Boca Raton, Florida, is a small town with a big reputation. It has a population of 102,000, is affluent by U.S. Census standards (median home price is $550,000), borders on the Atlantic and Intracoastal, and most of its citizens vote for Democrats.
However, in a quirk of political circumstances, it has a Republican mayor, Scott Singer.
This is a political irony, given that the majority of his constituents are Democrats. Still, Singer is a Harvard-educated lawyer, is Jewish, and the residents voted for him because there was no opponent from the Democratic Party, and he is Jewish. Big mistake.
As a Republican in a MAGA Republican state, Singer can’t look too moderate lest he incurs the wrath of MAGA Governor Ron DeSantis. But, he also cannot alienate the town’s citizens enough so that they leave their chairs and make a phone call or write a letter protesting any extreme actions his MAGA associates may encourage him to do.
So, it was surprising to see Mayor Singer engage in a publicity stunt when the democratic socialist candidate for New York City, Zohan Mandami, won the primary, and the MAGA world exploded by telling the nation that its largest city was going the way of Fidel Castro and the Russian takeover of Hungary in 1956.
Mayor Singer’s public statements invited the people of New York City to move to Boca Raton as a haven from the socialist onslaught that mayoral candidate Mandami would bring in the event of an election victory. According to the MAGA world and Mayor Singer’s references, New York City would be subject to business takeovers, shortages, property confiscation, rampant crime, and free public transportation.
These horrors, according to Mayor Singer, were enough to welcome the refugees from New York City to Boca Raton.
But what was Mayor Singer inviting them to?
Boca Raton is No Refuge for NYC Residents
Contrary to the myth, Boca Raton is no paradise. It is expensive, congested, and has a fraction of the cultural institutions of New York City. Its housing market is fragmented by gated communities, expensive country clubs, 55-and-over communities, and linked by strip shopping centers.
Further, the construction of more high-rises will only add to the street-level and highway congestion. About 70% of its population is white, with a median household income of $90,000, and a median home price of $585,000. It also has a significant Jewish population that may account for Singer’s election victory
Real estate developers have tremendous influence on the city, and along the whole east coast of Florida, they push for every square foot of buildable space. Boca Raton and Palm Beach County are the home of zero-lot line million-dollar houses. The zero-lot-line plot survey means that houses are pushed together, so there is minimal space, about 10 feet, separating houses that can sell for $1 million and up. If an owner wants to clean their gutter, for instance, the base of the ladder to reach a 10-foot gutter will be standing on their neighbor’s property.
The zero-lot line allows builders to build more houses per development at the expense of an owner’s privacy. It’s more profitable for builders, and homeowners are often not informed about the situation unless they ask. All the naïve home buyer may notice is that the houses look awfully close together, certainly not something they would see in other parts of the country.
Florida is also known as an anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-global warming, book censorship state, so it’s unusual that the mayors of Boca and Palm Beach are inviting AI companies to relocate there, considering that computer scientists drive the entire industry.
Mayor Singer is also inviting people to a state that bans books, has the lowest teacher salaries in the nation; Florida ranks 50th in the country for average teacher pay — two years in a row — despite a slight pay increase that fails to keep up with inflation.
Thanks to Governor DeSantis, the state now has a non-mandatory vaccine policy that can affect the elderly and kids, and an aggressive anti-immigrant policy that will raise prices for labor-intensive work.
Florida is also the fraud capital of the U.S. The state leads the nation in identity theft, Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud, home construction, insurance fraud, elder abuse, and cryptocurrency fraud. It has historically shown no sign of increasing its protection and prosecution rates.
Mayor Singer must know that since Palm Beach is the East Coast headquarters for white-collar criminals, starting with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, as its most notable cons. It also attracts other lesser-known white-collar errant executives, including Senator Rick Scott, whose company (Columbia/HCA) was named in the biggest Medicare and Medicaid tax fraud in history. These executive criminals come here to avoid paying taxes, the easy lifestyle, lack of prosecutorial atmosphere, the ability to create future scams, and to associate with other like-minded non-violent criminals in a luxury setting.
Take the case of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Thanks to her loyalty and bending of the law for Trump, Bondi, is now the U.S. Attorney General. She is now defending Trump at the national level, including his conflicts of interest, pay-to-play presidency, Epstein involvements, and prosecution of Trump’s critics and “enemies.”
Similarly, twenty years earlier, Alex Acosta, formerly the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, made a secret non-prosecution agreement with Epstein. That deal ignited the controversy nearly 20 years later, when it became known that Acosta was friendly with Epstein. For his loyalty, Trump named Acosta Secretary of Labor. There are others, but the basic message is that the whole state is for sale. This message is very attractive to white-collar criminals, foreign and domestic, from Palm Beach to Miami.
Florida was also the state that threw the election to George Bush in December 2000, in the famous Bush v. Gore lawsuit, when Jeb Bush, George’s brother, was the governor of Florida. For additional historical context, Florida was the third state to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy in 1861.
Governor DeSantis was a more extreme MAGA supporter than Trump.
His state supervisors have banned books, dictated subjects that cannot be taught in school, banned books, mangled scientific evidence to prevent COVID, installed party hacks at the state’s universities and colleges, and put out the welcome mat to billionaires whose primary purpose is to pay the least taxes possible.
And that’s just for starters.
As numerous articles, including this powerful piece from The Prospect, have reported, Governor DeSantis has flagrantly abused the public trust. His actions are a slap in the face of democracy.
- “He suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren, a twice-elected local official, because he didn’t like the police reforms he initiated. Warren was also among a group of prosecutors who announced, “We decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions.”
- “He suspended four elected members of the Broward County school board—all registered Democrats—and turned the board over to a majority of Republicans.
- “He (DeSantis) held a press conference to announce the arrest of 20 people—who cast 0.0000018 percent of the 11 million ballots cast in Florida’s 2020 election—for allegedly voting illegally.”
The NYC Exodus That Won’t Happen
So, what was Mayor Singer thinking when he invited the expected flood of New York City refugees to Boca Raton?
Not much.
He must have been caught up in the anti-Mamdani hysteria while running through Mizner Park, the city’s high-priced restaurant row, screaming, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.” Not too cool for a Harvard graduate, but he must have been swept up in the MAGA social media hype.
Mayor Singer’s MAGA credentials should awaken some of the sleepy Boca residents to find a Democratic mayoral candidate. Maybe some motivated Boca residents will forego the happy hours, tennis, pickleball, and poker routines and decide to use their education and experience to run for mayor.
The Democratic Party in Florida is asleep, so it cannot find a candidate from a top-down search, but maybe there are some people in the country club and gated community bubbles who want to end their golden years as Boca’s pro-citizen leader. Who knows, it may be more exciting than playing canasta or pickleball.
