Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Ex-senator in race for Palm Beach County seat
Former state Sen. Maria Sachs wants another shot at representing southern Palm Beach County.
Sachs, a former Democratic senator who represented parts of Palm Beach and Broward counties, announced her candidacy Monday for the District 5 seat on the Palm Beach County Commission. That seat is currently held by Commissioner Mary Lou Berger, who is term-limited.
Sachs said she realizes it’s rather early to run for the 2020 election. But she’s had lots of people asking her when she’ll announce her candidacy, she said.
District 5 is made up of West Boca, West Delray and West Boynton. Sachs represented a similar district in the Florida Legislature for a decade but decided not to run for reelection in 2016 after the district was redrawn.
In the three years since she left office, she’s been keeping up with community affairs, she said.
Sachs served as the executive director at Innovation Florida, a technology company incubator, where she helped lead a free coding academy for students at Broward College, she said. She’s also gotten involved with the March For Our Lives movement, pushing for gun reform and safety in schools, she said.
While in the Florida Senate, Sachs pushed to increase penalties for texting while driving, increase labeling requirements for genetically modified foods and took a strong stance against human trafficking.
Sachs said she will be able to use her background in state politics to secure state and federal funding for anti-trafficking efforts at the county level.
“I have that background in that area, the knowledge of those contacts,” she said. “I want to bring them home to help me here. This is my home. This is where I raised kids. I intend to stay here, and want to make it safe and the best county of all the 67 counties in Florida.”
Sachs stressed the need for affordable housing for the county’s firefighters, teachers, and other workers. She supports what she called sustainable development in the Agricultural Reserve, a 22,000-acre conservation area west of Boynton Beach and Delray Beach.
“Growth is a good thing for any community, but you can’t have growth just for growth’s sake,” she said. “You have to do it in a sustainable way. When we build homes, specifically in the Ag Reserve, we have to have infrastructure to support the people who populate them. You have to have schools to handle the kids, and have the right traffic patterns.”
Sachs said the District 5 seat is unique because in the unincorporated areas, constituents don’t have a city government to go through first. Residents end up getting frustrated because they don’t feel heard and end up feeling second to big business, she said.
Sachs said she will hold listening tours in West Boca and West Delray to kick off her candidacy.
Sachs also has maintained a constitutional law practice for three decades.
“Now I’m ready to do what I’ve always wanted to do, and take what I’ve done in Tallahassee for the last 10 years and make it a reality here in Palm Beach County,” she said.
At least one other candidate has filed to run for the District 5 seat. Karen Brill, a Palm Beach County School board member, filed in February and is also running as a Democrat.
Other candidates have filed in races for the following commission seats:
■ District 1: Maria G. Marino (Republican)
■ District 7: Mackenson ‘Mack’ Bernard (Democrat, incumbent); Leonard Serratore (no party affiliation) and Caneste Succe (no party affiliation)