Local education activist Julie Highsmith is challenging incumbent Royal Palm Beach Councilman Jeff Hmara for the Group 1 seat during the upcoming municipal election. It is the only village election on the Tuesday, March 8 ballot.
A former member of the Royal Palm Beach Education Advisory Board, Highsmith stepped down from the board recently when she took a position teaching kindergarten at H.L. Johnson Elementary School, which she attended as a child and where she later became PTO president for five years before handing over the reins.
“Two other parents took over the PTO, so I’m not on the PTO board anymore now that I’m a teacher,” said Highsmith, a 36-year resident of Royal Palm Beach. “For me, it was a full-time job, so there was no way I could do both of those things and run for the village council.”
Highsmith has lived in Royal Palm Beach since she was 5 years old. She and her husband Bill have three daughters, and two of them attend H.L. Johnson. One will soon be graduating, and one will be starting next year.
Teaching is a career change for Highsmith. In 2003, she earned a business degree from Florida Atlantic University with a double major in management and marketing. From 2004 to 2020, she owned and operated a state-licensed, Medicaid-certified home healthcare company in Wellington.
In 2020, with the support and encouragement of her husband, Highsmith decided to change careers to elementary education.
For the past four years, she served on the Education Advisory Board, including one year as chair. She resigned because public school teachers are not allowed to serve, which she said led to her interest in running for the council.
“There are teachers on the board, but you can’t be a School District of Palm Beach County teacher,” Highsmith said, adding that there are members of the Education Advisory Board who are teachers at private schools.
She is running for the council because many people have told her that the community needs new leadership with a fresh perspective and different personalities. She also believes that local schools could be partnering more with the village, both financially and in other ways.
“Schools bring residents, right?” Highsmith said. “People care about having good schools in their community.”
She feels there is another project in the village that has not gotten enough traction — a plot at Royal Palm Beach Commons Park designated for a community garden.
“That’s a project that’s not getting enough help,” Highsmith said. “The space is designated, and they said, ‘We’ll irrigate it,’ and that’s it. I feel like we could be doing more for that space.”
She also thinks community events need to be communicated better, and that some people seem to be surprised that an event has happened there after the fact.
“There could be better visibility for things,” she said, adding that she has experience promoting happenings in the village, such as teaching people about gardening and bringing people together who would not normally be brought together.
Her activities at H.L. Johnson include hydroponic gardening for grades K through 2, and outdoor gardening with raised beds for grades 3 through 5.
“I’m also doing a STEAM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math] club with kindergarten now,” Highsmith said.
She is also excited to be working with her former classmate at H.L Johnson, Principal Crystal Amado Kucharski.
Highsmith feels her years of fundraising for H.L. Johnson have given her experience in managing distributions and timelines.
“The spring carnival that we did was huge,” she said. “There were 1,500 people who came. We had the bounce houses, we had food trucks, we had entertainment, we had raffles, we had games.”
Highsmith also feels her previous experience as a healthcare worker has prepared her to do just about any job. “I’ve worked with people at the worst times of their lives, going through the hardest times of their lives” she said. “Not just a person or patient, but their families, their children, their grandchildren. I’ve worked with generations through the most challenging things. I feel that that has prepared me to do anything. I’m really good with working with people and listening.”
As for working with the rest of the council if she is elected, Highsmith said that she has experience working with boards and large groups, such as the PTO.
“Everybody shares their opinion, and you go with the majority,” she said.
To learn more about her, Highsmith directs residents to her campaign web site at www.highsmithforvillagecouncil.com.
“I am doing everything myself,” Highsmith said. “I’m doing it, and my husband is helping me. We did the web site by ourselves. A friend of mine took the pictures. I’m not about wasting money. Hopefully, I can make this happen.”
Hmara is wrapping up his fifth two-year term on the council after first being elected in March 2012. Over that time, Hmara is very proud of his accomplishments with the village, and that he is part of a council that works well together.
He is known on the council for his work supporting local schools, largely through his longtime role as liaison to the Education Advisory Board. It is work that he has found very rewarding.
“The level the board is at right now, it is very effective in communications and information sharing,” Hmara said. “When I first got involved with it, the majority of the other council members felt the [advisory board’s] accomplishments were being ignored or weren’t being recognized, and that they weren’t being encouraged.”
He took on being the council’s liaison to the Education Advisory Board, looking at it as an effective interface between the village and the schools, which he considers a critical element of the community.
“When new people come into a community, one of the first things they ask is, ‘How are the schools?’” Hmara said.
Even if the village does not have the direct ability to makes changes at the schools, it does have the ability to facilitate, encourage and communicate between the schools and the community. “This is how we can make the schools even better,” he said. “That was a big deal, and it was even bigger with the high school.”
He feels the Education Advisory Board played a substantial role in improving the relationship between the village and the image of Royal Palm Beach High School, which 10 years ago had a fairly poor reputation, but now is considered a major success story.
“That’s a big deal for me,” Hmara said.
Hmara is also proud of his work with the League of Cities and the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council to encourage redevelopment along the State Road 7 corridor, and to examine and identify what it should look like in the future.
“It’s on the edge of the community, yet it has a substantial impact on the nature of our community,” he said. “Usually, the challenge turns out to be one of finding a balance point between who we are and who we want to become, and not lose the character of the community.”
Hmara said that Royal Palm Beach has a healthy competition with other communities around them, and the village must maintain a competitive edge.
“We have to stay attractive to keep the residents here that we have, and at the same time attract new residents in order to keep growing, to keep it healthy,” he said. “That’s a fairly easy thing to say, but pretty challenging to put it all together.”
Most importantly, he works hard to communicate with everybody in the community. He believes in keeping people informed, especially before something starts happening.
“I do that with HOA meetings that I’m invited to, I’ll do that at CAFCI meetings, I’ll do that wherever and whenever — whether it be at a school or wherever it might be — to share with people what’s going on and set the stage mostly for the opportunity to ask questions,” Hmara said.
He said his involvement with the TCRPC and the Palm Beach and Florida leagues of cities have enabled him to learn from other communities about how they deal with issues and opportunities. This helps him in obtaining ideas that can be brought back to the village.
“Right now, as a result of being involved in these organizations, I can call a lot of people that I could not have called had I not spent time in those organizations,” Hmara said.
He said in order to have influence in those organizations, it is important to step up in the leadership within them.
“That’s what I’ve done, and it has worked out in many ways, ultimately, I think, to the benefit of the village,” Hmara said.
One of the most rewarding activities he has participated in has been the Feeding South Florida project at Royal Palm Beach Commons Park, which started put as staff-driven but evolved into a largely volunteer activity.
“I worked with the staff on that and reached out to the Royal Palm Beach Rotary, and that blossomed, and we still get 15 to 20 volunteers every first and third Wednesday,” he said of the project that provides free groceries for residents in need.
Hmara and his wife Carolyn have two adult children and four grandchildren. He is a retired colonel with the U.S. Army, serving from 1966 to 1992. Hmara then held several high-level positions with different federal government agencies before retiring to Royal Palm Beach.
Visit www.reelectjeffhmara.com to learn more about Hmara’s campaign.
The Town-Crier will host a televised candidates forum regarding the Tuesday, March 8 municipal election on Tuesday, Feb. 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. Residents are invited to attend in person at the Village Meeting Hall, or watch either on the village’s TV channel or web site.
Time for a fresh view. Five terms is more than enough for anyone. Time for him to retire and thanks for his service. Lifetime resident and homeowner since 1972.