Stet NewsFor you today, the county mayor faces angry residents, a former Florida Supreme Court chief justice speaks out, another wrinkle in West Palm’s tennis battle, deal may be near in growth dispute and what we learned tromping through the swamp at Grassy Waters Preserve.
⛔ Baxter says no
Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter announced her opposition last week to the Project Tango data center that drew 400 opponents to her contentious town hall meeting in Royal Palm Beach.
Yes, but: The data center decision is quasi-judicial, meaning commissioners are expected to refrain from deciding their position until they hear all sides in a public zoning hearing, scheduled for April 23.
Why it matters: Baxter is running for reelection and may believe it would be hard to win if she votes in favor of the zoning change sought by the Central Park Commerce Center west of the Arden community off of Southern Boulevard.
What they’re saying: “First and foremost, I want everyone to absolutely understand that I am not in support of Project Tango. Absolutely not,” Baxter said at the start of the session.
By carving out a stand now, she runs the risk of the county vote being overturned later in court.
- Or she could recuse herself under a state law “to assure a fair proceeding free from potential bias or prejudice.”
- Or she could reserve the right to change her mind, although the people packing the Royal Palm Beach Cultural Center would not be pleased.
“You are going to be storing our information at your facility, saving all of our information for your use that we’re going to be paying for with electricity bills, water, air pollution. Who is OK having cancer of 600 kids and all of these people on your hands?” Arden resident Maria Blake asked.
- “Nobody is OK because nobody in their right mind would want this monstrosity,” she said.
Read more about the combative town hall meeting, Baxter’s position and the added intrigue of a Wellington annexation at StetNews.org.
— Joel Engelhardt
👎 Former Florida chief justice blasts Bondi
Pam Bondi’s conduct during a recent congressional hearing about the Jeffrey Epstein files was an embarrassment to attorneys, a former chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court said.
Barbara Pariente of West Palm Beach, the second woman appointed to the state’s highest court, castigated the U.S. attorney general.
Why it matters: Pariente joined in a complaint to the Florida Bar about Bondi last year and in the past she sat in judgment over such complaints.
What they’re saying: “As a lawyer and woman, I was embarrassed by her conduct,” Pariente told Stet News after she spoke to the Palm Beach County League of Women Voters on Feb. 18.
Catch up quick: Bondi’s Department of Justice recently released millions of documents and photographs pertaining to Epstein. Defense attorneys say victim names and nude photographs were made public, exposing them to fear and ridicule. Some of their family members never knew.
The other side: Bondi said, in her opening statement during the hearing, “More than 500 attorneys and reviewers spent thousands of hours, painstakingly reviewing millions of pages to comply with Congress’ law.
- “We’ve released more than 3 million pages, including 180,000 images, all to the public, while doing our very best in the time frame allotted by the legislation, to protect victims.
- “And if you brought us a victim’s name that was inadvertently released, we immediately redacted it.”
Flashback: Pariente signed onto a bar complaint last year, alleging that Bondi violated legal ethics by threatening prosecutors with their jobs if they did not “zealously pursue the President’s political objectives.”
The bar last year declined to investigate, pointing to a policy that it says prevents investigations of federal officeholders. The Florida Supreme Court agreed.
Context: Pariente’s willingness to speak out is no longer considered unusual.
“Things have changed with judges and ex-judges speaking out on political topics,” said Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University. “This began with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas, who really took judicial comment in a direction that had not been seen before.”
Keep reading to learn about Pariente’s views on democracy at StetNews.org.
— Holly Baltz
🎾 West Palm tennis drama far from over
When West Palm Beach city commissioners last monthreversed course and picked upstart Let’s Play Tennis instead of USTA Florida to run the city’s three tennis centers, they signaled they had put an end to a 3-month-old controversy that roiled the city’s tight-knit tennis community.
Why it matters: But, even as commissioners declared game, set, match, another player said he will continue to fight to retain his contract to run the South Olive Tennis Center.
The latest: Skip Jackson, the decades-long director of the recently refurbished center south of Forest Hill Boulevard, has no intention of dropping the lawsuit he filed against the city after it disqualified his bids to operate South Olive along with tennis centers at Howard and Gaines parks, his attorney, Bernard Lebedeker, said.
Further, Lebedeker said, when city commissioners agreed with Let’s Play Tennis that significant mistakes were made in the selection process, it gave Jackson powerful ammunition to use in his lawsuit.
- The lawyer said that, given nearly identical objections by Jackson and Let’s Play Tennis, the commission should have started over with the bids.
Commissioner Christy Fox was the lone commissioner to support that approach. Taking the contract away from USTA Florida and handing it to Let’s Play Tennis won’t solve underlying problems, she said.
What they’re saying: “I want to make sure we get it right, but I’m also not convinced we are making the best decision for what the residents want,” Fox said.
What’s next: Jackson’s case against the city is before Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Maxine Cheesman. Jackson is seeking a temporary injunction, preventing the city from enforcing its decision to disqualify him from bidding on the contract.
Keep reading to find out more about the fallout from the tennis dispute at StetNews.org.
— Jane Musgrave
🪷 Settlement near in growth dispute
The five-year legal battle pitting Palm Beach County against one of its biggest cities, Palm Beach Gardens, may be heading for a negotiated settlement.
Yes, but: A mediator’s report of “an extraordinarily productive mediation” on Feb. 11 was withdrawn the next day to be replaced by “Outcome: Not an impasse. The parties will continue to negotiate.”
Why it matters: Relations between the city and county have been fraught for years. After warring over the city’s 2020 decision to stop collecting county road impact fees, the two sides agreed to mediation after meetings between new County Administrator Joe Abruzzo and Gardens City Manager Ron Ferris.
- At stake is at least $6.7 million the county says the city owes in impact fees it failed to collect while instead collecting a similar fee enacted by the city, called a mobility fee.
Zoom in: No one’s saying what the settlement includes. But mediator Greg Coleman, a former Florida Bar president, wrote in his first report, “To be clear, this matter was neither an impasse nor fully resolved, but is clearly on its way toward a full and complete resolution of all of its issues.”
Zoom out: The dispute centers on control of money paid by developers. Since 1980, the city has collected impact fees from developers on behalf of the county to help pay for the effect of their projects on the overall road network.
Over the past decade, the Legislature has allowed cities to create their own fees, called mobility fees, that can be used not only to build roads but to build alternatives to roads, such as bike lanes and sidewalks.
What’s next: The city and county governing boards can consider the settlement in closed sessions (allowed under state law to discuss pending litigation). The County Commission will be asked today to hold a closed session at 1 pm March 10. The Gardens March 5 meeting agenda contains no reference to scheduling a closed session.
Joel has been covering this conflict since before the county sued the city in May 2021. Read more at StetNews.org.
— Joel Engelhardt
🍊The Juice
👀 A bill to create a counterintelligence and counterterrorism unit within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is moving through the Legislature. Its aim would be the detection, identification and neutralization of “adversary intelligence entities,” which include a “person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.” (Florida Trident)
🚫 Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office walks back immigration bonuses for deputies. (Florida Phoenix)
Longtime powerhouse West Palm Beach attorney Jon Moyle died Feb. 21 in Tallahassee at age 91. A power in Democratic politics, he co-founded the Moyle, Flanigan law firm in the early 1960s in West Palm Beach. (Bevis Funeral Home)
👋🏼 Diane Hernandez Del Calvo is the interim director of Tri-Rail as Executive Director David Dech departed Friday for a job in Indiana. The move comes as a search begins for a new director and Tri-Rail’s future depends on legislation now before the Florida Legislature. “If I thought that the funding was not going to be restored, if I thought this was a sinking ship, I would stay here and go down with it,” Dech said. (Sun-Sentinel $$$)
🐐 Goat Foods, which oversees a portfolio of online snack brands, has expanded with a new headquarters to Southern Way Business Center at 205 Sansbury Way with plans to grow from 75 staff members to 225. (South Florida Business Journal $$$)
🔥 A steamy Lake Worth Beach will be on view during a screening of the 1981 classic “Body Heat” on Thursday at the Lake Worth Playhouse. (Lake Worth Beach Independent)
📺 Former WPTV news anchor and friend of Stet Michael Williams is the narrator of the Friends of the Everglades nine-part video series, “The Everglades Story.” (Friends of the Everglades YouTube page)
💥 Talking about video, Stet News exclusively posted the complete PBC Channel 20 recording of Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter’s contentious Project Tango Data Center Town Hall held on Feb. 25 in Royal Palm Beach. Take a look and if you like what you see, please subscribe. (Stet News YouTube page)
💡 North Palm Beach’s new benches, at Lakeside Park and Anchorage Park, were created by NobleWins, a company that recycles retired wind turbine blades. (Village Facebook page)
🎙️ “Top of Mind Florida,” the podcast by Michael Williams and Brian Crowley, welcomes Taylor Morgan of the Kind Diners Society. They explore why restaurant workers are leaving the industry in record numbers, the post-COVID collapse of common courtesy, and what it really means to treat service workers as human beings. (Listen now; watch)
561NSIDER: 🐊 Stet in the swamp
Stet News and Community Voices visited Grassy Waters Preserve Feb. 22 to get out of the classroom and into the swamp.
Why it matters: Our recent work covering the city of Riviera Beach’s new water treatment plant sparked interest in exploring a natural area.
What happened: During our stroll through the water and muck, our guide, Charles Wilson, shared information about the unique traits of the different plant species, their environment and how the city of West Palm Beach works to conserve the preserve.
🌱 Grassy Waters is an important part of the Everglades, the chief source of drinking water for West Palm Beach and supports the aquifers on which many other cities in Palm Beach County rely.
What we’re saying: “I can admit that I was a little skeptical about walking around in the water, but after my visit, I realized how valuable it is to our environment,“ Community Voices staff member and Inlet Grove High School student Mikala Graham wrote.
Keep reading for more about our experience wading through the water at StetNews.org.
Who wrote this story: This story was reported by Community Voices.
What is CV: Community Voices is a partnership between Stet News and Inlet Grove High School. Stet News is underwriting the pilot to train and pay students to cover Riviera Beach.
