Related election information
Election overview: Downtown campus, council lineup, police HQ up to voters
Mayor's Race: Trio running for mayor includes two council incumbents | Mayoral candidate profiles (Nachlas, Thomson, Liebelson)
Council Seat A: Seat A candidate profiles (Grau, Korn, Ritchey)
Council Seat B: Incumbent faces off against founder and supporter of Save Boca | Seat B candidate profiles (Madsen, Pearlmen, Wigder)
Council Seat D: Ex-county mayor battles city board stalwart, Save Boca member | Seat D candidate profiles (Cellon, Sipple, Weinroth)
By Mary Hladky
Michelle Grau, a Save Boca candidate, is a certified public accountant, who founded Grau & Associates in Boca Raton along with her husband and specializes in governmental auditing and finance.
She has scrutinized the terms of the city’s partnership with Terra/Frisbie and frequently offers her detailed analysis to City Council members.
Her bottom line: “It is not a good financial deal for our city. That is why I am fighting it.
“My biggest argument is we aren’t getting enough out of the deal to justify” leasing 7.8 acres of the east-side city land to Terra/Frisbie for 99 years.
Despite the pubic-private partnership with the developers, Grau notes that the city is paying the $201 million cost to build a new City Hall, Community Center, police substation and other improvements. The city would not recoup that money for many years from the land lease payments it will get from Terra/Frisbie.
Further, the city will bear financial risk and lose control over its own land that will be leased, she said.
Grau favors scrapping the deal with Terra/Frisbie. Instead, she said, the city should do the project on its own.
“I believe we have the financial strength to do the work ourselves,” she said of the city. “We have a $40 billion tax base. You tell me we have to lease the land to foot the bill — I am not buying that. Let’s do it on our own.”
Other matters she would like the city to address are improving communication with city residents, addressing the high cost of living in the city and the homeless situation.
She also wants the city to create a recreation master plan and to keep the tax rate as low as possible.
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Christen Ritchey, a family law attorney, briefly was a council candidate in 2023 but withdrew to focus on her law firm and her children.
She resigned from the city’s Planning and Zoning Board late last year to make another run for City Council.
Ritchey supports the city’s partnership with Terra/Frisbie and likes its plan for the downtown campus redevelopment now that the developers no longer will lease the western portion of the city’s land and will confine development to the 7.8 acres.
“I think we need a new City Hall and Community Center, but I am passionate about keeping the west side recreational,” she said.
Ritchey is pleased with how Terra/Frisbie has responded to residents’ criticisms of the project. “I think they have done an excellent job of listening and taking the feedback and adapting the project based on what they heard,” she said.
She gives Save Boca credit for applying pressure that she believes improved the project, but faults it for its approach.
“What I hear is a lot of opposition without alternative solutions,” she said.
Ritchey also says that the election should not center on the downtown development project.
“We need not be hyper-focused on one single issue,” she said. “There are a lot of issues that impact the city.”
Those include improving infrastructure, addressing recent flooding, improving traffic flow on city streets and giving first responders “everything they need,” she said.
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Bernard Korn, a real estate broker, is a perennial candidate who has never won a city election.
He claims the city is rife with corruption that he is exposing.
“Boca Raton City under Siege by Power Hungry Corrupt Council Members controlled by Lobbyists and Special Interest Groups,” his campaign website proclaims.
He identifies himself as a “trained whistleblower” who has submitted complaints about wrongdoing to federal agencies. So far, none has taken action.
“The corruption is a joke and they are blatant about it,” he said of council members. “I am going to get rid of the political machine, that I call it. It is corrupt and I am going to rip it up whether I win or lose.”
His priority, he said, is “to clean up City Hall. They are all on the take.”
A loss at the polls will not dissuade him from another run for office, he said. “If I lose for whatever reason, I will run again. Win or lose, I will make changes in Boca.”
Boca Raton city election
Election day: March 10
Last day to register to vote: Feb. 9
Last day to request mail-in ballot: Feb. 26
The mayor and council races are citywide for three-year terms, except the Council D race, which is for an unexpired one-year term.
Also on the ballot
Voters will decide two other issues:
Whether to approve moving forward with the proposed redevelopment of the city’s downtown campus.
Whether to approve the city’s issuing bonds of up to $175 million to build a new police headquarters, relocated from downtown to a site adjacent to the Spanish River Library.
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