The two candidates vying for the Group 1 seat on the Royal Palm Beach Village Council sparred at a candidate forum held Tuesday, Feb. 22 at the Village Meeting Hall.
The forum, hosted by the Town-Crier newspaper, featured incumbent Councilman Jeff Hmara and challenger Julie Highsmith. The Group 1 election is the only item on the Tuesday, March 8 Royal Palm Beach municipal ballot.
The two candidates gave their opinions on a wide variety of local issues. They started by introducing themselves during opening statements.
Highsmith, 41, has lived in Royal Palm Beach since she was five years old and has been married to her husband Bill for 14 years. They have three daughters.
“I love living here,” she said. “That’s why I decided to raise my family here with my husband.”
She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Florida Atlantic University, where she double majored in marketing and management.
“I ran a home healthcare business for 16 years in Wellington,” Highsmith said. “I decided to change careers recently and became a teacher. I am a teacher at H.L. Johnson Elementary School here in Royal Palm Beach.”
She said, if elected, she will strive to always make decisions in the best interest of residents.
Hmara, 77, said he and his wife Carolyn have lived in the village for about 20 years. “We love this piece of paradise, as we refer to it,” he said.
Hmara was elected to the council in 2012 and is wrapping up his fifth two-year term. He said he prides himself in being readily accessible and takes calls from residents on traffic, canal and water, as well as school issues or if a trash pickup was missed.
For the past year, he has been actively involved in the Feeding South Florida program at Royal Palm Beach Commons Park.
“I believe the best way to do my job as councilman is on the ground,” he said. “I learned that from my military experience. I am a retired U.S. Army colonel having served in Vietnam, Korea and Germany.”
Hmara is also a former U.S. federal government agency executive and has taught management and ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has served as president of the Palm Beach County League of Cities, has been chair of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, president of the Royal Palm Beach Rotary Club and president of the Madison Green Master Association.
“I know this community, I love this community, and during my time in office, I know I have made positive impacts on the Village of Royal Palm Beach,” he said.
Asked what their top three goals would be should they be elected, Highsmith said she would improve partnerships with the schools, make sure the area in Commons Park designated for a community garden happens and try to improve community engagement.
“There are so many amazing things going on in our village and at Commons Park and right out here every Saturday,” Highsmith said. “I would like to improve on getting the word out about these things.”
Hmara said he would focus on smart and balanced growth, adding that he was sure the growth going on around the village would affect it, including traffic and schools.
“We’re on a really good place right now,” he said. “We’ve got three studies going on to try and help us figure out what we can do here in Royal Palm Beach that will help us deal with the impact of all the growth going on around us.”
Hmara noted that two new parks will soon be added to the 41 existing parks in the village.
Asked how they thought the village handled the COVID-19 pandemic, Hmara said he felt the village did an excellent job dealing with the pandemic, although it relied heavily on Palm Beach County for guidance and direction.
“At the same time, we recognized that it was an opportunity to bring vaccinations and testing to our community,” he said. “We still have testing going on at Commons Park.”
Hmara said the village also took a look at staff and council interactions, requesting masks to be worn, and if they chose not to mask, to be tested on a regular basis. The village also incentivized vaccinations.
“I think we were very proactive, but at the same time, I think we recognized the need to get back to some form of normalcy,” he said.
Highsmith said she felt the village’s response to the pandemic was great. “The only thing I see where improvement would be needed would be better communication to the residents about what was going on,” she said. “We just need better ways to get the word out to people.”
Asked if they support the village’s policy not to connect Madrid Street in La Mancha to the State Road 7 extension, Highsmith said she supports the current policy.
“That’s right near where I live and where my kids bike to the park,” she said. “It would create added traffic at an entrance we don’t need, so I definitely support not creating that connection there.”
Hmara said a recent traffic study predicted connecting Madrid would create 5,000 trips per day. “We know what would happen to that neighborhood,” he said. “It’s a residential neighborhood. We don’t want to make it into a throughfare.”
He added that there is a plan to connect La Mancha Blvd. to Okeechobee Blvd., which would relieve some local traffic pressure in the area.
Asked what they would do to improve relationships with local schools, Hmara said he committed himself to improve relations with schools after he taught at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He said students who came to his classes were not well prepared. “It was very difficult for them to perform their work as they tried to get degrees,” he said. “I promised myself if I ever got the chance to improve local schools, I would do that.”
When he was elected to the council, he volunteered as liaison to the Education Advisory Board, where he has been ever since.
“I think the Education Advisory Board has been recognized as one of the models here in Palm Beach County as a good approach to connecting with our school district,” Hmara said.
Highsmith, who served on the Education Advisory Board, said she felt the board does a good job.
“I loved doing that. Unfortunately, I no longer qualify for that because I’m now a teacher,” she said. “After my first year on that board, I really found my future was learning and seeing what it was all about. I wish I could do more. I would love to see that board have more impact, and I know that we don’t have direct control over our schools. But the schools are showing up every month. They’re telling us all the great things that they do. What I would like for us to do in return is find out from them what we could do. I don’t see that part happening, and that would be my goal if I were liaison to that board.”
In all, the candidates answered more than 20 questions. To watch the entire forum, the video can be found in the village’s YouTube site and reached directly at https://youtu.be/4Gi8X6TAd28.
Visit www.reelectjeffhmara.com to learn more about Hmara’s campaign. Visit Highsmith’s campaign web site at www.highsmithforvillagecouncil.com.
Watch video from the candidate forum below:
