By Mary Thurwachter

    Lantana has had the same tax rate for seven years and that won’t change this year. The rate will remain at $3.24 per $1,000 of taxable value.
    “That’s something the people should be proud of,” said Mayor Dave Stewart at the town’s July 13 meeting.
    Because property values increased by 10.7 percent, residents will pay more taxes this year. For example, Stewart, who lives on Hypoluxo Island, paid $1,190 in town taxes last year and will pay $1,201 this year.
    Anticipated property tax revenues for 2016 are $2.47 million, which is an increase of $236,003 over 2015.
    The town’s health insurance cost (including dental insurance) is projected to increase by 16 percent, to $1.14 million.
    Employees are not expected to receive cost of living raises this year due to a stagnant consumer price index, but merit pay raises are anticipated, based on evaluations. And, at its July 27 meeting, the town approved a one-time $1,100 pre-tax payment for employees in recognition of their dedication.
    Capital requests range from $35,000 for beach park playground replacement to $83,769 for two new police cars. Computer equipment, an air conditioner for the computer room, landscaping and irrigation projects and improvements to Sportsman’s Park projects (seawall and paving) are also on the list.
    The council will hold public budget hearings at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 16 and Sept. 28 in Town Council chambers.
    In other news:
    • The Town Council welcomed Lantana’s new director of operations, Linda Brien. Her position is a new one, created by combining the public works and utilities departments. Brien began work on July 13. She has more than 25 years’ experience in public utilities and had been program administrator for the Florida Department of Environmental Production for 12 years. Her salary is $88,071.
    • Town officials received a check for $750,000, the second of three installments to build a new sports complex to replace the prime space it occupied at the old A.G. Holley property. The new complex will have three baseball fields and two soccer fields built on 11 acres off North Eighth Street behind the former hospital site. The money came from Southeast Legacy, developers of the Water Tower Commons on the site of the old tuberculosis hospital.

Lantana
Proposed tax rate: $3.24 per $1,000 of taxable value*
2014-15 tax rate: $3.24 per $1,000 of taxable value
Change in property value: 10.7 percent increase
Total budget (operating and capital): $17.03 million
Public hearings: 5:30 p.m. Sept. 16 and Sept. 28 in Town Council Chambers
*Tax rate may be lowered, but not raised at the September hearings.

    Boynton Beach’s Fire Rescue Department recently received a $37,332 grant from Palm Beach County Emergency Management. The department will use the money to replace or update three battery-powered stretchers, which have been in service for the past seven years. The new state-of-the-art power stretchers will feature a more robust battery system and additional safety features for patients.
    The department also received a $33,800 grant from the Florida Department of Transportation to enhance its EMS data collection ability. The money will be used to purchase electronic patient care reporting software and hardware, as well as establish an electronic EMS data collection system.
    The latter is intended to provide consistent submission of EMS incident data to the Bureau of Emergency Medical Oversight Pre-Hospital System for state compliance to the National EMS Information System. The ePCR system will streamline the documentation process for paramedics in the field and enhance their ability to extract patient data while establishing an electronic-based EMS data collection system to ensure a more accurate EMS billing process.
    Boynton Beach provides fire rescue services to Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes.

— Jane Smith

Nancy Boczon was able to find a few mysteries.

BELOW: The current bookmobile is scheduled to be replaced later this year.

Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

    On Nov. 8, 2013, the Palm Beach County Bookmobile made its debut stop at the Ocean Ridge Town Hall, filled with books, CDs, DVDs and high hopes.
    A year later, the books, CDs and DVDs were still there, but the hopes had failed to soar.
    When the library reluctantly decided to eliminate the Ocean Ridge stop last November, the only regular borrower was Briny Breezes council President Sue Thaler.
    “I read like a fiend and went to the bookmobile every two weeks when it came last year,” she explained. “I was crushed when they told me the Ocean Ridge stop was being discontinued.”
    Why not come to Briny? she asked Ron Glass, the county’s outreach librarian, and beginning May 8, they did.
   “They were able to start even sooner than we asked,” Thaler said, “and the turnout on the first day here was amazing. I think at one point there was a line out the door.”
    Ocean Ridge’s loss was Briny’s gain.
    “We just didn’t get the turnout in Ocean Ridge, but here it’s been great,” Glass reports. “There’s a small-town feel to Briny, so the word gets out. From our very first day, they were here.”
    Every other Friday at 1:30 p.m., the 40-foot bus parks beside the community center for a 45-minute visit, and judging by the turnout July 17, the service isn’t likely to be canceled for lack of interest.
    “This is the noisiest library I’ve ever been in,” Brinyite Nancy Boczon marveled as she waited to check out mysteries by Janet Evanovich and Mary Higgins Clark. “The only trouble is, you come here on Friday and spend your whole weekend reading. But it gets everybody together for a few minutes.”
    Briny Breezes is the latest of 43 sites where the bookmobile brings its offerings.
    “We carry 1,500 items on the bus and have another 1,500 in the warehouse,” says Glass. “We swap them out depending on the sites we’re visiting that day.”
    For the route’s five elementary schools, Glass stocks up on children’s books. For Briny, not so much. Here, he makes sure to carry DVDs, books on CD and large-print editions.
    “Lately, we’re also making an effort to carry more newer titles,” he adds.
    Kathy Gross, picking up DVDs of Interstellar and Horrible Bosses, praised the bookmobile’s pre-order service. “I can order books or DVDs and they bring them,” she said. “I love the simplicity of it.”
    The arrival of the bookmobile means Briny Breezes can now boast two libraries, but town librarian Donna Clarke isn’t threatened by the competition.
    “You know what?” she said. “There’s so many readers here there’s enough to go around. We have plenty of business.”
    Glass concurs. “We’re the piggyback for them,” he says.
    And while the bookmobile hauls about 150 DVDs, plus a book of titles from which users can order others, the town library has seen its own collection burgeon to nearly 300 since Clarke arrived in January 2014.
    But while the bookmobile outreach will be visiting Briny indefinitely, the bookmobile itself will not. With 104,000 miles of mobile booking, the current, 2006 bookmobile is ready for retirement, Glass said, and a brand-new bus has been ordered and should be in service by May 2016.
    “The new bus will be a Bluebird, like a school bus, and 4 feet shorter, but with the same layout. We’re only going to lose two shelves and it will be better for parking in smaller spaces more easily.”
    For which Holly McCarthy, checking out the novel The Boston Girl, by Anita Diamant, and the DVD of Boyhood, is grateful.
    “I do love this,” she told Glass. “Thank you for coming to Briny.”

    The Palm Beach County Bookmobile will visit the Briny Breezes Community Center from 1:30 to 2:15 p.m. on these Fridays: Aug. 14 and 28, Sept. 11 and 25 and Oct. 9 and 23. On Nov. 6, the stop will expand to one hour. Anyone with a county library card can use the service.

Executive Director Susan Caruso stands in the outdoor play area

under construction at Sunflower Creative Arts in Delray Beach.

Taylor Jones/The Coastal Star

    Susan Caruso has loved teaching since she was a youngster. “When I was in second grade I was the kid who volunteered to help the kindergarten teachers,” she recalls.
    These days, the 62-year-old Boca Raton resident has come full circle. Caruso, the founder and executive director of Sunflower Creative Arts, is getting ready to begin her school’s 23rd year. And the school — which offers children of all ages and their families hands-on learning opportunities through play, nature and the arts — is moving into a new, larger facility in Delray Beach. There is an open house planned for Aug. 8, and classes for children from infancy through age 13 — as well as parents — will begin Aug. 24.   
    The new venue will include sensory, vegetable, butterfly and edible gardens and a plethora of trees. “Our renovations will allow us to be a licensed child care facility while keeping the beautiful, warm heart of the historic home,” she says about the venue that was hand-built in 1949.   
    “Our program offerings will more than triple to meet the needs of many more families. We will have one of the first nature playgrounds in Southeast Florida and a special wing with its own mini nature playground for our parent-and-child and after-school programs.”   
    That makes it even easier to continue the school’s mission, “to give children the freedom to discover their unique passions and the support necessary for each one to develop a strong personal voice.”
    The arts are an important part of Caruso’s life as well.
    “I taught flute lessons all through high school and college and was very involved in band, orchestra, jazz band and musical pit orchestra as well as theater in high school,” says Caruso, who graduated cum laude from the University of Miami with a bachelor’s in music with certification in education.  
She plays the flute and also enjoys theater, films, travel, museums, history, gardening, yoga, architecture and food. And, for those who thought they knew this mother of two: “I played a wicked tenor sax and piccolo in a Latin dance band in Queens in the late ’70s.”
— Linda Haase
 
    Q. Where did you grow up and go to school and how did it influence you?
    A. I grew up in Glassboro, a small college town in southern New Jersey close to Philadelphia, the Jersey shore and the Pine Barrens. Lots of trekking around in woods, farm stands with incredible tomatoes and peaches, the freedom and responsibility of walking to school every day no matter what the weather created my strong connection to and love of nature. I attended fairly progressive public schools due to the college and had quite a few exceptional teachers who were wonderful mentors.

    Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
    A. In New York I worked in music publishing and retail at Charles Hanson, Carl Fischer and Frank Music. I also played flute and guitar duo and chamber music in Central Park, Greenwich Village, SoHo and many different venues in the city. Before Sunflower, I taught music enrichment and Mommy and Me classes at a dozen different preschools in Broward and Palm Beach County. I was the music director at Pine Tree Camps at Lynn University for eight years. I am most proud of creating Sunflower Creative Arts and couldn’t be more thrilled that we now have a home of our own in Delray Beach.

    Q. What are some highlights of your life?
    A. Spending four years in my 20s living and working in Manhattan, five springs in Paris and being the mother of two wonderful sons.

    Q. What are your biggest challenges [at Sunflower Creative Arts]?
    A. Making sure every family and potential volunteer who would love our unique philosophy is able to find us! Also, now that we have our own space and the ability to meet the needs of so many more families, I want to grow our scholarship fund so that financial status never gets in the way of a family participating.

    Q. Who have been your mentors?
    A. There are so many, but I would have to put Bev Bos at the top of my list. Her advocacy for children and her Roseville Community Preschool in Sacramento nurtured and inspired me to create a truly child-centered play, nature and arts-based program for children and their parents here in South Florida more than 22 years ago.

    Q. How did you choose to make your home in Boca Raton?
    A. Seventeen years ago I fell in love with a wonderful Chicagoan who just happened to live in Boca. I’ve lived here since I sold my little house in Delray in 2008. Waking up each morning to the sun rising over the ocean always amazes me.

    Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?
    A. When I need to get something done it can range from Bach to Stravinsky to Dave Matthews. For relaxation and creativity I love to play my silver flute and improvise on my Japanese bamboo flute.

    Q. If someone made a movie of your life, who would you like to play you and why?
    A. Helen Mirren or Meryl Streep, because they are fantastic actors and can portray strong women and their convictions.

    Q. Who or what makes you laugh?
    A. Children of all ages playing freely, running, climbing, pretending and getting messy outside always makes me smile. And Mark Rylance’s portrayal of Olivia in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Absolutely hysterical and brilliant.
    Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?   
    A. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” — Socrates

    The school offers two programs free to the public. Regular tuition ranges from $204-$11,599 per year depending on sessions chosen. An open house will be held 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 8 at 227 N. Dixie Blvd., Delray Beach. For more information, call 482-3412 or visit www.SunflowerCreativeArts.org.

Owner Rick Janke (right) takes a break against the bar as a worker sands the hardwood floor.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Thom Smith

    Life in sleepy Delray Beach was a lot slower in 1953, and a lot simpler. A lot of water has passed under the Intracoastal Bridge since then—and two blocks to the west it was beer and liquor as the Sail Inn became a popular “I’ll be home in a little while” waypoint after a hard day on the job.
    George “Busch” Boulevard — the Sail crowd’s  preferred spelling — was a barely traveled Northeast Eighth Street. No big church back then. Just a few shops, a gas station up at the corner. Elvis was just gyrating out of puberty. Two-piece bathing suits still drew questioning looks.   
    The Sail Inn wasn’t exactly Cheers. No granite bar, no ostentatious liquor stock. The bathrooms were a tight squeeze and the TV didn’t always work. It reeked of smoke. But it did have a spirit about it.
    Take the Sail Inn’s legendary “Santa Bunny” — the intentionally mistimed Christmas decoration — a giant, Harvey-sized stuffed rabbit in a red suit planted out front next to the street on a toilet. The bunny hopped away for good a few years ago. Code enforcement orders.
    Government regulations have become more stringent, mushrooming from a few pages to encyclopedic, and mandating clean facilities, safe electrical wiring, all-new plumbing, handicapped access, clean water and, especially, clean air.
    In June, owner Rick Janke shut it down. But it’s only temporary. Call it a rehabilitative hiatus. And he’s going all out.
    “We’ve ripped out everything, filled three dumpsters,” Janke said proudly as he rolled paint on the new walls. “The bar is brand new (glistening navy blue). The bathrooms are twice as big. We now have drinking fountains and they can be reached from a wheelchair. I told them I would give bottled water to anyone who wanted it, but we had to put in the fountains.”
    When the Sail Inn was built, “I like Ike” was a catchphrase. The nation was wrapping up the war in Korea, its first face-off against the “communist menace.” The world had entered the nuclear age and any moment Soviet bombers could be reshaping South Florida into a 20th-century Atlantis.
    “This place was built to be a bomb shelter,” Janke said. “All the walls and the roof are concrete. I only live a couple of blocks away, but anytime we have a storm, I come here.”
    Customers will now be able to see the original ceiling; the interior walls are brand new  —  and for the first time in decades, clean  — but bare. All the old photos are gone: too infused with smoke, but Janke expects the walls eventually to be covered by new photos. “We scraped a ton of nicotine off the walls,” Janke said. “Ugh. Now we’ve built a smoking area outside.”
    Keeping with tradition, the Sail Inn will not prepare food, but hungry customers are encouraged to order in.
    The Sail Inn has attracted its share of characters over the decades, including actor Danny Aiello, race driver Geoff Brabham, ex-mayors and ex-cons and Palm Beachers in their velvet Prince Albert slippers from Stubbs & Wootton. One, Bob DeMario, fell so hard for the Sail Inn in the late ’80s that he bought it. He later sold it to one of his bartenders, Janke.
    Janke will continue the Sail’s involvement with local charities; the music —  sometimes recorded, sometimes live — will be back;  and with space available, dancing will be encouraged, even if it occasionally turns a little racy.
    With a target date of mid-August, loyal “Sail-ers” are already asking about a grand reopening. “I tell ’em it’s gonna be a hundred [re-openings],” Janke said. “That’s what it cost to fix it up, a hundred grand. But it’ll still be the same old stinking place … just without the stink.”

Sabrina Amelung poses outside The Monogram Closet in Delray Beach.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Scott Simmons

    You could call Sabrina Amelung a Delray Beach pioneer.
    Twelve years ago, long before Pineapple Grove had evolved into the hip area it is today, she opened The Monogram Closet, specializing in stitching initials onto clothing and accessories.
    Come Aug. 3, she hopes to open in a 1930 cottage that was moved to Delray Beach’s next retail frontier, the West Settlers Historic District, on Northwest Fifth Avenue, about two blocks west of the Tennis Center and a block north of Atlantic Avenue.
    Amelung is banking on the change.
    “Pineapple Grove didn’t look like it does now,” she said.
    Many of the mixed-use buildings that now line Northeast Second Avenue were mere dreams in the minds of builders.
    And there was a lot more parking.
    Now?
    “We hear it every day. ‘Can you hurry because I’m double-parked?’ ” she said.
    And she’d have to remind customers that you can’t hurry custom orders.
    That includes monograms on purses, tote bags, shirts, baby blankets — just about anything onto which you can stitch the fanciful initials.
    It seems like a natural for Delray Beach and the towns along the barrier island, but The Monogram Closet was one of the first stores to specialize in personalizing apparel in southern Palm Beach County.
    “When I opened, no one knew about us. There was nothing around me in Pineapple Grove. We just kind of cultivated our customers,” Amelung said.
    And now?
    “All day long, we sell baby items. Monogramming tends to be more of a preppy look, but even if you’re not preppy, people still like to use it on baby blankets and totes,” she said.
    “What’s super hot? Initials on purses, more so than on tote bags. Walking around with your initial purse is very hot now.”
    Of course, that’s what Amelung carries as well.
    “I carry everything I sell on me at all times,” she said laughing.
    The shortcut Amelung took from Pineapple Grove to hop onto Interstate 95 led her to the cottage she is transforming into a store.
    “I kept cutting through that little strip just to jump on 95. Those two little cottages are cute. I saw a for-lease sign. It was a CRA property and they had done it head to toe,” she said. “I liked everything they said about rezoning the area.”
    The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency has been working to revitalize the Atlantic Avenue corridor between Swinton Avenue and I-95. This building was part of that effort.
    “I would have signed as long a lease as they would given me,” Amelung said. Her current lease for the CRA-owned building is four years, with options.
    After all, it is the options — and word of mouth — that have kept The Monogram Closet going for 12 years.
    “I had a lady pop in yesterday. She had flown in from Baltimore. She had seen a tote bag that was monogrammed and asked the lady where she got it. And the lady very nicely told her,” Amelung said.
    And just like that, The Monogram Closet gained a new customer.

    The Monogram Closet opens Aug. 3 at 182 NW Fifth Ave., Delray Beach. For details, call 921-0236 or visit www.monogramcloset.com.

By Dan Moffett
    South Palm Beach Town Council members are turning to an old friend and neighbor for help in finding a town manager who fits their community.
    Kurt Bressner, who from 2000 to 2011 was Boynton Beach’s town manager, now works as a senior adviser for the Washington-based International City/County Management Association.
    Bressner and other retired municipal officials in the group donate their time and experience to help local governments solve problems. And South Palm Beach is looking to them for all the help it can get right now.
    Council members thought they had a town manager for the long haul when they hired Jim Pascale from Princeton, N.J., earlier this year. But after three months on the job, he resigned in June.
    Pascale, 63, says he essentially was forced out by town officials who asked him for innovative ideas and then turned against him when he produced them.
    “I began to be shunned by the elected officials,” Pascale wrote in an email to The Coastal Star. “Overnight, I became, ‘radioactive.’ They just wanted me, and my recommendations, to go away. They got their wish.”
    Mayor Bonnie Fischer said Pascale “just didn’t understand” what was important to the town and its residents. Vice Mayor Joe Flagello says it was Pascale who came forward, admitted the relationship wasn’t working and offered to leave.
    “He told town officials it was best for the town and best for him to go,” Flagello said. Now the council is committed to undoing the damage, he said, and getting the right person for the job.
    “We’ve got a pretty good available pool of candidates,” Flagello said. “I don’t think it will take many months to get someone in here.”
    Four possibilities remain from the group the council interviewed along with Pascale late last year: Mark Kutney of Loxahatchee Groves, Robert Kellogg of Sewall’s Point, James Drumm of Zephyrhills and Kenneth Sauer, formerly of Haines City. Linda Stumpf, Manalapan’s town manager who had been in the running, signed a three-year contract to stay in her current position last month.
    Bressner said, with ICMA’s help screening and advising, South Palm Beach could have its position filled before the start of the tourist season.
    It’s a safe bet the next town manager won’t talk about dissolving the town, replacing the Police Department or spending millions on park space — as Pascale did.
    “When I was hired I was told they were looking for ‘a fresh set of eyes,’ ” he said. “I zealously fulfilled their wishes, working feverishly, day and night, seven days a week. They got what they paid for, and much more.”
    Pascale said when some residents objected to his brainstorming, council members gave him no support and, worse, shunned him.
    “They developed feet of clay when a vocal minority voiced their objections before the public review process even began,” he said. “I was never told to slow down or stay away.”
    Pascale says the town can’t go on ignoring its problems and deficiencies. “My separation from South Palm Beach will allow the town to go back to its political leadership style of kicking-the-can-down-the-road,” he said. “But it will only be a temporary respite. Sooner or later, the recommendations I proposed will be publicly addressed. It is inevitable.”
    In other business, on July 28 council members unanimously approved keeping the town’s tax rate at $4.32 per $1,000 of assessed taxable value. South Palm Beach has had the same millage rate for the last seven years, despite losing half its property value during the 2008 Florida real estate crash.

South Palm Beach
Proposed tax rate: $4.32 per $1,000 of taxable value
2014-15 tax rate: $4.32 per $1,000 of taxable value
Change in property value: 5.4 percent increase
Total budget (operating and capital): $1.84 million
Public hearings: 5:01 p.m. Sept. 10 and 6:15 p.m. Sept. 22 at Town Hall.

Altamonte Springs-based LeCesse Development Corp.’s 500 Ocean broke ground July 9 on the southwest corner of Federal Highway and Ocean Avenue. The project, to be built in phases, will comprise 341 apartments, 13,300 square feet of retail space and 6,600 square feet of office space, with the first part expected to be completed in the summer of 2016. In exchange for $4.49 million in incentives over the next 10 years, the developer will build the apartments to a special green building certification and provide three electric vehicle charger stations as well as include office space. The money will come from tax revenue created from the construction. ABOVE: (l-r) Boynton Beach City Commissioner Mike Fitzpatrick, Vice Mayor Joseph Casello, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jonathan Porges, Boynton Beach Mayor Jerry Taylor, Community Redevelopmant Agency board member Woodrow Hay, CRA Executive Director Vivian Brooks and MSA Architects' George Mouriz turn dirt with ceremonial shovels at the groundbreaking.

Taylor Jones/The Coastal Star; rendering provided

By Christine Davis

    In line with votes cast by Coastal Living magazine’s readers and website visitors, Delray Beach ranked third on its list of “The 10 Happiest Seaside Towns.”
    Here’s what Coastal Living’s July/August issue has to say about Delray Beach: “Talk about a place that has its priorities in order. At the heart of this fun-loving city of 61,231 are two miles of gloriously white-sand public beach where sky blue cabanas and loungers stand ready for rental — a bit of Côte d’Azur meets Old Florida. But there’s nothing snooty about Delray. Enjoying the influences of tony Palm Beach 24 miles to the north and urbane Miami 50 miles to the south, the city has quietly grown its own sense of culture, including a lively nightlife that parties on weekends, an up-and-coming arts district, a world-class tennis facility, beautiful Japanese gardens, and a seashell museum.”
                                    
    Crane’s Beach House Boutique Hotel & Luxury Villas, 82 Gleason St., Delray Beach, has launched its sixth annual series of Thursday Fun-Raisers to benefit local nonprofit organizations. Open to the public, and held from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the hotel’s Tiki Bar, each event is $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Attendees will each receive one free drink ticket with additional drinks available at happy hour prices.
    Crane’s will also provide an array of hors d’oeuvres and treats from leading local restaurants, and live music will be performed. The first for this season is scheduled for Sept. 3 and will benefit the Boca Raton Museum of Art with food from Cabana El Rey. The Sept. 17 Fun-Raiser will benefit Plumosa School of the Arts, and the food will be provided by Papa’s Tapas, Delray Beach. Stay tuned for October and November Fun-Raisers.
                                    
    Taste your way through Delray Beach during Downtown Delray Beach Development Authority’s 7th annual Tastemakers of Delray Beach, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Aug. 5 and 6. Purchase a passport for $30 and enjoy cuisine paired with a beverage from 50 Ocean, Burger Fi, Cabana El Rey, Caffe Luna Rosa, Caffe Martier, Deck 84, El Camino, FY&I Yogurt, Lemongrass Asian Bistro, Mastino at Solita, Max’s Harvest, Mellow Mushroom, Mussel Beach, Smoke BBQ, Taverna Opa, The Office, Vic & Angelo’s and Ziree Thai & Sushi. For information, call 243-1077.
                                    
    Chosen from nurses who work at Lifespace Communities’ 12 senior living facilities around the country, Harbour’s Edge of Delray Beach nurse LaRet Harvey received the title “Nurse of the Year for Lifespace Communities,” voted by her coworkers because of her kindness and caring demeanor. While a single mother, she earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and she followed in her mother’s footsteps to become a nurse at a senior living community. She’s now working on a master’s degree, and has inspired two of her four children to become nurses.
                                    
    Christel Silver, owner of Silver International Realty in Delray Beach, recently attended the annual meeting of the Immobilien Verband Deutschland in Berlin, Germany, where she was a featured speaker and taught a certified international property specialist class.
                                    
    Cara Abbott has joined the Institute for Regional Conservation as its education and outreach coordinator, serving as the primary liaison of the organization at local meetings, events and conferences. The Institute for Regional Conservation, 100 E. Linton Blvd., Delray Beach, is focused on the protection, restoration, and long-term management of regional biodiversity as well as the prevention of regional extinctions of rare plants, animals and ecosystems.
                                    
    Boca Raton businesswoman and philanthropist Yvonne S. Boice recently received an honorary doctorate from Franklin Pierce University, New Hampshire, which also rechristened its performing arts center to honor her dedication to advancing the arts locally, nationally and globally.
    Boice currently is the chair for the 50th anniversary celebration of the National Endowment of the Humanities, the chair for the STEAM initiative at Palm Beach State College, and the chair emeritus for the Palm Beach International Film Festival. She’s also involved in the Boca Raton Historical Society, Boca Raton Centre for the Arts, World Trade Center, and YMCA of South Palm Beach County.
                                    
    Robb & Stucky, a century-old furniture retailer based in Southwest Florida that went bankrupt in February 2011, recently announced that it’s opening two new east coast showrooms and seeking more locations in South Florida. In spring of 2011, Robb & Stucky was acquired by Taiwanese businessman Samuel Kuo and his family, who named Steve Lush as president. Lush assembled a group of new talent and some Robb & Stucky veterans who helped build the brand in the past.
    The first new Robb & Stucky opened in Fort Myers in January 2012 and its new flagship store in Naples opened in January 2013. One of its new east coast showrooms, a $12 million venture to be located on U.S. 1 in Boca Raton, will break ground later this year and open in 2016. Each new store is expected to hire about 40 people.
    The building, to be designed by MHK Architecture & Planning, will feature an open floor plan with more than 100 room-settings showcasing furniture and accessories.
                                    
    In 2016, Naples home furnishings retailer Clive Daniel Home will open its second store, to be located at 1351 Boca Raton Blvd., Boca Raton. A ground-breaking ceremony was held in June. Clive Daniel Home has invested about $12 million in the project, with $8 million slated for construction on the 70,000-square-foot two-level building. Butters Construction & Development will build the furniture showroom.
                                    
    Gary Broidis, principal of Delray Beach-based Atlantic Commercial Group Inc., announced the $4.1 million sale of the 9,819-square-foot Northwood Building, 630-638 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach, comprising retail (currently J&J Seafood Bar & Grill and Carolina Cigar and Hookah) and office space in an off-market transaction on July 17. Broidis is a limited partner of the buyer, a subsidiary of Thor Equities.
    According to public records, Northwood Financial Holdings, whose managing member is John Scarpa, last purchased the property in April 2010 for $1.2 million.

    According to news sources, in 2011 the building was seized in foreclosure over a $3.77 million judgment.
    Thor Equities owns property throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and Latin America, with a $10 billion portfolio and development pipeline totaling over 20 million square feet. Founded by Joseph J. Sitt, Thor Equities is based in New York City with offices in London, Paris and Mexico City.
                                    
    In May, Boca Raton Regional Hospital was designated high performing in heart-failure, hip-replacement and knee-replacement procedures in the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals for Common Care ratings, which evaluated 4,500 hospitals nationwide on five common inpatient procedures and conditions. Roughly 10 percent of the hospitals reviewed were listed as high performers. Boca Regional was the only hospital in Palm Beach County and one of only 10 of the 145 studied in Florida to be cited as high performing in three or more categories.
    U.S. News created Best Hospitals for Common Care to help patients find better care. Outcome measures such as deaths, infections, readmissions and operations that need to be repeated, as well as patient satisfaction data, largely determined the ratings. The Best Hospitals for Common Care ratings rely on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data for patients 65 and older, as well as survey data from the American Hospital Association and clinical registry data from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
                                    
    Within its first year of opening, Waterstone Resort & Marina, a DoubleTree by Hilton, earned the AAA Four Diamond Rating. Waterstone, with 139 guest rooms, two restaurants, and marine docking, is at 999 E. Camino Real, Boca Raton.
                                    
    The Kretzer Piano Music Foundation’s fourth annual Physicians Talent Showcase will be held at the Harriet Himmel Theater at CityPlace in West Palm Beach at 7:30 p.m Aug. 18. Among the 14 performing physicians will be Dr. Peggy Hunter, a Boca Raton resident associated with both PBC Dermatology and JFK Medical Center. She is a classical pianist and this will be her second appearance. Also, Lake Worth resident Dr. Jack Zeltzer, a vascular surgeon associated with Palm Beach Surgical Associates, Palms West Hospital, Wellington Regional Medical Center and JFK Medical Center and past president of the Palm Beach County Medical Society, will be a four-time performer. He is a talented drummer.
    Tickets are $75 each and can be purchased through Complete Ticket Solutions at (866) 449-2489. Profits raised from this year’s event will enable the foundation to expand its music education programs for children in need.
                                    
    H&M’s new 19,000-foot store is now open at the Boynton Beach Mall. H&M sells location clothing for the whole family at reasonable prices.
                                    
    For the third consecutive year, Boynton Beach resident John M. Campanola was awarded membership into the 2015 Executive Council of New York Life Insurance Company’s elite sales force. Campanola, who was named the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce’s 2013-2014 Ambassador of the Year and received the Ken Ellingsworth Community Service Award that year, is on the board of directors for a private nonprofit Delray Beach organization, The Institute for Regional Conservation. His office is at 401 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach.
                                    
    Dr. David C. Brodner, a board-certified sinus surgeon, claims some of the credit for popularizing balloon sinuplasty, a minimally invasive technique that replaces traditional sinus surgery. His research and clinical trials helped pioneer the 30-minute procedure, which can be performed in the physician’s office. Brodner, who travels across the country lecturing, presenting research, and training other physicians on this technique, has presented his research at the American Academy of Otolaryngology showing that this procedure can now be performed on patients with a deviated septum. 
    “The balloon results in less bleeding and pain than existing surgical procedures because it works without removing delicate bone and tissue,” he explained.
    Sinusitis afflicts 37 million Americans each year. Patients suffer headaches, congestion, fatigue and other symptoms. Sinusitis is typically treated first with medication. But, in at least 20 percent of patients, medication alone is not enough, and surgery is required.
    Brodner’s office is at 8794 Boynton Beach Blvd., Boynton Beach.
                                   
    Boynton Beach resident Claudia Bartra, co-founder and CFO of La Granja Restaurants, will be one of 12 Latinas honored for their contributions to South Florida communities at the Hispanic Women of Distinction charity luncheon in Davie on Aug. 14. The event is presented by Bank of America in partnership with Latina Style magazine, and co-sponsored by Baptist Health South Florida, Latin Business Today, Univision Networks and Sylvester Cancer Center. La Granja, a family-owned business that began 20 years ago, has more than 40 restaurants, including some franchises owned by former employees. For locations, visit lagranjarestaurants.com.
                                    
    Hair Cuttery, a family-owned and operated chain of hair salons, plans to donate back-to-school haircuts to children in need this August through its 16th annual Share-A-Haircut program. From now through Aug. 15, for every child up to age 18 who purchases a haircut at one of Hair Cuttery’s salons, one free haircut certificate will be donated to an underprivileged child in that same community.
    “On the first day of school everyone deserves to look and feel their best, and our stylists love nothing more than being able to give children in their community a much deserved boost of confidence,” said Dennis Ratner, Hair Cuttery’s founder and CEO.
    Certificates are distributed with the help of local government and community nonprofit organizations. To date, the Share-A-Haircut program has reached more than 925,000 children with haircut certificate donations, valued at $16.65 million. To find a nearby salon, visit haircuttery.com.
                                    
    In June, the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches’ Young Professionals Network hosted its annual White Attire Fundraiser, which raised $8,000 to benefit Dress for Success Palm Beaches and Pay It Forward. Event sponsors included All My Sons Moving and Storage; Cornerstone Lending; ASD Surfaces A Francois and Co. Company; Picture It Sold Photography; Braman Motorcars; Tito’s Handmade Vodka; Kendra Scott Jewelry; Ham Studios “Highly Ambitious”; The Sugar Monkey and Title Trust Services.  
                                    
    Women artists, ages 55 years and older, who live or work in Palm Beach County, have up until Aug. 7 to apply for the Dina Baker Fund for Mature Female Artists at the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County. The $10,000 fund, which aims to stabilize and strengthen the careers of qualifying artists, can be used to support professional development, arts-related exhibition expenses, equipment, supplies, health care costs and/or basic living expenses. For information on how to apply, call the Cultural Council at 471-2901.
                                    
    The bachelor of science in nursing program at Palm Beach State College has earned accreditation from the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing. For information about the program, visit www.palmbeachstate.edu/programs/bachelor.
Also the college’s ophthalmic medical technology program, the first of its kind in South Florida, was recently awarded accreditation by the Commission of Accreditation of Ophthalmic Medical Programs. This program is one of 30 nationwide to earn this accreditation and one of five programs in the U.S. accredited for certified ophthalmic medical technologist training. For more information, visit www.palmbeachstate.edu/programs/OMT.
                                    
    Dr. Richard Staller of Advanced Dentistry South Florida, through a Palm Beach County inter-agency council for persons with developmental disabilities grant, will provide a free dental care day to clients of the Jewish Association for Residential Care on Aug. 17. This “Caring Heart Day” will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Advanced Dentistry South Florida, 15340 Jog Road, Suite 100, Delray Beach. Staller along with Dr. Naved Fatmi, owner of Regency Court Dentistry, in partnership with Palm Beach County Dental Hygiene Association, will provide pro-bono dental care to these clients at this event. For information, call 495-2099.

Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com.

One of the oceanside cabanas at Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa.

Photo provided

By Steve Pike

    There was a time — not that long ago — when hotels and resorts along the beach had a “slow” season. The snowbirds were gone and the locals stayed home. That’s no longer the case. Thanks in large part to lower gas prices and attractive staycation packages, the area’s beach hotels and resorts are as busy in the summer months as in the “season” winter months.
    “The trend has changed in recent years with us seeing that summers have gained momentum and have a very healthy buzz,” said Colin Clark, general manager of The Four Seasons Resort in Palm Beach. “For the fourth year in a row we have experienced a record-breaking year. Palm Beach Island and the county continue to be buoyant with increasing visitors each year.”
    The Four Seasons’ summer packages are good examples of how area hotels drive summer business, particularly among Florida residents. The resort offers Florida resident rates that begin at $199 per room, per night through September, as well as a third night free for guests over the same period.
    Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa in Manalapan also has a Florida residents’ rate that begins at $199 per night and includes free valet parking and free meals to kids under 12.
    Among the summer promotions at the Delray Sands Resort in Highland Beach is one (online only) whereby guests pay the day’s high temperature for a room the first night of a stay.
    At the newly flagged Tideline Ocean Resort & Spa — A Kimpton Hotel (formerly The Omphoy) in Palm Beach, director of sales Kate Connor said, “We are definitely seeing increased occupancy.”
    Tideline offers Florida residents weekday and weekend rates, as well as a “Summer Stay and Save” promotion that gives guests as much as 30 percent room rates.
    “It’s been a great summer all around for us as well as the other hotels in Palm Beach County,” Connor said. “We’re seeing a lot of last-minute bookings, but we’re also seeing a lot of people taking advantage of those summer offers.”
    Summer guest demo-graphics, said Connor, a longtime hotel executive in Palm Beach County, haven’t changed, “but they’re just coming in greater numbers.”
    The majority of the business at those hotels, she said, is from the summer drive market — guests who come from the Orlando and Miami areas to take advantage of the rates and the beaches.
    “People realize they don’t have to go far for a great vacation,” Connor said.

Caryn Foltz has sketched images of the area

and paired them with her thoughts that day in a book she calls SandScript.

Bruce Borich/The Coastal Star

The cover of Caryn Foltz’s book of drawings

and essays is derived from her first sketch.

By Ron Hayes

    The first sketch in her book was done on Nov. 16, 2008, at 8:30 a.m., when the temperature in Gulf Stream’s public park was 68 degrees.
    The last one arrived on April 5, 2015, at 9:15 a.m., a drawing of the sign outside Dock Square Clothiers on East Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. The temperature that morning was 73.
    In between, the simple blue sketchbook that Caryn Foltz bought at Hand’s Stationers to reunite with her love of art became a weapon, too.
    “The doctors tell me that remaining creative is a way to battle it,” she explains.
    When you call to ask if she’ll grant an interview about her sketches, she agrees, then politely adds, “I have a memory problem.”
    Seated at a patio table overlooking the golf course at St. Andrews Club, she mentions “my difficulty” — and then, after you’ve chatted a bit, confides that, because the disease is progressive, she thinks of it as a journey — “the road to Alzheimer’s.”
    “What I have happens to a lot of people,” she says, “and nobody knows what causes it.”
    She is a modest and private person, you sense, a 76-year-old woman summoning the bravery to go public about her diagnosis because she wants to shine some light in the darkness and fear that surround Alzheimer’s disease.
    If a question seems perhaps too personal, she turns to Henry, her husband of 55 years, and they briefly discuss her concerns while the sketchbook rests on the table between them.

Caryn Foltz shares a memory of a day on the shore.

Foltz captures images of Briny Breezes (left) and St. Andrews Club (below right).

    Sand Script: An illustrated journal of Delray Beach, St. Andrews Club and Briny Breezes, Florida, is a tropical delight, page after page of colorful sketches as light and breezy as the local beaches, lazy foliage and street scenes Foltz captures with unmistakable talent.
    Her drawings not only look like our coastal communities, they feel like them, too, and each sketch is accompanied by a few words marking its creation.
    In Gulf Stream that first morning, Foltz welcomed the end of temperatures in the 90s.
    “Cool air bristles the skin. The Sea Grape leaves sparkle beneath a smiling sun. Slow waves calmly tapping their way to shore inspire meditation.”
    Here’s the little courtyard that houses Ciao, the venerable Atlantic Avenue café.
    “… the shops and courtyards are small, cozy, low, dated and comfortably shabby.”
    She’s captured perfectly the spirit of the Briny Breezes clubhouse, the Seaside Deli and Nomad Surf Shop.
    Cason Cottage and Starbucks, the Delray Beach pavilion and Pineapple Grove arch.
    And, of course, The Colony Hotel:
    “When I walk down Atlantic Avenue, a lot of the names I sketched are gone and it makes me really happy that I sketched them.”
    Caryn Foltz’s sketches drift on waves of gentle nostalgia, the work of a woman who first came to Delray Beach in the 1950s, a child vacationing from Cleveland.
    Her father, R. Franklin Outcalt, was a prominent architect who later designed the Barr Terrace condominium on Atlantic Avenue.
    “I would watch my dad drawing at home,” she remembers, “and I guess it just came into me. I have two older brothers and neither one had any interest in architecture, but I was always creating something.”
    As a student at Skidmore College, she signed up for an art class one September, and when the students’ work was displayed that October thought, “Oh, no, I’m not anywhere near this!”
    She finished the art class, but never took another, and sketching became a sometime thing until she and Henry retired to the St. Andrews Club in 1998.
    “Back in the ’50s it was called Dull-Ray,” she remembers. “You could throw a bowling ball down the street and nobody would ever know. But when Henry and I came back — boy, how it had changed!”
    And so she began sketching again, holding back with pencils, pens and paper those inevitable changes overtaking the no longer dull town of Delray Beach.
    “I always start with a pencil, and then I come home and look at what I’ve done and make a few changes,” she says, “and once I’ve got it how I want, use black ink and colored pencils.”
    The Office restaurant and bar. Her four favorite homes in Del-Ida Park. And of course the golfers at the St. Andrews Club itself, home for the past 17 years.
    The pen became a sword in her battle with Alzheimer’s, and then suddenly it’s 9:15 a.m. on April 5, 2015. She’s sketching the stylized signs of Delray’s couture shops, ice cream parlors and resort boutiques, and her blue book is full.
    “I’m delighted that many places are still thriving, e.g., The Colony Hotel, Trouser Shop & Delray News.”
    Caryn Foltz is thriving, too. Not long ago, she told the women in her weekly bridge club about the road she is traveling, and her eyes fill with gentle joy as she remembers their response. They told her, she says, that if and when the day comes when she can no longer play, they still want her company at the game. The game is not why they want her around.
    She and Henry are having the sketchbook privately printed by Middle River Press, with an initial run of 50 copies to share with family and friends.
    “And now I’m thinking about what’s the next thing I can work on. The other day when I was in Hand’s, I bought another sketchbook.
    “It’s green,” she says, “but it’s a nice shade of green.”

    I’ve lived on the barrier island for more than 30 years. I’m a big fan of home rule and local government. I enjoy being able to pick up the phone and talk with someone I know when I call Town Hall. I like it when police officers wave while I’m out for my morning walk. I enjoy living in a small town.
    It’s one of the primary reasons my husband and I started this newspaper; we believe we live in a very special place and want it to stay that way. We want to be good neighbors.
    Unfortunately, there is a decidedly un-neighborly mood developing in our coastal towns. You see it each time a commission or a manager makes decisions in a bubble. As each town heads into its annual budget planning sessions, it should be asking difficult questions about how neighboring towns can work together, not circling the wagons to protect their jobs or a place on the dais.
    Rising pension costs, outside contract expenses and aging infrastructure face all of our towns and cities. It’s time to start talking to each other in more formal ways to find solutions guaranteeing long-term independence.
    Sadly, I don’t see this happening.
    It’s difficult to have faith in towns that feel it’s just fine to have a charter requiring only a piece of paper posted on a bulletin board outside town hall to notify residents, neighbors and the media of special meetings to replace a town manager.
    Really? In 2015?  
    And it’s hard to trust towns that can’t seem to post an active link to an agenda on their website (at least they all finally have websites). Or how about a town that finds it acceptable to send out email blasts to residents informing them of lost dogs and cats, but doesn’t use the same technology to notify of town meetings? Why is that?
    And don’t get me started on those towns that skirt public records laws by contracting with telecommunications carriers for phone systems that can’t log incoming or outgoing calls without a subpoena. Or towns that won’t allow local media to be included on their residential email lists.
    There is one city in our area where staff has told us they aren’t allowed to talk with reporters without permission from the city manager’s office. Talk about circling the wagons.
    And yet this city wonders why it has communications problems with other agencies and its residents. Go figure.
    Don’t get me wrong; some of our coastal communities are doing what they can to communicate with their residents and neighbors. Live video streaming and online archiving of meetings is a huge first step. Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Highland Beach and even little Gulf Stream are to be commended for making this investment in communications.
    I wonder how many of their neighboring towns even know that these resources are available?
    It’s time to talk. If we can help facilitate, let us know. We are willing. It’s our business.

— Mary Kate Leming,
editor

Gerald Gitner poses with a collection of TWA model airplanes in his Highland Beach condo.

He is putting his extensive airline-management experience to good use

as chairman of the Highland Beach Financial Advisory Board.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

    As CEO and board chairman of Trans World Airlines, a board member of Pan Am and founder and president of People Express — not to mention executive roles with a couple of other airlines — Gerald Gitner has lived many places and flown all over the world.
    Almost 15 years ago, however, Gitner safely landed in Highland Beach and now he’s well-grounded here, staying involved in his community and putting his managerial and financial expertise to use as chairman of the town’s Financial Advisory Board.  
    “To me, being on the financial advisory board gives me a chance to learn something new,” says Gitner, 70, who has chaired the local board since it was brought back to life by town commissioners a few years ago. “It’s also a chance to provide recommendations to the Town Commission based on business judgment and logic.”
    Low-key and flying under the radar for many years, Gitner found himself in the spotlight recently when, after 47 years — and a brilliant career in an industry that was constantly evolving — he was presented with a long-overdue master’s degree in business administration. He never received the degree decades ago because his thesis was rejected, but after learning of his accomplishments, University of Rochester administrators reconsidered.
    His thesis, by the way, was on the impact of government bureaucracy in securing airline routes. It was rejected because his professor felt it lacked sufficient analysis to support Gitner’s theories.
    Rather than going back to work in the classroom and earning the degree, Gitner decided to go to work in the real world.
    Armed with a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston University and a solid understanding of the airline industry based on two years of graduate school, Gitner got a job working for TWA at its New York City headquarters. There he served as an analyst helping to determine how best to allocate the company’s resources based on need and opportunity.
    Within four years of his arrival in New York, Gitner had become vice president of his department at TWA. After just six years, he moved to Texas and eventually became senior vice president of marketing at Texas International Airlines. One of his claims to fame there was to come up with a “Fly for Peanuts” campaign, during the presidential administration of Jimmy Carter, a well-known peanut farmer.
    In 1980, Gitner saw an opportunity to take advantage of the deregulation of airline routes and co-founded People Express, one of the first no-frills airlines designed with a goal of offering airfares on local routes for less than it would cost to drive.
    After he left People Express, Gitner was recruited by Pan Am and eventually became vice chairman of the board. He also served as chairman and CEO of Pan Am World Services, which operated government facilities throughout the world. By the mid-1990s, he was back at TWA as a board member and eventually became CEO and chairman of the board. He remained on the board until TWA’s sale to American Airlines and is one of only a very few people to have served on the boards of both TWA and Pan Am.
    Gitner takes pride in having built teams throughout his career that were able to achieve goals and find ways to turn around struggling airlines.
    “The companies I’ve been involved with were almost always in trouble,” he said. “When they were in trouble, they came to me.”
    Understanding his responsibility not only to his board but to his employees and the passengers, Gitner worked to resolve the challenges that stood in the way of success.
    “We all worked together thinking of ways to differentiate the company and make it better,” he said. “There’s always a solution to a problem.”
    That philosophy carries over to the work Gitner does with his own investment company and with Highland Beach’s Financial Advisory Board.
    “I try with the board to give everyone the opportunity to participate,” he said. “It’s about consensus-building, but not at the expense of doing the wrong thing.”
    A man with an analytical mind, Gitner sees three advantages to living in Highland Beach and calling it home.
“It’s quiet, on the water and I haven’t seen snow in a long time,” he said.

    The recent article, “City/CRA shared-goals meeting takes a turn toward showdown” was more gossip-like than the journalistic quality your readers have come to expect.
    First, a made-up “rift” (between city and CRA) that does not exist cannot “continue to widen.” The recent joint workshop referenced in your article was to discuss important current and future goals and to provide guidance where both organizations are intently focused.
    These are not perfunctory, social gatherings, but rather outcome-based workshops, and, in that regard, our meeting was highly productive.
    Moreover, quotes clearly intended as levity and humor were presented completely out of context, making them appear as substantive statements rather than initial meeting banter obvious to everyone in attendance.
    Focusing on storylines rather than reporting accuracy, the writer missed the fundamental points discussed during and, again, after the meeting: specifically, that our CRA has done a remarkable job fulfilling its primary mission of eliminating slum and blight within its boundary. But in the 30 years since its inception, the city has changed significantly such that revisiting the CRA boundary is both timely and responsible.
    Further, while our county’s $4.6 million (boundary-based) contribution of tax increment financing to our CRA should not be taken lightly nor for granted, citywide service deliverables and the funding they require exceed our budgetary constraints, despite what would appear to be fungible tax revenues.  
    As most of the ad-valorem tax revenue generated from the CRA’s large boundary (nearly 20 percent of the city), and the relative high property values within it, inures to the CRA, it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile the CRA’s statutory funding limitations with citywide funding needs.
    Balancing our budgets by merely getting by when viewed through a fiscally proactive lens really means falling behind, as we have been doing for years. These factors, coupled with a lack of blight along the CRA’s eastern boundary, direct us toward more substantive analysis, which is ongoing.
    Mischaracterizing, however, what has been and remains an incredibly dynamic and successful city-agency partnership for over three decades as anything else was unfortunate and disappointing.
Cary Glickstein
Mayor, Delray Beach      

    The June Coastal Star cover story on the infamous Chillingworth murders took me back to my childhood, when I vividly remember reading an account of this horrific crime in “The Justice Story” of the New York Daily News. As an impressionable youngster, I was intrigued by the story, and followed up on it by reading Jim Bishop’s book a few years later.
    Circuit Judge Curtis Chillingworth, a well-respected jurist in Palm Beach County, was beyond reproach in his dealings, and clearly would not have tolerated the unsavory actions of Judge Joe Peel. Sadly, it was this dedication to the rule of law and ethical behavior that would cost Chillingworth his life and that of his wife, Marjorie.
    The resultant fascination with the “true crime” genre took hold of me from that moment, and has held me in its grip ever since.
    Thank you for following up on this tragedy, one that has stayed with me for all these years.
David Shapiro
South Palm Beach

    Thank you to Lona O’Connor for writing the piece, “Bathroom is flush with creative campaign for colon health,” about Wendy and Jamie Greenhut and their efforts to raise awareness regarding inflammatory bowel diseases.
    I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when I was 35 years old. I’ve lived with this insidious disease for over 20 years. When people learn of my disease, I often hear the comment, “It’s hell getting old.” I then attempt to explain that ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s are diseases most often diagnosed in teenagers and young adults, and although treatments to manage the symptoms have improved over the years, there is no cure.
    I applaud Jamie and her mom for shedding light on these serious but “silent” diseases.
Julie Phillips
Delray Beach

By Dan Moffett

    Three months after leaving Princeton, N.J., and taking over as the town manager of South Palm Beach, Jim Pascale told residents they should think about whether the town should continue to exist.
    Many were caught off guard. They were planning to celebrate South Palm Beach’s 60th anniversary later this year.
    Bad timing aside, Pascale won’t be remembered for a lack of chutzpah in talking about offing the town that just hired him. But as a career move, it was pretty much suicidal.
    “He had a lot of ideas and was putting them all out at once to see which ones would stick. People just weren’t able to deal with that. It was too much,” said Mayor Bonnie Fischer. “They thought his ideas showed he didn’t understand what people liked best about the town. He told us he just wasn’t a good fit for the town, and so he resigned.”
    Pascale’s brief and stormy tenure ended the first week of June when he approached town officials and told them it would be best for everyone if he resigned.
    That was one idea most everyone seemed to like.
    “When I came here, I tried to look at the town with fresh eyes and ask, ‘What’s in the best interest of the residents of South Palm Beach?’ ” Pascale said. “Maybe not everyone understands that.”
    Pascale spent 30 years as a public servant in a town known for its ivy-covered halls of academia, but what worked in Princeton didn’t play in the palm tree-lined condo corridors of A1A.
    Besides proposing that South Palm Beach might be better off as an unincorporated community, Pascale offered other ideas that set off the firestorm around him.
    He called the town’s Police Department “an accident waiting to happen,” saying officers were poorly trained and an insurance liability that could bankrupt the town. He said it was time to consider contracting with an outside agency to save money and minimize risk.
    Pascale, 63, also said the town should consider spending as much as $10 million to buy the Oceanfront Inn site and turn it into a park, a proposal that horrified many taxpayers who live on fixed incomes.
    Pascale’s departure cost the town 10 weeks’ severance pay — a little more than $20,000 — as well as considerable embarrassment, weeks of internal upheaval and another round of interviewing candidates.
    “He came forward and said, ‘I know I don’t have the backing of the Town Council and the people,’ ” Vice Mayor Joseph Flagello said of the manager’s exit. “ ‘It doesn’t seem to be working out,’ he said. He’s pragmatic. It’s like, ‘Why would I want to be here?’”

New manager discussed
    The Town Council took up finding a new manager at two hastily called and minimally advertised special meetings on June 4 and 18.
    Town Attorney Brad Biggs said the town’s charter requires only 24-hour notice for a council meeting and does not require publishing an agenda or giving a reason for gathering.
    During the June 18 meeting, Councilwoman Stella Gaddy Jordan and Flagello clashed over hiring a replacement. Jordan wanted the town to look next door to Manalapan and quickly move to hire Town Manager Linda Stumpf, whose contract expires later this year and who, Jordan says, also is a candidate for the Ocean Ridge manager’s job.
    “She has 39 people in her employ,” said Jordan. “Her knowledge is not only diverse but it’s right for our needs. I think she is the best candidate we have. I want to make sure we make the right decision this time around.”
    Flagello said it would be an “irresponsible” mistake for the town to hire someone it hadn’t interviewed or fully vetted and that Stumpf’s selection shouldn’t be “bulldozed through.”
    “She may be right for the job. She may be perfect, but I’ve never met the woman,” Flagello said. “We haven’t gone through any process. We haven’t interviewed her. We haven’t even done a background check on this person. On the minute chance something would come up, we’d have egg on our face because we haven’t done our due diligence.”
    Fischer sided with Flagello and said the council had to protect the town by formally interviewing Stumpf and considering other candidates: “We just can’t go hire somebody that hasn’t gone through what everybody else has gone through. There should be a level playing field.”
    The council unanimously decided to consider Stumpf along with four other candidates with managerial experience who had interviewed with the town along with Pascale late last year: Mark Kutney of Loxahatchee Groves, Robert Kellogg of Sewall’s Point, James Drumm of Zephyrhills and Kenneth Sauer, formerly of Haines City.
    Council members said they hope to make a decision this month.

Artist rendering of the proposed  new complex that would be on Swinton Avenue.

Provided by Randall Stofft Architects

By Jane Smith

    The Sundy House owners recently gave the Delray Beach Planning and Zoning Department preliminary plans for their proposed Midtown Delray project.
    The paperwork, submitted in June, covers the properties near Sundy House on South Swinton Avenue, said Bill Morris, a partner in the entity that owns the historic restaurant and inn.
    Midtown Delray will contain 110,000 square feet of retail space, 110 hotel rooms, about 30,000 square feet of office space, 15 condo units and 450 underground parking spaces.
    In addition, the developer plans to move seven historic structures. Four would move to the east side of Swinton, in a vacant lot used by the Sundy House for overflow parking, Morris said. The lot would be cleaned up and the banyan tree trimmed. The homes would be refurbished, leased to artisans and open to visitors, he said.
    Two others, including the historic Cathcart House, would be moved to the south side of the Sundy House, where they could be used for additional catering space for the restaurant, he said. The last one would be moved farther south, close to the Toussaint L’Ouverture High School for its use.
    “We want to stay within the development guidelines, we are not asking for anything extra,” Morris said.
    But in the spring of 2014, before Morris was involved and before the partnership bought the Sundy House, one partner proposed a change to the historic district that would allow a hotel to be built there.
    Partner Steve Michael lobbied hard for at least six months and succeeded in getting that change in a tight commission vote of 3-2. Mayor Cary Glickstein and Vice Mayor Shelly Petrolia were on the losing side.
    After that victory, Michael’s team, including developer/futures trader Rick Marshall, bought the properties from reclusive developer Thomas Worrell, who had let most of the historic structures deteriorate.
    “We support the historic ordinances,” Morris said. The partners plan to work closely with Winnie Edwards, executive director of the Delray Beach Historical Society, he said.
    Petrolia, though, said last year she did not support allowing a hotel in a historic district because it would “forever change and alter the Old School Square Historic District.” She also recently said she would not be in favor of what she called “a Disneyland of historic homes.”
    “A cute little historic village is nice,” said JoAnne Peart, president of the Delray Beach Historic Preservation Trust. “But that’s not Delray’s history.”
    A preservationist recently completed an application to make the entire Old School Square Historic Arts District (North and South Swinton) eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. The first stop will be the city’s Historic Preservation Board this summer and then onto the state in September, according to Ellen Uguccioni, who wrote the application. She is also a member of the Florida Historical Commission.
    “Historic villages are like petting zoos,” said Uguccioni, who also teaches historic preservation at the University of Miami School of Architecture. “On Swinton Avenue, we have a microcosm of how Delray was founded and grew.”
    The City Commission would be the last approval needed for the Midtown Delray project.
    Delray Beach is rewriting its historic ordinances to gain control over the developers who have run out of buildable lots and now eye land underneath historic structures. The land is often more valuable than the structure.  
    “This commission is being tested and we are going to be held accountable to what we do with our historic districts,” Petrolia said at the June 16 commission meeting. “Each time we lose one of these properties we are losing our heritage, our past, and it is on our shoulders.”
    In order to move a historic structure, the owner must prove the move benefits the structure or historic district, put up a bond equal to the appraised value of the structure and the land, and agree to let the city take back any approvals given for that land if a certain percentage of the structure is damaged in the move.
    To demolish a historic structure, the owner must submit documents that indicate the steps taken to preserve the structure. Demolition will be allowed only as a last resort.
    Both ordinances passed unanimously in mid-June on first reading.
    Still Petrolia worried that the ordinances would provide a road map to developers.
    “To me and to many people in this town, the location of where the historic structures are and the relationship to the properties they are on give the significance to historic districts,” she said at the June meeting. “I’m hoping this does not open up an opportunity for property owners to say this is what I need to do to move a structure.”
    Both ordinances will come before the commission on July 7 for a second reading.

By Dan Moffett

    A heated exchange during a deposition hearing has led a lawyer for the town of Gulf Stream to ask for legal sanctions against Martin O’Boyle.
    Attorney Robert Sweetapple says O’Boyle physically threatened him while he was questioning Chris O’Hare during a deposition at a Boca Raton court reporter’s office on May 20.
    Sweetapple says O’Boyle “jumped up from his seat, lunged at and attempted to provoke a physical fight” with the attorney, according to a motion filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
    “Punch me and throw me out, pal,” O’Boyle is quoted telling Sweetapple in a transcript of the session.
    Sweetapple is asking the court to bar O’Boyle from attending future depositions and for unspecified sanctions and attorneys’ fees. The attorney says O’Boyle is a “serial litigator” and alleges that last year he also disrupted another deposition related to the one of the many legal cases pending between him and the town.
    Sweetapple’s motion accuses O’Boyle of trying “to bully and intimidate” him and said the behavior will inhibit people who are giving testimony from speaking freely.
    “This behavior is unbecoming of the judicial process,” Sweetapple wrote, “and such annoyance and undue burden must not be tolerated. Simply put, Mr. O’Boyle’s flagrant misconduct and provocative behavior require that he be sequestered from all future depositions in order to avoid the possibility that next time he does not stop at mere words.”
    O’Hare said that O’Boyle, who was attending the session voluntarily, was unexpectedly served with a subpoena and that touched off the argument with the town’s lawyer. O’Hare said he recorded the hearing and turned the video over to Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Peter Blanc.
    “I haven’t seen the video, and I can’t comment until I do,” said Elaine Johnson James, a Boca Raton attorney who represents O’Boyle but wasn’t at the deposition.
    Sweetapple’s motion also says that O’Boyle tried to disrupt a deposition of Mayor Scott Morgan and to “physically confront” the attorney in March 2014, shortly after O’Boyle lost a race for a Town Commission seat.
    In February, the town filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against O’Boyle and O’Hare, charging the two with a conspiracy to exploit the state’s public records laws and extort settlements from the town and other municipalities and organizations.
    The RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) suit says the town has fielded more than 1,700 public records requests from the two residents over the last two years.
    Jonathan O’Boyle, Martin’s son and a Pennsylvania lawyer who is a director at The O’Boyle Law Firm in Deerfield Beach, was named in the suit for his role in filing hundreds of complaints around the state over public records. Jonathan O’Boyle declined to comment on the sequester motion against his father but said he was hopeful about prevailing against the town.
    “I am awaiting the federal RICO case to be dismissed,” he said.
    In other business, town commissioners unanimously approved a land clearing permit and special exception for the property at 12 S. Hidden Harbour Drive.
    Architect William Wietsma requested permission to clear invasive trees and plants along a 200-foot property line with a conservation area owned by the town.
    Wietsma intends to replace them with native species, rebuild the seawall and create an 8-foot path to allow the town access.
    O’Hare spoke against the plan during the June 12 commission meeting, arguing that changing the land from its “undisturbed condition” will be harmful to plants and animals that have found refuge there for the last half-century.
    O’Hare said in a written complaint to the town that “this land was donated to the residents of the town with the express understanding that it would be maintained as habitat for all the flora and fauna fortunate enough to find refuge within its boundaries.”
    Morgan called Wietsma’s proposal “a good deal for the property owner and for the town” that would enhance the land and help conserve it. His colleagues agreed.
    Special recognition: Vice-Mayor Robert Ganger and Town Manager William Thrasher were both recognized by the Florida League of Cities with a 2015 Home Rule Hero Award. The award recognizes each of their efforts to advance the League’s legislative agenda and help protect the home rule powers of Florida’s cities during the 2015 legislative session.

    Beach walkers found dead birds washing up on the sand on the morning of June 25 — not sea birds but the headless remains of chickens and ducks.
    Ocean Ridge police scoured the town beach after receiving reports from beachgoers and collected the carcasses of four dead chickens along a 2-mile stretch of beach south of Boynton Inlet.
    “So far, this appears to be a localized incident,” Ocean Ridge Police Chief Hal Hutchins said, adding that neighboring towns received no reports of dead birds on their beaches.
    Hutchins said he also received reports of bird carcasses being spotted by boaters about half a mile offshore.
    Hutchins and others speculated that the bird carcasses could have been discarded after a religious sacrifice such as those practiced in Santeria, a religion common in Caribbean countries in which animals are sacrificed to build relationships with the spirit.
    Hutchins, a lifelong boater, noted that ocean currents could have swept the bird carcasses to the beach from points far away.
    “Things travel quite a great distance in the ocean,” he said.
— Willie Howard