🏅 We're No. 4!
Welcome back. For you today, Palm Beach County's rank, Gardens-area neighborhoods say no, a report from the 2024 election front lines and the fashionable fifth season.
How Palm Beach County is growing
Palm Beach County is slipping from the No. 3 Florida county to No. 4 if the trend holds in population estimates released this month.
Why it’s important: The data show where this booming state is booming the most.
What’s happening: Between 2022 and 2023, the U.S. Census estimates Palm Beach County grew by nearly 14,000 people or almost 1 percent to just over 1.53 million.
Yes, but: Hillsborough County is growing faster. Its population increased an estimated 23,000 people or nearly 1.5 percent and is approaching 1.54 million.
Zoom out: The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan statistical area added more than 43,000 residents, making it the 10th-fastest-gaining large metro area in the United States.
The big picture: Florida is home to four of the five fastest-growing metro areas in the country: The Villages’ population rose nearly 5% to about 152,000 to make it the fastest.
Lakeland-Winter Haven is No. 2, up nearly 4% to more than 818,000.
Ocala and Port St. Lucie are No. 4 and No. 5. Their populations increased by more than 3% each to about 410,000 in Ocala and 537,000 in PSL.
🚫 Annexation rejected
How do you defeat a ballot measure 136-0?
Let’s ask Ken Glueck, one of the leaders who worked to block separate efforts to annex his neighborhood into Palm Beach Gardens and North Palm Beach.
What happened: Glueck’s Hidden Key community joined neighboring Portage Landing to vote 136-0 against becoming part of North Palm Beach. Such a vote left it vulnerable to being annexed into Palm Beach Gardens, a proposal so unpalatable to Hidden Key residents that they had filed suit to block it.
A bit of background: Hidden Key was part of a much bigger annexation zone sought by Palm Beach Gardens. Even if all of the residents of the 70-home Hidden Key voted no on Gardens, a majority of the rest of the zone could have voted yes and Hidden Key would have been part of Gardens.
So Hidden Key residents considered voting yes on North Palm Beach to have an alternative to Palm Beach Gardens if the Gardens referendum passed.
That put Hidden Key’s much smaller neighbor, Portage Landing, in a pickle.
Portage Landing wanted no part of North Palm Beach but a yes vote from Hidden Key would have swept the 17-home Portage Landing North and South into the village.
So the neighbors talked.
And Hidden Key gambled.
They were impressed by the grass-roots, anti-annexation campaign against Palm Beach Gardens headed by Charlie Hollings, Melissa Wiegand and Shanna Walker and the growing opposition evident in the proliferation of yard signs throughout the zone, Glueck said.
Residents didn’t believe that they would pay less in taxes and fees, worried about higher standards for code enforcement, balked at an additional layer of government and felt the city ignored their concerns at public hearings, Glueck said.
“The trajectory was pretty clear,” said Glueck, an executive with Oracle.
So they recommended their neighbors vote no on both annexation proposals – the Gardens and North Palm Beach.
It worked.
They defeated the North Palm Beach attempt 136-0. The huge Gardens Zone 1 annexation also failed, 2,313 to 170 – a whopping 93 percent against.
“We did better than Putin,” Glueck said.
Vladimir Putin took 88 percent of the vote in the recent Russian presidential election.
What happened? All five annexation efforts launched by Palm Beach Gardens failed to generate even 10 percent favorable vote. And the three annexations launched by North Palm Beach to counter Palm Beach Gardens did even worse, losing a combined 227-6.
It’s not that all municipal referendums on the March 19 ballot failed in light of low turnout for a presidential primary that had been decided.
Riviera Beach voters approved three referendums to borrow $115 million for public improvements.
West Palm Beach residents backed a pair of charter changes to make it harder to run for office.
Residents west of Loxahatchee Groves and north of Southern Boulevard voted 19-0 to be annexed into Wellington. Unlike the Gardens annexation, it involved mostly undeveloped land with few residents.
Of note: Gardens has filed a motion to dismiss the Hidden Key lawsuit. But Hidden Key isn’t so sure. State law lets Gardens try the annexation again in two years, a prospect residents do not relish. They plan to continue the suit, Glueck said.
🇺🇸 5 things the elections chief said after last week’s voting
Wendy Sartory Link, Palm Beach County’s supervisor of elections, visited the League of Women Voters on Wednesday with a report on the engine of democracy.
What she said:
Her favorite way to vote: Early in-person voting. Link said her office staffed 23 early voting sites for the March election, the most ever, with more than 112,000 total ballots counted as of Monday afternoon.
Registered voters can make appointments online or by phone at 561-656-6200 to vote early in the August and November elections. “Then, if there is a two-hour wait, you get the fast pass,” she said.
The most challenging election to manage this year: the August primary, which includes federal, state and county races.
The staff produces 2,400 different ballots to fit the multitude of elected office boundaries in Palm Beach County. “We spend a lot of time proofreading,” Link said.
About vote-by-mail or absentee voting: A reminder that voters who want to cast their ballot by mail must make a request after every general election.
Four years ago, the office had nearly a half-million vote-by-mail requests. Today, there are under 150,000. “We are anticipating a big change between now and November,” she said.
Vote-by-mail voters can sign up to track their ballot here.
The challenges: Link reported that Homeland Security’s biggest election concern this year is misinformation spread by people outside the United States and assisted by artificial intelligence. “If anything looks or sounds odd to you, call us,” she said.
Also: “We are desperate for poll workers.” Groups of people 16 and older can adopt one of the county’s nearly 400 precincts. It’s a way to log community service hours and get paid, she noted.
One thing that’s changed: When Link was appointed in 2019, the Palm Beach County registered voter breakdown was 41% Democrat, 28% Republican and 31% other. Today it’s 38% Democrat, 31% Republican and 31% other.
🎰 The juice
🎲 The Florida Supreme Court unanimously denied a challenge to the Seminole Tribe’s betting compact.
The deal allows the tribe to control online sports betting, offer craps and roulette at its casinos and the right to add three casinos on its tribal property in Broward County, Dara Kam reports. In exchange, the tribe will pay the state a minimum of $2.5 billion over the first five years and possibly billions of dollars more throughout the pact. (News Service of Florida)
🚴🏽♀️ West Palm Beach tries a downtown bike valet. (WPBGO)
🏌️ Palm Beach State College negotiated a financial return for its 10-acre Palm Beach Gardens site leased to TMRW Sports Group for a Tiger Woods-led indoor golf league. In return, TMRW Sports will rebuild with a pre-fab metal exterior after its air-inflated dome failed last year. The ESPN-backed league agreed to pay $440,000 a year starting next year and got an additional five-year option, allowing it to stay through 2043. Trustees approved the agreement Friday. (The Palm Beach Post $$$ and see the lease here.)
He was more than just outrage over government excess and overreach. Barry Silver, who died Thursday at 67, was a rabbi, state legislator and creative force behind many unusual demonstrations in Palm Beach County. (The Palm Beach Post $$$)
👗 561 insider: Trend-setting fashion
There is still time to visit the glittering “Endless Summer” exhibit at the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.
What’s happening: In what could be the museum’s grandest display, the temporary installation traces the origin and expression of Palm Beach resort style.
Flashback: After World War I, demand for accessible fashion from Europe coincided with the rise of Palm Beach’s Worth Avenue.
The wives and daughters of senators, presidents and aristocracy became the original social media stars, notes an 8-minute exhibit film featuring Tommy Hilfiger. It was a designer’s dream to dress those women, who frequented the Everglades Club and shops on the avenue.
What Palm Beach women wore during the winter social season influenced what was worn throughout the country at other resorts and in the following spring and summer.
“Once there were four seasons. Now there’s a fifth: the Palm Beach Season.”
The New York Times, 1928
What you’ll see: Closeup views of enough timeless jewels and colorful gowns to outfit a Palm Beach gala, menswear from Maus & Hoffman and handmade slippers from Stubbs and Wootton.
If you go: “Endless Summer: Palm Beach Resort Wear” runs through May 25 at the museum, 300 N. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. Admission is $10.
Keep reading: “Endless Summer” photos. (Palm Beach Daily News $$$)
🗓️ Coming Thursday to Palm Beach Gardens: A discussion of traffic and growth featuring Mayor Chelsea Reed, land planner Ken Tuma and regional planner Kim Delaney. Sponsored by the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society and moderated by board member Lisa Goldman. It’s at 6:30 pm at Palm Beach State College’s PGA Boulevard Campus, Biotech building. Read about the flyover that helped usher in the city’s growth, here.
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