On this episode of News World.

Mayor Scott's Singer has served as a strong voice for Boca Raton, Florida's resident since he was first elected to the city council in twenty fourteen.

Scott was elected as mayor in twenty eighteen and re elected in twenty twenty with eighty nine percent of the vote, receiving the two highest vote totals in the city's history.

He was re elected without opposition in twenty twenty three.

This year, the city of bok Raton is celebrating its centennial year, founded in nineteen twenty five.

I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, Mayor Scott Singer.

So welcome and thank you for joining me on Newtswork.

Thank you to speaker.

A pleasure to be here, I have.

To say, in addition to being mayor, you've done some interesting things.

You are a Jeopardy champion and you appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

How did those things happen?

Both fun experiences.

I always loved trivia as a kid and watch Jeopardy growing up.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was more luck than anything else.

They were restarting the syndicated version with Meredith Vieira.

I happen to come down from lunch saw a flyer posted on a street light in New York City at lunchtime.

They were having auditions.

The next day when over, and two weeks later I was on the show, and that helped pay for part of law school.

And then Jeopardy.

I tried out multiple times over the years and finally got the call that I'd been selected and got the flatt la and tape some episodes.

When you do Jeopardy, I don't think fast enough to do a show like that.

I would just freeze up.

How do you manage to get in the rhythm of that kind of a show.

Well, first, I have to respectfully disagree, mister speaker.

I've seen you think fast on your feed for thirty years plus, and your term as Speaker and the revolution you set off in nineteen ninety four made a formative impression on me.

That's the first time I got to vote in nineteen ninety four.

I turned eighteen that year, so still remember with great excitement that day and saw how well you thought over the time and how well you still think.

I'm sure you would do great, But in terms of that show, the rhythm is the hardest thing because you have three competitors who know almost all the answers, and you're all vying to ring in first.

And it's hard because even in my episodes, I felt the timing was a little bit different, whether the lock in to let you buzz in was slightly different in the second game than the first.

They say what distinguishes the good champions from the great champions is to have that machine like timing.

You can see it sometimes the people who win five games or more, they're really good on their timing.

That's interesting.

I hadn't even thoughtow that part of it, so I'm curious.

I mean, you've clearly done with the people of Voca Utan want when you look at the level of support you're getting.

We live in an age when it's very difficult to have citizens be happy.

What is it you think that you've done that have enabled people to rally around you so that, despite years in office, you ran unopposed.

I mean, I think this is a real tribute to something you're doing that other local elected officials or local candidates might learn from.

Well, thank you, that's very kind.

I think it's a lot of circumstances first, local elections in Florida, like the majority of states, are nonpartisan, so you don't naturally have two parties vying to put up a candidate, So that actually makes it easier than other state or federal offices.

Second, I think it's very easy to get re elected time and time again if you don't want to do anything.

The challenges when you're trying to push bolder ideas, and I think in twenty twenty three, I was fortunate.

I worked hard to build up good alliances, but I had a very cordial and collegial council.

When you're able to work collaboratively with people, it keeps the temperature down, and that's one of the things when I first ran for office, wanted to lower the temperature.

We had some groups that were really trying to one candidate who was running a blog and then trying to use that to propel himself for further office.

I think was really trying to encourage more dissatisfaction.

I think the bigger picture is just getting out the accurate information, and it's harder nowadays in this euro of social media to try to communicate all of the facts.

And I wouldn't say necessarily my approval rating is eighty nine percent.

Now that's a snapshot in time.

I would say in the last year there's more anger generally.

I think the way media can spin things, can polarize different views, has of spill over effect over at the local level, and that's one of the things I'm trying with the America First Policy Institute Mayor's Council, which I have the privileged to chair and work with other mayors to try to find common sense solutions, but take common sense solutions from Washington and the Trumpean administration and bring them down to the local level as well.

What would you say when you're out talking with your fellow citizens in Boca Raton, what are the two or three things that come up again and again that they really want to say solved?

Sure, in local government it's often development issues.

Development is a concern throughout the country because local governing bodies often focus on development, zoning, where things go, how you're planning for infrastructure.

In Boko Roteon, we do a fantastic job of planning for infrastructure, and I think that spills over to a lot of resident satisfaction.

We've got great police and fire, we've got great city services, soup to nuts.

We've invested in infrastructure, so we use new technology to even move traffic, which is always a concern, even in an area where we've got South Florida growing at more rapid paces around us, but not so much in our area.

We're a pretty built out, lower density city, but you feel that so development is a concern.

I think affordability continues to be a concern.

Boca Ratone still is an affluent area, relatively affluent with a higher income, but we have a whole variety of workers and we want to ensure accessibility and affordability for everyone.

That's why the city is embarked on introducing affordable and attainable housing for middle class workers, to try to make sure that the employers who were trying to attract and young professionals, employers have places for their employees.

Young professionals have an opportunity to move into the city and then continue their life there.

And I'm always focused on retaining talent and growing our job base.

Because we have a strong economy in Boca Ratone, we punch above our weight when it comes to business.

We probably have a business presence of a city of maybe three hundred thousand people and roll only one hundred thousand.

We've got more than half the corporate headquarters of all upon Beach County, President Trump's home county.

So I'm always trying to focus on how we can bring more jobs here and ensure the talent coming out of Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, and pom Beach State College, all in our city can find places to work and live.

Fascinating maybe if you've got all these things going on, and yet you actually wrote a letter to New York business leaders saying that to consider coming to Florida given the election of a big government socialist like Mundami, do you think you're actually going to see a substantial increment that's been a continuous migration now for like thirty years.

Do you think it's going to dramatically accelerate with Mundami's effect on the New York economy.

I think it will substantially accelerate, yes, mister speaker.

And we've been targeting New York and other key markets Chicago and San Francisco for years.

We've had strategic and targeted outreach to businesses.

We can't accommodate all the people who might want to flee the high taxes, but we can try to and are focusing on business growth because we've got great Class A office, lots of availability, and a great business ecosystem.

So that's why in June we reached out to business leaders and we've continue that.

We knew that the Mandami election was coming, and we actually advertised some strategic advertising New York.

We launched a website and wide to Boca dot com, which saw thousands of hits in just the first few weeks, and we've continued follow up messaging with businesses who've wanted to come.

I'd gotten some positive response to the email we sent right after the election.

We followed up with calls, and we're continuing to work on bringing businesses here.

I've talked with residential realtors throughout the community in Boca Raton and elsewhere, and their call volume has dramatically increased, So that's people looking to move here.

That's not necessarily new construction.

But we've got Class A availabilities too, so I expect a lot of people to move, and it's not just New York.

I think we need to be concerned about socialist ideas taking root in some of our nation's biggest cities.

New York is one, but now Seattle two.

Their mayor was ousted an election just this month as well, and that's going to be, I think, a challenge for that city, which already faced challenges with public safety and business flight.

I think all of these very large, heavily unionized, very bureaucratic, left wing cities, I think they're going to continue to shed people who flee basically.

But I'm curious specifically about New York because Mondomie, of course wants to raise saxes.

Apparently Governor huckle has just reversed herself and said she would consider a tax increase, which during the election she'd said she would not.

But isn't there already a huge gap in how much you pay if you're a Floridan or a New Yorker.

Absolutely, if you're at the top marginal rate in New York City, it's nearly fifteen percent between state and local income taxes.

That's on top of your federal that's on top of the high cost of living, that's on top of all the other expenses.

You move to Florida, it's zero percent.

And I'm proud that's saying Boca Raton, We've got the lowest property tax rate of any full service city in Florida.

So coming to Boca Ratone is a real economic advantage for a lot of people.

That's why business leaders and C suite executives have been moving here.

And it really picked up after COVID.

People saw the shutdown city, the high crime, the high tax, the high regulation jurisdictions and wanted something better.

So you mentioned, mister speaker, our growth that's been steady over decades, and it has it picked up after COVID.

I think this will be another accelerator as well.

Now Bondani is talking about a seventeen percent marginal rate and further taxes at the higher higher ends.

I think that's just going to give job creators and innovators an opportunity to say why am I staying here?

And we're welcoming their opportunities to bring high paying jobs to Boca Ratone.

Apparently, people like Mundommi is a big government socialists.

I think that people who are successful aren't smart enough to figure out how much they're paying.

I talked to somebody and palm beef.

This was probably ten years ago.

He said it time.

It cost him about five million dollars a year to retain a New York residence.

He is obviously really wealthy, but nonetheless there is a morning new work around and think what is it I'm getting for this?

And it doesn't seem to sink in at all to the Mondomis of the world that you can literally drive people away.

I mean they just pick up and leave.

And of course Florida has been an enormous recipient of people from all over the country, both because it's a great place to live, us a great quality of life, and the differential between a Chicago or a New York or New Jersey is just staggering.

Now, when you talk to people, how do they rationalize it?

Well, the ones I talk to don't because they've moved.

After the pandemic started, we saw a lot more growth of people moving from Chicago who traditionally went to the West Coast.

I have a lot more constituents who came from Illinois because of their high taxes as well, So it's not just York ats Illinois's other places as well.

I can't rationalize the irrationality of some of these policies, and I'm not going to attempt to, but I think there's a parallel you're seeing people advanced socialist ideas that have failed time and time again throughout history and every generation.

I guess we need another dose of how bad it is.

Mom.

Donnie isn't old enough to remember the Soviet Union and the fall of it.

I remember, I know you remember a lot more and could lecture at great length about the perils of communism.

I think people are going to have to see that firsthand.

So I think it's that same misunderstanding about these unrealistic, unworkable, Unamerican ideas that are causing people to think, well, we're static and people are just going to pay whatever tax rate we set.

We're an in an era of mobility.

We've got technology that is far different than even five years ago.

The fact that you and I are being able to do this podcast on two continents and in live time has now become the standard, not an outlier.

And I think businesses are recognizing that talent will go where it wants to go, and there is no more stranglehold on why New York has to be the capital of capital.

As an American, I'm sad to see it, but as a Boca Raton mayor, I'm going to try to benefit from the opportunities to bring high paying jobs to my city.

Wellings, I did not know.

That I think is very impressive is that Boca Raton has consistently worked to lower the tax rate.

You now have the lowest property tax rate of any full service city in Florida, which is a statewey with no income tax.

That is an amazing achievement.

So what is it that you've done to get the city of Buca Raton to have the lowest property tax rate of any full service city in Florida.

Amazing achievement.

I think it's three things, mister speaker.

First, we have a very strong business base, and that's where I come back to it.

Because we have a strong business presence, we've got a lot more businesses who are paying taxes.

Florida as a homestead cap, where if you're a home setted resident, your property taxes only increase three percent per year.

Businesses don't have that cap, so it helps add a robustness to our budget.

If about half of our budget, our property taxes come from homesteaded residents, the rest come from non home setted residents and businesses.

So the stronger business presence actually helps the bottom line for residents.

And that's why it's not just great jobs in great philanthropic environment.

It keeps cost low and pays for great services.

Second, we're very lean, We staff leanly.

We don't have programs.

We've never had additional programs talking about ESG and DEI and where you get big government and liberal government focused on other projects that are sometimes make work jobs.

We don't have those.

We focus on basic services, police, fire water, sewer, sanitation, parks, libraries, roads.

We try to excel in all of those and focus on good governance there.

And the third thing is continuing to grow revenue bases, so you know, attracting businesses here.

I'm keeping a stable environment where property values rise naturally helps the fiscal balance sheet.

And mister Speaker, I definitely recall with great tribe, Frankly, when you were a speaker in nineteen ninety six, when I was in college, I had the privilege of helping you indirectly when I worked for Frank Luntz and Frank Luntz was assisting you in communications and work with House members.

So I had the privilege of trying to as Frank was addressing members weekly, you know, working with house communications teams, just as a college intern to try to make sure everyone was on message.

I did not know that story, and Frank of course, played a huge role in helping us communicate better with American people.

Not only have you been very effective as the mayor, but you also play a significant role with the America First Policy Institute, which I've been working with since its founding, when it launched its Mayor's Council.

You now chair that organization.

What inspired you to take on sort of a national role at a time like this.

So last year I got the opportunity to work with some people at AFPI and some education and other issues, and or heard talk of their governor's council and immediately struck me, why not a mayor's council Because the same America First message that we have to get into the States applies to the cities too, and I saw some great opportunities there.

First, going back to elections, you know, there's very low turnout and engagement in mayor elections.

I think you're seeing that in some of the elections we just saw in November and some big cities.

There's a real opportunity to advance, you know, to make sure that we're communicating the right message and getting people involved.

President Trump was on the ballot in twenty twenty four.

He will not be on the ballot again, but even leading up to the midterm elections, those mattered greatly.

And you want to make sure that people are engaged on key issues.

Well, there's no more level of government.

I think that affect your daily life as much as the local government level.

I wanted to make sure we were finding ways to advance common sense, pro growth, pro safety America first ideas at our cities.

And so I'm honored to work with now nearly fifty mayors across the country, former and current mayors who are working on the shared vision.

And it's really trying to find out how we can better tie what President Trump is succeeding and doing in Washington at the state and then local level with the Mayor's council.

When you bring together current has forty five members from all over the country.

What is your message to Washington collectively from the mayors.

I think it's that we're eager to find ways to work together better.

And what's unique about this group is I think you know we all share a similar outlook.

Yes, we are sharing best practices.

But we've got an opportunity to collaborate and exchange good policy with the federal and state and the local level.

For example, we had one mayor talk about the opportunities for better law enforcement in the city working with ICE, and that mayor attributed information we got from our council to helping multi jurisdictional task force crack down on gang members in that city.

And that collaboration has an impact at the local level.

But the federal policies more generally, mister speaker, touch our daily lives.

The border is secure in a way that it hadn't been for years.

So what did the unsecured border do for years?

Will It allowed fentanyl to come in.

It allowed the opioid epidemic to ravage cities, and who has to deal with that are first responders, and it affects everyone.

A secure border has a direct correlation to safety and cities, to the opoid epidemic and so much more.

Human trafficking is an issue, and I think we've all seen in the last few years that huge uptake in you know what we're doing about it?

Well, again, a secure border matters, So what happens in Washington matters and cities.

But we are on the ground too, trying to advance ideas that maybe percolate up to Washington.

Balance budgets.

For one, our city has to balance its budget.

We do every year.

A lot of other mayors in that same situation where you must pass a balanced budget.

So we have to go back to it.

And that speaks back to your earlier question.

You can bring a kind of digent, old fashion word, a kind of more frugal policy of not wasting money, not addy extra bureaucrats.

At the same time, it seems to me that the long term impact of President Trump and the whole mega movement really has to be dug in at the city and the county level so that it becomes more than just the Congress or more than just a presidential election, but it has to become a way of thinking.

And that the gap that we're seeing between where leaders like you are taking their cities and where the really big left wing what I would call big government socialists models in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore.

It's astonishing how dramatically different these two patterns are.

Why do you think it's so hard for us to break through in these really big cities, no matter how badly governed they are.

That's a tough question, and I think it's one of those things where some things are going to have to get worse before they get better.

We've had in the last five years to a number of mayors and mayoral candidates one on platforms of defunding police or reducing police presence, not understanding that public safety is at the base of the pyramid of government services.

If you have an unsafe community, people don't want to live there, Businesses don't want to be there, and people don't want to stay there.

And I think we're going to have to see some cities fail when they focus so much on alternative methods of policing but don't deal with the crime issues that they have in their city.

When you relax on crime, it has a spillover effect in so many ways.

And I think it's just the ebb and flow of political wins in some places.

And I remember in New York City in the nineteen eighties where crime was at monumental levels before Rudy Giuliani was elected and took the murder rate down sixty seventy percent, and that had a significant impact and then that caused businesses to come into Manhattan and to change Times Square from what was not really a seedy place to a tourist destination.

All of these things are related, but it goes back to just fundamentally sound policy or unsound policy, and when you don't treat crime the right way, when you're hostile to business, it spills over to affect quality of life.

I think you put your finger on you're having your centennial this year.

I think back to with nineteen twenty five of pre air conditioning must have been like in Boca.

What will you be doing in Boca this year to celebrate the centennial for the city.

Well, we've done a number of things throughout the year.

We've had a number of public events, participation with other businesses, some of whom are also Muten milestone years.

For example, we had a large concert that drew thousands of people to celebrate honor centennial week and it happened to even moreil Day weekend as well.

We also had a drone show that really was spectacular, the best I've ever seen that really brought people together.

It was a spirit of community and celebration.

We've done other things to recognize our history of our city, and as we look to the end of the year, our traditional holiday parade will be centennial themed.

We've had partnerships with the bok Ratona Historical Society to get out a great volume of our history that residents have enjoyed.

Other local magazines, including Over my Shoulder, the Boca ratonea Observer, has had their centennial issue.

I have a framed edition of that over my shoulder there.

And we're just going to continue to try to ensure that we look ahead to the next century, because, as you said, mister speaker, in nineteen twenty five, this is a very different place, pre air conditioning, a few hundred people here.

But what made Boca Ratone remarkable then was noted architect Addison Meisner came to Boca Ratone.

He set out to build the world's premier resort community, and in only seventeen months here he built what is now the Boca Ratone Resort.

It was the Ritz Carlton Cloister end of the time, but really envisioned this as a destination for leaders and prominent figures across America.

Nineteen twenty six was a land bust.

Hurricanes come.

He didn't reach the full fulfillment of his vision.

But I think one hundred years later, we have been set out as a special place.

We are remarkable as a city.

I think there's no city like ours, and a lot of mayors would say that.

But we have a great mix of the natural beauty and plan beauty, and more amenities, businesses and opportunities than a lot of other cities are size.

So I feel great pride for our city, and I think as we look at for the next century, we can plan other great things.

It's a remarkable place.

But I remember the very first time I went down.

I was giving a speech in Boca, and that was actually the first time I had key lime pie in Florida.

To this day, I remember that it was just exquisite for all of our listeners.

If you get a chance to go visit Boca.

It is a really unique gem situated right there in the middle of Florida's East coast, and it's almost like it's an island, and that it has been developed and cultivated and maintained to be a really high quality of life.

Well, thank you, mister speaker.

It is a special place.

I'm happy to say, though we're not an island.

We're in the center of the South Florida metropolitan area, the seventh largest in America, where we've got great business presence.

You've got a city government focused on trying to make life easier for residents and businesses.

It's not just your people looking to visit.

If you're looking to relocate a business here, we're happy to help with concierge services, incentives and again the lowest proper tax to have any full service city.

Going back to the bigger picture, I think over the coming years, people are going to have an opportunity more to be more mobile, and I think you're going to see a continued migration from high tax, high regulation, high crime cities and states to other places where mayors like me across America are trying to focus on how do you deliver services effectively and efficiently, and how do you allow businesses and individuals to flourish.

I've really known Boka mostly from going to nice residential areas, but you have forty publicly traded corporate headquarters and fourteen thousand businesses.

Yes, now some of them are small mom at pop shops like mine.

I'm a lawyer, so a solo practitioner, so that's a business.

It's one employee, but it still counts as a business.

But yes, we've got large companies in healthcare, finance, fintech technology.

A lot of people don't realize that the IBM personal computer was invented in Boca Ratone and the biggest deal in software history was happen in Boca Ratone in the nineteen eighties when Bill Gates came to IBM's headquarters then in Boca Vertone and negotiated the licensing for Microsoft, which propelled that.

Even though IBM left in the nineties, we still had a great tradition and continuation of high tech companies.

And as we've moved out to medtech, fintech and now AI and quantum computing, we're attracting more businesses.

The talent is here, and I think that's important for young people.

I ran for city council because I wanted at the time, I lead one child, but wanted him to feel what I did not feel growing up at South Florida, that I had great job prospects.

And I think we're getting there, and I think what we can do to continue to make sure that young people have places to work, a great community to live in helps continue our success.

Oh that's from Mornhule.

You're doing a great job both nationally working with the America First Policy Institute and locally helping lead your city.

People want to know more can go to my Boca dot Us.

I want to thank you, Scott.

This has been fascinating every time you go.

I love the city, and you've no give me a much deeper understanding of how many cool things are going on and how much it's a deliberate, purposeful development that focus.

So thank you very much for sharing time with us.

Well, mister speaker, thank you for talking with me.

If anyone else wants to reach out to me, I'm my Scott Singer USA on all platforms and if you've got questions, whether it's bringing you business or anything else, please reach out to me directly.

Happy to help and would welcome you and the ambassador in Boca Ratone anytime.

Hope to see you here soon and hope to see you again soon regardless of where it is.

Thank you to my guest Mayor, Scott Singer.

Newsworld is produced by Guiningih three sixty and iHeartMedia.

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