By Mary Hladky
Past Boca Raton City Council members have said it took them as long as a year to learn the arcana of how a city functions so they could do their jobs effectively.
Save Boca founder Jon Pearlman faced that learning curve during his first council meetings after winning election on March 10 with promises of being a change agent.
Cities must follow a charter, local ordinances and state laws that spell out how they conduct business. The process can be cumbersome, but it’s ingrained.
Pearlman’s questions and objections bogged down the April 13 and 14 meetings, which dragged on far longer than is typical. That prompted unsuccessful council candidate and Save Boca supporter Meredith Madsen to approach the podium with a plea.
“Can we not burn the town down?” she asked. “We all won. We stopped (developers) Terra/Frisbie. We need to have everything move forward now. … I am respectfully asking everyone to allow the normal business of the City Council to continue.”
Pearlman first encountered a roadblock at the April 13 workshop meeting when he made several motions and sought council votes.
Workshops are intended to give council members information about matters they will vote on at the next day’s council meeting — not to take action. Motions and votes are made at council meetings.
Mayor Andy Thomson explained the process.
“I appreciate what you are trying to accomplish,” Thomson said. “This tends not to be the time for us to be … putting forward motions. If we want to take action … it has to be at a regular meeting. … The community deserves due process on these things. …”
Pearlman graciously accepted the advice. “I want to abide by the protocols that serve the council,” he said. “However you see us doing that, I definitely will abide by that.”
At the next night’s council meeting, Pearlman removed two items from the consent agenda because he had objections.
In Boca Raton, the consent agenda typically contains noncontroversial matters concerning the basic running of city government that are voted on as a group for efficiency.
Council members can remove an item to discuss it further or to seek council disapproval, but that rarely happens. If there is a question or concern, it typically would be raised at the earlier workshop meeting.
One consent agenda item concerned a public right-of-way agreement for telecommunication cables. Pearlman thought the cables did not service Boca Raton residents. He dropped his objection when city officials explained the cables’ function and importance.
The second one involved hiring a firm to assess the condition of municipal buildings — including the Community Center, police headquarters, Downtown Library and Fire Station 7.
Pearlman thought the city was spending too much money for visual inspections and wanted physical inspections as well. The discussion ended when a city official explained that both were being done.
Thomson told Pearlman that all the details about consent agenda items can be seen in the links to the agendas that are posted online before meetings.
It also became apparent that while Save Boca-endorsed candidates won a City Council majority, Pearlman could not necessarily expect them to vote with him as a bloc.
A matter of particular importance to him was allowing Boca Raton residents a vote on a City Charter amendment and an ordinance which would not allow the City Council to sell or lease any city-owned land greater than one-half acre unless residents approved doing so in an election.
The two Save Boca measures were embraced by members for giving residents the power to decide if projects such as the downtown campus redevelopment should be approved or denied.
But Circuit Judge G. Joseph Curley ordered that the measures be thrown off a Jan. 13 special election ballot because one was unconstitutional and the other required a vote before Jan. 13.
That has left both hanging in limbo, and Pearlman wants voters to have their say as soon as possible. Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link has said the earliest possible election date is March 9, 2027, during the regular March municipal elections.
While the intent of the ordinance and charter change still remain the same, they have been revised so that an election would not need to be held for matters such as easements or leases of city-owned land to nonprofits and other civic organizations.
The need to hold elections would make simple measures complex and time-consuming and would be costly for the city.
But city officials think that the wording could be further improved, in part as protection against legal challenges. Pearlman pressed to have the revised measures approved as is.
Thomson said he understood that Pearlman thinks the ballot language should stand.
“But if we can improve on the language, let’s do that,” he said.
Pearlman pushed back forcefully, saying “we already are taking action to subvert the will of the people.”
“It is insane to me” that council members think residents didn’t understand what they were doing when they signed petitions seeking the ordinance and charter change, he said.
Thomson said he never suggested that residents did not understand. But he said that since there was no need to rush a vote, the council and city staff had time to craft more precise language.
Pearlman, though, did not convince Deputy Mayor Michelle Grau and Council member Stacy Sipple, the two other Save Boca-endorsed candidates.
No other council member seconded his motion to place on the next night’s agenda an item that would require the charter amendment to be on the ballot for an election to be held as soon as possible.
Yet the city intends to act. A public hearing on the ordinance, as well as a discussion on a related resolution, is set for May 12.
The charter amendment will be voted on by residents, probably on March 9, 2027.
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