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February 7, 2025 • 15 mins
McQuire is running for the open Boynton Beach mayoral seat.
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Joel malkin Ford, WJ and O dot com. My

(00:02):
election spotlight is on the City of Boyton Beach. You
have a couple of races there. District one was unopposed,
so City Commissioner Angela Cruz gets re elected without opposition.
You do have District three commissioner race with two candidates
including the incoven in that and then the mayor. That
is the busiest one because four candidates are running this

(00:25):
of course, ty Penserga the current mayor termed out with
the term limits there in Boynton Beach, so you do
have four candidates, including the gentlemen we are speaking to
right now. Court McQuire, thank you for joining me.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Oh, Joel, thank you very much for having me. I
look forward to the interview.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
No problem, all right. So, you know, we want folks
to get to know you. You know folks in Boyton Beach.
I know you've been involved with the city, but not
currently on the city commission, but another you know, in
some advisory boards, committees and whatnot. So I want you
to give us a background on you for folks that
aren't aware of of yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Sure, I'm a husband and a dad, I have three
little girls and I'm very busy with that and enjoy
family life, but I'm a businessman. That's really my background.
I own and operate two advertising agencies, one registered out
of Boyton Beach and another in Orlando. So for the

(01:22):
past twenty five plus years, I have been responsible for
generating revenue for my clients, from hospitals to colleges, to
developers to museums and lots of hotels as well. And
over the past seven eight years, I've been serving on
a lot of the city's advisory boards, Planning and Development,

(01:46):
the Arts Advisory Board, and currently the vice chair of
the Community Redevelopment Association Advisory Board. That's a long one
and I've been really immersed in the city governance and policy.
I go to all the meetings and preparing myself and
I'm ready to do this. I want to put my

(02:08):
skills for a few decades to work for the city,
and I think I'm ready to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Since you are on the Community Redevelopment Association Advisory Board,
obviously this deals with redeveloping the community, and there are
areas that need to be redeveloped. The first when it
comes to my mind, just because we've been talking about
it for so many years. Now is the point and
Beach Mall property, And that is something that I do want,

(02:36):
you know, candidates in this race to discuss what is
going to happen with that, because at last check when
I was there, and it's now been a year or two,
there were you know, there were some businesses left, but
it's definitely a shell of what it was. And it
reminds me, and I've said this before, reminds me of
the last days of the Palm Beach Mall. Right. You'd
go there and you'd have a few business you know,

(02:57):
several businesses there, but a lot of empty storefronts in there,
and just you know, now, obviously that is a I'm
trying to think of the word, you know, an outlet,
an outlet, an outdoor outlet, mall. What is it that
you'd like to see happen there? And what has been discussed?
And I guess there's been no official decision yet.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
No, there hasn't. And that is a lightning rod issue.
I mean, that is a huge parcel currently for sale,
over one hundred million dollars and as many many acres
and has a lot of possibility. Currently there is no
master plan submitted to the city, but as soon as
the sale goes through, this definitely would come to the CIRA.
This would come to the Commission, And it's a huge

(03:42):
issue because quality of life for Boyton Beach residence is
paramount in this election, and that very easily can deliver
thousands of apartment doors, but very little to no destination
entertainment or civic or arts entertainment for the community. And

(04:03):
you know, when you sit on the CIRA, it's part
of the responsibility as mayor or commission members to work
with developers, but you know they expect to give to get.
So the art of the deal negotiating with these individuals
and let them know that, you know, we need green space,

(04:24):
we need parks, we need recreation. Maybe a theater I'm
thinking would be a great destination for our residents, which
we don't currently have a formal indoor theater. That would
be a great asset. So I think there's one piece
that's not assembled on the parcel and everything else is
and it's just a matter of time before that deal

(04:45):
is shut and they're going to start submitting plans. I
could very well see this happening this year, in twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, I mean there are You're right, Lightning Rod issue
says it because they're for for years covering elections in
Point of Beach. Everybody's got an idea, right, affordable housing,
let's put let's put apartments, let's do this, let's do that.
Let me ask you what you know. We talked about
the Palm Beach mall site, which is now the Tanger Outlets.
You know what would be the issue with doing something

(05:15):
like that. There is at least part of it to
obviously not an arts thing, but you know, to to
bring people not far off of ninety five, to bring
people to the city from other areas well.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
What we need is a mix, right, So definitely mall
and retail is critical. Restaurant, I mean Boyton is largely
a restaurant desert and that is a huge component. But
what about hotel? Right, you can't attract tourism without hotel
and we have very little of that.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Is there not still a I'm sorry, is there not
still a holiday in on Congress or I don't know
what it is now. It was a holiday in years ago.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
No, Yeah, there's a few hotels around there. I believe
that is a holiday. And but there's just few and
far between. I mean, if you want to track people
to a destination, you've got to try to keep them
for four hours. And if all you have is one
asset and not the other, they're not going to stick
around and spend money and generate our economic engine here
in Boyton. So that parcel ideally would be a mixed

(06:19):
parcel of retail, arts, office, hotel, and residential. I love residential,
but how about throwing some simple fey ownership, not just rental.
That would be a great mix for the community.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
What are some other areas and I know you haven't
listened on your website, but what are some other areas
that are right now being discussed as far as being redeveloped.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
YEA, So our downtown is really important. If you take
a look at our downtown, a lot of the land
is just sitting and has been for over a decade
in a holding pattern, and the residents are clamoring for
something to do. If you look at our events in
our dayntown area, they are so well attended that you
cannot find parking. A couple issues are we need parking.

(07:06):
We have to deliver parking to our residents. I've been
working on a plan with the CIRA Advisory Board, which
I submitted a couple of weeks ago to the CIRA board.
We need we need destination entertainment and all of these
parcels are just sitting here and all of these developers
are waiting to turn dirt when the economic and money
becomes cheaper.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Let's talk about crime. Uh, you recently had recently a
year or so, Boynton Beach went through some changes a
police department. I know that there had been discussion with
the Sheriff's office. Uh there was a request that they,
uh you know, look into taking over law enforcement. And

(07:50):
the city shot that down and said, now now we're
we're good, We're staying together. You have a new or
new we're police chief and whatnot. And you opinion, how
are things going? Have you seen improvements with regard to
a crime? But also there were some issues between the
police department and the community as well, So how's that

(08:11):
improved as well?

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I believe the police have been doing a good job
and definitely improving. Of recent there was like fifteen or
so shootings and some deaths I think six. You know,
this is unfortunate, but overall I believe that police and
fire have been doing a good job. A lot of
people don't realize that Boyton Beach is the third largest

(08:34):
city in the county, so it is a huge not
only geographic area, but by population approaching one hundred thousand residents.
So it's a big undertaking. But I'm definitely for chieping
our police and fire how they are not going county
and I believe that that would be the best interest
of our people to take care of our own How

(08:55):
do you.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Feel about how the current City Commission has done with
regards to trying to help out taxpayers as far as
like the millage rate. I know there were two millig
rate cuts I think in a row over the last
few years of talk about that if you can.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, so they have done that, you know, really negligible amount,
which is great and I like that. But at the
same time, there's other fees that have been increased. For example,
our fire fee, which is basically a special assessment tax,
and that generates about eight million dollars plus annually for
the fire departments and our residents, especially our seniors and

(09:34):
fixed income residents. It's a lot of money to be
taxed annually on this program that was supposed to be sunset.
I think about five years ago. One of my initiatives
would definitely be cut something like that out. And they
also have been saying they've been lowering our water, right.
But at the same time, if you really look at
the algorithm, they're running certain sectors of families, whether they're large, small,

(10:01):
or an individual home with one person in it, are
metered at a different rate, and I don't quite think
that's fair. I think every home should pay for exactly
the same as their neighbor. If their neighbor has a
five person household and you have a one person household,
it should be the same. So there's a lot of

(10:22):
little things like that that I think are confusing to
our homeowners and that I want to clarify and run
a transparent government.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
All right, And just one more issue I want to
discuss because this is something that comes up as well
as traffic concerns. Do you have any concerns with regards
to traffic. I know that you know that it's been
a while since I've been in Boytan Beach, but I
know some of that area can get, you know, pretty
hectic certain times of the day.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, definitely, our traffic has been increasing like crazy. I mean,
congress on rush hours is not even moving. It's a
huge issue, and if you go back just five years ago,
it wasn't like that. So we're increasing our with a
lot of transient housing like apartment housing, and that's going
to continue to go that route. But another like item
to consider is these red light cameras. I just sat

(11:12):
in on a red light camera presentation and I was
surprised to find out that it's running at a loss.
So here is something that is put into the community
to basically offset our costs and basically generate revenue so
we can fix issues like traffic problems and have new
traffic lights and better studies, et cetera. But I was

(11:33):
surprised to hear that our traffic camera program is running
at a loss. I think the public is not aware
of this and that is a concern.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, we should point out for folks listening that aren't aware.
Boyton Beach is currently the only Palm and has been
for a while now, the only Palm Beach County municipality
that uses red light cameras to actually find drivers. So
what you're saying is based on what your knowledge that
it's actually costing more to use those than it's bringing in.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, I believe it generated something like two point one
million dollars in revenue, of which it was short two
hundred thousand dollars. These are loose numbers, but from my
memory that's about where it landed.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
That would be what last year. Yes, So what would
you what would be your would Would it be your
choice to say, you know, to bring to the dais
a vote to stop using them?

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Well, definitely A lot of people ask about that, and
it is an important issue, But I don't believe it
would be my decision to make. I would have to
really reach out to the community, maybe even with the
questionnaire or the community meeting, and find out what the
members of our community think. But I would say at
a gloss, I'm not really I need to understand it
better before I make a decision like that.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Has to your knowledge, has these city commission in the
last couple of years or three years at least, had
tried to maybe talk about this yu.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, I know it's been before the dias multiple times,
and they've essentially increased the amount of cameras we have
in the city. I think we're just at fifteen now.
And if you go back a year or two prior,
it was far less than that. So over time it's
more and more and more.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
And each one of those cameras costs money to upkeep.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
No, definitely, and you know they do. They do prevent
some accidents, and there is some benefits to these cameras.
So it's really something I'd have to look at closely
before I would make a decision and learn more about it.
But I would tell you one thing I don't like
that running out of loss. I would fix that immediately
before we did anything else.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
All right, So this final question, there are four candidates
running one way or another. There's going to be a
brand new mayor in Boynton Beach. Why should folks choose
you out of the four candidates?

Speaker 2 (14:03):
In terms of business, I've handled running and operating my
own companies, maintaining payroll budgets, understanding contracts, reading them, sniffing
out a bad deal and making sure we get a
good one. And my experience my last twenty five years

(14:24):
plus has been just that.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
All right, Well, anything else for we wrap up.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
I really appreciate your time and the opportunity. My website
is elect from Acquire mcq U IRI with a Q
out of G and I would love people to visit
my website, take the survey, tell me what they think
and what they think I can do to better serve
the city. And I look forward to serving as mayor
given the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
All right, well, thank you for your time and speaking
to the voters in Boyton Beach again. Mayoral candidate Cortland
McQuire right here on w j n O dot com
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