Palm Beach County Commission District 5 includes all areas west of the Florida Turnpike between the Broward County line and Boynton Beach Boulevard. It also includes all areas east of the turnpike between Clint Moore Road and Boynton Beach Boulevard.
Maria Sachs has represented the people of southwestern Palm Beach County as a Democratic member of the Florida House and Senate. Now she wants to represent them as a member of the Palm Beach County Commission.
As Sachs notes, District 5 is the only one that includes no municipalities. It includes the vast suburbs west of Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach. More important, it includes almost all of the Palm Beach County Agricultural Reserve Area.
Though she has been out of office for four years, Sachs has kept up with local issues by attending meetings of the West Boca Community Council, the Delray Alliance of Residential Associations and the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations. Her ties to the district’s many large residential communities go back many years. In this unique district, the county commissioner is the key elected official.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, Sachs said, “The sole objective (of the commission) is to make people safe.” She would have approved a mask ordinance when the commission reopened — prematurely, as it turned out — in May.
David Shiner, a lawyer, is the Republican candidate in a district that a Democrat has held since it was drawn 30 years ago. “I know I can add value,” he said in a joint candidate interview with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board. He notes his many family members who also live in the district and the fact that his children attend district schools. “My daily life is a listening tour.”
Unlike Sachs, though, Shiner has not regularly attended meetings of those key non-government groups in the district. He also sounds ambivalent on the mask requirement. With Gov. DeSantis trying to rush this new round of re-openings, keeping the mask requirement will be critical to keeping cases in check until a vaccine is widely available. Sachs noted that Shiner attended a commission meeting to speak against the ordinance.
Sachs compiled a reliably progressive record in Tallahassee, defending reproductive rights and public education. Even as a member of the minority party, she had notable personal accomplishments.
Her legislation regulated parasailing after a fatal accident off Pompano Beach. She expanded the state’s Good Samaritan Law, which gives liability protection to those who help others in life-threatening situations. And she relentlessly championed a bill to address texting while driving.
Sachs chose not to seek re-election to the Senate in 2016 after new maps — drawn to settle a successful challenge of Republican gerrymandering — placed her and two other Democrats in the same district.
Sachs is clearly the better candidate. But we note one potential problem.
Her husband, Peter Sachs, is founding partner of the Boca Raton-based Sachs Sax Caplan law firm. One of the firm’s practice areas is lobbying. The firm, many of whose members and their spouses have donated to Sachs’ campaign, also represents developers. We asked her about potential conflicts if she were elected.
Sachs told the Editorial Board that her husband “has not been a lobbyist for many years.” In fact, the county’s registry lists him as a lobbyist for 13 entities, some of them homeowner associations and some of them developers.
The Shiner campaign contacted the Sun Sentinel to say that, the day after our interview, the firm had “changed/removed Mr. Sachs’ relationship with the government and lobbying section of his firm.”
The campaign attached a screenshot from July “evidencing that his firm is highlighting his role as a lobbyist.” As of Tuesday, the website listed Peter Sachs’ practice area as “community association law.”
All this would matter with any commission candidate. It especially matters with Sachs because of the Agricultural Reserve Area. The District 5 commissioner normally steers all policy discussion about this special place.
In 1999, county voters approved $100 billion in bonds to buy land and preserve farming in the reserve. It is the only coastal farm belt in South Florida and provides thousands of jobs. It’s also faces unrelenting pressure from landowners and developers to add more homes, which would suburbanize the reserve, drive out farming and undercut the voters’ will.
Sachs notes that she has lived in the reserve for 55 years. She wants to “listen” to all sides. But she also said that “nobody’s happy” with the current status.
Actually, conservationists believe that, despite commission concessions, the original plan for the reserve is working. The potential threat comes from commissioners listening too much to landowners who want a windfall from increased development rights to which they currently are not entitled.
Sachs has a good record. History says she will stand up for the little guy against the pressures of big-monied interests. She also is a formidable campaigner. In 2012 and 2014, she won Senate races in which the Republican Party had targeted her. Both times, the ability of the GOP majority in the Senate to override a governor’s veto hung in the balance.
She’s also a familiar face, someone who’s both personable, accessible and reasonable.
The Sun Sentinel endorses Maria Sachs for Palm Beach County Commission District 5.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.
