The Sequin Delray Beach store will have to pay its business tax this financial year, four city commissioners agreed Oct. 20.
    Manager Jodi Stein had requested a reprieve from paying the $172.56 business license fee because of the road construction on Federal Highway. Sequin, which sells fashion-oriented jewelry, sits at the northwest corner of Atlantic and Southeast Fifth avenues. She also wanted a retroactive credit for the tax paid in the last financial year credited to the 2016-2017 year.
    In her August letter to the city manager, Stein said her store suffered financially from “the construction projects during these past two years, resulting in irretrievable losses which have negatively impacted our revenue.”
    But unlike Big Al’s Steaks, which requested a reprieve from paying its café license fee because its sidewalks were not usable for two years, Sequin customers could not enter only for a few days.
    City commissioners, following the advice of the city’s Downtown Development Agency, did not want to go down that “slippery slope” when nearly everyone in the downtown was affected by the construction.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein had left the meeting early.
— Jane Smith

By Dan Moffett

    Ocean Ridge commissioners are moving forward with a plan to temporarily close the entrance to Midlane Road at Woolbright Road for six months, in the hope of enhancing crime prevention and safety.
    The closing is scheduled to begin on Dec. 2, and Police Chief Hal Hutchins said signs redirecting motorists would go up well before that as part of the town’s outreach to inform residents of the new traffic pattern.
    Commissioners unanimously approved spending up to $750 to install plastic barricades at the Midlane entrance. Though the road will be inaccessible at Woolbright, Midlane will remain open throughout the six-month trial period.
    Mayor Geoff Pugh said crime statistics compiled by Hutchins and reports from residents suggested that the Midlane neighborhood had a higher rate of burglary attempts than elsewhere in the town. Pugh said it was time for the commission to deal with the problem.
    “Not doing anything about Ridge it is what we’ve been doing for the 13 years I’ve been sitting up here (on the commission),” Pugh said. If after six months there’s no improvement, the mayor said, the town will reopen the entrance and take down the signs. He said if residents don’t like the change, the commission is sure to hear about it.
    Commissioner Richard Lucibella said the plan is “100 percent reversible” and was worth trying. However, he warned residents they might be sacrificing convenience to improve security.
    “Nothing comes for free,” Lucibella said.
Commissioners said they would consider adding speed bumps and traffic calming devices next year, depending on how well the Midlane closing works.

Swaim dispute not over
    Developer William Swaim is stirring things up again in the lagoon behind Town Hall.
    For the last two years, Swaim has repeatedly petitioned the commission to create an easement around Town Hall to allow him access to lots he owns west of the building. Commissioners have told Swaim he must first get permits from the South Florida Water Management District — which has denied them, saying the land was environmentally sensitive mangrove wetlands. In May, an administrative law judge in Tallahassee sided with the SFWMD and denied Swaim’s appeal.
    In October, Swaim’s Waterfront ICW Properties company obtained a warranty deed on property owned by Todd Flato and Diana Fenimore. Swaim maintains the lot stretches into the lagoon underneath the docks at the Wellington Arms Condominiums.
Swaim’s attorney, Alfred LaSorte of West Palm Beach, has accused the condos of trespassing and wants Wellington Arms to take down the docks, or pay the developer $50,000 — and also “retract all objections” to Swaim’s permitting request to SFWMD. The condo group has hired a lawyer and is contesting the matter.
    In other business:
    • Commissioners welcomed Jamie Titcomb as new town manager at the Nov. 2 meeting, and said so long to Ken Schenck, who completed nine years on the job.
    “It was a little different this morning getting up and thinking I didn’t have to go to work,” Schenck told the commission.
Titcomb, 59, worked as town manager of Melbourne Beach since 2014 and is the former executive director of the Palm Beach County League of Cities. He will earn about $105,000.
    • The town has scheduled its annual Holiday Celebration from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Dec. 4. Light snacks and beverages will be served and children can expect a visit from Santa. The celebration is open to all residents. Ú

By Dan Moffett

    Gulf Stream may be the only municipality in South Florida where residents don’t have to guess what’s going on inside Town Hall.
    On any given day, it’s a safe bet that the town’s employees are working on public records requests — because that has become most of what they do, according to a town report produced as part of a new public records policy adopted last year.
    During the fiscal year that ended in September, Gulf Stream fielded 428 new requests for town records, nearly all of them from residents Martin O’Boyle and Chris O’Hare. Between them, the two men have filed dozens of lawsuits against the town and made several thousand requests for records since 2013.
    To comply with the requests, Kelly Avery, a full-time employee, worked 1,742 hours last year, roughly 95 percent of the time she put in. Carol Mahoney, a temporary worker the town hired to handle requests from O’Boyle and O’Hare, worked 2,080 hours.
    “Out of an office of five employees,” said Mayor Scott Morgan, “two devoted almost all their time to public records requests.”
    All told, counting work done also by the Town Clerk Rita Taylor, accountant Rebecca Tew, Police Chief Garrett Ward and Town Manager William Thrasher, Gulf Stream devoted 4,913 hours — roughly the equivalent of 2.5 full-time positions — to records requests.
    “Appalling,” said Vice Mayor Robert Ganger.
     The report doesn’t capture all the stress on the staff, officials say, or extra time on the job. Taylor, who is not an hourly employee, has been working seven days a week for the last two years.
    O’Boyle and O’Hare have 40 suits pending against the town alleging noncompliance with their records requests, besides at least nine more cases over other matters. The two have complained that officials have violated the state’s Sunshine Law by withholding information, failing to comply promptly or overcharging for copying documents.
    “The town has acted lawfully in all of the cases,” Morgan said in a recent letter to all residents. “However, under current Florida public records law, we cannot collect reasonable legal fees from the plaintiffs, even when we win. Thus, we must win these cases — just to put an end to them. Paying money to these litigants only validates their outrageous behavior and encourages them and others to pursue similar methods of public records abuse.”
    On Oct. 8, lawyers for the town filed an appeal of their RICO class action against O’Boyle and O’Hare that alleges the two conspired to use public records requests to extort money from municipalities and businesses across the state. In June, U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra threw out the suit, ruling that the complaint did not meet legal requirements for action under the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.
    O’Boyle told the commission in September that the $1 million the town is budgeting for legal fees is “absurd, outrageous, beyond the pale.” He said he wanted to negotiate an end to the cases, and proposed forming a panel made up of town officials and residents to broker a deal.
    “The way we resolve it is we slug it out, somebody dies, somebody goes broke, or we sit down and negotiate a settlement,” O’Boyle said.
    O’Hare told commissioners the RICO suit is hurting his business — Pineapple Grove Designs, which makes cast stone architectural art. He said it will cost the town millions more in legal fees unless officials admit their mistakes and negotiate.
    “Every time you make a mistake that affects me, I’m going to go to a judge and adjudicate it,” O’Hare said.
    Morgan said the men should put their settlement proposals in writing and give them to the town’s lawyers. He said the town is open to negotiation.
    “The ball is in the litigants’ court,” Morgan said. “I have stated numerous times that if the litigants will discontinue their lawsuits, I will recommend discontinuing our RICO action.”

    The Delray Beach Planning and Zoning Board on Oct. 19 passed the final portion of the design guidelines for the city’s eastern half. Next they will be reviewed by the City Commission.
    The guidelines cover architectural styles to “ensure harmony in proportion, scale and materials” for what is appropriate in Delray Beach, said consultant Anthea Gianniotes. The city already limited new buildings to four stories in its downtown.
    She wants architects to design for the Florida climate and not to mix styles. For projects more than 100,000 square feet, she suggested a model submitted along with the site plan.
    Board members asked for screening of mechanical equipment on roofs and specifying the thickness of asphalt shingles.
    Along the retail streets of Atlantic Avenue, Pineapple Grove Way and Ocean Boulevard, new buildings should be only 75 feet wide.
    But Gianniotes did not suggest a length limit for buildings on other streets, such as Federal Highway.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein had wanted something offered to break up what he called massive structures that are nearly two football fields long, such as the Aloft hotel and condominium project that was reviewed in early October.
 “There are no easy answers,” Gianniotes said.
— Jane Smith

By Mary Thurwachter

    After a prickly reception from Lantana Town Council on Oct. 12, Eau Palm Beach Resort’s project construction manager Damian Presiga won the resort the temporary beach easement it sought — but not without a swap. In this case, Eau Palm Beach will rebuild the south stairs at the town’s beach, which washed away in a storm.
    Presiga told council members that the five-star resort was renovating its outdoor Breeze restaurant and pool deck and needed the easement for loading pavers and other construction materials. He assured the town that the sea wall would not be affected and that the resort would reimburse the town for attorney’s fees and costs to draft and record the easement.
    “We’re just, as neighbors, asking for this,” Presiga said. “If things get damaged, we’ll take care of it.” Eau Palm Beach (formerly the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach) and the town of Lantana have been beach neighbors for years but the relationship hasn’t always been genial.
    “They consistently park on our lot, they turn tractor trailers around in the (beach) parking lot and they consistently haven’t been the most ideal neighbors,” said Mayor Dave Stewart. “They have blocked our access to the beach by blocking our road.”
    Councilman Lynn Moorhouse said he remembers a time when residents weren’t allowed walk on “their” beach. “When the spa was being built the (town’s beach) parking lot was abused,” council member Tom Deringer added.
    “They haven’t been nice and now they want us to play nice,” Stewart said. “We’re kidding about this, but it’s a serious problem. You haven’t been good to us. If we wanted to be hard-nosed we’d make you bring pavers through the lobby. Our beach is our crown jewel and you can’t abuse it.”
    Stewart asked for strict regulation and Presiga said the resort would hire someone to police the project to handle any problems.
“I want some assurances this isn’t going to screw up,” Stewart said. “We need to make sure the road stays open.”
    “You have my assurance,” Presiga said. He also said that employees were told not to park on the town’s beach lot at night and that they could be fined.
    “We’re aware of problems and we’re trying to alleviate them,” he said.
    The temporary easement is good through Nov. 30 and work is underway. If the work extends beyond Nov. 30, the resort has to pay $1,000 a day, according to the agreement it has with the town.
    Construction of the beach stairs needs to be completed within two weeks after the town receives approval from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and after sea turtle nesting season.
    Councilman Phil Aridas offered his own form of payback if work wasn’t completed as stipulated by the council.
“The mayor and I will walk through the lobby in our bathrobes every day,” he joked.

By Jane Smith

    Motorists who use the Interstate 95 interchange at Woolbright Road will see construction equipment move into the area as the contractor starts work on the nearly two-year construction project.
    Woolbright Road will be widened from Southwest 18th Street (west side of the interstate) east to Southwest Second Street. At times only one travel lane would be open in each direction, said Andrea Pacini, spokeswoman for I-95 interchange improvements.
    The $9.1 million design-build project will require lane closures this year and continue throughout the project’s duration until the estimated summer 2017 completion, Pacini said. Ramp and I-95 lane closures are permitted only between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., Sunday through Thursday, she said.
    Plans also call for dual left-turn lanes in both eastbound and westbound directions onto I-95, widening the northbound ramp to receive the dual eastbound turn lanes and transition to one lane, rebuilding the south exit ramp to allow traffic to flow freely onto westbound Woolbright, retrofitting bridge railings to meet current criteria for Woolbright Road bridges over I-95 and CSX tracks, and milling and resurfacing the entire width of Woolbright within the project limits.
    Other improvements include bridge construction, barrier walls, curbs, sidewalks, guardrails, drainage, utility relocation, overhead signs, signage and pavement markings, signals, lighting and retaining walls.
    The design was led by BCC Engineering Inc.’s Fort Lauderdale office and the contractor is Community Asphalt Corp.’s West Palm Beach office

By Mary Thurwachter

    The site plan for Water Tower Commons has yet to come before the Lantana Town Council but one resident is already taking issue with the development’s name.
    Arthur C. Brooks wrote a letter to the Lantana Chamber of Commerce on the subject after the group had seen preliminary plans for the new development at the former A.G. Holley site and vocalized his concerns again at the Oct. 26 Town Council meeting.
    “It is inconceivable to me that the developer would spend roughly $16 million to purchase the site, with plans to spend tens of millions more to develop it, and make the centerpiece a 60-year-old eyesore of a water tower that I believe most residents would like to see torn down,” Brooks wrote. Brooks, who also is a member of Lantana’s zoning board, told the council that he “liked water towers as much as the next guy,” but that this tower had no distinguishing characteristics.
    “Lake Worth’s water tower looks like a balloon and you can see it from the water, but you can’t see this (127-foot) tower from the water or from I-95,” he said. “It’s not iconic or a historic landmark. This water tower only served A.G. Holley Hospital.”
    Brooks said he and some friends attended a Dolphins game, the first with the new coach (Dan Campbell), and brainstormed to come up with a better name for the 73-acre development.
    “Why not have the biggest flagpole in the state of Florida?” he suggested. “The biggest one now is 170 feet tall and was built in 2008 at Uptown Station in Fort Walton Beach and it’s been a huge success.”
    Instead of Water Tower Commons it could be called Old Glory Square, Brooks said.
    “I wanted to float that idea out there,” Brooks said. “The council and mayor could inspire the developer like the coach inspired the Dolphins.”
    Council members made no comment about the proposal, waiting for the site plan presentation from the developer, Southeast Legacy Investments. That could be as soon as Nov 9. The town is awaiting a letter from the county accepting the traffic study.
    The A.G. Holley tuberculosis hospital, owned by the state, closed in 2012. Southeast Legacy and Wexford Capital purchased the land from the state a year ago.

Karen Sweetapple is being honored

as one of Bethesda Hospital Foundation’s ‘Women of Grace.’

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

    The impact coastal Boca Raton resident Karen Sweetapple has made on the South County charity scene continues to change the lives of those served by local nonprofits.
    The 57-year-old wife and mother has given the gift of volunteerism to organizations aiding the poor and sick, boards supporting schools and students and, most recently, an initiative awarding high-impact grants to area agencies.
    Sweetapple will receive a Women of Grace award Nov. 11 at Bethesda Hospital Foundation’s annual fundraising luncheon.
    “I just decided one day I was going to volunteer because it makes you feel great,” she said. “It’s really fulfilling to know that you’re making a difference.”
    Sweetapple began volunteering when her four children, now ages 17 to 26, were little. For 10 years, she served on the American Cancer Society board and founded its young professionals group.
    For nine years, she served on the Gulf Stream School board and chaired its annual fund. As her children got older, she involved them in programs helping the hungry, including delivering meals for Boca Helping Hands.
    The ultimate family project comprised an assembly line that, once a month for several years, turned 10 loaves of bread, dozens of packages of lunch meat and assorted jars of peanut butter and jelly into sandwiches for CROS Ministries’ The Caring Kitchen.
    Last month, Sweetapple took on another gig: Student ACES. Her daughter belongs to the 501(c)3 dedicated to teaching leadership skills to young athletes. Mom stopped at Panera Bread to bring bagels — 130 of them — to the meeting.
    Her work with Palm Beach County Impact 100 earned her the Women of Grace nomination. In the four years since she joined the cause, she has served as board member, chairwoman of the public relations committee and, currently, co-president. The organization makes $100,000 donations to program-based, results-oriented charities in Boca Raton and Delray Beach.
    “Volunteering is just part of my roots, being from the Midwest, helping your neighbor out,” the Iowa native said. “They say that good deeds contribute to good karma or future happiness, but I think it’s immediate.”
— Amy Woods

    Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
    A. While I have Midwestern roots, I was an Army brat and lived all over the U.S. during most of my childhood. Finally settling in Florida gave me a wonderful sense of home.

    Q.  In what professions have you worked, and which ones make you the proudest?
    A. I wore many hats during my 10 years of management at AT&T/BellSouth. I taught use of computer-based systems to new customers. Computers were the size of a refrigerator! I’m most proud of my work on the homefront, raising my four children.
    Q.  What advice do you have for young adults selecting a career today?
    A. No matter where you start, give it your absolute all, contributing however you can. The best way to get to your dream job is being great at whatever you are currently doing.
    
Q. How did you choose to make your home in Boca Raton?
    A. We’d been living in Miami during the crazy ’80s … so when starting our family, we decided that Boca was a gentler world.
    
Q.  What is your favorite part about living in Boca Raton?
A. The ocean. We’re beach bums and boaters at heart. Also, the pedestrian-friendly access to restaurants and movies is just an amazing lifestyle.

Q. What book are you reading now?

    A. I usually have several books going at once. Just finished All the Light You Cannot See, Sick in the Head and Circling the Sun.

Q.  What music do you listen to when you need inspiration or want to relax?
    A. My kids accuse me of always listening to overplayed pop. True. I love Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift and Macklemore. To relax, I’ve started listening to Pandora’s Classical for Studying station.
    
Q.  Have you had mentors in your life — individuals who have inspired your decisions?
A. My mom always made me feel that I could do anything I set out to do. While growing up, I also devoured the biographies of famous women such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Teresa and Amelia Earhart.
    
Q.  If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
    A. While I would love to be a Meryl Streep character, Goldie Hawn could certainly capture my more quirky, scatterbrained moments while still having some degree of depth.

Q. Who/what makes you laugh?
    A. After 33 years, my husband, Bob, still keeps me entertained.

IF YOU GO
What: Bethesda Hospital Foundation’s Women of Grace luncheon
When: 10:30 a.m. Nov. 11
Where: The Mar-a-Lago Club, 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., Palm Beach
Cost: $150
Info: 732-7733, Ext. 84445, or www.bethesdahospital
foundation.org
Honorees: Shelley Albright of Wellington (American Cancer Society); Kathy Feinerman of Boca Raton (Best Foot Forward Foundation); Julia Kadel of Delray Beach (The Miracle League of Delray Beach); Carole Putman of Boca Raton (Junior League of Boca Raton); and Karen Sweetapple of Boca Raton (Impact 100)

By Dan Moffett

    After months of false starts and frustration, work has begun on the Audubon Causeway bridge project.
    Manalapan Mayor Pro Tem Peter Isaac said Drawdy Construction of Lake Worth is on the job, horse apple trees have been transplanted off-site, motion-activated traffic lights are in place and he expects the aging bridge to be replaced within the nine-month contractual deadline.
    “The south side is to be completed by the end of February,” Isaac said, “and the north side by July.”
    He said Drawdy “is looking to accelerate” the pace of work as much as possible, though there are “a lot of unknowns, such as depth of pilings” that could stall progress.
    Work will be suspended during the holiday weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas, Isaac said, and demolition of the old structure will move forward in stages beginning in November.
    “It’s not going to be done by dynamite. It’s not going to be done by wrecking ball,” he said. “They’re actually going to saw pieces out of it and then take them away.”
    The new span will be one foot higher than the old one and is expected to last for about 50 years. The town is hoping to keep the cost of the project under $1 million.
    In other business:
    • Town Hall has a new $20,000 phone system up and running to improve communication with officials, residents, police, fire-rescue services and also the larger world.
    “The other one was 15 years old and needed to be replaced,” said Town Clerk Lisa Petersen. “The new one is much more advanced. The phones are integrated with the computer system.”
    The new system enables the town to keep logs of incoming and outgoing phone calls.
    • Chauncey Johnstone is representing the Town Commission in talks with La Coquille Club and the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa. Some club members have complained about billing practices that require them to use personal credit cards to back up their membership cards when paying for services. Club and hotel employees say they’ve had problems with unpaid bills run up on the membership cards. Johnstone said he hopes to have possible solutions for the commission to consider at the Nov. 17 town meeting.
    • During the Oct. 27 meeting, commissioners gave unanimous final approval to a new noise ordinance that sets a 65-decibel limit for residents during the daytime and a 55-decibel limit at night. The commission also gave unanimous preliminary approval to an ordinance that allows construction of flat roofs in the town.
Commissioners also passed a resolution that gives residents who wish to put landscaping on their swales a list of  plants the town suggests.

Bob Weisblut, president of the International Ivory Society, stands in front of the case that displays his collection of nearly 200 carved ivory pieces, ranging from Asian antiques to a whimsical carving of an Ivory soap bar. 

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Sailing ship, 20th century, made from walrus tusk.

Chrysanthemum flowers, Japan, early 20th century.

Farmer blowing chaff off of rice, Japan, 1910.

Bar of Ivory soap, commissioned by Bob Weisblut.

Related Story: FWS may tighten ivory trade rules

By Ron Hayes

    Every piece of ivory in the world once belonged to a living creature. A whale, a walrus, most often an elephant.
    And every year, about 30,000 African elephants are slaughtered by poachers, who sell the tusks to illegal traders. More than 100,000 were killed between 2009 and 2012, according to an investigation by National Geographic.
    In the United States, regulation of ivory is controlled by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, which is currently reviewing proposals to tighten the requirements for the import, export and sale of ivory items.
    Bob Weisblut, president of the International Ivory Society, agrees with the goal, but quarrels with some of the details, especially regarding the sale of antique ivory within the U.S.
    “I’m all for saving elephants,” says Weisblut, who lives in Ocean Ridge, “but I don’t think making the sale of antique ivory illegal is going to save any elephants or stop poaching.”
    For example, under the new proposals, sale of items across state lines would be permitted only if the elephant ivory was imported before 1990, is 100 years old or older, hasn’t been repaired or modified since 1973 or contains less than 200 grams of ivory, such as decorative pieces on a musical instrument.
    And the burden of proof would rest with the seller.
    “How do I know how much the ivory on a piano key weighs?” Weisblut asks. “Or the inlay on a silver chafing dish?”
    How can he prove conclusively that a piece he bought in an auction house hasn’t been repaired since 1973, or its actual age?
Ivory collectors, Weisblut says, are at the mercy of the information provided by the dealers from whom they
buy.
    “And remember,” he adds, “not all ivory comes from poachers. Elephants die natural deaths, too.”
    Gavin Shire, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, defended the proposed regulations.
    “As far as we’re concerned, this is not only common sense but also essential for the preservation of African elephants,” he said. “If poaching continues at current rates, we’ll witness their potential extinction, and the U.S. has a role to play here.”
    The department is reviewing comments on the proposal, the spokesman said, but no date for a decision has been set.
    If Fish and Wildlife accepts the changes, Congress would not have to approve them.
    As for Weisblut, he predicts legal challenges.
    “This will go on for years,” he said. “I’ll go to the Miami shows in January, but I’d hate to buy something I may never be allowed to sell.”
For details about the proposed ivory restrictions, go to www.fws.gov/international/pdf/african-elephant-4d-proposed-changes.pdf.

By Jane Smith
    
    Two Boynton Beach residents, recently ousted from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board, spoke against creating a citizen advisory board to the CRA. At the Oct. 20 City Commission meeting, James “Buck” Buchanan and former Mayor Woodrow Hay advised the city commissioners not to go forward with the plans.
    Buchanan read his letter into the record: “The formation of the citizens’ CRA advisory board would incur expenses such as CRA staff time, a court reporter at the meetings and training in Sunshine Law, tax increment funding, etc. To justify these costs, it is necessary to determine how effective the advisory board would be in working with the commission.”
    He said commissioners were not listening to the people, who wanted independent citizens on the board. He ended, “A fluff advisory board does not begin to replace voting positions that have real impact on the course of the CRA.”
    Hay said he agreed with Buchanan “110 percent.” Hay explained the Florida Statutes section on governing bodies sitting as the CRA board.
    “I want you to understand that you don’t have any higher responsibility than the citizens serving on the board. Everyone is equal on that CRA board,” he said. “We all have one vote.”
    Three others said the guidelines for the advisory board members were vague.
    But the commission OK’d the creation of the CRA advisory board by a 4-1 vote. Commissioner David Merker voted no because he wanted two citizens on the board. City Commissioner Mike Fitzpatrick, who voted against removing Buchanan and Hay, voted for the citizen advisory board. He said, “I’ll give it a shot.”

By Jane Smith

    The Community Redevelopment Agency in Delray Beach successfully addressed 10 of 19 items found by state auditors in 2013, board members learned in early October.
    Five additional items were partially corrected and four remain uncorrected, according to the follow-up report from the audit conducted by the state Auditor General’s Office.
    “Auditors have to find stuff, that’s their jobs,” said CRA member Paul Zacks. He liked the tighter controls over nonprofit donations.
    For finding No. 15 that questioned expenditures for food and decorative items, CRA member Bill Branning said the expenses were related to CRA activities and events. “I appreciate the staff’s efforts to tighten up,” he said.
    At the second October meeting, the CRA executive director gave board members a revised staff response to the partially corrected and uncorrected findings. That response was forwarded to the state Auditor General’s Office before it issues a final report.
    Two findings addressed money given to nonprofits. In March 2014, the CRA secured a state Attorney General’s informal opinion that said, “Ultimately, however, the determination of whether a particular project satisfies the terms of the act is to be made by redevelopment agency itself.”
    The CRA has a policy to determine whether the nonprofit needs the money and limits funding in most cases to a maximum of 25 percent of the organization’s budget.
    In the case of the Arts Garage, operated by the Creative City Collaborative, the CRA is withholding this financial year’s $275,000 until it receives a complete financial audit that shows the Delray Beach CRA tax dollars were not used for the organization’s site in Pompano Beach.
    Also, the Arts Garage has not raised the $2.5 million needed to buy its Delray Beach site from the city, prompting the mayor to recommend it merge operations with Old School Square. CRA board member Branning, who is chairman of OSS, is working on that deal with his counterpart at the Arts Garage.
    “We are only interested in the Delray Beach location,” Branning said.
    The CRA money given to the Arts Garage sparked the audit in 2013. Delray Beach resident Gerry Franciosa, president of Delray Citizens Coalition Board, thought CRAs should not be giving tax dollars to music and entertainment venues, even if they are nonprofit. It became an issue in the 2013 Delray Beach mayoral race.
    The audit was requested by state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, in March 2013. Joint legislative auditing committee Chairman Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, then ordered the review into how the CRA is spending its tax dollars. The audit results were released in September 2013.
    The state auditing procedure gave the CRA 18 months to address the findings, and then the state reviewed the corrections.

Ronnie Heavyside catches a perfect wave while surfing off the coast of Lake Worth

a couple of days after Hurricane Joaquin headed out to sea.

Tom Warnke/The Coastal Star

    Green sea turtles set an all-time nesting record during the 2015 Florida nesting season, which ended Oct. 31.
    The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission reported about 28,000 green sea turtle nests counted on 26 index beaches statewide during this year’s nesting season.
    That’s up from the previous record of 25,553 green turtle nests recorded at the index beaches in 2013.
    Green sea turtles tend to follow a two-year nesting cycle with wide year-to-year fluctuations.
    The record number of nests this year suggests that strong nesting numbers for green turtles in 2013 are part of a trend.
    “It looks like years of conservation for this endangered species are paying off,” said Simona Ceriani, an FWC research scientist.
— Willie Howard

By Steven J. Smith

    Candidates planning to run for offices in many of the Palm Beach County municipal elections March 15, will need to file qualifying papers earlier than usual, according to Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher.
    “Due to the federal elections next year, we need to mail out military and overseas ballots 45 days before the election,” Bucher said. “So our deadline for qualifying candidates will be much earlier this time around.”
    That deadline traditionally depends on the city, she added, but all municipal town clerks have agreed to change their qualifying dates to fit candidates on the March 15 ballot.
    “That’s because by getting on that ballot they won’t have to pay a lot of the expenses for their own elections,” Bucher said.
    As of this writing, no candidates have officially filed for open seats or offices. Filing periods for the March 15 elections in Palm Beach County coastal towns — as well as available seats or offices and their terms — are as follows:
    South Palm Beach: noon, Dec. 1 until noon, Dec. 15; two, two-year terms for council member.
    Lantana: noon, Nov. 24 until noon, Dec. 8; two, three-year terms for council member.
    Manalapan: noon, Nov. 24 until noon, Dec. 8; three, two-year terms for Town Commission.
    Boynton Beach: noon, Nov. 3 until noon, Dec. 17; one, three-year term for mayor and two, three-year terms for City Commission.
    Ocean Ridge: noon, Nov. 24 until noon, Dec. 8; one, three-year term for City Commission.
    Briny Breezes: noon, Nov. 10 until noon, Nov. 24; one, 1-year term for mayor; one, 1-year term for town clerk; three, two-year terms for alderman.
    Highland Beach: noon, Nov. 10 until noon, Nov. 24; one, three-year term for City Commission.
    Gulf Stream: No municipal elections will be held in 2016. The next election will take place in 2017 for five Town Commission seats carrying three-year terms.
    Delray Beach: No municipal elections will be held in 2016. The next election will take place in 2017 for two City Commission seats carrying three-year terms.
    Boca Raton: No municipal elections will be held in 2016. The next election will take place in 2017 for mayor and two city council members, each having three-year terms.
    Bucher said municipal candidates face a variety of requirements to attain eligibility for an election.
    “In Delray Beach, for example, you have to get at least 25 registered voters to sign your petition,” she said. “In other territories you can pay a fee and file paperwork. It all depends on the individual municipal charters, which also generally determine when the elections will take place. But state law does allow them to change that, by resolution or ordinance, in the years that they jump on to a federal or state ballot. Joining bigger elections helps them to reduce expenses. We’re hopeful it will increase voter turnout as well.”
    Bucher added early voting will be available for eight days prior to the March 15 elections, at 13 locations around Palm Beach County.
    For more information, log on to www.pbelections.org or call 656-6200.

By Rich Pollack

    With the season just around the corner and more people taking to South Florida’s roadways, some law enforcement agencies along Palm Beach County’s coast are gearing up educational and enforcement efforts designed to keep pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists safe.
    Those using State Road A1A in Highland Beach, Ocean Ridge and surrounding areas can expect in coming weeks to see an increased police emphasis on ensuring that motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians know applicable laws and follow them.
    “We’re trying to do what we can to ensure that everyone shares the road safely and in accordance with the law,” says Highland Beach Police Lt. Eric Lundberg.
    Highland Beach’s police officers have stepped up their monitoring of bicycle clubs that ride through town on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and on weekend mornings and are also making a point to educate residents and visitors about the importance of pedestrian safety.
    “We’re trying to make sure they’re crossing the road safely,” Lundberg said, adding that there have been instances where pedestrians have stepped into traffic — in crosswalks and outside of crosswalks — expecting cars to stop.  
    Lundberg said that while pedestrians have the right of way in a crosswalk, it’s essential for them to make sure that the driver of the approaching vehicle sees them and plans to stop.
    “You can be right, but you can also be dead right,” he said.
    Highland Beach police have been teaming up with Florida Highway Patrol troopers on a quarterly basis for stepped-up enforcement efforts. During a weekend in late September, nine troopers, including several on motorcycles, were out in force on State Road A1A, issuing warnings and tickets, with an emphasis on bicycle and pedestrian safety.
    Over that weekend, troopers issued 25 written warnings, six tickets and five verbal warnings. Seventeen of the 25 written warnings were issued to bicyclists.
    In Ocean Ridge, Police Chief Hal Hutchins says his department plans to increase its bicycle, pedestrian and motorist education and enforcement efforts during the season thanks in part to state funds likely to be made available through a grant.
    Hutchins said the department has received tentative approval of a grant request that would make it possible for the department to have an enhanced presence during certain hours, with officers specifically assigned to ensure roadways are being safely shared.
    “We’re going to start out with warnings and with handing out educational materials and then we’ll progress to enforcement,” he said. “If we see voluntary compliance and understanding of the law, we may never have to get to the enforcement stage and I think that should be our goal.”
    The efforts of law enforcement to educate those sharing roads such as State Road A1A are being endorsed by Human Powered Delray, which advocates making roadways safer.
    “We strongly support what police are doing to educate bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists about the need to respect each other’s rights,” said the nonprofit organization’s President Jim Chard. “What a police presence does is provide awareness.”
    Chard said he often talks to guests at Delray Beach’s GreenMarket in the Park who say they don’t ride their bicycles as much as they’d like.
    “I hear people say ‘it’s just not safe here,’ ” he said. “We’re working hard to change that.”
    Chard said his organization is working on several initiatives to improve safety, including advocating for more bike lanes and conducting safety seminars.
    “What police are doing is positive and we support it,” Chard said. “But it’s not nearly enough.”
    Police departments in both Ocean Ridge and Highland Beach are members of the South Florida Safe Roads Task Force, as are most other police departments serving residents in the coastal communities.
    In 2014, the task force organized two major saturation efforts along State Road A1A — one in September and one in April — focused on bicycle, pedestrian and motorist safety.
    Lundberg, who helped organize the task force, says the group is in the process of planning education and enforcement efforts for 2016 that could include more saturation enforcement.
    “Our goal is to restore compliance with Florida laws and protect everyone on the road,” he said.

Freida Boyers celebrated her 105th birthday Oct. 27 with a motorcycle ride

through Ocean Ridge. Neighbor Phil Lambrecht took her for a cruise

on his 1997 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

    When Freida Boyers was a little girl growing up in Wauseon, Ohio, two neighbor boys had a motorcycle.
    “Floyd and Bill Smith,” she remembers. “I always wanted to go for a ride on it, but they wouldn’t take me, and back in those days a girl didn’t ask.”
    She was 13 then.
    On Oct. 27, a kinder neighbor gave Freida Boyers a ride on his motorcycle to celebrate her birthday.
    She was 105.
    It was not her first ride. When she turned 100 in 2010, her grandson, Matt Boyers, took her for a spin on his cycle. That adventure was captured in a framed photo, and when Phil Lambrecht, a neighbor in the Wellington Arms condominium, spotted it, he said, “Want to go for another ride on my bike?”
    And so, on her 105th birthday, Boyers donned a crash helmet, surrendered her walker and was helped aboard a black, 1997 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide.
    At 2 p.m. sharp, with Ocean Ridge police officer Bobby Massimino providing an escort, Lambrecht revved the engine, pulled onto North Ocean Boulevard and headed north with his 105-year-old passenger holding on.
    “How fast are we going?” she called to Lambrecht.
    “About 22 miles per hour,” he called back.
    “That’s fast enough,” she told him.
    Lambrecht ventured as far as the Boynton Inlet and then circled back in the park. As they neared the Arms, Massimino turned on his flashers and hit the siren a couple of times.
    The cycle came to a stop and Boyers retrieved her walker.
    “It was beautiful!” she reported. “It looked to me like we were really flying by!”

    Born Oct. 27, 1910, in Wauseon, she remembers when a cousin was given one of those newfangled radios, sometime in the 1920s. You had to use earphones, so only one person at a time could listen.
    Today, she Skypes with her seven great-great-grandchildren.
    She has eight great-grand-children, five grandchildren and countless razor-sharp memories. She remembers the 1920 presidential election, when Warren G. Harding beat James M. Cox, and she can still recite Harding’s campaign song.
    “Mom was a Democrat and Dad was a Republican,” she remembers, “and every election day Mom would say, ‘Goodbye, I’m going to go and cancel out your Dad’s vote.’”
    She remembers driving a horse and buggy by herself from Pioneer, Ohio, to Harrison Lake with her 5-year-old cousin at her side.
    In 1929, she married Leo Boyers, and they ran a construction company together, building schools and churches around Wauseon. They had two children, Jerry and Barbara. Leo died in 1983 after 54 years with her. She left their condo along Lake Osborne in Lake Worth in 2005 and moved to Ocean Ridge with her granddaughter, Nadine Magee, and her husband, Jay.
    “I can’t believe I’ve lived as long as I did,” she marvels. “I feel about … oh, 65.”
    Ask her the secret of her long life and she ponders the question.
    “Well, there’s this — we were never drinkers or smokers or went out partying. We were more small town. It was the Depression and nobody had any money.”
    Yes, she’s heard about that new study that claims bacon and hot dogs increase the cancer risk.
    “I think it’s crazy,” she says. “I ate anything I wanted, and I still do. Up to a point. I baked an apple pie yesterday.”
    And what has she learned in 105 years?
    “If you listen to the TV, everybody is so hateful to everybody,” she says. “But we went out for a birthday dinner the other night, and the waiters sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, and people from the other table came and spoke to me. There’s some lovely people in the world, but these politicians ought to be ashamed of the way they’re talking about each other.”
    She attributes much of life’s happiness to her faith.
    “I’ve been a Christian all my life,” she says. “Without my church, I don’t know what I’d do.”
    But she’s no prude. Two years ago, for her 103rd birthday, Freida Boyers decided she wanted to experience a little gambling.
    The Magees took her to a casino, where she worked the slots — and won.
    And before that there was the motorcycle ride for her 100th birthday. That one lasted a good deal longer than last month’s little trip to the Boynton Inlet and back.
    “Oh, we went all around our little town up in Ohio that time,” she said. “But I was younger then.”

A loggerhead sea turtle hatchling emerges from its shell.

Photo provided

Related story: Green sea turtle nesting sets record

By Cheryl Blackerby

    Scientists have long thought sand temperatures surrounding turtle nests determined the gender of sea turtles. Because sea turtles don’t have an X or Y chromosome, their sex is defined during development by the incubation environment.
    The prevailing theory was “hot chicks, cool dudes” — at sand temperatures above 84 degrees clutches of hatchlings would be predominantly females, below that temperature, hatchlings tended to be males. At 84 degrees there is about 1-1 sex ratio.
    But a recently published four-year study of loggerhead hatchlings by FAU biologists disputes this theory and has scientists stunned.
     “Our understanding (of sand temperature) came from research done mostly in labs and we had every reason to expect that to be the case in the real world,” said Dr. Jeanette Wyneken, FAU biologist who along with Alexandra Lolavar directed the study, which appeared in the journal Endangered Species Research.
    But the study showed that probably wasn’t the case in nature, she said.
    The study was conducted in Boca Raton at Red Reef Park, South Beach Park and a small part of Spanish River Park, where there was still some original sand on the beach. The biologists wanted a baseline that excluded different types of replacement sand.
    But if sand temperature does not cause the embryonic sex of turtles, the researchers needed to find out what does. They knew that gender was determined by the environment but was it rainfall, sun, shade, sand type?
    The need for answers was urgent because FAU biologists had discovered that in some years Florida beaches were producing no male loggerhead hatchlings.
    “It’s a pretty big deal,” Wyneken said.
    Florida produces about 85 percent of the loggerhead turtles in the Atlantic north of the equator. About 11 percent of that number comes from Palm Beach County, she said.
    The county has historically produced a majority of female turtles, which was considered ideal and good for the recovery of an imperiled species.
    “It can be good that most are females, but it’s a little alarming when we have years with no males,” Wyneken said. “In the last 10 years, there have been three years with no males. We’re sampling a fraction of the nests so we may be missing some males, but not many.”
    Wyneken and her researchers found that the numbers of females and male hatchlings wildly fluctuated, she said. “We had a crazy range of 65 percent females one year, 95 percent the next, and 100 percent the third year. That means that we needed several years of data to start to identify normal sex ratios.”
    After four years of research, the FAU biologists found that moisture seems to be the key factor in gender determination, not sand temperature alone, she said. And it’s not because rainfall lowers sand temperature, as many scientists had assumed.
    “We found out that by the time the water percolates down to the nests buried 18 inches down in the sand, it’s pretty much the same temperature as the nest,” she said. “The rain is not cooling it down unless it’s four or five days of hard and steady rain. Those events do cool things down, but only for a short time.”
    The study has prompted more questions about how the moisture determines gender.
    “There are a lot of different hypotheses about how moisture and temperature direct the sex of embryonic turtles to be male or female. Maybe moisture facilitates turning genes on and off. Another is that the sexes might be directed by factors associated with developmental rates. When there’s more moisture the rate of incubation may slow down,” Wyneken says. “If you have more water in the sand you have less oxygen. If there’s less oxygen, development slows down.”
    FAU biologists including Lolavar, lead author of the study which is the basis of her honors thesis program, will continue to study nest environments.
    “The next step is figuring out what the moisture is doing to the rate of development,” said Wyneken. “An observation is that nests that produce males tend to incubate longer. But maybe we’re missing something. Maybe they’re incubating longer for other reasons.”
    These turtles are already fighting an uphill battle since roughly 1 in 2,500 to 7,000 sea turtles make it to adulthood.
    Meanwhile, loggerhead hatchlings didn’t fare well this year.
    “There was a record number of nests in the state, but the success of the nests was really poor. We had a super hot June and July on the East Coast, and hot and dry is pretty bad for hatchlings,” Wyneken said.

    A public-private partnership at the Lake Worth Casino complex, proposed by one of the owners of the historic Sundy House in Delray Beach, has been rejected by the City Commission.
    “We are not going to accept any more proposals until we can identify what the financial, operational and physical issues are” at the casino complex, Commissioner Scott Maxwell proposed on Oct. 20. The other four commissioners agreed.
    Steven Michael, principal of Delray Beach-based Hudson Holdings, said he wanted the city to act on the latest offer. His company is still moving forward with renovation plans for the historic Gulfstream Hotel in Lake Worth.
    The city’s Historic Resources Preservation Board will hear a rezoning request Nov. 18 to tie together the parcels that contain the Gulfstream Hotel and another proposed hotel. The proposal would then go before the City Commission in December for a first reading and then in January for a second reading.
    Michael hopes the city will ask soon for proposals for the casino complex.
— Jane Smith

The developer has begun a limited demolition of the Oceanfront Inn in South Palm Beach.

Willie Howard/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

    Developer Gary Cohen has all the permits in place to tear down the Oceanfront Inn in South Palm Beach, but afterward the fate of the prime piece of property remains anything but certain.
    Cohen began a limited demolition of the hotel in October and plans to start reconstructing the sea wall soon. But Mayor Bonnie Fischer says the town knows little more than that.
    “We don’t have a timetable for when it will be torn down,” she said. “But he (Cohen) has all the permits he needs to do it. He doesn’t talk to us about his plans.”
    Since the spring, Cohen’s Paragon Acquisition Group has been advertising the property with HFF commercial real estate brokers in Miami. The ad calls it “the last remaining ocean development opportunity on the island” and makes the point that the town has approved his development plan to build a 33-unit condominium building with six stories over a parking garage.
    “I’ve thought from the start that they were going to flip the property,” said Vice Mayor Joseph Flagello. “If that’s what they want to do, then good, flip it.”
    Councilman Woodrow Gorbach, a real estate agent, said residents had figured out some time ago that Cohen was probably a dealer and not a builder. He bought the hotel, known to locals as the Hawaiian, for $8.25 million in 2013.
    “Rumors have been floating around the town that the owners have no intention of putting a building there,” Gorbach said, and wondered about what price the market would allow.
“I don’t think he’s going to get $20 million for it,” Gorbach said. “But I’d hate to think he won’t get $10 million for it. However, the economy just isn’t that good right now.”
    A potential buyer who wanted to change Paragon’s building plan would have to get the town to approve the changes first, officials said. Fischer said getting the demolition completed is the priority for residents right now.
    “Having an empty lot is better than what we have now,” the mayor said. “We’ll see what happens then.”