Jesse Scheckner
Democratic Greenacres Mayor Joel Flores last quarter more than doubled the campaign cash he has on hand to flip the District 3 seat on the Palm Beach County Commission blue this November.
Between Oct. 1 and New Year’s Eve, Flores amassed $117,400 between his campaign account and political committee, Friends of Joel Flores.
After just over $500 in spending, all of it on donation-processing fees, he entered 2024 with more than $235,000.
His incumbent Republican opponent Michael Barnett, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to the seven-person panel in January 2023, raised less than half what Flores collected in the fourth quarter.
By the year’s end, his war chest was about 41% the size of his challenger.
In a statement expressing “deep appreciation” for the support he’s received so far, Flores attributed his comparatively large fourth-quarter gains to “widespread enthusiasm” for his campaign.
“The generosity of our community speaks volumes about our shared commitment to a better future for Palm Beach County,” he said. “We are just getting started and together, we are building a movement that reflects the diverse voices and perspectives of our district.”
Thirty-one people, seven businesses and two political committees gave to Flores’ campaign in Q4.
His biggest personal check was for $1,500 from Gary Peters, President of the nonprofit Boca Helping Hands.
But truly, he owed his end-of-the-year haul to one source: Citizens for Law Order and Ethics, a PC that gets its donations from police unions, hospitality companies, real estate businesses and other interests.
In the last four years, its biggest contributions came from Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and Flagler Realty & Development Inc., which gave $200,000 and $40,000, respectively.
The PC, chaired by political consultant Rick Asnani of Cornerstone Solutions, gave Flores’ campaign a pair of $50,000 donations in November and December.
Barnett, a lawyer and former Chair of the Palm Beach GOP, raised just shy of $59,000 in Q4 through his campaign account and PC, Friends of Michael Barnett.
Thirty-eight businesses, 32 people and 12 political committees chipped in.
His largest personal check was for $5,000. It came from medical tech CEO Lewis Stahl, who in 2018 pled guilty to tax evasion on more than $21 million in business income and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He left prison after just eight months on April 24, 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roughly two years later, Stahl rejoined the Broward Sheriff’s Advisory Council as Vice Chair. Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony, another DeSantis appointee to whom Stahl’s NextGen Management company donated $10,000 in August 2019, reinstated him to the board, whose members pay initiation and membership fees.
Campus Free Speech — a PC chaired by Barnett’s Treasurer, David Ramba, that derives much of its funding from Florida chambers of commerce, real estate, insurance and energy interests — gave Barnett $5,000 as well.
Firefighter FACT PAC, a West Palm Beach-based PC chaired by local police union President Jeffrey Newsome, contributed $1,000. So did the PC of Stuart Republican Rep. John Snyder.
Barnett spent close to $24,000. Nearly all of it went to consulting companies, including $13,300 to Tampa-based Yost Strategies, $7,000 to Jupiter-based Public Concepts and $1,000 to Electioneering Consulting Inc. in Tallahassee.
He also donated $1,000 to the campaign of Delray Beach mayoral candidate Tom Carney and bought a $500 fundraising event ticket from Palm Beach State College.
Palm Beach County Commission members approved new boundaries for District 3 in 2021 to create a majority-Hispanic district. They succeeded; Census data shows more than 51% of the population there is Hispanic.
Flores said at the time that he and others in the community were “very proud of the area that’s actually going to be the Hispanic district.”
District 3 covers an inland portion of Palm Beach between Florida’s Turnpike and Interstate 95 and from part of Southern Boulevard to Hypoluxo Road. The district consists of Cloud Lake, Greenacres, Glen Ridge, Lake Clarke Shores, Lake Worth Beach, Palm Springs and some unincorporated neighborhoods.
