There are interesting takeaways from Tuesday’s elections in Boca Raton and Delray Beach. Here’s a look at three of them.
Money talks?
The main lesson from Boca Raton is an old but still important one: The candidate with the most money doesn’t always win.
In the race to succeed Constance Scott in Seat C, that candidate was Frank Chapman. He loaned himself $172,000, tossing in $70,000 at the end of the campaign to go with the $102,000 he first used to almost entirely self-finance his second effort for a city council seat. According to the most recent treasury reports, which extend through March 5, Jamie Sauer had raised about $76,000 in direct contributions and Jeremy Rodgers had raised roughly $38,000. Chapman also had “dark money” from electioneering communications organizations helping him.
Yet Chapman came in third, just a sliver behind Sauer but nearly 12 percentage points behind Rodgers. Since Chapman made a big push on absentee ballots and led in votes counted before Election Day, the margin at the polls was even larger.
Chapman sent out almost two dozen mailers and had a TV commercial. Rodgers sent out only two mailers the weekend before the election, and the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce‑—which endorsed him—sent out another pro-Rodgers mailer. That was it.
In an interview Wednesday, Rodgers credited his message, which was that Boca Raton should make itself “the best place to start a business” and was more positive than Chapman’s mailers, which mocked Rodgers and Sauer as tools of developers and the Tea Party. One of the few IBMers left in the city, Rodgers noted that the company “invented the personal computer” in Boca Raton and said he wants the city to nurture its nascent high-tech industry.
Rodgers also cited his team of volunteers, some of whom had worked in political races and helped him develop his strategy. “Our unpaid people at the polls,” Rodgers said, “ran into paid people” from other campaigns.
Sauer had support from Mayor Susan Haynie and Councilman Mike Mullaugh, but I wouldn’t expect that to be problematic for Rodgers when he joins the council on March 31. The incumbents’ priority was defeating Chapman. Because he didn’t have to rely on support from council members, Rodgers could bring a helpful outside perspective. Even in a city such as Boca Raton, where many things are going well, lockstep is a bad thing.
Turnout blues
Turnout in the Seat C race was 6,858 votes. The last time Boca Raton had a single council race was in 2012, when Chapman lost to Anthony Majhess. Turnout was 6,851 votes. If the turnout remains too low, it certainly has been consistent.
The Delray message
About a year ago, Mitch Katz wore a T-shirt that said: “Impeach Al and Adam.” That would be Delray Beach city commissioners Al Jacquet and Adam Frankel. Their reckless vote to modify the city’s loan to the Auburn Trace housing project—Frankel reversed himself at the next meeting—prompted Katz to wear the shirt.
Tuesday night, Katz told me, Jacquet was shaking Katz’ hand to congratulate him on winning Frankel’s seat. Funny old world.
In one sense, Katz’ Seat 3 victory was a surprise. He got into the race late. He didn’t have a strong advantage in fund-raising. He had three opponents, each of whom could have pulled enough votes from different voting blocs to get a margin in a city with no runoff election.
In another sense, though, Katz had a running start. He took over the team of volunteers who had assembled to work for Chris Davey. He narrowly lost to Jacquet last year and was prepared to run this year before withdrawing. Indeed, Katz had been part of that team, having supported Davey himself in 2014. Katz got into the race a day after Davey dropped out. And according to campaign finance reports through Feb. 20, Katz raised $15,000. That was less than the $24,000 for Christina Morrison and the $23,000 for Bruce Bastian—they finished second and third, respectively—but it was adequate. He had public support from Commissioner Shelly Petrolia.
Still, it took lots of work for Katz to win. “I pretty much passed out on the way down to the bed,” he said of his victory sleep. And if Katz had Petrolia on his side, Mayor Cary Glickstein and Commissioner Jordana Jarjura were supporting Bastian.
Where Frank Chapman campaigned against overdevelopment in Boca Raton and lost, Katz campaigned against overdevelopment and won. That says much about the role business plays in the respective cities, but Katz is hardly anti-growth, even if he based his campaign on “beating the special interests.” When he joins the commission, Katz wants to “get the citizens that care and the developers together and find a compromise.”
Katz sees no difficulty in working with Glickstein and Jarjura. “They’re both good people,” he said, pointing out that he “worked very hard” for Glickstein in 2013 and Jarjura last year. Despite having supported Bastian, Glickstein says Katz will be a “huge upgrade” from Frankel, who held out against firing former City Manager Louie Chapman and shifting the trash contract from Waste Management. I would expect Katz to share the progressive approach of Glickstein, Jarjura and Petrolia but to dissent when he considers it necessary.
And the Mayor’s margin
In the Delray Beach mayor’s race, the surprise wasn’t that Cary Glickstein won. The surprise was that he didn’t win by more.
Glickstein beat Tom Carney by 460 votes in a rematch from 2013. Glickstein did get about 500 votes more than he got two years ago, and his margin was wider—53.3 percent compared to 52.1 percent in 2013. But Glickstein had a good record to run on. Delray Beach has much better management in City Hall, the new trash contract will save residents $8 million, downtown development is spreading to West Atlantic Avenue and new building regulations address the wish of Glickstein’s constituents to keep Delray’s small-town feel even as it draws more residents and visitors. Also, Carney got into the race very late.
So was it Glickstein’s style? Does he come off even to some supporters as brusque or even haughty?
In an interview, Glickstein said running for office is “always healthy in the sense of self-examination. There’s nothing more revealing than a political campaign.” Between running his company, Ironwood Properties, his duties as a father and his work for the city, Glickstein said, “I’ve never been wired for a lot of small talk.”
Glickstein acknowledges, though, that “optics are important. It’s a fair criticism. My family would say that the stress of the job is visible. It’s something I’ve got to work on.”
Since he won’t be running again due to the city’s term-limits rule, Glickstein could decide that he doesn’t need to change his businesslike approach and his obvious impatience for what can be the glacial pace of government change. But if residents aren’t getting the message of great progress in a relatively short time, perhaps the problem is the sender.
Glickstein says Delray still faces many “challenges” in the three years he will be mayor. Bringing the public along will make it easier to deal with those challenges.
Diversity notes
The Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, regularly updates its study of diversity in the United States. The changing makeup of the population affects everything, especially politics.
In its latest report, Brookings lists the 10 states with the most generational diversity: the largest gaps between the percentage of minority residents who are 19 and under and the percentage who are 65 and over. Florida ranks sixth, below Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, California and Texas and above Delaware, Oklahoma, Washington and Rhode Island.
According to the study, 56 percent of Floridians 19 and under are people of color, compared to 24 percent for those 65 and over. In New Mexico, 74 percent of the 19-and-under population is minority.
In Palm Beach County, 58.2 percent of all residents are white; 17.6 percent are African-American and 20.3 percent are Hispanic. Broward County is already majority-minority. Roughly 41 percent of residents are white, with 27 percent African-American and 26.9 percent are Hispanic.
To check out the diversity population of each county in the country, click here.
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You can email Randy Schultz at randy@bocamag.com
For more City Watch blogs, click here.About the Author
Randy Schultz was born in Hartford, Conn., and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1974. He has lived in South Florida since then, and in Boca Raton since 1985. Schultz spent nearly 40 years in daily journalism at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, most recently as editorial page editor at the Post. His wife, Shelley, is director of The Learning Network at Pine Crest School. His son, an attorney, and daughter-in-law and three grandchildren also live in Boca Raton. His daughter is a veterinarian who lives in Baltimore.
