By Dan Moffett

    Manalapan commissioners are grumbling about the high cost of litigating grievances with the Police Benevolent Association, and that could mean tougher contract negotiations between the town and union next year.
    Since the current three-year contract went into effect in September 2012, Manalapan officers have filed about 10 grievances through the union, according to Town Manager Linda Stumpf. None of them has been upheld.
    Though the department and town have prevailed, taxpayers have gotten stuck with the bill for hiring outside counsel to work the cases. In the last fiscal year, it cost Manalapan $37,082 in legal fees to fight the grievances and deal with the complaints filed by resident Kersen De Jong, who has accused the department and Chief Carmen Mattox of misconduct and racial profiling — charges that independent investigations did not substantiate.
    Earlier this year, Officer Paul Williams, then Manalapan’s PBA representative, filed a grievance accusing a fellow officer of creating a hostile work environment. Williams lost the case and then left the department in May. The town got stuck with the bill for his complaint, however.
    Beyond paying legal fees for that grievance, Stumpf said hiring an outside investigator to conduct the internal affairs review of Williams’ allegations cost about $10,000.
    Mayor David Cheiftez, annoyed about paying to litigate cases the town wins, said he has floated the idea of insisting on a “loser pays” provision for grievances when negotiations on the next PBA contract begin in the spring.
    While it’s unlikely the union will easily consent to that, town commissioners are sending a message with the proposal.
    “The town was extremely generous with the last contract,” Stumpf said. “The commission definitely wanted to make the point now that there have been too many frivolous grievances filed. The town isn’t going to be as generous this time.”
    Stumpf has allocated money in the 2014-15 budget for two other cases.
    In June, the town fired police Officer David Hul after complaints about his handling of a disturbance at Manalapan Pizza. Hul, who filed a grievance with the union, is scheduled to have an arbitration hearing with the town in December.
    Then there is also the long-running legal battle between Manalapan and Louis and Wendy Navellier. In 2005, the Navelliers began construction on a pool cabana without obtaining a permit or a variance. Code enforcement fines have accumulated to about $500,000, and the town has spent more than $350,000 in legal fees over nine years.
    In court, the Navelliers have accused the town of being unreasonable and engaging in selective enforcement, arguing that other Manalapan homeowners have violated codes but haven’t been penalized or have received variances.
    The Florida Supreme Court declined to review the case last year, but attorneys for the Navelliers notified the town last month that they intend to go forward and appeal a magistrate’s decision on the fines that was made in March. So the battle goes on.
    At the Aug. 20 budget workshop, the commission approved a property tax rate of $3.03 per $1,000 of taxable value, up from the current $2.90. The higher rate is still the lowest in Palm Beach County, and the town will have to pull about $167,000 from its reserves to pay for the Audubon Causeway Bridge project. Budget hearings are scheduled for Sept. 17 and Sept. 23.
    Stumpf said she is hopeful the $20,000 set aside for legal fees in the proposed budget will be enough. Ú

By Mary Thurwachter
    
    Shortly after returning from his Hawaiian vacation, Vice Mayor Lynn Moorhouse went to the beach for brunch at the Dune Deck. The local dentist had no complaints about food, but what he saw in the parking lot had him clenching his teeth.
    “We have a major problem with the kiosks,” Moorhouse said at the Aug. 25 Lantana Town Council meeting. “People couldn’t make them work and some were just leaving to go somewhere else. That’s gonna cost us money if we don’t address it.”
    This year, after the beach parking lot was renovated to curb flooding problems, two parking kiosks were installed to replace rusty meters.
    “There have been some issues,” Town Manager Deborah Manzo said of the kiosks, including one getting jammed. Eventually, the kiosks will accept credit cards, but that feature won’t be functioning for a few weeks, she said.
    John Caruso of the Dune Deck restaurant said some of his customers are angry about parking difficulties and have threatened not to return. He said the restaurant even has lost a star on Yelp, an online business review site, since the parking issues surfaced.
    Caruso said disabled people have to pay for parking now and that some have to go all the way up the ramp to the restaurant to get change and then back to feed the kiosks. “We need to help them out or we’re going to lose them all,” Caruso said. “I don’t have the solution, but it needs a Band-Aid right now.”
    The council talked about adding a third kiosk to shorten the waiting-to-pay lines and to compensate when one kiosk is on the blink, or perhaps returning the present kiosks for something else.
    “But please, don’t go back to coin-only meters,” council member Phil Aridas, a longtime proponent of credit card-only meters, said. “Meters don’t work.”
    The fine for not paying to park is $50, and some council members suggested suspending that fee while kiosk problems persist. Mayor Dave Stewart said he didn’t want to go that far, but that law enforcement may “temporarily have some blinders on.”
    In the meantime, Manzo and the police chief were instructed to look into solutions, which could include adding a third kiosk, replacing present kiosks, posting signs that tell beachgoers to let lifeguards know about kiosk malfunctions — and that both kiosks can be used for the entire lot.
    Those who need change to feed the kiosks can usually find it at the Dune Deck. Caruso said he always stocks up on quarters and doesn’t mind helping out.
    In other business, the council learned that the $92,000 budget deficit, which the town had planned to cover with money from its reserves, no longer exists. “Most of the balance is due to increased revenues and lower property and casualty insurance premiums than what was anticipated,” Manzo said. “Also, we are no longer paying for the previous attorney’s (Corbett and White) health insurance, which was just over $15,000.”

By Dan Moffett

    In waging their legal wars against the town of Gulf Stream, residents Chris O’Hare and Martin O’Boyle have used Florida’s public records laws hundreds of times in the last 18 months to challenge how their community is governed.
    As of mid-August, the town had responded to 1,252 public record requests filed in roughly equal numbers by O’Hare and O’Boyle, according to Town Clerk Rita Taylor.
    The requests touch most every imaginable tangent of the disputes O’Hare and O’Boyle have had with the town: fights over the architecture of home entrances and roofs, election rules, Americans With Disabilities Act compliance, parking regulation, constitutional protections and general governmental procedures.
    The two have sought documents, emails, phone texts, receipts, expense vouchers, transcripts and recordings. Between them, O’Hare and O’Boyle have filed dozens of suits and complaints against the town in the circuit and federal courts during the last two years.
    Taylor, 83, said she has been working seven days a week since last year and her assistant works Saturday mornings.
The town also has added a full-time temporary office worker, solely to help satisfy the requests.
    “Even with the extra temporary worker,” Taylor said, “a lot of our other work is undone because we’re working on public records.”
    Since mid-2013, Taylor says the clerk’s office has logged 4,650 hours handling the public records requests from O’Hare and O’Boyle. She says the office currently is logging about 145 hours per week, or 72 percent of its total work time, dealing with the requests.
    Gulf Stream spent about $360,000 in legal fees during the last fiscal year to fight the lawsuits of O’Hare and O’Boyle, and the related clerical work at Town Hall has cost at least another $100,000, officials say.
    In recent months, the town has added a folder on its website just to keep track of public records requests and make them accessible to the public.
    O’Boyle and O’Hare accuse town officials of creating their own problems. O’Boyle blames the town for being unwilling to negotiate and choosing a “legal slugfest” over a settlement.
    “If you really want to get the legal fees under control,” O’Boyle told Mayor Scott Morgan during the July Town Commission meeting, “you have to really want to get the legal fees under control.”
    O’Hare has accused the town of violating the very public records laws it claims to be upholding.
    “If you tell your staff to follow the law,” O’Hare told town commissioners during the same meeting, “all this stuff would go away and go back to normal.”
    The town has installed a $3,500 video security system at Town Hall after an incident on July 24, when O’Boyle and two associates entered the clerk’s office and asked for records during a meeting of the architectural review board, officials said.
    The new system allows staff to use a video monitor to identify people at the door, talk to them through an intercom and then release the lock electronically — or not.
    In other business: The Aug. 8 Town Commission meeting was canceled because of a lack of a quorum. Commissioner Donna White was ill, and Morgan and Commissioner Joan Orthwein were on vacation.

Watch video

By Jane Smith
    
    Boynton Beach real estate broker James Arena wants to preserve the funky Florida lifestyle where beach access is everything.
    In mid-August, he starred in a 3-minute video to make surfers and other beachgoers aware of how a nearby proposed development might lower their quality of life.
    “I wanted to raise awareness, because a lot of people are not aware of what is happening,” said Arena who lives in Briny Breezes. “I haven’t seen anything done since the late May meeting, so I put the video together.”
    That meeting brought together Briny Breezes residents with residents of the “surf pocket” over development of the former “dog beach parcel” that lies between them.
    Developer Joseph Basil Sr. met with Villas of Malibu property owners in April to discuss his plans to have a stretch of Old Ocean Boulevard and Seaview Avenue abandoned. Old Ocean sits between his property and the beach. In exchange, he would provide an access road through his property to the Villas of Malibu.
    If the roads were abandoned, Basil’s group could build as many as 36 townhomes. He could not be reached.
    Kristine de Haseth, executive director of the Florida Coalition for Preservation, ran the May meeting and encouraged property owners to check their deeds for easements to the beach. She is monitoring the proposed development. So far, she said in late August, no new plans have been submitted.
    That’s why Arena made his YouTube video.
    “I just feel that if the property goes that way, the area will be changed forever,” he said. “Financially it would be good, property values would rise. But the quality of life would go down.”
    The video begins with Arena driving a golf cart down Old Ocean Boulevard while music with a pulsing beat plays in the background. He points out where the gates would go in, restricting access.
    The video has a few errors. He calls the road Old A1A, instead of Old Ocean Boulevard. And says the developer owns the road when the county actually still owns it.
    Even so, his production has an emotional appeal. On the video, Arena says he grew up in Boynton Beach and has been coming to this patch and the Nomad Surf shop since he was born.
    He asks viewers: “If you want to stop it, I want to know. Or if you want to let it go so that you can increase the value of this land, I want to know.”

See the video, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-BYldmGo0E or visit www.thecoastalstar.ning.com.

The new iPic and its related parking may create traffic issues.

Rendering provided

By Betty Wells
    
    The design proposal for a luxury theater, retail and office complex in downtown Delray Beach has rankled neighboring business owners, who say it will create dangerous traffic flow, restrict access for emergency vehicles and keep customers from their establishments.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein said he shares some concerns and is attempting to negotiate a compromise.
    iPic Entertainment’s proposal is to construct a five-story mixed-use facility with an eight-screen, 529-seat luxury movie theater; 42,869 square feet of Class A office space — including iPic’s corporate headquarters — 7,290 square feet of retail space; and a 279-space parking garage. Planned parking is 50 spaces more than required by city code, according to the Community Redevelopment Agency.
    The CRA project is at Fourth and Fifth avenues, a site that includes the old library building on Southeast Fourth Avenue, the Chamber of Commerce office building on Southeast Fifth Avenue, and the adjacent public parking lot.
    “The design would have a huge impact on the businesses nearby, and the way the parking garage empties into alleys would mean access would be delayed for police and fire trucks,” said Bruce Gimmy, owner since 1990 of the Trouser Shop at 439 E. Atlantic Ave. Gimmy was appointed July 31 to the city’s Parking Management Advisory Board, which advises the City Council on parking policy.
    Dr. Robert George, whose family settled in Delray Beach in 1908 and opened a business on Atlantic Avenue in 1911, met on July 10 with Scott Pape, a Planning and Zoning Department project planner.
    In a letter, requested by Pape from George after the meeting, George outlined the concerns.
    “We are deeply troubled in regard to specific elements of the proposed redevelopment of the ‘Old Public Library’ site and other nearby properties,” the letter said.
    George heads Abeleina Properties Inc., which owns properties at 400 to 406 E. Atlantic.
    The letter stated that 10 other businesses had the same concerns.
    The objections listed as addressed in the meeting are:
    • The main entrance and exit of the parking garage would open onto the east-west alley of block 101. The traffic already gets backed up on the alley road, and adding hundreds more vehicles would make it much worse.
    • The opening from the garage is directly across the alley from the George Building, at the southeast corner of Southeast Fourth Avenue and East Atlantic, and would make it difficult for drivers to enter the parking area of the building.
    • Traffic from the alley would exit onto either Southeast Fourth, or Southeast Fifth, adding hundreds of cars daily to already busy streets.
    • Plans call for abandonment of the northern half of the south alley of block 101. Closure would impair free access of emergency vehicles and vendors.
    • While the parking garage calls for the addition of 279 spaces, construction would eliminate a total of 98 public parking spaces.
    George declined to comment on the meeting with Pape, the letter, or a meeting he had with Glickstein.
    Glickstein said he has concerns about adequate parking for the intended uses, first responder access, the public parking spaces lost and how theater traffic will work at the location.
    “I also question a site plan that would force visitor access to such a beautiful new building through a public service alley that is both unsightly and used intensely by a variety of service vehicles … that have no other location for access and deliveries,” Glickstein said.  
    One of the complaints from business owners was that they were not consulted about the plan before the CRA accepted it, and though it meets city code, the city is not listening to their concerns.
    “I think there was adequate notice, but I also believe there was, and remains, a disconnect between the notice provided of what may happen in a complicated (Request for Proposals) process and what stakeholders understand about the complexities and ramifications of the RFP process and the RFP winner’s plans and how those plans may impact their property/business,” Glickstein said.
    Glickstein said he was meeting during the first week of September with iPic developers and planning and zoning staff to address the concerns.
    iPic did not respond to questions. A spokesman for a public relations firm representing the company said the firm had no comment.
    According to the CRA, after the Delray Beach Public Library moved to West Atlantic Avenue, its former site on Southeast Fourth became available for redevelopment. The CRA issued an RFP to solicit development proposals in 2006, but it all stalled during the recession.
    In February 2013, the CRA issued another RFP. In August 2013, the CRA awarded the RFP to Delray Beach Holdings LLC  — a limited liability entity created for development purposes by iPic Holdings LLC of Boca Raton.
    In April, the associated development applications were submitted to the city and are under review. The CRA says completion of the project is anticipated in 2016.
    Glickstein noted the growing pains that can come from longtime businesses affected by development.
    “The George family has been here since shortly after the town was incorporated,” he said. “We are fortunate to have such generational connections to our past that still play an active role in our city.  
    “I think Dr. George, as do others like him with such perspective of our town, has valuable and relevant insight that some may minimize as dated. I like knowing I can look to him and other longtime Delray family members like him for wisdom and guidance. That doesn’t mean we may always agree, but it’s a valuable reference point for me.” Ú

By Tim Pallesen
   
    The question whether a nationwide furor over puppy-mill sales requires a Delray Beach law has been delayed.
    City commissioners have imposed a six-month moratorium on allowing new puppy stores into Delray so city officials have time to study the controversy.
    The furor struck locally last December with a protest march outside Waggs to Riches, the only pet store selling puppies in Delray.
Six months later, commissioners passed a city ordinance banning the sale of animals from puppy mills on first reading.
    But Waggs to Riches owner Kimberly Curler sued Commissioner Shelly Petrolia for defamation, and the city attorney advised commissioners to put on the brakes.
    Curler praised the City Commission for its delay to study the issue. Waggs to Riches continues to sell puppies. “Four of the city commissioners are attorneys. At least we’ve got some logic,” Curler said.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein and Commissioner Jordana Jarjura joined Petrolia to support the moratorium and keep the issue alive. “The moratorium gives us time to look at how this issue is being handled,” Glickstein said.
    Commissioners Adam Frankel and Al Jacquet voted against the moratorium last month. Frankel stressed that Waggs to Riches is the only pet store in the city that sells puppies and kittens. “We create a moratorium going after one lady when there are far larger issues in the city than dogs and cats,” he said.
    “Where is the problem that we’re stomping out?” Jacquet asked. “I think we’re going overboard. We don’t want to tell businesses not to come to Delray.”
    Animal advocates oppose the sale of sometimes unhealthy puppies and kittens that are mass-produced elsewhere and shipped to independent pet stores.
    “If I was selling sick dogs and cats, I wouldn’t be in business,” said Curler, who opened Waggs to Riches eight years ago.
    Palm Beach Gardens and other cities have banned puppy-mill sales. Frankel argues that the problem requires federal rather than local regulation.

By Jane Smith
    
    Starting Oct. 1, residents in Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes will pay more for an ambulance ride provided by Boynton Beach Fire Rescue.
    For a basic ambulance ride, the transport fee will increase by nearly 75 percent to $610, and the mileage rate will increase by 50 percent to $12 a mile.
    Intermediate life support rides also will rise to $610, up 43.5 percent, and the most advanced support will increase to $770, or 33.9 percent.
    The increase will raise $200,000 for the upcoming budget year that is still tight for Boynton Beach.
    “The new rates are identical to the rates Palm Beach County has adopted that will go into effect Jan. 1, 2015,” Boynton Beach Fire Rescue Chief Ray Carter told city commissioners in early August.
    City commissioners peppered him with questions, such as would the increase prevent someone who needs a ride to the hospital from going in an ambulance.
    “Absolutely not,” Carter said. The department is trying to update its rates, which have been in place since 2007, he said. He assured the commissioners that the city’s  increased rates would not be at the top or the bottom of the county but in the middle compared with other fire rescue departments.
    “The point here is to capture the revenue from secondary insurers,” Carter said. “They are willing to pay these amounts. Everyone else is collecting them. We felt it was time to get in line with that.”
    No members of the public spoke on the issue at both hearings. City commissioners passed it unanimously twice.
    Delray Beach charges $650 for a basic ambulance ride; that same transport costs $750 in Boca Raton.
    Boynton Beach’s increase also applies to people using the St. Andrews Club and residents in the county pocket between Briny Breezes and Gulf Stream, areas served by the Boynton Beach Fire Rescue department.
    Ken Schenk, Ocean Ridge town manager, said his residents should be able to pay the increase because they have health insurance.
    “It’s not cheap,” he said, “but it sure beats the alternative.”

By Jane Smith

    The municipal core of Boynton Beach needs a distinct identity with a signature entrance, a Treasure Coast Planning Council consultant told city commissioners.
    “Columns like they have in Rollins College,” said Marcela Camblor, an architect, at her presentation in early August.
    Camblor presented an amalgamation of what city residents had suggested at a May workshop.
    She took suggestions and will come back in October with a refined plan, said Vivian Brooks, executive director of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency. It had paid the council $58,000 to help plan the area.
    Residents want to create an active, lively city center that is visible, Camblor told a joint meeting of city commissioners and CRA board members.
    First, residents want to build on history and preserve the old high school by moving all activities from other civic buildings to it.
That high school-turned-civic center could serve as an anchor for the Town Square complex, Camblor said.
    The City Hall should be moved south of Ocean Avenue with a plaza in front of it, she suggested in one scenario.
    The complex should be connected to Ocean Avenue with pavers or other colors on the street.
    And to help pay for it, the city should consider public-private partnerships with developers building mixed-used properties along Boynton Beach Boulevard, Camblor said.
    At least one commissioner, Mack McCray, wanted to know what the area would look like without the historic high school. Another commissioner, David Merker, said, “If we keep the high school, we need an exact plan of how to use it.”
    Commissioner Michael Fitzpatrick, a retired city firefighter, pointed out a problem with moving the fire station to Town Square. The response times could increase when All Aboard Florida trains start running and live up to the reported 32 train trips daily.
    Former city commissioner Woodrow Hay, who is a CRA board member, said he likes the walkability of the plan and moving City Hall to the south side, but the plan brings up “hot potatoes,” including the width of Boynton Beach Boulevard sidewalks.
    Lawyer Michael Weiner, who owns the land under the nearby Postal Service branch, cautioned commissioners against a build-it-and-they-will-come philosophy.
    “Retail is hobbled in the 21st century. Little shop spaces can’t be filled,” he said. Dry cleaners and bank branches that serve the neighborhood do well, he said.

By Dan Moffett

    Ocean Ridge commissioners have given unanimous preliminary approval to two measures intended to resolve two of the town’s most contentious and complicated issues.
    At the Aug. 11 meeting, the commission approved the first reading of an ordinance amendment that regulates use of the town’s public beaches. The proposed law comes in response to complaints from beachfront property owners about the misbehavior of out-of-town beachgoers.
    And commissioners also are attempting to repair a troublesome rental registration ordinance that was passed last year. An amended version of the law shifts the focus from registering tenants to registering property owners, and it reduces fees.
    Both of the proposed amendments are scheduled to come up for a second reading at the commission’s Sept. 8 meeting, and commissioners admitted it might take a third reading in October to finish work on the much-debated beach amendment.
    Town Attorney Ken Spillias brought the commission a draft for beach regulations that contained language and provisions drawn from other waterfront communities around the state.
    “We put a smorgasbord in here and tried to distinguish private from public,” Spillias said, allowing that not all the measures would appeal to commissioners.
    The amendment does not attempt to draw a specific line between private and public beach property. The commission had considered using several possible boundaries — the wrack line, or erosion control line, or simply the wet sand, dry sand line — but has drifted away from making precise definitions.
    With the proposed amendment, the line between public and private would be left more in policy than in legal language, leaving enforcement up to police discretion. Similarly, the amendment prohibits excessive noise but does not define it in decibel levels. Generally, police will make the call on what constitutes misbehavior and what doesn’t.
    “Most of the provisions that are there are for when police see egregious violations,” Spillias said.
    Explicitly banned on the public beaches are glass containers, pets — and excretion of bodily wastes, which many beachfront residents complained to the commission they have seen too often.
    Commissioners decided against banning alcohol consumption on the beaches, believing prohibition would be an infringement on residents.
    The proposed fixes to the rental registration amendment are attempts to remedy complaints that the existing ordinance violates privacy rights and is too costly for landlords. The commission passed it last year in an attempt to rein in the nuisance, short-term rentals of single-family homes.
    Spillias offered a revised version of the law that does not require tenants to provide personal information. Instead, landlords are required to register their properties with the town and pay a $35 annual fee for each property. In the current version, landlords are required to pay $50 for each lease.
    “I don’t have a problem with registering properties,” said Commissioner Richard Lucibella. “I do have a problem with registering people.”
    Several commissioners agreed that the ordinance has been effective in deterring the nuisance rentals and helping police keep track of neighborhoods. As of August, the town had registered 97 rental units and houses.
    Commissioner Lynn Allison said she had grown skeptical about the value of the ordinance, however.
    “When we started last year, it was about safety,” Allison said, “but I’m not even sure why we’re doing it anymore.”

By Dan Moffett

    Faced again with dipping into reserves to balance the budget, Ocean Ridge commissioners aren’t buying some things that town officials wanted for the next fiscal year.
    Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi isn’t going to get two new patrol cars, a savings of about $76,000. The commission wants the chief to find a way to keep the 5-year-old Ford cruisers scheduled for replacement running for one more year.
    Yannuzzi also isn’t going to get $38,500 to replace the outdated alarm system that connects 300 homes to the town dispatch center. Commissioners are hoping they can get a new system for $20,000 and save $18,500.
    The town’s maintenance workers are taking a hit, too. Commissioners said no to the purchase of a $3,000 golf cart for picking up trash.
    Down the road, no-see-ums  might be getting a reprieve, too. The commission said yes to renewing a $49,972 contract with Clarke Environmental Mosquito Management to spray against the pesky bugs. But Commissioner James Bonfiglio questioned whether that’s too much money, considering other budget demands.
    “I don’t mind spending money to keep my neighbors comfortable,” Bonfiglio said, “but when you start talking about budget items and saying I want to save $3,000 here, I want to save $5,000 there and $10,000 there, we’re spending an awful lot of money to make your lives a little more comfortable, just with the no-see-ums.”
    Mayor Geoffrey Pugh said it was unfortunate that the town has been unable to find another company willing to submit a competing bid for the spraying, and he criticized Clarke’s performance.
    “The efficacy of what they’ve been spraying was poor this last year,” Pugh said. “The service was poor. If there was somebody else we could go with, I’d probably want to award them the contract.”
    What stayed in the budget was $85,000 to hire another police officer — a response to complaints from some waterfront residents that misconduct on the town’s beaches warrants stricter enforcement. The additional officer won’t be assigned exclusively to beach patrolling, but will give the department more flexibility and manpower to watch over the beaches, commissioners believe.
    Commissioner Richard Lucibella opposed the hiring, saying he believed the department had adequate staffing. Lucibella also objected to spending $28,500 for a pickup, arguing that the town’s current truck still had life left in it.  “I may sound like the Grinch that stole Christmas,” said Lucibella, “but we need to make those hard, $20,000-at-a-time decisions.”
    But Pugh said the truck was “all rusted out underneath” and the town needed one four-wheel vehicle it could depend on during emergencies. The commission agreed and decided to buy a new one.
    Even with all the slashing and postponing purchases, Ocean Ridge will have to pull about $317,000 out of its reserves to balance the 2014-2015 budget.
    Commissioners kept the tax rate the same as last year at 5.35 during the Aug. 11 workshop, meaning a homeowner would pay $535 for each $100,000 of assessed property value.
    Because property values have gone up about 6 percent in the town over last year, total revenues for the new budget are up about $160,000.
    Public hearings on the proposed 2014-2015 budget are scheduled for 5 p.m. Sept. 9 and Sept. 16. Ú

Dr. James DeGerome of Hypoluxo Island

practiced gastroenterology in Boynton Beach for 31 years.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

    When he’s not pondering America’s health care challenge, Dr. James DeGerome works to maintain his own good health by jogging from the Dune Deck Café in Lantana to the Lake Worth Bridge and back several days a week.
    At 74, the Hypoluxo Island resident is a retired gastroenterologist who practiced in Palm Beach County for 31 years, as well as a former president of the Bethesda Memorial Hospital medical staff and the Florida Gastroenterologic Society. He built the first ambulatory surgical center dedicated solely to gastroenterological endoscopy, at the corner of Golf Road and Seacrest Boulevard in Boynton Beach, and currently serves as president of the nonprofit Digestive Disease National Coalition in Washington, D.C.
    In 2009, Dr. DeGerome published The Cure For The American Healthcare Malady, a critique of socialized medicine and prescription for reform that then future Gov. Rick Scott said “does an outstanding job explaining the life and death consequences of government-run health care and delivers a carefully thought-out path to high quality, affordable health care for all Americans.”
    Now the book has just been republished in an updated paperback edition, incorporating the results of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s survey of that state’s system.
    DeGerome and his wife, Carol, have been married for 24 years. She is a former vice president of Carteret Mortgage Co. in Delray Beach, and the couple have three children: James, the director of communications at the University of South Florida; Alison, a documentary filmmaker; and Julie, a regional manager for Cigna/Christie Healthcare in Boston, Mass.
— Ron Hayes
 
Ten Questions

Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A. I grew up in a bedroom community in New Jersey. My dad was the local family physician, and he came from a family of eight kids. My grandfather was a full professor of Romance languages at New York University. In those days, the father would pick the occupation. He chose my father to be an M.D., and his two brothers to be a dentist and a Ph.D. like himself and they all accomplished that. I have five male first cousins and they’re all M.D.s.
    
Q. Tell us about your medical career; what were the highlights?
A. I went to Georgetown University for my B.S. degree and the New Jersey College of Medicine for my medical degree and was chief resident in internal medicine at the New Jersey College of Medicine. In 1970 I got board certified for the American Board of Internal Medicine and was immediately drafted into the Vietnam War by the U.S. Air Force. I was taken in as an internist and got out as a gastroenterologist.
    I answered an ad in the Florida Medical Association Journal that had been placed by Dr. John Westine, who had a practice at 250 Dixie Blvd., and that’s where I settled in 1974. They needed a gastroenterologist at Bethesda Memorial Hospital and I introduced procedures of endoscopy to the area.
    
Q. What advice do you have for a young person entering the workforce today?
A. Oh, my God, I don’t know. The future is so complex and in transition that you don’t know what to tell them. Just practice the best you know how. You always have the satisfaction of making people better, but the circumstances of their practice are going to change rapidly over the next 20 years. Get satisfaction, that’s the important thing.
    
Q. Tell us about your interest in the U.S. health care system.
A. I’ve studied health care delivery throughout my entire career by going on rounds and interviewing patients in Canada, the U.K., France and Italy, and gathered my basic data over my career on my vacations — which was somewhat boring to my wife. I’d run off to the local hospital and talk to the doctors. My initial intent was to reveal that socialized medicine is not all it’s cracked up to be, and I expose the flaws in my book. I believe that it’s not less costly and does not really cover everybody and does not lead to higher quality health care. Those are my three conclusions.
    Then I realized if I was going to criticize socialized medicine, I better have a better cure, so I lay out a nine-point plan based on a lot of ideas that have been around for a long time.
    
Q. How did you choose to have a home on Hypoluxo Island?
A. In 1988, I was shown an old, small house by the mayor of Manalapan, Dr. Kent Shortz, an orthopedic surgeon and a friend at Bethesda. I was president of the medical staff and he was the preceding president. He said I have a piece of property I must sell and he showed me this property on the lagoon and I fell in love with it.
    
Q. What is your favorite part about living on Hypoluxo Island?
A. Ah! I would say the view. It’s gorgeous. I look out on the lagoon and I can see the ocean from my porch upstairs. A beautiful piece of property I lucked into, and my neighbors are fabulous, wonderful people.
    
Q. What book are you reading now?
A. Castles of Steel, by Robert Massie, It’s about the birth of the German navy before and during World War I. It’s meticulously researched.
    
Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A. From William Shakespeare,  “Julius Caesar,” Act. III, Scene 2: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
    
Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. A colonel M.D. named David Langdon. I was at Little Rock Air Force Base, and then Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where I did two years of gastroenterology training under Dr. Langdon. I went in as an internist and he convinced me to be a gastroenterologist.
    
Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. Probably Clint Eastwood. I watch “Josey Wales” every now and then when I want to get rid of frustration.

The Cure For The American Healthcare Malady is available at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com. For more information, visit www.degerome.com.

Paragon Acquisition Group has presented a plan to build 33 condos in a six-story building

over a parking garage on the site of the Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn.

Rendering provided by Kobi Karp

By Dan Moffett

    After a false start last winter, Paragon Acquisition Group is moving forward with plans to build condominiums on the site of the Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn.
    This time, however, Paragon isn’t proposing a project that requires changes in South Palm Beach’s height limitations.
    At an Aug. 25 meeting of the town’s Architectural Review Board, Paragon unveiled a scaled-back — and scaled-down — version of the design it showed residents in February. Instead of 36 condos, the developer presented the town a plan for 33, and instead of an eight-story building, Paragon is proposing six stories over a parking garage.
    The changes put the project in compliance with the town’s building rules, and the review board unanimously approved the plans on a 3-0 vote.
    “We’re heading in the right direction now,” said Councilwoman Stella Jordan, one of the town’s most vocal advocates for height restrictions. “It’s a very good design, and the changes were necessary.”
    With an approved site plan, Paragon can begin applying for the permits needed to start construction. However, several council members said they were skeptical about work on the property beginning any time soon.
    Vice Mayor Joseph Flagello says the revised design moves the building a couple feet farther to the east, which may complicate getting the federal and state permits necessary to build the seawall.
    Flagello also questions how serious the Delray Beach-based developer is about doing the building itself. “They certainly could sell the property to someone else now that they have an approved plan,” he said. “That wouldn’t be surprising.”
    In February, Paragon CEO Gary Cohen asked the Town Council to put a referendum on the August primary ballot that would change the town’s charter and land development regulations to allow an eight-story structure where the old Hawaiian hotel now stands at 3550 S. Ocean Blvd.
    The council unanimously rejected Cohen’s proposal, and told the developer to work with residents to come up with a plan they would accept. Cohen bought the property for $8.25 million in November 2012 and has repeatedly said its future is not as a hotel and restaurant, the town’s only business and a nonconforming commercial use.
    Before Cohen arrived, the previous owner, Pjeter Paloka and Kosova Realty, proposed building a 14-story condo project, an idea that touched off a backlash among residents which ultimately led to voters approving new height limits in 2010.
    Paragon’s revised design, by Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design of Miami, features a saw-tooth layout with staggered floors. To satisfy parking requirements, the plan calls for using mechanical lifts to stack cars in the garage.
    In other business, Leanne Welch, Palm Beach County’s environmental program supervisor, told the Town Council on Aug. 26 that preliminary work on a plan to help prevent erosion of the town’s shoreline is running behind schedule.
    Welch said an Environmental Impact Statement that was supposed to be ready early next year might not be ready until May or June. Until the Army Corps of Engineers completes the EIS, the plan to install buried groins along the beach can’t go forward.
    “It is frustrating,” said Councilwoman Bonnie Fischer, the town’s liaison on the $5 million project, “but I guess it’s expected.”
    Welch said the plan still calls for the town paying 20 percent of the cost, the county 30 percent and the state 50 percent. About 75,000 cubic yards of sand would be used with the groins to help stabilize the shoreline

By Mary Thurwachter

    Developers were able to persuade a majority of Lantana Town Council members that rezoning the Cenacle property to make way for a 319-unit apartment complex was a good idea. On the other hand, a request for four variances to the code failed to pass muster.
    The Cenacle, 10 acres of prime waterfront property that has been home to the Cenacle Spiritual Life Center in Lantana for 60 years, is slated to become Aura Seaside, a luxury apartment complex proposed by Ocean Ridge developer Jerry Goray and Trinsic Residential Group (a Dallas-based company with an office in Miami).
    On July 14, the council gave final approval for zoning and comprehensive plan changes for the 1400 S. Dixie Highway Cenacle property from commercial low density to waterfront mixed use. Vice Mayor Lynn Moorhouse was absent and Mayor Dave Stewart alone voted against the zoning change.
    Stewart said the property was some of the last prime waterfront land available in the town and he preferred the site be developed as “a destination,” something like what is being slated for the Panama Hattie’s property in Palm Beach Gardens.
    “This (apartment complex) will not create a destination for our town,” Stewart said.
    Council member Malcolm Balfour suggested a restaurant would benefit the site, too. But no restaurant has been proposed.
    The plans for the site would have two-story commercial buildings line Dixie Highway and multi-story residential buildings behind gates.
    Developers sought variances on building height, size of parking spaces, fencing changes and decreasing the number of parking spaces from 2.5 per unit to 1.87.
    But the council wasn’t having any of that.
    Both council member Tom Deringer and Stewart disliked the plan to making parking spaces smaller.
    “I drive an SUV,” Deringer said, adding that many others do, as well.
    Stewart said the town has a parking problem already and “not everyone drives a Smart car.”
    The height limit variance for some buildings was frowned upon, too.
    “I’ve lived in Lantana for 31 years,” council member Phil Aridas told the project’s planners. “It’s always been a small seaside community and I want it to stay that way. You knew about this height limit when you came in. I hope you saw a little bit of just how this council is working, so when you go back to finesse the next proposal, please keep in mind our codes and how we deal with them in Lantana.”
    After the four code variances were shot down, Aura Seaside’s developers withdrew the site plan, which was also up for a vote at the July 14 meeting.
    Manny Martinez, managing director of Trinsic, said plans are being reworked since the variances were not approved. Ú

Fred and Adrianne Weissman of Evelyn & Arthur

are reopening their Annex in Boynton Beach.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Scott Simmons

    Walk into Evelyn & Arthur’s Manalapan store and the thing that sticks in your mind is the laughter.
    It’s constant.
    And judging from visits to some of the eight-store chain’s other locations, it’s to be expected.
    “We have great crews in the stores,” said Fred Weissman, the company’s chief financial officer and son-in-law of founders Evelyn and Arthur Lewis. “You want your customers to feel welcome in a space, and if that’s the attitude and the vibe the store is giving off, then that’s great to hear.”
    Weissman met the Lewises’ daughter, Adrianne, while the two were working at Macy’s in New York. They soon married, then joined the family business.
    “We moved down in February ’86 and joined what essentially was a four-store chain,” he said.
    The Lewises founded the store in 1985, after Evelyn Lewis retired to Florida and found she had nothing to wear. Arthur Lewis had been in the garment business in New York.
    “He figured how hard can retail be?” Weissman said.
    They had opened a store in Palm Beach, and when winter season ended, they added a swimsuit shop around the corner.
    “Then that led to another store at Plaza del Mar next to the Ice Cream Club,” he said.
    The chain has stores along both coasts of Florida and plans to mark its 30th anniversary by reopening its Annex on Woolbright Road between Congress Avenue and Military Trail in Boynton Beach.
    “We actually were there between 2007 and 2010. It’s in exactly the same spot,” Weissman said. “When the economy got a little soft we decided to pull the outlet into our Manalapan store. It did well there, but we’re ready to have it as a free-standing location. It’s exactly the same as we left it, so we’re going to move back in.”
    The Annex will offer merchandise from the previous season at a discount, as well as handbags, jewelry, hats and gift items.
    Evelyn Lewis died about a decade ago; Arthur Lewis is alive and well and living in Boca Raton.
    No doubt both were pleased at the atmosphere their stores engender.
    “I go in there as the lone guy in the company, taking care of operations and learning how to be handy,” Weissman said. “I don’t get, ‘Hello, Fred, how are you?’ I get, ‘Fred, the light bulb is out. Fred, the door handle has a problem.’ They usually see me as the guy who helps them with their problems. It’s sort of the role that I’ve taken.”
    There’s that good humor again, tempered with a dose of reality.
    “One of the things that we obviously recognized, was that when the store was founded in ’85, Evelyn was about the same age as Adrianne is now,” Weissman said. “People today, even if they’re 70 or 80, don’t think of themselves as old. They don’t aspire to look matronly.”
    He’s proud of the quality of the company’s clothing lines.
    “One of the things we do hear back from folks is, ‘Your clothes last too long,’ ” he said.
    That longevity is part of what keeps customers coming back, along with that good-humored staff.
    “One of the gals in Manalapan predates Adrianne and I by a month,” Weissman said. “We really are very fortunate. We have quite a few of the people in the stores pushing 10, 12, approaching 20 years.”
    That’s another part of what makes him happy to visit the stores.
    “I like to hear stories about good experiences with customers or good experiences with products,” he said. “The girls always talk about someone who came from out of town and brought a mother or a daughter and found something totally appropriate for them.”
    Why wouldn’t they?
    “It’s a place they feel good being in, and I think that’s the best we can do.”

    Look for Evelyn & Arthur’s 1,400-square-foot Annex to open in early September at 3495 Woolbright Road in Boynton Beach. Info at evelynandarthur.com or 572-0900.

By Christine Davis

    The Florida Festivals & Events Association has more than 415 members — representing 750 events statewide — and at its 20th anniversary award conference, Delray Beach cleaned up. The Marketing Cooperative received the following seven SUNsational Awards:
    • 100 Foot Christmas Tree — five awards total in the $50,000-$249,999 range: first place for promo video, first place for tickets and invitations, and third place awards in brochure/postcard, social media and T-shirt categories.
    • On the Ave — one award in the $49,999 and under range:  second place in best website for On The Ave Light Up The Night.
    •  4th of July Celebration — one award in the $50,000-$249,999 range: first place for photography.
    The Delray Beach-based Festival Management Group won a total of six awards for two events:
    •  Delray Beach Garlic Fest — three awards in the $250,000 and over range: first place for best social media site, second place for best website and third place for best promotional item.
    •  Delray Beach Chamber’s Delray Affair — three awards in the $50,000-$249,999 range: first place for best mobile app, second place for best T-shirt and second place for best commemorative poster.
At the same conference the Boynton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency received 1st place in the $49,999 and under Promotional Poster category. A collaboration between the CRA and Maas Media, the poster highlighted the calendar for Movies in the Park and Music on the Rocks.
                                           
    Wall’s up: In August, the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce unveiled a Donor Wall honoring 80 donors who contributed between $1,000 and $50,000 toward creating the chamber’s new office space at 140 NE First St. in Delray Beach. Emiliano Brooks of Emiliano Brooks Productions assisted the chamber by creating the design themes used on the donor wall and Signarama contributed to the design and installation of the Donor Wall.
                                     
    Stay tuned for more: WellFest Delray 2015 announced that Serena J. Dyer will be a featured speaker at the March 2015 event, which will be held at the Delray Center for the Arts. A South Florida native, she co-authored a book about growing up with her father, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, Don’t Die With Your Music Still In You. Also, Tesla Motors will participate in 2015, showcasing its vehicles and conducting scheduled test drives. 
                                 
    A renovation project that offers needed housing: According to the National Housing Conference/Center for Housing Policy, 40 percent of households ages 65 and older have incomes that are less than half of the local area median income, and almost half of the poorest of these households pay 50 percent or more of their incomes for housing. Currently the Delray Beach Housing Authority has more than 250 seniors waiting for affordable housing in the city.
    But it is taking steps to alleviate the problem. In July, the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency closed on a $2.7 million loan to Village Square Elderly Ltd. to help fund 84 new housing units for low-income elderly residents, which is scheduled for completion in fall 2015. The Village Square project, a partnership between the Housing Authority and Roundstone Development, was created to redevelop the 18-acre Carver Estates site.
    The Village Square project also is constructing a 144-unit affordable apartment complex for lower income families and approximately 24 single-family homes that will be offered for sale.  
                                           
    A Boynton Beach restoration: The restoration of the Addison Mizner-designed headquarters for the 102-year-old Boynton Woman’s Club is nearing completion. The work was financed by a matching grant from the Boynton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency and a contribution from the Boynton Beach Historical Society. The club’s historic preservation committee co-chairwomen, Pat Waldron and Barbara Wineberg, oversaw the project. 
                                 
    Boca Raton news: In cooperation with Enterprise Florida and the city of Boca Raton, the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County announced that it has assisted Vicinitas Cancer Care, Cancer Treatment Centers of America Preferred Provider Alliance, to locate its headquarters in Palm Beach County at 1200 N. Federal Highway in Boca Raton. The Business Development Board assisted Vicinitas with site selection, incentive package coordination, and workforce and training needs. The company received a $360,000 training grant from the State of Florida, as well as Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund and Quick Action Closing Fund incentives totaling $1.45 million, with $1.1 million from the state of Florida and a $350,000 contribution from the city of Boca Raton. Over the next five years, the company will have 200 full-time employees and will occupy 45,000 square feet of office space.  Vicinitas projects a capital investment of approximately $4 million to renovate and equip its space.
    Vicinitas, a nation-wide network of physicians and other oncology care providers, offers each of its patients a dedicated care manager to schedule all appointments, facilitate understanding of treatment options and coordinate  commcommunication among providers.

    Saks Off Fifth signed a 10-year lease for the 23,343-square-foot space that used to be Loehmann’s at Somerset Shoppes at Lyons Road and Glades Road in Boca Raton. Saks is under construction and is expected to open in the first quarter of 2015. Randy Tulepan, vice president of New York-based Roberts Equities, represented the owner and David Emohovich from Katz and Associates represented the tenant.
    For sales recorded Aug. 18, Senada Adzem, director of Luxury Sales for Douglas Elliman, represented the sellers of two units at One Thousand Ocean condominiums in Boca Raton. The warranty deed of the first property, apartment 501 owned by David Cohen, was recorded on Aug. 12 and sold for $6.5 million. The buyer’s agent was Niki Higgins of Douglas Elliman. The second property’s warranty deed, apartment 105 owned by Jeffrey and Patricia Schneider, was recorded on Aug. 18 and sold for $4.2 million. The buyer is listed as Casey Taryn Scherr, who was represented by Don Kealy of Westpark Realty of Broward Inc.
    According to Palm Beach County records, a company tied to the Blackstone Group, BRE Newton Hotels Property Owner, acquired the Residence Inn Boca Raton, at 525 NW 77th St., in a transaction recorded on Aug. 18, for $12 million. LES Res Boca Raton of Dallas sold the 120-room hotel to BRE.
    In August, Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, a partner of Boca Raton Regional Hospital, was named one of “100 Hospitals and Health Systems With Great Oncology Programs” in 2014 by Becker’s Hospital Review, which recognizes hospitals for quality patient care, cancer outcomes and research. Boca Regional’s Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Cancer Institute joined the Moffitt Oncology Network in June 2013.  
    Also, Boca Raton Regional Hospital is the recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence for the 10th year in a row and was named one of America’s 50 Best Hospitals in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, by Healthgrades. The hospital was also recognized for the third consecutive year in U.S. News & World Report’s 2013–2014 Best Hospitals listing as a top-ranked hospital in the South Florida metropolitan area.
    Concerning financial successes, on Aug. 26, officials at the hospital announced that both Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s Rating Services have raised the hospital’s investment grade credit rating from BBB- to BBB. Concurrently, both Fitch and S&P gave the hospital a “stable” ratings outlook.

INSET BELOW: Collins
                                         
    Also in the county: In August, Engel & Völkers announced the openings of its three new South County brokerages owned by Boca Raton real estate attorney Rick Felberbaum. The locations are at 900 E. Atlantic Ave. in Delray Beach, 310 E. Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton, and 4855 Technology Way in Boca Raton. The designated broker is Boca Raton resident Claire Collins. Felberbaum also announced that he plans to open three more offices in South Palm Beach County within the next 12 to 18 months.
                                           
    YMCA of South Palm Beach County’s annual report announced support from organizations; an award; and new developments of its drowning prevention, diabetes prevention and YBike programs. A $35,000 grant from The Lost Tree Village Charitable Foundation, a $30,000 grant from the Town of Palm Beach United Way, and the Baker Summer Camp Scholarship Program grant through Autism Speaks will support the Y’s services to underprivileged children and those with special needs. The Peter Blum Family YMCA of Boca Raton was rated five out of five stars by Family Central’s Palm Beach County Quality Counts program.
    Nixon aide Roger Stone, will reveal the dark secrets of Watergate, the Ford pardon, and the famous 18½-minute tape gap, which he’s covered in his recently released book Nixon’s Secrets from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sept. 10, at the Gold Coast Tiger Bay Club’s monthly luncheon held at the City Fish Market, 7940 Glades Road, Boca Raton. The cost is $35 for members or $45 for nonmembers. For information and to RSVP, visit www.goldcoasttigerbayclub.com or call 852-0000.   
                                           
    Each month at the not-for-profit Secret Garden Café’s Appetite for Art, “Hungry Artists Help Hungry People.” September’s theme, Mango is King of Fruit, will celebrate island music and cuisine, featuring grilled red snapper and mango salsa. Music will be by Dymin and September’s featured artist is Nicole Persley. Her distinctive style is bold, eccentric and primary. Appetite for Art will be held at the Secret Garden Café, 410 E. Boynton Beach Blvd. in Boynton Beach, from 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 27. The price is $40. Also, the public is invited to attend an artist’s reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26. Cost is $20.
                                           
     It’s September and Flavor Palm Beach time, when food and wine enthusiasts can take advantage of discounted prices for prix fixe menus at 50 of Palm Beach County’s finest restaurants. Three-course lunches are priced at $20 and dinners are priced from $30. Each reservation made through FlavorPB.com benefits the Palm Beach County Food Bank, which aims to eradicate hunger in Palm Beach County. For a full list of participants and to make reservations, visit FlavorPB.com. 
                                           
    Palm Beach’s Colony Hotel will close for the first time in 40 years. According to Roger Everingham, the hotel’s vice president and general manager, The Colony’s front doors will be locked on Sept. 2 so that decorator Carleton Varney, president of Dorothy Draper & Company, can complete his multimillion-dollar transformation of the Palm Beach landmark. A gala celebrating its reopening will be on Oct. 10.
    “Carleton Varney and Brinsley Matthews have done an amazing job of bringing our guest rooms to new life,” Everingham said. “Lively may even be an understatement considering the variety of colors; our just finished fourth floor, for example, has 19 different paint colors. Each room and suite is different — no cookie-cutter rooms here — put together with a lot of vivid upholstery, unique lamps and artwork, many by local artists. The result is a happy, classy feeling, but still with our classic British Colonial foundation.”
                                           
    It’s official. The Style Bar Day Spa is now the salon of choice for Palm Beach Makos Cheerleaders. The organization, which supports Palm Beach County charity and community groups, will shoot its 2015 swimsuit calendar and squad photo this September with hair services to be sponsored by Style Bar. The spa is located at 2875 S. Ocean Blvd., Suite 108, Palm Beach. Also the spa is now offering to bring a full-service list of its spa treatments to private homes, businesses and yachts. For information, call 585-9788.
                                           
    Classes in drawing, painting, mixed media and photography at the Armory Art Center’s Lake Worth Annex, 1121 Lucerne Ave., will start Sept. 2. Also four studio spaces are available. For information, visit www.armoryart.org/annex or call 832-1776, ext. 33.
                                           
    Six summer interns of the 11-week Arthur R. Marshall Foundation for the Everglades’ summer internship program celebrated their graduation at E.R. Bradley’s Beach Club in Lake Worth on July 31.
The interns, who focused their research project on strategies to counter sea level rise, including Everglades restoration and recommendations for the U.S. Coast Guard, presented their research at the second annual Sea Level Rise Symposium, July 25, hosted by the Marshall Foundation, League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County and Oxbridge Academy.
    At their graduation, the interns gave brief presentations Arthur R. Marshall Foundation for the Everglades’ summer internship program about their interests and experiences. “The program opened my eyes to how many different disciplines are involved in Everglades restoration and environmental issues,” said intern Morgan Mooney of Boca Raton. “It has inspired me to be part of the solution.”

INSET BELOW: Ross
                                           
    Suzanne Ross was promoted to executive director for the Schoolhouse Children’s Museum & Learning Center, Boynton Beach. She had served as the museum’s development officer before assuming the role of interim executive director after Judith Klinek retired in June. Ross also has held positions locally with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Easter Seals and the Florida Oceanographic Society.  
    Carolina Zerboni, managing partner of Seasons 52 in Boca Raton, has attained Darden Restaurants’ Diamond Club status for showing strong and inspiring leadership while also achieving top financial performance. The Boca Raton Seasons 52 is at 2300 NW Executive Center Drive.
                                           
    New-hire announcements: Officials at Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s Marcus Neuroscience Institute announced the hiring of cerebrovascular specialist Shaye Moskowitz MD, who will serve as director of cerebrovascular and neuroendovascular surgery. In that capacity, he will spearhead the institute’s treatment of aneurysms and vascular disorders of the brain.
    The Chamber of Commerce of The Palm Beaches appointed Jamie Walton to the position of director of special events. She will also be responsible for driving sponsorship revenues. Formerly, Walton served as director of development for Easter Seals Florida.

INSET BELOW: Zuckerman (left); Schweiger (right)

    Brandon Rosen, founder of the Boca Raton-based BMI Elite marketing agency, announced the appointments of Fred Zuckerman to the position of chief marketing officer and Mike Schweiger as CFO. BMI Elite, which started with two employees in 2010, now has 125 employees and continues to grow. Its office is just west of I-95 on Yamato Road.

INSET BELOW: Greenberg

                                         
    In June, Kim Rae Greenberg joined Chapin, Ballerano & Cheslack, a law firm with offices in Delray Beach and Boca Raton, as an associate attorney. She will focus her practice on transactional real estate and corporate law. Before joining the firm, she represented clients as a real estate attorney in her Coral Gables firm and title agency, Kim R. Greenberg, P.A., handling the acquisition, disposition, and financing of residential, commercial and institutional properties.

Christine Davis is a freelance writer. Send business news to her at cdavis9797@comcast.net.
 

CORRECTION: This story incorrectly describes the hiring of three employees by Briny Breezes. The town received six applications for deputy town clerk, two for bookkeeper and one for meter reader. Town Attorney John Skrandel advised the Town Council that the new clerk should work as an employee of the town, rather than as an independent contractor.

By Dan Moffett
    
    The Briny Breezes Town Council has unanimously approved the hiring of three employees to complete the town’s transition to a team of independent contractors.
    Carol Lang, who worked in Briny’s corporate office for three years, will take over as the deputy town clerk; Sue Thaler, the council president, will become the new bookkeeper; and Jim Phillippi will stay on as the town’s meter reader, doing what he has done for years, but under a slightly modified job description.
    Town Attorney John Skrandel had urged the council to change the positions to independent contractor status, instead of town staff employees, to ensure compliance with Internal Revenue Service regulations.
    Lang replaces Lesa Shoeman, who held the part-time job since September 2012 but did not want to continue under the new rules. Lang, who moved to Florida five years ago from Long Island, N.Y., where she worked as an education program manager for historical properties, will earn $15,200 per year and work in the town office. Last year, Shoeman earned close to $29,000, according to Alderman Barbara Molina.
    “Carol has done an exceptional job cleaning up all the files,” Molina said of Lang’s performance as a temporary worker in recent weeks.
    “Everything is working out nicely,” Lang said. “The team and I work well together.”
    She said Briny’s office will be open from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, under the restructured clerk position.
    Thaler, a certified public accountant with 35 years’ experience in the field, was an easy choice over another bidder for the bookkeeping job vacated by Linda Harvel, Shoeman’s mother. Thaler will earn $10,200 annually; Harvel earned $9,573 in 2013.
    “She’s well-acquainted with what needs to be done,” Molina said of Thaler, “and well-equipped to do the job.”
    “She does spend an enormous amount of time in here already,” said Alderman Karen Wiggins of the council president’s efforts to keep track of Briny’s bookkeeping.
    In other business:
    • Council members unanimously approved the tentative tax rate of $10 per $1,000 of assessed property value, the same as the last two years, at the Aug. 28 meeting. Public budget hearings are scheduled for Sept. 11 and Sept. 25, both meetings starting at 5 p.m.
    • The council gave unanimous approval to the first reading of an ordinance that gives Briny’s corporate arm the authority to issue A Row parking permits. The 5-0 vote endorsed the recommendations of the Planning and Zoning Board.
    • State Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, has scheduled a property insurance workshop for Oct. 7, beginning at 1 p.m. in the Briny Breezes Clubhouse.
    Consumer advocates and representatives from several state agencies, including Citizens Property Insurance Corp., are expected to participate in a panel discussion that should be of particular interest to Briny residents. As Citizens has tried to rid itself of high-risk properties in recent years, thousands of trailer park residents across the state have found themselves with soaring insurance bills or no coverage at all.
    Sachs says Briny residents will get the chance to question state officials directly about insurance issues during the workshop. Ú

FAU President John Kelly (left) speaks with Dennis Gallon

and Bill Berger during a recent event.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Thom Smith

    John Kelly could have worked in a cotton mill or driven a tractor under the hot — much hotter than Boca Raton — South Carolina sun. Folks in Easley, originally a town of cotton mills in the foothills between Greenville and Clemson, are anchored in the soil. They tend to stay put. Kelly, too, has spent most of his 59 years in an area smaller than southern Palm Beach County, but the new president at Florida Atlantic University, is anything but typical.
    “Luckily I had a dad who had gotten an education — GI Bill — and no way would he let me go to work in the mill,” Kelly said. “I could do anything else, but I could not go to work in the mill.
    “At least half of the guys I went to school with dropped out. The mill strategy was designed to get young people, pay them lower wages and keep ’em. The more education you got, the more likely you were not to work in the mill.”
    Yet, except for a couple of little trips, Kelly’s life wasn’t much different from those old schoolmates.
    “When I was 9 years old, I went to work for my grandfather, pumping gas in his little grocery store on the road between Greenville and Clemson. I think there were four businesses on that road.”
    He co-captained Easley High School’s state championship football team, then headed just a few miles west to Clemson to earn his bachelor’s in horticulture. He did take off … to earn a master’s and doctorate at Ohio State and to teach for three years at Texas A&M.
    But ultimately he returned to Clemson, only 20 miles from Easley. Professor, department head in 1991, and six years later vice president for public service and agriculture.
    With Kelly at the forefront, Clemson was soon playing with the big boys as South Carolina began attracting investment by international giants BMW, Michelin, General Electric and Boeing. During his tenure as vice president, Clemson rose from No. 78 among U.S. public universities to 21.
    In 2000, Kelly was offered the job at Murray State University in Kentucky but declined for family reasons. He was thought to be in line for the presidency of Clemson when Jim Barker resigned last summer, but he never was approached by the board. That job went to James Clements, then president at West Virginia University, so Kelly began to look around.  
    “FAU was the most appealing,” he said. “My wife and I had a new baby and we wanted to be together more than my travel schedule at Clemson allowed.
    “Plus I felt I had the skills to be a good president.”
    And the school’s trustees were looking for someone with that kind of confidence, who could provide resuscitation after a series of missteps, most notably a substandard graduation rate and a series of blunders by President Mary Jane Saunders. Those issues involved actions by two faculty members and the aborted deal to name the school’s new stadium for GEO Group, a controversial Boca Raton-based for-profit prison company. Saunders resigned in May 2013.
    Despite his credentials, Kelly was not a shoo-in, as the trustees initially split, 8-5, between Kelly and former one-term U.S. Sen. George LeMieux. Trustees acknowledged that political pressure to name LeMieux was smothering, but ultimately Kelly’s record at Clemson prevailed, especially his experience in dealing with large corporations and research institutions.
    Kelly reported to work March 1 with a 100-day plan focused on getting to know faculty, staff, students, alumni and business leaders. He’ll use his second 100 days to formulate a strategic plan.
    He wants to develop aggressive research programs that bring in research dollars and aggressive development programs to attract private giving for new offerings such as the medical school.
    Athletics also needs an expanded donor base — “You’re not gonna get legislative money for that!”  Clemson is famous for IPTAY (I Pay Ten A Year),  its grass-roots booster program that started in 1934 with a $10 donation. Clemson was the first college to raise $1 million for its athletics program; despite much greater competition for donor dollars in South Florida, Kelly expects similar success.  
    Above all, he says, FAU must make a name for itself:
    “We have to differentiate ourselves. For example, we’re sitting between the Everglades and the ocean, two environmental hotbeds of great importance to the state — water supply, potential flooding problems, the tourism resource. Ocean engineering — we’re the only university in the nation that has an offshore leased site for testing in the Gulf Stream. So how do we use that 1,000 acres to build partnerships with companies and other universities to use that test bed?”
    The first 100 days were hectic 18-hour marathons, Kelly concluded, but he’ll back off now that his wife, Carolyn, a marine biologist, and their two younger children, 11-year-old Carly and infant Stella, have moved into the president’s mansion. He also has two grown children from a previous marriage.
    True to form, Kelly first came alone, driving a rental truck filled with household goods but mostly plants. He remains, after all, a man of the soil but …
    “They’re still in their pots,” he conceded. “It’s gonna take more than a day, just like the school. So much in academia takes a long time to get results. If you love nature, you can see results real fast. In a weekend, you can see something transformative and in a year, you’ve got something magnificent.
    “I’m not the most patient person in the world. I like results and I love being responsive, getting things done, a sense of urgency. That’s what I hope I can impart to the campus. Urgency, but not panic. Urgency lets you look at things and say let’s get this done. Let’s don’t talk about this for five more years.
    “A lot of things around here we’ve talked about for too long. Are we gonna do ’em or not?  If not, let’s quit talking about ’em. That wastes time.”

Stretching from the Intracoastal Waterway to the Atlantic, Ocean Strand is the last

undeveloped real estate of its kind left in Boca Raton.

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Cheryl Blackerby

    The Ocean Strand, a spectacular swath of green real estate stretching from the ocean to the Intracoastal, is public land. But for 20 years, it has not been used by the public.
    Only sanderlings play in the foam of waves lapping a wide white-sand beach, where five sea turtle nests are roped off with protective orange tape.
    On a gentle ridge above the sand, wood steps — apparently built in the hopes that someday people would walk on them — lead into the dense shade of tall sea grapes and buttonwoods, their twisting trunks gnarled and thick with age. The traffic noise on A1A fades beyond the urgent squawk of a blue heron, the hissing scream of a barn owl and the hum of cicadas.
    The 15 acres of Ocean Strand is an incongruous sweep of wild green land wedged between the high-rise Boca Towers condos to the south and more condos to the north.
    The last undeveloped real estate of its kind in Boca Raton has sat eerily undisturbed for two decades.
    Bought for $11.9 million in 1994 by the city of Boca Raton, Ocean Strand is now owned by the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, which reimbursed the city.

A locked gate greets potential visitors who might try to access the property from A1A.
INSET ABOVE: Steps cross over dunes on the east side.

Photos by Cheryl Blackerby/The Coastal Star

Private plan nixed
    On its 20th anniversary as public land, one of the most impressive pieces of real estate on the southeast coast stands empty, unused and surely unappreciated by local residents, who are banned from it.
    A metal gate with a “No Trespassing” sign blocks the entrance and for good measure another sign warns “Do Not Enter,” even though a yellow sign denoting a bicycle path can be clearly seen on the land in the distance.
    No families roam its shady paths or bike on the inviting asphalt lane that dissects sweeping green lawns and thickets of trees and sabal palms between A1A and the Intracoastal.
    Although the district paid $20,000 to the landscape/architecture firm of Curtis + Rogers for plans for a passive park in 2011, and heard suggestions for a park from architect Richard Brooks, the district has never acted on those plans.
    Landscape architect Aida Curtis of Curtis + Rogers told district commissioners in her proposal in 2011 that Ocean Strand naturally divides into three zones — the oceanfront, a central meadow and the Intracoastal — and that each area could support different uses.
    An outdoor space such as one for yoga could go on the beach portion; lawn games, a garden center or outdoor concerts on the meadow; and rowing, sailing or a bicycle club on the Intracoastal, she said.
    The district, however, was more interested in allowing a private members-only beach club on Ocean Strand in 2011.There was an uproar that ended in court. Keep Your Boca Beaches Public, a citizens group, sued the city and the district over plans to allow the development of the beach club. The court sided with the citizens, and the city passed an ordinance that prohibits private uses of the city’s public beaches and waterfront lands.
    Although the Ocean Strand has yet to be opened to the public, the land could have had a far worse fate. The city bought it from a developer who was planning to put eight to 16 housing units on the ocean side of A1A and 200 units on the Intracoastal side, said Art Koski, district acting director and legal counsel.
    “Buying the land showed a lot of foresight by then Mayor Bill Smith,” said Koski. “It was going to be a very dense development, and Mayor Smith made it a personal mission to save it. It was the last available ocean property in the city.”

No big demand
    The reason the commission hasn’t developed it into a park, he said, is simple: The public hasn’t asked for it.
    “There has been no immediate demand from the public for it to be developed,” he said. “The general consensus was to let it stay there and be maintained so the appearance was acceptable and plans could be made at some future date.” The district spends about $10,000 a year on maintenance.
    Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie, who did not support the members-only club proposal, describes the land as “one of the most beautiful and natural properties on the barrier island.”
    Development of the land as a park is “subject to approval of the City Council, as any property within the city is,” she said. “The city of Boca Raton changed the land use to recreation, so it can only be developed for recreation purposes.”
    Joe Pedalino, chairman of Keep Your Boca Beaches Public, who spearheaded the suit to stop private use of Ocean Strand, has proposed to build a park accessible for the disabled.
    “We always thought it should be designed as a park for people with disabilities and their families, so everyone would have the ability to have use of the ocean and park facilities. Many disabled people are able-bodied, such as wounded vets from Afghanistan, who want to be outside and do things. This is what we proposed to the district,” he said.
    Pedalino said he was inspired by Boynton Beach’s 13.5-acre Congress Avenue Barrier Free Park, built on undeveloped land two years ago for $2 million.
    “We went far beyond the Americans With Disabilities Act standards. It’s not just for those with disabilities but for everyone. It’s for those with cerebral palsy and their families, it’s for the vet coming back from war who wants to play with his child,” said Wally Majors, Boynton Beach Recreation and Parks Director.
    The park, for example, has playgrounds accessible to those in wheelchairs. “Usually, if you’re a parent in a wheelchair, you have to sit on the sidelines and watch,” he said.
    Pedalino’s condo at Boca Towers overlooks the green expanse of Ocean Strand, a constant reminder of the land’s potential as a natural haven where those in wheelchairs, or those who are deaf or blind, could navigate wide paths through the woods and down to the beach, use accessible bathhouses, and work out at fitness stations designed just for them.
    “We’re not saying they should do something for the sake of doing it,” said Pedalino. “In the district’s view, it doesn’t fit a need, but we think it does fit a need.”
    Meanwhile, joggers run on the sidewalk by busy A1A and most of them probably assume the land with the “Do Not  Enter” signs is privately owned and awaiting development. They likely have no idea the land belongs to them.

By Rich Pollack

    The drawn-out saga of the $3.5 million sale of a Highland Beach town-owned property in Boca Raton may soon be coming to an end.
    Last month, the Boca Raton City Council gave its approval to a change in its comprehensive plan that will clear the way for the sale of two parcels of land between Federal and Dixie highways in northern Boca Raton to be sold to developer Douglas Durrett.
    The property had been owned by the town of Highland Beach and was the site of the town’s water treatment facilities.
    Town officials and Durrett had agreed on the terms of the sale almost six months ago and signed a contract in June.
    After the contract was signed, Boca Raton city officials discovered that while the larger parcel was properly zoned for residential usage, Boca Raton’s comprehensive land use plan had not been updated for that parcel from the previous governmental-land usage, preventing the sale from closing.
    Attorney Mitch Kirschner, representing Durrett, said that with the approval of the Boca council on both the land use change and the site plan for the project, Durrett would likely be able to go ahead with plans to build 76 townhomes on the property.
    The closing is scheduled for later this month, following a 30-day state-mandated window to allow for appeals.

Astraea Quisenberry came a long way to see baby sea turtles march into the sea.

Astraea, a 5-year-old from Portland, Ore., has been fighting leukemia and wanted to see the turtles

at Gumbo Limbo. The Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Gumbo Limbo, made it happen on July 30.

She got to spend the day checking out the shipwreck tank and turtle rehab hospital

before watching 33 hatchlings released at the beach. She waved and wished them luck.

Contributed photo