Editor’s note: This will be our last post of 2017. We thank you for reading, commenting, sharing, agreeing and disagreeing. And we wish you and yours a happy, healthy holiday season and New Year. See you in 2018.

There’s a rhythm to local elections.
Candidates file in the fall, quietly put together a campaign—endorsements, donations, signatures, a web page, a Facebook page, photos, a message, a kick off party etc., and then fall silent for the holidays.
When the new year dawns they crank back up again for a headlong sprint to election day in March.
I’ve been watching this dynamic for 30 years in Delray Beach and much has changed.
When I moved here in the 80s for a newspaper job, the politics were fierce and tribal.
In my first three years on the job I saw a parade of City Managers come and go, department heads too. The Police Department was a big issue in those days, especially its relations with minority neighborhoods and commissioners seem to be locked in a perpetual feud.
With the exception of the Police Department– which has enjoyed a good reputation since the early 90s– there are a lot of similarities to the environment of today.
There are differences too.
First off, back then, people voted.

More votes were cast in 1990 (in a much smaller town population wise) than have been cast in recent elections which is not a good sign in my opinion.
Consider this:  over 10,000 voters showed up to cast ballots in races that elected Tom Lynch Mayor and Jay Alperin and David Randolph to the commission. Turnout was about 42 percent. Compare that to the last mayoral race in 2015 when less than 7,000 total votes were cast. The winner received 3,703 votes.  That total was less than half the votes secured by Commissioner Randolph in 1990. He garnered over 7,700 votes, more than  the total turnout in 2015. Yikes….we are not taking our civic duty to vote seriously.

Back in those days, neighborhoods north, south, east and west were engaged and made their voices heard.
The Lake Ida corridor west of Congress was voter rich with neighborhoods like Rainberry Bay, Rainberry Lakes, Chatelaine, Delray Shores, Sudan, Country Manors and Rainberry Woods considered major voting blocs.
High Point, Pines of Delray, Delaire, Andover, The Hamlet, Abbey Delray, Sherwood Forest, Sherwood Park, Sabal Lakes, Lakeview and other “western” neighborhoods were chock full of  civic minded, active, engaged and vocal citizens.
They had equal weight to the historically powerful and influential Beach Property Owners Association and therefore successful candidates had to earn support from all corners of the city to stand a chance in March.
The northwest and southwest neighborhoods were organized and aspirational. When you walked into a meeting of association presidents , Elders or church leaders, you had better be prepared. Or it wouldn’t be pretty. I saw many candidates chewed up by tough questions.
There were also slew of candidate forums and many were standing room only. When I ran in 2000, Rainberry Bay had to schedule two forums because of demand which was standing room only.
Campaigns were low dollar affairs in those days and organized around kitchen tables with volunteers offering to make phone calls, knock on doors, host coffee meet and greets and match signatures to voter precincts using paper maps.
It was low tech retail politics.
Candidates raised $12,000 to $20,000. There were no PACs. The unions were active and campaign literature featured detailed plans not numbing platitudes such as “I have a plan to fight (crime, traffic, development, drugs, corruption, bad weather, garlic, taxes, bad schools ad nauseum.”
Somehow we never seem to see the plan or even hear about it once the election is over. But I digress.
As for those detailed plans from the earlier days…look around a lot of it came true.

But credit for those achievements also belong to a long list of stakeholders: residents, city staff, business owners, non-profits, agencies and some talented outside consultants such as the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. Still, mayors and commissioners deserve their share of props too. Asking people to dream and create visions is critical to success, but having the courage and focus to fund, lead and implement those plans is even more important and that’s the responsibility of elected officials and city staff.

So many cities  make the mistake of crafting plans only to see their elected officials wilt after the first signs of resistance. And there’s always resistance. Almost always from those who don’t show up to the visioning exercises or those who move to town and decide that now that they are in the boat it’s time to pull up the ladder.

So it matters who sits on the dais. It matters a lot.

If you have good elected officials you can move mountains. If you have subpar elected officials—well– not much good is going to happen.
That’s why it’s critical that we pay attention during this election cycle.
Four seats are up for grabs, including the mayors seat.
I’m in the camp that wants to see change.
We have seen a lot of dysfunction in recent years marked by remarkable and alarming staff turnover, a loss of institutional memory, unnecessary and costly litigation, questionable spending, poor relations between some commissioners and important constituency groups and key initiatives that have stalled. (See: Congress Avenue plan, South Federal Highway overlay, green initiatives, vision plans and the adoption of a form based code among others).
I’m hoping to see a campaign that holds incumbents accountable for their record and governing style but also asks the challengers what makes them qualified to lead our city and what specifically will they do to get us back on track.
The last two mayoral races were exercises in vapidity.
We deserve better.
Candidates should share their vision for Delray and their leadership philosophy. They should explain how they will deal with an array of pressing issues: heroin, taxes, crime, high rents downtown, a lack of middle class housing, school issues, the need for a more diversified economy and the list goes on. They should also be asked how or if they will seize or create opportunities: how to redevelop The Set, jumpstart Congress Avenue, the four corners, north and south federal highway and accommodate the needs of a growing number of creative entrepreneurs who want to grow the Delray economy.

But an equally important question in my mind is what will they do to improve the culture in our town? Are they collaborators? Or do they stubbornly keep their own counsel? Do they understand the importance of staff morale and the need to let the City Manager and department heads run the day to day operations? Do they think long term and realize that Delray competes for investment, visitors, residents, families and jobs? Have they been involved in the things that are important to Delray? Or have they been removed, estranged, hostile or indifferent to the city’s volunteer base?

Do they have an ability to compromise? Do they play well with others? Have they shown courage to take a stand? Or sensitivity to know when they need to adjust and reach out to others? Can they learn or evolve?

Those and more the questions…