Frank Barbieri, the First Vice President of the West Boca Community Council and long-time president of the Loggers Run HOA, was elected Chairman of the Palm Beach County School Board last week.

He was first elected to the 7-person School Board in 2010 to represent the district that includes most of West Boca as well as other parts of Palm Beach County. During his first two years in office he became a strong voice for teachers and parents, especially when last year’s school crisis provoked parent and teacher protests fueled by Facebook communications.

But Barbieri was also on the short end of 6 to 1 School Board votes throughout much of those first two years in office. The 2010 elections changed all that, with four more outsiders elected to the School Board on platforms vowing to change the status quo.

The first order of business of the newly revamped School Board was to elect Frank Barbieri its new Chairman. Its second was to change the meetings of the School Board from daytime to early evening to enable many more people to attend.

Frank Barbieri was born and raised in Akron Ohio, where he was a police officer for 11 years before earning his law degree at the University of Akron. After moving to Boca Raton in 1984, he served on the county’s Zoning Commission for nearly two decades. He is a lawyer with Sachs Sax Caplan, a major law firm in Boca Raton that was a pioneer in the field of HOA and condo association law.

Barbieri wasted no time setting the tone for change in addressing the media as the Board’s new Chairman:

"Over the last year, the trust in this board and the administration has been diminished. Our image has been tarnished. The changes I will offer will be with one objective in mind: rebuilding that trust, changing that image, establishing true transparency and enabling us to function effectively as a policy-making board."

Alan Kellock