Wellington village officials ran out of patience with embattled developer Glenn Straub.
Council members shot down Straub’s push to shave off 80 percent of the $6.6 million in liens the village has levied on his Palm Beach Polo and Country Club for alleged code violations, The Palm Beach Post reported. The vote on Tuesday effectively gives Straub an ultimatum of either paying the liens or risking losing the 2,000-plus-acre property in a foreclosure.
The denial marks the latest chapter in the nine-year skirmish that has left the village and Straub locked in litigation. In one of the disputes, Wellington levied liens alleging that Straub’s ownership entity, Palm Beach Polo, illegally transferred an acre for a dog park from the 92-acre Big Blue Preserve ecological site embedded within the country club, and also illegally paved over portions of the preserve.
The village has filed two foreclosure suits against the developer. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday on Wellington’s assertion that Straub willingly violated Big Blue’s management plan.
Straub, who wasn’t present for the village council’s vote, has been pushing back in court, claiming in a 2019 lawsuit that Wellington has shown a pattern of “discrimination” against him, and has violated his civil rights by levying the fines. His attorney also told the council on Tuesday that Straub had paid all fines.
When reached by The Real Deal on Friday, Straub didn’t seem fazed by the latest vote and referred to the liens as “taxation without representation.”
“Let them do what they want to do,” he said. “That’s OK. I can live.…That’s what they make the court system for.”
In other rulings in the litigation, a federal judge in 2021 upheld a magistrate’s report that had called Straub’s allegation that the village is discriminating against him “frivolous” and “unreasonable.”
Straub has been embroiled in other legal trouble. In 2020, he was arrested on criminal felony charges tied to claims he filed fraudulent liens against his ex-girlfriend Jessica Nicodemo for ending their relationship. The case is pending.
Straub, through affiliates, bought Palm Beach Polo at 11199 Polo Club Road at a government auction in 1993 for $27 million.
– Lidia Dinkova
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