Delray Beach wants the Florida Department of Transportation’s chief engineer tasked with deciding the fate of the city’s Pride rainbow crosswalk to disqualify herself from the role, arguing that email exchanges between her and other FDOT officials show bias against the city.
Last month, FDOT demanded that Delray Beach remove its LGTBQ+ Pride intersection at Northeast Second Avenue and Northeast First Street by Sept. 3 because it violates the state’s traffic control device standards. If the city didn’t comply, the Aug. 15 letter said the state would remove it for them, and the city would still have to pay the bill.
Rather than immediately complying, Delray Beach commissioners chose instead to attend an informal hearing with FDOT in Orlando, one day before the deadline to remove the crosswalk art, where they pleaded their case to keep it.
Jennifer Marshall, FDOT’s chief engineer of production, was appointed on Aug. 18 to be the presiding officer and will make the ultimate decision on Delray’s crosswalk. At the Sept. 2 hearing, attorneys for both sides made their arguments and were told to file proposed final orders by last Friday.
Attorney Howard DuBosar, representing Delray Beach, argued in a motion to disqualify Marshall filed Friday that multiple email exchanges between Marshall and other FDOT employees and executives prior to the informal hearing showed Marshall’s “predisposition to find the crosswalks non-compliant with FDOT’s traffic control device standards — the very basis that forms the crux of this matter.” The emails are included in the motion.
Marshall “in the interest of candor” disclosed the email exchanges the city takes issue with to both sides’ attorneys at the informal hearing and were sent before she was appointed presiding officer, according to a transcript of the hearing, also included in the motion. The emails were related to the crosswalks in Delray Beach and Key West.
Marshall was one of three FDOT executives who was copied on the Aug. 15 notice that Delray Beach officials received demanding the crosswalk’s removal.
“It is evidently concerning that the designated presiding officer is one of the three executives privy to the notice of non-compliance, especially when FDOT had twelve other executives they could have selected,” attorney DuBosar wrote in his Sept. 5 motion.
DuBosar noted a July 31 email FDOT District Secretary Daniel Iglesias sent Marshall asking that she share information about enforcement that he could share with officials in Key West. On Aug. 13, Marshall forwarded that email to another FDOT chief engineer and wrote, “Is there anything that I can assist with?” related to enforcement. That email exchange shows Marshall and others were planning to talk about enforcement at an upcoming staff meeting before she was appointed to be the presiding officer, DuBosar wrote.
Pedestrians walk across the LGBTQ+ pride intersection of Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue in Delray Beach on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
“Simply put, Ms. Marshall’s comments and conduct demonstrate that she has traded her role as an impartial decision-maker for a prosecutorial role,” DuBosar wrote in his motion.
Gina Carter, a spokesperson for Delray Beach, said in an emailed statement Monday: “The City believes that recent disclosures of communications involving the presiding officer raise reasonable concerns about impartiality and due process. Our goal is to ensure that this matter is reviewed in a fair and unbiased manner, consistent with Florida law and the principles of administrative justice.”
Michael Williams, FDOT communications director, in an email to the South Florida Sun Sentinel said the agency does not comment on pending litigation but said, procedurally, “it is the responsibility of the agency who administers an informal hearing to appoint a hearing officer to preside over the hearing. It is a routine practice for any agency to appoint an agency employee to this role.”
Denise Johnson, an attorney representing FDOT in the matter, did not respond to an email Monday afternoon seeking a response to the city’s motion.
FDOT filed its proposed final order on Friday, arguing that the crosswalk markings “clearly violate” the state’s provisions and that FDOT has the authority to order their removal.
