January 27, 2026 • 12 mins
Liebelson faces two opponents in the race to be the next Mayor of Boca Raton, both of whom are already on the City Council.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Joel Malcoln for WJ and O dot com. Well,
(00:02):
it's that time of year again, or I guess it's
that time of Let me start that over. This is
why we recorded Mike and three two one, Hey, Joel
Malcoln for WJ and O dot com and my election
spotlight here for the March municipal elections in Palm Beach County.
We are focused on the city of Boca Ratone and
(00:23):
this specific one is for the race of mayor of
Boca Ratone. The current mayor, Scott Singer, is termed out,
but there are three candidates in the running, and we
have one of those candidates on with us right now,
Mike Leebelson. Thank you for joining me, Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
And thank you Joel for the conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Let's get some information, some background on you. First of all,
how long have you been in Boca Ratone.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We've been here about ten years ago. I'm sorry, we've
been here about ten years. My wife and I moved
here when her mom was ill so we could help
take care of her. And we've been here since.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
All right, And how involved with the city have you
been and what kind of work you know, what's your
what's your work background.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, so you know, Joel, I'm a businessman, and so
most of my time has been taken up with various
types of business activities that I do. Uh So, my
direct involvement with the city has been maybe less than
(01:32):
other folks who are more political in nature or more politicians.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
All right, what type of business do you operate? A
business or maybe more than one business? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, so you know, I'm a chemical engineer and I
also have an MBA in finance from Warden, and I've
got a very varied business career and background. But one
thing I did was to found and build one of
the most successful independent power companies in the country. And
(02:08):
what an independent power company means is that we built
utility scale electrical power generation plants in competition with the
utility's own offerings, so we could do it better, cheaper, quicker,
and reduce electric rates for residential customers. In addition to that,
(02:32):
I've worked for several large public companies in the C suite.
One NRG Energy, which is in the energy business. Another
one was Foster Wheeler, which is a global engineer construction company,
both in a C suite level and leading companies that
(02:54):
had on the order of ten thousand employees.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So what is it that you know, that you feel
you can take from your business experience to transfer over
to the role of Boca ratone mayor.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, the issue that we have in Boca right now
is over development, and I would even go as far
to say as uncontrolled over development. And it's going In
addition to that, we have a situation in Boca where
our taxes have gone up by seventy to eighty percent
(03:34):
over the last five years. We have people that are
very concerned and upset with this downtown redevelopment project, where
there's the giveaway of public land to a private developer
by the existing city council and general fear or concern
(03:57):
from the people about reduced quality of life. This isn't
the Boca that we originally you know, moved to or
that we grew up in. And I think it's very
important that we have good, capable leaders that have the
(04:18):
expertise to deal with really the multiple issues that we
have in the city.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I was going to ask you, you know, have you
run for office before or here or anywhere else, and
if not, what made you decide to run? And I'm
thinking some of what you just said might be part
of your answer. Correct.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, so I've never run for office before. I'm not
a politician, and what induced me to run here really
was seeing how this city council is controlled by large developers.
My opponents have hundreds of thousands of dollars that have
(05:03):
been contributed to them by large developers, and in my opinion,
that influences their decision making. And if you look at
the record of approving large developments in the city and
the city of Boca Ratone, both Friend and Andy almost
(05:23):
have identical records whenever a developer comes in asking for
a variance, a change of use. We want to build
a taller building, we want better setbacks, we want to
increase density. They've generally all they've generally both voted together
on those things.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
There has recently been attempts from Palm Beach County and
specifically from Boca Ratone as well, in the wake of
the election of Zoron Mamdani in New York, not considered
a very business friendly mayor, and there have been attempts
(06:01):
to try to lure businesses. We've just recently heard of
a business that's going to be moving wells Fargo moving
their wealth management headquarters to West Palm Beach. I wanted
to get your thoughts on the attempts to lure some businesses,
specifically from New York.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Let me first answer your first question. I'm going to
represent the people of the city of Boca Raton, and
I'm a business person, and if there are good businesses
that can come here that create good employment, don't overwhelm
(06:41):
our infrastructure, meeting, traffic, water, and so forth, then I'm
going to be very open to having those business businesses
come here. I think what's important is that the people
can trust that their mayor and their city council have
their interests in mind when the city is negotiating with
(07:06):
these businesses for the purpose of them coming to the
city Boca Raton. I do not agree with providing monetary
incentives to bring businesses here right direct monetary and centives
to the business. I think that if we create a
good community, good community, infrastructure, and so forth, that that'll
(07:29):
be a natural attraction for most businesses. And I think
that it's just critically important that the mayor and the
city council members not be in the pockets of the
big developers. I take zero dollars from big developers or
real estate development from ANTEA. I take zero dollars really
(07:52):
from any real estate developers to fund my campaign, and
my opponents are taking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
dollars from those same developers. It's hard to track it
because it comes in as dark money through political committees
that then contribute to their political committees. So it's sometimes
hard to track. But it's all there, and it's all
(08:13):
public based upon State Palm Beach County and City Bookertone records.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So in general, do you feel that it's prudent or
not prudent to be reaching out to places like New York?
And I think specifically it's for financial firms if I'm correct,
just setting all the incentive and all that stuff aside,
if it can be done correctly, How do you feel
about that?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Look, I don't know why Scott Singer went ahead and
did that, but he used our taxpayer money seventy thousand
dollars of our taxpayer money to run a billboard in
Times Square to bring New York City businesses to Boca Ratone,
When I'm that will never happen. I think that there's
(09:02):
a general feeling you know, or what I've seen is
a general process here where the city council treats our
tax payer money as what we used to call in business,
oh PM, other people's money. How do you spend seventy
thousand dollars of our money to go advertise in Times Square,
(09:23):
which he's doing, which which Scott Singer did, presumably to
help his new campaign for Congress.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Is there? I want to give you, because we spent
so much time on this stuff, and obviously it's a
big topic, and I can hear that you're very passionate
about it, I want to give you time to talk
about one other portion of your platform and you can
pick it.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah. I mean, I think that a big portion of
my platform is to cut taxes and keep city services
as good or better than they are now. Taxes in
the City of Boca have gone up by seventy or
eighty percent over the last five years property tax collections,
(10:12):
and when I see the type of waste. For example,
we have four or maybe even five now deputy city
managers being paid two hundred and fifty three hundred thousand
dollars a year plus and other cities of our size
in Palm Beach County have two. We have a one
point two billion dollar now forecasted capital budget for the
(10:39):
city and it's in public works and utility services, and
it's not transparent how much of that is being used
to fund infrastructure for these big developers coming in with
their new high density projects. It certainly we don't have
the capability to handle the high density projects with our
(11:01):
existing road system. So you know what I can do
is cut taxes, maintain services for our people. But by
when I do that, we have to focus on controlling
this overdevelopment because the overdevelopment is costing the people of
Boco a lot of money right now? All right?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And then finally, and I give this question to all
the candidates I've interviewed over the years. In a nutshell,
what makes Mike Leebelson the best candidate?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
In a nutshell, I'm uncompromised by developer contributions, and I
have the capabilities that I've developed in business that I
can bring to help manage the operations of this city.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
All right, Well, I appreciate you taking the time to
speak to us, more importantly, to the voters of Boca ratone.
The candidate one of three candidates for mayor of Boca
raton mike Leebelson here on WJNO. Thanks again, Thank you,
Joel
Hey, Joel Malcoln for WJ and O dot com. Well,
(00:02):
it's that time of year again, or I guess it's
that time of Let me start that over. This is
why we recorded Mike and three two one, Hey, Joel
Malcoln for WJ and O dot com and my election
spotlight here for the March municipal elections in Palm Beach County.
We are focused on the city of Boca Ratone and
(00:23):
this specific one is for the race of mayor of
Boca Ratone. The current mayor, Scott Singer, is termed out,
but there are three candidates in the running, and we
have one of those candidates on with us right now,
Mike Leebelson. Thank you for joining me, Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
And thank you Joel for the conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Let's get some information, some background on you. First of all,
how long have you been in Boca Ratone.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We've been here about ten years ago. I'm sorry, we've
been here about ten years. My wife and I moved
here when her mom was ill so we could help
take care of her. And we've been here since.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
All right, And how involved with the city have you
been and what kind of work you know, what's your
what's your work background.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, so you know, Joel, I'm a businessman, and so
most of my time has been taken up with various
types of business activities that I do. Uh So, my
direct involvement with the city has been maybe less than
(01:32):
other folks who are more political in nature or more politicians.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
All right, what type of business do you operate? A
business or maybe more than one business? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, so you know, I'm a chemical engineer and I
also have an MBA in finance from Warden, and I've
got a very varied business career and background. But one
thing I did was to found and build one of
the most successful independent power companies in the country. And
(02:08):
what an independent power company means is that we built
utility scale electrical power generation plants in competition with the
utility's own offerings, so we could do it better, cheaper, quicker,
and reduce electric rates for residential customers. In addition to that,
(02:32):
I've worked for several large public companies in the C suite.
One NRG Energy, which is in the energy business. Another
one was Foster Wheeler, which is a global engineer construction company,
both in a C suite level and leading companies that
(02:54):
had on the order of ten thousand employees.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So what is it that you know, that you feel
you can take from your business experience to transfer over
to the role of Boca ratone mayor.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, the issue that we have in Boca right now
is over development, and I would even go as far
to say as uncontrolled over development. And it's going In
addition to that, we have a situation in Boca where
our taxes have gone up by seventy to eighty percent
(03:34):
over the last five years. We have people that are
very concerned and upset with this downtown redevelopment project, where
there's the giveaway of public land to a private developer
by the existing city council and general fear or concern
(03:57):
from the people about reduced quality of life. This isn't
the Boca that we originally you know, moved to or
that we grew up in. And I think it's very
important that we have good, capable leaders that have the
(04:18):
expertise to deal with really the multiple issues that we
have in the city.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I was going to ask you, you know, have you
run for office before or here or anywhere else, and
if not, what made you decide to run? And I'm
thinking some of what you just said might be part
of your answer. Correct.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, so I've never run for office before. I'm not
a politician, and what induced me to run here really
was seeing how this city council is controlled by large developers.
My opponents have hundreds of thousands of dollars that have
(05:03):
been contributed to them by large developers, and in my opinion,
that influences their decision making. And if you look at
the record of approving large developments in the city and
the city of Boca Ratone, both Friend and Andy almost
(05:23):
have identical records whenever a developer comes in asking for
a variance, a change of use. We want to build
a taller building, we want better setbacks, we want to
increase density. They've generally all they've generally both voted together
on those things.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
There has recently been attempts from Palm Beach County and
specifically from Boca Ratone as well, in the wake of
the election of Zoron Mamdani in New York, not considered
a very business friendly mayor, and there have been attempts
(06:01):
to try to lure businesses. We've just recently heard of
a business that's going to be moving wells Fargo moving
their wealth management headquarters to West Palm Beach. I wanted
to get your thoughts on the attempts to lure some businesses,
specifically from New York.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Let me first answer your first question. I'm going to
represent the people of the city of Boca Raton, and
I'm a business person, and if there are good businesses
that can come here that create good employment, don't overwhelm
(06:41):
our infrastructure, meeting, traffic, water, and so forth, then I'm
going to be very open to having those business businesses
come here. I think what's important is that the people
can trust that their mayor and their city council have
their interests in mind when the city is negotiating with
(07:06):
these businesses for the purpose of them coming to the
city Boca Raton. I do not agree with providing monetary
incentives to bring businesses here right direct monetary and centives
to the business. I think that if we create a
good community, good community, infrastructure, and so forth, that that'll
(07:29):
be a natural attraction for most businesses. And I think
that it's just critically important that the mayor and the
city council members not be in the pockets of the
big developers. I take zero dollars from big developers or
real estate development from ANTEA. I take zero dollars really
(07:52):
from any real estate developers to fund my campaign, and
my opponents are taking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
dollars from those same developers. It's hard to track it
because it comes in as dark money through political committees
that then contribute to their political committees. So it's sometimes
hard to track. But it's all there, and it's all
(08:13):
public based upon State Palm Beach County and City Bookertone records.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So in general, do you feel that it's prudent or
not prudent to be reaching out to places like New York?
And I think specifically it's for financial firms if I'm correct,
just setting all the incentive and all that stuff aside,
if it can be done correctly, How do you feel
about that?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Look, I don't know why Scott Singer went ahead and
did that, but he used our taxpayer money seventy thousand
dollars of our taxpayer money to run a billboard in
Times Square to bring New York City businesses to Boca Ratone,
When I'm that will never happen. I think that there's
(09:02):
a general feeling you know, or what I've seen is
a general process here where the city council treats our
tax payer money as what we used to call in business,
oh PM, other people's money. How do you spend seventy
thousand dollars of our money to go advertise in Times Square,
(09:23):
which he's doing, which which Scott Singer did, presumably to
help his new campaign for Congress.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Is there? I want to give you, because we spent
so much time on this stuff, and obviously it's a
big topic, and I can hear that you're very passionate
about it, I want to give you time to talk
about one other portion of your platform and you can
pick it.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah. I mean, I think that a big portion of
my platform is to cut taxes and keep city services
as good or better than they are now. Taxes in
the City of Boca have gone up by seventy or
eighty percent over the last five years property tax collections,
(10:12):
and when I see the type of waste. For example,
we have four or maybe even five now deputy city
managers being paid two hundred and fifty three hundred thousand
dollars a year plus and other cities of our size
in Palm Beach County have two. We have a one
point two billion dollar now forecasted capital budget for the
(10:39):
city and it's in public works and utility services, and
it's not transparent how much of that is being used
to fund infrastructure for these big developers coming in with
their new high density projects. It certainly we don't have
the capability to handle the high density projects with our
(11:01):
existing road system. So you know what I can do
is cut taxes, maintain services for our people. But by
when I do that, we have to focus on controlling
this overdevelopment because the overdevelopment is costing the people of
Boco a lot of money right now? All right?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And then finally, and I give this question to all
the candidates I've interviewed over the years. In a nutshell,
what makes Mike Leebelson the best candidate?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
In a nutshell, I'm uncompromised by developer contributions, and I
have the capabilities that I've developed in business that I
can bring to help manage the operations of this city.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
All right, Well, I appreciate you taking the time to
speak to us, more importantly, to the voters of Boca ratone.
The candidate one of three candidates for mayor of Boca
raton mike Leebelson here on WJNO. Thanks again, Thank you,
Joel
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.