Meet Constance Scott, Boca Raton City Council Seat C Candidate
By: Megan Mandatta
Constance Scott has an extensive history within Boca Raton and has lived in the city for 26 years and graduated from Boca High in 1972. Scott has a history of involvement in Boca’s local politics and served as Chair of the CRA for five years and served as deputy mayor for one year.
Currently, Scott is the Director of Local Relations for Florida Atlantic University but has been prompted by COVID-19 to get involved with local politics again.
‘The pandemic is really what brought me to the point that I decided “I need to run again”,’ Scott said. ‘I saw things that were happening, and more importantly, things that weren’t happening that I felt it was really, really important to do. I felt that my knowledge, my experience, the wisdom that I gained over the years [serving on the council and handling COVID-19 at FAU] I could bring to the city.”
Scott notes that during her term in office in 2009, she was preoccupied by turning around the economic recession for Boca as her main focus. Scott mentions many of the downtown, economic stimulating projects for locations like Mizner Park were executed during her term.
“The local unit of government is closest to the people,” Scott said. “It is the government that affects the water that you drink, it affects the parks and recreation that you participate in, it affects the sanitation and people coming and picking up your garbage, it is your streets, it is every single thing… that are in part connectivity to your community.”
Scott mentions one of her top priorities upon a potential election would be COVID-19 and “healing the community”. Scott is directly involved with the COVID-19 procedures for FAU and wants to implement some of their protocol, sanitization processes to the city of Boca.
“You are not removed from the people you are representing, therefore the decisions you make are very heartfelt, it is supposed to be nonpartisan on the local level,” Scott said. “It allows you to really impact people’s daily lives in a very positive way.”
An ease back into normalcy is another one of Scott’s focuses with an emphasis on fun, and safe, outdoor activities for people to be involved in. Outdoor Zumba and yoga classes were mentioned as some potential options for implementation.
Scott has created a B.O.C.A. plan where B stands for budget, O for operations, C for community, CARES Act and COVID-19 and A for amenities.
Scott stands firmly against raising taxes and has tactics she will implement to stimulate the economy enough, so this won’t happen. Operations regards employing members of the city with experience so there is no learning curve, and the city can get right into making changes without delay. Community, to Scott, is the most special part of Boca- the people living in the community are what makes Boca a great place to live. To best serve the community, Scott plans to fight for the CARES Act in Boca and COVID-19 relief plans. Amenities speaks for itself, Scott plans to uphold the amazing array of amenities offered by Boca throughout her term.
On the issue of parking and transportation, Scott vows to reassess the downtown area of Boca upon the finalization of construction projects to see what they should do next. Plans for the Brightline and a circulator should aid in the ease of traffic for these areas.
When discussing a plan to keep the students attending FAU in Boca Raton for the long term, Scott mentions the importance of internships and job security for these students that motivates them to stay local.
“One of our benchmarks is when our students graduate, they get a job in their field of study,” Scott noted. “We get rated on the amount of salary and they get tracked for about three years to make sure that they’re in their position and they stay. We get points for that and it’s a major goal for us.”
Scott notes that FAU brings 6-billion dollars of economic impact to the city of Boca annually and explains many of the programs FAU has in place to ensure their students can find a job pos-graduation and be successful in the city of Boca.
“We want our students to stay,” Scott said. “It’s a passion of mine.”
The interview then circled back to the topic of COVID-19, which has been a major election discussion piece throughout each candidate’s campaign.
“I think that the city has had some difficulties with COVID-19, and I think the messaging has been fair,” Scott said. “But I do believe our community is very concerned about the pandemic, very concerned with the management of the pandemic, very concerned about [testing], FAU became the site for testing.”
The CARES Act distribution took too long according to Scott, especially in a time of need for local businesses and those in need. Scott describes it is her goal that the future money that Boca gets to distribute goes into the “right hands”, citing non-profits as the major organizations she would be looking at.
“I’ve been a leader historically in this city, and a leader in all the things that I’ve done professionally, and I also have been a huge contributor in this community, to the nonprofit community and to the organizations that are there from my rotary club to the junior league to the Boca Raton Bowl,” Scott notes in her final remarks. “I have the skill set; I have the knowledge I have the professional wherewithal to be on the city council to lead our city in the direction that hopefully we will be able to determine with a visioning and a new strategic plan as we move forward into the next generations.”
Scott explains that experience is something that cannot be disputed, taken away, or earned through volunteer work. New ideas come from connectivity according to Scott, and she plans to be the one to implement those new plans.
“For the future, I don’t think we need to get bigger, I think we need to get better,” Scott concludes.
Watch the complete interview here:
