3 pursue Democratic nomination for Baxter’s commission seat

Former state House member Katherine Waldron takes on business owner Rudolph Tinker and onetime public works director Mario Guzman.

The Democratic Party primary to seek the seat held by Republican Sara Baxter on the Palm Beach County Commission pits a veteran elected official against two newcomers.

It’s not without its fireworks.

Newcomer Rudolph Tinker has sued an opponent’s campaign aide for defamation, claiming she has falsely labeled him “an animal abuser, a person with a propensity for violence against women and otherwise a criminal.”

The other newcomer, Mario Guzman, avoids the fray, saying he doesn’t want to speak ill of his opponents because “I believe in the good of people.” He adds: “Maybe I’m naive.”

Katherine Waldron, the former state House member and Port of Palm Beach commissioner,  entered the race in May after it became apparent that, despite the power of incumbency, Baxter could be vulnerable. 

Waldron won’t talk about Tinker’s lengthy record of civil lawsuits and citations, many involving a former girlfriend. But her treasurer, Wendy Perlman, drew Tinker’s ire in the defamation lawsuit for pointing voters toward them.

Perlman, who was listed in the lawsuit as Raskin-Perlman, has not replied to the lawsuit, which was filed July 27 in Broward County Circuit Court. Waldron found it odd he would file it in Broward County and questioned the basis for the suit. 

“There’s no basis for any of it,” she said. “It’s like somebody says something mean to him and now he has a stomach ache so he’s going to sue somebody.”

Tinker also has gone after Waldron directly, saying she does not represent the district because of where she lives. Waldron shrugs off the accusation because she lives in a recently rented Wellington home while owning a home out of the district in West Palm Beach. 

Waldron said she began renting in Wellington in 2022, when she won election to represent the area in the state House and recently moved into a new rental. She rents out her West Palm Beach home.

The winner of the Aug. 18 primary for the District 6 commission seat, a four-year term to represent western Palm Beach County including Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, The Acreage, Loxahatchee and the Glades, faces the winner of the Baxter-Elizabeth Accomando Republican primary on Nov. 3. 

County commissioners are paid $127,320 a year. The district is about 36% Republican, 34% Democratic and 30% other parties or no party at all.

Rudolph Tinker 

Tinker, 47, is by far the most colorful of the three candidates, winning applause at a recent candidate’s forum with the sign-off mantra “Rock with the Doc,” a reference to his doctorate in industrial-organizational psychology from the online Grand Canyon University.

While he doesn’t come out in favor of Amendment 3, to reduce property taxes, he sharply criticizes government spending.

“They create so many useless positions, so many useless pet projects that we don’t need. But who do they look to to pay for it? Hey, let the taxpayer pay for it. I want to go to the moon. Let the taxpayers pay for it,” he said at the Aug. 6 forum sponsored by the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations. “This is what’s causing a huge burden on the taxpayers because there’s just too much wasteful spending.”

Tinker said he has been an Army Reserve major since February with service from 2002 to 2005 as an Army Specialist E4. He teaches political science and international relations part-time at Palm Beach State College in Belle Glade and Loxahatchee and is a general contractor, owning a company called Vyder.

After his 2015 breakup with his wife of 16 years that produced four children, he loaned another woman $96,000 to help her keep her Acreage home, which had been awarded to her in a divorce.

His dispute with that woman, which he says started in July 2018 when he asked a court to award him half-ownership of the house, led to her seeking protective orders against him three times, all denied, and him obtaining a protective order against her, which lasted more than two years. 

In her three petitions between July 2018 and May 2019, the woman did not accuse Tinker of physical violence but instead of intimidation such as removing the door to her bedroom and entering the house through a window in the middle of the night, leading her to fear him.

In denying the second petition in December 2018, Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Scher wrote, “This is not (the) first time with these parties. The court finds respondent (Tinker) more credible than petitioner. It is clear this is a fight over the house, which is being litigated. The court finds petitioner’s motivations highly suspect.”

Tinker accuses Waldron’s campaign aide, Perlman, of telling a group of women that Tinker had been “accused of domestic assault three times.” Perlman told Stet News she never made such a comment.

The accusation “paints Tinker in a false light and suggests he is a spouse abuser with criminal complaints,” he wrote in the suit he co-wrote with the Kleppin Firm in Plantation, “when the facts behind the accusations were a female admirer attempted to defraud Tinker out of properties and sought a civil injunction against him, which was not granted and her claims were unfounded and dropped.”

In running for office, he called the exchanges “a sad case of how people use the system to their own benefit.” But he said it didn’t diminish his respect for victimized women. “You can’t let a couple of cases demonize a whole population of people.”

Tinker also accused Perlman of telling others he has convictions for animal cruelty, another comment Perlman denied making. His court file shows a dozen animal infractions dating to 2013 involving his dogs attacking other dogs or neighbors’ chickens, loose cows and a September 2019 citation for letting his Brahman bull loose when it kicked down a fence. He did not face criminal charges and most of the citations were dismissed.

He said his priority is to make government accountable. And that means not allowing campaign contributions to influence decision-making. 

“As we follow the money, a lot of these county officials were endorsed and supported by big companies and interests and lobbying groups,” he said. “They vote along those lines.”

He portrays himself as a small businessman who will work hard for his constituents. 

“We want someone that’s from the area, that lives in the area,” he said. “Don’t vote for someone that’s just looking for another seat.”

He has raised nearly $85,000 as of July 24, including loans totaling $55,600 from himself. He has 17 contributions of the maximum amount, $1,000, including two from companies he controls. He had spent just $11,364.

Mario Guzman

Guzman, 48, a father of two young children, worked as a public works and fleet management director in West Palm Beach and Boynton Beach as well as 12 years with Palm Beach County as an equipment analyst. He is the least visible of the three candidates, failing to respond to questionnaires sent to him by two newspapers. 

He now works in the private sector for AssetWorks, which sells technology to help governments track public works costs, a job he said he would leave if elected.

With his familiarity with the way things work in government, he said he is in an ideal position to give back.

“I’ve been on the sidelines for a long time,” he said. “You just got to try it and take the plunge.”

He took issue with Baxter’s support for Amendment 3, which is designed to cut local government spending by sharply reducing property tax revenue. 

Residents have become blind to the excellence of roads and parks, not to mention public safety, he said. Still, he sees opportunities for efficiencies, which could lead to outsourcing some tasks or handing them to nonprofit organizations. 

“There’s always room for making things efficient,” he said.

He supports the commission’s rejection of a zoning change for the Project Tango AI data center and opposes the proposal for a special taxing district for the sheriff, which could mean noncity residents pay higher property taxes.

“I’m as grassroots as it gets,” he said, pointing out that he can’t compete with his opponents for money.

He had raised just under $10,000 as of July 24, with just one contribution of $1,000.

Katherine Waldron

Waldron, 66, worked in business as a planning manager in the 1990s for Northern Telecom and as a vice president for Sprint in the early 2000s. She has a consulting company, KW LLC, which does work with Latin American clients. 

After losing a 2015 run for West Palm Beach City Commission to Cory Neering, she won a four-way Democratic primary to take a seat on the Port of Palm Beach Commission in 2016. Four years later, she got 72% of the vote to hold the seat against Republican Mike Whalen.

Her main contribution, she said, was to block the dredging of a deeper port channel to make way for bigger ships, which the port’s Palm Beach neighbors opposed.

She left the port seat early to win a four-way Democratic primary for state House District 93 in 2022 before narrowly defeating Republican Saulis Banionis in November.

But during the Republican sweep in 2024, she lost the seat by 348 votes to former Wellington Mayor Anne Gerwig. 

Waldron applied in February for a Port Commission vacancy before withdrawing in May to run for County Commission. She said she opted against a run for state House this year because of the frequent travel to Tallahassee and the brutal nature of the campaign, recalling vicious television advertisements that she said distorted her record.

She cited her experience with county transportation and business issues as a reason to run for the county job. 

Waldron questioned many of Baxter’s choices, such as attending a football game in billionaire Stephen Ross’ suite and flying in the sheriff’s helicopter late one night, saying, “You have to respect your constituents. I don’t know if that’s being respectful when you’re using taxpayer dollars.”

She added, “Fundamentally, there’s a sense from people that they’re not being seen or heard.”

She scoffed at the notion that developers and big-monied interests have the right to influence decisions through unlimited campaign contributions. 

“When you’re up against billionaires and oligarchs and you just have your voice, it’s not an even balance,” she said. 

Her response if Amendment 3 passes would be to make sure the safety net for marginalized communities, public safety and firefighting is not jeopardized. Still, she acknowledges that cuts will have to be made.

The county is wrestling with a transportation master plan, which she supports as a starting point to make people consider the big picture of traffic decisions. She likes the idea of putting the sheriff under a special taxing district to make his budget more transparent.

She does not engage with the audience with Tinker’s aplomb, an appropriate demeanor, she said, when confronted by a host of difficult issues. 

“Some of these issues are pretty complex and they’re not just sound bites,” she said at the Aug. 6 COBWRA forum. “You can’t solve them with a sound bite overnight.”

She also doesn’t have as much money on hand as Tinker. Through July 31, she had raised $44,000, including $20,500 from herself. Her 16 contributions of $1,000 include two from affiliates of Broward lobbyist Ron Book, one from Port of Palm Beach lobbyist Richard Pinsky and one from Ruth’s List Florida, which supports Democratic women.

Her political committee, Friends of Waldron, received five donations in July totaling $18,500, including $5,000 from Palm Beacher Stephen Levin and $2,500 from former West Palm Beach City Commissioner Paula Ryan.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to include comments from Wendy Perlman.