The Senada Adzem team of Douglas Elliman Real Estate sponsored a reception in a luxurious penthouse

to raise awareness about the impending wildlife ‘baby season’ in South Florida.

Sherry Schlueter, executive director of The Humane Society of the United States’ South Florida Wildlife Center,

served as keynote speaker and guest of honor. ‘This time of year, it is critical for residents to understand

how to handle the challenges baby wildlife face when encountering injured, imperiled or orphaned babies

or their parents,’ Schlueter said. ABOVE: Glenn Gillard, Ardath Rosengarden and Russell Neal.

Photo provided

The distribution of more than $580,000 in scholarships to 80 local students rang in the George Snow

Scholarship Fund’s 31st anniversary. Each scholar also received a gift bag stuffed with $1,000 worth of items —

everything from a laptop computer to a crock pot — during a ceremony before a crowd

of more than 400. The fund’s Robert S. Howell Spirit of Service Award this year honored the Occhigrossi family.

Among the recipients were Anthony Ianniello, Olivia Occhigrossi, Skylar Persin and Marie Occhigrossi.

Photo provided by Photosbyblack.com

The Friends of the Conservatory of Music, a volunteer organization that raises education funds

for student performers, named four new members to its board of directors for the 2013-14 academic year.

Kathy Dickenson (right), Barbara Gutin (center), Karen Krumholtz (left) and Susan Urso.

Photos provided

Elaine Wold was chosen as a lifetime honorary board member.

The Zonta Club of Deerfield Beach, represented by two district representatives from Nassau in the Bahamas, Cherrylee Pinder (second from right) and Laura Strumpf (right), installed the 2013-14 officers for the nonprofit service organization. They include President Regina Vetto (second from left), Vice President Sandy Manning, Recording Secretary Cissy Kross (left), Corresponding Secretary Lisa Peterson and Treasurer Carol Morris.

Photo provided

Shopping for scholarships was the theme of a fundraiser at the renowned men’s clothing store

benefiting Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.

A total of 25 percent of merchandise sales came back to the college to support student grants

and research activity. The college’s Advisory Board organized the event.

Here, John Wagstaff, Brooks Brothers manager, with college representatives

(from left) Bea Knopf, Marny Glasser and Laurie Carney.

Photo provided

Tentative plans for the condo at 3200 S. Ocean Blvd. would call for 22 units.

Rendering provided

By Rich Pollack
    Highland Beach’s first new high-rise condominium in more than a decade is one step closer to being built, thanks to a preliminary thumbs-up from town commissioners late last month. But it still will be at least a couple of years before the first residents move in.
    Set to be built on what was dubbed “difficult property” after several previous landowners failed to make good on construction plans, the proposed seven-story, 22-unit luxury condominium building is being welcomed by some neighboring residents who say the lot at 3200 S. Ocean Blvd. has become an eyesore.
    Town officials and neighbors say the property on the west side of Ocean Boulevard is littered with rusted pilings and other debris left behind by previous owners.
    “We’ve been living with this condition for the last 15 years,” said Town Commissioner Dennis Sheridan, who also is president of the condominium association at Monterey House, which borders the empty property. “We’ve gone through three developers and still nothing has been built.”
    Lawyers for the latest team with high hopes for the property say the lot would be transformed once the project is out of the ground.

    “What you have in the middle of your town is an eyesore,” said former Town Attorney Tom Sliney, now one of two attorneys who represented the developer 3200 S. Ocean Blvd. LLC before the town. “Consider what you have there now and what could be there.”
    The commission, following a recommendation from the planning board, tentatively agreed to give the new owners a 12-month extension of a development plan filed by the last owners, as well as a variance that allows the project to be built up to 90 feet, instead of the current 50-foot height limit. A final vote extending the development plan, which lawyers say is little changed from the plan filed several years ago, is expected to take place June 4.
    If granted a go-ahead, developers will have a year to file building permits and begin the construction process.
Owner Gary Cohen, who is partnering with developer Mike Kelty on the project, says that once permits are pulled it would be at least a year to 14 months before construction is completed.
    Tentative plans, Cohen said, call for each of the building’s 22 units to have 2,500 to 3,000 square feet, a reduction from the previous owner’s proposal. Prices will start at about $1.2 million.
    “Most of the units will have Intracoastal and ocean views and will have high-end appliances and other amenities,” Cohen said. “This is going to be the best of the best.”
    While Cohen didn’t give specifics, he said his company purchased the property, which had been in foreclosure, for a little more than $2 million and has every intention of completing the project.
    “The economic climate turned against the previous owner,” Cohen said. “Now the economy has started to turn around and financing for borrowers is starting to come back.”
    Sheridan, one of three members of the Town Commission who live in buildings adjacent to the vacant site, said he believes there is a market for homes in the projected price range.
    During the month of April, according to Sheridan, there were 53 real estate transactions in Highland Beach, with prices ranging from $800,000 to $7.2 million.
    Town officials say it is hard to get a firm grasp on how much tax revenue the project would generate, but estimate that it could be about $100,000 per year or 1 percent of the town’s annual budget.
    Many neighboring residents, however, are focused more on what development of the property would eliminate, not what it would produce.
    “It’s pretty ugly in the state it is in today,” Thomas Meyer, who lives next to the site, told planning board members. “We’re really anxious to see something happen here.”

Tarps cover benches to keep them dust-free in the new Boca Raton Library.

Jon Castro of B&I Contractors checks the ceiling in the young readers area.

Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Furniture in a reading area is protected by dropcloths.

‘Books to go’ kiosks will highlight popular titles.

INSET BELOW: An etched glass panel depicts loggerhead turtles and other marine life.

By Ron Hayes
    On a sparkling blue afternoon last month, the city’s manager of library services stood beneath the towering ceiling of Boca Raton’s newest library, bathed in pristine light.

    Tom Sloan arrived here 17 months ago from Chicago, the former executive director of DuPage County’s venerable libraries. Now he was about to oversee the opening of a brand-new, $9.5 million downtown library.

    He was proud. He was excited. He was impatient.

    On May 18, library lovers had gathered on the east lawn of the old library at Northwest Second Street and Boca Raton Boulevard to market the building’s 50th anniversary. They listened to music, snacked on cookies, sipped lemonade — and signed a goodbye card to the library they would leave behind.
    Now Sloan was eagerly looking to the future.
    “Once the certificate of occupancy is issued,” he said, “we have a tentative schedule for the move.”

    Two days after that certificate arrives, the current downtown library at Northwest Second Street and Boca Raton Boulevard will close.

    Seventeen days after that, a community “Book Brigade” will walk the last 100 books two blocks north to the new library on the corner of Northwest Fourth Street.

    And two days after that, a ribbon will be cut, the doors will open, and residents will meet the sort of 21st-century library where books are still the heart, but not the whole, of its mission.

    “This reminds me of those European libraries that elevate and inspire you with their architecture,” Sloan said. “Our Spanish River library is more Mizner-style, with darker woods, but we wanted this to be very modern, and very South Florida, with all light woods and colors.”

    At 42,000 square feet, the new building is twice the size of its predecessor, dominated by a vast central promenade stretching in a northwesterly line to draw the natural light. Lining the sides of the arched ceiling, 50 clerestory windows pour sunlight over three mammoth chandeliers to bathe the white walls and blond woods.

    “The notion of libraries being a civic space is coming forward again,” Sloan said. “We hope this will be a great civic space for the community.”

    Right now, however, it’s only a striking blend of light and space. The shelves have not arrived yet, the furniture is not in place, no books, no magazines. But as Sloan wanders the carpeted floors, describing what’s to come, his enthusiasm fills the rooms.

    The circular information desk stands at the promenade’s midway point, beneath the central chandelier.

    “We put it there as a symbol that information is still the key to our mission, and staff assistance is extremely important,” he explained. “We answer over 600,000 questions a year.”

    As you enter the library from the parking lot — with space for 172 cars — the new books, bestsellers and DVDs are displayed on your left, covers out, like a bookstore.

    On your right is a real bookstore.

    The Friends of the Library have donated $250,000 to underwrite an additional 1,250 square feet, enlarging its used bookstore to 1,600 square feet from the proposed 1,200, with the remainder providing for a bigger multipurpose room. “The Friends donate between $40,000 and $50,000 a year,” Sloan said, “primarily based on their used-book sales.”

    More space, more used books, more donations.

    The circulation desk and self-service checkout computers are nearby, with the bookshelves filling a large, window-lined space to the right of the information desk.

    At the far end of the promenade, a cyber cafe of computers faces the adult reading area, with comfortable chairs and magazines nearby.

    “We designed it to be like a living room,” Sloan said.

    On the left, the Youth Service Center announces itself with a large glass wall etched with fish and loggerhead turtles, a Gumbo Limbo Nature Center motif to complement the tropical photography throughout.
    If you can judge how much a community values its younger citizens by the space they’re given in the library, Boca Raton puts young people first. Beyond those loggerheads, a large children’s room awaits, plus a separate teen room, and a learning and gaming center with computers for homework, and eight video game stations for after the homework’s done.

    In the community meeting room, with seating for 155, a kitchen and a patio, Sloan happened on Walter Wharton, the project superintendent for Kaufman Lynn Construction, which built the library.

    The one color that permeates the whole building, Wharton emphasized, is green.

    “It’s going to be green-certified,” he said, “and in a nutshell, that means safer. Nontoxic, cleaner, with lower maintenance and lower environmental impact. We’ve built it with recycled paper, concrete, metals and glass wherever possible, and it was
designed to maximize the natural lighting to minimize electric bills.”

    Nearby, the Sidney and Ruth Heimberg Business Meeting Room will be available free to nonprofit community groups, or for rental to businesses.

    The new library will have an automated coffee and snack area, and 10 private study and tutoring rooms, first come, first served.

    Can patrons bring their coffee into the book and seating areas?

    “Oh, of course,” he murmured, as if it were a silly question.

    “And this,” Sloan said, “is the Discovery Center. It’s a room where we can bring in art exhibits or even have concerts and performing artists. For our opening, we’ll have an exhibit from the Boca Raton Museum of Art. This room is a blank slate, really.”

    And then he was back in the promenade, standing in the center of an empty building as workmen moved here and there, adding the finishing touches to a building for which that simple word “library” hardly seems sufficient.

    “Libraries are really an act of faith that says, ‘This is something for everyone in our community,’ ” Sloan said. “From all walks of life. It’s a way of bringing people who tend to be increasingly isolated by technology back into a public space.

    “Even if you’re on one of the computers here, you’re in a public space.”

    The Boca Raton city libraries welcome anyone who wants to visit and read books or magazines, and most special events and lectures are open to the public. Free circulation privileges, however, are limited to city residents only. Nonresidents requesting a library card are charged a fee of $150 a year for individuals or $250 per family. Call 393-7852.

Vito Damiani, of Mr. Vito Men’s Hair Designers, gives a massage to Boca resident Jerry Martin.

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

‘Fonzi’ Palmieri trims Alexandra Pena (left) at Colby’s Barber Shop in Ocean Ridge. Shop owner

Lino Marmorato (center) with Joe Giuliano of Boynton Beach and Paul Hansen with customer Ken Keller of Hypoluxo.

INSET: The barber pole shines brightly in front of Colby’s Barber Shop.

BELOW LEFT: Brad Elliott gives a haircut to Jake Julien, 7,

a student at Gulf Steam School, at Fifth Avenue Barber Shop in Delray Beach.

By Ron Hayes
    Take a chair, please, sit back and relax, while we salute the red, white and blue.
    No need to stand this time. No hand on heart.
    The red is for blood, the white for bandages, the blue for veins.
    Swirl them all together in a triple helix and you’ve got the old-fashioned barber pole, once as ubiquitous as Old Glory itself, but not, alas, as enduring.
    Dating back to the Middle Ages, when barbers were also surgeons — hence the blood and bandages — the barber pole has gone from common to quaint.
    Nowadays we have Supercuts and unisex, salons, stylists and, that bane of barbers everywhere, the Wahl’s do-it-yourself home haircutting kit.

    And yet they survive, real barbers — from the Latin barba for “beard” — and real barber shops, with fishing and hunting magazines by the door, Clubman after-shave in the air, and manly chitchat to go with the scissors’ clip-clip. And, of course, a barber pole.

Meet Lino
    On the mirror above his chair at Colby’s Barber Shop in Ocean Ridge, Pasqualino Marmorato has placed a small sign to introduce “Your Barber Lino (Lee-no).”
    “A barber pole says, ‘This is a real barber shop,’” Lino says, as Il Volo sings Volare on a portable CD player nearby. “You go to a beauty parlor, they don’t put this in the window.”
    Lino’s barber pole is prominently displayed in his shop window. It’s electric, it lights up, it spins. It’s been there since the shop opened in 1996.
    “Back in New Jersey, I had a seven-foot, ceramic pole that weighed almost 100 pounds,” he remembers. “It was outside, and another, smaller one was on the roof. But then the town got wilder with the kids, so I moved it in.”
    Lino is from Pizzo, a small seaport nestled in the instep of Italy’s boot. He is 70, and he has been cutting hair for 60 years.
    “But I started when I was 5,” he says, “sweeping up in my father’s shop. By the time I was 10, I was already behind a chair. We had a neighbor who was a carpenter, and he built a stool for me to stand on so I could reach their heads.”
    In those days, a haircut cost you 10 cents. He gets $15 now, $18 for long hair.
    When he was 16, his father retired, and Lino took over the shop. At 18, he joined the Costa cruise line, spent 10 years cutting hair while sailing back and forth across the Atlantic, then switched to the Caribbean routes out of Miami.
    After 22 years in Lyndhurst, N.J., he returned to Florida in 1996, managed Colby’s for 17 years, and bought it six months ago. He’s seen the styles come and go — long in the ’60s, perms in the ’70s, mid-length in the ’80s. And he’s heard it all, too.
    “I’ve had customers tell me things they wouldn’t tell their wives,” he says. ‘’My father was the same way. His friends spent more time in the shop than they did with their families, telling their problems.”
    These days, he gets requests for the Kojak look. Shave it all off. Only the vain dye their hair, he says.
    And who’s most vain?
    “Middle-aged men. Late 40s, early 50s. More vain than women. They’re going through this change, you know …”

Meet Vito
    Down in Boca Raton, Vito Damiani calls his shop in the Stonegate Plaza “Mr. Vito’s Men’s Hair Design.” But he’s not fooling anyone.
    The city won’t let him put a barber pole outside, so Vito’s hung a stained glass rendering in the window.
    Andrea Bocelli singing low in the background, Field & Stream by the counter, a framed print of a 19th-century “Tonsorial Parlor” on the wall and, just above that, a treasured gift from his grandchildren: A sign that says “Papa’s Barbershop.”
    This is a barbershop, and he’s an old-fashioned barber.
    Vito grew up in Pisticci, about 30 miles south of Naples.
    “I started out hanging around the barber shop as a cleanup boy. I did my first haircut when I was 11½,” he says, “and when I was 15, I started riding my bike to house calls.”
    At 17, he arrived in Brooklyn. He could cut hair, but he couldn’t speak English. He got a job in two weeks.
In 1963, he was drafted on his birthday, and became a U.S. citizen 10 days before leaving for Vietnam.
    “In New York, we did some crazy cuts,” he recalls, “and then the Beatles came along and changed everything. I was in the army then, and when I came home — oh, my goodness.”
    His philosophy of barbering is simple: “Know your business, take care of your customers — and keep your mouth shut.”
    Bad barbers don’t listen, he says. You have to listen for the haircut your customer wants, not the haircut you think he should have.
    “I hear family problems, financial problems, but that’s confidential — unless it’s a funny story. We talk sports and family. Politics and religion are not discussed in my chair.”
    Now, about toupees …
    He smiles. “Even the best, I can tell. I had one customer who had three toupees. Short, medium and long. He’d change them so people would think his hair was growing.”
    In the shop window, near the stained-glass barber pole, hangs an American flag.
    “I’m the American Dream,” Vito says. “When I go to work in the morning, I don’t feel like I’m going to work.”

Meet Brad
    Not all old-fashioned barbers are Italian, and they’re not all 70, either.
    Brad Elliott, owner of the 5th Avenue Barber Shop in Delray Beach, is 39, born and raised in Johnstown, Pa.
    His mother and grandmother cut hair. His father was a coal miner.
    “I was kind of a wild kid,” he says, “so when the coal mines shut down I was either going to go to beauty school or go to jail.”
    He trained at Rinaldo’s Barber Shop in College Station, Pa., home of Penn State University.
    “I wasn’t really college material,” he says, “but I was the barber to all the frat boys and football players, so I got invited to their parties.”
    In 1997, he arrived in Florida, worked in Boca Raton and Boynton Beach, and opened his own shop in February 2012.
    The barber pole by the sidewalk is portable because the city code won’t let him have a permanent one. He made it himself from PVC pipe and brings it in at night. Inside, however, a genuine 1922 pole rotates on the wall beside his chairs.
    “I like old,” he says. “I just bought a 1932 Ford Roadster, and I love the doo-wop songs.”
    Instead of Italian tenors, Brad The Barber plays the oldies stations — Don McLean singing American Pie, for example. If Lino and Vito strive for a more conservative Old World ambiance, Brad The Barber is looser, more candid, more American Pie.
    “Oh, the kids!” he says. “We charge them $20, same as an adult, because sometimes they’re a moving target. But I try to become their friend, see. I never say, ‘I’m gonna cut your hair.’ Cut’s a scary word when you’re a kid. I say, ‘I’m gonna give you a trim.’ It works.”
    Brad the Barber is young, and his business is young, but his dream is to own something old. Not a hair salon, but a genuine barber shop, the kind of place where men gather to socialize and a good haircut is only part of the appeal.
    “I was meant to be a barber,” he says. “A barber’s like a bartender, except our customers are sober.”

By Rich Pollack
    Although the signs of Hurricane Sandy are all but gone and overall the beach in Highland Beach is in good shape, town officials still might want to take steps now to offset potential weather damage in the future, a recent study concluded.
    The study, by Coastal Planning and Engineering at a cost of $15,158, found that the northern section of beach along the town’s 2.85 miles of coastline is doing well, thanks in large part to sand from Delray Beach’s repeated beach restorations moving south.
    Along the southern portion of the coast, however, the engineers found that the width of the beach had been receding over the last several years.
    It was that section of the beach that suffered the most from Hurricane Sandy and all but a few remnants of damage in the area have disappeared, partly due to private property owners paying for truckloads of sand used to fill in impacted sections.
    “Overall, the beach in Highland Beach is good condition and does not have an immediate need for a beach-nourishment project,” engineer Gordon Thomson wrote.
    Still, Thomson told commissioners it might be wise to consider beginning the designing and permitting process for a beach restoration project, since it could take a few years of preparation before approvals could be granted.
    “It is recommended that the residents prepare for a nourishment project so that a proactive response is available if there is an active hurricane season,” Thomson wrote. “Beach nourishment projects can take several years to design and permit so this process should be initiated as soon as possible.”
    While the cost of a full-scale restoration project would be in the neighborhood of $9.5 million, according to the study, it is estimated that the preparation alone would cost an additional $1.5 million to $2.5 million.
    Paying for such a project could be a challenge for Highland Beach, in large part because all of the beaches along the town’s coastline are privately owned and there is no public beach access within town limits.
    Thomson told town commissioners that federal and state funding for the project would be difficult to come by, due to the lack of public access, and local funding — through property taxes, a bond issue, a special assessment or other vehicle — would be the most likely way to finance the project.
    Town commissioners accepted the report but took no formal action.
    They could discuss beach improvement options during future meetings focused on the town’s capital improvement plan.

Members of the Boca Raton Community High School unit of the Navy Junior ROTC

stand at attention during a Memorial Day Observance at the Boca Raton City Cemetery.

Philip Vale, WWII USCGC, and fellow veterans honor members of the military

who were killed in action or who have since died.

Boca residents Marena and her mother Rebecca Restivo (l-r) share a tender moment

during the Memorial Day Observance held Monday morning, May 27, at the Boca Raton City Cemetery.

Rebecca Restivo lost her brother Christopher Richard Seitz, who was in the Army in 1972 during the war in Vietnam.

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack
    Minutes after being censured for violating bylaws, a member of the Boca Raton Airport Authority abruptly resigned, but not before raising questions about the salaries of airport staff, specifically the airport director.
    Dave Freudenberg, a former Boca Raton City Council member wrapping up his two-year term on the authority, told other members he began looking closely at the authority’s budget when the federal government announced it might stop funding salaries for controllers at the airports tower.
    Although the Federal Aviation Administration has reversed course and announced that it will fund tower operations at least until the end of September, Freudenberg said he still believes the public should know how much money the airport authority has and how that money is spent.
    “I have a real concern about what’s going on behind the scenes,” Freudenberg said, after tendering his resignation at the end of the authority’s meeting last month. “I think it’s time we look behind the curtain.”
    Freudenberg said he was specifically concerned with the salaries and benefits paid to the six full-time staff members. In the authority’s current budget, personnel expenses are listed at $1.2 million.
    Salary records obtained by Freudenberg show that airport director Ken Day receives a salary of more than $218,000 a year, while all six of the authority’s employees are each paid more than $89,000.
    “We have $1.2 million of employee expenses for six employees,” he said. “Stuart has $400,000 for five employees.”
    According to Freudenberg, Day’s salary is above an $80,000 average salary for general aviation airport directors and more than the salary of the Palm Beach County’s airport director, who is responsible for Palm Beach International Airport and three smaller county airports.
    Airport Authority members and staff countered Freudenberg’s concerns, defending the salaries and pointing out that no taxpayer dollars are used for employee compensation.
    “I find the staff of this airport to be 100 percent efficient,” authority Chairman Frank Feiler said during the meeting. “I don’t feel they’re overpaid. I wish we would pay them more because the value of what they do enables us to have an operating budget of the size that we do.”
    Feiler said that the airport staff deserves credit for operating the facility efficiently and effectively. “It is well run, well managed and well thought of,” he said.
    The airport — which has more than 50,000 arrivals and departures every year — currently has an operating budget of $3.2 million and more than $6.5 million in reserves.
    Janet Sherr, the airport’s director of landside operations, says Day deserves a lot of credit for building those reserves from $600,000 during his 13 years as director.
    "The airport is running beautifully,” she said. “We have contained the noise problem, constructed a tower that is operating well and increased reserves to $6.5 million.”
    She said one reason for the airport’s strong financial position is its ability to generate revenue from non-aviation related sources. More than half of its revenue comes from rents paid by three businesses, the Cinemark Palace 20, City Furniture and Boomers! Boca Raton.
    The remaining revenues come from rents to the two contracted operators at the airport — Boca Aviation and Signature Flight Support — and from a percentage of the fuel purchased by the operators.
    Sherr said the airport has received state and federal dollars for capital improvements and for salaries for air traffic controllers. The authority, however, is prohibited from using that money for its staff salaries, she said.
    Prior to his resignation, Freudenberg was the subject of complaints by staff members who said he was disruptive and abusive in demanding documents. An investigation by authority attorney Dawn Meyers concluded that Freudenberg had violated authority bylaws and a vote was taken to publicly censure him.
    Prior to the censure and subsequent resignation, the Boca Raton City Council — which appoints Airport Authority members — had voted to fill Freudenberg’s expiring term with local attorney Mitch Fogel.

Sea Ranch Club’s entrance is dominated by native sabal palms.

Photo provided

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

    On May 15, a perfect spring day, about 30 people gathered in the council chambers at Boca Raton City Hall to learn what properties were the recipients of the annual Landscape Excellence Awards.
    Presented by the Boca Raton beautification committee, which is celebrating its 30th year, the awards were given for landscaping visible from the street that is properly maintained and increases the tree canopy.
    The committee hopes that this recognition will encourage city businesses, churches, homeowners associations and schools to improve their landscaping and beautify Boca.
    Mayor Susan Whelchel commended the committee for its “tremendous work with few financial resources.”
    During the year, the 12 volunteers keep their eyes open as they drive around the city. If they see landscaping they think might be worthy of an award, committee member Richard Randall takes photos, which the group then discusses at its semimonthly meetings.
    There are 11 categories, including automotive services and hotel/motel landscaping. But the awards were only given if a suitable recipient is found.
    “You can’t just plant a palm and a shrub and expect to win,” says awards chairman Barbara Benefield.
    In fact, this year there were winners in only six categories. “It’s been a tough year for people because with the economy, they just aren’t spending their time and money on landscaping,” says Benefield.
    But it doesn’t seem to matter to attendees who show their appreciation for the winners as well as for a light buffet luncheon provided by Lang Realty and Lang Management served after the awards ceremony.
    Winners are:
    -- Northern Trust Bank (Large Commercial), 3100 N. Military Trail: The committee noted that this is an excellent example of using the right trees in the right places as they add to the city’s canopy. The tree selections include a royal poinciana and Canary Island date palms.
    -- StitchCraft (Small Commercial), 399 S. Federal Highway: On a busy street corner, this oasis is created with trees for depth and carefully layered shrubs. The building that houses this shop has been in the Felberbaum family for two generations. “We think of it as family and we treat it as such,” says owner Rick Felberbaum. He says he selected the trees and shrubs but admits with a smile that he didn’t do the planting.
     -- 200 East (Mixed Use), 220 E. Palmetto Park Road: A bright silver, 5-foot-high traffic control box at the entrance to the building created an eyesore. So it was covered with leafy contact paper to blend in with the stately royal palms as well as the understory, and to help make the scale of this high rise feel manageable to people passing.
    -- Multi Image Group (Industrial), 1701 Clint Moore Road: The property is shaded with mature live oaks and ligustrum that offer a break from the Florida sun. Owner Arlene Sclafani takes great pride that the trees are properly trimmed. Her husband, Jim Sclafani, credits the award to Arlene’s green thumb.
    -- Sea Ranch Club of Boca (High Density Residential Multi Family), 4001-4501 N. Ocean Blvd.: The landscaping at this residence set on 38 acres is designed to be turtle friendly and co-exist with the wind, sun, sand and sea. Johann Leigh, accepting the award for the condominium, said this is the second beautification award for this property.
    -- Santa Barbara (Low-Density Residential Gated), just north of Glades Road on the east side of Jog/Powerline Road: This is the second award for this community that continues to maintain its trees and shrubs thanks to a team of volunteers. They include board member Don Lamm, who designed the landscape and put in more than 1,000 volunteer hours selecting and planting “every tree and shrub.”

By Steve Plunkett
    The City Council quickly disposed of $5,600 in questions the county Office of the Inspector General raised in an audit of city expenses.
    Council members voted unanimously that buying food for its three-day goal-setting sessions in May and its budget presentation to the Chamber of Commerce in August serves the public good.
    “As you know, the inspector general is going around the county inspecting things, and they have expressed a concern in the city and other cities that food being purchased for different types of events in their opinion does not meet a public purpose,” City Manager Leif Ahnell said as he asked council members to weigh in.
    “There’s no question that the food at the goal-setting meetings definitely serves a public purpose, the public purpose being to keep the meetings as short as we can,” council member Michael Mullaugh said.
    Mullaugh said someone doing “a little bit of arithmetic” could subtract the $1,300 cost of the food from how much longer the meetings would go if the participants went out for lunch and how much would it cost to have the city’s consultant for the additional time.
    “I think you’d actually come up with a public purpose in saving money,” Mullaugh said. “This is a no-brainer. The food at the goal-setting meetings definitely serves a public purpose.”
    Council members Anthony Majhess and Constance Scott and Deputy Mayor Susan Haynie agreed.
    “It becomes a working lunch,” Majhess said. “It allows us to deliberate more effectively with the information that comes out of some one-on-one discussions [with staff] during the lunch period.”
    The $4,300 Chamber of Commerce breakfast got a separate discussion.
    “I think it makes a statement to our business community and to the members of the Chamber of Commerce that we want them to be aware of what we do, how we operate. And that meeting reviews our budget, and it explains how we’re spending our money and how the residents’ taxes are being allocated,” Scott said.
    “So do I think it’s a public purpose? They attend that meeting, they eat and they hear from usually the city manager and/or the mayor and so I do believe it’s a public purpose.”
    Again her colleagues unanimously agreed.
    “That is our kickoff for our budget presentation to the general public. And a lot of people look forward to that. I think it’s a very valuable public purpose,” Haynie said.
    In its audit the inspector general’s office said Boca Raton is the top city in Palm Beach County for dollar amount paid with “purchasing cards” instead of checks. “Over 15,000 transactions were made totaling $4.7 million” in fiscal 2011, it said.
    The food purchases “are generally not allowable expenditures for state agencies,” the auditors wrote. “Although municipalities have more latitude in the expenditure of public funds, we believe that state guidelines are a sound point of reference.”
    Assistant City Manager Mike Woika said the questioned expenses amounted to less than 1/20th of 1 percent of Boca Raton’s total purchase orders.
    "This is not to suggest that the city should not review its food purchases by the use of procurement cards, just an observation of the magnitude and materiality of the findings,” he wrote in a response to the audit.
    Woika also said the city received $55,000 in a year-end bank rebate from using the cards.
    The audit is online at www.pbcgov.com/oig.

Members of the Greater Federated Women’s Club, Boca Raton Chapter,

celebrated the installation of new officers and a unique designer fashion showing

at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Joining in the celebration were members of the

Boca/Delray Music Society and South County American Red Cross Angels.

ABOVE: (l-r) Helen Babione, Joann Haros, installing officer;

Gwen Herb, re-elected president; Sue Blum Gerding, past president.

Photo provided by Barbara McCormick

Julia Vassalluzzo served as hostess for an event featuring shopping, hors d’oeuvres,

wine, entertainment and door prizes, all for the benefit of the organization’s

Southeast Florida Chapter. Each of the more than 85 guests received a signed copy

of the Passionate Plate cookbook while enjoying the variety of vendors.

ABOVE: Siran Wassilian, Kim Vassalluzzo and Julia Vassalluzzo.

Photo provided

The spring luncheon that raised $15,000 for Quantum House honored its 2013 nominees:

Grand Matriarch Sydelle Meyer, along with Melissa Potamkin Ganzi, Rosemary Krieger and Ruth Young.

The women were on display throughout the event via individual oil paintings by Renee Plevy

that will appear in venues throughout Palm Beach County.

ABOVE: Lynda Levitsky, emcee Tim Byrd and Charlotte Robinson.

Photo provided by Wild Eyes Photography

The National Society of Arts and Letters’ Florida East Coast Chapter presented Daniel Biaggi,

general director of the Palm Beach Opera, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership and Artistic Excellence.

To honor Biaggi, soprano Nadine Sierra, winner of the society’s 1997 voice competition,

performed Glitter and be Gay and Caro Nome. Several scholarships also were presented at the gala,

as well as checks for the Art of Printmaking competition. ABOVE: Dorinda Spahr, Robert Spahr and Isabelle Paul.

Photo provided by Barbara McCormick

By Ron Hayes

    BOCA RATON — Her family called her “Mary Detail,” and during the final years of her life, the Boca Raton Historical Society benefited from Mary McKenzie’s love of detailed work.

    A resident for 30 years, Mrs. McKenzie died April 10 after a short illness.“If we couldn’t remember somebody’s birthday, or something that had happened, we’d call her up,” remembers her sister, Pat Gilmour of Margate. “Her memory was phenomenal, right up until her last few days.”

    In 2009, Mrs. McKenzie began volunteering as a greeter at the historical society.

    “She was a lovely lady,” recalled Susan Gillis, the museum’s curator. “When you greet, you have some dead time, so Mary would sit at the front desk with old interviews from the 1970s and ’80s and transcribe them from paper into a computer. She typed several books for me, and liked doing it. I told her she knew as much about our history as I did. We got a two-for-one volunteer with Mary.”

    Mary Lilian Campbell was born near London, Ontario, on a date and year few knew.

    “Any woman who would tell her age will tell anything,” she insisted.

    Mrs. McKenzie was an executive secretary to the president of Kellogg’s Canada in Toronto, where she met her future husband, Stanley McKenzie. She left Kellogg’s in the 1970s when her husband, an employee of Advance Machinery, was transferred to Frankfurt, West Germany. The couple traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. Mr. McKenzie died in 1997.

    After moving to Boca Raton, she worked as a receptionist for the law firm of Osborne & Osborne.

    The couple had no children, so Mrs. McKenzie considered her numerous nieces and nephews her grandchildren.

    “Hallmark is going to miss her,” her sister said. “She sent cards to family, friends, acquaintances for birthdays, anniversaries, whatever. She’d purchase 50 cards in advance and have them ready to go.”

    In the days before her death, Mrs. McKenzie worried that a birthday card she had written to a nephew, John Campbell, might not arrive in time for his birthday, April 8.

    The card arrived on April 8, her sister said, and Mrs. McKenzie died two days later.

    In addition to Pat Gilmour, she is survived by a second sister, Margaret Bowra; her nephews and nieces, John Campbell, Robert Campbell, James Campbell, Roger Campbell, Jeffrey Bowra, Jason Bowra, Dean Gilmour, Jo-Ann McLinchey and Kimberly Gilmour.

    Mrs. McKenzie was an active member of the First United Methodist Church of Boca Raton, where a memorial service was held on April 18.

    Her family asks that donations be made to the church’s music department, or Hospice-by-the-Sea of Palm Beach County.

By Rich Pollack

    A Highland Beach spending issue that appeared to have been resolved last fall has resurfaced, this time at the urging of a new commissioner who believes residents want stronger veto power over purchases of big-ticket items.
    At an April 30 commission workshop meeting, Commissioner Carl Feldman, elected in March, revisited a spending cap that requires voter approval on any purchases exceeding 10 percent of the town’s $10.4 million operating budget — or about $1 million.
In September, the commission voted 4-1 to amend the town charter and raise the cap on big-ticket items from $350,000 to 10 percent before a referendum is needed. But Feldman said many residents were unaware of the change.
    “When I was running for election, the main thing that people were saying was that they didn’t agree with raising the spending limit from $350,000 to over $1 million,” Feldman said before last month’s meeting. “ I found no one who agreed with it.”
    Two major expenses that could possibly soon surface are the purchase of a new fire truck – which could cost upwards of $850,000 – and renovations to the town hall complex.
    “The people want to have a say when it comes to spending a lot of money,” said Feldman, a leading voice against raising the $350,000 spending trigger for a referendum when it was first discussed in September, before he was elected.
    During the commission’s recent workshop meeting, Town Attorney Glen Torcivia told Feldman that those opposed to the charter change could use a petition signed by approximately 380 voters to add a referendum to the March 2014 ballot to determine if residents want to revert back to the $350,000 spending cap.
    “If residents want to bring back the $350,000 spending limit, they can come forward with petitions,” Feldman said later. “I just wanted to give them the vehicle to do it.”
    He said he has already spoken to several residents who are interested in petitioning the commission to put the issue before voters next year.
    In September, Feldman presented commissioners with a petition signed by more than 200 residents in three days.
    But at that time, commissioners — several of whom pointed out that an informal survey showed Highland Beach was the only community in the area that required a referendum on expenditures — voted to increase the spending limit to 10 percent of the budget before a referendum would be required.
    Feldman said that during his campaign, he made spending an issue and believed it was important to once again bring the issue up for discussion.
    “Residents don’t want the commission spending $1 million without a referendum,” he said.
    In other action last month, commissioners heard that the town is close to completing the $3.5 million sale of two parcels of town-owned land in northern Boca Raton, once used as well fields for the town.
    The parcels, including an 8.5-acre tract and a 2.16-acre L-shaped tract with frontage on Federal Highway, became available after the town built a new reverse osmosis treatment plant behind town hall in 2004.
    Town officials are awaiting an independent appraisal before moving forward with finalizing the sale.
    In addition, the commission approved a resolution clarifying that money from the sale of the property does not have to be used to repay debt on the water treatment plant. Instead, a new resolution given tentative approval by commissioners, allows the town to use the money for projects that are in the best interest of residents. The town currently owes more than $13 million on the loan.
    Town officials say that the change will have no impact on water bills.
    At the workshop meeting, the commission also gave tentative approval to extending previously approved variances for developers of a new high-rise residential project slated for long-vacant property at 3200 S. Ocean. The commission invited the developers and their representatives to a May 7 commission meeting to provide a more detailed overview of the proposed project.

Seminoles sit at a chickee at Pirates Cove.
Photo courtesy of the Boca Raton Historical Society

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

    Seminole and Miccosukee Indians take center stage at the Boca Raton Historical Society and Museum through Dec. 20. Here you can browse an exhibit curated by ethno-historian and author Patsy West.
    She has spent the past 40 years researching and collecting artifacts and information about the culture and history of these tribes.
    West admits she “likes to spread out,” so she’s done her best to make the most of the display cabinets and hallway space dedicated to her collection. She devoted a large portion of it to the women who are the decision makers in this matriarchal society.
    To this end, there’s a showcase filled with patchwork clothing the Indian women proudly create to this day. “It is a major art form,” says West, who has written Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes of Southern Florida (Arcadia Publishing, 2012). But the patchwork artistry really didn’t come into its own until the late 1800s, when the women acquired sewing machines.
    You can see the silver bangles and necklaces that the women made from Murano beads traded for pelts. Many of these are strung with silver coins that have been beaten thin and carved with stars or other shapes.
    The exhibit also emphasizes the women’s basket-weaving skills. Made from split palmetto stems, the baskets were for daily use such as sifting and storing food.
    Coiled sweetgrass basketry was a creation of the 20th century when the women started to sell their crafts at road-side attractions where tourists came to see alligators being wrestled and buy souvenirs.
    In a pre-Disney Florida, these villages attracted crowds. And the exhibit features a whole case of the crafts the Indians made to sell at these tourist stops including carved animals and drums made from rawhide and then painted.
    Sabal palmetto-husk dolls dressed in patchwork clothes were eagerly snatched up. “Every little girl had to have one of those,” West says.
    These tourist attractions, beginning in the 1920s, offered the Seminoles and Miccosukee a viable place to produce and sell their native crafts. In fact, by the mid-1930s, over half of the population was involved in some aspect of tourism, Wells tells us.
    For this exhibit, the museum’s central hallway is lined with blow-ups of vintage postcards that depict the Seminole camps, tourist attractions and life in the Everglades. These are just some of the 1,500 cards that West has collected since 1972 into the Seminole Miccosukee Archive.
    There’s even a photo of a cigar-smoking James E. Billie holding onto his horse. He looks pretty cocky and self-satisfied. And no wonder. He is responsible for bringing gaming to the Seminole reservation in the late 1970s and hooking up the Seminole Tribe of Florida with Hard Rock International, which they purchased for $965 million in 2006. The rest is history.

If you go
Native Floridians: Seminole and Miccosukee Art and Culture at the Boca Raton Historical Society and Museum, 71 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton; Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; exhibit admission for adults $5, students $3, members free; 395-6766.