Many have asked why I am running for Boca Raton City Council Seat D. Others ask what business does a pharmacist have running for Council? Here’s why:
I assure you, they don’t give a pharmacy license to anyone. I work in an industry governed by laws. I also worked side-by-side with a plumbing contractor. The best one ever, my father. He wanted me to take over the company, I wanted to help people. I learned a lot in my early years, both the technical aspects of drawing and reading plans, calculating bids, submitting requests for proposal, and the actual hands-on plumbing skills. Yes, I can fix your running toilet, snake a clogged drain or sweat a fitting on, but I didn’t go that route. Working for an honest man, that started out digging ditches, while attending college, instilled in me a work ethic and code of honesty that cannot be swayed. I must admit, you have to search harder to find it in people these days. Having two smart people raise me, was an honor. Holding them, as they left this world, made me realize what truly matters: family, forgiveness, love and the community that held me up. Now I want to give back.
The Fine Line
Boca is bigger now, buildings, population, roads, houses, but bigger doesn’t mean better. There is a fine line between what was “Boca Envy” and “Fort Lauderdalization”. We are sprinting through it.
What once defined our city and the envy of southeast Florida has been thrown out like milk past its expiration date. The people that are still here to remember it, know what we have lost and why Boca is still worth fighting for. It’s not about going back, it’s about knowing what we had and making it better.
I’m not about zip code prestige or money, it’s the fact that we grew so fast, we forgot to take everything good along with it. It’s the taste of a strawberry, freshly picked from Bo’s U-Pick-Em, now covered with homes. It’s sticky fingers at Tom’s Place, after a plate of ribs. Today it would be a “novelty” restaurant, yet for the locals, it was gospel with a side of okra, cornbread and a roll of paper towels. It was Nickel Night at Dirty Moe’s, where having a beer with the mayor was normal. He owned the place. It was having your first “adult” dinner at La Vieille Maison. It wasn’t just a meal, it was an experience, an institution, it was the Boca Raton vibe.
December meant the National Enquirer Christmas tree was just a short drive away. Christmas ball ornaments were bigger than your head and candy canes the size of the children looking up, with the fascination only found in the young. It’s the smell of citrus blossoms and jasmine blooming in yards where kids played outside, all day. Yards were not perfectly manicured. Yes, we drank out of the hose. It was going to the old Boca Mall and trying out every bed in Waterbed City. For me, only rich people had waterbeds and a million dollars meant you had to have a butler, right?
We knew our neighbors, not on Next Door, but in the Grand Union, Winn Dixie or Publix … before it had a valet. K-Mart saved the day on many a night, before a school project was due. Boca was the scent of coconut on salty, sun kissed skin. We have freckles because we ignored our moms at the beach and never really re-applied the Coppertone. We know the history of the Barefoot Mailman. Sunday afternoons meant a bucket of KFC, Kool-Aid and a rickety picnic table at beaches not groomed to perfection. Much of this is nostalgia, some now modernized for the better and others quietly swept under the rug and replaced with cold, sterile concrete. Concrete that has no soul, no vibe, holds no memories and for many projects, never will.
Knowing Boca Raton
It’s not that I am resistant to change. Change is the one thing you can’t stop from changing. We weren’t this AI perfect city on a glossy flyer. That was just a piece of Boca Raton. Nowadays, it’s almost the whole thing, if something is not the new generic modern, it’s blighted and paved over. What we lost is quiet; a whisper on an ocean breeze; if you can hear it over the drag racing and sirens.
We lost small, historic buildings, to be replaced with architecturally absent, oversized projects. We lost generations of families, that wanted to stay. We lost a distinct middle class. This, in exchange for commutes and congestion. We lost affordability, that once allowed a new family starting out a chance to live here. We lost our natural scrub land that provided homes to our unique wildlife. What hurts the most isn’t necessarily what we built, but what we ignored and didn’t protect, like Singing Pines, La Vieille Maison and that open, scrub land. We gained overdevelopment in a city that cannot support it.
We have entire classes of residents that feel unheard. Even before projects are announced, it’s as if deals are done and outcomes determined … such as with the One Boca project.
So, I am running. I think we need a fresh slate; no developer money. My opponents are well known and have voting records that I feel reflect different values from mine. Even casting a dissenting vote and being the minority could have been a voice of reason, but that rarely happened. We can’t undo the growth but we can decide what we protect next. Memorial Park is safe, for now. I want to protect it forever. Beyond the overdevelopment of the downtown, the whole rest of the city where we live and work needs a community, hometown feel. I want us to bring Boca back to Boca.
