Loxahatchee Groves residents Roy Parks and Robert Snowball have filed for the newly created “qualified elector” seat on the Loxahatchee Groves Water Control District Board of Supervisors.
Qualified electors — defined as registered voters who are also property owners, and their spouses — will vote June 25 to select a supervisor.
Snowball, currently a sitting member of the LGWCD board, was last re-elected three years ago under the one-acre, one-vote system. Snowball had previously announced that he did not plan to seek re-election. However, he did file to run for the seat before the April 20 deadline.
Snowball did not return calls for comment this week.
Parks said he is running to be able to speak for the people of Loxahatchee Groves.
“Before, the water control district board was based on just your acreage of land, and really, the small property owners never got to have a voice,” he said. “We were able to get the legislation changed, and I have an opportunity to run. I hope to do my best to represent the people and what their opinions are and what their needs are.”
Parks, who works as director of information technology at Ibis Golf & Country Club, lives on a 5-acre parcel, which is not considered large by Loxahatchee Groves standards.
“This is really a historic election,” he said. “This will be the first election that we’ve had that’s not just from your ownership of land.”
Parks noted that he ran for a LGWCD seat several years ago. “I had a wonderful turnout with the number of individuals who voted for me, but ultimately the number of large landowners beat out having lots of votes,” he said. “The quantity of votes didn’t help you as much as how many acres those votes represented.”
If elected, Parks would focus on listening to people’s concerns, keeping roads graded, keeping canal water levels maintained and keeping assessments low. “We now have two government entities in Loxahatchee Groves,” Parks said. “It’s costing us more money, so [I’ll be] watching where the money’s spent and how it’s spent.”
He said that his purchasing background for both private and government entities will be useful if elected.
Parks has served on the Loxahatchee Groves Landowners’ Association board and was also president of the 1,025-home Southwind Lakes Homeowners’ Association in Boca Raton before moving to Loxahatchee Groves.
A frequent participant in town affairs, he is also an active member of Community of Hope Church. He portrays a blacksmith at the annual Back to Bethlehem event. “I’m kind of a hobbyist blacksmith,” he said. “I’ve gone to class for it.”
Parks said running for election is essentially being there for his friends in Loxahatchee Groves. “This has been something the residents of Loxahatchee have sought for a long time,” he said.
Having grown up in Miami, Parks said he moved to Loxahatchee Groves for the rural environment. “I couldn’t imagine there was a place like Loxahatchee that even existed in South Florida,” he said. “Can you imagine Loxahatchee if you grew up in Miami? I figured I’d have to move to North Carolina to get something similar to what I have here.”
Parks has lived in Loxahatchee Groves since 1997. He is married with three children, one in high school and two in college.
