North Palm Beach Council Runoff: Okolichany vs. Zellner

North Palm Beach voters head back to the polls Tuesday to settle a runoff race that will fill the vacant Group 4 seat on the Village Council, with retired real estate professional Ron Okolichany squaring off against auto industry executive Kendra Zellner.

Neither candidate cleared the majority threshold required to win outright in the March 24 special election. Zellner led the three-candidate field with 34.54% of the vote, while Okolichany finished second with 32.89%. Former Village Council member David Norris came in third, edged out by Okolichany by just 11 votes. Tuesday’s runoff is a direct contest between the two top finishers.

The seat opened after Councilwoman Kristen Garrison died from brain cancer on New Year’s Eve.

The village of roughly 13,000 residents sits in northern Palm Beach County, developed in the 1950s as a planned waterfront community. It retains a strong identity built around quiet residential neighborhoods, waterways and a municipally owned country club anchored by a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course. The population skews older and has historically been predominantly white, though the Hispanic share of residents has grown in recent years.

Growth and development have dominated this race. Voters and candidates alike are watching closely as the village faces one of its most significant land-use decisions in decades: the proposed redevelopment of the former Twin City Mall site at U.S. 1 and Northlake Boulevard. Whatever takes shape on that parcel will leave a mark on the village’s character for generations. Concerns over traffic, environmental preservation and managing regional development pressures all feed into the urgency residents feel about filling this seat with the right person.

Okolichany, 66, brings 40 years of experience in real estate acquisition, brokerage and construction management. A North Palm Beach resident since 1972, he has been a fixture at Village Council meetings for years, positioning himself as an informed watchdog even without holding office. His campaign leans hard on those deep roots, invoking multigenerational family ties to the community and a commitment to the Citizens Master Plan adopted in 2016. He supports redeveloping the Twin City site under a mixed-use “Village Place” concept, but argues that any growth must stay modest in scale and consistent with the village’s small-town feel. The Florida GOP has backed his candidacy, though the race is officially nonpartisan. Okolichany is a Republican.

Zellner, 37, works as a senior operations analyst for an automotive software company and previously served as a regional manager for BMW of North America. She has centered her campaign on operational efficiency, environmental stewardship and civic engagement. While she also lacks prior elected experience, Zellner has served on the village’s Environmental Committee, giving her direct exposure to the local issues she wants to address from the dais. She is a Democrat.

The partisan dimension is worth watching in a place like North Palm Beach. Village elections carry no party labels on the ballot, but party organizations have stepped in behind candidates before, and this race is no exception with Republican infrastructure backing Okolichany. Zellner’s path depends on consolidating voters who backed Norris in the first round along with persuading enough residents that her professional background and committee experience outweigh Okolichany’s tenure as a community fixture.

The age contrast between the two candidates is striking and mirrors a broader tension playing out in many South Florida communities: longtime residents who built their lives around a certain vision of the village versus newer arrivals who see a need for fresh approaches to managing growth and maintaining livability.

Turnout in the March 24 special election was relatively thin, as is typical for off-cycle local races. Tuesday’s runoff may see even fewer voters at the polls, which means organized supporters and motivated blocs could decide the outcome. In a race where the first round was separated by dozens of votes, every precinct and every voter contact effort matters.

Polls are open Tuesday across North Palm Beach. Whoever wins the Group 4 seat will join a Council facing immediate decisions on development, infrastructure and fiscal planning, with the Twin City Mall site looming as the first major test.