Martino: Ironwood Park Kudos

In case you have not heard the City of Palm Beach Gardens has a new neighborhood park. The location is the City-owned vacant lot on the corner of Holly Drive and Ironwood Road in Plat 1. It is fittingly named Ironwood Park. The City budgeted $150,000 as a commitment to the park’s success and has recently added updated safety features, irrigation, and enhanced landscaping. It has become an instant neighborhood sensation, as well as, a property value asset and enhancer.

Ironwood Park is well designed and tastefully landscaped. The park has a plethora of activity centers geared for toddlers and youngsters up to 12 years of age with plenty of parent park benches. Included, is a Zip Line apparatus with “special needs” provisions for the physically challenged and is a first for the City’s park facilities inventory. Parking has been provided with a pathway leading to the park entry keeping the little ones safely away from the road.

The City has made a concerted effort to improve the maintenance and appearance of properties in the corridor of Holly Drive between Ironwood Road and Lighthouse Drive on the east side. Much has been done and is appreciated but much more is expected and necessary.

The impetus for the new park and the neighborhood improvements can be attributed in a large measure, in my opinion, to two individuals, Steven Martino and Carl Woods. Steven is my son and Carl is a City Councilman. Also, the City Administration particularly, the Public Works and Recreation Departments, deserve high praise for a job well done.

Carl Woods was seated as a new Palm Beach Gardens Council member in 2016. Having been apprised of the problems of the older neighborhoods while campaigning door to door, Carl promised he would work to improve what he could. He has kept to his word and has made a difference. He pushed and prodded the City Council and Administration with persistence and patience to begin the alleviation of the problem areas along Holly Drive and to make Ironwood Park a reality. Carl should be applauded for the improvement in the appearance of the Holly Drive east corridor and for making Ironwood Park a reality.

An Analysis of the Charter Vote

The March 13 municipal election asked 2 questions of the voters regarding the charter. The ballot actually had 4 questions, but the first two were thrown out by a judge for being misleading, and were not counted.

Question 3 asked if term limited council members should be allowed to run again after sitting out 3 years, and question 4 would replace our “majority wins” system with a plurality – “highest vote total wins” system.

The results by precinct are shown on the maps below – click on the precinct for the individual results.

For a March election without candidates, the turnout was substantial, with about 4700 casting their votes. There were a couple of interesing anomolies about this election though – absentee ballot totals were much higher than normal, and at the polls, the number of “Under-Votes” was an excessive 3.4%.

We have a theory about the undervotes. (It is somewhat technical, so bear with me.)

An “under-vote” is when someone votes a ballot with nothing filled in. At the precinct, the optical scanners are supposed to only flag this as an error if NOTHING on the ballot is filled in – skipping a single question will be reported as an under-vote by the SOE in the results, but the scanner doesn’t flag it and the poll workers wouldn’t know about it.

In this case though, both questions had the same number of under-votes, implying that the ballots were blank and should have been flagged. When the scanner detects this condition, it beeps and prints on the tape “UNDER-VOTE” and spits the ballot back out. The inspector working the scanner is then expected to ask the voter if they intended to submit a blank ballot. If it was a mistake, the voter takes their ballot back and marks it. If the voter intended to submit it blank, then the inspector pokes a key in a hole on the back of the scanner to “OVERRIDE” the error and accept the ballot. We asked an inspector at one of the precincts with a number of under-votes if there were any overrides – and they couldn’t recall any.

Our theory is this:

Because of the short time to react after the lawsuit, the Supervisor of Elections did not have time to program the scanners to ignore the front page of the ballot (questions 1 and 2). Therefore, since 1&2 were on page 1 and 3&4 were on page 2, it is likely many people, knowing there were only 2 questions to answer, filled in the front page (1&2) and did not notice there was a back page. The scanners should have caught this but apparently accepted 1&2 as constituting a “non-blank” ballot, and did not flag it. As a result, about 160 people (enough to change the results on question 4), were possibly disenfranchised and not afforded the option to fix the error.

This is a “hanging chad” situation regarding the “intention of the voter”, particularly since it may have affected the outcome. There is a paper trail if this is the case – the tapes for each of the optical scanners are supposed to be saved (although I don’t know for how long). The tapes would show whether any “undervotes” were flagged and if that count equaled the 161 reported under-votes in Palm Beach Gardens.

The absentee ballots numbers were also interesting as 46% of the voters cast their ballots that way. This is significant because the absentee “YES” margin was 9 points higher on question 3 and 7 points higher on question 4. Without the absentee votes, question 4 would have lost handily.

Why do I mention this? Because all the questions were misleading and until the lawsuit and the little bit of campaigning that was done, most people were naturally drawn to the the “YES” answer. The absentee ballots of course went out before either of those things occurred.

The following table shows how the absentee ballot counts and under-votes fell during the last few elections.  Note that the high under-vote count in 2016 was because the municipal candidates appeared on the same ballot as the presidential primary candidates and many people only vote for President, ignoring the rest.

 

Year	Votes Cast	At polls	Absentee	% absentee	Undervotes	%Undervotes
2018	4731	2569	2164	45.7%	167	3.5%
2017	5240	3486	1754	33.5%	0	0.0%
2016	15257	12465	2802	18.4%	1958	12.8%
2014	7167	5556	1611	22.5%	79	1.1%
2013	4217	3390	827	19.6%	1	0.0%

Question 3 – Run Again?

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Question 3
Strong Yes	Weak Yes	Very Close	Weak No	Strong No
Click the precinct on the map for vote totals.

Precinct	Registered	Cast	Turnout	YES	NO	YES %
1186	1457	163	11	78	79	50
1188	897	63	7	34	25	58
1189	96	11	11	9	2	82
1190	3391	245	7	159	83	66
1192	1454	124	9	78	40	66
1194	2029	401	20	315	74	81
1228	446	65	15	38	26	59
1238	1680	301	18	148	146	50
1240	2506	301	12	197	97	67
1242	2559	400	16	266	113	70
1244	1567	206	13	125	76	62
1246	2397	275	11	115	153	43
1247	228	32	14	27	5	84
1248	1495	204	14	103	95	52
1250	62	7	11	1	5	17
1252	2320	500	22	272	197	58
1254	455	32	7	15	17	47
1260	1293	172	13	70	98	42
1266	463	3	1	1	2	33
1268	295	8	3	6	2	75
1272	1911	189	10	88	94	48
1274	1585	145	9	49	88	36
1280	399	30	8	19	10	66
1284	2219	153	7	117	30	80
1288	40	5	13	3	1	75
1290	2130	224	11	127	88	59
1292	71	17	24	13	4	76
1296	713	34	5	24	9	73
1324	1282	73	6	42	29	59
1326	553	68	12	32	31	51
1340	12	3	25	3	0	100
1352	2210	161	7	91	68	57
1360	891	114	13	71	40	64
1372	153	2	1	1	0	100
TOTAL	41280	4731	11	2737	1827	60

Question 4 – Plurality or Majority?

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Question 4
Strong Yes	Weak Yes	Very Close	Weak No	Strong No
Click the precinct on the map for vote totals.

Precinct	Registered	Cast	Turnout	YES	NO	Yes %
1186	1457	163	11	75	82	48
1188	897	63	7	25	34	42
1189	96	11	11	9	2	82
1190	3391	245	7	134	107	56
1192	1454	124	9	71	45	61
1194	2029	401	20	260	128	67
1228	446	65	15	33	31	52
1238	1680	301	18	115	178	39
1240	2506	301	12	163	131	55
1242	2559	400	16	215	161	57
1244	1567	206	13	111	89	56
1246	2397	275	11	87	179	33
1247	228	32	14	18	14	56
1248	1495	204	14	75	122	38
1250	62	7	11	2	4	33
1252	2320	500	22	234	230	50
1254	455	32	7	16	16	50
1260	1293	172	13	58	110	35
1266	463	3	1	0	3	0
1268	295	8	3	5	3	63
1272	1911	189	10	79	104	43
1274	1585	145	9	51	86	37
1280	399	30	8	18	11	62
1284	2219	153	7	106	42	72
1288	40	5	13	0	4	0
1290	2130	224	11	109	106	51
1292	71	17	24	11	5	69
1296	713	34	5	23	10	70
1324	1282	73	6	41	30	58
1326	553	68	12	23	40	37
1340	12	3	25	3	0	100
1352	2210	161	7	71	87	45
1360	891	114	13	55	56	50
1372	153	2	1	1	0	100
TOTAL	41280	4731	11	2297	2250	51

Please Vote NO on 3/13 – Palm Beach Gardens Election

• A Yes vote on Question 3 means that term-limited Council members can serve again with a 3 year sit-out between each 6 years in office.  There is no limit to the number of cycles that can be repeated.
• A Yes vote on Question 4, switches from Majority Wins (50%+1) to Plurality wins.  In a 2-candidate race there is no difference.  However in a multi candidate race, an incumbent can encourage other candidates to enter the race, thus diluting the votes and allowing the candidate with the most name recognition to win with a small percentage of the vote.

 

Contentious Emergency City Council Mtg Decision No Appeal

An emergency  City Council meeting was called sometime on March 5th for the following morning, March 6 at 8am to decide whether or not to appeal the decision on the ruling by Judge J. Joseph Curley, Jr. finding ballot Questions 1 and 2 invalid, last Friday March 3rd.

The meeting had a lot of fireworks and should be seen to be appreciated – however the outcome was that the City will not appeal, but should the plaintiff, Sid Dinerstein appeal the results on Questions 3 and 4, City Attorney Lohman was given the authorization to cross-appeal (thus re-challeging Questions 1 and 2).  The vote was 3:1 with Council Member Lane voting NO and Council Member Litt not present.

No Mention of an Election or a Lawsuit at March 1 City Council Meeting

The March City Council meeting began on a somber note as all stood for a moment of silence for those lost and affected by the Parkland shooting.  While there were no presentations on the agenda, Mayor Marino read a proclamation to Remember and Honor the Vicitms (Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – Parkland, FL).

Council  Member Litt, during Items of Resident Interest and Board/Committee Reports discussed how she (and other on the Council echoed her comments) was approached by folks asking what is she going to do about guns.  She decried the City’s inability to act – even on whether or not there could be a gun show at the Amara Shrine Temple, as well as the continued assault on Home Rule.  See the Palm Beach Post article here.

Public Comment was made by Louis Satriano of Lake Catherine.  He was concerned about a meeting that was held with residents by the developers of Northlake Gardens, saying that they were going to change the plans for the center to include more stories and apartments.  Director of Planning and Zoning, Natalie Crowley, assured him that there have not been such plans submitted or approved yet.

The Purchase Award for Banking Services for $675K was pulled by Council Member Lane so that Purchasing Director Km! Ra would do an update.  That item and all on Consent Agenda passed 5:0. All items on the Regular Agenda – Ordinances 2, 4, 5 2018 and Resolution 13, 2018 passed 5:0.

During Items for Council Action/Discussion – Council Member Litt suggested and the others on the Council agreed, for City Manager Ferris to look into what it would take to be certified as  Sun Safe City – which both she and Mayor Marino learned about during a meeting on Melanoma.  Council Member Marciano lamented the anger that is being directed to the Council (presumably about the election/ballot questions) and suggested that while it was good to be involved locally that the anger should be directed elsewhere since Palm Beach Gardens is a wonderful city and because there are so many much bigger issues on the state and national levels.

The City Manager did not mention the emergency hearing about the lawsuit;  even more surprisingly – City Attorney Lohman had no City Attorney report.  While one would not have expected a detailed discussion – the suit was not even acknowledged.  The judge in the case made a ruling on Friday, the next day.  See Judge tosses half gardens ballot questions but election go on .  Nor did anyone on the Council encourage those in attendance to vote on March 13, 2018!

So Gardens’ voters – Please VOTE ON MARCH 13!