Boca Raton has two open spots on the City Council, and four people have stepped forward to run.

The election will take place on March 19, and registered Boca Raton voters can vote in-person or return their vote-by-mail ballot on that day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot is March 7.

The two candidates running for Seat C are incumbent Yvette Drucker and Bernard Korn, who ran for mayor in 2018 and 2020 but lost to the current mayor Scott Singer both times.

The two candidates running for Seat D are Brian Stenberg, who sought the same spot in 2021 and lost, and Andy Thomson, who won Seat A on the council in 2018 and served one term.

Here’s what to know about the Boca Raton City Council candidates.

Seat C candidates

Drucker, 48, was first appointed to the City Council in October 2020, when Jeremy Rodgers, the Seat C council member at the time, was deployed for military service. She then won the seat in the 2021 election and is now running for a second and final term.

If elected, Drucker said her priorities would be transportation, affordable housing, getting the city a new government center and upholding accountability on the council.

She has lived in Boca Raton for about 20 years, previously working as corporate professional. Her involvement in the city includes being president of the Boca Raton Historical Society, Boca Raton Children’s Museum vice president and treasurer, and former chair of the Boca Raton Education Task Force.

“I run on the public service side of the community because I know this community, I’ve been immersed in it for so many years doing what I love to do, advocating for people, helping people,” she said.

During her first term, the council endured the COVID-19 pandemic, a controversial student housing project and discussions on how to implement the state’s Live Local Act regarding affordable housing funds, which are ongoing.

Drucker also said she wants the City Council to continue providing quality services but without raising taxes.

“The way you get to there is holding City Hall more accountable,” she said.

Government accountability is also important to Drucker’s opponent, a real estate broker who has lived in Boca Raton for about 10 years.

Korn, 69, said he’s running so he could “expose corruption” in the city. Korn is the registered agent for the nonprofit Empowering Single Mothers Foundation, which provides services such as tuition help for single mothers and their children and housing assistance programs, according to its website. He said he believes in development, but not “unlimited” and “unrestricted” development.

Korn also said he believes in preserving the two-term limit system currently in place for City Council members and eliminating City Ordinance 5570, which lengthened the period of time a prospective candidate must live in the city from 30 days to one year prior before the first day of the qualifying period. This rule limits who can run, he said.

“I’m good, I know my stuff, I do my research,” he said.

Seat D candidates

The candidate who wins the Seat D seat will replace current Councilmember Monica Mayotte, who is terming out.

Stenberg ran for Seat D in 2021 and lost, but he hopes to win this year to fulfill the duty he feels he has to the city he has lived in for nearly 30 years.

“This foray into politics is not a career choice,” he said. “I’ve always been somebody who encourages against civic engagement. I want to set an example for people like myself, businesspeople and family people, that it’s OK to step up, and it’s OK to participate in the process.”

Stenberg, 55, works for Greenfield Properties, a property management company, and has served on the city’s Housing Authority Board and Federation of Boca Raton Homeowner Associations. That’s along with advocating for various efforts such as the rebuilding of Addison Mizner School in Boca Square and voting down the March 2023 city referendum proposing to extend City Council terms from three to four years.

“I’ve been actively involved with many things over the years, and I’ve been to enough City Council meetings and studied enough of what they do to understand that the citizen needs to have somebody who listens and processes and understands both sides of the issue,” he said. “I’ve always felt like I wanted to be the guy that that acted on behalf of the citizen.”

On the matter of taxes, Stenberg said as much as he does not want to see an increase, he recognizes what it takes to keep the city’s operations, such as trash pickup, running smoothly.

“The city of Boca has rising expenses and revenues that are creeping up, but the expenses are creeping up a lot faster than revenues are,” he said. “And at some point that’s going to result in tax increases.”

Stenberg’s opponent is 41-year-old Thomson, an attorney and adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University.

Thomson served on the City Council from 2018 to 2022 in Seat A, which is currently held by Francine Nachlas, who won after Thomson resigned to run for the state House District 91. Before that, Thomson served on the city’s Community Advisory Panel and as the vice chair of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency.

Thomson likens the projects he worked on during his stints on the council to his five children: He could never choose a favorite.

Some of those include passing the building recertification program, bringing the Brightline station to the city and dedicated additional resources to the police and fire departments, he said.

“There is a lot of the things we were accomplished back in those four years, but it’s not done. It’s not finished,” he said. “There’s more to be done. There’s more ways that we can improve things around our town. We have a wonderful quality of life, but it can always be better.”

Thomson said City Hall and the Boca Raton police headquarters need to be redeveloped as both are in “bad shape,” but those projects cost millions, so Thomson said he’s open to discussion about them as long as it’s conducted responsibly.

Thomson said he would also want to prioritize traffic concerns, which is something he feels qualified to do with an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and prior experience conducting traffic studies for a civil engineering firm.

He also said he wants to continue balancing the city’s budget while ensuring Boca Raton’s economy remains strong.

The City Council needs experience, Thomson said, which he has.

“Somebody who knows the job, somebody who’s done it before, somebody who has a steady hand, knows how to get things done,” he said. “And that’s what I have, that’s what I’ve been doing.”