iPic’s present plan for an eight-screen cinema and a 279-space parking garage with 43,000 feet of office and 8,000 feet of retail is too much building, squeezed into too small a space, near the busy intersection of Federal Highway and Atlantic Avenue in downtown Delray Beach.
    Their image shows no drop-off/pickup space for iPic’s pedestrian entrance on Federal. Instead, drivers will be stopping in the travel lane.
    The Florida Department of Transportation has told Safety as Floridians Expect that the sidewalk that is just now being widened as part of the Federal Highway beautification project will need to be narrowed by eight feet for a distance of 60 feet in length to provide for a temporary parking aisle. Also, there will be a conflict with the existing Palm Tran bus stop.
    Why should Delray let iPic reduce sidewalk space that was just widened, for iPic’s business use?
    The city should also consider iPic’s plans to convert an existing alley into a street without safe pedestrian and bicycle facilities. iPic wants to use it for its valet service and movie patrons’ egress, and possibly ingress.
    Delray’s master plan calls for ground-floor retail to encourage pedestrian circulation in order to attract business activity to streets parallel to Atlantic Avenue; otherwise, Delray will continue to be a one-street town. Instead, iPic wants to erect a showy billboard on Federal to attract customers — with no ground-floor retail.
    Traffic is already a mess at this intersection, and it will only get worse when Atlantic Crossing and all the other already-approved projects are completed.
    Delray should reject iPic’s plan. iPic should choose a more suitable location.
Jim Smith
SAFE Chairman
Delray Beach

    Delray Beach has competition for two of three City Commission seats in the March 10  election. Candidates are able to file until Feb. 10.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein will be re-elected to a three-year term without an election unless a challenger files to oppose him before the deadline.
    But incumbent Commissioner Shelly Petrolia will face Ryan Boylston, a marketing consultant who serves on the Downtown Development Authority, for Seat 1.
    The contest to replace term-limited Commissioner Adam Frankel in Seat 3 took an unexpected turn last month when apparent front-runner Chris Davey withdrew for family reasons. Davey nearly beat Commissioner Al Jacquet in last year’s election.
    That left Christina Morrison, who lost to Jacquet three years ago, and newcomer Bruce Bastian alone in the race before Mitch Katz filed as the third candidate. Katz is chairman of the city Education Board and would, if elected, become the first commissioner in 10 years to live west of I-95.
—  Tim Pallesen

By Dan Moffett

    Town commissioners gave unanimous final approval to a revised signage law at a Jan. 26 special meeting and — with only Chris O’Hare and Marty O’Boyle, the town’s litigious critics, on hand to offer opinions — immediately faced authoritarian comparisons.
    O’Hare likened the law to suppression of free speech worthy of the world’s worst totalitarian states. “In North Korea, anyone speaking ill of Kim Jong Un will be arrested and never heard from again,” he said. “In Cuba, anyone speaking badly of Fidel Castro or his revolution will be arrested and serve jail time.”
    O’Boyle told commissioners the ordinance was so poorly and broadly written that logos on baseball caps and T-shirts could constitute violations of signage. He said that besides suppressing free speech, the new law might also suppress religion by restricting a nun’s right to carry her rosary beads — or, worse.
    “For you to say that the pope can’t come to Gulf Stream, based on an ordinance you wrote, shame on you,” O’Boyle told the commission.
    Mayor Scott Morgan, accused of advancing a law that could bar Pope Francis from Gulf Stream’s borders, said the town was taking reasonable steps to revise its rules in a way that would satisfy the courts and protect rights, not infringe on them.
    “Your comments are palpably absurd,” Morgan told O’Boyle and O’Hare. “Comments comparing this town to despotic regimes are insulting and absurd. Your comments are designed to take what is a good-faith effort by this town to pass a reasonable ordinance — and as always apply the ordinance fairly — but your attempts are to position as such so you can advance legal action against it, again costing us time, resources and money.”
    In October, the commission voted to pursue a RICO case against the two men, alleging abuses of public records requests and frivolous lawsuits.
    O’Hare and O’Boyle have sued the town dozens of times, and one of them was over the sign ordinance last year. O’Boyle ran for the commission in March, and the town removed some of his campaign signs, charging they were placed in rights of way or other public spaces in violation of the existing sign ordinance.
    O’Boyle sued in the federal court, claiming suppression of free speech, and the case is scheduled to go to trial in the spring.
    In December, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks issued a ruling that had something for both sides to like.
    Middlebrooks ruled that Town Manager William Thrasher and Police Chief Garrett Ward couldn’t be held personally liable for removing O’Boyle’s signs, and the town had the right to restrict where signs were placed.
    However, Middlebrooks also ruled that O’Boyle could challenge the town’s old sign code because its “content-based restriction” of certain kinds of signs might constitute an infringement of free speech.
    Town Attorney John Randolph says that, in writing the new rules, the town is trying to address that concern with a “content-neutral ordinance that will stand constitutional scrutiny.”
    The new rules ignore language and treat all signs the same, whether they’re about real estate, political candidates, building names or bake sales. While ignoring content, the rules do regulate “the time, place and manner of signs,” according to Randolph. No sign can exceed four feet in height. Only government signs are allowed on public property or rights of way.
    The ordinance defines a sign as virtually any “reading matter, illustration, logo, insignia, sculpture, molding, casting, object, bunting, symbol” or other object that’s designed to attract attention.
    Randolph said the new language is drawn from court-tested sign laws in other communities.
    “The town will have to make a determination in the future as to how this ordinance will be applied,” Randolph said, “and presumably, the town, as it has done in the past, is going to apply its ordinances fairly.”
    Residents will be spared another dispute over campaign signs for at least another year. The town has no March election, after all five commissioners were elected to two-year terms in 2014, the first election in 21 years.

On Jan. 31, Alfred Benjamin of South Palm Beach became the 109th veteran

to sign the 384th Bomb Group Association’s commemorative wing panel. The panel

eventually will be housed at the Hill Aerospace Museum at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Navigator Alfred Benjamin, fourth from left in the back row, poses with his squad.

Photo courtesy Alfred Benjamin

By Ron Hayes
 
    Shortly before 9 a.m. on the last day of January, about 60 men and women gathered in the community room of the Palmsea condo in South Palm Beach to watch a 90-year-old man named Alfred Benjamin write his name on an airplane wing.
    Some of a wing, anyway: an aluminum panel from the right underside of a B-17 “Flying Fortress.”
    They were a workhorse bomber, flying missions over Germany and France in World War II, targeting Hitler’s factories, taking flak, getting shot down but surviving, or not.
    They were airplanes flown by 20-year-old boys who became men at 30,000 feet, like Alfred Benjamin.
    “I went in at 19 and was in battle at 20,” Benjamin told his friends and neighbors. “I was a navigator. I flew 31 missions in seven months in 1944. My longest mission was 10 hours and 15 minutes. The oxygen mask used to freeze around the sides of my face.”
    Over his shoulder, the wing waited, adorned with the insignia of the 384th Bomb Group and the autographs of 108 former members.
    “I was shot down over Belgium,” Benjamin continued. “The engines failed and burst into flame.”
    The wing had arrived at the Palmsea that morning in the back of a 2008 Chevy Silverado driven by two volunteers from Alabama, Mike Jerrell and Keith Ellefson. On Friday, they had stopped in Stuart. Later that morning, they would be in Boynton Beach.
    Since its founding at the group’s 2010 annual reunion in Branson, Mo., the “384th Bomb Group Veterans Signing Project” has brought the wing to reunions in Seattle, San Antonio, Dayton and Norfolk.
    “About 30 signed it at the reunions,” Ellefson said. “The rest are all individuals our volunteers have taken it to.”
    Any veteran of the 384th, whatever his capacity, who served between January 1943 and February 1946, may sign the wing.
    “It was started by a NexGen member named Christopher Wilkinson who wanted to commemorate the service of these guys,” Ellefson said.
    Ellefson too is a “Next Generation” member.
    “My uncle was a ball-turret gunner on them,” he said. “A lot of us volunteers are NexGen.”
    The panel was donated by Aero Trade, an airplane restoration company in Chino, Calif.
    “It’s a real piece of a real airplane,” Ellefson assured the gathering. “Probably from a late production model that wound up in the boneyard.”
    From June 1943 to April 1945, more than 7,000 GIs served in the 384th; 4,380 were combat crew members.
    Of those, 1,575 were killed, either in action or flying accidents. Another 884 became prisoners of war.
    “I didn’t jump, to tell you the truth,” Benjamin recalled. “I stood in the door and they booted me out.”
    The chute opened. Glancing over, he saw another crew member fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette as they floated slowly to the ground.
    “I’d never jumped before,” he said. “I learned how to control the chute on the way down.”
    And then he broke through the clouds and saw a farmhouse down below, with a fenced-in yard and an animal that might be a cow, or possibly a bull.
    Benjamin landed inside the fence, rolled to a stop and looked up to see whether it was  cow or bull.
    “And suddenly I found myself surrounded by men with machine guns.”
    Belgian freedom fighters.
    “The Germans were still in the area, so they hid me in a farmhouse for one night then took me to a Catholic hospital until the Americans came and got me and I was evacuated to Paris.”
    Benjamin told about the time his crew bombed a German factory, only to find out later it had been making shoes.
    “When we saw newsreels of the Germans with rags on their feet, my buddy and I decided we’d won the war by bombing that factory. We called it The Day We Won The War.”
    He was telling war stories, and getting warm laughs.
    And then he became the 109th veteran of the 384th Bomb Group to sign the wing.
    Surrounded by cameras and iPhones, former 1st Lt. Alfred Benjamin, a navigator, wrote “Alfred Benjamin,” just above the signature of 1st Lt. Joe. R. Carnes, who had been his pilot.
    “And now if you’d stand, I want to play taps for the group members who were lost,” he said.
    The crowd stood reverently, caps off, silent, while Benjamin’s iPad played the sad, familiar notes.
    His friends and neighbors were gathering ’round to shake his hand as Jerrell and Ellefson prepared to drive the wing down the road to Boynton Beach so another navigator could sign, then on to Lauderdale-by-The-Sea and so on, for another year.
    “We expect it’ll be off the streets in January 2016,” Ellefson said.
    The wing’s final home will be Hill Air Force Base in Utah, near Wendover Field, where the 384th trained.
    At the 2010 reunion in Branson, 10 veterans signed the wing. Then 16 a year later in Tucson. “Last year, only six vets signed it in Norfolk,” Ellefson recalled.
    Nearby, Benjamin was urging the crowd to have some Dunkin’ Donuts and coffee.
    “I feel wonderful. I’m all elated,” he said. “I’m humbled.”

    Looks like Lantana Mayor David Stewart will have no opposition as he runs for a sixth term March 10.
    The town’s qualifying period ends on Feb. 10 and as of press time, no one else had qualified.
     “I want to continue doing the good work we’re doing, with reasonable and controlled growth and fiscal responsibility,” the Hypoluxo Island resident said.
     Stewart, 61, a Lake Worth High School graduate and Lantana resident since 1977, has worked in the air conditioning business for more than 40 years. He was chairman of the town’s planning and zoning board before becoming mayor.
     He attended Palm Beach Community College and was active with the Lantana Athletic Association and the Hypoluxo/Lantana Kiwanis Club and is a member of the Lantana Elementary and Middle School advisory committees.
     The mayor’s seat is the only council seat up for election this year.
— Mary Thurwachter

By Dan Moffett

    Town Manager Linda Stumpf says construction work to make the Manalapan Town Hall compliant with federal accessibility standards will be completed in time to accommodate voters in the March 10 election.
    Stumpf said only a few details — handrails on an entrance ramp and some parking lot signs — need to be done to bring the building in line with Americans with Disabilities Act standards and satisfy Palm Beach County elections officials, who are expected to inspect the improvements in mid-February.
    “There’ll be no problem with the March election,” Stumpf said.
    Town resident Kersen de Jong (who lost his legs in a 1976 accident) had complained to town and county officials about accessibility problems with the building last year, and election officials could reject Town Hall as a polling place if it fails to meet the federal guidelines.
    Stumpf said that the total cost of the fixes will run about $64,500.
    Meanwhile, work also is continuing on making the town’s library ADA-compliant. Changes to that building will cost at least $43,000, she said.
    Much of the library’s structure is 35 years old and will require retrofitting inside and outside.
    “The disabled in Manalapan will be pleased that improvements are being made at the Town Hall,” de Jong said, but he lamented the slow pace of progress since he first complained to the town in September 2013. “Looking at it, nothing is being done to ramps and access at the library. In total there were 48 violations. Almost done? As President Reagan once said, ‘Trust but verify.’ ”
    In other business:
    • Mayor David Cheifetz and the commission rejected a request from LeAnn Elder of Loggerhead Lane to discuss race relations in Manalapan at the February meeting. Elder told commissioners the town needs to acknowledge that “Manalapan as a community is represented by many ethnicities, including having a population of black residents.”
    She said that she and her family had endured racially offensive behavior in recent months, including an anonymous letter with hurtful comments, and the town should publicly profess its intolerance for racial profiling and discrimination.
    Cheifetz said police and postal officials had investigated the letter thoroughly and increased police patrols on Elder’s street. He called the sender a “coward” and said the town had done all it could.
    “To be critical of this town because of the actions of one jerk is not appropriate,” Cheifetz said.
    • The town has gotten no bidders yet for the Audubon Bridge project, Mayor Pro Tem Peter Isaac said, possibly because of the distractions from the holiday season. Isaac said the project was put out for bids again in January, and he still believes construction will begin on time at the beginning of April, with a completion date before the end of the year.
    Stumpf said creating a staging area to run materials to the bridge site is proving to be a complication. “Several contractors have indicated that’s added to the cost of the project,” she said.
    • Representatives from Florida Public Utilities will answer questions about proposals to install natural gas lines to Point Manalapan during a meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. on  Feb. 12 in the town library.
    • The commission’s four incumbents who are up for re-election on March 10 have requested candidate applications from Town Clerk Lisa Petersen: Mayor Cheifetz, Vice Mayor Tom Thornton, and Isaac and Commissioner Chauncey Johnstone appear headed for another run for office.

By Tim Pallesen

    City commissioners want to limit the height of new Atlantic Avenue buildings to three floors in new downtown development rules set for final approval on Feb. 24.
    Other new buildings in the central business district would be limited to four floors.
    Housing density would be restricted to a maximum of 30 units per acre, with a shift away from studio and one-bedroom units.
    Other major changes in the first update of the downtown master plan since 2002 include a public open space requirement for new buildings over 20,000 square feet.
    The future downtown will be friendlier to pedestrians with front building setbacks increased from five to 10 feet. New landscape rules add five more feet of width from streets.
    A professional traffic study will now be required for large projects such as Atlantic Crossing.
    “We need this and we need it now,” Mayor Cary Glickstein said before the unanimous 5-0 vote on Feb. 3 to approve the changes on first reading. “This town is a jewel and we need to take a long-term view of the limited space we still have.”
    Commissioners were close to approving the new rules last December, but the process was delayed when Colony Hotel owner Jestena Boughton pleaded for the three-floor height limit to keep air and sunlight on Atlantic Avenue.
    “Thank you for doing what I asked,” Boughton said to commissioners at the Feb. 3 meeting.
    An attorney for one Atlantic Avenue property owner threatened to sue. But the mayor and city attorney said the height limit between Swinton Avenue and the Intracoastal Waterway is justifiable to preserve the historic character of Atlantic Avenue.
    The city still might give incentives that allow developers to build larger buildings for specific purposes.
    But commissioners rejected a request from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to allow office buildings to have five floors.

INSET BELOW: Costello

By Jane Smith

    The new head of Delray Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency will receive a slightly more than 18 percent salary increase over his previous salary as the agency’s assistant director.
    The CRA board approved that salary of $132,893 for Jeff Costello at its Jan. 8 meeting by a 4-2 vote. Board Chairman Herman Stevens and board member Cathy Balestriere voted no. Board member Angela Gray was absent.
    “Jeff is my man,” Stevens said after the meeting. “I thought it should have been more.”
    Balestriere could not be reached for comment. At the meeting, she said Costello deserved about $140,000 because he knows the staff, has years of experience and saved the board money by not having to search for a new executive.
    In December, a 5 percent salary increase was discussed when Costello was approved to replace longtime executive director Diane Colonna. In that position, she made $136,202.70. She left the agency Jan. 2; Costello took over on Jan. 5, the next work day.
    Costello presented backup information to the board at its Jan. 8 meeting that said as the assistant director he would have been eligible for a March merit raise of 2.5 percent, as the director he will not be eligible for a pay increase until January 2016. “Therefore, a 5 percent salary increase is essentially a 2.5 percent increase,” he wrote.
    He included a chart that listed executive director salary, acreage, staff and budgets for agencies in three other cities (Boynton Beach, Lake Worth and Riviera Beach) and for Delray Beach.
    Costello asked for a salary comparable to Lake Worth’s CRA executive director and received it. Lake Worth’s agency has 517 acres in its borders, has a staff of three and a budget of $1.68 million, according to the information given to the Delray Beach board members. The Delray CRA has 1,961 acres, a staff of 12 and a budget of $25.7 million.
    The board members want to review Costello in six months as well as at the beginning of the financial year in October.
    Also at that meeting, board members decided they want a 2015 goal setting workshop, but not like last year’s when former CRA executive director Chris Brown was the facilitator. Board members did not want a facilitator because they are not shy about voicing opinions and disliked the ranking method (low, medium or high) of each goal.
    Costello reserved space for that session on Feb. 25 at the Delray Center for the Arts. He will take that meeting date to the board this month for its approval. According to a November update of 2014 goals, West Atlantic Avenue, North Federal Highway redevelopment and the Downtown Development Association’s marketing plans will likely be on the agenda. Ú

By Tim Pallesen

    Construction for Atlantic Crossing starts this month after a lawsuit by neighbors who sought to alter its design was dismissed by a judge on Jan. 20.
    “We’re ready to get demolition and construction underway,” said Edwards Companies President Jeff Edwards, the partner with Ocean Ridge resident Carl DeSantis to build the $200 million mixed-use project on East Atlantic Avenue.
    “Our group is not giving up,” said Harbour House condo president Bruce Leiner, who still believes the developer should pay the city for the street right-of-way that the city abandoned in 2009.
    Neighbors at the Harbour House condo had sued last year to force an access road from Federal Highway to relieve traffic congestion.
    But Circuit Judge Jamie Goodman dismissed that lawsuit against Atlantic Crossing and the city without explanation on Jan. 20.
    Atlantic Crossing still wants city commissioners to sign a development agreement that specifies what the developer is obligated to do.
    Commissioners delayed the agreement last October pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
    “We’re asking the city to work with us to finalize the development agreement without further delay,” Edwards said.
    As incentive, Edwards said that the $500,000 the developer pledged for improvements to city-owned Veterans Park immediately east of the project hinges on whether the agreement is signed.
    But demolition of two vacant buildings on Atlantic Avenue — the former Delray Beach Antique Mall at the Gillis & Sons building and the Rinceaux Jewelry and Antiques building — is scheduled this month with or without the agreement.
    Demolition of the Carroll Financial Center at the corner of Northeast Sixth Avenue and Northeast First Street, the final building on the site’s western block, is projected by late April.
    Once the western block is cleared, construction will begin on a 440-space underground garage to be beneath apartments slated to open in 2016.
    The existing Atlantic Plaza commercial center will remain open on the eastern block until demolition and new construction there is due in 2017-18.
    Once completed, the city’s largest mixed-use development will have 356 luxury condos and apartments, 80,000 square feet of restaurants and shops, plus 79,000 square feet of office space.
    Atlantic Crossing estimates the project will bring 1,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs to the city.

By Dan Moffett

    Though their town is built-out, South Palm Beach council members say they want more control over important decisions on development projects.
    So they’re moving forward with changes that will shift power from the architecture and planning boards to the Town Council. Councilwoman Stella Jordan says that’s the way residents want it.
    “From what everyone tells me, they want the final say to be with the council,” she said. “In a town of our size, that’s absolutely doable.”
    The issue of who makes the final call on site plans and variances came up in August when the Architectural Review Board approved Paragon Acquisition Group’s revised design for a six-story condominium project on the site of the Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn.
    Because Paragon’s plan complied with the town’s building rules, the board had to approve it unanimously, 3-0, and the Town Council had little choice but to accept the vote — or run the risk of getting taken to court.
    Council members say that many of their constituents said they were surprised that, given the size of the project and the contentious history of the old Hawaiian hotel property, the town’s elected officials did not get the chance to weigh in on the ultimate design.
    In 2010, after months of heated debate over plans for the troubled site, voters went to the polls and took zoning changes out of the council’s hands, requiring a townwide referendum instead.
    Town Attorney Brad Biggs has drafted a proposed ordinance that will shift the approval power at Town Hall by making the architectural and planning boards advisory panels and transferring the up-or-down vote to the council.
    Biggs warned that some unintended consequences could come with the move, however.
    The council no longer would serve as the destination for appeals when projects are rejected, but instead would become the first, last and only voting entity. If the council turns down a developer, the only option for appeal would be taking the case to the circuit courts.
    Vice Mayor Joe Flagello believes the council and residents understand that a new approach is right for South Palm Beach.
    “I think we know what we’re doing in getting into this,” Flagello said. “I know it’s not typical but it fits for us. Any other town it probably would be a bad idea.”
    Councilman Robert Gottlieb, who has pushed for the change since the Paragon approval, said the proposed ordinance, which is likely to come up for a vote at the Feb. 24 meeting, would put the responsibility where it belongs.
    “The end result is very simple,” Gottlieb said. “The council should have the final say.”
    In other business, the town’s three council members with expiring terms have filed paperwork to enter the March 10 election: Mayor Donald Clayman, Vice Mayor Flaglello and Councilwoman Bonnie Fischer.
    Town voters will also have four charter amendments to decide — proposals that eliminate term limits for the council and advisory boards, and also revisions to the rules for some special elections and screening town manager candidates.

Neighbors complain that this home is out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood.

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Tim Pallesen
 
    Coastal residents are pointing to one particular oceanfront home as the example of what should be prevented in future construction.
    A three-story home under construction at 344 N. Ocean Blvd. is too massive compared to neighboring homes, the Beach Property Owners Association says.
    “I would have never bought my home if I knew that was going to be built there,” neighbor Kelly Barrette said at a Jan. 14 meeting to review changes to design guidelines for single-family coastal homes.
    “Now we’re seeing these huge houses that are out of scale,” Barrette said. “Our rules can be a little tighter. We don’t have to be like Gulf Stream.”
    The controversial 18,612-square-foot house was allowed to be larger only after the property owner paid $5.2 million to buy three adjoining lots.
    “It seems that you don’t have an issue with smaller houses,” City Commission Shelly Petrolia observed at the meeting.
    Petrolia suggested that future requests for larger houses on combined lots go to the city’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board for approval. SPRAB now only reviews requests to build multifamily residential buildings.
    The proposed tighter restrictions will go to the City Commission later this winter.
    After the house at 344 N. Ocean was allowed five garage doors facing the street, the BPOA also wants a limit of three visible garage doors. Coastal residents were unsure on Jan. 14 whether they want restrictions on house colors.
    The new restrictions will update the design guidelines approved by the city in 2005.

    “Some of the things that people have done since were not envisioned in the original guidelines,” said Andy Katz, BPOA vice president.
    Current guidelines prohibit Quonset huts and geodesic domes. Modern architecture is discouraged, but not prohibited, in favor of a more Bermuda-style architecture with windows and upper-floor setbacks.

Dan Rogers (left) and Curt Hunt use a table saw to rip a 4 X 4 down to the size

they need for repairs to the south side of the Sandoway House.

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith
    
    Luck finally returned to the Sandoway House Nature Center.
    Delray Beach allowed it to reopen Jan. 27 after forcing it to close for nearly five weeks to make needed repairs. The city’s building inspector had red-tagged the nature center on Dec. 26, shortly after a silver Ford F150 backed into it and caused about $25,000 damage.
    “Tragic for us is that it came at the busiest time for us,” said Ann Heilakka, co-president of the Sandoway House board. “Kids were home from school, the season had just started.”
    An Ontario, Canada, resident told police she pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake when backing into a parking space, according to the police report. The pickup jumped over the parking block and struck the south side of the Sandoway House, where there is a hexagonal tank holding tropical fish and coral.
    The pickup hit a tree with its right front before hitting the house, the police report indicates. The report lists $3,000 damage to the pickup.

    “I thought it was a bomb. There was dust everywhere,” said Val Fine, weekend manager, who was in the room at 10:20 a.m. He crouched down to protect a young boy standing next to him.
    The room had glass shelves that shattered when hit, Fine said. “The glass went flying. No people or animals were injured,” he said.
    The lath and plaster construction of the building acted like a stretch fabric, he said. He thinks the damage would be higher if the historic building were constructed with different materials. “The hex tank with 1 ton of water helped absorb the shock from the truck,” he said.
    At the time of the wreck, the nature center had about 60 people inside and on its grounds. “Half ran screaming, the other half wanted to stay for the shark feeding,” Fine said. The sharks are fed outside in a pool on the north side of the building. The public shark feeding did take place that morning after Christmas.
    Because the building was red-tagged, Sandoway House had to get permission to allow its staff to enter to feed the animals and do paperwork. Volunteers and visitors were not allowed.
    Fine worried about losing the nature center’s volunteers to other programs.
    The nature center has a complicated ownership structure. Palm Beach County owns the property, which it bought in 1995 for $620,000. The county leases it to Delray Beach. The city then subleases the property to the Friends of Sandoway House for $1 a year.
    That’s why the city fronted the money to pay Brang Construction Inc. of Boca Raton to do the repairs, which cost $24,970, according to a city purchase order.
    The city will seek reimbursement from the pickup driver’s insurance company, Intact Insurance Co.
    The driver was not cited because the wreck happened in a parking lot. A 5-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy, relatives of the driver, also were in the extended-cab pickup, according to the police report.
    The organization lost about $9,000 in revenue during the weeks the nature center was closed. That figure includes $900 in canceled classes and nearly $8,000 in admission fees, based on figures from the past three years.
    The Sandoway House board will do extra fundraisers to make up the lost income, Heilakka said. “Putting Around has volunteered to do a fundraiser for us,” she said. “On Earth Day, we always do something. But this year, we will have a 5K race. That’s new for us.”
    Initially the Sandoway House staff and board members thought the construction would take place in two stages. The first part would be for structural repairs needed to make the building safe, which would require it to be closed, and the second to allow reconstruction to continue. But Brang Construction was able to do all the work in one phase.
    “We lucked out,” said Danica Sanborn, executive director of the Sandoway House.

The Lantana Library is located in an old bank building.

Sid Patchett has been library director since 1996.

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

    Atop the clutter on Sid Patchett’s desk in the Lantana Public Library rests a keepsake box, about the size of a briefcase and colorfully disguised to look like a very large book.
    Open the cover and you will find the secret weapon with which the city’s library director is plotting to joust with the giant.
    “Whenever I catalog a new book, I check the county’s Lantana branch catalog to see if they’ve got it,” he explains, resting a hand on the box. “And if they haven’t got it, I put a copy of my cataloging slip in this box.”
    Someday soon, Patchett promises, he will unveil a new feature on his library’s website: “Books Goliath Hasn’t Got.”
    Goliath is the Lantana branch of the Palm Beach County Library System, which opened in April 2009 at the corner of Lawrence and Lantana roads, not five miles west of Patchett’s much smaller town library at 204 W. Ocean Ave.
    The county branch has access to more than a million books, CDs, DVDs and magazines.
    It has five study rooms, a conference room and a meeting room that seats 115.
    It has both a children’s area and a teen area.
    It has 62 public computers, including 17 in the children’s area alone.
    The Lantana town library has 23,000 books and two computers. No DVDs, no CDs, no separate spaces for children and teens.
    If the county library is Goliath, the town library is David.
    “The county built a big-box facility just to our west, and we thought that might be the end of us,” Patchett says. “But what we’ve decided to do, instead of trying to compete head-to-head with DVDs and CDs, is to turn ourselves into an alternative to the big box.”
    Quality instead of quantity.
    “We don’t stock multiple copies of the bestsellers. We use our limited budget to create the thinking person’s library,” Patchett explains. “We’ll get just one copy of a new Stephen King, and then we’ll get, say, The Princeton Guide to Evolution.”
    Watch for it on Books Goliath Hasn’t Got.
    “We try to shop ourselves as  the serious reader’s alternative.”
    The philosophy is right there at the top of the library’s website: “A place for serious readers.”
    For example, most any library will carry The Moonstone and The Woman In White, by that popular Victorian boiler of pots, Wilkie Collins.
    Patchett has those, and four or five lesser known titles as well.
    The Anthony Trollope collection stretches more than a foot along one shelf, and you’ll find most anything from the University of Florida or Pineapple Press is available.
    “Our shelf space is so limited we can’t hold more than 24,000 volumes,” Patchett explains, “so we’re running a self-screening collection. If it isn’t a classic, or hasn’t been borrowed in the past couple of years, it’s a candidate for the used book sale.”
    Now to be honest, Patchett’s slingshot potshots at the “big-box” Goliath are a wonderful publicity ploy even cynical newspaper reporters couldn’t resist. But the competition is illusory. The truth is, any book Goliath hasn’t got can be easily transferred from one of the other county branches.
    And while Patchett’s little city library can’t boast multiple meeting rooms and dozens of computer terminals, it has free Wi-Fi, subscriptions to 28 magazines, including The New York Review of Books and Forbes, and online access to about 1,000 newspapers from around the world.
    There is no children’s room, but the children’s shelf is perfectly respectable. And large-print editions, as well.
    “We’re the only public library in the state that offers free color printing, 10 sheets a day per user,” Patchett boasts. “A person can bring in their laptop, use our Wi-Fi and we’ll print out what they’ve downloaded or created.”
    To imagine how far the Lantana Public Library might go in its quest to compete with the big box, look at how far it’s come.
    The collection was born in 1947, when the former bridgetender’s house on Lantana Road became the town’s first library, run by the local Woman’s Club and stocked with a mere 5,000 donated books, mostly bestsellers.
    When the Carteret Savings & Loan on West Ocean Avenue failed in the early 1990s, the town bought the building, and the old bank became the new library.
    Mayor Dave Stewart calls that purchase “the best part of the whole little story.”
    “If you don’t have your own library, you have to pay the county system,” Stewart says. “So it’s actually saved the residents hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes.”
    The current budget is about $170,000, supplemented by donations from the 150-member Friends of the Library.
    And yet Patchett, the library’s director since 1996, doesn’t even live in Lantana. Five days a week for the past 18 years, he’s commuted from Coconut Grove.
    “I leave about 8:15 a.m. and get back … well, it depends on what the idiots are doing out there and how many smash-ups there are.”
    A 1968 graduate of FSU with a master’s degree in library science, he came to Lantana after running teachers libraries in Papua, New Guinea, and Malawi, in Southeast Africa, where he met Katrina, his wife of 28 years.
    “We’re Palm Beach County’s best-kept secret,” says the Lantana library’s most enthusiastic booster.
    But what of those poor library patrons who hunger for the latest page-turner?
    Doesn’t a library that puts The Princeton Guide To Evolution before the latest Stephen King novel risk being accused of elitism?
    “Probably!” Patchett exclaims. “And we don’t give a tinker’s damn. We don’t think it’s elitist. We think it’s an opportunity to serve upward striving people.”

    For more information, call 540-5740 or visit www.lantanalibrary.org.

Demolition of the A.G. Holley hospital building wrapped up in January, and developers have plans

to build a large shopping center with stores, restaurants, a fitness center, pharmacy and a grocery store.

Kenco Communities submitted a site plan to the town with its vision of what will rise on the 73-acre Lantana property.

The commercial portion covers 34 acres. Residences  will be built behind the commercial area.

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Mary Thurwachter

    Full of enthusiasm and armed with chocolate, Denise “Dee” Treinen convened a meeting of the minds on the Lantana Nature Preserve on Jan. 20.
    After business folks, town officials and members of the Lantana Nature Preserve Commission and Friends of the Lantana Nature Preserve filled the Town Council chambers, Treinen cranked up her Power Point, gave chocolate to guests as she introduced them, and outlined a few ideas she said could help the preserve and the community grow.
     The Nature Preserve, a coastal hammock between The Carlisle senior living facility on East Ocean Avenue and the Intracoastal Waterway, is well-suited for educational programs and art shows, Treinen, a volunteer at the preserve, said.
     Other suggestions included recruiting local Boy Scouts to clean up the park, creating a more walkable path for the elderly, and adding new signs.
     Treinen, who has a marketing background, discovered the Nature Preserve when she moved to town nine years ago. She said too many people don’t know it exists.  
     “I just had a light bulb shine and realized that all should benefit from this wondrous gem,” she said. “I realized that this was my new passion and a way to leave a legacy and give back to our wondrous community.”
     The purpose of the meeting, she said, “was to unify the community, individuals, business owners and organizations who are interested in and believe that the Lantana Nature Preserve is a gem and a goldmine for mining and growing themselves.”
     But apparently Treinen didn’t consult with the Friends of the Lantana Nature Preserve about her plans for the gathering or that she asked local businesses for donations of food for the meeting.
     In an email dated Jan. 28, Ilona Balfour, president of the Friends of the Lantana Nature Preserve, wrote that the Friends is a company registered with the State of Florida and that Treinen, should “not solicit donations, arrange meetings or put out any information or communication, contact the press, etc., on behalf of or without the prior approval of the board of Friends.”
     Balfour wrote that while the Friends admires Treinen’s enthusiasm and welcome her association with the Friends, if she chooses to form her own group “in the best interest of the Nature Preserve, please do not use the name Friends of the Lantana Nature Preserve.”
     During the meeting, Mayor David Stewart also advised Treinen to check her facts before sending out information on the town’s behalf. “You have my name spelled wrong (Stuart instead of Stewart),” he said while looking at her Power Point. “And you made Tom (Council Member Tom Deringer) a bottle of wine — Beringer.”
     The preserve was created by a 1997 ordinance and came out of a lawsuit. The Carlisle pays the town $40,000 a year to maintain it. No money comes from the town’s general fund to pay for its maintenance.
     Treinen said she encourages others to become members of the Friends of the Lantana Nature Preserve.

By Jane Smith

    Business owners at the Boynton Harbor Marina can exhale now that the city has found a short-term solution to a vexing parking problem.
    At the January meeting of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board, CRA staff received the OK, by a 5-2 vote, to negotiate with the owner of a vacant 3-acre parcel at the northeast corner of Federal Highway and Ocean Avenue, near the marina.
    In order to offer about 200 free spaces to marina visitors and users, the CRA will pay $20,000 annually to One Boynton LLC to lease a portion of the parcel, once home to a Bank of America branch. It will cost another $40,000 to stripe and clean up the site, said Vivian Brooks, CRA executive director.
    “It’s a simple agreement,” Brooks said after the meeting. “We are hoping to bring it before the board in February. It’s just a matter of repaving and restriping so it should be usable in March.”
    CRA staff approached the owner of the parcel. “It’s a redevelopment site where we would like to have a project,” Brooks said. “Our ultimate goal is a public garage for downtown visitors to use but that is costly.”
    Right now, marina patrons and visitors park for free at the Marina Village garage, which is used primarily by condo owners and renters. The CRA pays over $80,000 annually to lease 122 spots in the garage.
    Starting in January, the condo association that owns the garage had planned to start charging drivers $5 each, Thursday through Sunday, to park in the public section. Money raised would pay for attendants to manage traffic flow and watch for “undesirable activity” that has been reported in the past few months.
    That potential charge drove captains of dive and fishing boats to pack a Dec. 9 CRA meeting, where they said the parking fee would hurt their businesses. They also complained about the 12 spaces near the boat slips that were designated “loading zone.”
    That charge is now set to begin Feb. 15, but it may be pushed back again to coincide with the CRA free parking lot.
    “It’s a private garage. We don’t have the authority to say charge or don’t charge. We simply do not have enough spaces for the marina,” Brooks told the CRA board members.

By Ron Hayes
 
    DELRAY BEACH — One summer day in the late 1920s, a little boy named Arthur Jaffe asked a librarian at the Carnegie Library in Butler, Pa., to recommend a book.
    “She gave me a children’s abridged edition of Robinson Crusoe, and I couldn’t put it down,” he remembered. “That was the book that got me on reading as a passion.”
    In time, that passion for reading grew into a passion for books themselves — their size and weight, designs and decorations — and the boy who loved reading became a man who loved collecting.
    When Mr. Jaffe died at home in Delray Beach on Jan. 25, his collection of books had become the Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts on the third floor of Florida Atlantic University’s Wimberly Library.
    Mr. Jaffe was 93 and the center’s catalog of books, broadsides and lithographs was nearing 12,000.
    “I tell people, if you walk out of here today and think about a book the way you always did, you haven’t failed, I have,” Mr. Jaffe told The Coastal Star in 2011, when the university awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters to mark his retirement as the center’s curator. “You think a book is a cover, a spine, a front and a back, but that’s not what you see here.”
    At the Jaffe Center, visitors find books made of aluminum, or wood. A pop-up book about birds that spreads its wings when opened. Even a book made of glass.
    Arthur H. Jaffe was born on May 7, 1921, and received a B.A. in classical studies from Penn State University in 1942.
    During World War II, he served as an Army intelligence and infantry captain and took part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, for which he was awarded a Bronze Star and the French Legion of Honor.
    From 1946 to 1948, he fought with the Jewish Defense Force to establish the state of Israel and received the Israel Defense Medal. In Jerusalem, he studied modern literature at Hebrew University.
    For three decades, Mr. Jaffe was a partner in the family business, I.M. Jaffe & Sons, operating retail stores throughout Pennsylvania.
    He served as director of endowments for the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and was active in the city’s United Jewish Federation.
    And through it all, he bought books.
    “I wasn’t thinking of building a collection,” he explained. “I was buying books for me. I purchased books because I liked the way they looked, the way they felt in my hands.”
    In 1984, when Mr. Jaffe and his wife, Mata, retired to Delray Beach permanently, he became a founding director of the Jewish Community Foundation of South Palm Beach County and volunteered at the FAU library.
    When the couple moved to smaller quarters, he offered the books to his children. They wanted a book here, a book there, but he wanted to keep the collection intact.
    The Jaffe Center opened on Jan. 6, 2000, with an initial donation of 2,800 books.
    Mata Jaffe died in 2001, and her bequest of $250,000, with a matching grant from the state, built the 4,800-square-foot space that houses the collection today.
    John Cutrone became the center’s book arts coordinator at its inception and was named director at Jaffe’s retirement in 2011.
    “Until the last year, Arthur was here most days, and very often he’d bring another book, or something else to add to the collection,” Cutrone said. “He couldn’t help himself.”
    Mr. Jaffe’s 2011 “retirement” was in name only, and soon he was helping to organize “Stories On The Skin,” a photo exhibit of FAU students’ tattoos.
    “They have messages on their bodies,” he explained. “I see them as walking books.”
    In his final year, Mr. Jaffe still came to the center two or three times a week.
    “His speech had declined, but he always came with new ideas,” Cutrone recalled. “He built this place, and it’s here, and it’s not going anywhere.”
    Last year, Mr. Jaffe received FAU’s Distinguished Service Medallion.
    “But no title could ever encompass all that Arthur meant to FAU,” President John Kelly said in a message to the university community. “To us he was a living legend who personified the highest and best values of his generation — ‘the greatest generation.’ ”
    Mr. Jaffe kept a small office in the center, and as his 90th birthday neared, he showed a visitor one of his latest purchases — an 1884 edition of Robinson Crusoe. An unabridged, grown-up edition.
    “I’ve never actually owned a copy before,” he said with a smile.
    Mr. Jaffe is survived by his children, Jeanne Jaffe, of Philadelphia; Jonathan Jaffe, of San Francisco; Joel Jaffe, Houston; and Julie Jaffe, Vashon Island, Wash.; and eight grandchildren.
   A funeral service and burial were held Jan. 30 in Butler.
    Memorial donations may be made to the Jaffe Center for Books Arts at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431.

By Dan Moffett

    After 15 years as town attorney, Ken Spillias says he plans on retiring in 2016, and he is going to serve out his last year as an employee of Ocean Ridge.
    Spillias won the Town Commission’s blessing for a new employment arrangement that will change his status from an outside contractor to town employee.
    Commissioners unanimously approved a contract at the Feb. 2 meeting that will pay Spillias a $90,000 annual salary, beginning March 1, and also about another $16,000 in benefits. Currently, Spillias earns a base retainer salary of $84,000 from the town, working out of the West Palm Beach law firm of Lewis, Longman & Walker. He earns extra fees for specific casework and litigation that the town requests.
    Spillias said 2015 is shaping up as a “year of transition” for the town because of the resignation of  Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi and the expected retirement of Town Clerk Karen Hancsak, and the switch to employee status will allow him to spend more time at Town Hall to help usher in the changes in administration. He said it will save the town money.
    “A lot of the things you now spend extra for — special services like litigation — would come within my responsibilities” as a salaried town employee, Spillias said.
    An extra benefit of the shift from private to public sector for Spillias is enrollment in the Florida Retirement System. Spillias served as a Palm Beach County commissioner in the 1980s and needs only to work six months more under the state pension plan to become vested in it with six years’ employment.
    Commissioner Richard Lucibella said he had worked and fought with Spillias for many years.
    “I can’t picture better representation for a town than he has shown,” Lucibella said. “He has made some very hard decisions on behalf of this town.”
    Mayor Geoff Pugh said having Spillias’ expertise in-house for the personnel changes ahead will be invaluable.
    “I’m very proud that you would actually do this for us,” Pugh told him.

By Dan Moffett
    
    Rob Sivitilli’s crusade to rescue the family’s imperiled 5011 building is looking for help from an unlikely white knight.
    It’s Briny Breezes.
    After failing to win approval for an ordinance that would grandfather the building into code compliance, Sivitilli is proposing a de-annexation plan to Ocean Ridge.
    “You don’t want us,” he’s telling the town, “so let us go.”
    Sivitilli wants his building to go to Briny Breezes.
    Here’s what his plan would entail:
    Ocean Ridge agrees to de-annex the 5011 N. Ocean Blvd. property. Briny Breezes agrees to annex the property. The Sivitilli family agrees to sell the land to the Briny Breezes corporation for $10. In return, Briny agrees to lease the building to the Sivitillis for 99 years at no charge.
    Somewhere along the line, Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes officials meet and agree on how the building will be used, and they resolve any differences between the towns’ codes, working out as many details as need working out.
    The Sivitillis promise to go forward with a $250,000 project to overhaul the 50-year-old building (they’ve already paid $30,000 to the architects for the redesign plans). Then the district’s two state legislators — Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, and Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton — sponsor a bill in the Legislature presenting the de-annexation for a formal vote. The Legislature passes it early 2016.
    So then, the 5011 building becomes part of Briny Breezes, which, in theory, benefits from an increase in its tax base and the availability of a mixed-use strip that provides valuable commercial services, such as a barber shop. Ocean Ridge, in theory, benefits by ridding itself of a nonconforming property without having to bend town rules and also gets a renovated corridor welcoming people at the town’s southern entrance.
    Admittedly, the strategy is pretty complex, so much so that Sivitilli couldn’t find a place to start. When he pitched the idea to Ocean Ridge town commissioners in January, they told him to go get Briny on board first. When he went to Briny, council members told him to go get approval from Ocean Ridge — and also to sell the idea to Briny’s corporate board first.
    “In the grand scheme of things, the order I would see something like this happening has to start with Ocean Ridge,” said John Skrandel, Briny’s town attorney. “Without their full consent, it doesn’t go any further.”
    Ocean Ridge Commissioner Richard Lucibella disagreed: “Briny’s the suitor. We’re not.”
    Ocean Ridge Town Attorney Ken Spillias called it “pingpong.” Michael Weiner, lawyer for the Sivitilli family, calls it a “chicken-egg, egg-chicken” problem.
    Ocean Ridge Mayor Geoff Pugh is more concerned about the precedent de-annexation would set than who starts it.
    “It is unprecedented because the town of Ocean Ridge has never de-annexed a property before,” Pugh said.
    Commissioner James Bonfiglio said it makes no sense for the town to give away control and still have the 5011 problems: inadequate parking, inadequate setbacks and commercial enterprise in a town that is supposed to be residential only.
    “We get the same building we had and thought we got rid of three months ago,” Bonfiglio said.
    Ocean Ridge commissioners told Sivitilli and Weiner to bring more information to the commission’s March 2 meeting. They said they were willing to listen some more.
    In other business: Pugh and Commissioner Gail Adams Aaskov are up for re-election March 10.
    Aaskov has taken out election paperwork and indicated she intends to run again.
    As of Feb. 3, Pugh had not committed. “I don’t know,” he said when asked whether he’ll seek another three-year term.
Qualifying ends on Feb. 10.

By Mary Thurwachter
    
    Council members in Lantana had a change of heart about installing parking meters in the town-owned parking lot on South Third Street off Lantana Road.
    At the Jan. 26 town meeting, the council decided to look into leasing the lot instead of the original plan to install refurbished parking meters previously used at the beach.
    In December, when the council voted to spend $29,440 to repave the lot, the decision to add meters was made.
    Town Manager Deborah Manzo said it was part of a pattern the town had established to charge for parking after repaving lots that were serving businesses. Bicentennial Park has meters and Sportsman’s Park will soon.
    But objections to the parking meter plan on Third Street have come up twice since then, both times by Stanley Gundlack, who owns the shopping center that houses Benny’s Seafood Restaurant next to the lot.
    Gundlack said that if meters were installed he feared annoyed residents who have been using the lot to change oil in their cars would vandalize them.
    “Lantana has been getting passed by, but now with what’s happening at A.G. Holley (the development), we’re getting recognized again,” he said. “I don’t want the parking lot to go.” (The town had once talked about possibly grassing over the little-used lot.)
    Gundlack suggested the town look into renting the lot to restaurant owners on Ocean Avenue, where parking is at a premium, for employee parking.
    “It could be leased to valets,” council member Phil Aridas said. ”It’s right across the tracks (from Ocean Avenue restaurants).”
    “I like the idea of leasing it out,” Mayor Dave Stewart said. “But in the meantime, we should put up two-hour parking signs and enforce it.”
    Paving is scheduled to begin early in February.
    In other action, the town:
    • Approved a shared parking agreement for Mario’s Ocean Avenue restaurant at 225 E. Ocean Ave.
    • Chose to name the new park at 106-122 N. Lake Drive “Lyman Kayak Park.”
    • Re-appointed Ilona Balfour and Mary Lacorazza to the Lantana Nature Preserve Commission with terms ending Jan. 31, 2017.