Elect Price Patton and reelect Ryan Boylston

The voters of Delray Beach will elect two city commissioners in the citywide March 9 election. After an extensive review of the candidates in both races, the Sun Sentinel recommends newcomer Price Patton in Seat 1 and the reelection of Commissioner Ryan Boylston in Seat 3.

The two-person contest for Seat 1 is the easiest choice among Delray’s three races, which includes a contest for mayor. Patton, a first-time candidate with an impressive record of civic volunteerism, is well-prepared, knowledgeable and has the city’s best interests at heart. He also displays a civility that’s desperately needed in a community where personal attacks and verbal combat have poisoned the political atmosphere.

Patton would be an improvement over Commissioner Adam Frankel, a 49-yearold lawyer who’s seeking a fourth term. Frankel has had plenty of time to leave his mark on the city. After nine years in office, he has an undistinguished record that too often tilts in favor of development, which threatens to ruin the character of this special place, as it has in so many other Florida cities.

Patton is a slow-growth advocate who respects Delray’s unique character. “I will stand on the side of the neighborhoods,” he said in a Sun Sentinel editorial board interview.

Patton has served capably for more than six years on the city’s Historic Preservation Board and Site Plan Review Advisory Board — in both cases as Frankel’s appointee, by the way — where he opposed development projects that later won commission approval.

Frankel was a commissioner from 2009 to 2015, when he was forced to resign because of term limits. In 2018, he returned and won a third term with 43% of the vote against two opponents.

Frankel voted to extend the city’s monopoly trash-hauling contract with Waste Management without seeking competitive bids. He voted to fire George Gretsas as city manager last November without cause, which would have cost the city’s taxpayers about $180,000 in severance pay if he had prevailed, but Gretsas was fired with cause by a three-member commission majority. In his Sun Sentinel questionnaire, Frankel listed “aggressive panhandling” as one of the city’s three most-pressing problems.

Patton, 70, who’s making his first run for office, has also devoted his time to an afterschool program in the city’s Haitian-American community and to preserving George Washington Carver High School, the city’s historic Black high school.

He’s a retired editor at the Palm Beach Post and part-time editor of The Coastal

Star newspaper. If elected, Patton says he will sever ties with the Star, which regularly covers the city. With his long career in local journalism, Patton would bring a healthy skepticism to City Hall. He won’t be afraid to ask tough questions, and he’s smart enough to make up his own mind.

Patton and his wife, Carolyn Riley Patton, a Delray Beach native and publisher of the Star, have a son and two grandchildren and have lived in the same home in the Marina Historic District for 33 years.

There’s little doubt that Patton would give Mayor Shelly Petrolia another reliable ally on the commission. Patton and his wife each gave Petrolia’s campaign the maximum contribution of $1,000, and as Patton said in our editorial board interview, “I make no apologies” for a close alliance with the mayor. You can question Patton’s choices, but you have to respect his candor.

Patton has raised about $20,000 so far in this race, $10,000 of which is a personal loan. Through Jan. 31, Frankel reported raising about $34,500.

City commissioners serve three-year terms at a salary of $9,000 a year. The office is considered part-time and nonpartisan.

For Delray Beach City Commission Seat 1, the Sun Sentinel recommends Price Patton.

Delray Beach City Commission Seat 3

The citywide Seat 3 race is a rematch between Commissioner Ryan Boylston, currently the vice mayor, and former Commissioner Mitch Katz. Boylston defeated Katz in 2018 by a margin of 56% to 44%.

Boylston, 38, the owner of 2Ton, a digital marketing agency, is the better choice in this election. Despite our differences with him on several issues, including his vote to fire former City Manager George Gretsas without cause, Boylston is usually a solutions-oriented commissioner who deserves a second term in Seat 3.

He has shown a commitment to residents of The Set, the city’s historically Black community, and has been a strong supporter of workforce housing and of building alliances with the Palm Beach County school system. He enjoys the support of labor unions and local businesses, a sign that he’s able to build consensus across the political spectrum. As Boylston noted in his Sun Sentinel questionnaire, he has the support of seven former city mayors.

Boylston last year agreed to pay a $2,000 fine for two violations of the state ethics code for doing business with his government agency. He was the part-owner of a Delray Beach newspaper that accepted about $23,000 in paid advertising from the city’s Downtown Development Authority when he served as a city appointee to the DDA.

“I never voted to directly send advertising to my former newspaper,” Boylston told The Coastal Star last year after he agreed to a stipulation and fine in lieu of a formal hearing. “It was up to the DDA staff to decide where to spend their advertising dollars.”

Katz, 49, wrote in his Sun Sentinel questionnaire that he’s running again because Boylston violated the public trust in the DDA ethics case and should have resigned. That’s an overreaction. Boylston made a mistake and paid a price for it.

During our online candidate interviews, Katz engaged in name-calling, calling Boylston a “slick marketer” and “disingenuous.” He generally came across as argumentative and combative. City Hall needs less of that temperament.

Despite his ethical misstep, Boylston is the better choice. The voters got this one right three years ago, and they should make the same choice this time.

Boylston has raised about $51,000, including a personal loan of $10,000, and Katz has raised about $6,000.

For Delray Beach City Commission Seat 3, the Sun Sentinel recommends Ryan Boylston.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.

Boylston

Patton