By John Pacenti
Delray Beach Mayor Tom Carney has turned over communications between himself and Mary McCarty, a former city and county commissioner still heavily involved in local politics.
The Coastal Star requested text messages, emails and other communications through a public records request after reports that McCarty was directing Carney from the gallery of the commission chambers during meetings.
The messages turned over do not show communications during a meeting, but they do show McCarty advising the mayor on controversial issues. The messages are also not under McCarty’s name — but a pseudonym that the mayor says is a long-standing joke between them.
A commissioner who sits right next to the mayor on the dais, though, said he has seen messages come into the mayor’s phone with McCarty’s given name during commission meetings. McCarty told the newspaper in December that her gesturing during meetings is due to frustration with commissioners’ lack of decorum.
City Attorney Lynn Gelin said the messages turned over completely fulfill the public records request made by the newspaper.
Carney told The Coastal Star that no one person has special access to him, and he speaks to any number of concerned citizens about issues.
“I have an open-door policy, I talk to a lot of people about all sorts of issues,” Carney said. “I reach out to people for ideas. People call me. I take the calls.”
He said McCarty appears as “Martin Davis” on his phone — the fiery former head of Paramount studios — as a joke between them.
“She’s been listed in my phone that way for 20 years. Why should I change it?” the mayor said.
The communications — emails and texts — were turned over seven weeks after the public records request was made on Dec. 8. One of the delays, according to Gelin, was due to the mayor's catching the flu in the first week of January.
“I would hope that you would show grace to someone who is dealing with a particularly harsh strain of the flu,” Gelin said when asked about the delay.
The requested text messages were provided to The Coastal Star as a series of screen shots cut-and-pasted into a document.
On one thread, McCarty was upset that the city had decided to sue the state over erasing its LGBTQ Pride rainbow intersection.
“There are X cities in Florida that are not subjecting their taxpayers to this. Why are we? This commission should not be used as a political pawn to advance a social agenda,” McCarty wrote on Sept. 10.
Carney had unsuccessfully opposed the city's joining the lawsuit at a commission meeting the day before her text. Carney then convened a special meeting of the commission — the day after McCarty’s text message — where he successfully urged the commission to reverse its decision to be part of the litigation. He called for the unscheduled meeting specifically for that purpose.
McCarty also had strong opinions for the mayor in August on a controversial renovation proposal for a historic home at 46 Marine Way in the Marina Historic District.
“Just tell them to redesign and be done with it,” McCarty told Carney on Aug. 18.
And indeed, that is what Carney suggested at the Aug. 19 meeting. The commission ended up rejecting the variances that would allow the home to be elevated by 14 feet, among other things. McCarty, in the text thread, referred to the city’s Historic Preservation Board, which supported the variances, as “corrupted.”
In another text thread, on Dec. 7, McCarty appeared to try to influence who would be the designated vice mayor after Rob Long left the commission to run for the state house. She told Carney to make a motion to make Commissioner Angela Burns vice mayor.
Carney nominated Burns as vice mayor at a commission meeting the next day.
Commissioner Tom Markert told The Coastal Star in December that he saw Carney’s phone and that the mayor was texting with McCarty under her given name at a meeting “in the last two months.” He also was informed that the text messages turned over to the newspaper were under the “Martin Davis” moniker.
“Yes, that is just lovely,” Markert said with a laugh.
Carney disputed the allegation. “It’s frustrating to have Commissioner Markert say he sees me texting someone whose name never appears in my phone. Therefore, it would be impossible for him to see me texting Mary McCarty,” he said.
He said the only person he texts during meetings is his wife.
A few emails were also turned over. In one, dated Sept. 25, McCarty — a fellow Republican — advised the mayor: “Understand you have a democratic, hostile board, so when you get all of the info, see if it is something that will be acceptable.”
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