Palm Beach voters are last hope against conflicts of interest

Saturday, October 04, 2008
By WILLIAM O. COOLEY
Special to the Daily News

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Most communities in America have a series of "backstops" or "fail-safes" in place to guarantee clean government and to protect its citizens from, and to root out, corruption and conflicts. In Palm Beach, this fail-safe system has broken down.

The first line of defense for the electorate to ensure corruption-free government should be the governing body: the Palm Beach Town Council. In our case, however, the majority of the Town Council is blind to this issue.

In a recent vote that would have ended the practice of board and commission members being hired by developers to represent the developer before the very board or commission upon which the member sat, only Susan Markin and David Rosow voted to end the practice. Gail Coniglio, Denis Coleman and Richard Kleid voted to allow those conflicts to continue.

Why, you might ask? It wasn't for the lofty reasons that were stated by these three. In fact, it was to continue to allow their cronies on these boards and commissions the ability to continue to make money taking these jobs from developers, while at the same time continuing to serve in these positions of public trust.

It is all about money and power, not about government service.

The first line of defense has failed.

Next, most communities have some sort of public or civic watchdog group that keeps an eye on government and alerts the voters when conflicts or corruption occurs. In the old days, that would have been the Palm Beach Civic Association. However, those days are past.

The Palm Beach Civic Association, which at one time would have sounded the alarm and demanded clean government, has been taken over by a handful of people who have turned it into a political organization. Gone are the days of civic responsibility; they have been replaced by an organization whose main function is to collect money and make sure they have at least three Town Council members they can control.

The Civic Association has a war-chest of $750,000 and keeps collecting more and more from the citizens of Palm Beach (who believe their money and time is going to some good cause) while doing little for the town. Its major goal is not civic, but political; to keep a majority it can control on the Town Council. What does it do for the town that does not have, or bring it, political payback? Think about it.

In a normal world, the Civic Association, or any real community-based civic watchdog group, would be screaming to the heavens about Palm Beach's ordinance that allows five conflicts of interest per year by board or commission members. However, since most, if not all, of the board of commission members with those conflicts are either directors or members of the Civic Association, they have decided to look the other way while this corruption continues. Their goal of keeping a majority on the Town Council overrides their civic obligation.

The second line of defense has failed.

In most communities, when government and civic groups have failed, or have been corrupted by politics, there is a third fail-safe: the local newspaper. The free press will come to the rescue and "shame" those guilty parties and correct the problem. Not in the case of Palm Beach.

The editorial staff of our "free press," the Palm Beach Daily News, instead of pointing out the problem that exists with the public's skepticism of the outcome of planning and zoning matters by boards or commissions upon which sit commissioners who have been "hired" by the very developers they are supposed to be governing, gives the Town Council a pat on the back for not ending the corruption. I won't go into reasons why, as they won't print them anyway.

Our third line of defense has failed.

What to do? There is a fourth line of defense, the final line of defense.

When all else fails, when the council doesn't act, when the civic associations are part of the problem, and when the newspaper gives them both a pat on the back for failing to clean up conflicts and corruption, we have one final option: the ballot box.

On Feb. 3, when our town elections are held, we can bring our own personal fail-safe system into play. We can vote against the candidates of corruption, the candidates who support allowing their cronies to take money for services from the very developers they are supposed to regulate. You can send a message to the town government, the Civic Association and the newspaper that says, "We want our town back, and we'll clean it up up."

-- Patrick Henry Flynn, President
Palm Beach Theater Guild, Inc.
POB 667, Palm Beach, FL 33480
T. 561 366-8980; F. 561 833-6865
http://www.pbtheaterguild.org/