Palm Beach County Administrator Joe Abruzzo is building a relationship with President Donald Trump. Or is it the other way around?
The former Democratic state senator who became county administrator in August has gotten to know — and appreciate — the president over the past month, he told a breakfast audience of about 400 at the Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce Jan. 23.
“All I can tell you, he really pays attention and cares about what happens in Palm Beach County,” Abruzzo said. “I was blown away. He watches, reads — this is his home. He made it very clear to me. … This will be his home for the rest of his life, and he wants Palm Beach County as a whole … to thrive.”
Abruzzo’s comments came after North Chamber President and CEO Noel Martinez played a video of Trump praising Abruzzo just a week earlier at Mar-a-Lago during a ceremony marking the renaming of a portion of Southern Boulevard for Trump.
“He’s one of the most talented people in the country at what he does,” Trump said of Abruzzo. “What he does is not easy, but everybody respects him, and everybody listens to him, and he’s got great values.”
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Trump has made Mar-a-Lago his primary residence. He runs a private golf course on county-owned land off of Congress Avenue and owns Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter. In the past, he has clashed with Palm Beach County over noise and pollution from airplanes flying over Mar-a-Lago.
How did the comments from the president make him feel? Martinez asked Abruzzo. “Tremendous,” Abruzzo replied.
He went on: “I had the ability to watch him work for some time, and I had never seen — and again, leaving politics out of it — somebody who works so hard. He watches and reads everything. He marks up his documents. He asks questions. He wants to know what’s going on on our board. He wants to know what the major things are coming through.
“I will tell you, our president does not sleep. He is, regardless if you agree with his policies or not, from an operational standpoint, he is a machine and does not stop.”
Palm Beach County Administrator Joe Abruzzo Jan. 23 at the Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce breakfast at PGA National. (Photo: Kelvin Verhovlyak/Stet) Abruzzo, who first entered the county political scene as a Democrat running for state House in 2006, drew laughter when he concluded, “And hopefully, we’ll be getting some of those federal reimbursements back soon,” referring to the millions the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office spends protecting the president on his frequent visits.
Other points made by Abruzzo during the 40-minute presentation:
- He is reorganizing permitting to assign a single point of contact with the aim of responding to applications within 10 days.
- He will propose creation of a county Office of Cost Control and Compliance that will monitor construction costs.
- He is working to improve relations with cities, noting recent meetings with Palm Beach Gardens City Manager Ron Ferris. The county and the Gardens, pitted against one another in a long-running lawsuit over mobility fees, have scheduled court-endorsed mediation to resolve the 5-year-old dispute.
- The most assertive property tax cuts proposed by the Legislature would devastate county government, he said. It would force the county to find some combination of reserves or higher taxes, such as sales taxes or commercial and non-homesteaded property taxes, to continue to pay for planning and zoning, budgeting, parks and recreation and other county functions.
Abruzzo said he still has gotten no response to his request to Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia for details behind his calculation that Palm Beach County wasted $344 million last year. He pointed out that Ingoglia’s analysis is separate from Florida DOGE, which released its report Thursday.
The DOGE report pointed to increased spending in Palm Beach County on health services, paratransit rides and salaries and overtime. It credited the county with giving back a portion of a $4.5 million grant to help reduce the jail population.
After Ingoglia’s Dec. 4 announcement at a news conference at the Okeechobee Steakhouse, Abruzzo said Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the county and urged businesses to move here.
Abruzzo said he reached out to the governor. “Then why is your CFO saying, if you move down, you’re going to be doing business with a county government that’s fraudulent, wasteful and abusive?” Abruzzo said he told DeSantis. “It doesn’t even jibe with what their messaging is from the state.”
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
