Meeting With Mayor Wodraska

JUPITER, FL – January 5, 2017 –InJupiter sits down with Mayor Todd Wodraska to discuss the joys – and challenges – of running one of Florida's most appealing cities.

Todd Wodraska, was first elected to the Jupiter town council in 2004. On March 15, 2016, he was elected Mayor. His roots here are deep. Although he points out that he wasn’t actually born here, his parents moved to Jupiter before he started school and he was raised here, attending Jupiter Elementary, Middle School, and High School. Wodraska and his wife, also a Jupiter native, now have two young sons who attend Jupiter public schools. It is safe to say that the quality of life in Jupiter, Florida is of utmost importance to Wodraska. In fact, he left a thriving career in finance on Wall Street to return to Jupiter. With that in mind, we sat down with Mayor Wodraska to explore public life in Jupiter.

InJupiter: The first few months of your term as mayor have been pretty eventful. For a “quiet” town, it seems that Jupiter really has been in the news lately and not just statewide news. In the last few months, Jupiter has been featured in national and international news stories.

Wodraska: The week after I was sworn in as mayor, the town of Jupiter’s police department arrested Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, for assaulting Michelle Fields from Brietbart News. Very quickly I learned what a “simple assault” is. All I asked was: Did the police treat everybody fairly and by the book? The process played itself out and I didn’t get involved at all except for being the head figure for where the 24-hour news cycle sat for about 10 days analyzing that piece of videotape.

InJupiter: And then there was the game of Tackle Powder-Puff Football and Jupiter High School.

Wodraska: That’s actually one of the things that I’m most proud of. Jupiter High School is the only school in the country that still has a girl’s tackle football game that they call Powder Puff – everything else is either flag football, or kickball, or tug-of-war, they don’t still tackle. It is only in Jupiter that they still tackle, which is kind of crazy when you think about how big the country is, but there is something that the girls just absolutely love about doing it and it’s a rite of passage and a big tradition.

This past year the powers that be said, ‘We’re not going to let this happen any longer.’ But the town has an inter-local agreement with the High School where the town – we invested a large sum of money in the High School to improve their field – is allowed to use the field when the High School is not using it. So we said, ‘Well, you’re obviously not going to use it on the night you had it scheduled for the Powder Puff game, so how about the town does it?’ So instead of the school sponsoring the Powder Puff game, it was a town-sponsored Powder Puff game. It took a whole bunch of volunteer and fund-raising efforts and insurance liability underwriting, and in pretty quick turn-around, we saved the game this year.

InJupiter: When you ran for office, your platform was based on maintaining the quality of life in Jupiter. That includes those unique aspects, such as the Powder Puff game, then doesn’t it?

Wodraska: Absolutely. Although there is a new principal at the High School now and we encourage the school to take the sponsorship of the game back on themselves, it is a lot more fun when it is a school event. And in general I am not a big change agent. Jupiter is well run. The manager and staff have done a great job. We don’t just waive any project in, but we are also willing to look at developments that will deliver public benefits and enhance the quality of life.

InJupiter: A good example of attracting business to enhance quality of life would be biotech.

Wodraska: Correct. And that goes all the way back to 2006 when I was a fresh Councilman and Palm Beach County brought in Scripps. At that time, Jupiter set aside $3 million dollars in a development fund to attract small biotech businesses to Jupiter and to create jobs centered around Scripps. It is important to remember that biotech is a long-term play, but since that time, we have had dozens of success stories, including Charleston Labs. In fact, Governor Rick Scott was just here yesterday (NOTE: The interview occurred on October 27, 2016) to celebrate pharmaceutical company, CTD Holdings’ relocation to Jupiter.

InJupiter: Of course, in addition to life science, there is outdoor life in Jupiter.

Wodraska: Right. And we have two kinds of tourism here in Jupiter – there is the type that happens naturally with “The Season” where you suddenly see everyone dressed in red because the Cardinals are in town for spring training and everyone is walking around with white legs and golf clubs. Then, we have another type of tourism, one that we actively promote: Ecotourism. In fact, we are the unofficial stand-up-paddleboard capital of Florida, and maybe larger than that. That’s pretty cool. And it’s something that has to be maintained and protected. We have a unique quality of life in Jupiter that is hard to find anywhere else.

If you are interested in helping Mayor Wodraska maintain Jupiter’s quality of life, town council meetings are held on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 7pm in council chambers at the Jupiter Town Hall, 210 Military Trail, www.jupiter.fl.us. •