Ethics Commission Should Have Sanctioned Wellington Mayor



By Rhonda Swan

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The Palm Beach County Commission on Ethics was wrong to dismiss complaints against Wellington Mayor Bob Margolis and village landowner Victoria McCullough last week on the grounds that a $4,000 donation that violated the ethics code was inadvertent and unintentional.

The cover story is that Ms. McCullough mailed the check last March to the mayor’s legal defense fund before he was sworn into office on April 9 and before she became a principal of lobbyists, but the check never arrived. The violation occurred when Ms. McCullough wrote a replacement check on July 22. By that time, the mayor had been sworn in, and she had hired a lobbyist to represent her interests before the village council.

County ethics laws prohibit elected officials from taking more than $100 in gifts from lobbyists or companies or people employing lobbyists. No stop-payment order was issued for the supposed missing, first check. No one asked why it took four months for Ms. McCullough to issue a new one.

Ethics Commission member Ronald Harbison noted correctly that the existence of the mystery check is irrelevant. “It doesn’t mitigate the fact that a $4,000 check was issued by a lobbyist as a gift to the mayor,” he said. “And that’s the bottom line.”

Commission staff recommended a finding of probable cause and a letter of instruction, because Mayor Margolis reported the donation on a gift disclosure form and did not try to hide it. Commissioners pointed out, though, that they had forced former Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson to return $300 to a donor who had given him $400 worth of event tickets.

Facing that probable cause finding, Mayor Margolis volunteered to pay back Ms. McCullough the $4,000. That supposedly made everything OK.

Commissioner Dan Galo pointed out that the commission has heard several complaints involving Wellington residents and officials since last year’s divisive elections gave the council majority to Mayor Margolis, John Greene and Matt Wilhite, all of whom opposed Mark Bellissimo’s $80 million equestrian village project. The three owe their election to billionaire Jeremy Jacobs, a part-time Wellington resident who opposed the project and whose family poured more than $500,000 into a campaign supporting them.

Ms. McCullough, whose property abuts Mr. Bellissimo’s, also opposed the project. She gave $4,000 to Mr. Greene’s legal defense fund. She also gave $4,000 to the organization that paid Mr. Wilhite’s legal expenses after a technical malfunction assigned the wrong vote totals to several candidates in last year’s election, forcing a recount.

Mr. Galo rightly noted that the commission should consider Wellington’s political context when hearing complaints: “This financial overtone continues beyond the election and the sitting of these council people. None of these facts are ever addressed. They’re continuing to involve themselves in these councilmen’s lives financially, and we’re saying because it’s campaign-related it’s not applicable. That’s not how it looks in the real world.”

Indeed. That makes the commission’s decision even worse. We won’t be surprised if Mayor Margolis’ refund check to Ms. McCullough also gets lost in the mail.

Rhonda Swan