The $10,000 ethics cap

County Commission on Ethics clears Palm Beach Gardens Council Member Dana Middleton.

The price of selling out in Palm Beach County is $10,000.

So says the Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics in its Sept. 26 decision to dismiss a complaint against Palm Beach Gardens City Council Member Dana Middleton over her company’s relationship with a developer of a proposed ice-rink complex at Plant Drive Park.

The ethics code’s cap on how much a council member can be paid and still vote on a project is $10,000 over two years.

The evidence presented by an opponent of the ice-rink complex at the park found tax documents from more than two years ago showing that Middleton’s company may have been paid $5,410 over three years. 

In dismissing the case without investigating further, the ethics commission staff said that amount is not enough. 

“… Despite the fact that respondent’s business is involved with the relevant entity, they are not considered a prohibited entity under the code,” the staff wrote.

Park neighbors upset that the city agreed to the lease without seeking neighborhood comments would like to see the lease revisited. Middleton was one of four council members to vote for it.

She did not recuse herself in April from a vote to grant the foundation a 40-year lease at Plant Drive Park, she said, because the city attorney advised her that “due to the de minimis dollar value (of the business relationship), it did not constitute a conflict.”

Middleton acknowledged that her company, Intelligent Office, rented virtual space to the Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation. 

Middleton did not respond to an email seeking comment. 

But Rebecca McKeich, the city resident who discovered the potential conflict and submitted the complaint first to the inspector general and then to the ethics commission, said there’s no way to know without investigating if payments in the past two years have exceeded the cap. 

“For a council that likes to beat the drum about how transparent they are, I think the lack of disclosure and clear conflict of interest here contradict any notion of transparency on the part of both Mrs. Middleton as well as city attorney Max Lohman who advised her to keep quiet about her outside business relationship,” McKeich said in a statement.