Longtime Acreage businessman Keith Jordano soundly defeated Realtor and Acreage Landowners’ Association Board Member Richard Heinl in the race for Seat 2 on the Indian Trail Improvement District Board of Supervisors.
Seat 2 was the only ITID race on the Tuesday, Nov. 3 ballot. Jordano took 13,698 votes (63.78 percent) to Heinl’s 7,779 votes (36.22 percent), according to unofficial results released Wednesday morning by the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office.
A longtime resident of The Acreage and leader locally and in surrounding communities, Jordano has run unsuccessfully several times previously for the board, most recently losing a narrow race to Supervisor Joni Martin in 2018.
“I finally made it over the hump,” Jordano told the Town-Crier on Wednesday, adding that this race had not been as strenuous as previous ones. “The others, I stood on the corners and everything else. This time I did a smarter campaign.”
He said he tried to take advantage of name recognition this time around.
“I’ve paid my dues out here in this community for 21 years as far as being visible and working for the good of the whole community, so I guess it finally paid off,” Jordano said. “Now I just have to live up to the promises that I made. I’ve started keeping a list. I’ve had a lot of residents e-mailing me or through Facebook saying what they would like to see done. I will get with the powers that be to try to get many of those things done.”
Things people have mentioned include issues regarding roads and money.
“There’s a lot of commotion about a gate that was put up dividing The Acreage from Loxahatchee Groves,” Jordano said. “The good thing with me is that I have a lot of rapport with local elected officials.”
Jordano feels he has the ability to negotiate issues that are outside The Acreage, such as issues surrounding the possible four-laning and increasing the speed limit on Okeechobee Blvd.
“They also want to four-lane Orange Blvd., which I live on,” he said. “I’m not going to use the mentality of ‘not in my back yard,’ but there’s no reason to four-lane Orange Blvd.”
He said he is aware that Loxahatchee Groves does not want Okeechobee Blvd. four laned and that they lowered the speed limit there for a reason. “As far as raising the speed limit, I’ll be glad to go talk with the people in Loxahatchee Groves and see if we can come up with a compromise,” Jordano said. “Whatever I can do for the constituents, that’s what I ran on.”
Jordano is a past president of the Acreage Landowners’ Association and the Royal Palm Beach Rotary Club, and he has been involved with the Palm Beach Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors, among other positions.
Before moving to The Acreage, Jordano was in the U.S. Navy special forces for 10 years and worked 10 years as a consultant with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. He has been the president of the Jordano Insurance Group for 28 years.
Jordano has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Loyola University, and he has been married 24 years and has three children.
