In Coral Springs, return Daley and elect Simmons
The death this week of Mayor Walter “Skip” Campbell has eclipsed Coral Springs’ Nov. 6 election. Mr. Campbell had won another term without opposition and was the city’s stabilizing force.
Campbell was a great lawyer, a great statesman and a great friend to many.As a state senator from 1996 to 2006, he was a leader among peers. He built bridges, kept bad things from happening and said what needed to be said. He’d have made a great Florida Attorney General, too, but lost that race to Bill McCollum.
We spoke to Campbell just a week or so ago about the November election. Personally, he was pleased to have won re-election without opposition. He said he couldn’t knock on doors like he once did, though he never mentioned his hip surgery.
One of the many things we liked about Campbell was not only that he stood up for people, but that he kept a watchful eye on the public purse. He didn’t support the building of a $28 million City Hall in 2014, calling it a Taj Mahal. Neither did he advocate for the city’s three bond referendums last March.
He was, though, helping to lead a petition drive for a constitutional amendment that would ban the sale of military-style assault weapons, like the one used to massacre 17 people in Parkland. After the shooting, he almost immediately stepped up to lead the campaign.
There will be a special election to fill Campbell’s seat. No date is set. One of the two incumbents on the ballot could well run after winning a new term, which would create another vacancy.
We can’t speculate on what will happen. We can hardly believe Campbell is gone.
So for now, we will stick with what we had written before his passing. *** Seven months ago, Coral Springs voters cast what one could argue was a vote of no confidence in the city commission.
In a special election that cost nearly $200,000, three bond programs that the commission had placed on the ballot failed. The proposals for parks and public safety improvements lost by more than 60 percent. The plan for street repairs did better, but still got only 49 percent.
We suspect voters shot down these proposals because six months earlier, the commission had approved a budget that raised property taxes roughly 23 percent. Though commissioners defended the need for the debt spending, the public wasn’t buying it.
There’s a lot to like about this city of roughly 135,000, which began as a development by Coral Ridge Properties and has transitioned to a full-service city.
The city has a AAA bond rating. Its Center for the Arts presents dynamic shows. Its new municipal complex — an attempt to create a downtown — opened in January. City Manager Michael Goodrum, hired last fall, appears to be doing well. And commuters may finally see some relief from a state project to link the Sawgrass Expressway and Interstate 95.
The double whammy of a big tax increase and bond proposals, however, indicates the commission may be out of touch with many residents. Incumbents Dan Daley in Seat 2 and Lou Cimaglia in Seat 4 drew challenges.
Daley’s opponent, accountant Diane Gonzalez Simpson, said she is running to bring “fiscal responsibility.” She also seems to be running because of a dispute with Daley.
During her interview with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Simpson said she approached each commissioner with a request to keep a small boat on the side of her house. City code requires residents to keep boats in garages.
Daley, Simpson said, “was rude to me.” Regarding her campaign, the boat “is not a big issue. It’s how I was dismissed.” Daley then sort of apologized. “I didn’t respond in the most toned-down way that I could have.”
Our experience is that Daley can come off as dismissive. One example is his criticism of the Sunshine Law, which he says state lawmakers shoved down the throats of municipal governments. Daley seems to have his eye on the next elected office, mostly like that of Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who faces term limits in two years. Daley would not commit to serving a full term.
Simpson, though, is not a credible alternative. For the interview, she brought several easels, multiple charts and reams of papers. She used them for a presentation that supposedly would show bad financial management by Daley and the other commissioners.
Yet Simpson could not come to a coherent point when she was done. However passionate she might be, Simpson isn’t ready to serve on the commission unless voters like the prospect of overly long meetings. She didn’t even know the size of Coral Springs’ budget.
Daley said, “I have the institutional knowledge,” which he does. He said some neighborhoods “look tired” and “some roads never have been paved.” With a new term, he’d like to craft a plan for public works improvements that residents can support.
District 4 is a tougher choice. Cimaglia is affable and easygoing. A retiree, he attends all meetings of the city committees to which commissioners are assigned and said, “I love every minute of it.”
Cimaglia, though, doesn’t seem to appreciate the commission’s recent actions. “We raised taxes a little bit,” he said of the 23 percent increase. “We got no phone calls,” he said. Rejection of those bond proposals was much stronger than a phone call.
Cimaglia’s opponent is Joshua Simmons, a teacher at Coral Springs High School. He also has been a member of several civic organizations. Simmons spent 90 minutes with the city manager to discuss city issues and said Goodrum is doing “a good job.”
Simmons agrees with Cimaglia that Coral Springs has public works needs. The difference is that Simpson said he wouldn’t ask residents for so much so soon. He favored a tax increase for this year, noting that previous commissions had raided reserve funds to balance the budget. But he favored a smaller increase.
Simpson also called the bond proposals “haphazard” and said he would have placed only the road plan on the ballot because that’s the biggest need. He said the city should not have to pay the full cost of what will be 24 resource officers in the city’s schools.
Coral Springs politics are in flux. Based on the names that will be on the Nov. 6 ballot, however, the Sun Sentinel recommends Dan Daley for Seat 2 on the Coral Springs City Commission and Joshua Simmons for Seat 4.