The remnants of Delray Beach's Pride intersection are seen after the state's transportation department came in overnight to try to remove the LGBTQ colors from the city intersection in downtown's Pineapple Grove. Photo provided by Delray Beach Vice Mayor Rob Long
By John Pacenti
As Delray Beach tried to exhaust its legal and administrative remedies, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration painted over the city’s LGBTQ Pride intersection.
The Florida Department of Transportation, accompanied by Florida Highway Patrol troopers, painted over the intersection of Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue in the Pineapple Grove business district in the early morning hours of Sept. 9, city officials said Tuesday.
The paint job didn’t even cover the rainbow that stretched across it, leaving remnants of color.
Vice Mayor Rob Long, the elected official who pressed this issue the most, sent photos of the intersection, saying FDOT painted over the intersection extremely poorly during the night when thunderstorms pummeled Palm Beach County.
It comes as Delray Beach filed an administrative motion following a Sept. 2 state hearing on the intersection, requesting the disqualification of the FDOT’s designated presiding officer, who heard the city’s position that the intersection actually promoted safe driving and that the state had no jurisdiction over a municipal road.
“The city believes that the recent disclosures of communications involving the presiding officer raise reasonable concerns about impartiality and due process,” Delray Beach spokeswoman Gina Carter said.
In the meantime, Miami Beach had filed legal action against the state to protect its rainbow crosswalk across Ocean Drive.
“Our goal is to ensure that this matter is reviewed in a fair and unbiased manner, consistent with Florida law and the principles of administrative justice,” Carter said.
FDOT sent Delray Beach a notification on Monday that the city had lost its appeal.
Facebook post put out by the city of Delray Beach on Sept. 9.
Rand Hoch, president and founder of the nongovernmental Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, said he was shocked when a Coastal Star reporter told him of the news.
“It is illegal and it's cruel and unfortunately, it’s done,” said Hoch, who had encouraged the city to explore all legal remedies to save the intersection.
“This decision from Tallahassee shows it has no regard for the law, no regard for the LGBTQ community, no regard for taxpayers,” said Hoch. “I don’t understand how they could have done this.”
City Commissioner Juli Casale said the intersection was just a part of the war from DeSantis on home rule--the ability of municipalities to govern themselves.
“Liberty is lost a little at a time,” she said.
Municipalities in Florida have a constitutional right to govern themselves, she said.
“That right is being taken away — not by constitutional amendment but by the direction of the state,” Casale said. She noted that the state Legislature has passed numerous preemptions that concentrated regulatory power at the state level and took it from municipalities.
This isn’t the first time DeSantis’ FDOT used the cover of night to erase an LGBTQ symbol. The agency did the same when it painted over the LGBTQ crosswalk outside the Pulse memorial that commemorated the 49 people who died at the Orlando nightclub in 2019 in one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history.
Citizens then took chalk and paint and filled in the intersection in rainbow colors and FDOT crews again rendered it black-and-white. Eventually, several protesters were arrested as DeSantis stationed FHP troopers to guard the crosswalk.
DeSantis’ animosity toward the LGBTQ community is well documented, from the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law to book bans and the targeting of drag clubs. He says the rainbow intersections are a safety hazard despite studies showing that public art at intersections make them safer.
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