Did you watch the City Council Meeting last night? Were you one of the hundreds of people who showed up in person? Did you wear a “SAVE BOCA” T-shirt to show your unity with the sentiment against the plan to put City property in the hands of a developer intending to sell residences on it?

What did you first think when you heard about the City Hall Campus being re-built?

When you first heard about it you probably had initial expectations like I had. You probably pictured bigger, more modern, improved versions of the spaces we already have: a better City Hall, a bigger Community Center, a bigger playground, a better skatepark. And that’s it. What more could it need? Maybe better parking with a garage?

We Get The Inevitable Bait-And-Switch of Boca

But no. Of course it couldn’t be that resident-friendly and meet rational expectations for what a City Campus redo would entail. Of course local politicians are at the helm so that means taking care of their donors first and foremost. And who donates? Let’s be real about it. Developers DWARF any efforts by residents, alone or collectively, to get politicians in office. Developers are the politicians’ people, not us. We’re just the voters.

World-Class Over-Flabbergasted Again!

Let’s face it: we’re in unprecedented times. When so many of us are flabbergasted by Downtown traffic, even in the middle of summer, we’ve seemed to achieve record levels of flabbergasting Boca has never seen before. Our Mayor, Scott Singer, managed to get himself on national news, inviting all of New York’s most Islamophobic to migrate to our tiny little town. While it’s nice to consider how this is only going to increase the value of our world-class properties, isn’t it also appropriate to ask “where’s the conservatism”? Why the blinding hunger for transformative progressivism, for rushed over-development, in our own hometown when nobody really welcomes it?

We know why. Boca is awesome. Our geography is precious and unique. The wind that blows over all of us is the same. We share what blows on the wind. Everyone from all over wants to smell it, to breathe it, to be in it like we are. They want to be us. Who can blame them? This unique geography attracts us: World Class Residents. Boca could never be World-Class without us, without the efforts of the people who came before us. And it won’t be kept World-Class without  World-Class efforts like we saw last night: people showing up in record numbers, people intent on conserving our way of life.

We like how it feels to be us. We’re not shy about it, but we need to be cool about it. We can’t be inviting every one of our cousins we love to move on down. No. There’s a limited amount of air here – and we’re already smelling things we don’t want to smell and finding it less easy to breathe what we once filled our lungs with freely.  Too many people, too much crowding, changes the quality of life. It is stifling. It makes it harder to enjoy the same freedoms we once did. It’s harder to breathe.

Speaking of breathing, what about the trees?

Don’t we World Class Residents really care most about how precious the trees are here in Boca Raton? Consider the fantastically large and old trees on the City Campus. We know if that property gets in the hands of developers those trees are doomed.

Everyone’s worried about the property being given over to developers, and arguing to keep the property in the hands of the City, but isn’t the real issue the trees, the green? What if the City gave the property to an entity whose mission is simply to preserve the green space and couldn’t be influenced by future political decisions? Wouldn’t that be best? Protect the green space forever – and the only way would be to PROTECT THE TREES FROM POLITICS!!! Could that ever happen? How else would the trees actually be protected?

Is East of I-95 Really What’s Best for a City Campus now – can we be cool about it for a minute?

Last night James Hendrey reminded everyone attending the meeting “All of you (pointing to the council members) live west of I-95”. James Hendrey had to drive west of I-95 last night to remind all of his neighbors, the ones most concerned about it, of that new reality of Boca: it’s grown more out West than East.

Forcing the City to breathe in that 30 acre space, where it’s already traffic challenged is kind of goofy. Why not just make the whole thing, all 30 acres, into a dedicated green space and move the entire City Campus out west where there’s less traffic impact on Downtown? City Council chose to meet last night where it’s more practical: west of I-95 in the Congress Annex. Another building was added to the buildings the City owns just last night, another space on Congress as well, for $17M.  It’s already a natural choice, to move where there’s less traffic, more space, so why don’t we listen to our own natures and respect Nature?