BOCA RATON, FL (Boca Post) (Copyright © 2025) — The legal battle over Boca Raton’s public land rules — and the future of the city’s downtown government campus — ramped up again this week with dueling filings in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

On Tuesday, the citizen committees that pushed the “Save Boca” land-protection petitions moved to jump back into the lawsuit that knocked their measures off the January special election ballot. Their emergency motion to intervene, filed on Dec. 2, says they are the ones who gathered thousands of voter signatures and now face having their work “squashed” without a chance to defend it in court.

A day later, on Dec. 3, plaintiff and retired attorney Ned Kimmelman went the other way. In a separate filing in the same case — Ned Kimmelman v. City of Boca Raton, Florida, and Wendy Link as Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, Case No. 50-2025-CA-011366-XXXA-MB — he asked the judge for a final summary judgment of permanent injunction. If granted, it would bar the two “Save Boca” public-land ordinances, and their ballot titles and summaries, not only from the Jan. 13 ballot but from “any other ballot in any future general or special election,” according to the motion filed Wednesday morning.

At the center of the fight are twin citizen-initiated measures branded as “Protection of City-Owned Lands.” One would add a new section to Boca Raton’s city charter. The other would write the same rule into the city code. In both cases, the language says 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.”

Supporters gathered roughly 12,900 signatures to force a vote, according to prior city and news reports, arguing Boca residents deserve a direct say before large chunks of public land are leased or sold. The timing was no accident. The petition drive gained steam as the city advanced its “One Boca” plan — a long-term public-private partnership with Terra and Frisbie Group to remake the downtown government campus around City Hall with new civic buildings, park upgrades, and private development under a 99-year ground lease.

In late November, Circuit Judge Joseph Curley granted Kimmelman a temporary injunction, blocking the land-protection questions from appearing on the Jan. 13 special election ballot that was already set to include a state House race. The order found that the ballot titles and summaries did not meet constitutional and statutory standards and also flagged a charter requirement that citizen charter amendments be voted on within three months of certification; the city had scheduled the election for Jan. 13 even though certification came in early October.

The intervenors’ new motion argues that call was made without the people who actually wrote and circulated the petitions. The Petitioners Committee to Amend the Boca Raton Charter Regarding Alienation, Lease or Sale of City-Owned Land Greater Than One-Half Acre, the matching Petitioners Committee to Amend the Boca Raton Code of Ordinances, and Save Boca founder Jonathan Pearlman say they were named as defendants earlier in the case but were dismissed just before the November injunction hearing.

In the filing, they tell the court they are “necessary parties” because the lawsuit directly targets their initiatives and the 12,900 signatures behind them. They ask to intervene “in an unsubordinated capacity” and to immediately file additional emergency motions, including a request to vacate the Dec. 1 temporary injunction that removed the measures from the January ballot.

Kimmelman’s summary-judgment motion takes the opposite tack. It leans heavily on the judge’s prior findings and argues there is no factual dispute and no need for a full trial. It asks the court to convert the temporary injunction into a permanent one, formally declaring that the charter amendment, the companion ordinance, and their ballot language violate the Florida Constitution, state law, and the Boca Raton City Charter’s own rules for citizen-initiated changes. If granted, the order would bar the “Save Boca” measures from the Jan. 13 special election “or on any other ballot in any future general or special election,” closing the door on a re-do.

What happens next matters far beyond one election date.

If the permanent injunction is granted and survives appeal, Boca’s citywide “Protection of City-Owned Lands” concept could be effectively dead, even as the One Boca government campus plan continues toward a separate March 10, 2026 referendum on the project’s 99-year lease and master agreement.

That would leave the fate of the downtown campus — and other large city-owned parcels — in the hands of the existing charter and a project-specific vote, not a new citywide rule for all land deals over a half-acre.

If, instead, the judge allows the petition committees and Pearlman into the case and later lifts or narrows the injunction, Save Boca could get another shot at putting its land-protection language before voters in a future election. That outcome would inject another layer of uncertainty into long-running talks over how much public land can be tied up in long leases, and on what terms.

Arts leaders have been watching the government campus debate closely, too. For years, groups including Boca Ballet Theatre have pushed for a stronger performing arts presence on city-owned land and have weighed in as officials discuss how to balance civic buildings, park space and cultural venues on the downtown campus.

The outcome of the land-protection case could shape those options for decades.

A hearing date on the new motions had not been set in the filings reviewed by Boca Post. For now, the city’s One Boca campus plan continues on a parallel track, with detailed financial and design work underway ahead of the March referendum, while the broader question — who gets the last word on major public-land deals — plays out in Judge Curley’s courtroom.