A press release from County Commission Candidate Taniel Shant accuses Mary Lou Berger of censoring and intimidating him at a community meeting that was open to the public.
BOYNTON BEACH, FL – On Wednesday, September 21, the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations (COBWRA) held their September delegates meeting which featured presentations from Palm Beach County Administrator Verdenia Baker and Palm Beach County School District Superintendent Robert Avossa, who both spoke in support of the 17% Sales Tax increase that will appear on the November 8 ballot. The COBWRA meeting was advertised as open to the public.
Taniel Shant, Republican candidate for Palm Beach County Commission District 5, opposes the 17% Sales Tax increase and was present to listen to the presentations. County Commission District 5 includes the areas west of Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and Boynton Beach. Near the end of the presentations, COBWRA President Glen Harvie approached Mr. Shant and, in a disrespectful manner, told him that he would not allow Mr. Shant to ask a question. Mr. Harvie then attempted to unlawfully remove Mr. Shant, who was standing near the back of the room peacefully listening to the presentations.
Upon his arrival, Mr. Shant witnessed Mary Lou Berger canvass the room and inform her allies that Mr. Shant was present. It appears that Mr. Harvie, who supports the 17% Sales Tax increase, was acting on behalf of sitting District 5 County Commissioner Mary Lou Berger, who was present at the meeting. In 2014, Commissioner Berger nominated Mr. Harvie to the Palm Beach County Community Advisory Committee. “Although I was bullied, censored, and intimidated, the real victims in all of this are the residents,” stated Taniel Shant. “The entire meeting was a setup to deceive the residents of West Boynton Beach. They had two presentations in support of the 17% sales tax increase, didn’t have anyone speak in opposition to it, refused to allow public comments, then immediately held a vote for COBWRA to endorse and support the 17% sales tax hike, which unsurprisingly passed unanimously. I don’t know if Mary Lou Berger put him up to it or not, but he clearly was acting on Commissioner Berger’s behalf in an attempt to censor me,” Shant said.
We have previously written about Shant’s campaign and we agree with him in opposing the sales tax. However we did not attend this meeting and have no additional information to verify Shant’s claims. In our experience it is typical for challengers to encounter such tactics. Readers should, of course, use their own judgment.
The average West Boca family of four will pay an additional $12,000 over ten years if the proposed sales tax increase is approved. These estimates follow from the numbers stated by speakers at Tuesday’s West Boca Community Council meeting. Four speakers addressed the audience (note we covered a similar event in February: Avossa and Berger Speak). First up was County Administrator Verdenia Baker. Substantial details of the plan are available on the One County One Penny website. Like the three speakers after her, Baker was tone deaf to West Boca residents. In her talk she described how the money that would come to “your area” but a closer look showed she was including all of Boca, Delray and Boynton Beach in that area. She also referred to money going to the City of Boca Raton as in “our area” even though most of West Boca is west of the city lines. Baker indicated that the total amount of revenue they expect to raise from this tax increase is $2.7 billion. In our analysis, with 1.3 million county residents that works out to over $2000 per resident. For a family of four it’s $8000. With average incomes in West Boca higher than for the county, it translates to roughly $12,000 over the ten years. A typical West Boca family of four will spend an extra $1000 on sales tax in the first year, with the number rising to $1500 or more in later years. Fifty percent of the money from the tax will go to the school district, thirty percent to the county and twenty percent to the cities. She described a lengthy list of projects that the money is supposed to go to. We have seen this list before and over half the money goes to projects in West Palm Beach. A very small share will benefit West Boca. Baker briefly answered questions from us toward the end of the event:
The next speaker was Mike Burke, CFO for the school district. He also described various “needs” in the district. To his credit he started off with a funny joke about the jail and he spoke well. But as with the other speakers he was somewhat tone deaf, focusing on projects far from West Boca and apparently not recognizing the difference between the city and the rest of us. Our post-event conversation with him is below. It became a little uncomfortable in certain moments but we give him credit for his demeanor and his answers.
As a follow up to this conversation we found the report he mentioned. Contrary to what he said the document does not say that projects will be prioritized by need. That may be the intent but it’s not in there.
Also the report’s descriptions do not match the apocalyptic tone set by Superintendent Avossa, Burke and others.
Finding #3: Of the 196 District schools and facilities assessed, the elementary schools are generally in fair condition (average FCI=15.2%), the middle schools are generally in good condition (average FCI = 13.1%), the high schools are generally in good condition (average FCI = 14.9%), and the ancillary facilities are generally in fair condition (average FCI = 23.1%). The overall District FCI average is 15.0%, which is in the “good” range, but borders on the “fair” range, which begins at 15.1%.
Finally with regard to the schools it should be noted that none of this money will go to hiring teachers or paying them more. It’s only for capital projects. Next up was Sid Dinerstein, a long-time county Republican leader. After the two previous speakers took a full hour or more, Dinerstein was told he would only have 10 minutes. Dinerstein was also ignored when the event host announced various attendees and left him out. Dinerstein was by far the most animated and interesting speaker of the four. We caught a brief clip of his speech but he had already left when we looked for him to answer questions at the end.
Dinerstein pointed out that the so-called “penny tax” is a 17 percent increase – from 6 percent to 7 percent. He dismissed the claimed needs asserted by the previous speakers and said the school district is “grossly overfunded”. He suggested that the main needs of the county are really closer to $400 million rather than the $2.7 billion they are hoping to get from the sales tax increase. Dinerstein argued that it would make more sense to do a $400M bond issue with today’s low interest rates. Dinerstein demonstrated the same disregard for the West Boca audience. Standing within arm’s reach of Ellen Winikoff he advocated for an extension of the Sawgrass Expressway from Broward into Palm Beach County, an idea that is widely hated here in West Boca. In describing the projects he viewed as necessary they all seemed to be in West Palm Beach, so his approach would do even less for West Boca residents. The last speaker was Dave Kerner, a state representative who is now running for a county commission seat. He claimed (as did Baker) that 25% of the sales tax would be paid by tourists. If true that only adds to the burden imposed by the recently increased hotel tax to pay for a stadium in – where else – West Palm Beach. They seem unconcerned about or unaware of the risk of killing the goose that lays our golden eggs. If you raise taxes on tourism, tourists might come less often. He also repeated Mary Lou Berger’s February threat to raise property taxes if the sales tax increase is not passed. Some other interesting details from the evening were:
The Lamborghini exemption – Baker said that the sales tax is capped at purchases under $5000, so if you buy a Lamborghini you won’t pay extra sales tax on most of that purchase.
Kerner and Baker both denied that sales tax is regressive. This is contrary to well established economic studies showing that sales taxes place a higher burden on the poor.
Taniel Shant, who is running against Mary Lou Berger, was in the audience. Shant opposes the sales tax increase.
In other news there has been some talk about developers buying the Boca Municipal Golf Course (north side of Glades west of the Turnpike) and building homes. Nothing has happened yet.
The proposal to build on the farm behind Home Depot is apparently making progress and may possibly resemble Delray Marketplace.
A new park or children’s playground has been built in Watergate Estates (aka West Sandalfoot) and will have a grand opening soon.
There has been an ongoing problem with trucks parking on swales on 66th Street (SW 66th we think) and PBSO is working to stop that.
Before this election we had no opinion on Judge Marni Bryson. We do now. Marni Bryson Today in the mail we received a highly offensive mailer attacking Lisa Grossman, who is running against Bryson. The mailer identifies itself as being sent by “Keeping Citizens First, Inc.”, which is run by campaign consultant Rick Asnani. Asnani appears to be working for Bryson along with other judicial candidates. The mailer and similar slurs on the internet and social media misuse personal photos from Grossman’s Facebook account and refer to personal matters that apparently took place thirty years ago. The mailer misleads readers by indicating that Grossman was “found guilty” of what are at worst minor campaign errors, and falsely suggests she has been convicted of crimes. It’s classic libel. Judge Bryon’s decision to hire a dirty political consultant and participate in such nasty, below-the-belt campaign tactics renders her unqualified to sit as a judge. As a result, we are endorsing Lisa Grossman for Judge. Grossman has broad experience in health care and education. As an attorney she served as an assistant public defender, which is one of the hardest jobs in the law.
Hunter Brett (19). Mugshot from PBSO. The Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office arrested Hunter Brett (19) on two counts of car burglary. The arrest happened on Tuesday the 23rd. Brett is a former student of Olympic Heights High School. On August 15th a reader forwarded us this video showing the car burglaries as they happened:
We posted the video on our Facebook page and commenters helped identify Brett as the likely burglar. We reached out to the victim in this incident, who said the following:
We are grateful to the West Boca News and its readers for their help in catching this criminal. Let this be a lesson to other criminals that this is a tight knit community and we look out for each other.
Mr. Brett has developed a substantial court history in his short time as an adult. We don’t know what charges he may have faced as a juvenile. What we can see started in December of 2015 with two felony burglary counts and two misdemeanor counts. He was released on $6000 bond (usually meaning someone pays $600 to a bondsman). If you find yourself in a situation where you need a bondsman though, then it might be a good idea to check out a website like johnthebondsman.com.
While that was pending he was arrested in February in Broward facing five different counts including a first degree felony aggravated battery on a police officer, a felony resisting with violence and two drug felonies. He was released on $11,000 bond ($1100 to a bondsman). For some reason we cannot explain, the pending burglary felonies in Palm Beach County were then resolved with “pre-trial diversion” which is usually a favorable result for a defendant – no jail time and a relatively clean record. In June he was arrested again on drug charges, at least one of which was a felony. He was released on $5000 bond ($500 to a bondsman). Now he’s been arrested for a fourth time. It’s not completely clear from the court records but we think bond was set at $23,000 this afternoon. The last address we have for Mr. Brett is in the Lakes at Boca Raton (north of Yamato near Cain). He is being represented by public defenders on all the cases mentioned. For the first burglary case it appears he was rejected from the diversion program in August and the case has been reopened. At this writing he remains in custody. Perhaps he will get out and resume visiting area cars again soon. Of course he is innocent until proven guilty. But since it seems likely that he will be doing significant state prison time, some might wonder why they keep letting him out. This soft approach to bail is commonplace in South Florida but unusual in other parts of the state.
Yesterday I met with Taniel Shant, a candidate for the County Commission seat representing West Boca. He’s as local as you can get. As a child he attended Whispering Pines Elementary, Omni Middle, and Olympic Heights High School. He graduated from FAU in 2005 and now lives in Boca Isles. The seat he’s running for is currently occupied by Mary Lou Berger. The biggest issue in the race according to Shant is her support for increasing the sales tax. Berger told us in February that if the sales tax increase fails she will push to raise property taxes. Shant opposes any tax increases. As for other issues he thinks his being a true West Boca resident will matter to voters. He said that Berger doesn’t really live in her district at all (District 5 includes parts of West Delray and West Boynton) and is really a creature of Palm Beach. Property records and my own experience with her suggest he might be right about that, though I’m not sure voters care. I found his third criticism of Berger amusing – that she’s arrogant. I can’t say that’s wrong but Shant himself did not come off as humble in our meeting. Shant (left) with Paul Tocker (a friend of West Boca News) and others in Kings Point Between college and now Shant spent most of the past 10 years working in Washington DC with a non-profit called Armenian Assembly of America. Most recently he worked to get the Obama administration to recognize genocides against Christians in Syria and Iraq. It’s early in this campaign. Shant appears to be raising enough money to present a credible challenge against Berger. It is an uphill battle running as a Republican challenger against a Democrat incumbent in a Democrat-leaning district in a presidential election year. Shant believes he can win over the independents as well as some Democrats, especially on the tax issue. Shant’s website is http://www.tanielshant.com/.
