Jane MusgraveDave Santilli, Max Fraser and Scott Shaw elected amid attack ads and changes to harmony code.
For more than a year, the tiny seaside town of Juno Beach has been a war zone, with rival factions attacking each other online and in nasty email missives.
Last Tuesday, residents seemed to agree they’d had enough.
In a rare show of unity, town voters overwhelmingly elected three political newcomers who promised to return civility to the government and protect town residents from overdevelopment.
While only 17% of voters in Palm Beach County participated in the historically low-turnout municipal elections, a whopping 42% of Juno Beach voters went to the polls.
They threw out incumbent Marianne Hosta, giving her opponent, nuclear power contractor Scott Shaw, 66.5% of the vote. They refused to hand former Town Council member Elaine Cotronakis the mayor’s gavel, with nearly 65% agreeing that retired FPL engineer Dave Santilli was a better choice.
Tech entrepreneur Max Fraser, who grew up in Juno and said he wanted his children to experience the same small-town charm, trounced Eddie Gottschalk, a lawyer and retired FBI agent, by nearly the same lopsided margin.
All three who went down to defeat were endorsed by outgoing Mayor Peggy Wheeler and appointed Council Member John Callaghan. The two longtime town elected officials decided not to run.
Harmony’s bad optics
But in one of their last acts, they inflamed town residents.
And that act may have turned their endorsements into a kiss of death. Even Callaghan acknowledged as much.
“People were upset at the optics, at it coming at the last minute,” Callaghan said of the eleventh-hour push he and Wheeler led to rollback development restrictions.
In an irony that is lost on no one, the fuel for the town’s discontent began with the passage of a so-called harmony code.
Some residents believed the code would protect them from the huge house boom that has transformed neighborhoods throughout the county and, indeed, the nation. Others saw the restrictions as an attack on private property rights.
At a special meeting on Feb. 18, Wheeler, Callaghan and Hosta voted to eliminate the harmony code, which limited the size, bulk, mass, scale and proportion of single-family and two-family dwellings. They also agreed that town planners, not the citizens who serve on the Planning and Zoning Board, would determine if the appearance of proposed homes is compatible with the neighborhood.
Lawyers say that a state law that prohibits municipal governments from imposing more restrictive development rules means the council’s action can’t be undone until at least 2027 when the state law may sunset.
Callaghan and Wheeler insisted that town residents were misinformed about the impact of the changes. Existing zoning codes, which include setback and landscaping requirements, along with an as-yet to be produced book that would recommend architectural styles, will protect neighborhoods, they said.
Further, Callaghan said, it was not a last-minute decision. “It seems to them that it was the last minute, but we’ve been trying to do it for a year,” he said. “If this is fast-tracking, I’d hate to see slow-tracking.”
But, many residents weren’t buying it.
Even those who didn’t have strong feelings about the harmony code were upset that a lame-duck council would approve sweeping changes that couldn’t be easily or quickly reversed, Fraser said.
“It just seemed like the democratic process was circumvented,” he said. “Regardless of the issue, it just didn’t seem right to jam something through at the last minute.”
Blowback from Caretta
And, he said, residents are rightfully concerned about what can happen if rules are relaxed.
Caretta, a five-story 95-unit luxury condominium over shops under construction at U.S. 1 and Donald Ross Road, is a poster child for unchecked development, he said.
“You can’t not see it in Juno,” the 53-year-old said. “There was an outcry when it popped up.”
It was approved in 2022 after town council members, including then-Council Member Cotronakis, agreed to change rules so Caretta could be 95% residential and 5% commercial. Many town residents believe the concession encouraged residential development in a commercial zone, traffic congestion and the decline of small businesses.
Even though the rules were later rolled back so developers will be limited to 75% residential and 25% commercial, both Fraser and Callaghan agreed Caretta, dubbed the “white monster” by at least one resident, loomed large on election day.
Council Member DD Halpern said the combined impact of Caretta and the dismantling of the harmony code can’t be understated. Halpern and Council Member Diana Davis have often sparred with Wheeler and cast the lone votes against eliminating the harmony rules.
But, Halpern said, there were many factors that spurred voters to embrace leaders untethered to Wheeler.
“It was the culmination that reached a tipping point,” she said. “People felt that this group of three (new elected officials) were the ones that would protect their vision of Juno having a small-town feel. They didn’t have the confidence that the other three were protectors.”
Attack ads and newsletters
Those feelings weren’t changed by an unrelenting flood of mailers from political committees and anonymous online posts that featured ugly attacks on the candidates as either pawns of developers or wholly incapable of leading the town.
The 81-year-old Hosta, for instance, was vilified for her 2024 arrest on battery charges for grabbing a phone from the then-mayor’s wife during a campaign forum. Her opponent, 69-year-old Shaw, was attacked for suing the town for not enforcing the harmony code.
Many said they are hopeful that the election will end the back-stabbing and infighting that has consumed Juno Beach.
“This is going to be transformational for our town because I believe we’re going to have five more cohesive people, more collegial,” Halpern said. “We will be a think tank and really bring some good projects to the people of Juno Beach.”
Fraser agreed. “I hope the meetings will be less contentious and we can focus on important things going forward,” he said. “I’d like to see a foundational project that could be used as a model for other cities.”
Still, Callaghan warned, eliminating the friction between those who want to limit the size of homes and the impact of development and those who believe in private property rights won’t magically go away with the election of a new council.
“That,” he said, “is going to continue.”
