By Steve Plunkett
Former Mayor Jim Newill is moving out of town five months after losing his re-election bid to a campaign engineered by his neighbors and former supporters at Villa Costa condominiums. He bought his new condo in Trieste at Boca Raton from the brother of Mayor Bernard Featherman, the man who beat him at the polls March 8.
The reason Featherman’s brother was selling: He and his wife were buying a unit in Villa Costa, where the new mayor and his wife also live.
Newill said his condo neighbors “forced me into a distress sale.
“It’s all pertaining to a lawsuit against Villa Costa,” Newill said, deferring further comment to his lawyers. “I don’t want to say anything that could jeopardize my suit.”
Daniel Featherman, the mayor’s younger brother, said he did not know Newill was the buyer of his Trieste condo until late in the sale.
“You wouldn’t believe something like this would happen,” he said.
“It’s like out of a movie, I guess,” Bernard Featherman said.
The offer to buy was made by a real estate agent and a lawyer, the younger Featherman said; the first time he saw Newill’s name was when an insurance agent came to inspect the sale.
“He himself was not at the settlement,” Daniel Featherman said.
The falling-out at Villa Costa began in 2009 when Newill sued the condo association, as well as each board member individually, over the state of his penthouse unit.
“He claimed all sorts of things — improper construction, he claimed things about mold. What else did he claim? Just about everything,” said Carl Feldman, president of the association.
Feldman was Newill’s campaign treasurer in 2005 when Newill first ran for Town Commission and again in 2008 when he first ran for mayor. Retired Judge Joseph Colby, the board’s vice president, was Newill’s manager in 2008.
Feldman said he and Colby asked Newill to drop their names from the suit and just sue the condo. When Newill refused, Feldman said they shifted their allegiance to Bernard Featherman, the board’s new secretary, who they thought was “more qualified” for the mayor’s job.
Colby said Newill’s handling of a flap over racist and off-color emails at Town Hall convinced him to look for another candidate.
“We realized whatever Newill was doing was not going to be good for the town,” Colby said.
Newill broke a 2-2 vote in January to discuss then-Town Manager Dale Sugerman’s planned punishment of the town clerk for sending the emails, then recommended ordering Sugerman to rescind a one-month unpaid suspension or be suspended himself for insubordination. Sugerman was suspended for five months with pay until his contract expired. In April, a hearing officer decided a written reprimand was enough punishment for the town clerk.
Being the incumbent this year, Newill apparently felt he was a shoo-in, Feldman said.
“He refused to debate [Featherman] and he didn’t put out much campaign literature. He didn’t go to many condos,” Feldman said.
Featherman took the opposite tack, even walking the beach in his blue blazer to meet voters, Feldman said.
Feldman said Newill’s lawsuit is still pending, but no other owner at Villa Costa has complained about the building.
“In fact, the new fellow who bought his unit didn’t find any mold,” Feldman said.
He said he does not know Newill’s reasons for leaving.
“No one in Town Hall seems to know why either,” said Feldman, the newest member of the town’s Planning Board.
Colby has been on the town’s Board of Adjustment and Appeals since 2008, when Newill vouched for his appointment to the panel. He’s now vice chairman. Bill Gross, another Villa Costa board member named in Newill’s suit, just took a seat on the town’s Financial Advisory Board.
Former Commissioner John Sorrelli said Newill was moving because of problems with his condo, plus losing the election was “a big disappointment.”
“It’s his own fault,” Sorrelli said. “He didn’t debate.”
A certified public accountant, Newill and his wife bought their Villa Costa condo in December 2001. He later became chairman of the town’s Financial Advisory Board and served on the condo board. Newill became a commissioner in 2005 and mayor in 2008. The Trieste is off Federal Highway north of Yamato Road.
“I certainly wish Jim Newill good wishes wherever he moves,” Bernard Featherman said. He remembered being disappointed by Newill’s abrupt departure from the commission chambers when the new mayor was sworn in.
“He gave his time and worked for the town, and I wanted to give him credit,” Featherman said. “He just ran away from me.”
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