Nicholas Coppola is ready to take his activism to the Delray Beach City Commission. He’s running for an open seat in the March 19 elections.
The race though has turned ugly.
Coppola was called a “faggot” by a volunteer on his opponent Anneze Barthelemy’s campaign in an incident that was caught on mic.
Coppola brushed it off though, saying this incident was not reflective of the Delray Beach community.
“I could walk down Atlantic Avenue with my arm around [my partner] David's shoulder comfortably,” Coppola said. “We've seen it. We have enough of our LGBTQ+ community walking on Atlantic comfortably. She is not a norm in this city.”
Rand Hoch, president and founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, blasted Barthelemy over the incident.
“She refused to publicly condemn it or even apologize. Imagine if this had been the other way around and a straight white man made a homophobic remark about a lesbian, Haitian-American candidate,” Hoch wrote in a statement. “Barthelemy is not fit to hold public office. Hopefully, she will be soundly rejected by the voters in Delray Beach.”
Barthelemy distanced herself from her volunteer staffers and their homophobic remarks.
“I don’t agree with what they said, and I will not be using them anymore,” Barthelemy told Florida Jolt, a conservative news outlet. “What people do in their bedroom is not my business.”
A third candidate, Juli Casale, is also running for the seat. The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and PBCHRC have endorsed Coppola. This is Coppola’s first bid for public office.
Coppola serves as the board chair of Compass, the LGBTQ center in Lake Worth Beach.
Coppola was named as one of the OutSFL’s inaugural Out50 list last year.
“By far my fondest moment is in my current service as board chair,” he told OutSFL for the profile. “I can see first-hand the amount of life-saving work that occurs every day at the Center.”
Coppola is a retired electrical contractor with 35 years of experience in the construction industry. He and his partner David call Delray Beach home. Coppola also serves as the Chair of the Delray Beach Code Enforcement Board and as the Secretary of Impact 100 Men of Palm Beach County.
Volunteerism runs through his blood.
In 2018, as a member of Gay Men Health Crisis’ Community Advisory Board, Coppalo was awarded the “The Dukes/Rolfe Award” from the NAACP for HIV advocacy in the Black and Latino community.
“HIV advocacy in the Black and Latino communities has been my main focus,” Coppola told OutSFL last year. “This is something I am very passionate about and with so many hateful political distractions, my concern now is that our community’s health is at risk and those concerns are very real.”
Visit NickForDelray.com for more information.
