Judge Tosses ‘Save Boca’ Referendum Questions Off January Ballot

The city government campus and Memorial Park redevelopment area, Boca Raton, FL, Oct. 2025. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

A Palm Beach County circuit court judge ruled Tuesday that two ballot questions that would place restrictions on the sale or lease of city-owned property in Boca Raton shall not appear on a special election ballot in January.

Judge Joseph Curley issued a verbal order from the bench barring the ballot measures. The questions would have asked residents to adopt an ordinance that would require voter approval for any sale, lease or “alienation” of public land in the city over a half-acre in size. A companion question would have amended the city charter to require the same, with the charter amendment serving as a more permanent codification of the policy. The ballot questions were to be placed on the ballot following the collection of signatures by the Save Boca organization, which is objecting to a downtown redevelopment plan that would grant a 99-year lease of about 7 acres of public land to a development group that would build 769 apartments, 196 condominiums, a 180 key hotel, restaurant and retail facilities, plus 150,000 square feet of office or commercial space in exchange for lease and tax revenue to fund a new city government campus and park upgrades.

The ruling was the result of a lawsuit brought by Ned Kimmelman, a retired city attorney, who claimed in a petition before the court that the ballot measures could cause irreparable harm to himself and the community at large. While supporters of the ordinance and charter amendments have said that each are necessary to prevent the city council from selling or leasing public land to developers over the objections of residents, detractors – including some city officials – have called the measures a “nuclear option” that would interfere with routine functions of government by requiring public votes on leases to nonprofits, or even functions such as festivals or private gatherings in city parks.

The language for both the ordinance adoption and the charter amendment questions would have asked voters to approve the identical policy: “The city council shall not in any manner alienate from the public, lease or sell any land that is owned by the City of Boca Raton greater than one-half (0.5) acre, or any part thereof, except upon approval of the proposed action at a referendum election.”

The ballot questions “don’t meet constitutional muster,” Curley ruled. Kimmelman had initially sued Save Boca founder Jon Pearlman, the organization itself, as well as the city and county, but later amended his petition to focus squarely on the city and county, both of which would have had a part in managing the ballot referenda.

Kimmelman told Boca Daily News hours after the ruling that Curley’s decision was based on three arguments he made in a memorandum of law filed Monday (see the memorandum embedded beneath this story) in support of his motion for an emergency injunction in the case that sought to block the questions from appearing on the ballot.

First, Kimmelman argued that the charter amendment question would, itself, violate the city charter since the initiative petition was not certified until until Oct. 2, 2025. The charter holds that a vote on amendments must be held within three months, meaning the ballot question would have had to be presented to voters by Jan. 2, 2026. The special election, which was ordered by Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill the unexpired term of state representative Mike Caruso, is set for Jan. 13, 2026. Precedent for such a determinative argument is found in City of Miami Beach v. Herman, a 1977 case that surrounded a citizen initiative over a rent control ordinance. The Boca Raton case differed from the Miami Beach case in that the Miami Beach charter required a mandatory 60-day period before a question could be placed on the ballot, versus the 90 day period after which a question can no longer appear on a ballot.

Kimmelman went on to argue that the ballot question violated the state’s Municipal Home Rule Powers Act, which requires special elections and referenda votes to be held “as provided by law.”

“There is no City Charter provision giving the electorate the right to impose a referendum requirement,” Kimmelman wrote. If the charter amendment were to pass, it would “restrict the city’s action … by making it subject to a mandatory future public referendum, rather than a possible referendum via the requisites” under the law. In other words, the electorate has never been granted power by the legislature to enact a charter amendment “conferring upon itself the power to restrict action by the city council by making the council’s action subject to referendum.”

The motion also challenged the language of the ballot questions’ title, claiming it was unclear in both instances since it uses the phrase “certain” lands that would be covered under its jurisdiction.

“Does ‘certain’ mean any lands that are .5 acre or more, o r less than that? Maybe. Or does ‘certain’ mean some unseen lands in different corners of the city? Maybe,” Kimmelman wrote. “Does it mean the land underneath the Florence Fuller Center and Boca Raton Museum of Art? Maybe. After all, there are well over 180 City-owned properties within its municipal boundaries, so the possibilities are endless.”

Kimmelman also keyed in on language in the measure that would not only require ballot referenda for public land that would be sold or leased, but “alienated” from residents.

“The lay definition of  ‘alienate’ is to be estranged or disconnected from society, often due to a feeling o f not belonging or a lack o f common values with the group,” he wrote. “This can manifest as social withdrawal, a sense o f not being represented, or being misunderstood. … People may be somewhat familiar with that definition of ‘alienate,’ but there is no phrase ‘alienate from the public’ in the dictionary or authoritatively defined anywhere else. Does that phrase mean alienate the public from any city owned lands including those more, less or equal to .5 acres in size? Does it mean that the annual carnival with rides that comes to the city for two weeks annually, leases the 1.8 acre city parcel next to Miner Park and charges $30 for admission, is equivalent to the city ‘alienating’ the public if someone cannot afford it or simply does not want to pay?”

Likewise, Kimmelman posited several other examples, such as whether leases for the annual seafood festival “alienates” the public from using the park in which the festival is held, or even whether regulations barring residents from visiting the police department’s evidence room technically “alienates” them from accessing a public facility.

By Tuesday night, the Save Boca organization had yet to issue a statement in response to the ruling. City council members have already pledged to place the downtown redevelopment project in front of voters in its own capacity, which will likely occur in March alongside a separate question on whether $175 million in bonds should be approved to create a new police headquarters building near the Spanish River library.

Read the Memorandum: