By Dan Moffett
    
    Manalapan and Boynton Beach are looking into a deal to consolidate their water utility services and provide benefits to both communities.
    Under the plan, Boynton Beach would take over Manalapan’s water plant and infrastructure, at Hypoluxo Road and U.S. 1, adding hundreds of new customers to the city’s growing regional system.
    Manalapan stands to benefit from significant debt relief — about $4.5 million of red ink that would come off the books when Boynton writes a check — and also relief from the headaches a small town has trying to run its own utility and deliver reliable service. Both communities should benefit from economies of scale.
    Colin Groff, Boynton Beach’s utilities director, told Manalapan town commissioners on Aug. 25 that from a technical standpoint, an acquisition deal is well within reach.
    “There is nothing significantly difficult to get through,” Groff said. “There is no wall.”
    There is, however, a prickly issue about rates.
    Boynton Beach sells its water on a tiered rate structure mandated by the state to promote conservation, under which the per-gallon cost of water rises with thresholds of use. For example, each gallon used over 40,000 per month could cost roughly three times as much as those used under the first 10,000.
    Groff said Boynton’s system, which serves about 102,000 customers, has “the lowest rates in the county,” and most Manalapan homeowners — perhaps as many as 70 percent — would likely see their bills fall or stay the same under the proposed new system. However, big users could see a substantial increase.
    This means that, while homeowners on Point Manalapan are likely to be paying less under the Boynton plan, homeowners along the ocean with large properties, large lawns and large irrigation systems are going to pay more.
    Mayor David Cheifetz said the plan “throws off a lot of cash, but we don’t really need the cash.” Cheifetz said while the millions in debt relief for the town is welcome, what the commission really wants to see is lower rates for customers.
    “Conceptually, this does make a lot of sense,” Mayor Pro Tem Peter Isaac said of the acquisition, “if we can go to the homeowner and say rates are not going to go up.”
    Groff said a typical customer with a 2,500-square-foot home and four occupants can expect to pay about $80 a month for Boynton water, which compares favorably with current Manalapan rates.
    One possible solution to reduce high-use rates is for the town to take the money from the acquisition and create a “rate stabilization fund” that might soften the blow for oceanfront homeowners. Groff told the commissioners that he will give them more specific rate figures to consider for their Sept. 22 meeting.
    In other business:
    Work on replacing the Audubon Causeway bridge is facing more delays. Isaac told the commission that Drawdy Construction of Lake Worth, the project’s contractor, is tied up on another job and won’t be able to start work until Sept. 20 at the earliest.
    Isaac said Drawdy has given the town a “drop dead” start date of Oct. 20 for the 10-month project.
    “We are still in a waiting mode,” he said.

Voncile Smith, second vice president of the Boynton Beach Historical Society, protests the proposed demolition

of the 1927 Boynton Beach High School building.

Joe Skipper/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith
    
    Public outcry and a proposal from a respected architect appeared to sway Boynton Beach city commissioners who reversed their early August decision to demolish the city’s historic high school.
    At the city’s Aug. 4 commission meeting, three commissioners voted to demolish the school. Two weeks later, on Aug. 18, they agreed unanimously to give it a four-month reprieve.
    The would-be savior came in the form of well-known preservation architect Rick Gonzalez of REG Architects in West Palm Beach. He said he was involved in four studies on the high school and gave his credentials as: immediate past president of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation and the vice chairman of the Florida Historic Commission, which gave $150,000 for the Boynton Woman’s Club restoration.
    He also said he was involved in the restoration of the 1914 County Courthouse. His firm was the architect of the renovated Lake Worth Casino complex and is one of the firms in arbitration with the city over defects in the casino building, according to Lake Worth’s city manager.
    “We are ready to spend $50,000 of our money and time over the next four months, then come back in January and tell you what we think,” Gonzalez said.
    He joins a grassroots group, with Barbara Ready, chair of the city’s Historic Resources Preservation Board, as one of its leaders.
    Ready organized a rally for Aug. 15, telling everyone to wear a black top (black and gold were the high school’s colors) and make a sign that said, “This still matters,” copying the National Historic Trust’s slogan from 2009. About 70 people came, including some kids.
    “We’re redoubling our efforts,” Ready said a week after the reprieve vote. “We are not going away because the city is working with an architect.”
    Another resident, Anthony Pitre, made a GoFundMe.com/SaveBoyntonHigh site that raised more than $2,500 as of Aug. 31 with the goal of creating a nonprofit corporation. His subgroup is called, “Show me the money committee.” He has contacted a roofer, he said, who offered to cover the building for free and a wealthy investor who would come in after the city sells to the group or gives it a long-term lease.
    Just days after the Aug. 4 demolition vote, Jesse Feldman created an online petition that had 878 signatures as of Aug. 31.
    Commissioner Mike Fitzpatrick also is helping to organize the grassroots group. He offered his parents’ vacant home as a meeting place and donated $500 to the cause. His idea for reusing the high school is to create a history lesson on Boynton Beach education on the first floor.
    The front part could be set up as a classroom; the middle part as a memorial to all the schools lost in the city including Poinciana Elementary, his former junior high school that became Galaxy Elementary, Seacrest High School that is now a grassy lot and Plumosa and St. Mark Catholic School. The back part could be used as an exhibit of Palm Beach County Schools segregation and integration.
    “That is a history story that needs to be told. I have no problem with it being raw and honest,” he said. “For instance, who and why, at the height of the civil rights movement, named a school after Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy and a slave owner?”
    City Manager Lori LaVerriere urged other interested parties to see her to complete an application for an unsolicited proposal.
    The Boynton Beach High School was added to the city’s list of historic places in February 2013. It was designed by prominent school architect William Manly King, who used features from the Mediterranean Revival and Art Deco styles, according to the Boynton Beach Historical Society.
    The building served as a high school from 1927 to 1949, as an elementary school and junior high school until 1990, and as a school for students with special needs until at least 1996.
    Voncile Smith, second vice president of the Historical Society, said at the Aug. 18 commission meeting, “I am probably the only person in this room who attended high school at that building when it was still a high school. I just wanted to get up and say I’m pleased [that it appears] it is going to survive.”  
    At the Aug. 4 commission meeting, three commissioners voted to demolish the historic high school.
    At that meeting, Vice Mayor Joe Casello said, “Let’s take the emotional factor out of this. It’s a structure. It’s two-by-fours. It’s nails. It’s concrete.”  At the Aug. 18 meeting, he apologized for making that statement.
    Commissioner Mack McCray voted to demolish the high school, saying black history wasn’t saved when the Poinciana School was torn down. The city didn’t own that building at the time it was destroyed, the School Board did. He later said his vote was not done in retaliation and was not forced but looking out for Boynton taxpayers.
    After voting to demolish the historic high school on Aug. 4, Mayor Jerry Taylor said, “It’s an old building, it’s not historic.” On Aug. 18, he said, “Nothing forces me on my votes for this community, but I will say I do listen.”
At the start of the Aug. 18 meeting, Casello added an agenda item about the historic high school. “I believe the commission’s vote of 3-2 was one of controversy. It sparked people to get off their backsides and stand up for what they perceive Boynton’s history legacy to be,” he said.
    A lawsuit on the historic high school use remains open after the city’s motion to dismiss was heard in mid-August. The judge had not ruled as of Aug. 31.

By Jane Smith

    The Downtown Development Authority board members will discuss how to search for a new executive director at their Sept. 14 meeting.
    The Delray Beach board voted 4-3 to not renew Marjorie Ferrer’s contract as executive director at a specially called meeting on Aug. 13. If the vote had not been taken by Aug. 17, her contract would have renewed automatically on Oct. 1.
    She wanted another year to oversee the organization and was planning to retire in 2016, said new Board Chairman Mark Denkler. He was one of the three who voted for Ferrer staying one more year. The other two were Seabron Smith and Albert Richwagen.
    Just three days prior, the board was deadlocked on that vote taken after Smith left the meeting. Bonnie Beer sided with Denkler and Richwagen.
    At the Aug. 11 City Commission meeting, the DDA executive team did not fare well. Ferrer, executive director since 1993, and Associate Director Laura Simon gave a presentation on how the DDA helps attract people to downtown stores and restaurants while creating an attractive place to work and visit. But they did not mention the organization’s budget as the mayor had requested.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein took issue with that omission.
    “Last year you showed up without any budget,” he said. “This year your presentation made no mention of your budget and you are a taxing authority.”
    He pointed out the DDA spends 40 percent of its revenues on general and administrative expenses, which includes salaries, benefits and office space. He considers that percentage “bloated.”
    He also reviewed the minutes of the board meetings and found them “devoid of any critical analysis towards its executive team, which represents close to 40 percent of its budget. It’s as if the executive team is running the board, not the board leading the staff.”  
    Ferrer said the DDA salaries are 30 percent of the budget, lower than the Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative’s 36 or 37 percent.
    “It’s not a taxing authority, part of that is lost in this conversation,” the mayor said. “I’m not going to belabor it, but I made my point.”
    Few board members were left when more than three hours later the city commissioners discussed the results of the DDA survey. Most respondents gave positive views to the DDA.
    Vice Mayor Shelly Petrolia, who requested the survey of DDA property owners and renters, said she noticed a split in the responses between those who were very satisfied with the DDA and those who were less satisfied or didn’t respond. She also said parking was mentioned as the main area where property owners want to see the DDA spend its money.  
    During the next budget year, the DDA will be involved in a pilot program for employee parking at the South County Courthouse garage.  
    At the DDA meeting on Aug. 10, board member Ryan Boylston raised the succession issue because Simon said she had a job offer. When Simon was hired in 2010, she was told that Ferrer would be retiring in three years, Simon said.
“We can’t keep floating along,” Boylston said. “We have to notify Marjorie that we won’t be renewing her contract in October. We have to do that 45 days before that date.”
    Because of the tied vote, the board members scheduled a special meeting for Aug. 13 after asking new board attorney Max Lohman about how much notice they had to give. He said 24 hours.
    Denkler agreed to talk with Ferrer and Simon prior to the vote.
    At the Aug. 13 meeting, some board members took issue with the mayor’s comments about the staff being in charge and not the board.  The six members who were on the board last year agreed that the commission presentation did not address the financials as the mayor had asked. Lohman reminded them that they had “segued from the agenda item.”
    Board members and Ferrer each will bring their own ideas for the transition to the Sept. 14 meeting. They may send those ideas via email to the organization’s administrative assistant, who will forward them to Denkler, but Lohman warned them against emailing each other. That would be violating the Sunshine Law.
    After the vote to not renew Ferrer’s contract, Denkler said, “We have some soul-searching to do on what is best for our organization.”

By Jane Smith
    
    Delray Beach may have to refund $44,994 collected from 11 property owners because city commissioners were wrongly interpreting its sidewalk fee ordinance, they learned in August.
    The ordinance says, “said sidewalk,” but in some historic districts no sidewalk will be built because sidewalks were never part of the neighborhood. The idea was to pool the money for use elsewhere in the city where sidewalks are needed. The ordinance passed last fall as part of the city’s revised land development regulations.
    The money collected was held in an escrow account, further complicating the issue because those accounts have a strict interpretation about how the money can be used.
    City Attorney Noel Pfeffer said he knew about the problem for some time. The previous planning and zoning director had wanted to create a “mobility fund that would capture revenues from several different sources” to create sidewalks where they were needed, but he left before the fund was established, Pfeffer said.
    That explanation did not sit well with the mayor or other commissioners who were assuming the sidewalk fees could be used in other areas.
    Commissioner Al Jacquet honed in on the discrepancy when he said, “In drafting that piece of the ordinance, there was talk about the greater good, the bigger picture. Then why are we saying it is for ‘said sidewalk’?”
    In July, an applicant had complained about the fee because the sidewalk would never be built on the property.
    That discussion devolved into two commissioners’ questioning the city attorney’s ability to give them good advice.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein said their reaction was not proportional to the error: “It’s a mistake. Assumptions were made and they were wrong. … It’s not the end of the world, people are not dying. There are sidewalks. We’ll have to refund some money.”
    To his city attorney, the mayor said, “I have every confidence in you. Next time, own it quicker and sooner.” He told Pfeffer to reword the sidewalk ordinance before creating one on the mobility fund.
At the Aug. 17 meeting of the Planning and Zoning board, members approved a rewrite of the sidewalk fee ordinance that removed the mention of the escrow account and the words “said sidewalk.” The motion passed 4-1 with Chairman Robin Bird dissenting and Joe Pike and Gerald Franciosa absent.
    In other action at the Aug. 11 meeting, commissioners learned:
    • Delray Place, a shopping plaza with restaurants at the southeast corner of Federal Highway and Linton Boulevard, still does not meet site plan requirements for open space, landscaping and signs. The city is withholding its certificate of occupancy until those requirements are met. Without the certificate of occupancy, the plaza owner cannot get permanent financing, the city manager said.
    • The Downtowner trolley will have fixed stops starting in August. Previously people could wave and the trolley would stop and pick them up.

Related story: A culture of ‘not following policies’

Department heads docked pay

By Jane Smith

    Three Delray Beach department heads lost a day’s pay for their role in the purchasing abuses uncovered by an outside investigator, the city manager told commissioners on Aug. 11.
    The department heads are Fire Chief Danielle Connor, Police Chief Jeff Goldman and Chief Financial Officer Jack Warner.
    “Ignorance or failing to follow procedures or following custom and practice that are improper ‘because it has always been done this way’ are not acceptable and reflect a culture that is not acceptable,” City Manager Don Cooper wrote in his report.
    The department heads should have known about the city’s policy and procedures for purchasing and not have relied on information from staffers, the report said.
    The investigation began in May when an outside auditor compared employee contact information with vendor contact information.
    Cooper told commissioners that the investigation found a systemic culture of “not following policies and a level of not understanding, which I characterize as ignorance.” He said abuses were not done maliciously but from “past practices that developed, but shouldn’t have.”
    The practices began about seven years ago when purchasing was decentralized and allowed departments to interpret state regulations and local policies on their own. Florida law and county code of ethics state that no employees should enter a contract to deliver goods and services to their municipality.
    Under the county’s code, that can be waived if the business is awarded under a sealed competitive bid to the lowest bidder and the employee was not involved in writing the bid specifications or selecting the winning bid, did not use influence to gain the contract and filed a statement with the Supervisor of Elections and the Commission on Ethics disclosing interest in the business submitting the bid.
    According to the report, these employees will receive reprimands: Desiree Lancaster, EMS billing supervisor; Steven Swanson, police officer; Todd Lynch, paramedic captain; Dot Blast, human resources administrator; and Jacquelyn Ulysse, recovery and collections specialist.
    Lancaster, Lynch and Swanson said their spouses had completed the city’s purchasing vendor application and checked off that the business was owned or partially owned by an employee.
This could not be verified because Purchasing Manager Patsy Nadal did not keep the forms.
    State law requires keeping them for three financial years. Nadal retired on June 29 after 15 years and before the investigation was complete.
    Neither Blast nor her husband could remember filling out the application. Ulysse was added to the state registration of The Rib Man on Aug. 22, 2012. The only invoice processed after that date was for $300, under the ethics threshold. But she should have notified Human Resources when she was placed on the state registration for the Rib Man, according to the report.
    Three other employees — paramedics Joseph Lang and Conor Devery and paramedic captain Fredrick McAlley — own vendor businesses, according to the report. They said they filled out the vendor application, but that could not be verified because the purchasing manager destroyed the forms.
    Connor questioned the relationship with Lancaster’s company, but she was told it was fine because the business was an approved vendor, the report said.
    In the spring, the city manager reorganized the departments and now has the purchasing department under his supervision. Holly Vath is the department head.

By Rich Pollack

    If Delray Beach were to create a dog beach, what’s to stop dogs from digging up sea turtle nests?
    What would the city do if a dog owner failed to clean up after his or her pet?
    And what could be done to make sure that others on the beach without dogs don’t find themselves face to face with a growling German shepherd?
    All of these questions surfaced last month during a meeting hosted by Delray Beach’s Parks and Recreation Director Suzanne Davis, who is continuing to seek feedback from residents before bringing recommendations regarding a dog beach to the Delray Beach City Commission.
    “We want to be sure we look at all the reasons people are for a dog beach and all the reasons people are against it,” Davis said.
    The meeting, the second of three designed to seek input from the community, gave people with concerns about the impact of a dog beach the chance to raise questions and at the same time it allowed those in favor of the idea to make suggestions that would address some of the issues.
    Davis told residents that after gathering information from other communities with successful dog beaches, listening to residents and studying the results of an online survey, her department would make a series of proposals to City Manager Donald Cooper, who could then bring them to the City Commission.
    She said her department is exploring one alternative for a separated dog beach at either or both recreation areas at the north and south ends of the public beach.
    Currently, city ordinances prohibit dogs on the city’s public beach.
    Many of the questions raised at the Delray Beach meeting were similar to those raised more than a year and a half ago before Boca Raton opened its dog beach.
    Since then, Boca Raton has found few of the issues have surfaced.
    “It’s going extremely well,” said Boca Raton Parks and Recreation Director Mickey Gomez. “There are times when there will be 60 dogs out there and there are people who go just to watch the dogs play.”
    Gomez said the city has issued more than 1,200 dog beach permits, most of those going to city residents who pay $30 as opposed to non-residents who pay more.
Park rangers at either end of the dog beach, situated between lifeguard towers 18 and 20, check to make sure people have permits to use the dog beach, which is only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings and evenings.
    He said the city has found that most dog owners clean up after their pets but added that the city has a maintenance crew follow up after the dog beach closes.
    “If we’ve had five incidents of crews having to clean up after dogs that would be a lot,” Gomez said.
Before opening the dog beach, Boca Raton checked with turtle experts at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center who said that raccoons and other animals were more likely than dogs to disturb turtle nests. Gomez said there hasn’t been a problem with dogs on the beach disturbing turtle nests.
    In Delray Beach, Davis said she is planning to host one more meeting before coming up with recommendations to present to city leaders.

Related story: Department heads docked pay

By Jane Smith

    The fallout from a Delray Beach investigation into purchasing abuses continued with three environmental services employees resigning and another one put on unpaid administrative leave, according to the city manager’s interim report.
    Cesar Irizarry, a treatment plant operator who resigned on Aug. 17, was connected to city vendor American Traffic Products Services, according to the Aug. 12 report. The city paid the company $230,313.39 between 2009 and 2014 for signs and poles, the report said. Irizarry was hired in December 1990.
    Irizarry’s name also was listed on corporate records for vendor East Coast Underwater Repair, according to the report prepared by City Manager Don Cooper. That company was awarded a $26,250 contract in June 2010 for valves used in the city’s flood control system, according to the report.
    Irizarry denied having a financial interest in either firm.
    Harold Bellinger, the streets superintendent who ran the sign shop, resigned on Aug. 10. He denied knowing that Irizarry or Orlando Serrano, who resigned on March 27, was connected to the two city vendors.
    Bellinger supervised Serrano, who had secured the quotes from American Traffic Products. The quotes were over $10,000 but lower than $25,000, allowing them to slip by commission scrutiny provided they had written price quotes. Many did not, the report said.
    Bellinger was hired in June 1991 and Serrano in October 1996.
    Jim Schmitz, deputy director of public works, was responsible for the sign shop. Schmitz said he was unaware of Irizarry’s or Serrano’s connections to outside vendors. His group did not have a formal process for checking inventory and he and Bellinger “would order sign posts and blank signs annually by ‘eyeballing’ the inventory,” the report said. Schmitz, who was hired in April 1990, was put on unpaid administrative leave on Aug. 10.
    The director of the Environmental Services Department, Randal Krejcarek, told city commissioners that he planned to resign Jan. 4 to allow enough time for a search and then for him to train the replacement. He denied knowing about Irizarry’s or Serrano’s connections to outside vendors.
    But the report said Krejcarek should be held responsible for lack of inventory controls in the sign shop and violating city purchasing policies. He also should ensure his employees receive records retention training.
    The practices began about seven years ago when purchasing was decentralized and allowed departments to interpret state regulations and local policies on their own.
    Cooper told commissioners that the investigation found a systemic culture of “not following policies and a level of not understanding, which I characterize as ignorance.” He said the abuses were not done maliciously but from “past practices that developed, but shouldn’t have.”
    He also warned the employees that further abuses will receive stronger disciplinary action.
Twenty-three city employees were interviewed, 10 potential conflicts were found and three employees were cleared. Seven employees received letters of reprimand for not reporting their outside business or their role in one.
    The county Office of the Inspector General and the State Attorney’s Office also are investigating, Cooper said.

By Dan Moffett

    A special legislative session failed to resolve the state’s redistricting problems last month, but it might have provided some clarity for coastal communities about their represent-ation in Congress going forward.
    While lawmakers could not agree on a new map for congressional districts statewide, they did agree on what Palm Beach and Broward counties should look like. That could be good news — or at least a measure of relief — for Democratic U.S. Reps. Lois Frankel and Ted Deutch.
    Currently, Deutch’s District 21 and Frankel’s District 22 lie mostly in Palm Beach County and run parallel to each other, running north and south. Frankel’s district is to the east and Deutch’s to the west.
    Under new proposed boundaries that most legislators supported, Deutch’s district would be stacked atop Frankel’s. His constituents would all be in Palm Beach County, while Frankel’s would include Boca Raton south of the C-15 canal, and be mostly in Broward County.
    But, nothing about this is set in redistricting stone.
    Because the Legislature couldn’t agree on how to redraw several districts in central and western Florida, the 12-day session came to an acrimonious end without approval of a new statewide map. The lawmakers’ failure means a circuit court judge will have to redraw the 27 congressional districts.
    Frankel and Deutch so far have voiced no complaints about the proposed changes to their districts and have pledged to support each other going forward.
    “We both believe in the concept of fair districts and that congressional districts should be drawn to serve the people, not for the pleasure of elected officials,” they said in a joint statement. “We have both proudly worked as a team and with other members of our delegation, serving the residents of Palm Beach and Broward counties over many years. We both fully intend to run for re-election and we look forward to serving in Congress together as long as our constituents give us this honor. We are friends, have great respect for one another and both of us are fully committed to not running against each other.”
    Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis has scheduled hearings for Sept. 24-28 and hopes to make a recommendation for a new congressional map to the state Supreme Court by mid-October. In July, the high court ruled that Florida’s districts don’t meet constitutional requirements that prohibit political lines that favor incumbents or parties, and the justices ordered the Legislature to redraw the districts within 100 days.
    “The court said that there was gerrymandering and that Republicans had drawn districts based on politics,” said state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth. “But I can’t be too hard on the Republicans. When Democrats ran the Legislature, they did the same thing.”
    Clemens said he’s hopeful that lawmakers will do better in October when they hold a special session to reconfigure the state’s Senate districts, including perhaps his own.
    “One way or another,” he said, “we’re going to have to get these districts redrawn.”

The Little House may reopen as a tapas restaurant.

Photo provided

By Jane Smith

    Ocean Ridge Commissioner Richard Lucibella wants to buy the Little House in Boynton Beach and turn it into a tapas eatery.
    He and a partner, Barbara Ceuleers, put $335,000 into an escrow account for the historic home and plan to rent it to Lisa Mercado, whom he has known for 30 years. Mercado owns The Living Room restaurant on Congress Avenue in Boynton Beach.
    “It’s not so much a business investment as it is a community investment,” he said.
    In the backup material provided to the city Community Redevelopment Agency, which owns the historic home also called the Ruth Jones Cottage, he wrote a letter to the CRA. He explained his interest as, “a clear understanding of the importance of this property to serve as a ‘seed’ anchor in rejuvenating this area of Ocean Avenue and a demonstrated respect for the value of our historic buildings.”
    In short, they want to participate in the revitalization of Ocean Avenue, “not just for the neighborhood, but as a Palm Beach destination location,” according to the backup material.
    The CRA has been burned before by two restaurateurs on that property: one who couldn’t make a go of a restaurant at that location, and the other who was undercapitalized but had a persuasive personality.
    That’s why the CRA insisted on verifiable financial information this time.
    But Lucibella and Ceuleers didn’t want “to reveal details of our personal wealth in a venue that becomes public information.”
Instead they paid in cash and provided contacts and phone numbers for SunTrust Bank’s Private Wealth Management Group to ensure both had enough money to cover the purchase price and the cost of operating a small business.
    Lucibella hired Russ Bornstein, senior vice president of CBRE, to represent him before the CRA on Aug. 11. Mercado also was there to explain her restaurant concept for the Little House. She would use the Living Room as a commissary with most of the prep work taking place there for the finger foods she would serve at the Little House. She also would serve wine and beer.
    In addition, she would feature a nightly special that would be prepared at the Living Room and heated at the Little House.
    Lucibella has supported Mercado in the past by lending money to secure a liquor license for the Red Lion Restaurant in Boynton Beach and with a small loan when she was starting the Living Room. He said both loans were repaid.
    Bruce Kaplan of Local Development Co. wanted both the Little House, at 480 Ocean Ave., and the Oscar Magnuson House, at 211 Ocean Ave.
    But the CRA board didn’t want to sell both to the same developer as it had agreed to do earlier this year. The board members offered him the Oscar Magnuson House for $255,000, its appraised value, plus another $200,000 grant for build-out.
    The house would have to be rezoned into a commercial use property. Tom Carney, former Delray Beach mayor and Delray Beach CRA member, represented Kaplan to the board. Carney called Kaplan’s failure to return in April “a confusion. … But he was committed to this and we’re back.”
    Kaplan also apologized to the CRA board members for the “missed communication. I didn’t realize we were still in the running. I thought that the contract had been awarded to someone else.”
    He plans to turn the home into an upscale Italian restaurant. Kaplan’s company made a 10 percent deposit on the house.
    The CRA rehired Tom Prakas in July as its restaurant broker for these two properties. He will receive 5 percent of the purchase price.
    Both properties have a 10-year reverter agreement that says in the first 10 years, if the house doesn’t become a restaurant or turns into an unapproved CRA use, that the CRA has the first option to buy the house at market value.

By Scott Simmons

    Everyone knows Ruth Jones for the cottage that bears her name.
    But Mrs. Jones, a Boynton Beach pioneer, was a living, breathing landmark in her own right.
    She died Aug. 27 at age 91.
    “She was just so sweet to everyone — not necessarily her kids. She was tough on us. She was one tough, German cookie. She instilled strong values,” said her youngest daughter, Michele Jones, who lives in Lake Worth.
    Mrs. Jones was known for her good cheer, though life was not easy.
    She was born Sept. 19, 1923, in Michigan to Joseph and Marie Jetzne.
    “When she was 11, she and her parents were in a car on their way to see her mother’s side of the family, and they were hit by a train. She was the only survivor,” Michele Jones said.
    Tragedy didn’t end there.
    “When she was 16, she was on her way to Detroit, taking the bus like they always did. The seat that Mom always sat in was taken by a black woman,” Michele Jones said.
    These were the days of segregation, even up North.
    Not wanting to cause trouble, Mrs. Jones moved to the back of the packed bus.
    “It was hit by a train and she was the sole survivor,” Michele Jones said.
    Mrs. Jones moved with other relatives to Boynton Beach in 1942, and in 1946 married Thomas Mason Jones, whose family owned the Jones Hotel.
    They had five children, and tragedy struck once more as Thomas Jones was killed in an automobile crash.
    “When my father died, I was 2,” Michele Jones said. “There were five of us at home. Mom was all about just doing, providing, working. ... She was all about putting food on the table and doing the right thing.”
    Always impeccably dressed — she never went anywhere without her lipstick and earrings on — she worked at Bud’s Chicken & Seafood, and as an Avon lady.
    She made sure her children had beauty in their lives.
    “There was culture. I remember us doing the Flagler Museum and going to the ballet,” Michele Jones said. “You still had nice dinners, and you never knew she had to have worked her butt off.”
    During the Boynton Beach Historical Society’s meeting in May, Mrs. Jones vividly recalled cooking at Bud’s.
    “She will be sorely missed. How she raised her family, how she worked selling Avon, how she worked at Bud’s and started making their famous potato salads and coleslaw from scratch,” said Janet DeVries, the society’s former president.
    A few years ago, Mrs. Jones sold her home of 62 years, and moved to Leisureville. Now known as The Ruth Jones Cottage, the house was moved just east of the FEC Railway tracks on East Ocean Avenue, where it was used as a restaurant called The Little House. Mrs. Jones loved to visit. Plans are underway for a new restaurant to take the space.
    Mrs. Jones is survived by her son, Thomas Mason Jones; daughters, Janice Heine (Joe), Emilie Little and Michele Jones; daughter-in-law, Susan Jones; grandchildren Michael Jones, Krista Tower (Joel), Cassidy Jones, Rachel Mohlman Shidaker, Keith Jones Jr. and Laura Jones; and two great-grandchildren, Riley Shidaker and Emma Tower. She was preceded in death by her son Keith Jones and two grandchildren, Colby Jones and Carly Jones.
    A funeral was held Sept. 1 at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in West Palm Beach and Mrs. Jones was buried at Boynton Beach Memorial Park.
    “She’s one person who would give her undivided attention and could be an avid listener, something that can be said for very few people today. I met her through the historical society and loved to hear her stories,” DeVries said.
    “Mom touched all generations,” Michele Jones said.

By Jane Smith

    The Boynton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency should pay to fix the north road in the Boynton Harbor Marina and rebuild the 400-foot sea wall while creating a park near it because the two projects are related, its executive director said at the agency’s budget workshop in early August.
    To make her point, Vivian Brooks showed CRA board members pictures of the road buckling. “The sea wall deterioration is causing the road to sink,” she explained. “It’s a health and safety issue.”
    She wanted to add $740,122 for the road and sea wall repair while the marina open space park is created. The $834,030 budgeted for the park will roll over into the next financial year.
    “This is ongoing maintenance that comes with owning a marina,” she told the board members. The sea wall was built in 2001-2002, according to the engineering evaluation.
    She plans to put the project out for bid early next year and have the work done in the summer. Marina tenants, including boat owners and the Two Georges restaurant, have already lived through construction disrupting their business at the marina. Brooks didn’t want to disrupt activity during the height of the season.
    The board members agreed.
    The CRA board will meet Sept. 8 to review and approve the budget.

Travel trailers and the simple sedans that towed them used to line Ruth Mary Drive in Briny Breezes.

From left, Susan Atlee, Ann Carmody, Donna Clarke and Sandy Dietzel work to rescue fading photos.

In 1976, Bob and Mary Susdoft donned formal wear for a portrait.

Fay Jordan’s lawn mower landed on a power pole after 1964’s Hurricane Isbell.

1941 family portrait.

Jerry Lower /The Coastal Star and Briny Historic Archives

By Ron Hayes

    In January 2014, when Lu McInnes retired after 22 years as Briny Breezes’ unpaid, untiring librarian, Donna Clarke took on the job brimming with enthusiasm.
    She would be a new broom. Winnow out the unused books. Build up the DVD collection. She would clean. She would paint. She did.
    “Everything looked pretty,” she says.
    “And then we looked down at those scrapbooks on the bottom shelf and thought, those are really ugly.”
    Thirty-five dime-store scrapbooks with cardboard covers. Faded scrapbooks filled with fading photos.
    “When I pulled them off the shelf, some bugs came out.”
    And nearly a century of memories, precious but poorly preserved.
    The “Briny Breezes Photo Album Restoration Project” was born.
    “We want to tell the story of Briny Breezes so somebody could sit down and say, ‘Oh, so this is how it happened,’ ” Clarke says.
    Joan Nichols, president of the town’s History Club, became a consultant. Janet DeVries of the Boynton Beach Historical Society dropped by to offer advice about preservation.
    In February, the annual bazaar committee donated $1,000 from this year’s earnings.
    Clarke bought a stack of expensive, archive-quality binders, and now, every Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. the project’s nine unpaid, untiring volunteers meet to preserve, protect and defend the long history of the little trailer park that became a town.
    They call themselves the Library Ladies.
    On a recent afternoon, they worked quietly — Kathy Gross and Susan Atlee, Brenda Dooley and Sandy Dietzel — carefully peeling old snapshots from fuzzy black pages and transferring them to new binders.
    “Here we’ve got something about putting in a disposal system in 1969,” Dooley said, pondering a faded color snapshot. “I have no idea what that is, but it’s kind of interesting.”
    “Our Disposal System,” the caption reads. “December 1969.”
    A photo to be saved, not disposed of, and Dooley transferred it to the new binder, attached without glue.
    “We’re putting everything in so it can be taken out without destroying the photographs,” Clarke explained.
    Everything begins with a 1926 photograph of “the mansion,” the Mediterranean Revival home Ward B. Miller built shortly after he bought 43 acres of oceanfront property back in 1919.
    “And the most recent entry will probably be photographs from David David’s wedding,” Clarke predicted.
    On May 23, 2015, David David, the son of Hugh David, Briny’s mayor for 36 years, married his longtime partner,   Edith Behm, in the Briny clubhouse, just north of the spot where Miller’s mansion once stood.
    In between, the Library Ladies are archiving hundreds of snapshots, newspaper clippings and Briny minutiae.
    Here’s a 1937 photograph of the future town, back when it was still Ward Miller’s strawberry farm.
    Here’s a 1958 article from The Miami Herald detailing an offer for Briny’s 500 families to buy the park from Miller’s son, Paul. Selling price, $1.5 million.
    And here’s a joyous “Proclamation” inviting all residents to attend a ceremonial burning of the $350,000 mortgage on March 21, 1961.
    “I enjoy this so much,” said Dietzel. “I’m not into tracking my own family through the ages, but I think it’s nice we’re doing this for future generations.”
    Some of what they find is mundane. Fading snapshots of long-gone Brinyites smiling for a Kodak at social events back in the 1950s and ’60s. The men sport garish jackets, the women in white gloves and fur stoles.
    And some of what they find is momentous.
    An entire binder will house photos and memories from the 1964 hurricane season, when two storms and a freak tornado tore the park apart.
    First came Cleo, on Aug. 27, and then Isbell.
    Residents were battening down for that second storm about 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 14, when a tornado roared through the park, leaving trailers toppled and rubble behind.
    In October, Phyllis Boykin recounted the drama in The Briny Bugle:
    “Les and Fay Jordan were hauling down their awning. All of a sudden without warning Fay was picked up by the impetuous, rampant wind and dropped several feet away. Les grabbed her, threw her to the ground and fell on top of her, holding her immovable.
    “Les looked up while holding Fay and saw huge pieces of trailer flying over his head.”
    The Library Ladies are cataloging the photos that capture that destruction, including one of the Jordans’ lawn mower hanging atop a power pole.
    “I’ve never been through a hurricane,” said Gross, pondering that lawn mower, “so these are kind of scary.”
    Nearby, Atlee spoke up.
    “My grandparents bought here in 1958,” she said, “so my mother visited here when she was pregnant with me. I was coming to Briny before I was born. It’s important to preserve this.”
    And so, for four or five hours every Friday afternoon, the Library Ladies gather to do that.
    So far, they’ve gone through 11 of those 35 fading and bug-infested scrapbooks from the days of colorful sports coats, white gloves and furs.
    “We’ve made peace with the fact that we may not be done this summer,” Clarke said.”

Bridge tender Charlie Holbrook chats with Hengameh Omidi, a visitor from Iran (center),

and her friend Monika Damico of Delray Beach as they crossed the Atlantic Avenue Bridge on a recent afternoon.

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

A plaque honoring the construction of the  63-year-old Atlantic Avenue Bridge.

By Lona O’Connor

    A couple of years ago, on a trip to New York, Charlie Holbrook and his wife, Theresa, visited the Museum of Modern Art. He stopped to watch a grainy black-and-white filmstrip of hundred-year-old trains, steam-operated machinery and bridges opening and closing.
    “Theresa went and looked at other stuff, but I sat there for a half an hour, mesmerized,” said Holbrook.
    The Gaithersburg, Md., couple moved to Delray Beach last year, a lifelong dream of Holbrook, who had never forgotten when his family visited Miami Beach for his sixth birthday. Though born and raised in the Washington, D.C., area, he longed for a subtropical climate.
    On a walk last winter, he spotted a small “help wanted” sign on the Atlantic Avenue Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway.  The sign sought part-time bridge tenders.
    “Retirees and seniors welcome to apply,” it said.
    It was the perfect post-retirement job for the man fascinated by machinery.
    A real estate agent who drove a mail truck at night, Holbrook was not bothered by the overnight shift he was first assigned to. Soon after, however, he moved to his current 2-10 p.m. slot. Below his compact office is a complex system of gears and counterweights that grind into action when he pushes a button.
    After training sessions and working alongside an experienced bridge tender, Holbrook was ready for his first solo shift.
    That, of course, had to be the day the bridge would not open.
    “They tell you in training, ‘Don’t panic, just relax,’ ” said Holbrook. He called the bridge mechanics and radioed the sailboat captain waiting below for the bridge to open. They were able to fix the bridge in about 20 minutes.
    To impatient boaters, cyclists, pedestrians and drivers, it may seem as if the bridge takes at least 20 minutes every time. To them, the bridge tender is a demigod, all-powerful, choosing arbitrarily to delay their progress to the beach or to work.
    In fact, as Holbrook is quick to point out, the whole open-close cycle takes only six minutes, occurs only twice an hour, and then only if there are boats waiting. If the delay is any longer than that, it would be because a large number of boats has lined up to pass under the open bridge. That could be as many as 10 or so during the busy winter months, often including the Lady Atlantic and Lady Delray cruise boats.
    Though small, the bridge tender’s working quarters suffice to his needs, with air conditioning, a bathroom, microwave and refrigerator, and an incomparable  view of the Intracoastal Waterway.
    In the summer, when boat traffic diminishes, he can listen to boaters and the other bridge tenders on the radio channel and keep bridge records up-to-date.
    Once in a while, though, there are magical moments. He recalls his first glimpse of a massive dark shape lumbering north.
    It was dark, about 9:30 p.m., when Holbrook got his first breathtaking nighttime view of a tug barge, the workhorse of the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic coastline.
    Looking south toward the Linton Avenue bridge, Holbrook could see the lights that outlined the dark shape of the enormous barge slowly heading his way. He could hear the captain saying on the radio, “We require an opening,” as if any bridge tender would say no to a floating behemoth that was 75 yards long, 40 feet wide and transporting a 30-foot-long piece of piping so large a man could stand up fully inside it.
    “It’s eerie to see it coming,” said Holbrook. Even with the bridge raised, a barge that size has about eight feet of clearance on either side as it goes under.
    Though the bridge tender’s job includes plenty of solitude, it’s not necessarily lonely. Even though he has security cameras on his control panel, Holbrook must also emerge from his office and check the bridge for pedestrians before he raises the span. After just a few months on the job, he has now become a familiar figure to those who cross the bridge regularly.
    “People wave and honk, I see friends of mine. I watch the waterway, the paddleboards going up and down.  And it’s a thrill to see that bridge go up, every time.”

By Jane Smith

    The aroma of fried chicken wafted through the casino ballroom as Lake Worth residents checked in to a “courteous conversation” about future plans for the Lake Worth Casino complex.
    A partner in the historic Sundy House in Delray Beach who also co-owns the historic Gulfstream Hotel in downtown Lake Worth paid for the spread. Fresh fruits, crudités and dip, slices of wrap sandwiches, cheeses and bottled water were served during the Aug. 24 dinner hours. String music played on the sound system while the residents were processed. Three Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office deputies stood guard.
    Residents had to submit questions in advance and show their driver licenses before they could enter the ballroom. Then they received wrist bands. Nearly 200 residents were seated by 5:20 p.m. Renting the ballroom cost at least $168, which also includes the tables and 200 chairs.
    “We are here to listen,” said Steve Michael, a principal of Hudson Holdings, sponsor of the event. “We do have a large vested interest in the Gulfstream Hotel, but we are not here to present our project but to let the community talk.”
    Michael told the residents that the code issues the company had in Lake Worth were cleared up, which was verified by city staff. To quell questions about the Gulfstream Hotel, which was purchased in May 2014 but remains closed, he said Hudson Holdings  submitted preliminary plans that day. The city has a rezoning application asking for permission to tie the Gulfstream and six other parcels together.
    About half of the residents there said they wanted improvements at the beach complex. Their ideas included: Build a new, deeper swimming pool without a wall so that when you are at the pool you can view the ocean; remove the parking from atop the complex and build a parking garage below that has green touches; and create a shuttle service from the downtown.
    The civil discourse of that session contrasted with the one held July 30 when Hudson Holdings and Anderson & Carr first presented their plans to an overflow crowd at a City Commission meeting.
    Hudson Holdings proposed a 22,000-square-foot addition that would include a mix of retail and restaurants on the first floor, 7,000-square-foot ballroom on the second floor, a new public pool and pool deck, covered valet drop-off and a two-story parking garage on the lower level.
    Paul Snitkin, of Anderson & Carr’s West Palm Beach office, said his client wanted to create a high-end Mediterranean restaurant in the unfinished space, take over the banquet hall and sell soups and sandwiches at the top of the stairs. The romantic restaurant would feature a “public table” section where people could sit together and with Lake Worth memorabilia on the walls.
    The meeting was so divisive that the mayor took a break from the dais and even the level headed City Manager Michael Bornstein said he was disappointed in his 3½ years in Lake Worth that he described as a “city that lacks trust.”
    On Aug. 25, city commissioners held a budget workshop. No one mentioned the plans for the beach complex.
    Commissioners reached a consensus to hire more lifeguards to staff the beach additional hours, add two part-time custodians, make the parking technician full-time, add $100,000 to its annual renewal and replacement fund, create a two-tier system for parking with summer and winter rates, and lengthen the utility bond repayment to 14 years.
 

By Mary Thurwachter

    The Lantana Town Council will get its first look at the site plan for Water Tower Commons, the 73-acre development planned for the former A.G. Holley tuberculosis hospital, on Sept. 28. But the Greater Lantana Chamber of Commerce got a peek at plans during a July 31 gathering at Pearl’s Next Generation Restaurant.
    Planner Ken Tuma of Urban Design Kilday Studios said that the old water tower on Lantana Road will be the centerpiece of the development and the tower will be bathed in blue LED lights.
    The 127-foot tower “may not be the coolest thing during the day,” he said, but “at night it will be amazing.”
    Some elements of interest include a traffic light at the proposed entrance on Lantana Road, a 40,000-square-foot grocery store on the northwest corner of the project, a waterfall-like structure on the main street and lots of landscaping, including four to six trellises with bougainvillea.
    A proposed gas station would require a special exception from the town’s code.
    Developers said Water Tower Commons would create an estimated 700 retail jobs and bring the town about $1 million a year in property taxes.
    Residential units will likely include apartments, condos and town homes. Stores and offices are also part of the mix.
    Tuma and the site plan came before the town’s Plan Review Committee on Aug. 18. Although no recommendations for approval were given, town staff did provide comments since the plan still lacked the meshing of commercial and residential that town officials have sought since developers Southeast Legacy Investments introduced plans at the beginning of the year.
    Headed by Kenco Communities’ Ken Endelson, Southeast Legacy coupled with Wexford Capital to pay $15.6 million to the state for the land a year ago.
    The tuberculosis hospital, owned by the state, closed in 2012.
    According to a memo to Tuma from David Thatcher, Lantana’s development services director, “on several occasions, the town has recommended that the applicants reconsider the overall design concept of the entire development to ensure integration of the residential and commercial activities as contemplated by the town’s comprehensive plan.”
    Thatcher said the proposed development should closely follow building regulations in the code rather than request many deviations.
    Willie Howard contributed to this report.

By Mary Thurwachter
    
    With bustling restaurants and shops along Lantana’s Ocean Avenue, parking has long been a problem. But a new lease agreement between Mario’s Ocean Avenue restaurant and the town for employee parking on a little-used town-owned lot on Third Street will give some relief.
    Restaurant owner Henry Olmino will pay the town $3,750 a year for exclusive use of the lot for his employees. The lot, next to Benny’s Seafood restaurant and west (across Dixie Highway and the railroad tracks) from Mario’s, will not be used for customer valet parking.
    The money will be used to help defray the town’s cost to repave the lot, a $29,440 expenditure agreed on last December. For a while, the town planned to use old parking meters from the beach on the lot, but neighbors complained and the idea of leasing the lot by one or more of the restaurants was brought up by council member Tom Deringer.
    Mayor Dave Stewart said he thought the lease was too low, but voted with other council members to approve the deal. Lantana Chamber of Commerce President Dave Arm told the council leasing the lot is “a terrific idea.”
    In other action during August, the Town Council:
    • Approved an extension of a lease agreement between the town and the Chamber for the property at 212 Iris Ave. for $1.
    • Reappointed Arthur Brooks as a regular member of the Planning Commission and Edward Shropshire and C. Lyn Tate as alternates.
    • Approved a $5,000-a-month agreement with Ballard Partners Inc. for lobbyist services. The lobbyists helped the town secure $1 million from the state last year toward moving and rebuilding ball fields from prime space on the A.G. Holley property. The developers agreed to pay another $2.5 million for the project. Ú

By Jane Smith
    
    Delray Beach city commissioners took these unanimous actions on Aug. 18 before voting on the iPic theater:
    • Approved the second reading of the historic structure move ordinance. Changes from the first reading include added criteria and submittal requirements for moving structures within a historic district or onto an individually designated property; added criteria for a historic structure move into a historic district or onto an individually designated property; and added language to allow staff to approve those requests administratively, provided they meet all zoning requirements, are not seeking relief of any kind and are not proposing  alterations to the structure.
    • Approved hiring Chicago Bridge & Iron Inc. for $78,843 to monitor the second year after beach replenishment, according to state of Florida permit requirements. The company will gather data onshore and offshore to help assess the performance of the beach replenishment and plan future projects.
    • Approved, as part of the consent agenda, adding three firms to help ease building permit crunch during peak times. The firms received three-year contracts with two one-year renewals. These firms were the lowest bidders: M.T. Causley, CAP Government Inc. and GFA International.

Candace Tamposi, principal at Sacred Heart School in Lake Worth,

surrounded by students. Previously, she was development director

at Rosarian Academy, then principal at St. Ann Catholic School in West Palm Beach.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

    Candace Tamposi, principal of Sacred Heart School in Lake Worth, knew she was going to be a principal when she was in high school.
    “My grandmother and her sister and brother were educators,” she said. “And my mother was an educator. I just followed in their footsteps.”
    Tamposi hails from Nashua, N.H., and now lives in Ocean Ridge. She began her career teaching kindergarten and third grade in Sun Valley, Idaho. She moved to Crystal River in 1981 with her family and took up a career in real estate development from 1981 to 1992. She returned to education after receiving her master’s in educational leadership from Nova Southeastern University. Her first principal’s position came at St. Ann Catholic School in West Palm Beach in 1992. She moved to Sacred Heart School in 2001, where she became principal two years later.
    Sacred Heart’s student population is around 250 and accommodates grades pre-K to eight. It has a benefactor-funded Montessori Academy.
    “Grades one through eight are co-ed,” Tamposi said. “The school has been here since 1944. The parish was founded by the Jesuits 100 years ago. Sacred Heart has set the bar very high in terms of technology. We’re an older school, but we’re completely renovated, top to bottom. And with that, we want to give the children a leading edge by using state-of-the-art technology from the ground up.”
    Most of the school’s textbooks are electronic, she said, yet it retains the essence of “a true Catholic school blended education,” combining the latest in technology with the hands-on care of a traditional school.
    “We have everything from a recording studio that includes the technology needed to write and record music with live instruments, to a TV station, to iPads in all grades,” Tamposi said. “This year we’re going to build a basketball, sports and music pavilion. We break ground on that in September.”
    One might think a school such as this would enroll only financially privileged students.
    Not so, Tamposi said.
    “Many of our children are low income and can get in through various scholarships,” she said. “And we have a whole program for children with learning differences. We look at Lake Worth and the community and have created a very special environment and a very inclusive environment. We also have a program for gifted children. Our graduates go to some of the area’s very best high schools ... then on to the best colleges, studying to be attorneys, engineers, doctors. We look at Sacred Heart as the school of the future.”
— Steven J. Smith

    Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
    A. I grew up in Nashua, N.H., and went to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, then on to the University of New Hampshire. My Catholic education had a huge impact on my goals, and it was always my dream to be a school principal.

    Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
    A. I was in real estate development for a while, but education is my home. Sacred Heart School almost failed six years ago, when the economy fell. We were close to closing our doors and were given only six weeks to turn things around. My pastor, Joseph Papes, and I made an appeal to the community and redesigned our vision for the school to be inclusive of children with learning differences and to allow children from low income and multicultural environments to come to a good school. We partnered with the state of Florida to step up McCabe Scholarships and we renovated our classrooms and started our campaign to build our new pavilion. It was the largest commitment I ever made and we turned the school around.

    Q. How did you choose to make your home in Ocean Ridge?
    A. I used to live on the island of Palm Beach. I was so impressed driving down the coast along A1A and saw this little tiny community where you could get a beautiful home on the water that you could never afford in Palm Beach.

    Q. What is your favorite part about living in Ocean Ridge?
    A. I live a block from the beach. It’s a pristine, beautiful community, with no commercial development. It’s a spectacular, best-kept secret. And I’ve watched it grow. I’ve enjoyed raising my children here, and my husband and I recently moved into the Yacht Club, which we love.

    Q. Did you ever get called to the principal’s office when you were in school? And what did you learn from it?
    A. I was a hellion in school. I went to an all-girl Catholic school. My biggest offense was I didn’t like to wear my skirts below my knee, so I would roll them up. The sisters were opposed to uniform violations, so I got in trouble for that. I was on a four-year academic scholarship, so they always reminded me I needed to walk the line — or else!

    Q. What book are you reading now?
    A. I just started The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins. I hope it’s good! My daughter, who lives in Los Angeles, and I are reading it at the same time. I recently finished The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, which I couldn’t put down.

    Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
    A. I love all kinds of music. My daughter, Ali Tamposi, is a songwriter. She co-wrote What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger) for Kelly Clarkson and got a Grammy nomination for that. So I’ve been a huge fan of music forever. Everything from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to rap to contemporary to jazz to symphonic. Even marching bands!

    Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
    A. “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela

    Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
    A. When I first came to St. Ann, I met a woman named Sister Carolyn Dowd, who is now celebrating 55 years of teaching and recently celebrated her 78th birthday. She’s still working with me. We’ve worked together for 25 years. She keeps me in check and doesn’t let me get away with murder! She makes sure I stay focused and on track.

    Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
    A. How about Meryl Streep? I think she can do anything.

Maya Kirie,12, takes a break at Aqua Crest pool

in Delray Beach. She swims for the East Coast Aquatic Club.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Steve Pike

    Maya Kirie gently pressed her head on the left shoulder of her mother, Joanna Malin.
    “She’s exhausted,’’ Malin said Aug. 22 after watching her daughter swim for two hours in the East Coast Aquatic Club’s swim-athon at the Lake Worth community pool.
    But if you know anything about Maya Kirie, a 12-year-old resident of the county pocket, you know she wouldn’t want it any other way.
    A sixth-grader at St. Joseph’s Episcopal School in Boynton Beach, Kirie has sped up the charts of the ECAC since she joined the club this past May after spending 2½ years at boarding school in her mother’s native England. So much so that she posted five personal-best times this past July at the Florida Gold Coast Junior Olympics in Plantation and has emerged as one of the ECAC’s most promising young swimmers.
    “Since she’s been back she’s really gotten into swimming like crazy,’’ said Malin, who achieved a personal best of her own Aug. 21 when she became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
    Kirie, by the way, raised more than $1,800 in the swim-athon. ECAC head coach John Steen Kjaerulff said the club expected to raise between $13,000 and $15,000 overall, which goes to support its equipment and activities, which includes an invitational meet this November in the Dominican Republic. The final tally won’t be known until after Sept. 4.
    “I couldn’t imagine not swimming,’’ said Kirie, who practices two hours per day, six days per week primarily at Aqua Crest pool in Delray Beach under the tutelage of coach Barbara Bertram. “It’s very important to me.’’
    Kirie’s power in the water belies her 5-foot-1, 105-pound frame, which makes her ideal for swimming the “long’’ course, 50-meter and longer races versus the shorter 25-yard races.
    “I prefer long course,’’ Kirie said. “It’s just different and you don’t have as many flip-turns. But I like the short course, too. After the long course, you realize how short the pool really is.’’
    Kirie is one of 160 competitive swimmers for ECAC, which Kjaerulff founded two years ago. Like Kirie, it hasn’t taken much time for the club to make its mark. The club’s girls and boys teams each finished second at the FGC Junior Olympics — good enough for a combined second-place overall finish.
    Kjaerulff, a native of the Canary Islands, was a member of three state championship swim teams at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton and was an All-America at Florida Atlantic University, so there is no doubt he knows swimming and swimming talent. But he admits that Kirie took him a bit by surprise.
    “When Joanna brought Maya for tryout, I could see she could definitely swim,’’ Kjaerulff said. “I was hesitant but thought she could pick up quickly. Little did I know it was quicker than I thought it would be.
    “She can swim pretty much anything and everything. She has a very smooth stroke but is very raw because she is new to competitive swimming. There is huge room for improvement, but she is improving daily.’’

Loïc Autret at his Delray Beach bakery.
A delicate French peach tart on an almond cream bed,

finished with lightly toasted almonds and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

    At Loïc Autret’s French bakery in Delray Beach, the baker displays pastries, breads and sandwiches as works of art. He elevates his croissants in baskets. He wants the customers to see the various colors of the pastries that indicate they are handmade.
    Presentation matters, he insists. His breads and pastries need to look as good as they taste.
    “People love food in Delray,” he said, when asked why he wanted to sell at the city’s GreenMarket.
    “I set up my booth so that the customer sees what I see,” he said. It is why he takes time with his displays, a skill he honed while working at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach.
    One Saturday morning at the market, he looked out to see 60 people in line and started to cry. To him, that line validated his bakery business.
    Autret even created his own hairstyle with shaved sides and a curlicue on the top that he calls “Loïc Style.” He wants people to focus on him and not the scars from an accident in Cambodia when he was 20 and in the French Army. About 15 years ago, his hair stylist began highlighting the curlicue.
    More than 10 years ago, Autret switched careers. He was a paratrooper in the French Army when he fell in love with an American woman who lived in Florida. He studied French baking and pastry making at the Ecole de Gregoire Ferrandi, the French school of the culinary arts, before moving to Florida and marrying the woman of his dreams.
    His bakery, opened in March, sits south of Plastridge Insurance and straddles Northeast Fifth and Sixth avenues with parking on each side.
    He and his business partner, Christian Backenstrass, have 10 employees and sell variations of croissants including Belgian chocolate and almond cream along with French fruit tarts, baguettes, specialty breads —including Kalamata olive loaves — and sandwiches on baguettes.
    Through a glass wall, Autret can be seen putting on the finishing touches on his “52 Shades of Loïc” with exploding dark chocolate inside and topped with white chocolate drops that melt on the hot cookie.
    “Dark chocolate is an aphrodisiac,” he said.
    The bakery has a selection of high-top tables for in-store dining and an array of outside tables for al fresco eating when the weather cooperates.
    Coffee and teas are also served. Its Marie-Antoinette Tea is brewed using a French press. Autret said water is heated to a near-boil and a French press is used to show the black Ceylon tea leaves, apple pieces and rose petals floating, as if “in an aquarium.”
    Backenstrass said he met Autret at the GreenMarket and their kids attend Spanish River Christian School in Boca Raton. He knew Autret was an authentic French baker after tasting his croissants.

Loïc Autret French Bakery, 814 NE Sixth Ave., Delray Beach, www.loicautretbakery.com, 266-3516; also at the Delray Summer GreenMarket, eastern part of the Tennis Center parking lot, 201 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach, through September. During winter months, Loïc Autret has booths at the Delray Beach and Boca Raton green markets.