Delray Beach might cancel city election

By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Delray Beach City Commissioners might cancel the March 8 municipal election because of a lack of interest. Which normally wouldn’t matter much, except for a certain charter amendment changing commissioners’ term in office that is already on the ballot.

The city’s legislative body has three seats up for grabs, including the mayor’s office, now held by Woodie McDuffie, and commission seats held by Adam Frankel and Gary Eliopoulos. McDuffie and Frankel are running for reelection, while Eliopoulos is retiring.

McDuffie and Frankel at present have no opposition, and only one potential candidate, Thomas F. Carney, is attempting to get on the ballot to run for Eliopoulos’s seat. Carney is vice chair of the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency.

To get on the ballot, a candidate needs a petition signed by 500 city voters. The deadline for reaching that threshold is Feb. 8.

Assuming Carney gets his signatures and no one else qualifies for the ballot, McDuffie, Frankel and Carney would be declared winners and under normal circumstances, the election would be canceled.

However, last fall, commissioners put on the ballot a proposed charter amendment that would change the term in office for the mayor and commissioners to three years from the present two. Members would be limited to serving a maximum of six years as they are now. Instead of having an election every year, the city would skip one year in every three, saving about $40,000.

Although no vote was taken Tuesday evening, commissioners were leaning toward canceling the election altogether unless there is a race for at least one commission seat. The proposed charter change could be put back on the ballot in 2012.

Commissioner Angeleta Gray favored moving ahead with the election and the vote on the proposal because of the potential savings involved if the charter change is approved. But others argued that without a contested commission seat on the ballot, voter turnout would be miniscule.

In other matters, Commissioners rejected a request from Delray Chrysler Jeep Dodge to allow it to defer construction of a sidewalk along Dixie Highway as it builds a 17,000-square-foot showroom and garage on the site of the old Delray Lincoln Mercury. A spokesman for the dealership asked for the waiver until the Florida Department of Highways announces improvement plans for the road way. Any announcement could be decades away, commissioners said in rejecting the request.

The dealership sits between South Federal Highway and Dixie Highway.

Also Tuesday, commissioners:

— Without comment approved a $30,000 grant to the Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce for a new economic development initiative. The chamber would market the city through a new website and ads taken out in statewide and national business magazines.

— Tabled action on a resolution tightening conflict of interest rules for members of the city’s financial review board. The proposed rules were seen as too tight, particularly a section that would ban officers and directors of groups that have received or requested money from the city from serving on the board.

“This board is does not make policy; it is an advisory board, and I think we’ve gone too far,” Commissioner Fred Fetzer said.

— Gave city resident Joe LaViola until Jan. 31 to come up with a $2,000 deposit for use of Old School Square for a proposed Italian cultural festival called Carnevale that is scheduled for three days in late March. The original deadline was Dec. 31. LaViola told commissioners that he would be receiving money from corporate sponsors later this month and would be able to make the deposit.

— Granted a waiver from landscaping requirements for the Bandara Holdings Office at North Federal Highway and NE 22nd Lane. City staff, in recommending approval of the waiver, called it a “minor modulation” from city regulations that affected one corner of the building.

— Agreed to use city utility bill mailings to solicit funds for the Creative City Collaborative from city residents. However, it did not agree to pick up the $4,170 in extra postage the city will incur by stuffing the solicitation letters with the utility bills. The collaborative is a relatively new organization the commission created to money for various nonprofit groups in Delray Beach.

McDuffie said under normal circumstances coming up with the postage money wouldn’t be a problem, but the city is staring at a $1 million deficit.

— OK’ed first reading of an ordinance granting owners of the HHH Bush Building, formerly the Gulfstream Building, the right to build a residential unit on the fifth floor. The building is situated on the north side of George Bush Boulevard east of North Federal Highway. The other four floors are commercial.