Alex Cull-Candidate for Lake Worth Beach Mayor

Cull is one of four candidates running for Mayor of Lake Worth Beach, including incumbent Betty Resch.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, Joel Malcolm Ford w jn O dot com my election spotlight on

(00:03):
the city of Lakeworth Beach. Youhave three races in the city, a
couple of commission races, District oneDistrict three. You have to live in
those districts that respective district uh tovote for that race. But the mayoral
race obviously open to all voters,all registered voters living within the city limits
of lake Worth Beach. Uh.And in that race, we have four

(00:26):
candidates, including the incumbent mayor,Betty Rash, three challengers. One of
those challengers joins us now, AlexCoull. Thank you for joining me.
Hey, Joel, thank you verymuch for having me. It's a it's
a real pleasure. All right.Let's uh, let's talk about Alex cull
before we get into the old cityand you know, and the issues and
stuff. I want to get toall of that and your thoughts on some

(00:47):
of the some of the key issuesin the city, uh, including the
lack of a city manager and whatled to that. Uh. But first
let's you know, let's start withyou know, one of the biggest issues
there. Well, let's start withyou. How long have you been in
Lakeworth Beach and you know, whatis your what do you do for a
living? Et cetera. Yeah,hey, thank you so much. Yeah,

(01:10):
my name is Alex. Officially asa homeowner, I've lived in Lakeworth
Beach for four years. I'm certainlythe young person in the race. I'm
thirty two years old. I closedon my home when I was twenty eight.
I closed on it about four yearsago, about three weeks from today,
will be four weeks ago. Giberture, where did you? Where did
you move? For? Ah?Understood? I moved at the time.

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I was living in Palm City foraround six months, really just to help
my mother out. My mother livesup in Palm City and she had some
hip replacement completed, so I movedwith him with her to help her out.
Prior to that, though, overthe previous decade, I had been
doing what frankly many young people do, which is floating from lease to Lisa's

(01:53):
lent Lentz roast throughout Palm Beach County. I lived in Boyton Beach, I
lived in the unincorporated areas. Ilived in Dela a long time ago.
I lived in Boca for a verybrief period. But I've always been Lakeworth
adjacent. Lakeworth has always been wheremy friends are, my heart is,
and everything in between. Where wereyou born. Were you born in Lakeworth

(02:15):
Beach? I was born No,I was not born in Lakeworth Beach.
I was born up north. Iwas was born in I was born in
hundred in New Jersey. That beingsaid, I would definitely wasn't raised in
New Jersey. Hundred in is aborder. It's an approximate border town,
if you will, between the NewJersey and Pennsylvania border. I grew up

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in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Andto answer one of your earlier questions,
what do I do for a livingby day, I'm a senior strategy lead
at Amazon Business. Previously, Idid quite a lot of work in the
insurance industry and the regional insurance industryin Florida. All right, is there
anything in your career maybe you knowand what you do on a day to

(02:59):
day or what you have done inthe past that you feel could help you,
you know, it's beneficial to bringto the days. Yeah, thank
you, And I think that's agreat question. Certainly, certainly so.
Over the last ten years of myprofessional career, I like to think that
I've honed the skills necessary to reallybring people together to get projects done.

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You know what I do each andevery single day as a strategist is I
sit in meetings and I bring stakeholderstogether who don't always necessarily agree for the
same vision or the same proverbial northstar for the completion of a project or
a program or anything in between.But that's my job. My job is
to bring people together to facilitate cooperationand collaboration and to get a product or

(03:45):
a program or at the end ofthe day, some sort of result out
there or our customers and for thepublic, and for our leadership, which
checks all the boxes necessary, andso over the last ten years, I'd
like to think that I've built thatprofessional executive leadership experience as a senior to
really try to bring people together andget work done, even when it means

(04:06):
that we don't always necessarily agree withwhere that work should be heading at the
same table. All right, let'sstart talking about some of the issues and
we will go ahead, since Iteased it, We'll start with the city
manager. How long ago? What'sthat? I feel like that was fairly
recent that the city Commission let theformer city manager go oh, just a
few months ago. It was aspecial meeting held in December, if I

(04:28):
recall correctly, all right, andso what are your thoughts on the situation
right now? I believe there isthere's either an interim city manager or there's
just no inter no manager at all. Correct. There is an interim city
manager. It's currently being held byJamie and being he's done a lot of
work in the city already as aleadership holding a leadership position within the city
staff. To dive really right intoa Joel, when I approached and tried

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to learn more about the issue pertainingto the city manage, I found myself
struggling to wrap my head around themeeting and the surface and the firing,
if you will. When I myselfwere critical of the premise that brought us
there, and I know that's abroad, broad, broad thing to say,
So if you don't mind, allowme to get a little bit deeper

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into this, the city manager hadsome problems at the right. Off the
top of my head, the citymanager kind of worked in the background with
one of our commissioners to evict headStart non renew their lease. Specifically,
Headstart is the only publicly unded preK program within our city. Let's keep
in mind that Lakeworth Beach, youknow, we're not vocal, with twenty

(05:40):
to twenty five percent of our residentsare lived below the poverty line. About
ninety percent of the kids in ourpublic schools lived below the poverty line.
We got about nine hundred kids whoare homeless in our public schools and all
in all around two thousand that areat risk of homeless the technical title and
mckend students, and so with thatin mind, I won't lie that very

(06:00):
much upset me. This is theonly publicly publicly funded for e quote unquote
pre K option available to those populations. So I was very disappointed to see
that the city manager kind of workedwithout the elected body to make a decision
with one commissioner to non renew thatlease. And in addition, we lost
a lot of good applicants for ourutilities, and applicants' leadership positions for our

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utilities are hard to find. It'shard to find someone who knows how to
run a power company or a watercompany, you know. And these applications
sat on the city's manager's desk formonths and months and months until the applications
no longer meant anything, and thoseindividuals had moved on, So I certainly
have some problems there. That beingsaid, when I go back to my

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original point where I struggle with thepremise of whenever these questions come up,
is because the city manager was contractuallyobligated to complete two performance reviews per you
and our existing days. And let'skeep in mind that the mayor, the
position I'm running for, that's thechair. They set the agenda, they
set the tone, they set themeeting. They really are responsible for the
efficiency of this day. It's inthis meeting these contractually mandated performance reviews were

(07:11):
not completed. So we had afew commissioners who were very upset with the
performance of the city manager. Andin my opinion, we had a manager
aka a chair akaa mayor who wasnot addressing even the contractually obligated portions of
her contract, which would have allowedus to get in front of this as
a city sooner. You Optimally,when I have an employee or a staff

(07:32):
member who's I don't think is doinga good job, I sit down with
them, I talk with them.We talk about how we can improve something
like a performance improvement plan. Butthe thing is that our current mayor mayor
rest sat down with her every singleweek, went into this performance, went
into this special meeting giving her aperformance review of stellar review, while the

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only performance review on record for thecity manager prior to that meeting was one
which was a review completed by thecity manager herself, and it was a
you know, it was of coursestellar. It was near five out of
five and four out of five onevery single mark. So personally, to
answer the question directly, I thinkit was time to let the city manager
go. I did not see theperformance that I wanted to see. That

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being said, and now I'm sayingthat as a citizen, mind you,
But that being said, you know, if I were there, if I
were runing those meetings, I'd bedoing the same thing I'd do at work,
which is we wouldn't have had aspecial meeting. We wouldn't have had
a circuit, we wouldn't have hada proverbial circus to address the problem because
we had a chair who was unwillingto address it even though they were having

(08:37):
weekly meetings at the city manager.We really could have gotten ahead of this
and managers more professionally, and that'sreally an underlying code of my campaign is
our city, our daist lack professionalism, our daist lack efficiency. It brings
the tone and an attitude that ifI brought to a single meeting at work,
I'd be fired on the same day. And that's really what our campaign

(09:00):
hopes to bring above all else.All Right. Public safety is another one
of the issues that you know thatyou have on your campaign your campaign site.
Do you currently have any concerns aboutthe safety of Lakeworth Beach? Well?
Safety? I do? I do? I do I do? While

(09:22):
violent crime is certainly down from whereit was twenty years ago, Lakeworth Beach
has a lot of improvement that weneed to we need to start solutioning for
we need to address so one ofthe most common concerns when I hear knocking
at the doors, and we havewe have knocked on a lot of doors
the last couple of months in boydo we plan on knocking on a lot

(09:43):
more. But one of the commonconcerns I hear is the homelesser houses population
in the city. A lot ofpeople don't feel safe around the homelesser houses
populations. And we use in thecity. We don't have city police,
we use the pumba County Sheriff's OfficePbSO. PbSO is ill equipped to address
the problem, and yet PbSO isthe only tool that's currently available to address

(10:07):
the problem. Why do you letme let me stop you there? Why
do you why do you say thatPbSO or the Sheriff's office is equipped to
handle the homeless problem. That isa great question. So whenever anyone asked
the door at the door asking methis question, I say the same thing,
which is, look, if anindividual is being you know, if

(10:28):
a homeless or house it's really anyindividual. But typically we're talking about these
populations are having a difficult moment,maybe a mental health or an addiction crisis.
What the PbSO officer can do ispick this individual up and invoke something
called the Baker Act, and theBaker Act allows them to drop them off
at a hospital where they are detainedin the medical facility for three days.

(10:50):
But the problem is that on dayfour, Joel is, they're back where
they were and no problem has beenaddressed. And as I always want to
say, the bleeding continues. Sosomething that PbSO is actually very on board
with is the city received a significantamount of ARP of funds the American Rescue
Plan Act, one of the JoeBiden federal bills that passed in the last

(11:13):
few years. During COVID, wecan use a portion of these ARPA funds
to hire a team of specialized socialworkers. And these specialized social workers would
work hand in hand with OH sothat when one of these individuals are having
a crisis, a mental health oran addiction crisis, we can have a
social worker respond. So to beclear, we're not getting rid of the

(11:35):
Baker Act. That's the state law. If they're you know, if they
are deemed a threat to themselves orothers, you know, then they need
to be put away and put underobservation of a doctor. But we need
to start thinking what happens on dayfour, what happens after that third day?
And that's what these social workers arebetter equipped to address than PbSO when

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they're on the scene, they canask this individual, Hey, when is
the last time you've seen a doctor. We've got a large network of housing
programs. We can help you findhousing. Do you want to work?
Because I do speak with a lotof homeless people, and homeless people don't
want to be homeless. It willalways be a population a very frail mentally
disadvantage population that will most likely alwaysretain some degree of homelessness and some housing

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scarcity problems, but a very largepercentage is not the case. But we
need to give the tools down atthe ground, down at the front line.
So again we can start thinking aboutwhat happens after day four, And
beautifully, this frees up the PBSLresources within the town to focus on the
crimes that they should really be respondingto, the violent crimes. The violent

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crimes, the assaults, the burglaries, the break ins and more. This
freeze up PbSO while finally addressing thebleeding. And this is something that I'm
very very very hopeful for. Itis not some innovative solution and I've drawn
up myself. This is a triedand true methodology that has worked all over
the world. All Right, thereare a lot of issues that you want

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to cover. I know, Unfortunately, you know, we we have limited
time. So I'm going to letyou hit on one or two one or
two other issues in the city thatand your thoughts on those if you like.
Hey, I appreciate that, Jol. Something that's remarkably important to me
is the city laying down the infrastructureand taking it and time to represent and

(13:35):
empower our Hispanic and Latin communities.So something make like with Beaches, we
are a minority and authority town.The majority of individuals living within this city
are Hispanic. When Hispanic, there'smore Hispanic individuals here than Caucasian or white
individuals. And yet one of theproblems that I hear when speaking to the

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Hispanic community is that time and timeagain they see misrepresented by the actions of
our city government. You know,it's a very little thing, but like
as an example street art, wehave two downtowns. We have a Hispanic
downtown and then we have an everybodyelse downtown. If your local, it's
known as Little Guatemala. It's awonderful stretch of lake and looser of virons

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with businesses and delicious food and more. But that being said, street art
comes to town. And that's comingto town actually just this month. And
yeah we're talking about I'm using thelocal nomenclature. Yes, okay, right,
the street painting festival. But that'sexactly right, and insistently we've excluded

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our Hispanic downtown some part of thisproject, and that's just silly to me.
You know, this is that thatis a thriving part of our downtown
and we set up the blocks rightwhere their neighborhood begins. And this is
a simple thing we can do.Yeah, we can sort out the traffic
issues, but traffic issues are humanproblem with human solutions. We can make
it and expand it so that allof our community is included in this economic

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viability and these Torus dollars coming in. One other point I want to make
is we really want to and byI'm sorry, I as the campaign very
much want to introduce minority advocacy councilsas part of our city, so we
can have a Hispanic advocacy council,a Haitian advocacy council, possibly more,
we do have a large Haitian populationwithin this city. And then these advocacy

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councils can be leaders within the Hispaniccommunity, business leaders, religious leaders,
community leaders, and organizers. Sothat way we can ensure that these communities
are actually influential in helping us toshape the policy and future of this town.
Two small things that would make aworld of difference the majority of voters

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in this town. I like,I'm going to ask you a question.
I don't want you to take offenseto it, but I'm sure you've heard
it or something of what would yousay to somebody you're thirty two, you're
a young man. What would yousay to somebody that says, you know,
the thirty two that you know that'stoo young to run a city,
to lead a city. Well,it's a great question, and frankly,

(16:18):
it's not a question that I hearrelatively frequently. And how I push back
is, frankly, every single dayfrom the computer sitting in my Florida room
or I'm taking this call right now. I manage budgets, assets and programs
that account for dollars and use it, and individuals interacting with it that are
even greater by multiples of five andten than this city. Frankly, I

(16:44):
would argue that I am the onlymayoral candidate with the actual working experience to
manage a multimillion dollar project. I'mnot afraid of a ten to fifteen million
dollar pool renovation. I just closeda fifty million dollar project that's two millions
of end users. I understand I'mthe young guy, you know. I
understand that I am running against anestablished mayoral candidate, and I'm running against

(17:10):
an established former vice mayor. Butand name recognition is certainly our enemy in
this race, because when we goto door to door and people learn about
me, and people learn about us, they support us. But at the
end of the day, I wouldargue that I do have the experience,
I do have to know how,I do have the intelligence. And each
and every single day I talk topeople who are saying that people our age

(17:33):
and use my age, you needto get more involved in the process and
time to pass the torch, andwell, you know what that are time
in the presence. Hey, Ionly have twenty two years on you,
so don't you know? All right, let me you know before we wrap
up. I always ask this questionof my candidates when I when I speak

(17:55):
to them, you know what,four candidates in here. You got an
incumbent, you got one that wasat one point a city commissioner trying to
get back on and you know,so basically out of four candidates, in
a nutshell, why should folks makeAlex cull the one they elect as mayor
at lake Worth Beach. I reallyappreciate that, Joel, And that's a

(18:18):
good question. So simply put,when I go door to door and when
I talk to people all throughout thecity, people are disappointed with the leadership
we had seen from our dais overthe last two and often going back for
administrations, and it has been markedwith individuals who see a share who are

(18:41):
inexperienced, don't know how to leada board meeting, don't know how to
bring people together, and are drivenby emotional confrontation and bickering above all else.
You know, I always ask people, at some point in your life
rhetorically, at some point in yourlife, you've probably had a good boss.
You probably had a good manager.What made that person good boss?
What made that put them a goodmanager? Did they know all the answers?

(19:03):
Did you measure them by their ya'sor nay's. No, What means
I'm a good boss or a goodmanager is the fact that they listened,
that they brought people together, thatthey collaborated, that when they didn't understand,
they admitted their ignorance, and thatthey learned. And these are things
I do each and every single day. It's why I'm the youngest strategist at

(19:25):
Amazon. It's why that every singleday I can come, I can come
to work and bring a tone ofprofessionalism and a drive that actually achieves work
and not just nationalists the international levels. So the reason I need to be
I should be picked for mayor ofLakeworth Beach over before is that I'm the
only one who has a track recordof getting this done. So very simply

(19:48):
put, what I say at alot of the doors is listen. I
know you're unhappy with the direction ofthe city is going. I'm not happy
with it either. I want tostart a family in a few years,
I mean a bunch of young familiesimporting us for the same exact reason.
So here's your choice. You canvote or the current status quo, which
you've admitted, which many have admittedthemselves that they're very unhappy with. It's

(20:11):
emotionally driven, in charge and markedby eye rolling. We can vote for
the old status quo, which weall voted out for the same exact reason.
Or we can vote for someone newwho actually had experience managing projects of
this degree and actually is on therecord of being able to bring people together
and get this work done. Allright, well, I appreciate you taking

(20:33):
the time to talk to the votersof lake Worth Beach. Again, this
is one of three races in thecity and the only one that's open to
every voter in the city of lakeWorth Beach. So if you're a registered
voter and you live within the citylimits of lake Worth Beach, the mayoral
race is one that you should getout and vote. March nineteenth and Alex
Cull one of four candidates for mayor. Thank you for joining me, Thank

(20:56):
you for having me Joel, andthank you for the commitments of local journalism.
You really need more people call itcovering smaller races like this. It
keeps frankly, you know, itkeeps everybody honest and keeps politicians like me
honest. So thank you, sir. Really, above all the stroll, thank you