Joel EngelhardtCommissioners endorse retired fire battalion chief Brian Lamb over Jean Enright, whose resignation led to the vacancy.
After nine months, the split Port of Palm Beach Commission agreed Thursday to appoint recently retired West Palm Beach Fire battalion chief Brian Lamb to fill a vacant seat.
The move ends Lamb’s campaign to unseat commission Chair Blair Ciklin in the August primary. Even though Lamb’s name will appear on the ballot, votes cast for him will not count, leaving only Ciklin and challenger Serge D’Haiti in contention for the Group 4 seat.
“I haven’t been this excited about something in quite a while,” Lamb said after his selection, recalling his promotion to battalion chief in 2012. “This is something completely new and I’m absolutely excited about it.”
Port commissioners oversee a $27 million budget. The Port of Palm Beach’s largest customer is the cruise ship, Margaritaville at Sea Paradise, which travels several times a week to the Bahamas. Its industrial tenants, led by Tropical Shipping, primarily serve the Caribbean.
The commission crept toward a decision last month, when Ciklin dropped his opposition to weighing finalists through a ranking system as long as new candidates could be considered beyond the 12 who applied in February.
Lamb and five others submitted applications, including Jean Enright, the longtime port commissioner whose resignation last October created the vacancy. Commissioners submitted their top two picks, naming as finalists Lamb, Enright and Taniel Koushakjian, who is running for the Group 5 seat held by Deandre Poole.
Despite the agreement to rank the finalists, Ciklin asked commissioners to reconsider and first try to see if any candidate could get three votes from the four-member board. Commissioners Wayne Richards and Varisa Dass, who had resisted that approach, agreed as long as rankings could be used if no one amassed enough votes to win.
Poole got the nominations started by nominating Enright. He and Enright had voted together in 2024 to fire Executive Director Michael Meekins, but the other three board members — Ciklin, Richards and Dass — did not go along.
In her brief remarks to the board, Enright explained she had resigned with three years remaining on her term due to illness. Three residents endorsed Enright in public comments and two more, both fire department colleagues, endorsed Lamb.
While Ciklin voted with Poole in favor of Enright, her nomination failed 2-2.
Dass nominated Koushakjian, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for County Commission in 2016, but his nomination drew no support.
Richards’ nomination of Lamb, 56, who remains president of Local 727 of the West Palm Beach Association of Firefighters, passed unanimously.
Applying lessons learned
In an interview after the meeting, Lamb, who retired this month after 30 years at the department, said his experience as a battalion chief prepared him for serving on the port commission because it offered lessons in collaboration with people from different backgrounds.
“I’ve never worked somewhere where I’ve worked with a more diverse group of people (than the firehouse),” he said. “I can be the one to make things kind of move along.”
Lamb’s term will run through 2028. He will be sworn in on Aug. 14.
Lamb announced he would run for the port after Ciklin, 76, indicated he would not run again after serving on the port for 48 of the past 50 years. But Ciklin changed his mind and qualified in June to run for one final four-year term.
The port district leans heavily Democratic. It runs along the coast between Southern and PGA boulevards, and takes in all of Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee and the Glades communities.
Lamb’s withdrawal from the race eases Ciklin’s path to reelection. Since his contest has just two Democratic candidates, it is open to all voters.
In Group 5, Poole will face a heated contest from Koushakjian, who has been campaigning for months. Since a Republican, Ted Sarandis, also filed, the primary is closed to all but Democratic voters.
A League of Women Voters forum to hear from the port candidates is scheduled for 6 pm July 28 at the county’s Vista Center meeting room, 2300 N. Jog Road.
