edward shropshire - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T15:54:59Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/edward+shropshireLantana: Six candidates square off in two raceshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/lantana-six-candidates-square-off-in-two-races2022-03-02T16:45:53.000Z2022-03-02T16:45:53.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Related stories: </strong><a href="https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/lantana-candidates-weigh-in-on-possible-hotel-at-beach?edited=1" target="_blank">Candidates weigh in on possible hotel at beach </a><strong>|</strong> <a href="https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/lantana-town-bids-farewell-to-malcolm-balfour-after-nine-years-on" target="_blank">Town bids farewell to Malcolm Balfour after nine years on council</a></p>
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<p><em>Lantana will hold a general election March 8 for Town Council members in Group 1 and Group 2. Both are for three-year terms. Council members get paid $600 per month, plus a $200 expense allowance. There are no term limits. To win, a candidate needs to get 50% of the vote plus one. If necessary, a run-off election will be March 22, using the same times and precincts as the general election. Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez confirmed that this election will have no ballot questions or amendments for voters.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:right;"><em>— Steven J. Smith</em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10165232101,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10165232101,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10165232101?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="505" /></a><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10165232880,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10165232880,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10165232880?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="509" /></a></em></p></div>Lantana: Town won’t appeal court’s decision to keep Shropshire on the ballothttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/lantana-town-won-t-appeal-court-s-decision-to-keep-shropshire-on-2020-01-29T17:26:17.000Z2020-01-29T17:26:17.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960932698,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960932698,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960932698?profile=original" /></a><em>Councilman Edward Shropshire awaits a decision from the Lantana Town Council on Jan. 22 on whether it would appeal a judge’s ruling that kept him on the ballot. Beside him is a Lantana resident, Catherine Phillips Padilla. <strong>Tim Stepien /The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>By Mary Thurwachter</strong></p>
<p>Mark Allen Zeitler, a candidate for the Group 3 seat on the Lantana Town Council, got what seemed to be celebratory news on Jan. 15. He was informed by town staff that the man he thought would be his opponent, council member Edward Shropshire, had not qualified for re-election. That meant Zeitler, who did qualify for election, would automatically fill the position when Shropshire’s first term expires in March. <br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960932873,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960932873,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-left" alt="7960932873?profile=original" /></a>But Zeitler didn’t rush to pop open the champagne — a wise decision as it turned out, because that news, as he had suspected, was too good to be true.<br /> “I’m a wait-and-see person,” said Zeitler, 63. “I knew he was going to court,” which is exactly what Shropshire did. The town, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Link and Zeitler were named as defendants.<br /> Less than a week later, a circuit judge ruled that Shropshire, 67, could remain on the ballot, despite the fact he had not turned in the petitions from registered voters necessary to qualify.<br /> Shropshire said he believed he had qualified after he turned in the certificate of qualification given by Link’s office to Nicole Dritz, the town clerk, before the Dec. 13 qualifying date and that she did not tell him otherwise. Dritz had two jobs at the time — clerk and development services director, a job to which she had been appointed after Dave Thatcher left in November. She now is no longer the clerk.<br /> The snafu leading up to the ruling began after an anonymous concerned citizen made a public records request to look at the Lantana candidates’ qualifying documents and discovered that three of the four candidates (Philip J. Aridas and Karen Lythgoe for the Group 4 seat, and Zeitler for the Group 3 seat) had filed all necessary paperwork. Shropshire’s documents were missing petitions from registered voters, although he did have a certification from the Supervisor of Elections Office saying that he had the petitions and they had been verified. <br /> After the citizen brought this discovery to the attention of the town clerk, Shropshire was told that his name would not appear on the ballot. And Zeitler was informed he won by default.<br /> In Circuit Court, Judge James Martz ruled in Shropshire’s favor.<br /> During an emergency Town Council meeting on Jan. 22, Town Attorney Max Lohman announced the judge’s decision and asked council members (minus Shropshire, who recused himself for obvious reasons) whether they wanted to appeal. Based on Lohman’s recommendation, they voted not to appeal.<br /> Lohman said that by “enforcing the code and getting the result from the court … the town removed any specter of appearing that the town administration favored an incumbent. We did the same thing we’d have done if it was anybody else.” <br /> Dritz’s telling the candidate he was good to go “was a mistake that could have been significant, but for the court’s ruling,” as Zeitler would then have been named winner.<br /> It’s noteworthy, Lohman said, “that the opponent (Zeitler), also named in the case, did not attend any of the hearings and did not have legal counsel attend any of the hearings. So, at this point, it seems to me appealing the case would almost be as if we were pressing forward that individual’s interest. … I think the result of the court still preserves the interest of the public and the town.”<br /> Zeitler, a political newcomer, said he got last- minute notification for the initial hearing on Jan. 17, and wasn’t able to be there for work reasons and didn’t have time to determine whether he needed counsel. He hadn’t done anything wrong, he said, and didn’t know what he could add to the proceedings. He did, however, suspend his campaign, held up on ordering lawn signs and stopped taking political contributions.<br /> The judge, Lohman said, doesn’t believe that this ruling in any way favors Shropshire. “He did acquire the petitions and in all aspects other than physically submitting them to the clerk, met all the requirements and qualifications.” <br /> The clerk is not responsible for correcting errors in paperwork, Lohman said, but the clerk is responsible for verifying that candidates have submitted all the required documents before informing them that they qualified. <br /> When Mayor David Stewart asked Lohman whether the town was setting a precedent by voting not to appeal, Lohman said, “No, sir, it does not.” <br /> The identity of the concerned citizen was not revealed. No logs are kept of people who come to view public records. “Under law … you are not permitted to require their name, to ask them why they want to see it or anything of that nature,” Lohman said.<br /> After the emergency meeting, Shropshire said he was pleased with the result. He said he thought the county’s certificate of qualification was all he had to turn in to the clerk. “All I really wanted was that the people of Lantana had a chance to decide,” he said.<br /> Zeitler said he was OK with the outcome, too. “This way the voters will decide,” he said. <br /> But regarding correctly filing qualification documents, Zeitler said of Shropshire, “Everybody else got it right and he has been through this before. Makes you wonder about his competence.” The election is March 17.</p></div>Along the Coast: Councils seat new members after decisions too close to callhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-councils-seat-new-members-after-decisions-too-clo2017-03-29T20:39:40.000Z2017-03-29T20:39:40.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;" class="font-size-7">Lantana recount upholds 2-vote victory</span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-2"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960712272,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="650" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960712272,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960712272?profile=original" /></a></strong></span><em>Newly elected Commissioner Edward Shropshire is sworn in to office March 27 by Town Attorney R. Max Lohman Jr.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>as Shropshire’s wife, Lorin, and Mayor Dave Stewart look on.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></p>
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<p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-2"><strong>By Mary Thurwachter<br /><br /></strong> Newcomer Edward Shropshire edged out incumbent Lantana council member Tom Deringer by two votes in the March 14 election. Shropshire won 262 votes to Deringer’s 260.<br /> That razor-thin margin triggered a recount three days later on St. Patrick’s Day.<br /> Deringer, who says he has some Irish blood, was hoping for a little luck to give him the victory.<br /> But that didn’t happen. Initial results held up and Shropshire remained the victor.<br /> “I’m just happy it’s over,” Shropshire said. “I worked hard, went door-to-door, talked to a lot of residents. I ran on my integrity.” <br /> He wants to be the new voice of Lantana, but even more a new ear for the town. “I plan to listen and learn,” he said.<br /> Shropshire, who works for a building materials company, is a local union representative and served on the town’s planning board, said he was proud of the way he ran his campaign, “no backbiting, very cordial.”<br /> Deringer agreed, saying neither he nor Shropshire was a mudslinger. “That’s not the way we do things in Lantana.”<br /> Deringer, who served on the council for 15 years, said low voter turnout contributed to his defeat.<br /> “I thought people who had come out for me before would come again, but not all of them did,” said Deringer, who owns Palm Beach Tire. <br /> “In past elections, I knocked on every door but this year I had to devote more time to business because we were two men short at work. I knocked on doors, but not all of them. And, unlike my opponent, I did not call to remind people to vote on election day. I think many people forgot about the election.”<br /> He said the town had been good to him and that he plans to continue to serve in some capacity.<br /> With a population of 10,867, Lantana has 6,239 registered voters, according to the county’s Supervisor of Elections office. Just 522 voters cast ballots in the Shropshire-Deringer race, translating to an 8.4 percent voter turnout — more than 5 percent less than the average for the 21 municipalities in the county with elections in March.<br /> While the turnout was low, Mayor Dave Stewart said it probably wasn’t a historic low for the town. “There was a lot of apathy in the ’70s and ’80s.”<br /> But Stewart and other town officials said the two-vote win by Shropshire was likely the closest race in the town’s history.<br /> A higher voter turnout, Stewart said, usually favors the incumbent, and a lower turnout favors the challenger. A 12 percent turnout may have meant a different outcome, he said.<br /> Low turnout also concerns Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher.<br /> “We have worked hard to establish a uniform municipal election date for 37 of our 39 municipalities and we’ve visited many of the cities who had elections prior to the March 14 election this year,” Bucher said. “We try to emphasize the direct impact that municipal elected officials have on the residents’ everyday life, but people like to vote in presidential elections and the voter turnout for municipal elections is unfortunately lower than we’d like.”<br /> Deringer, by the way, said St. Patrick’s Day did bring him good fortune, even if the recount didn’t go his way. He welcomed his seventh grandchild to the world later on the day of the recount. “His name is Tobias,” the proud granddad said. “We call him Toby.”<br /> In Lantana’s other contest, incumbent Phil Aridas beat newcomer Suzanne Gordon, 294-223.</span></p></div>