Paula Ryan running for mayor
As a city commissioner since 2015, Paula Ryan has overseen some of West Palm’s poor neighborhoods and some of its wealthiest. She has brought to the job an affinity for big goals that take coalition-building and years of pushing forward, from a pending redesign of U.S. 1 to initiating an alliance with the Purpose-Built Communities, a nonprofit she lured to the city in hopes of coordinating a major neighborhood resurgence.
She brings to the table a knowledge of real estate development at a time when $2 billion worth of projects are sprouting around the city. That may worry some who fear politicians sympathetic with moneyed interests, but she sees having built and managed over 10,000 units of affordable housing as a positive, as is her knowledge of investment banking, municipal finance, community organizing and running a business.
In an interview Thursday, Ryan said she’s running for mayor because she’s “the right candidate to move the city forward.” She has a family history of public service, one of seven children, six of whom served in the military. She has focused on community action, serving as president of the El Cid Neighborhood Association, and on many public boards from the county Planning Commission and the Commission on Affordable Housing, to the West Palm Community Redevelopment Agency, Transportation Planning Agency, Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, Historic Northwest Community Consortium and Historic Northwest Salvation Army Community Center, Golf Commission and others.
She served as a Neighborhood Team Leader in 2008 and 2012 for Barack Obama’s election campaigns, building a team of community organizers. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2011.
“I have continued to volunteer for Organizing for Action, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Enroll America, to ensure everyone has access to the American Dream,” she said.
She wants to continue the many good things the city is doing now in shaping its future, but to do so with greater government transparency, “so the residents understand why we’re putting these big-picture plans together.”
Ryan, 58, has a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Economics and has worked as president of The Richman Group of Florida, and of White Oak Real Estate Development/Management Corp., as a consultant for the city’s department of Economic and Community Development, and as senior vice president of development for T-Rex Capital in Boca Raton. Mostly retired from real estate for a dozen years, she currently is president and owner of Internet Business Solutions and Design.
“West Palm Beach is already a world class city and what we need is a person who can lead us to the next level in the city’s evolution,” Ryan said. “I have the vision, the knowledge and the compassion to lead the city and everyone in the city forward. I want to preserve our past without sacrificing our future.”