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Pearlman accused of inflaming public with false messages

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By Mary Hladky

Less than three months since Save Boca founder Jon Pearlman won election, fellow Boca Raton City Council members’ frustration with what they call misinformation from him but that he insists is fact has spilled into the open.

The council, now also including two other Save Boca members, pushed back against his statements that they say are inaccurate at a May 26 workshop meeting.

The council was to give city staff direction on building and financing a new police headquarters after voters on March 10 voted against financing the construction of a $190 million headquarters complex.

Reasoning that voters would be more likely to approve the project if it cost less and was more modest, staff has reduced the headquarters size to 94,000 square feet, or about one-third larger than the current outdated and undersized headquarters, and pared the price tag to $120 million.

But Pearlman was adamant that the final turnkey cost will remain at $190 million. Save Boca said the same on its Facebook page and in emails.

“Despite voters turning down the police station bond on March 10th, city staff indicated last week their intention to proceed with the $190 million Taj Mahal police station and without any RFP (request for proposals),” it said.

Mayor Andy Thomson and Council member Yvette Drucker, as well as Save Boca members Deputy Mayor Michelle Grau and Council member Stacy Sipple, disputed that and agreed the revised cost is $120 million.

After the Save Boca communications, council members said they were flooded with emails from angry constituents.

“We don’t need to be firing up members of the public with information that is not true,” Thomson said.

Grau, a certified public accountant, said the Save Boca information was very misleading.

“I am very concerned,” she said. “I am very frustrated.”

Council members, she said, are not blindly following city staff recommendations. They are re-evaluating the size and cost of the headquarters and “trying to determine what residents are willing to support.”

Drucker was even more pointed. “Basically, one of our council members is calling us liars,” she said. “I find that very troubling.”

“It is unacceptable,” Sipple said. “I responded on Save Boca that the information is not accurate.”

Pearlman did not back down, asserting that even if the cost is temporarily reduced, it will return to $190 million once construction begins.

What followed was a digression into who posted the information.

Pearlman did not directly answer a question from Thomson on whether he wrote or approved the Save Boca post and emails, saying the Save Boca political committee is responsible.

But when Thomson stated that Pearlman is chairman of Save Boca Inc., Pearlman confirmed that.

Beyond the matter of cost, Pearlman said the city need not finance the building with a bond issue because the city has up to $200 million available to pay for it.

Hearing that, Drucker said, “We have gone completely off the rails.”

City officials previously have said that they have nowhere near that amount readily available to spend and that most city accounts have strict spending restrictions.

The council voted 4-1 in favor of holding a vote on bond issue financing, with Pearlman dissenting.

But they delayed a recommendation on where the building should be located, saying residents should be allowed to weigh in.

Pearlman, however, has clearly signaled that he is not backing away from his efforts to convince residents that the new police headquarters is a boondoggle.

More emailed criticism
A Save Boca email sent out two days after the council meeting again criticized the purported $190 million cost and credited Pearlman for being the only council member to oppose the project and the bond issue.

The email featured a rendering of the other council members on a Monopoly board, with Thomson throwing Monopoly money into the air.

“The city continues to treat your hard-earned taxpayer dollars like monopoly money” to build the police headquarters, the email states.

“You can’t put $190 million on the table and then cut it down to $120 million and then say this is reasonable,” it said. “You’re still gouging the tax payers for something they didn’t ask for.”

The email also criticized Grau and Sipple for their statements during the May 26 meeting.

Police chief’s report
The possible locations for the police headquarters include the downtown campus, where the current headquarters sits, and city-owned land adjacent to the Spanish River Library at the intersection of Spanish River and Broken Sound boulevards.

City officials have long said that a new police headquarters is badly needed to replace the 45-year-old building that is in poor condition and way too small to meet present needs.

Acting Police Chief Seth Dubinsky told the council that briefings must be held outside because there is not enough space inside. One-time closets have been repurposed to house two or three employees. The department no longer has enough room to house all its property and evidence.

Police officials previously have said that various functions now are located in seven buildings, creating inefficiency and coordination problems.

Residents’ second chance to vote on whether to approve a bond issue most likely will take place at the March 9, 2027, city election.

Residents would pay for it with a property tax increase. Officials have not yet said how much it will cost them. But the ballot measure that residents voted down on March 10 would have increased the tax rate by 0.26 mills, or $123.74 a year on a property with an assessed value of $475,000.

Residents will have a chance to voice opinions later this summer and fall. The Community Advisory Council will advise the City Council on what residents want and their reaction to funding the building. If the bond issue goes forward and is approved, construction would be completed in 2031.

Meanwhile, the council is still determining how to improve the downtown campus now that the public-private partnership with developers Terra and Frisbie Group was torpedoed by voters on March 10.

The council on May 11 sidelined Thomson’s proposal to create a task force that would gather the ideas and preferences of residents on a new vision for the area.

Instead, the city will hire a consultant that will conduct wide-ranging efforts to find out what residents would prefer. The council will rank those that applied at a special meeting on June 30 and will award the contract on July 28.

The consultant would finalize its recommendations in January.