Meet Your Boca Raton City Council Seat C Candidates: Jeremy Rodgers

By: Michael Demyan

Incumbent Jeremy Rodgers will be running against newcomer Kim Do for City Council Seat C in the upcoming election on March 13.

Rodgers was born in New York and moved from Chicago to South Florida in 1997 to attend Florida Atlantic University, where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer engineering.

He was selected to be an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2010, has worked with IBM for over 18 years and currently serves as the deputy mayor after being elected to Boca Raton City Council in 2015. He is now seeking to serve his second and final term.

“When there was an opening three years ago on the council, I threw my name into the ring and was fortunate enough to get elected,” he said. “It was a bit of a surprise because I think one of my opponents had all of the backings of the establishment and the other opponent had a heck of a lot of money, but we kind of went down the middle stayed pretty moderate, stayed positive and was fortunate enough to serve.”

Rodgers said that during his three-year term, there have been some improvements made to the city through development, however, he also sees the concern residents have regarding overdevelopment.

“It’s been a little too much in some areas,” he said. “People treat it as a completely bad thing and what’s also bad is no development. It needs to be controlled, it needs to be planned, it needs to be within code.”

Rodgers mentioned that development outside of Boca Raton is also putting some extra cars on the road, continuing the city’s constant struggle with traffic.

“All the traffic doesn’t come from just what’s in town,” he said. “There’s been a lot of development in Delray and Deerfield and West Boca, some of which I’ve actually fought against and those cars and people are going to use up your traffic one way or the other, so that’s why it’s important to get smart investment before your traffic concurrency gets used up.”

To improve parking, Rodgers would like to add a new parking structure, but the tough part is finding the correct place to construct it. He said that part of the parking problem stems back to when many properties were built under a code which no longer exists.

“As some of these projects come forward for redevelopment, you actually improve the parking,” he said. “You make them add some parking.”

Rodgers was also a part of the movement in city council to bring a new elementary school to Boca and feels that it will end up getting the approval required. He said that the current overcrowding in schools has much to do with how great the schools are.

Rather than look at building a new high school, possibly next to an existing one like his opponent suggests, Rodgers thinks the best thing to do is invest in improving the high schools already in place.

“There are two issues with [adding a high school],” he said. “One, there isn’t room next to another high school and two, if you’re doing that, that’s a high school expansion, that’s not a new high school. I would rather see investment in our current high schools.”

While Rodgers sees that Boca Raton has great schools, he believes that money should be put toward improving the actual facilities.

“I like to say we have “A” rated schools, we have great schools, but if you go and walk around our schools, we don’t have “A” rated facilities and that’s an issue,” he said.

Rodgers was also in favor of letting residents vote for the ultimate decision of turning the Wildflower property into a park and is excited with the ideas they have for the city’s parks in the future.

“Over the next three to five years you’re going to see some of these parks, especially the ones on the water, really be activated, have people hanging out there, enjoying it.”

If elected, Rodgers plans to continue his goal to create jobs, improve quality of life and make the city the most veteran-friendly place to find a job or to open a business.

“The great thing about local elections and local politics is we go to the same restaurants, we go to the same Publix, the same Costco. We’re right there,” he said. “I’m happy to grab a cup of coffee with anyone in town or hop on a phone call and hear them out. Our meetings are right here in town. Come out and let us know and we listen. It only takes a few people to get a point across.”