Delray Beach voters should choose Casale, Gray

Delray Beach is torn in opposite directions by forces supporting and opposing growth in the picturesque “Village by the Sea.”

The clearest illustration of the tussle over the city’s future is in the race for Seat 2 on the City Commission between incumbent Juli Casale and challenger Rob Long.

Casale, 54, a liberal arts graduate of Harvard University’s extension school, was a mom, civic volunteer and city zoning board member who led a fight against a 102-unit development in her single-family-home neighborhood. She narrowly beat Commissioner Bill Bathurst three years ago in a four-person race after being outspent 3-to-1.

Long, 38, an engineer with a master’s in business administration from the University of Florida, owns a grass-roots advocacy firm, Door 2 Door Strategies, that provides paid strategic advice to candidates, political groups and developers. He also was on the zoning board and for the past six years has been an elected member of the county Soil and Water Conservation District.

Casale’s record is not without controversy. In a city known for 3-2 split decisions, she was in the majority that terminated a $1-a-year city lease with Old School Square after a critical audit and questions of financial irregularities after the city had given millions to the cultural center. (Long opposed breaking the lease.)

The decision was made abruptly with inadequate public notice and is now the subject of a legal battle, but it was the right call.

Casale was in the 3-2 majority that voted (belatedly) to fire a controversial former city manager, George Gretsas, and was a member of the three-vote majority that gave commissioners a substantial pay raise during the pandemic.

Casale consistently views development projects with healthy skepticism.

She opposed (and Long supported) Aura Delray, a 292-unit complex of high-end apartments, saying the 72 designated workforce housing units are too expensive. She also said the project eliminated what little remained of the city’s industrial or commercial zoning, which could mean higher property taxes for residents.

The overall record shows that Long would not be an improvement over Casale, and for those voters who especially value ethical government, Long is a risk Delray Beach can’t afford to take. Frankly, Long’s ties to developers have not received enough media attention.

Long’s firm has done paid work for development firms that needed his vote on zoning approvals. In some cases, Long confirmed, a lobbyist for developers referred work to Long’s business, which he disclosed once in 2020, a situation that a city legal advisor said was not a conflict of interest. As an elected commissioner, Long would have vastly greater influence over development, and his dual role as a paid strategist for developers, in our view, poses troubling and recurring conflict-of-interest questions.

The situation is further clouded by the insistence by Long’s clients that he sign secret non-disclosure agreements, or

NDAs — the absolute antithesis of transparency.

Meanwhile, Casale has kept her poise in the face of scurrilous attacks that have poisoned this city’s politics. Critics filed five frivolous ethics complaints against her; all were dismissed. A trashy website run by a political operative makes unsubstantiated personal attacks. Even Long himself has claimed Casale’s Harvard degree is fake, even though she has provided photos of her diploma.

Delray Beach is better than this. For Seat 2, the Sun Sentinel recommends Juli Casale.

Seat 4: Angie Gray

This is a fight for a seat that became open because Shirley Johnson, the incumbent, is term-limited. A Delray Beach City Commission term is for three years at a salary of $24,000 a year. This nonpartisan, citywide election is open to all voters.

The candidates are Angela Burns, 57, a retired teacher and union representative, and Angie Gray, 57, a former city commissioner, Realtor and construction company owner. The Seat 4 commissioner must be a forceful and untiring advocate for residents and businesses in northwest and southwest Delray, an area known locally as “The Set,” while also making sound decisions for the city as a whole.

Both candidates have deep roots in Delray and both are well-prepared, but Gray is the better option for several reasons.

Gray has been tested in a city where politics are becoming more confrontational, and has years of experience in the trenches, such as on the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).

“I know what the community needs,” Gray said in a videotaped Sun Sentinel Editorial Board candidate interview.

Burns and Gray disagree on several key points, amplified in their Sun Sentinel candidate questionnaires.

Burns said the biggest problem in the city is a “culture of fear” where people feel political retribution for speaking their minds. Gray said the biggest problem in the city is overdevelopment, with the related pressures.

Burns said she opposed the city’s decision to break its lease with Old School Square’s governing board, and said she was open to re-installing the old, discredited board that ran OSS. In our view, that would be a step backward.

Gray said she supported the city’s decision to terminate the lease. Gray said OSS was lax in not answering the city’s questions, but more public input was needed.

On Mayor Shelly Petrolia’s leadership, Burns expressed a lack of confidence in her, calling Petrolia a “polarizing figure.” Gray said she respected Petrolia as mayor, calling her “a force for sensible growth.”

There are warning flags in both candidates’ backgrounds. Burns is currently a defendant in a lawsuit involving the sale of a liquor license after Studio 404, her son’s failed daiquiri bar, closed during the pandemic.

The lawsuit by SKN Holdings, a silent partner in the business, claims the liquor license sale generated $340,000 in profits, but that Burns kept the money. Burns said the proceeds from the sale paid back taxes and other debts owed by the bar and what was left was returned to all investors on a pro-rated basis.

Burns also has been hit with property tax liens for unpaid federal income taxes, documents show.

As for Gray, she was acquitted by a jury in 2015 of misdemeanor charges of violating the state ethics laws after voting, as a commissioner, to award a city contract to a firm whose principals included her campaign manager, Alberta McCarthy

(the city rescinded the contract and hired another vendor). In that case, investigators also learned that McCarthy separately helped Gray pay down a loan on her beauty salon business.

Those arrangements raised serious questions, but a jury found Gray not guilty. For Delray Beach City Commission Seat 4, the Sun Sentinel recommends Angie Gray.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its staff members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.

Gray

Casale