West Palm Beach Archives

Call him ‘carpetbagger’ but leave Mayo vs. James to the voters, attorney argues

West Palm Beach mayoral race between Keith James and Rodney Mayo comes down to decision from Circuit Court Judge G. Joseph Curley.

Home is where the heart is.

That’s the message from Rodney Mayo’s lawyer, fighting to keep the West Palm Beach restaurateur on the ballot for a March 14 faceoff with West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James.

But to James, home is where your drivers’ license says it is. Or your voter registration card. And for Mayo, that’s a Lantana-area address on Pine Drive, not a “crash pad” above a bar on Clematis Street, James’ attorneys argued Tuesday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

Mayor Keith James in crosshairs of Sunset Lounge lawsuit

Deposition shows West Palm Beach procurement official did little to prove case against top-ranked bidder, Vita Lounge.

A West Palm Beach city official disqualified the winning bidder to operate the Sunset Lounge, an iconic nightclub in the city’s oldest black neighborhood, in large part because the bidder’s friends waged a Facebook campaign of support.

However, the city’s procurement officer did nothing to investigate whether those friends were representatives of top-ranked Vita Lounge, a standard needed to disqualify them over prohibited lobbying, procurement officer Paul Bassar testified in an Oct. 7 deposition. Instead, he said he relied on copies of Facebook posts provided by his boss, the city attorney.

His answers place West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James squarely in the crosshairs of a lawsuit challenging the city’s disqualification of the all-black Vita Lounge, one of two bidders seeking to run the long-shuttered nightspot in the city’s oldest black neighborhood.