A contest becomes a cakewalk, and voters are the losers

Don’t blame Rodney Mayo’s dogs.

It was a lawsuit by West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James, not Mayo’s seven Lantana-housed pups, that robbed West Palm voters of a choice for mayor.

After Mayo filed to run against James last fall, the mayor sued the downtown businessman to make sure he would have no competition on the ballot on March 14.

Mayo did not live in the city, James argued. He lived in the Lantana house where he was getting his mail and keeping his dogs, and he had only recently changed his driver’s license to reflect a downtown Clematis Street address.

Of course, Rodney Mayo lives on Clematis. He practically created it.

In 1987, when Mayo opened his first Clematis Street business, the 500 block of Clematis was home to a soup kitchen, bar, furniture store and boarded storefronts. Mayo launched bars, restaurants, a coffee chain and a charity.

He redefined the street. There’s not a lot of hipster to be had in downtown West Palm, but what little there is, is mostly on Clematis.

It’s also where Mayo said he wakes up in the morning, in apartments built above his Respectable Street Cafe, and has been since the 1980s. The dogs are left to romp free in the Lantana house, he testified at trial. That’s because dog packs don’t thrive in upstairs apartments.

James had the better legal argument. He won the lawsuit — but voters lost.

Mayors have been elected in West Palm Beach since 1991, when the city dropped its practice of having commissioners appoint a mayor from among themselves. This is the first time in three decades a mayor waltzed into office with no challengers and no need for votes.

Having no challenger means James does not have to justify his decisions or persuade voters that his policies are in their best interest.

He does not have to revisit controversies.

Elected officials rarely skate through four years in office without some controversy nipping at their heels, and James is no exception. In 2019, James urged city commissioners to award a $7.9 million no-bid security contract to a friend. They did. An uproar followed. A month later, citing “new information,” James agreed it should be canceled and put out for bid.

In 2022, he helped trigger a lawsuit by Vita Lounge LLC, the newly chosen operator of the Sunset Lounge, the historic 1920s-era African-American nightclub owned by the city Community Redevelopment Agency. James forwarded an email to the city attorney tying Vita to Facebook posts.

The city ruled Vita was lobbying and disqualified the firm. The contract went to the firm James backed. That firm was disqualified too. Vita sued. A judge’s ruling is pending.

Meanwhile, the Sunset Lounge remains dark. Until it opens, the CRA said in July, the empty space could cost more than $320,000 a year to maintain.

Finally, there are the 2022 backto-back proposed hikes in downtown parking and sidewalk dining fees.

Mayo protested that new sidewalk fees could balloon from $150 to as much as $7,000, just as downtown restaurants were struggling to bounce back from the pandemic. Several said they had no idea hikes were in the works.

James’ response — that they should have been paying closer attention — might have been technically correct, but it was more than a little tone deaf.

In another blow to downtown business, the city announced it was doubling parking fees for meters, hiking garage parking fees, eliminating free parking on holidays and would be policing metered parking 24 hours a day. After 2,100 people signed a petition, the town shaved some of the increases and agreed to 12-hour-a-day enforcement.

James could very well be on the side of the angels in these issues. It’s also not his fault that no one besides Mayo stepped up to run against him and make the mayor’s race a contest instead of a cakewalk.

And James is absolutely correct in taking seriously the question of Mayo’s address.

Too often, candidates have slipped onto the ballot with murky or disputed addresses. They live at their brother’s house, or their third cousin’s nephew’s condo, or their recently bought sailboat or whatever roof will put them inside the correct political boundary. It’s a noxious practice.

But Mayo had a solid argument. Property records indicate he never claimed the Lantana dog house was his homestead. Plenty of people saw him in the Clematis apartments.

Given all that, the ultimate judge of whether Mayo’s home was (a) where he fed his dogs or (b) where he ate breakfast shouldn’t be a judge at all, Mayo’s lawyer unsuccessfully argued during the trial.

“The remedy is for Mr. James to call him a carpetbagger … and let (the people) make the choice.”

Instead, a recall of James is being discussed, spurred in part by issues that might have been forcefully addressed — even resolved in James’ favor — in the rough and tumble of a campaign.

James appears unperturbed about a recall. After all, he wrote in a statement to WPBF-Channel 25, every citizen has a right to have their voice heard.

Exactly.