Deputy Mayor Fran Nachlas and City Council member Andy Thomson are running to become Boca Raton’s next mayor in 2026, replacing Scott Singer, who is prevented by term limits from seeking reelection.
Thomson, who filed to run on April 2, was first elected to office in a 2018 special election and was reelected with no opposition in 2020.
He resigned from the nonpartisan council in 2022 to pursue an unsuccessful candidacy as a Democrat for the Florida House District 91 seat now held by Peggy Gossett-Seidman, R-Highland Beach. He reclaimed his council seat last year, capturing 62.5% of the vote to defeat opponent Brian Stenberg.
Thomson’s three-year council term ends in 2027, but Florida law requires him to resign before the candidate qualifying period this November for the city election the following March, though the resignation can be effective as of March 31, 2026, when he or someone else would take office.
Nachlas, a retired surgical nurse who became deputy mayor on March 31, filed to run for mayor on April 29. She first won election to the council in November 2022 when no other candidate filed to run for the seat. She would have had to wait until March 2023 to assume office, but her fellow council members, seeing no reason for that wait, appointed her to the position.
Also filing on April 1 to run for the city’s top office was real estate broker Bernard Korn, a perennial candidate who never has won an election. But in his unsuccessful run against incumbent Yvette Drucker last year, he garnered his strongest showing ever, capturing 23% of the vote.
Thomson, a Georgia Tech graduate and former college football player, earned his law degree from the University of Miami and practices business law at Baritz Colman Richan & Harris in Boca Raton.
“I enjoyed immensely the opportunity to be on the City Council for over five years,” he said. “I have shown myself to be a rational decision-maker and someone who has the future of Boca in mind. What I want most of all is to move the city in the right direction.”
— Mary Hladky
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