Related: City Commission election candidate profiles
By John Pacenti
The three candidates vying for an open seat on the Delray Beach City Commission must have a masochistic streak. Whoever wins had better bring her boxing gloves, because the group currently elected fights more than a dysfunctional family at Thanksgiving.
Voters will choose from Judy Mollica, Andrea Keiser and Delores Rangel in a March 10 election to fill the seat vacated by now State Rep. Rob Long. Commissioner Angela Burns was unopposed and has earned another three-year term.
“I think it’s anybody’s race,” former Mayor Shelly Petrolia said. “These are not known women — none of them. There is nobody out there that, you know, has run before, that everybody knows.”
Mollica represents the crowd still stung when the nonprofit running Old School Square was booted off the campus by the commission — with Petrolia as mayor — in 2021 over a lack of financial transparency.
Rangel is positioning herself as the everyman candidate who doesn’t adhere to any one camp and knows how to get things done from her decades of seeing the commission in action as an administrative assistant.
Keiser considered running for County Commission but decided to put her hat in the city race instead. A land use attorney who has represented developers, Keiser is polished, quick on her feet, but is still getting up to speed on the issues.
Keiser wants to bring civility back to the commission. “I believe that you can disagree with someone, you can even be 100% right on an issue, but to publicly humiliate people is not a desirable leadership quality and trait,” she said.
She has contributed $102,000 to her own campaign.
Andre Fladell, a longtime political player in Delray Beach, says the election is shaping up to be a contest of old-school politics versus new.
“Keiser comes extremely well-financed. I think she’ll be able to deliver a message,” Fladell said. “Judy is going to have to rely on a door-to-door game. It’s going to be a very good test of which of those two components is more effective in the cycle.”
Fladell characterized Rangel as a spoiler. “Delores knows a lot of the local inside people. That group might tend to be more with Judy Mollica,” he said. “So you would think she would pull votes.”
Petrolia is supporting Rangel, who might not be an ace at public speaking, but she knows the issues inside and out.
“She was practically the person who got everything done when I was in office, and for every commissioner, every single thing we ran up against, she was handling. She knows how to do it,” Petrolia said.
Rangel’s problem is financing. She has reported about $2,000 in contributions.
The Coastal Star asked the candidates about issues facing the city. Here is a look at how they responded. A fuller look at their comments is available online at TheCoastalStar.com.
Civic service
Both Keiser and Mollica can boast that they are prepared through years of serving on various boards in the public and private sectors.
Keiser is a board member of the Delray Beach Housing Authority and was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County, among other commitments.
Mollica — a real estate broker — currently serves on the Planning & Zoning Board and holds positions with the local Rotary Club and Mae Volen Senior Center. She is also president of Friends of Delray.
Rangel says she is all about practical experience, working with the commission. “I bring a wealth of institutional knowledge that my opponents don’t possess — plus I’ve lived in Delray for 59 years,” she said.
Coastal issues
On issues of interest to coastal residents, Keiser said, "I believe it's important to protect our beach and the quality of life for those that live there." She said the noise ordinance also needs to be enforced, saying, “People chose to live on the coast to hear the ocean, not the downtown.”
Mollica says preserving the beach is paramount, but says the endless numbers of renourishment projects are not sustainable.
Rangel says safeguarding the beach is a must, calling it “our jewel.” She also sees other issues for the barrier island.
“There are street flooding issues and residents want better enforcement of the ‘No Wake’ zone on the Intracoastal. I will work with the Beach Property Owners Association and coastal residents to address these issues,” she said.
The DDA
The Downtown Development Authority has been Mayor Tom Carney’s favorite punching bag. He forced the city to do an audit of the DDA and his concerns were used to justify an ongoing state audit.
Keiser said she hadn’t seen the city audit and couldn’t comment, but said there is merit to looking at the finances of entities that receive taxpayer money. “You have to be accountable and responsible for the use of that money and ensure it’s being used in the proper way,” she said.
The other candidates threw support toward the DDA, which received $2.7 million — mostly through a special property tax on downtown properties — to support and promote businesses to create a thriving downtown.
“It feels to me from the outside looking in that this poor agency is being bullied,” Mollica said. “And, you know, there could be a chance that it gets dissolved because there’s an appetite for that anyway, in Tallahassee.”
Rangel said she supports the DDA; she saw firsthand how it transformed downtown to the vibrant scene it is today. “The only ‘waste’ here is the waste of time and taxpayer money by subjecting the DDA to an additional state audit,” she said.
Development
“I’m not sure why I have to be pro-development or anti-development,” Keiser said. “I think it really is about time and place, right? So, you know, every piece of real estate is different.”
She said she yearns for the time when mom-and-pop stores dominated the downtown area. “I would like to restore that, you know, charming town, and help those small-business owners by maybe filtering them out into the arteries of the downtown.”
Rangel didn’t mince words: It was time to put a halt to current development, saying, “We all need a break.”
“The building of Atlantic Crossing has certainly taken its toll and residents are really tired of all the construction, noise and traffic from these massive projects that go on for years,” she said.
Mollica was more measured as a member of the city’s planning board, saying only that she is disheartened to see businesses disappear and be replaced by townhomes. She then turned to her services at the Volen Center and her commitment to seniors.
She reported that she raised more than $13,000 for her campaign since October — including a maximum $1,000 contribution from Neil Schiller, a prominent land-use attorney who has represented developers and property owners in front of the commission.
Home rule
Rangel appears to be ready to make the issue of protecting home rule a central theme of her campaign.
“The League of Cities works to address the [state] preemptions, but I would like to go a step further and create a multi-city coalition,” she said. “After all, there is strength in numbers and I think a multi-city coalition to challenge the increasing number of state preemption laws that strip away local ‘home rule’ authority could be more effective.”
Mollica is “outraged” by the erosion of home rule.
“I think that the property tax [elimination] proposals sound attractive to people, but what it’s actually going to do for a municipality is going to defund our police, and it’s going to defund our fire (department). It’s going to defund any road work. It’s going to defund any beach restoration. It will defund us entirely.”
Keiser both-sided the issue.
“I think lowering costs for our families and our residents is always a priority. However, there’s also the other side, where people are scared that it’s going to detrimentally impact our essential services if we cut that much revenue,” she said.
Delray Beach city election
Election day: March 10
Last day to register to vote: Feb. 9
Last day to request mail-in ballot: Feb. 26
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