Joe CapozziThree candidates compete to replace the late Kristin Garrison on the North Palm Beach Village Council. Decision made on April 7.
At a special election March 24, North Palm Beach voters will decide who serves the remaining one-year term of the late Council Member Kristin Garrison, who died Dec. 31.
Seeking the Group 4 seat are three candidates: former longtime councilman David Norris and two political newcomers active in village affairs, Ron Okolichany and Kendra Zellner.
Editor’s note: The election on March 24 resulted in no majority winner, forcing the scheduling of a runoff on April 7. Zellner, who got 34.5% of the vote, will face Okolichany, who got 32.9%. Norris received 32.5% of the vote.
On April 7, Zellner received 50.75% of the vote to win, pending the final review of ballots. She takes the seat with 1,327 votes over Okolichany’s 1,288 (49.25%).
All have different opinions on perhaps the biggest issue in the campaign: the ambitious Village Place development proposal for the old Twin Cities Mall site.
They’re scheduled to participate in a forum at 6:30 pm March 11 at the North Palm Beach Community Center, 1200 Prosperity Farms Road.
Unless someone wins a majority of the votes on March 24, a runoff election will be held April 7. The winner will face reelection next year to a two-year term. Elections are at large.
North Palm Beach, a coastal town of 13,000 residents with a nearly $50 million overall budget, had 9,275 registered voters, the clerk said, citing the latest figures from Nov. 1. In the most recent council election in 2024, 2,279 cast ballots. In 2022, an average of 3,000 ballots were cast for three council races.
David Norris
Norris, 67, served on the council from 1996 until December 2023 when he resigned rather than comply with a state financial disclosure law scheduled to take effect the following month.
He wasn’t the only elected official to resign because of the new law. So, did two other North Palm Beach council members and at least 24 other elected officials from 10 other county municipalities
In June 2024, a judge issued a temporary injunction blocking the law.
“I don’t think it’s ever going to come back, but if it comes back it’s definitely not going to be in the same format,” Norris said. “If it comes back, right now my feeling is I would not resign. Of course, I would have to look at what it actually says and does before I make that decision but I am prepared right now to deal with it.
“If I thought it was coming back and would be an issue I wouldn’t be running because I would not want to put the village through having to do another election.”
Norris, a founding partner in the law firm Cohen Norris Wolmer Ray Telepman Berkowitz & Cohen, said his 27 years on the Village Council and his experience as a lawyer make him the best choice for the seat.
“With me, (voters) know what they are getting,” he said. “You know I am going to evaluate the issues and make decisions and I think the track record is pretty darn good. I can come back in, and there’s no learning curve, and get right back to work.”
Old Twin Cities Mall site
A main priority, he said, is improving the village’s commercial areas on U.S. 1 and Northlake Boulevard. A key to that improvement is the proposed Village Place on the 13-acre site of the old Twin Cities Mall at that corner.
The project calls for 1,300 units, including a hotel and assisted living facility, and 131,000 square feet of retail and buildings up to 14 stories. It has been in litigation since last spring when the company behind the project sued the village for adding conditions.
All three candidates think the project eventually will be built but disagree over whether the uses and building heights are too intense.
Norris said the intersection is the ideal place for the project. He said it won’t harm the village’s character.
“That’s an OK place to have the height. The issue against all of that is maintaining the character of North Palm Beach. I grew up here. I want it to stay the way it is. But that character really is the area between Northlake and the bridge on U.S. 1, the bridge going over to Old Port Cove. That single-family area from the water to the west, when people say they love the character of North Palm Beach that’s what they are talking about. That has to stay the same.”
Okolichany, 66, said he wants to manage growth that’s consistent with a Citizens Master Plan adopted in 2021. That plan “did not include high-density and high-rise urban development. The height limit people want is 50 feet,” he said.
Zellner, 37, said she considers herself “the happy middle ground” between Norris and Okolichany on the Twin Cities Mall site.
“One day, it will be out of litigation and it will be developed, and I really want to make sure we follow the master plan and we preserve our community’s character,” she said.
Ron Okolichany
Okolichany said he is “mostly retired” after a 40-year career in real estate acquisition, development and management.
He said he is a fourth-generation village resident who is active in village affairs and he has built a following on social media, where many residents encouraged him to run.
“I will be the voice of the people,” he said.
He said he would add needed professional diversity to the council with his business background, which will help guide him with his goals to encourage “fiscal responsibility” and “rein in overdevelopment.”
He said the village’s biggest threat is a potential loss of revenue from property tax proposals being pushed in Tallahassee. North Palm Beach gets 62% of its revenue from property taxes.
“We are going to have to get very creative to make that up,” he said, adding the village may have to enact user fees if the voters approve the property tax measures.
He said he thinks Norris would resign again if the state’s strict financial disclosure law is reenacted.
Kendra Zellner
Zellner, secretary of the village’s Environmental Committee, said she bought a home in North Palm Beach 10 years ago. She said she works from home as a senior project manager and data analyst for CDK Global, an automotive software company.
“What sets me apart is that coming from the environmental committee I’m able to look at this project through an environmental lens but I’m also able to make data-driven decisions since I do that every single day,’’ she said.
If elected, Zellner said she would be the first council member in about 20 years who lives west of Prosperity Farms Road.
“The majority of our council members live fairly close to each other, and a lot of residents would like representation on this side of North Palm Beach,” she said.
She said she would bring diversity to the council, something residents are telling her they want as she goes door to door on her campaign.
“They want someone who mirrors what the community looks like and I am that person,” she said. “We have a lot of young professionals and families moving into the neighborhood. I’m doing this so I can represent the next generation.”
And she points out that she’s around the same age Norris was when he was first elected to the council.
“Some might say I am too young and inexperienced to do the job. But I have a resume and leadership style that says otherwise,” she said. “Every single person plays a valuable role in shaping our neighborhoods. It doesn’t matter how old you are.”
See the candidates’ responses to a League of Women Voters questionnaire here.
Joe Capozzi is an award-winning reporter based in Lake Worth Beach. He spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers, mostly at The Palm Beach Post, where he wrote about the opioid scourge, invasive pythons, and Palm Beach County government. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020. He publishes the Lake Worth Beach Independent on Substack, covering the town where he lives.
