her vote to end the Old School Square lease. Boylston voted against it. Carney has been off the commission for a decade and has had little civic involvement.
Though Johnson voted with Petrolia on the Old School Square lease, Carney is the candidate more likely to seek votes from Petrolia’s political faction. He filed his paperwork the same day as former Commissioner Juli Casale, who is running for Seat 3. Petrolia backed Casale this year against Rob Long.
Also in the seat 3 race are Anneze Barthelemy and Nicholas Coppola. Barthelemy likely is hoping for strong support from other Haitian-American voters. That bloc helped to make Mack Bernard the city’s first Haitian-American commissioner.
Coppola, who chairs the code enforcement board, has the most extensive civic involvement of any Seat 3 candidate. He serves on his homeowners’ association board and has been an advocate for LGBTQ residents, especially those of color.
Coppola should get strong support from the city’s business and political establishment. Those voters almost certainly will oppose Casale, given her vote on the Old School Square lease and her closeness to Petrolia. Casale clearly hopes to split the anti-Petrolia vote in a multi-candidate race as she did in 2020. Going head-to-head against Long this year, she lost.
In Seat 1, former Commissioner Jim Chard faces Tennille DeCoste—a former human resources director for the city—and Thomas Markert. Chard, who lost a race for mayor against Petrolia in 2018, is a board member of Friends of Delray. Its website says the group believes “that our community thrives best when we work together to preserve our city’s unique sense of place and identity.”
DeCoste’s son survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. That experience, DeCoste says, compelled her to advocate for school safety and education. DeCoste, the only Black candidate in the race, now works for the City of Boynton Beach.
Markert has the least amount of name recognition. He also has not served on any city or civic boards. This appears to be the only race without a candidate linked to the Petrolia faction.
Two seats on the ballot for Boca’s election
In Boca Raton, two races are on the ballot. The one for City Council Seat D is the more competitive and interesting.
Andy Thomson wants to return to the council, from which he resigned in 2022 to run unsuccessfully for the Florida House. Thomson, a lawyer, had raised about $51,000 as of Sept. 30.
His opponent is Brian Stenberg, who works for a property management company. Like Thomson, Stenberg has a long record of civic involvement, most recently as a member of the city’s housing authority board. Through Sept. 30, Stenberg had raised $770.
In Seat C, Yvette Drucker is seeking a second term. Her priority has been transportation issues, especially downtown mobility. She filed paperwork too late for the third-quarter fundraising report.
Drucker’s listed opponent is Bernard Korn, who has entered several races as a vanity candidate, since he almost never raises money and always loses big. When Drucker won in 2021, Korn ran last in a four-person field, getting five percent.
Florida’s presidential primary also takes place on March 19. If the Republican race is still competitive, that could dramatically increase turnout among voters who don’t usually cast ballots in local races.
Because of the primary, there will be early voting in both cities. That normally is not an aspect of municipal elections. Turnout would have been higher in Delray Beach anyway, because the mayor’s seat is on the ballot.
Politics at play in American Legion Post dispute
For now, factional politics apparently is preventing Delray Beach from resolving an emotional dispute.
At the center is the former Sherman Williams American Legion Post 188 building. It is on city property. When the city ended the Post’s lease of the land in 2019, the Post sued, claiming wrongful termination.
In addition, the Post claims that it owns the building. The city disagrees, saying that the Post owns the contents but not the structure. Anything built on city land, Delray Beach says, belongs to the city.
A seemingly fine compromise was on the agenda for the city commission’s Nov. 14 meeting. The commission would approve a lease of the property with the respected Emanuel Jackson Sr. (EJS) Project. The non-profit would spend $250,000 to refurbish the building as a home for programs to help Delray Beach’s less-affluent children. As part of the lease, Post 188 members could hold meetings there.
As became clear during the meeting, however, opposition has arisen. Some of it seems based on the unfounded suspicion that the city has undisclosed plans for the building, which Petrolia and Boylston denied. Nor does the city intend to spend any money fixing up the building.
Another unfounded accusation is that the city wants to deny Post 188 members—all of whom are Black—a home. In fact, Post 188 sublet the building for use as a food bank. That went on for two decades. Some speakers who oppose the EJS Project lease also demanded at the time that the city evict the food bank, which the city did.
Sadly, project founder Emanuel Jackson seems caught in the middle. He told commissioners how he had secured that $250,000 in pledges under the assumption that Legion members were on board. Then he encountered that opposition, which “blindsided” him.
Petrolia asked Jackson whether this new opposition comes from Legion members or others seeking to score political points. Jackson acknowledged that some—maybe most—is the latter.
Still, the opposition left commissioners unwilling to approve the lease at this point. Angela Burns didn’t want to act with the lawsuit active, though City Attorney Lynn Gelin said the litigation isn’t a factor.
Instead, the commission delayed a vote until Dec. 12 at the earliest. Two days later, they met in private to discuss the lawsuit and presumably offered a settlement.
Commissioners were sympathetic to Jackson. They agreed to refund the $25,000 that the city requires to apply for such a public-private partnership to lease land. Boylston said he remains “very hopeful” of a successful resolution.
Boca council hits snag in birdfeeding ordinance
I wrote this month that the Boca Raton City Council has taken a much more assertive role in policymaking, rather than letting most items come from the staff. The Nov. 14 council meeting showed the potential problems from this new approach.
Based on one complaint from a resident about a woman feeding pigeons, Mayor Scott Singer asked staff for an ordinance that would prevent the feeding of any wildlife that led to “the accumulation of waste, vermin attraction, public disruption, property damage, unpleasant odors or health and environmental risks.” Violators would be fined $100.
Sound easy? Hardly.
Council members worried about the city overreacting. They asked about how code enforcement employees would apply the ordinance. How would they define “public disruption” and “health and environmental risks”?
Drucker called the ordinance “a real waste of time.” Seeing no support for the broad policy, Singer wondered if the council could do “anything about the pigeons.” No takers.
A revised ordinance may come back to the council. Council members, though, seemed to believe that the proposal was an excessive response to an issue that current rules could address. It supported the idea that individual members should seek support from colleagues before involving the staff.
Delray tree lighting returns for 30th year
One of Delray Beach’s biggest annual events, the holiday tree lighting, takes place at 6 p.m. today. The 100-foot tree is at Old School Square. This is the event’s 30th year.
