Loxahatchee Groves Vice Mayor Tom Goltzené will run for another term on the Loxahatchee Groves Town Council in the Tuesday, March 14 election.
Goltzené’s Seat 5 is the only council opening in the upcoming election cycle. He has served two three-year terms. Councilmen Ron Jarriel and Ryan Liang are up for re-election in 2018, and Mayor Dave Browning and Councilman Todd McLendon are up in 2019.
The weeklong filing period will run from noon Tuesday, Jan. 31 through noon Tuesday, Feb. 7.
“I think we have some unfinished business still to accomplish,” Goltzené told the Town-Crier on Wednesday. “The type of infrastructure and how we deal with that, the physical infrastructure being roads and such as that.”
He said the “non-physical infrastructure,” the arrangement of town management, employees and the size of government, also needs to be addressed.
“Is it just an ever-growing thing or do we actually try to get to ‘government lite’ at some point and put the brakes on it?” he asked.
Goltzené said residents also have opinions on the level of physical infrastructure they want, which historically has been minimal.
“Sidewalks and streetlights and city water, I don’t know that most of the residents of Loxahatchee Groves want to see that right now,” he said. “Those are the kinds of issues we’re talking about. They’re really sort of existential issues right now, but I think they are important, and you have to give some attention to, and sort of put squabbling behind us. That’s what I’m looking forward to if I am so lucky as to be re-elected.”
His other concerns include getting the town’s codes to be something that reflects the community’s desires.
“Right now there’s a range of things that exist that are remnants of the good old days — a time of the county letting people get away with whatever. If you want to do something, go to Loxahatchee to do it,” Goltzené said. “We have issues with that that we have to deal with, and we have to do it without causing too much internal strife and too much pain to anybody. Some things just don’t have a place in the community anymore. Substandard migrant housing would be an example I would refer to.”
They are all issues that the town has to deal with as it goes into its second hundred years as a settled area, he said.
“Things aren’t the way they first were, and you really can’t expect them to be,” he said.
For his accomplishments, in the past six years, Goltzené believes that he has been part of a divided council but on the winning side of decisions that were good for the community. As an example, he cites being on the winning side of the 3-2 decision that allows the use of golf carts on town roads.
“I’ve been a part of the, in my opinion, positive things that have been passed by the council,” he said. “I’ve been in the majority of that. I’ve tried to deal with being a leader among my colleagues on the council and trying to put forward community voices that sometimes weren’t heard and needed to be.”
Goltzené said that he tries to be sensitive to others’ various points of view and not caught up in his own agenda.
“I’m certainly not really caught up in a personal agenda, though I’m sure my detractors would say otherwise,” he said, adding that he feels he has his finger on the pulse of the community and what it wants. “I live here and I do business here, and I talk to my friends and neighbors, but I don’t intrude on them, and I don’t go pushing myself on them; I wait for them to talk to me. That’s how I learn what’s going on. I try to listen instead of talk.”
Goltzené said that after two terms on the dais, if re-elected, it will probably be his final term.
“I’ve been in there for six, this would be three more. By then I’ll be 60, and that probably is enough for me,” he said.
Goltzené was born in Miami Beach, where his father was the fire chief. He has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Defiance College in Ohio and spent nine years in the building business doing accounting and financial work.
He moved to Palm Beach County in 1987 and, in 1991, moved to Loxahatchee Groves.
In 1992, he started his own lawn care company, which he later sold to pursue an environmental contracting business, growing and restoring natural areas throughout South Florida and eliminating invasive exotic plants.
Goltzené now runs a native plant nursery and has worked for Waste Management doing environmental restoration. He lives in southern Loxahatchee Groves with his wife, Irene. They have six children.
Goltzené won his council seat in 2011, unseating former Councilman Dennis Lipp. He was unopposed for re-election in 2014.
