Courtesy Palm Beach Post Staff Writer By Mitra Malek
Wellington — Producers of the Winter Equestrian Festival sued the village this week, claiming that the three newly elected members of the village council voted to kill the $80 million Equestrian Village proposal last year as political payback to a billionaire family who helped get them elected.
The producers, headed by Mark Bellissimo, also filed the lawsuit against several members of that family, the Jacobses, and one of their companies, Solar Sportsystems.
The lawsuit focused mainly on Mayor Bob Margolis and Councilman John Greene, claiming both “have committed ethical violations” by accepting cash and other gifts from Neil Hirsch, who was director of a nonprofit organization tied to the Jacobs family and focused on fighting the Equestrian Village project.
Margolis also breached ethics rules by accepting cash gifts from another Jacobs ally and foe of the project, Victoria McCullough, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit does not focus on the third newly elected council member, Matt Willhite, beyond votes he cast to revoke aspects of the Equestrian Village project.
The Jacobses financed a $500,000 media campaign to help get Margolis, Greene and Willhite elected last spring.
“The vote of the majority Council members revoking the Equestrian Village development approvals was made as political payback to the Jacobs family, Neil Hirsch and others, was in exchange for gifts given to seek undue influence, and was in direct contravention to their ethical and legal duties as Council members of Wellington,” says the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Palm Beach County’s fifteenth judicial circuit.
The three council members “improperly used” status review hearings for the project as a way to “turn back the clock” on the previous council’s approvals and kill the project, the lawsuit says.
According to gift disclosure forms he filed last year, Margolis indeed accepted $6,500 in gifts from Hirsch and McCullough for a legal defense fund he set up to preserve his election win last year.
Greene in December also filed a gift disclosure form, though it included gifts that should have been reported for earlier 2012 quarters. Greene noted $6,128 in temporary housing and vacation from Hirsch for those earlier quarters.
Margolis offered a prepared statement in response to the lawsuit.
“My actions are always based on the best interest of Wellington residents and any suggestion to the contrary is patently false and without merit,” he said. “It is unfortunate that people with significant interest in our village have resorted to casting aspersions in order to advance their own agenda, rather than acting for the public good of the town.”
Greene issued a written statement after reading the lawsuit, saying it was “an egregious claim and a feeble attempt to discredit me and my reputation.”
“I am not going to be intimidated by these or any of the other bullying methods being used by desperate people with a personal agenda,” Greene’s statement said. “My commitment to the equestrian community and to the entire Village of Wellington will no longer be consumed by a single developer whose sole interest is in the commercialization of preserved and protected land.”
Greene also noted that he has complied with all recommendations and requests from Palm Beach County’s Ethics Commission.
Willhite couldn’t be reached for comment.
John Shubin, a Miami lawyer for the Jacobs family and Solar Sportsystems, said filing an ethics complaint with the state or county is the appropriate way for a private company to handle concerns similar to those raised in the lawsuit.
“I don’t see how a circuit court has jurisdiction over ethics complaints,” Shubin said. “I think it’s more for dramatic effect than anything else.”
The 122-page claim is the latest in a string of lawsuits Bellissimo’s team has filed in recent months. Before that the Jacobses filed several lawsuits pertaining to the previous council’s approvals.
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