👋 Mass exodus
Welcome to our final newsletter of 2023. For you today, town leaders head for the exits; what’s next for West Palm’s waterfront; county buys wetlands; and some of your favorite Stet things.
🚨 Mass exodus leaves gaping holes on city councils
Two North Palm Beach council members with no plans to leave office next year resigned their seats Thursday night. A third who was not seeking reelection resigned last month.
Call them victims of Ethics Form 6, the detailed income disclosure requirement that an estimated 2,500 Florida city council members in office on Jan. 1 must file for the first time.
The North Palm Beach trio — David Norris, Mark Mullinix and Darryl Aubrey — are not alone.
At least 26 council members in 11 of Palm Beach County’s 39 towns, including North Palm, have resigned.
Goodbyes — some tearful, some stoic, some angry — were sounded in:
Lake Clarke Shores: Val Rodriguez, Robert Gonzalez and Robert Shalhoub.
Briny Breezes: Gene Adams, Christina Adams.
Ocean Ridge: Ken Kaleel.
Manalapan: Stewart Satter, Aileen Carlucci, Kristin Rosen, Richard Granara and Chauncey Johnstone.
Jupiter Inlet Colony: Milton "Chip" Block and Richard Busto.
Glen Ridge: Jim Ussery, Matt Hadden, Allen Minars and Gary Eckerson.
Cloud Lake: Beatrice Wallace.
Hypoluxo: Brad Doyle.
South Palm Beach: Robert Gottlieb.
Village of Golf: Michael Botos, Tom Lynch, Winstone Windle. (Note: they did not specifically mention Form 6 in resignation letters although one complained about the state micromanaging local governments.)
“I think it’s ridiculous, honestly,” said North Palm’s Norris, a partner in the law firm Cohen Norris Wolmer Ray Telepman Berkowitz & Cohen who served 27 years in office.
“Whether it’s right or wrong it doesn’t matter. It’s something I can't do. My business does not allow me to do that type of disclosure and have that open to anybody and everybody to see.”
Until now, most municipal officials had to file Form 1, the less-intrusive declaration of net worth. With Senate Bill 744, state lawmakers required they reveal net worth, income sources, assets and debts.
“This Form 6 is so minute they want me to disclose my daughter’s prepaid college fund,” North Palm’s Mullinix said. “I can’t even fathom that.”
In some small towns, elected officials are paid negligible amounts or nothing at all, making it hard to justify publicly sharing detailed personal income amounts and sources, some said, even in the name of transparency.
“We get paid basically nothing to be up here. Yet they want us to disclose basically everything we have,” said Lake Clarke Shores’ Rodriguez, a criminal defense lawyer.
The penalty for failing to file is $25 a day up to $1,500 but there’s also the potential for removal from office. The deadline to file is July 3.
Manalapan Mayor Stewart Satter initially said he would just pay the fine, The Coastal Star reported. But he joined the flood of departures after he was assured able candidates would run to take his place.
Some cities are having a second qualifying period Jan. 4 to 11 to fill open seats in the March 19 election.
North Palm Beach appointed former longtime Palm Beach County Commissioner Karen Marcus Thursday to fill Aubrey’s seat. Marcus does not plan to run in March, when four seats will be filled.
The Coastal Star, which has been covering Form 6’s impact on south county coastal towns for months, contributed to this story, as did Stet Palm Beach intern Jessica Abramsky.
— Joel Engelhardt
Changing Form 6?
Joel also found one strict Form 6 requirement may be on the way out.
It requires attorneys who own more than 5 percent of their firm and grossed more than $1,000 to disclose the names of clients who produced more than 10 percent of the firm’s income.
Such disclosures violate Florida Bar rules, Steve Zuilkowski, a lawyer for the Florida Commission on Ethics, told the nine-member ethics board on Dec. 1. But state law supersedes those rules, he said.
Ethics commissioners told staff to bring back a change to that rule at their Jan. 26 meeting.
🌴 Exclusive: West Palm Beach waterfront is back in play
West Palm Beach has hired a consultant to explore ways to “activate” the city’s waterfront.
Context: Mayor Keith James signed the $50,000 contract in October, three months after city commissioners bowed to public pressure and terminated negotiations for a downtown marina.
City Harbor had won a deal to build an 84-slip marina stretching from Clematis Street to Fern Street.
After the commission vote in July to kill the agreement, James vowed to continue his drive to reimagine the city’s shore.
What’s happening: According to the contract, Street Plans of South Miami will:
Summarize previous studies on the waterfront.
Convene up to six virtual meetings to gather comments from people the city selects.
Present recommendations to city commissioners.
Propose an agenda for a public workshop to vet project ideas.
Also: Street Plans will create a menu of potential projects, potential partners and photos of what the projects may look like. The consultant is to consider zoning, permitting requirements and public support.
Of note: The contract does not mention a marina.
It does refer to bike lanes, intersection improvements, public art, shade, lighting, outdoor dining and “programming activation opportunities” between Olive Avenue and the Intracoastal Waterway.
The timeline for the contract, which can be extended, is eight months ending in spring 2024.
You can read the contract here.
— Carolyn DiPaolo
🌳 Land deal doubles county’s wetlands effort
Palm Beach County agreed earlier this month to a slight increase in price to make its biggest deal yet to preserve a slice of pristine north county wetlands.
Commissioners voted unanimously without discussion on Dec. 5 to pay 10 percent more than appraised value for three parcels along the Beeline Highway owned by investor Cory Beaton.
The county also bought seven smaller Beaton parcels without road access at the appraised value bringing the total to 36 acres.
Beaton and other landowners had questioned the appraisals because they initially came in 40 percent higher before county officials balked and the appraisers reconsidered, as Stet Palm Beach reported Nov. 2.
At the time, county facilities director Isamí Ayala-Collazo had refused Beaton’s offer to sell his road-front parcels at 10 percent over appraised value, the most the county could offer. He argued that with 25 contiguous road-front acres, his parcels had greater development potential than any other, justifying the $100,000 price boost.
After the story appeared, showing the county had bought less property in a year than a competing private landowner, her staff report to the commission called the offer an “exceptional opportunity.”
The $1.3 million deal more than doubles the amount the county has spent.
The county has paid $2.2 million since November 2022 to buy 80 acres in Pal-Mar, so named because it crosses the Palm Beach-Martin County border.
The county has $4 million in COVID-relief money to preserve the wetlands, which had been subdivided in the 1960s and sold off to hundreds of investors expecting one day to build homes there.
But no homes were ever built.
Sections of Pal-Mar in Martin County, however, have been selling in recent years to outdoors enthusiasts under the moniker Hungryland Trails. Off-road vehicles and illegal structures have proliferated, damaging wetlands and raising concerns of injuries from target practice or vehicle crashes.
The area has no formal road network. Drivers follow unmarked dirt perimeter roads and trails, many too narrow to allow two vehicles at the same time.
— Joel Engelhardt
🌲 The juice
Headlines with zest
🔬 The Everglades Foundation ripped into its former top scientist, Tom Van Lent, at his sentencing hearing Friday on contempt charges related to his deletion of computer files after a court ordered him to retain them. (Florida Bulldog) You can hear directly from Van Lent in WLRN’s podcast “Bright Lit Place” here.
💧 In a deal years in the making, Palm Beach Aggregates and Florida Crystals sold its C-51 Reservoir at 20-Mile Bend in Palm Beach County for $161 million to C-51 Reservoir Inc., a nonprofit governed by local water utilities. Signing for the nonprofit: Mehdi Hendi, a vice president of Florida Crystals. (South Florida Business Journal $$$)
🚊 Miami-based 13th Floor Investments proposed 340 apartments plus commercial space in the parking lot next to the Boca Raton Tri-Rail station in a lease deal with the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority. (South Florida Business Journal $$$)
🏥 The addiction treatment provider Hanley Foundation has acquired Origins Healthcare, the owner of the Hanley Center and other treatment centers in Florida and Texas. With the purchase, the nonprofit organization adds 272 employees to its 82-member staff and the ability to treat 1,000 patients a year. (Hanley Foundation)
🗓️ 561 insider: What you loved in Stet Palm Beach 2023
Before we close the book on our inaugural year, here’s a look at the most-read Stet Palm Beach stories.
Pat Beall’s two-part coverage traced the Boca Raton lawyer’s disastrous path that led him to be charged with the murder of his father, Paul.
Her detailed account of the troubles he faced became even more meaningful when Brandon was found dead in his jail cell.
Joel Engelhardt broke the news that Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville hotel chain is poised to cap a dramatic rebuild of the Riviera Beach Marina Village with a 150-room waterfront hotel.
The hotel is part of a larger $350 million Phase 2 project to boost the marina that once housed the popular Tiki Waterfront Sea Grill and draws throngs of boaters and weekend Peanut Island revelers.
Jane Musgrave’s investigation of an event billed as the 28th annual Palm Beach International Film Festival found it broke promises to provide panel discussions with celebrity actors, producers, directors and distributors. The film fest had no red-carpet premieres. And when filmmakers asked to see posters or other materials that had been produced to promote the festival, there were none.
You can see all of Stet’s 2023 stories on our Substack here.
As we move into our second year, let us know what you think we can do to improve. We’d love to hear from you at stetmediagroup@gmail.com.
🎉 And finally, happy holidays to all! Stet is going on a two-week break, and we will be back to your inboxes on Jan. 9.
Thanks for helping to make our first year a success. Your support is vital to Stet Palm Beach.
🔎 FAU Watch: It’s been three months since Stet Palm Beach asked Florida Atlantic University for a public record. The university has yet to respond to the request.
😬 Stet Sports: After 14 games, the season gets real now for the Miami Dolphins. Sure, they dispatched the hapless New York Jets 30-0 Sunday. But the Fins’ final three games are against good teams. If they lose them all they may fail to make the playoffs.
The Dolphins have 10 wins against teams with losing records and four losses, three of them against teams with winning records. Up next are Dallas, Baltimore and Buffalo, all teams with winning records. If the Dolphins falter, that season finale at home against Buffalo would decide the division title.
Note: Story updated after publication with information on resignations from the Village of Golf, raising the number of those who have resigned to 26.
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