Gulf Stream Town Commission candidate Martin O’Boyle and the city of Delray Beach have reached at least a temporary agreement in his federal lawsuit over campaign signs.
The city will stop removing O’Boyle’s signs as long as he puts them only “in any areas consistent with locations where other candidates (of any election) are permitted to place elections signs.”
The “of any election” stipulation is significant because O’Boyle had charged the city with violating his First Amendment right to free speech by removing his signs because he was not a candidate in Delray Beach’s election.
O’Boyle’s attorney, Ryan Witmer of Deerfield Beach, wrote in the lawsuit that the city was hurting his client’s candidacy by denying his constitutional right to political advertising and argued that it didn’t matter that he was running in Gulf Stream, not Delray Beach.
U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks called off a Monday hearing on O’Boyle’s request for an emergency restraining order after lawyers from both sides worked out terms of the agreed order over the weekend. The agreement also prohibits the city from “directing third parties to remove the signs” that O’Boyle puts up for the March 11 election.
Middlebrooks is expected to sign the order Monday afternoon.
— Dan Moffett
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