This article, originally published by Al Zucaro on BocaWatch.org, is preserved for historical purposes by Massive Impressions Online Marketing in Boca Raton.
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Voters in Boca clearly registered their concerns about overdevelopment and traffic in the March 14th municipal elections, and our new City Council has promised to take notice.
Al Zucaro came within 1100 votes of defeating incumbent Mayor Haynie, despite her enormous developer-financed funding advantage, name recognition and an extremely negative attack campaign against Mr. Zucaro. But judging from her statements during and after the campaign, the Mayor got the message that all is not well in Boca. For his part, Mr. Zucaro will return to his role as civic activist as editor-in-chief of BocaWatch. This is good news for all who are concerned about Boca’s future.
BocaBeautiful’s preferred candidate, Andrea O’Rourke handily won her race, giving us a voice on the Council who will be critical of new development that is not supported by sufficient infrastructure and which violates the design criteria in Boca’s building codes. Scott Singer also handily won reelection. During the campaign he appeared to heed the concerns of those whose neighborhoods and lives have been impacted by overdevelopment, and from those who are afraid that their neighborhoods might be next. We have hope that Mr. Singer’s experiences of the last three years will make him an advocate for more prudent development. If he continues to listen carefully to the concerns of Boca residents, he will be.
That leaves only one unabashedly pro-developer member of the City Council: Robert Weinroth. When it comes to the concerns of our residents, Mr. Weinroth is often in denial, but even he must feel the winds of change that have started to blow through City Hall.
Thanks to all of you who contributed and voted in this year’s municipal elections. It is startling to realize out of a population of 80,000, Boca’s future was decided by only 11,000 voters. It is comforting to realize that at almost half of them supported candidates endorsed by BocaBeautiful.org. We shall see if this translates into a change of direction in the management of our City. We will be working hard to ensure that it does.
That’s an optimistic outlook. I wouldn’t bet our City on that being the case. The developers didn’t spend all that money to elect the Mayor to stop cashing in on their investment. The Mayor has a lot of explaining to do about her relationships and ethical issues. I for one, hope Boca Watch demands those answers. The local media won’t.
There is to much money at risk for the developers. This won’t end because Andrea is one voice in the wilderness. There is another election coming and we need to find our next Andrea. It takes time to clean out a pig sty.
With all the complaining I had hoped more people would have come out.
Good work
We should demand from law-enforcement a thorough investigation of our mayor her connections possible pay off shady dealings and corruption she’s dirty in fact she’s filthy
From where I vote, the elections produced a victory for the developers and lobbyists – the citizens lost. We need to drain the swamp – downtown Boca is a disaster!!!
Thanks to Al Zucaro and Andrea O’Rourke for committing their time to run for office. Lots of days and evenings with no financial return. We are glad to have Andrea on the Council and Al back as editor-in-chief of BocaWatch. The Boca Watch outreach via face-to-face informational events has shown to bring in new voter interest and build a strong smart-growth voting block. I hope Al and Boca Watch can continue to reach us in person and via the website so we can grow the base of educated and committed Boca citizens to influence the council in the next few years and affect future elections.