COUNCIL KEEPS TREATING TAXPAYER DOLLARS LIKE MONOPOLY MONEY—NOW FUELS $120M POLICE STATION
The city council continues to treat your hard-earned taxpayer dollars like monopoly money, now advancing a $120M police station financed with a $125M bond.
The newest $120M version of the Taj Mahal station was presented by staff this week along with a timeline where Boca's construction will be delayed for 3 years, not starting until 2029. Possible completion dates extend into the 2030’s. This prolonged timeline reflects the boondoggle in Ft. Lauderdale in which the city has been entangled in a 7+ year construction process that ballooned the price from the $100M to $150M. Any current cost estimates will likely be moot by the time Boca's construction starts in 2029 and the price tag could very well be back in the $190M range.
Save Boca founder and councilman Jon Pearlman was the only one to oppose the $120M station and the $125M bond to finance it. He presented evidence that the city can build a more fiscally responsible station and could build it in a shorter time frame to prevent cost escalation.
The math still doesn't add up for the new $120M version of the Taj Mahal station when compared to recently built stations in other cities.
Jon Pearlman stated: “$120 million, $150 million, $190 million, you’re talking like we’re dealing with monopoly money here. I deal with real money and so do the taxpayers and the voters of this city...You can’t put $190 Million on the table and then cut it down to $120 Million and then say this is reasonable. You’re still gouging the tax payers for something they didn’t ask for. And that was evidenced in the hundreds of emails that came through.”
During the meeting:
Mayor Thomson praised staff for continuing to engage and do work with the non-RFP architect that designed the original $190M Taj Mahal station, lobbied for the $120M version and then pressed other council members to agree to move the station west and out of downtown.
Deputy Mayor Grau boosted the bond from $100M to $125M, and shortly thereafter all council members except Pearlman supported it.
Regarding the hundreds of emails that came through from Save Boca supporters, council member Sipple stated “it’s a waste of our time” and complained that they were “jamming up an email box with 600 emails so that we can’t actually do the work that we’ve been hired to do because we're being swamped with emails.” Sipple supported the $125M bond.