The top job: A look at recent mayors of Palm Beach

With Palm Beach Mayor Gail Coniglio announcing Dec. 30 she will not be seeking a sixth term after serving as mayor since 2011, it’s time to look back at some of the people who occupied that office before her.

Coniglio is the 16th mayor of the town, which was incorporated in 1911. While the mayor only has the right to vote to break a tie vote on any ordinance, resolution or ordinance, the mayor also has veto powers. The mayor is recognized as the head of the town government for ceremonial and other purposes and acts as an ombudsman to investigate and report the residents’ concerns to the council.

Yvelyne “Deedy” Marix

Longtime residents may remember Yvelyne “Deedy” Marix, the first woman to serve on the Town Council and the first to be mayor. The English-born daughter of a French count, Marix moved to Palm Beach with her family in 1945.

First elected to the council in 1970, she became the town’s 12th mayor in 1983. Marix, who, with her husband, Nigel Marix, owned the Embassy Travel Bureau on North County Road for decades, died at 91 in 2017.

She decided to run because she wanted to keep Palm Beach the way it was.

“At first, no one took me seriously, maybe thought I was a bit nuts. But then I won,” she said in an interview in the 1970s.

Marix was mayor for 10 years and a councilwoman for eight. She served on the council from 1970 to 1978. During that time, the board firmed up zoning restrictions and formed the Architectural Commission. She resigned her seat to make an unsuccessful bid for mayor against William Cudahy.

She won mayoral races three times. In 1983 she defeated Benjamin Oehlert Jr., a former Coca-Cola executive and U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. In 1985, she prevailed against Jesse Newman, the president of the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, and in 1987, against her friend, Paul Ilyinksy.

The race between Ilyinsky, a Romanov who traced his heritage to Russian royalty, and Marix, who claimed to be a descendant of Charlemagne, the ninth century ruler of Western Europe, attracted national attention. It was dubbed an election of blue bloods and both the New York Times and People Magazine wrote stories on the race.

Marix was unopposed in mayoral bids in 1989 and 1991.

Paul Ilyinksy

After Marix retired, Ilyinsky was elected the town’s 13th mayor in 1993. Ilyinsky, who operated a photography business, would go on to be elected 10 times in all, serving seven years as mayor and 11 as councilman. He first ran for council in 1981, encouraged by Marix. He served six years before resigning to challenge her for mayor. He died in 2004 at 77.

Ilyinsky often joked that he was “the only Romanov ever democratically elected to office.” He was a second cousin to Tsar Nicholas II, and a great-great-grandson of Alexander II.

He met his wife Angelica across the bar at the The Colony hotel, and they settled in Cincinnati. But in 1979, after five children, they moved to Palm Beach. Ilyinsky was described in a 2004 article as a combination of down-to-earth aristocrat, as comfortable at a charity ball as at the annual town public works picnic, which he attended even after he left office.

His annual State of the Town address to the Palm Beach Civic Association was popular because of his glib, off-the-cuff remarks. He kept regular hours at Town Hall so residents could meet with him and published a newsletter with his own money.

During his tenure, the town settled its battle with West Palm Beach over drinking water.  He said that he regretted supporting the creation of The Mar-a-Lago Club because he came to believe that dividing the estate into seven or eight residential lots may have been preferable.

“It’s been a hell of a ride. … it’s going to be great being part of the problem instead of part of the solution,” he said as he announced his resignation in 1999 with a year left on his fourth term.

Ilyinsky’s resignation opened the door for then-council President Lesly Smith, who took Ilyinsky’s seat on the council when he was first elected mayor, to run for mayor.

Lesly Smith

Smith ran unopposed and was elected the town’s 14th mayor in 2000. Prior to that, she served on the council for seven years, and was president for five of those years. She also was on the architectural review board for eight years.

Raised in New York City, Smith began visiting Palm Beach with her parents as a child.  Now 82, she has been a full-time resident for decades.

She is president of the Fortin Foundation of Florida and the Fortin Child Care Foundation and vice president of the Mary Alice Fortin Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that supports family services and community projects.

Smith, whose civic work began with the Garden Club in 1971, has a long history of community involvement and philanthropy. She is chairwoman of the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League board; a director of the Pitt Foundation; and a trustee of the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, The Society of the Four Arts and the Town of Palm Beach United Way.

During her tenure, Smith was widely credited with shepherding through the town’s 10-year strategic plan by chairing the planning committee herself and reaching out to all parts of the town for input. She reconnected the island with the outside world, hosting an annual luncheon with mayors and managers of surrounding towns. She re-established solid relations with West Palm Beach, county commissioners, state legislators and the Port of Palm Beach.

When she decided not to run again, she said, “Twelve years is long enough. Years ago, I was in favor of limited tenure. New people, new vision, new leadership.”

As she left office in 2005, she gave advice to her successor on how to respond to a question when stumped for an answer. “Use the words civility, legacy and vision. And if all else fails, 'indeed.'"

Over the years, she sparred with Donald Trump over his club, with former West Palm Beach Mayor Nancy Graham over water rates, with countless zoning attorneys over variances and was against Neiman Marcus coming to Worth Avenue because she thought the store was too big.

Smith is the widow of Earl E.T. Smith, who was the U.S. ambassador to Cuba, and who served as mayor from 1971 to 1977. He died in 1991 at 87.

She also is the mother of Town Council member Danielle Hickox Moore, who announced in December that she is running for mayor.

Jack McDonald

Jack McDonald, 76, a retired real estate attorney who has lived in Palm Beach since 1980 after moving from Chicago, became the town’s 15th mayor in 2005. The first mayor elected from the South End, he was first elected to the Town Council in 1995 and re-elected in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004.  He was re-elected mayor in 2007 and 2009.

In 2007, McDonald cast the deciding vote to spend $12.6 million to renovate the 1924 Town Hall and build a two-story building at the town’s public works complex in West Palm Beach and move two town departments there.

McDonald, a widower who now lives in a Midtown condominium, met his late wife Yong Ash McDonald, who died in 2007, at the Seaview Park tennis courts.

As mayor, he appointed panels and commissions that led to West Palm Beach’s selection as the Cleveland Clinic’s Palm Beach County location.

He also was the first Palm Beach mayor to establish and lead a countywide coalition when he formed and chaired the Let Us Vote political action committee. The PAC was responsible for passage of the home rule amendment to the Palm Beach County charter. The home rule amendment, passed by voters in 2008, says that any municipality can opt out of countywide rules at the will of its voters.

In 2006, he initiated the ordinance change that banned noisy construction on Saturdays.

Among his other accomplishments was his recommendation in 2010 that the town form its first task force to review the Palm Beach County budget.

McDonald was the driving force behind construction of the Phipps Park tennis facility, and the 2010 renovation of the Seaview tennis facility.

After his third term as mayor, McDonald chose not to run in 2011. That decision was partly due to a brutal and costly race in 2009 against the-Councilwoman Susan Markin and former Councilman Gerry Goldsmith for the mayor’s seat. McDonald won by one vote in a recount. Goldsmith sought to have the election result overturned in court. The Florida Supreme Court refused to take up Goldsmith’s case after McDonald prevailed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court and in the 4th District Court of Appeal.

McDonald, who experienced 15 months of intensive litigation after winning the 2009 election, said in 2011, "No unpaid public official should have to experience an ordeal like that. And I choose not to place myself in that situation again. Losers no longer graciously concede; they sue.”

“That has never happened before or since. The litigation made my last year a nightmare,” McDonald said this past week.

Since his retirement, McDonald has often appeared before the council to advocate on pension issues for public safety employees and a contract for union firefighters, and was the catalyst for pension reforms and negotiation of a fire safety contract.

McDonald said his advice to the next mayor is two-fold. What’s needed is a steadfast commitment to the welfare and compensation of the town’s employees and to maintaining Palm Beach’s quality of life.

Gail Coniglio

Prior to McDonald’s announcement that he would not run again, then-Town Councilwoman Gail Coniglio had said she would seek the town’s highest office.

Coniglio, a former nurse and restaurant and business owner, was elected mayor in 2011 after serving two terms as council member. In total, she was re-elected seven times without opposition.

Coniglio’s many notable accomplishments include fighting for a Palm Beach County property tax decrease, persuading the Palm Beach County Commission to designate $300,000 toward the town’s coastal protection costs, and helping to steer discussion on undergrounding of the town’s electrical system.

Coniglio, 66, is a huge advocate of protecting the beaches, and along with the council, implemented a long-term coastal program to protect the shoreline.

About eight years ago, she worked closely with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and a Cooperative Beach Management Agreement was established. It defines best management practices for inlet-to-inlet shoreline management and protection.

“It was the first and to my knowledge the only such agreement but would absolutely benefit all coastal communities. It provides a long-term “roadmap” integrating permitting, environmental and habitat benefits,” Coniglio said.

“It has been a labor of love, and in the last week I’ve said often, 'I’m not finished ... yet,' and will continue to contribute to Palm Beach and the greater community at large in any way that I can,” she said this past week.

“I have no real words of wisdom, but at times followed my experience as a mother and businesswoman,” said Coniglio, who has six children and 15 grandchildren with two more on the way.

Coniglio said she believes in listening and compromising in a way that everyone feels valued.

“I feel privileged to have crossed paths and developed friendships with so many people in town and around Palm Beach County and the state that have made our community stronger and better prepared for the future,” she said.