RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — Two candidates seeking seats on the Riviera Beach City Council were told last week that they are not eligible and will not be on the ballot.
Julia Botel, an incumbent seeking reelection from her Singer Island district, and Leroy Kelson, a newcomer hoping to run in a district on the other side of the Blue Heron Bridge, vow to take their rejections to court.
WPTV also learned that Riviera Beach City Clerk Tawanna Smith resigned amid the controversy. Her decisions as to who should and should not be on the ballot were being challenged by candidates who said they were wrongly dismissed.
"The goal is for me to be back on the ballot March 19," Leroy Kelson said.
Kelson learned just before the Thanksgiving weekend that Smith kept him off the ballot because he paid his $1,140 filing fee with a cashier's check.
Florida law mandates that candidates pay by checks from their campaign committees.
But Kelson's campaign showed WPTV a check from his campaign that he said was an attempt to fix the mistake, which under Florida law, he says, he's allowed to do.
"Do you think this unfair?" WPTV investigative reporter Dave Bohman asked Kelson.
"I truly believe, according to the statute, that the clerk had a duty to allow us to review and cure it, due to me turning in my paperwork before the qualifying period, and I was not given that opportunity," Kelson said.
Botel also paid her filing fee by cashier's check.
She originally announced she wasn't running, but changed her mind on filing day and told WPTV via text that she also plans to go to court to get on the ballot.
"I did the same in my last election when my opponent tried to disqualify me," Botel said via text. "I won then, and I will win again."
WPTV wanted to talk with Smith about her decisions to leave candidates Kelson and Botel off the ballot, but when Bohman arrived at her office, she became the former clerk.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, just after deciding to keep Botel and Kelson off the ballot, Smith sent her letter of retirement, effective the day after Christmas.
Then Monday morning, she followed up with an email to the city that said, "Hello, I would like to make my retirement effective immediately."
The letter came an hour after council member Tradrick McCoy called for a special meeting to look into what he called wrongdoing among the clerk and some candidates at the filing deadline.
"Employee misconduct, filing officer's neglect of duty and employees engaging in political activities while on official duty," McCoy said.
He said he planned to release specifics at a special meeting that he's requested.
McCoy also said he was at Riviera Beach City Hall when council candidate Leroy Kelson made "a good faith effort to fix a mistake by trying to replace the cashier's check with a check from the campaign committee."
