Keep Rodgers on Boca council, add Grossman
One Boca Raton City Council race is an easy call. The other is much tougher.
Seat C incumbent Jeremy Rodgers has compiled a good record over three years. He has supported development projects that abide by city rules, usually after supporting changes that improved the projects. He voted against a zoning appeal that could allow construction of a large home on the beach. He has opposed fire and police contracts he rightly says are far too generous.
Rodgers’ priority remains what it was in 2015. He wants Boca Raton to continue pushing economic development. He has four children. “I want all of them,” he said, “to be able to stay and have jobs.” Rodgers works for IBM. Boca Raton’s impressive commercial tax roll allows the city to maintain one of the lowest millage rates in Palm Beach County.
Challenger Kim Do, a real estate investor, immigrated to the United States from Vietnam. She has an impressive personal history, with degrees in accounting and law, but she has lived in Boca Raton for less than a year and knows little about city issues. Example: She favors a new high school, but she doesn’t know where the city would get the 40 acres of land or how the school might get built.
Do ran, she said, because she favors contested elections. Even Do, however, says of the incumbent, “He’s done a great job.” The Sun Sentinel endorses Jeremy Rodgers for Seat C on the Boca Raton City Council.
In the Seat D race, the credible candidates are Armand Grossman and Monica Mayotte. Paul Preste is the third candidate, but he has had little involvement with the city and knows little about the issues.
Grossman entered the race on the nextto-last day of qualifying, after incumbent Robert Weinroth abruptly dropped out to run for the Palm Beach County Commission. A real estate investor — his investment properties are not in the city — Grossman is a former trustee of Florida Atlantic University. He also has served on the county planning commission.
For those in Boca Raton — like Mayotte — who complain about overdevelopment, Grossman is an easy candidate to attack. The Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce has endorsed him. He has support from James Batmasian, the largest downtown landowner.
And an internet search produces references to him being a vice president for Boca-based developer Penn-Florida. The company’s chief operating officer stated in an affidavit, however, that Grossman worked only for a year as a contractor, seeking investment money in China.
Meanwhile, Mayotte is a sustainability specialist for JM Enterprises and a former chairwoman of the Green Living Advisory Board. She models her campaign after that of Andrea O’Rourke, who won her council seat last year.
Development, Mayotte says, should align with “our core values.” She’s for “transparency, accountability and integrity” in government. She favors “stopping overdevelopment.” BocaWatch, a website focused on Boca politics, supports Mayotte as the “resident-friendly” candidate, as it did O’Rourke.
Yet Mayotte has expressed no ideas for “stopping overdevelopment.” Perhaps that’s because all recent downtown projects have adhered to the development rules codified by residents 25 years ago. Mayotte calls Via Mizner a bad project for Boca Raton without explaining why. Personal taste is not grounds for voting against a development application. Plus, it can lead to expensive lawsuits.
Similarly, Mayotte blames “out of control overdevelopment” for the fact that all public schools in Boca Raton are near or above capacity. In fact, school planners say the main factor is younger families moving into existing single-family neighborhoods. Mayotte is correct that the school district’s process of notifying cities about the impact on schools from development “is broken,” but cities can’t reject a project simply because it would add students.
Meanwhile, there are plans to address school crowding. The council has donated 15 acres for a new elementary school and has formed an education task force. Money from the sales-tax surcharge — which was opposed by the website that favors Mayotte — will expand Spanish River and Olympic Heights high schools and thus relieve crowding at Boca Raton High School. The money also will expand middle school capacity.
Grossman favors “responsible growth,” which is a slogan of its own. But he is more likely to see growth as something the city must manage, not just something to complain about. As with school crowding, ideas — not slogans — will solve growth-related traffic problems.
One final point. Mayotte, whom the firefighters union has endorsed, would consider raising taxes rather than change the contract that allows Boca firefighters to work one day, then get three days off. In most cities, it’s two days off. Making taxpayers subsidize such an overly generous contract hardly seems “resident friendly.”
The Sun Sentinel endorses Armand Grossman for Seat D on the Boca Raton City Council.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.