EXCLUSIVE Q & A WITH SAVE BOCA FOUNDER FOR BOCA TRIBUNE
1. Motivation & Public Service
What motivated you to run for city office, and what continues to inspire your commitment to public service in Boca Raton?
When 31 acres of our public land, including Memorial Park, were in danger of being handed over to private developers last year, I knew I had to act. There was little transparency and minimal public input as the current city council tried to move the project under the radar. I worked to bring our neighbors together through Save Boca, a grassroots movement that soon got tens of thousands of residents who love our city involved. I’m running for city council because I saw where our current leadership was taking the city--turning the Boca we know and love into Miami.
I am a husband and father here and want to preserve the character and integrity of our city. I will work to secure a bright future for us, our children and all future generations of our city—to stay true to who we are, what we stand for, and our legacy as a City Within a Park. I know what our community is capable of when we stand strong together. Together we can preserve the best Boca for all of us and guarantee the high quality of life we enjoy for generations to come.
2. Vision & Priorities
What is your long-term vision for Boca Raton over the next 5–15 years, and what are your top priorities to achieve it?
Boca Raton is my home. It’s where my wife and I are raising our two young children. I want to ensure Boca Raton is a great place where families can thrive and where we all maintain our high quality of life. I will preserve our parks and invest in our civic buildings while keeping public land in public hands. Boca has an incredibly strong financial position-- we have a AAA bond rating and a $40 Billion tax base, higher than any other Palm Beach county city or town. We need to utilize our financial strength to reinvest into our community, not to subsidize a private development of high rises on our public land, as was the plan with the 99 year downtown lease. I want to maintain our great public safety presence downtown, stop overdevelopment across our city, reinvest in our infrastructure, and support our schools to make them safe and to provide the highest educational standards.
3. Downtown Development & Revitalization
How do you evaluate current downtown redevelopment efforts (including One Boca/Save Boca), and what changes or safeguards would you support going forward?
The idea that we needed to hand over our public land and parks to finance a new city hall has always been a false premise. Boca’s strong net financial position, AAA bond rating, and $40 Billion tax base would enable us to finance a new city hall, community center and additional improvements downtown. If I’m elected, I will focus on rebuilding what we need to while keeping all of our parks and public land in public hands. What the current city council has done and the way they’ve gone about it has eroded public trust in our city government. I will restore transparency and trust to City Hall by ensuring that all of the important projects in our city have full outreach, civic involvement and are conducted with transparency.
4. Growth, Density & Community Character
How do you define balanced or sustainable growth, and how will you preserve Boca Raton’s character and quality of life as development and density increase?
We already have dozens of greenlit projects, projects currently being built, and ones just starting. We need to analyze all of these projects together to determine the net effect on traffic, infrastructure and on our community as a whole. This has not been done and if elected I will make sure to start a thorough analysis of the broad picture. The government campus project sought to take our public land, hand it over to private developers, and then subsidize the project with hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payer money. Fortunately, Save Boca caught what was going on, exposed it, and the public will vote on it on March 10th, instead of 5 council members pushing it through. Handing over public land to subsidize high rise condos, a hotel and office buildings when we already have countless development projects of the same nature on private land never made sense. Rapid development is already occurring under normal market conditions. First, we need to keep every square foot of public land and green space in public hands for the benefit and enjoyment of our residents. We then need to formulate a comprehensive picture of where we are with active and forthcoming projects, mitigate any negative effects that will result, and then crystalize a sustainable plan for development going forward.
5. Traffic, Mobility & Transportation
What specific actions would you take to reduce traffic congestion, improve roadway safety, and expand or enhance public transportation options?
Once we complete a full analysis of all greenlit projects and those in the pipeline, we need to utilize our strong financial position to make improvements to infrastructure so we can begin mitigating the traffic we already have. Recent city councils have paved the way for approvals of project after project--regardless of needs or long-term strategy. Overdevelopment is rampant and the traffic in our city has exploded. We can’t allow it to get worse. We must reinvest into our community by improving our roadways and the safety of bikers and pedestrians. Most people drive in Florida, which is the reality, however alternative transportation options should be expanded in the downtown and I would work to accomplish that. Pedestrian and bike safety in our downtown is something that is particularly important to me and I would work on it by enforcing speeding for drivers as well as stopping at crosswalks so pedestrians can cross safely.
6. Housing Affordability & Workforce Housing
What is your stance on affordable and workforce housing, and how should the city partner with developers or other entities to address this need?
The cost of living in Boca Raton has risen drastically and we need to preserve the affordable housing options that still exist in our city. Developers often use the promise of affordable housing in an attempt to gain favor with the council and the public, even though these affordable housing components are limited in comparison to the overall number of units. As a City Councilman, I won’t fall for that. We need to identify the true opportunities to increase affordable housing and not be giving gifts to developers that are offering a negligible amount of units. We must help to facilitate those with sizable affordable units. If we can do this and maintain our current affordable housing options in the city, we can improve affordability at large.
7. Transparency, Communication & Public Trust
How will you ensure transparency, meaningful public input, and effective communication between the City Council and residents—especially on controversial issues?
The current city council has eroded the trust in our government as a result of the downtown 99 year lease project. There was limited outreach and few knew about what was arguably one of—if not the biggest--public land transfers in the city’s history. I began doing extensive research on the project and it became clear that the important details were buried within long documents that were not readily available to the public. For most of the last year, the city council was denying that Memorial Park was dedicated to World War II veterans. They also denied and still deny that the two Banyans in front of city hall were planned to be cut down even though a high-rise condo was planned to be directly on top. I will bring accountability and transparency back to City Hall. I will bring the type of civic engagement that has arisen from Save Boca to continue great civic involvement on the most important issues that our community will face coming up. Save Boca gave me the experience in uniting and getting our community involved in our city, and we now have tens of thousands supporting us and our mission. My goal is to keep our community engaged with our city if I’m elected.
8. Fiscal Responsibility & Budgeting
Do you believe the city’s budgeting priorities need to change, and how will you ensure fiscal responsibility while meeting community needs?
If I’m elected I will overhaul all fiscal budgeting and transparency and utilize our financial strength to reinvest back into our community for the full benefit of the taxpayers. In analyzing the downtown lease deal for example, it was revealed that the city council planned to spend $79.5 Million of taxpayer money from the CRA for the line item “Transit Oriented Community (TOC) Redevelopment Downtown.” Despite this huge amount, no further details were available other than this broad heading. We were able to connect the dots to know that this was an up-front allocation of taxpayer money for Boca Raton City Center LLC’s development, as they referred to the project as the “Transit-Oriented Community” in their January 9th proposal to the city. If I’m elected, I will be reinvesting our taxpayer dollars into our community, not spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars for the benefit of a condo and hotel developer. The public should have accountability as to what exactly is being done with our money, especially for amounts as large as this. Even the $30 Million “parking garage” that suddenly became a part of the downtown plan late in the game was revealed to be a construction payout for one of the developer’s high rises. There is no standalone parking garage in the plan. Why are the taxpayers spending $30 Million—which is more money than it would cost us to build a new city hall—to construct parking within a developer’s high rise?
If I’m elected, every dollar we spend will be accounted for, with detailed line items as to each and every project we are spending our money on. I will be a fiscal watchdog for our community and will not let one dollar slip through the cracks. All of our taxpayer dollars will be reinvested into our community, which is far from the case now. We have the financial strength to reinvest in our infrastructure, civic buildings, and other improvements without losing one square foot of public land or parks.
9. Environmental Protection & Green Space
How will you protect Boca Raton’s environment, including parks, wetlands, waterways, and public green spaces, amid ongoing development?
We cannot afford to lose one square foot of any of our parks or green space in our city. If I’m elected, I will fight for every park, every bit of green space, and every environmentally valuable asset we have, just as I have fought to preserve Memorial Park.
When we uncovered the 360-degree view of the downtown 99 year lease, it got worse and worse with each new discovery. The original plan was to bulldoze Memorial Park and the two iconic banyans in front of city hall, bulldoze the 11 acre urban forest at Sugar Sand Park, bulldoze the city’s tree garden at the corner of Palmetto Park Road and NW 2nd Avenue, and more. Boca’s legacy is a City Within a Park, and we need to protect and cherish these invaluable and irreplaceable assets. This will be one of my main goals as a City Councilman if I’m elected and I won’t compromise on preserving our parks and green spaces. We will never again entertain a scenario like the above, where parks, tree gardens, and urban forests would be destroyed and lost forever in the name of greed and private profit.
10.Leadership Style & Governance
What should voters understand about your leadership style, decision-making approach, and how you handle conflict or differing viewpoints?
I am running for city council because I want to preserve and enhance the Boca Raton we know and love. I am a husband and father here, and want the best for our families and community. I will fight every day for our best interests and will not be working for anybody other than the residents. I am not taking a single cent from developer money in my campaign or any other special interests. The decisions I make will be solely for the benefit and preservation of our community. I will lead by engaging the citizens, as I have done with Save Boca. I want our citizens to be engaged with our city decision-making, contributing feedback and helping to steer the course for our future. If anything good came out of the botched job of the government campus project, it’s that our community is now engaged. I want to build on that and promote civic engagement in the big decisions that we will face—and there are many important ones coming up. We cannot afford to have one more day of leadership in our city that is not working 100% for the citizens. I am ready to work and will work 100% for you, the residents. Nobody else. Transparency, accountability, and civic engagement and outreach will be restored if I’m elected and we will stay true to our city’s legacy and character as we move into our next centennial. We will preserve our city and way of life for our children and all future generations.
Jon Pearlman is a city council candidate and the founder of Save Boca, a grassroots non-profit organization whose mission is to protect parks and public land and fight overdevelopment in Boca Raton. Click Here to read more.
