Elect Spavento and Castro to change Margate City Commission’s reputation
Margate is a micromanaged mess. Key leadership positions remain unfilled. The city commission ran off the former police chief. Despite a recent search, there’s no permanent city attorney. Margate faces a lawsuit by a developer who claims the city backed out of a deal.
To their critics, Mayor Arlene Schwartz and commissioners Anthony Caggiano and Tommy Ruzzano are responsible for these problems. The three regularly outvote commissioners Lesa Peerman and Joanne Simone.
As part of their power play, they placed charter amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot that would shift power from City Manager Samuel May to the commission and thus worsen Margate’s factional politics and general dysfunction. Those proposals are discussed in a separate editorial on this page.
Voters will choose just two commissioners this year. Seat 3 is open and Simone is running for reelection to Seat 5. There can’t be a new majority, but voters can start to give Margate a new direction.
Although he denied it during the candidate interview with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Realtor Antonio Arserio appears to be the commission majority’s preferred candidate. He criticizes May, but the manager’s real problem is the commission majority’s overreach from policy guidance to decision making. Arserio also supports the majority’s attempt to end term limits, which voters overwhelmingly approved just seven years ago.
The other three candidates agree on the major issue confronting the city. Retailer Phil Beracha says the commission majority is “serving itself.” Attorney Renata Castro, who ran unsuccessfully for the commission in 2016, says the majority trio is “harassing” May, engages in “personal vendettas” and wrongly raised the commissioners’ salaries and car allowance. Flight attendant/Realtor Jennifer Giltrap praises May, adding that the majority does “a lot of micromanaging” and needs to “put people first.”
Margate always has attracted retirees. More recently, young families have moved in, drawn by lower home prices. The city of 58,000 began as a development, is starting to age and needs a boost.
Seawalls must be repaired. A key cityowned property on State Road 7 remains vacant. A developer wants to build on the Carolina community’s golf course. The fire-rescue contract with Coconut Creek brings Margate $3 million, but Coconut Creek might look at other options.
Despite these needs, this year’s budget dropped by nearly $5 million. And there’s that lawsuit, which resulted from reckless campaign promises two years ago. Meeting these challenges requires better leadership. It’s a close call between Castro and Giltrap, but we recommend voters choose Castro because she is not just well-informed, but also forceful. She wants the commission to lobby harder on behalf of Margate schools.
In the Seat 5 race, Tony Spavento agrees with Simone’s criticism of the commission majority. He’s running against her because Beracha is a “dear friend” and he considers Simone “generally ineffective” against the majority.
During her endorsement interview, Simone acknowledged that she’s not eager to debate on the dais. She prefers to address residents’ complaints with the city manager afterward.
Spavento immodestly calls himself “the most qualified candidate ever to run” in Margate, but he might have a point. Spavento has spent 13 years — the last 12 as chairman — on the Coral Bay Community Development District. The elected directors function much like a city commission for the roughly 1,000 homes within Coral Bay.
Spavento also has done business with Margate, through his lighting company, so he’s seen that side of city government. He would not continue that business if elected. And he regularly attends commission meetings.
Simone has served on the commission since 2012 and is sincere about wanting to solve Margate’s problems. She worries about the service city residents get from the new, county-operated 911 system. Margate, she said, should consider re-establishing its own system or contracting with Coral Springs, which has its own system.
Both Seat 5 candidates oppose the charter changes that would give the commission more power. Both want Margate to grow, but retain a “small town” feel. Both consider seawalls a priority.
But Spavento has a better plan. Simone says only residents who live on canals should pay for the repairs, perhaps through a special taxing district. Spavento argues that the risk of flooding from canal decay affects the entire city. He opposes the $10 million parks bond on the ballot and favors a citywide bond program for the canal work.
The Coral Bay board, Spavento wrote in his Sun Sentinel questionnaire, “is more concerned with results than notoriety.”
Margate’s prevailing majority has made the city notorious. To change that, the Sun Sentinel recommends Renata Castro for Seat 3 on the Margate City Commission and Tony Spavento for Seat 5.