Delray Beach is set to get a new mayor this year, and three people are vying for the position.

This March 19 election possesses potential for a dramatic change as two other commission seats are also up for election. In total, nine people are running.

Registered Delray Beach voters can vote in-person or return their vote-by-mail ballot on March 19, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot is March 7.

The candidates running for mayor are Ryan Boylston, the CEO of a marketing agency and current city vice mayor; Tom Carney, a practicing lawyer who served on the city’s commission about 10 years ago; and Shirley Johnson, a former commissioner, Community Redevelopment Agency chair and former IBM employee. They each weigh in on issues such as development, affordable housing, water quality, the city’s possible historic district and maintaining the city’s quality of life.

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The newly elected mayor will replace current Delray Beach City Mayor Shelley Petrolia, who has served since 2018.

Here’s what to know about the mayoral candidates.

Delray Beach mayoral candidate Ryan Boylston

Delray Beach’s current vice mayor Ryan Boylston announced his decision to run for mayor in June, making him the incumbent in the race.

Boylston, the CEO and founder of 2TON Creative Agency, a marketing agency, has served on the City Commission since 2018, first as a commissioner and then as vice mayor. Before that, he served on the city’s Pineapple Grove Arts District Board from 2010 to 2017 and the Downtown Development Authority from 2011 to 2017.

At 41, Boylston is the youngest mayoral candidate. He has lived with his family in Delray Beach since 2005 and said he began attending Saturday morning charrettes and various board meetings in his 20s.

Now, after six years on the commission during which the city weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, the Old School Square lawsuit and a series of water issues, Boylston said he decided to run for mayor because he feels he’s good at the job.

“I answer every single email,” he said. “I answer every single phone call, every single text message, doesn’t matter who calls.”

With Delray Beach’s continued growth, striking a balance between maintaining the current quality-of-life and curating smart development is an increasing challenge, but if elected, Boylston said he would address this similarly to how the commission has in the past six years.

“We have passed more ordinances and land development regulation changes than any other commission to control growth,” he said. “Compare Delray Beach to any coastal city, east coast or west coast, who has handled growth better than us.”

Some examples of those ordinances and changes include increasing green space and dropping building height on Atlantic Avenue from four to three stories, he said.

As mayor, part of the job would be about “continuing to put those things in place.”

He supports a possible historic district designation poised for part of the East Atlantic Avenue corridor as well as focusing on the completion of the city’s multimillion-dollar water treatment plan.

Though not in support of multi-tenant housing units, Boylston said he is in support of affordable housing options such as micro-units and increasing flexibility for housing in The Set neighborhood.

Boylston said he also hopes to continue a slow decline of the city’s tax rate.

Ultimately, the city’s mayor needs to “be a well-rounded leader,” he said, and “not someone who thinks they can do other people’s jobs.”

“The mayor needs to really know Delray Beach,” he said. “Someone who will lead people, will hold people accountable, that will work toward a solution to a problem.”

Delray Beach mayoral candidate Tom Carney

Next up is Tom Carney, a 70-year-old who has lived in Delray Beach for nearly 30 years and served as a city commissioner from 2011 to 2013 and then briefly as acting mayor in 2013. He ran for mayor that same year but lost to Cary Glickstein.

Why, after more than 10 years, is he running for mayor again? The city is headed “really in the wrong direction,” he said.

“I don’t think that we are really concentrating on the residents as much,” he said. “Politicians always say residents first, I actually believe that.”

As a practicing lawyer, Carney said he brings experience the current dais does not have. He’s appeared in front of the commission on behalf of clients before, making Carney a solid candidate for mayor because he’s been on both sides of the process, he said.

“It’s one thing being behind the dais and making decisions,” he said. “It’s quite another to be in front of the dais trying to get something approved through the city.”

Delray Beach’s infrastructure, such as old pipes under the road, needs upheaval, he said.

Like the aging infrastructure, Carney said the water treatment plant also needs to be prioritized as it’s “way overdue.”

The city’s operations also need to undergo a “thorough analysis,” he said, to, among other things, make city hall more “user friendly” and generate efficiency.

“Compared to where we should be, we’re not doing enough, in my view, to really drill down on making these departments sufficient,” he said. “We have great people, but some of the procedures are old.”

As for managing the city’s growth, Carney said he’s not “anti-development,” but he wants to promote strategic development, especially as it pertains to managing traffic.

“We need to have a better understanding of all these traffic things that we are creating because we have some big projects,” he said. “I wouldn’t allow the developers to do their own traffic studies. I would have the city engage true traffic engineers.”

Much of Carney’s beliefs point back to a desire for maintaining the “Village by the Sea’s” quality of life, especially along Atlantic Avenue, which he said should not be taken for granted.

For the possible historic district designation on part of that corridor, Carney said he does not support it as currently proposed, as business owners located there are at risk of being left behind in the process.

His “wheelhouse of expertise” makes him the best choice for mayor, he said.

“You need to have somebody who actually knows how to read a contract, knows how to do public finance, knows how to do budgeting,” he said. “I’ve always been a consensus builder, and I can work with anybody.”

Delray Beach mayoral candidate Shirley Johnson

The third candidate is Shirley Johnson, who you may have seen in the city armed with a neon yellow tote bag emblazoned with the words: “Vote Johnson for Mayor.”

Johnson has lived in Delray Beach for more than 40 years. Now, at 77, she is attempting a return to the commission as mayor after serving two terms as a commissioner on Seat Four from 2017 to 2023. She also served as chair of the board of the Delray Beach CRA from 2020 to 2023.

“I am so excited because I’m the first Black female to run for this seat,” she said. “I love the city. I love all of the residents. I play no favoritism as has been demonstrated by my votes. I try to treat everyone equitably.”

Johnson’s primary priority is the environment, which she said she hopes to employ through actions such as more strictly enforcing the city’s single-use plastic straw ban. She said she would love for Delray Beach to be on the forefront of fighting climate change.

“You can talk about development all you want, but if you don’t have an Earth, what good is it?” she said.

When voting on development proposals, she said she tried keeping them within the city’s ordinance and land-use development regulations at the time. She is in full support of moving forward with the Atlantic Avenue historic district designation, though.

As for affordable housing, Johnson said she’d like to see the city partner with entities such as churches to possibly create more affordable housing opportunities.

And as for city finances, Johnson said she wants to see the commission “return to an honest departmental input of the budget.”

“I would probably pay a lot more attention than I had in the past,” she said. “I never trusted any of the budgets we received because I didn’t trust the people who were putting them together.”

Like her opponents, Johnson wants to see the city receive its new water treatment plant and quickly, too; as mayor, she would push for an acceleration of the project. Similarly, she said “City Hall is not what it could and should be,” and requires renovation, as does the city’s tennis center, which she said is “unusable” during the summer.

Johnson said she wants voters to know she’s “ready to lead” and has the experience to do so.

“I’ve had six years on the commission. I’ve made a lot of inroads into having the citizens be represented on the commission,” she said. “I believe there’s more that can be done.”