In Lake Worth Beach, retain 3 at City Hall
In politics, incumbency matters.
It means greater name recognition, stronger fundraising and a record of accomplishment. But the greatest power of incumbency in local politics may be that the incumbent is the default setting.
Every challenger has to convince voters why they should vote to remove someone holding public office. Change for change’s sake simply isn’t enough.
In Lake Worth Beach, an up-and-coming city of roughly 43,000 with a funky downtown, growing diversity and recent beachy rebranding, incumbents face challengers in two city commission races and the race for mayor. But those challengers have not made the case that the incumbents have failed at their jobs.
We recommend voters keep three incumbents in the March 19 city election.
The mayor earns $29,500 a year and commissioners make $24,500, and they receive a $500 per month car allowance. The race for mayor is citywide, and this is the first election in which individual commissioners are running in single-member districts rather than in citywide elections.
Mayor
Commissioners have taken some tough votes in the past year, including the firing of city manager Carmen Davis at a special meeting that was noticed as a performance review and the renegotiated lease for Benny’s on the Beach, an iconic seaside restaurant on city property.
Those controversial votes may explain why Mayor Betty Resch, 73, drew three opponents in her bid for reelection.
William Joseph, 53, a private investigator by trade, wrote in his Sun Sentinel Editorial Board questionnaire that “my opponents don’t [have] any solution for problem[s] in the city.”
First-time candidate Alex Cull, well-spoken and well-prepared and, at 32, a senior strategist at Amazon Business, wrote that Resch is “known for confrontation, eye-rolling and inefficiency.”
But Resch is reasonable, competent and on the right side of contentious issues, even if it was the losing side.
A fourth mayoral candidate, former Vice Mayor Andy Amoroso, 60, has experience, but his tenure was marked by the anger and dysfunction we’ve seen in some other cities. In a major shakeup, the trio of Resch and commissioners Sarah Malega and Kim Stokes ousted then-Mayor Pam Triolo, Amoroso and Scott Maxwell from office three years ago, after a vicious campaign in which the eventual winners were branded anarchists and socialists.
In her questionnaire Resch cited her “professionalism” that has served the city well, and we agree.
Among Resch’s opponents, Cull was most impressive and pointed out in our online interview that the city’s growing Hispanic and Mayan communities are too often ignored, and that Dixie Highway should no longer be a metaphorical barrier between the city’s white and nonwhite areas. As of the 2020 census, this is a majority-minority city whose minority groups deserve more attention. We hope Resch takes Cull’s criticisms seriously.
City Commission District 1
Commissioner Sarah Malega faces water treatment plant superintendent Melvin Pinkney. On contentious city issues Malega tends to side with Resch, and we generally agree with their outlook. Both women voted against the sudden firing of Davis, a dismissal carried out in a haphazard and heartless manner.
Malega, 47, is the class of the field. She knows her city well, studies the issues, does voter outreach on a Haitian radio station and is active in the Florida League of Cities. Pinkney, 60, a pastor, seemed less well-informed on substantive issues.
A point of contention between them involves a controversial housing option known as multi-tenant housing units in which multiple unrelated people live under one roof, sharing a bath and kitchen.
Malega voted to reject the concept, but Pinkney says he’s open to exploring it, citing soaring monthly rents of $2,000 or more for a one-bedroom apartment in Lake Worth Beach.
We agree that multi-tenant housing raises too many unanswered questions.
City Commission District 3
In District 3, City Commissioner Kim Stokes, 41, a former high school math teacher, faces current middle school math teacher Mimi May, 48. Stokes has been on the opposite end of some contentious votes from Resch and Malega, particularly on firing city manager Davis, in which Stokes and two other commissioners ousted the city manager.
May opposed the firing, calling it “heartless and humiliating.” She also strongly opposed Stokes’ rejection of a proposed lease agreement with Benny’s on the Beach.
“I was reading the market analysis, doing research, and working with the city attorney to find the best deal,” Stokes wrote in her questionnaire. “She (May) was part of the golf-cart parade, advocating for the owner who was taking advantage of the city.”
May is perhaps the strongest challenger in this field. She says she is “worried about the culture at City Hall,” and cites high city employee turnover, which she found through public record, a sign of her ability to do the homework needed for this job.
But Stokes is serious and well-informed, and much of the controversy over Davis, whom Stokes voted to fire, stemmed from city workers’ complaints. Moreover, Stokes’ disagreements with Resch and Malega were carried out in a collegial way, without personal antagonism.
For Lake Worth Beach, the Sun Sentinel recommends Betty Resch for mayor and Sarah Malega and Kim Stokes for the city commission.