Good government needs checks and balances, which is why Mayor Lois Frankel needs Mitchell. Frankel has had notoriously close ties to developers. That, plus her close friendship with Joan Goldberg, project manager of the city's ambitious, expensive waterfront project, begs the question of whether the mayor could really be objective on the matter. Mitchell wanted to use that money in the city's blighted neighborhoods — and her instincts are usually right. Take the massive City Center project. Mitchell was the one commissioner who thought the city should delay construction until after the voters had cast ballots on the issue. By forging ahead, the city got hauled into court, which brought costly delays and legal expenses. Mitchell is such a forceful, pesky adversary to Frankel that the Palm Beach Post wondered whether Frankel had directed the city attorney to disqualify Mitchell's reelection candidacy based on a petty technicality. The maneuver cost West Palm taxpayers the expense of a special election, and Mitchell won anyway. Today, she's more powerful than ever and planning a mayoral bid in 2011, when Frankel is termed out. Perhaps then, Mitchell will finally get the wish she made during a commission meeting in August when, after a fresh round of harassment from the mayor, Mitchell said "Leave me the fuck alone, Lois," and stormed off the dais. Frankel's tough, but in Mitchell, she has met her match.