Palm Beach moves up start time for annual Town Caucus Dec. 3 to accommodate holiday events

Palm Beach has scheduled a rare mid-afternoon start for its annual caucus at Town Hall.

During its regular meeting Tuesday, the Town Council approved an ordinance that sets a start time of 3:30 p.m. for the Dec. 3 meeting, at which candidates for mayor and the Group 1 and 2 council seats will be nominated. Municipal elections are scheduled for March 11.

Holiday tree lighting ceremonies scheduled for the same evening at Memorial Park and Worth Avenue spurred the decision to push up the caucus's start time. The meeting traditionally begins at 6 p.m.

The Worth Avenue holiday lighting event starts at 6:10 p.m., and the Memorial Park event begins at 5:30 p.m., Town Manager Kirk Blouin said.

"We have a conflict," Council President Bobbie Lindsay said in introducing the measure Tuesday. "We need to go to the tree lighting, and we need to go to the caucus."

After speaking with Blouin, Lindsay said she decided to ask the the council to move up the start time for the caucus to ensure that council members and other attendees would have the opportunity to participate in both events.

The date of the caucus cannot be moved, Blouin noted, but the time could be adjusted.

"We can't change the date," he told council members. "It's detailed in our charter. The date needs to happen. The only thing you can do is change the time. The question is if you want to make it a quick caucus, you can do it a little later. If you want to have ample time for the nominators and the discussion, I would suggest making it at ... the latest, 3:30."

Council members agreed on the 3:30 start time after initially considering 4 p.m.

Council member Ted Cooney, who is up for reelection next year in the Group 2 seat, said he preferred the earlier time in case there were multiple candidates running for the three seats, which would lengthen the nominating process.

In addition to Cooney, council member Julie Araskog also is up for reelection in her Group 1 seat, as is Mayor Danielle Moore.

As of Wednesday morning, no candidates had declared their intention to run in the 2025 municipal election, Deputy Town Clerk Pat Gayle-Gordon told the Daily News.

"If there ends up being three races, a whole slate, which we can't control of foresee at the moment, then we could be here awhile," Cooney said.

For information on municipal elections, visit the town's website at townofpalmbeach.com/373/Elections .

Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News , part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com .

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach moves up start time for annual Town Caucus Dec. 3 to accommodate holiday events