Barbara and Ed Buchanan hold foster cats Keeli 
and Kami outside their Greenacres home. The
couple are foster volunteers for the Palm Beach
County Animal Control Center. Keeli and Kami
are the 73rd and 74th kittens the Buchanans
have fostered. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Ed Buchanan embodies one of my favorite pet qualities: He is living proof that real men love cats. He estimates that he has cared for 74 kittens at his Greenacres home so far this year.

You read right: 74. Before you gasp at the notion of 74 fun-seeking, curtain-climbing kittens inside this man’s three-bedroom villa, I am happy to report that Buchanan is an ardent volunteer for the Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control, based in West Palm Beach. He and his wife, Barbara, serve as foster pet parents, caring for up to five kittens at any one time. They prefer two to three at a time. Currently, their temporary guests are feline siblings answering to the names Kami and Keeli.

“I’ve retired three times and each time, I got bored sick of playing golf, tennis and swimming,” says Buchanan, a retired executive chef. “But I didn’t want to go back to work. I’ve loved cats since I was a kid, so I decided to volunteer at the shelter and found out that I love fostering kittens.”

Challis Thompson of Lantana agreed to a friend’s request to care for Sammy, a 4-year-old Bichon Frisé while his owner was traveling to Jerusalem. That was back in January, and Thompson has recently learned that Sammy’s owner may not return for another eight months to a year.

That’s fine with her and her husband, Peter Bloom. This is their first time caring for a dog and they’ve found out how much they enjoy fostering.

“I’m 59 years old and Sammy keeps me young,” declares Thompson. “Sammy has the sweetest personality.”

Do you have what it takes to succeed as a foster pet parent? Animal shelters and people taking extended leaves from home for business or for serving in the military are in need of people possessing the special ability to nurture and bring out the healthy best in cats, dogs and other companion animals — all with the knowledge that their stay is only temporary until the animal lands a loving, forever home.

Tammy Roberts leads the foster pet parent orientation program at ACC. The most recent event attracted about 20 people, ranging from high school students to senior citizens, being welcomed into the fostering ranks.

“We look for people with a genuine love of animals,” says Roberts, who personally has fostered more than 100 dogs and cats in the past nine years. “We also do background checks to make sure they have never had any animal cruelty or human abuse charges. And, if they rent, we get verification from the landlord that it is OK for them to bring in shelter animals to foster.”

Her message to all potential foster parents: “You are giving these animals the best chance to get permanent, loving homes. Your job is to care for them and to love them until they are ready for adoption.”

Buchanan and Thompson offered some insights on how to success as a foster pet parent:

n Pet-proof your home before the shelter critter arrives. That means ensuring electrical cords are out of access of curious pets or fitted inside protective, chew-proof casings. It also means storing chocolate, sugar-free gum (containing xylitol) and other household ingredients poisonous to pets. 

n Make sure your own pets are current on their vaccines. Often, shelter animals sent to foster homes are very young or recovering from an injury or illness and need added attention. They may have still-developing or weakened immune systems. Work with your veterinarian to ensure your own pets are at their healthy best so that they will not be at risk for any contagious disease transmitted by these furry visitors.

n Provide safe play toys — and remember to play. Forgo strings and or toy mice that contain small items that a kitten may swallow and choke. Opt for feather wands and balls that they can stalk and chase. Schedule regular play sessions each day and you will find yourself feeling happier and healthier, too. 

n Serve up healthy chow. Adhere to the foster pet’s dietary needs to minimize any chance for gastrointestinal issues.

n Be willing to learn new pet skills. Buchanan has mastered the art of bottle-feeding kittens and Thompson enrolled in a dog obedience class with Sammy to re-enforce his “sit, stay, watch me, leave it” cues and to bolster their friendship bond.

As for the rewards one receives by fostering? It can’t be equated in terms of dollars.

“Barbara and I tell our friends that we are giving these kittens the best possibly start they can have,” says Buchanan. “Saying goodbye to them is never easy, but we remind ourselves that they are ready to enjoy being in forever homes.”

And, by that statement, Buchanan furthers my belief that real men do love cats.

Contest winner

In the August issue, we staged a contest to see which one of our loyal Coastal Star readers would get their paws on an autographed copy of my latest book, What Dogs Want. Dozens of you vied, but the lucky 24th person to email me was Challis Thompson of Lantana. Congrats

Arden Moore, founder of FourLegged
Life.com, is an animal behavior consultant, editor, author, professional speaker and certified pet first aid instructor. She happily shares her home with two dogs, two cats and one overworked vacuum cleaner. Tune in to her Oh Behave! show on Pet Life Radio.com and learn more by visiting www.fourleggedlife.com.

Scott and Christel Koedel hold their daughters,
Kaia, born Aug. 3, and Katniss, age 18 months.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star 

 By Paula Detwiller

On the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 3, while her Ocean Ridge neighbors tended their gardens, ran errands, and sunbathed around their pools, 34-year-old Christel Koedel was inside her house having a baby. 

It was just where she wanted to be.

Koedel already had one baby at home — Katniss, born 18 months ago — and now a little sister was on the way. 

With assistance and support from a licensed midwife and two student midwives, Koedel labored all morning and into the afternoon until finally pushing out her second daughter, Kaia, at 2:28 p.m.

To say it was “all in a day’s work” would be to sell short the miracle of birth. But clearly, Koedel has this home-birth thing down.

“With Katniss, I basically leaned over a kitchen chair and yelled with every contraction. I stood up the entire time,” she says. “This time I reclined in a warm tub, and it was a more gentle labor. This birth was very calm and quiet.”

Husband Scott Koedel, who was present for both births, is in awe of his wife’s abilities. “She is tougher than me and anyone I know,” he says.

The Koedels represent a growing number of middle- and upper-income couples (he rescues failing businesses, she’s a former international trade specialist) opting not to have their babies delivered in a hospital. Instead, they are choosing home birth or delivery at a birth center, using a midwife for medical assistance and, in some cases, a doula for emotional and physical support.

Midwife student Allison Lynum sits with Christel Koedel
after assisting her in the home birth of her 6 pound, 3 ounce
daughter Kaia in Ocean Ridge. Photo provided

In Palm Beach County, many of those couples are tapping into the services of The Palms Birth House in Delray Beach. 

Open for about a year now, the birth center offers midwives and doulas for hire, natural childbirth classes, prenatal care, in-house lab tests, ultrasound exams, massage — even an upscale mother-and-baby boutique. Two tastefully appointed birthing rooms await those who choose to deliver there. 

Business has been so brisk, say birth center owners Miriam Pearson-Martinez and Lorie McCoy, they’ve had to start a waiting list. 

“Stereotypically, people envision the kind of woman who would choose a midwife-assisted natural birth to be a little hippie-dippie, a little lower income — but that’s not the reality,” says McCoy, a certified doula. “Our clients are local business professionals, doctors, attorneys. They’ve got time and money on their side, and they spend time researching this option and then come to us because they don’t want the same old same old.”

“Usually it’s the second-time moms who say ‘I never want to do that again’ after giving birth in a hospital,” says Pearson-Martinez, a licensed midwife who says she has helped deliver more than 600 babies, including Katniss Koedel. “But now we’re seeing a huge increase in first-time moms choosing this.”

Obviously, pregnant women at high risk for complications are encouraged to deliver in a hospital. But studies show that for a normal, healthy pregnancy, little medical intervention is necessary and home birth is safe.

It’s also cost-effective. McCoy says countries in which low-tech, midwife-assisted births are common spend far less money on maternal health care and have lower infant and maternal mortality rates.

Koedel, who did a mountain of research before deciding on home birth, says the out-of-pocket cost of having Kaia at home was roughly the same as an insurance-covered hospital birth would have been after paying the deductible: about $5,000.

But cost was never a deciding factor, she says.

“I didn’t want to be hooked up to a fetal heart monitor, which confines you to bed. I wanted to have control over my environment — wear what I wanted, be allowed to eat and drink throughout labor, and be less likely to end up with a C-section or some other intervention.”

After two home births, Scott Koedel still thinks the whole experience is a little surreal.

“You wake up in the same bed you were in the night before, just the two of you — and here you are a few hours later, laying there with this new little life,” he says.          

Scott and Melissa Porten sit with their children,
Ava, 8, and Grayson, 5, at their Delray Beach
home. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

When Scott Porten assumed leadership of the Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce’s governmental affairs committee two years ago, he made a change that proved to be popular. Committee meetings had always revolved around discussion of current government issues; Porten made the meetings livelier by bringing in government representatives to lead discussions. “We’ve changed the focus of the meetings to be speaker-oriented,” he says. 

Delray Beach’s city manager, most of the city commissioners, various county representatives, and the local fire chief have been among the invited speakers.

“It’s a very loose, open forum in which members can ask questions and get answers on the spot,” says Porten, 49, whose family-owned residential real estate development firm, The Porten Companies, has been operating in South Florida for three decades.

On Sept. 22, Porten himself will be in the spotlight, accepting the Director of the Year award from the Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce at its annual Luminary Gala.

The Chamber role is just one of several ways Porten, who lives in coastal Delray Beach, is serving his community. He also chairs the Old School Square board of directors. He’s vice chairman of the city’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board, vice chairman of the Delray Economic Leaders Political Action Committee and recently completed service on Delray’s Charter Revision Committee.

All of this prompts the question: Does he plan to run for political office one day? 

“No, I really don’t,” he says. “I’m motivated by two things. Since I’m going to spend the rest of my life in Delray Beach, I’d like to have some impact on the environment … and if I’m going to be involved, I’d just as soon lead.”

“The second thing is, getting involved like this was totally out of my comfort zone. And I think by definition, that’s how you grow.”

A self-confessed “gym rat,” Porten enjoys playing basketball and spending time with his wife, Melissa, and their two children, Ava, 8, and Grayson, 5. 

“I’ll be a soccer dad eventually. There’s lots of peer pressure to do that,” he says with a smile.

     — Paula Detwiller

Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you? 

A. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I graduated from Bethesda Chevy Chase High School and then attended Emory University in Atlanta for a business degree. Growing up in the D.C. area exposed me to a diverse culture that can only be experienced in a major metropolitan area. Going on family outings to world-class museums and galleries was something that I took for granted.

 Now that I am raising my children in Delray Beach, I realize the important role that the arts played in my development. This observation has been my focus in recent years and is the reason behind my involvement at Old School Square Cultural Arts Center. 

Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?

A. I have worked in real estate for my entire professional career. With my sister and brother, we started Porten Companies nearly 25 years ago. We are real estate developers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area as well as South Florida. One of my most satisfying professional accomplishments was here in Delray Beach with the development of The Estuary. Several developers before me failed in getting through the entitlement process. I was told the site was not feasible due to the significant environmental issues associated with onsite wetlands.

Through dogged pursuit we ultimately prevailed by completing one of the largest preservation/mitigation projects in the county’s history. 

This set the stage for me to acquire and develop properties not meant for less agile developers, thus creating a niche in a very competitive industry. In truth, when I have ventured outside of the area of my core expertise, the results were often disappointing.

Q. What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today? 

A. Before selecting your career, make sure it can support your definition of success. For many, success is not about money, but for everyone it should be about happiness. I never really focused on making money. I found that if you do a good job, the money will follow.

Q. How did you choose to make your home in Delray Beach?

A. I married my wife, Melissa, 13 years ago and needed a new home. My home at the time in Boca Raton was too much of a bachelor pad. So we moved to The Estuary out of convenience. Even though we had a project here, I knew very little about Delray Beach. As it turned out, we loved the Delray lifestyle and strong sense of community. We ultimately moved to the barrier island. It is my expectation that I will live here the rest of my life.

Q. What is your favorite part about living in Delray? 

A. I don’t know of any other city in South Florida that has a vibrant downtown on the ocean with a strong sense of community. I also appreciate that we have become an understated alternative to some of our surrounding communities.

Q. What book are you reading now?

A. I am reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. The fact that I am reading it on my iPad is a constant reminder of how significant his contribution was to all of mankind. He was truly one of the greatest minds in modern history. Isaacson has done a phenomenal job of conveying the complexity of Jobs in an easily understood manner. 

Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions? 

A. “What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?”  (Robert Schuller) 

For many, the fear of failure is an insurmountable obstacle. It is an intangible that does not fit into any business plan. 

Today I am willing to attempt things that were incomprehensible to me in my youth, when I had an overwhelming fear of failure. Don’t get me wrong; I believe that to be successful, one must be able to accurately quantify risk and balance it with an acceptable potential for reward.

Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions? 

A. My father is certainly my main mentor. Not only was he a successful real estate developer, but he possesses a sense of calm that I have grown to appreciate. He taught me that it is better to hit a bunch of singles than trying to hit it out of the park every time. 

I have had many mentors in my life. Most of my dealings in business have been through partnerships in some fashion. In the better partnerships, my partner possessed qualities that I did not. 

When I find qualities in people that I respect, I try to incorporate those qualities into my being. 

To that end, everyone I meet is a potential mentor.

Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?

A. The movie would only have two tickets sold, to my mother and myself. But since you are asking, I suppose I would pick George Clooney. He is smart and good-looking. He can be serious as well as funny. And he appears to be aging gracefully.

Q. Who or what makes you laugh?

A. Family Guy and Big Bang Theory make me laugh. I still prefer situation comedies over reality TV. 

However, the world is a funny place, and Delray Beach is no exception. It is natural to gravitate toward people who make us feel good and, with a few exceptions, nothing feels better than laughing.               

Maitz’s painting titled Forty Thieves is on display at the Cornell Museum. Image provided

By Greg Stepanich

Call them a peg-leg meritocracy. 

Or perhaps they were a band of freethinkers, governmental naysayers who rejected the repressive society of the day in favor of their own democracy of brawn, bravery —and larceny —on the high seas.

You know: pirates.

Running through Oct. 28, the Cornell Museum of Art and American Culture at the newly renamed Delray Beach Center for the Arts has been showing “Ahoy Maitz! Pirates and Treasures,” an exhibit of freebooter art by Don Maitz, a Sarasota-based illustrator who’s best-known for his iconic logo for the Captain Morgan rum line.

“Someone can look at one of my paintings and it would be like they were looking at a window into the past, through my eyes,” Maitz said. “I may be romanticizing it, but the idea is, you’ve got a porthole into an age where adventure lived.”

Maitz, 59, who moved to Sarasota in 1990 from his home state of Connecticut, is a much-honored artist in the tradition of N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle and Norman Rockwell. Much of his most celebrated work has been in the realm of fantasy and science fiction, with illustrations for books by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and other luminaries, Hugo awards for best artist, and steady work with major New York publishers. 

His interest in the world of the pirates began during his work in the 1980s on the Captain Morgan campaign for Seagrams. The rum is named after the legendary Welsh privateer Henry Morgan, who worked in the Caribbean during the second half of the 17th century. 

Don Maitz

“In doing the research, I discovered that pirates were a society unto themselves … Some people embraced piracy, some people were dragged into it, and some people, because of the time period, they didn’t have any choice,” Maitz said. To make an effective portrayal of that world, which was in its heyday from roughly 1680 to 1725, he drew inspiration from the nostalgic art of the American West.

“The cowboy became an iconic character. And this is what I’m trying to portray with the pirates,” he said.

The show extends to the walls and two galleries of the Cornell, and includes a small section devoted to the Captain Morgan art. But the rest of it ranges widely, from works for a children’s card game, portraits, and even a small, almost-Impressionist piece, Lookout in the Bell Tower, in which a group of pirates is seen indistinctly at the top of the structure, spoiling for battle.

The exhibit, curated by Gloria Rejune Adams and the staff of the Cornell, also is laid out with young families in mind, with displays of unfortunate skeletons clutching jugs of rum with a treasure chest nearby, and that sort of thing. There also is a small cabinet devoted to relics —including an arquebus and several Philip III pieces of eight —from the 1622 wreck of Nuestra Señor de Atocha, discovered by the Key West salvor Mel Fisher in 1985.

The second floor includes some of Maitz’s fantasy paintings as well as a room devoted to a charming children’s book, How I Became a Pirate, by Melinda Long and David Shannon, in which the pages are blown up to display size and the text is given in English, Spanish and Creole. An X-marks-the-spot drawing is under some of the paintings, which is for children to look carefully at the designated artwork to find the playful place where Maitz has signed it.

Maltz credits his thorough training at the Paier College of Art in Hamden, Conn., for helping give him a secure technique, which can be clearly seen in every piece of the exhibit. He is a strong believer in the importance of being a good draftsman, and of the artistic tradition of “imaginative realism” to which he belongs.

“I’m really glad to see this exhibit going on at the Cornell, because it’s an opportunity to show people that there’s still solid drawing and painting being done, even though it’s been out of favor for so many years,” he said.

Maitz is a member of the American Society of Marine Artists, whose first national exhibit debuted at the Cornell last October and is now traveling the country. His work also is being featured in current exhibits of pirate art at Wisconsin’s Door County Maritime Museum, and of fantasy art at the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania. He also has an exhibit through Labor Day at the huge DragonCon sci-fi gathering in Atlanta. 

Admission to the exhibit is $10; it’s $6 for seniors, $4 for students, $2 for ages 4 to 12, and free for ages 3 and under. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday. 

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is scheduled for Sept. 19, which will feature a video of random people approached on the street to do their best Blackbeard impressions, culminating with a pirate “Happy Arrr!” Call 243-7922.  

The winter arts season gets going this month in South Florida, with some interesting local performances leading off the action:

Music at St. Paul’s: The series at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach begins its 25th year on Sept. 23 with the Trillium Piano Trio of Jupiter. Pianist Yoko Sata Kothari, violinist Ruby Berland and cellist Benjamin Salsbury will perform the lone Piano Trio of Gabriel Fauré, the second Piano Trio of Felix Mendelssohn, and a rarity, the Piano Trio (on Irish popular melodies) of the Swiss composer Frank Martin. 

The Trillium opened St. Paul’s last season with fine readings of trios by Saint-Saëns and Smetana, and the threesome usually draws an appreciative, serious crowd. The concert begins at 3 p.m.; tickets are $15-$20, depending on seating. Call 278-6003 or visit  www.stpaulsdelray.org for more information.

Boca Raton Theatre Guild: The theater group presents A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia beginning Sept. 28 and running through Oct. 14 at the Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park. The 1995 play by Gurney, a chronicler of the domestic life of the Northeastern upper-middle class, concerns a businessman in a midlife crisis who finds a stray female dog in the park that worships him and which he adopts, causing much chaos in his marriage. 

It stars Keith Garsson, Patti Gardner and Jacqueline Laggy as Sylvia, the Labrador-poodle mix. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $25. Call 347-3948 or visit www.brtg.org. 

Arts Garage: Now into its second year of jazz and blues concerts, September’s offerings at the Delray Beach music-and-theater hotspot at 180 NE First St. include flutist Bobby Ramirez (Sept. 8), singer Paulette Dozier (Sept. 15), percussionist Sammy Figueroa (Sept. 22) and singer Alice Day (Sept. 29). It opens Sept. 1 with Olivia de la Garza, lead singer of the Miami Dolphins cheerleader’s Voices group, in a program called Songs of Love and Lust. 

All shows begin at 8 p.m., and tickets range from $15 to $30 in advance, and $5 more at the door. Call 450-6357 for more information, or visit www.artsgarage.org.

Chrissy Loffredo brought her four children from
Wellington to golf at Putt’n Around in Delray Beach. 

Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. This way, kids. Pick up a putter. Grab a golf ball. This is no hands-off, stand-back-and-admire-the-art exhibit. This is pure hands-on and come-out-swingin’, courtesy of the Boca Raton Museum of Art and its mid-summer show, Big Art: Miniature Golf.

The show teed off on July 17 and plays through Oct. 7. So there’s plenty of time left to put on your game face.

Let’s start with Hole No. 1. It’s called “Tiger Woods.” See how the ball rolls across the artificial turf, up the ramp and plops — with luck? with skill? — in to the wide-open mouth of the tiger? See how the backdrop is made of wood slats? A tiger. And wood. Good one. Now, mark your score card and move along to the next challenge.

Artist Erika Nelson of Lucas, Kan., designed
The World’s Smallest Version of the World’s Largest
Miniature Golf Course.

See, here’s the idea: Artists from across the United States competed to design playable miniature golf holes. The 11 winners, culled from among 250 entries, are on display and open for business — “a unique exhibition that explores the fusion between art, design and play” in museum-speak.

Miami-based artist Sri Prabha thinks he played mini-golf, at least once, as a child. “Probably in Orlando,” he says. “I don’t remember it.” But when friend and fellow artist Charles Falarara told him about the design competition, Prabha was instantly gung-ho. The result: an artistic partnership and mini-golf Hole No. 4, “Golf in the Swamp with John Muir,” a nod to the 19th-century naturalist’s book about his trek from Indiana to Florida, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf. 

“I literally wanted to bring nature back into the building,” Prabha says of the Florida-map “fairway” complete with recessed Lake Okeechobee and alligator-mouth hole. Listen carefully and you can hear birds twittering, thanks to an audio component.

A detail of Erika Nelson’s The World’s Smallest Version
of the World’s Largest Miniature Golf Course.

Prabha and Falarara share an interest in ecology and find artistic inspiration in the ocean. They initially submitted a design sketch; a more detailed work-up followed once the field was winnowed down for round two. “It took about three months to make this thing and three days to install it.”

“It was about us being able to collaborate … and a desire to get into a museum,” Falarara says candidly.  

Game goes way back

The desire to break into the museum world is nothing new. Nor is the desire to sink a small, round, dimpled, white ball into a 4¼-inch-diameter hole. The earliest, and most elementary, game of golf is generally attributed to the Scots, circa 15th century (though even that game may have been borrowed from stick-and-ball games played in France and Germany in the Middle Ages). 

Miniature golf is newer but hardly new, dating back to the 1800s and the Ladies Putting Club at Scotland’s St. Andrews course. Mini-golf came to the U.S. early in the 20th century, where its popularity has waxed and waned over the years, gaining great numbers of enthusiasts during the Great Depression when mini-golf was cheaper than the movies. 

The 1950s saw another uptick in popularity and then, after years of ho-hum interest, mini-golf enjoyed another revival in the ’90s.

August 2010 welcomed the arrival, in Delray Beach, of Putt’n Around, two 18-hole mini-courses (“The Everglades” and “The Ocean”) that feature food-and-beverage delivery to every hole, spray-misters to help combat the heat-and-humidity factor and a clubhouse that boasts ice cream and snacks, wine and beer, a/c and apparel.

“It’s meant to be a garden where you play miniature golf,” says owner Elise Johnson — and the response, she says, “has been amazing. Our biggest difficulty is people not knowing we’re here. Once somebody comes, they come back.”

That translates to between 50 and 500 mini-golfers a day, depending on the weather and whatever other events are competing for attention.

The impetus to open Putt’n Around grew out of Delray’s First Night, back in 2005, when Johnson and her husband and their two children — then ninth- and 11th-graders — were in town visiting. “We saw all the people lined up to play the portable mini-golf, and we decided that Delray needed a mini-golf course. There was nothing for our kids to do after dinner, other than galleries or bars, and that just wasn’t appropriate.”

A little more than eight miles south of  Putt’n Around is Boomers! Boca Raton, a family-fun venue that offers bumper boats, batting cages, bowling, a rock wall, go-carts, a game room, laser tag . . . oh, and a mini golf course that boasts “lush greens, wild water features and wacky windmills.”

Like Putt’n Around, Boomers! provides the putter and the ball, customers provide the skill and the will to win.

The Boca Raton Museum show Big Art: Miniature Golf
includes such works as Trapped in Paradise,
by artist Robert Reed of Honolulu.

Game comes alive here

So mini-golf came to Delray and Boca, and its approximation came to the Boca Museum where, on a recent evening, one guy’s trying to play Hole No. 2, “Trapped in Paradise,” with its straw mats and host of inflatables — flamingos and palm trees and sharks and monkeys — and a zigzagged-corridor course that resists efforts to sink the ball. 

Then there’s one that sticks an obstacle immediately in front of the hole, which may lead visitors to wonder if the artist is making a statement about competition or frustration or happenstance or unfairness or golf handicap or, maybe, if they simply didn’t know or care about getting the @#$%! ball into the @#$%! hole.

Hole No. 10 — “The Life Hole” — is straightforwardly sly, with floor-level screens (think Magic 8 Ball) that offer think-lines: “What’s beyond par?” and “Do you live for a better hole?” and “You have a nice putt.”

There are others with varying degrees of playability from pretty easy to not bad to utterly impossible. But then, that probably sums up the game of golf. To a tee.                        

If you go

Big Art: Miniature Golf — Through Oct. 7 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Mizner Park, Boca Raton. Phone: 392-2500. On the web: bocamuseum.org

Putt’n Around — 350 NE Fifth Ave. (Federal Highway), Delray Beach. Phone: 450-6162. On the web: puttnaround.net

Boomers! Boca Raton — 3100 Airport Road, Boca Raton. Phone: 347-1888.

On the web: boomersparks.com/site/boca 

Mary Kate Leming, Editor

“Sweeping action may be gratifying and may create the aura of strong leadership, but its unintended consequences may lead to costs that are too high to bear.”

— Teresa Sullivan, reinstated University of Virginia president

While visiting Washington D.C. this past month, I became fascinated with the dramatic ouster (and subsequent reinstatement) of the University of Virginia’s president. 

The above quote struck a cord with me on a local issue: the possible outsourcing of our local police protection to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. 

After sitting through hours of heated discussion in frigid commission chambers, it is obvious that coastal residents have an emotional connection to their local law enforcement and to their hometowns. 

It is also clear that many who have been elected to sit on the dais feel it is their fiduciary responsibility to implement “sweeping action” in the face of what they call the “unsustainable” costs of community policing.

I urge caution — and cooperation.

Consider this: The circulation area of The Coastal Star [the barrier island communities of South Palm Beach through coastal Boca Raton] reaches 3 percent of the households in Palm Beach County. But, these households represent 16 percent of the taxable real estate value of the county. 

Sure, ocean and waterfront contribute to this value, but so do intangible quality of life issues.  Our elected officials must recognize these and begin talking with neighboring communities — before any sweeping (and irreversible) changes are made that may threaten the very existence of our small towns.

Town leaders should pursue the formation of a barrier island task force to look at the policing evaluations being done now town-by-town and make logical (and fiscally responsible) suggestions for future planning along the coast. Policing is the hot topic right now, but there are many more that should be addressed as we consider our coastal future.

The Florida Coalition for Preservation has been requesting that officials in our towns assign members to an A1A Visioning Committee that could compile and consider both the fiduciary and intangible concerns of coastal residents. They have offered to help locate an outside consultant to facilitate these discussions and keep participants focused on what matters most to our residents today and in the future.

Why not take them up on it? I’ve heard some say that we’ve tried this before and it didn’t work. Reminds me of a boss I once had who said, “We tried a woman in that job before and it didn’t work.”  In both cases this is a lazy and unacceptable response.

Task forces and visioning groups don’t provide quick or easy solutions. But to avoid unintended consequences, our elected officials must avoid implementing sweeping changes and demonstrate strong leadership by talking with their neighbors. 

Mary Kate Leming, Editor

By Steve Plunkett

A $750,000 proposal to revamp Town Hall would allow people to get from the main lobby to commission chambers without going outside and consolidate the Police Department at the rear of the building.

Architect Mark Marsh of Palm Beach-based Bridges, Marsh and Associates gave commissioners a tour of the plan at their June 26 workshop. The renovations would cover part of the north wing, the central area and the south wing, which includes the commission chambers, he said.

“What’s not included is the post office. It is not going away. It stays as is,” said Marsh, whose recent designs include the town halls of Palm Beach and Ocean Ridge.

The overhaul will be limited to the Town Hall’s existing configuration, what Marsh called its envelope.

“We’re not expanding. We’re just reshuffling space to make it more efficient and respond to more current technologies,” he said.

Marsh’s plan moves the commission chambers from the back of Town Hall to the front and creates a 7-foot-wide gallery connecting the north wing and a new chamber lobby. Bathrooms outside the chambers and off the current lobby would be consolidated into one set of ADA-compliant facilities.

Marsh said the biggest change would be to the commission dais, which would widen from a horseshoe shape to more of a crescent. Commissioners would get individual computer monitors to keep up with proceedings.

Marsh’s firm was paid $58,000 to develop the plan, which does not include costs of audio-video upgrades, other technology improvements and some furnishings. Those items could add at least $50,000 to the cost, he said.

The project would take three to four months to draw up construction documents and review bids and six months of actual construction. Police Chief Craig Hartmann said his officers could use other offices in Town Hall during the work.

Finance Director Cale Curtis said the project could be paid for with reserve funds, a tax increase or a bond. Former Mayor Arlin Voress said commissioners could raise the current $350,000 spending limit to avoid triggering a referendum.

Vice Mayor Ron Brown said the town should use its reserves and then figure how to replenish them.

“We’re in a situation now where we have the capability to move from the ‘70s and the ‘80s to 2020 and beyond. And it’s probably the cheapest time frame we’ll ever have to do it,” Brown said.

The proposed budget for fiscal 2011 included $100,000 to update the commission chambers and $200,000 to refurbish the Police Department. Neither item survived budget workshops; neither appeared in the 2012 proposal.

Commissioners will have a special meeting at 1:30 p.m. July 17 to set a tentative tax rate for 2012-2013. Curtis in May told commissioners he anticipated a $1 million budget gap. Unless commissioners raise taxes or cut spending they will fall below the desired $2.35 million in reserves in two years, he said.                            Ú

By Tim O’Meilia

Until now, beach protection was an exercise in putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Everyone had a piece but maybe that piece didn’t fit with their neighbor’s.

South Palm Beach condo owners fretted over how to get groins and breakwaters to save their rapidly eroding beach. Lantana wanted to protect its newly built seawall. Northern Ocean Ridge residents worried over getting enough sand around the Boynton Inlet to protect its shoreline. Manalapan feared losing too much sand to Ocean Ridge.

Environmental groups championed the turtles and the marine habitats, often butting heads with towns and oceanside residents.

Beach restoration was all about jockeying for a higher position on the funding list. 

Now state officials are pushing a new approach to restoring and managing the beaches: regional instead of fragmented. Holistic instead of haphazard.

“After all, sand knows no political boundaries,” said Danielle Fondren, chief of the state’s Bureau of Beaches and Coastal Systems. “Regional management is a better way to manage the beaches.”

The 15.7-mile slice of barrier island from the Lake Worth Inlet to the Boynton Inlet, officially titled the South Lake Worth Inlet, is the state’s guinea pig for a regional beach management plan. 

“This is a 180-degree turn from what we had three or four years ago,” said state Rep. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, who helped champion the new approach. “This is a complete paradigm shift. If it works here, it could work in other parts of the state.”

Instead of sitting in judgment on beach projects that cross its desks, Department of Environmental Protection officials are a key part of writing the plan. About 60 local, state and federal officials, engineers, biologists and environmental advocates have met twice — at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in May and in Palm Beach in June — to begin hashing out the regional plan.

South Palm Beach, Manalapan and Lantana each sent representatives, joining Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, state officials, the Army Corps of Engineers and several environmental groups. Lake Worth has not attended. 

A rough draft is expected by September and a final document in December.  

If the Palm Beach island regional plan is a success, the Boynton Inlet to Boca Raton Inlet could be the next area to have a regional plan, said county deputy environmental resources director Dan Bates, but no firm plans have been made yet.

While the plan was being hashed out, DEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard toured the inlet-to-inlet stretch with local representatives, including Palm Beach Mayor Gail Coniglio and South Palm Beach Councilman Robert Gottlieb. 

The inlet-to-inlet plan tentatively includes nine projects already in the planning stages, including the stalled breakwater project in South Palm Beach and Lantana and the inlet pumping station in Manalapan and Ocean Ridge. The bulk of the projects are in the town of Palm Beach. Municipal leaders insisted that dune restoration be included in the regional plan. 

“I feel good about the fact that the state and the Corps are trying to work together with local folks and stakeholders,” said South Palm Beach Town Manager Rex Taylor. “It’s good to bring everyone together because we’re all interested in a beach that’s to everyone’s benefit.” Plans for breakwaters and groins along a 1.3-mile stretch of shoreline of South Palm Beach and Lantana were stalled earlier this year after county commissioners killed a similar project on Singer Island. 

As part of the regional plan, a joint environmental impact study would be included to cover the South Palm Beach project and Palm Beach’s restoration plans for what is known as Reach 8, adjoining South Palm Beach’s project. 

Separate studies for both projects previously had been halted. 

Steven Abrams, Karen Marcus and other Palm Beach County commissioners indicated June 19 they would consider reviving the environmental study. Marcus said she remained opposed to breakwaters and groins and hoped other alternatives would come out of the study.

Although several environmental groups participated in the meetings — including the Surfrider Foundation and Palm Beach County Reef Rescue — neither committed to signing the final agreement.

Emily Helmick, vice chair of the county chapter of Surfrider, said the regional approach was good, but “we don’t want a situation where the local environmental concerns are bypassed.”

The next meeting is scheduled for July 13 in Palm Beach.            

Businesses at 5011 N. Ocean Blvd. can stay at least until June 2014.

Town commissioners decided to grant building owners Orlando and Liliane Sivitilli one extra year before they must move their tenants and convert the building to townhomes. The Sivitillis had asked for a three-year extension. “We should not be continuously extending this agreement,” Commissioner Zoanne Hennigan said.

Commissioners also sent the issue of whether the town should abandon its 1969 ban on commercial properties to the Planning and Zoning Commission. The Sivitillis sued to block the town from enforcing its ban and signed an agreement in 2003 that they would convert the building to residences in 10 years. But they asked for the extension because of the bad real estate market.

Their five business tenants include Commissioner Gail Adams Aaskov’s real estate office and The Coastal Star. Four apartments are on the second floor.

— Steve Plunkett

By Steve Plunkett

Roads in Point Manalapan will get their first new coat of asphalt since the 1960s.

Delray Beach-based Hardrives Inc. submitted the winning bid of $293,140 to resurface all the roads on the Point. Four other companies bid $325,000 to $370,000 for the work. 

The state maintains the condition of South Ocean Boulevard. Mayor Basil Diamond said the Point’s roads had not been refurbished since their original installation. The paving project is expected to take 30 days.

Town commissioners also granted an 18-month extension to the building permit for 1040 S. Ocean Blvd. provided the owners agree to finish the exterior of the mansion and landscaping within six months.

“It’s an eyesore right now. It looks abandoned,” Vice Mayor Donald Brennan said.

Casto Homes Inc. asked to extend the permit, which was set to expire July 12, noting that owner Daniel and Beth Kloiber are getting a divorce and dividing up their assets.

“They assure us they plan to finish the structure, but don’t want to aggressively move forward until final disposition of the property is agreed upon,” Jimmy Casto of Casto Homes wrote the town.

The Kloibers bought the property in 2008 for $9.2 million and two years ago pulled a building permit for an $8.6 million, 23,805-square-foot residence. If the extension had not been granted the Kloibers would have been required to obtain a second permit at double the original $189,738 fee.

Commissioners insisted the outside be finished as soon as possible.

“The interior is less important because it doesn’t affect the neighborhood,” Diamond said.                       Ú

Dr. Thomas Balkany is a cochlear implant surgeon and researcher. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

 By Paula Detwiller

Dr. Thomas Balkany of coastal Delray Beach decided at age 12 that he wanted a career in medicine. It happened the day his mother took him to the doctor for a nasal obstruction.

“I just thought it was wonderful that the doctor was able to help me,” Balkany says. “He was so calming, and I said to myself, ‘I want to be that guy.’ ”

Balkany became that guy — specifically, an ear, nose and throat guy — complete with his own soothing bedside manner. He chose hearing restoration as his sub-specialty, and went on to become a world-renowned cochlear implant surgeon and researcher. As founder of the University of Miami Cochlear Implant Program, he has given thousands of deaf children and adults the gift of hearing.

“This procedure totally intrigues me,” says Balkany, now 64. “It’s more than a living, it’s a passion — because I’ve seen what a difference it can make in people’s lives. And not just for the child or the deaf adult, but for the whole family.”

A cochlear implant is a computerized device that bypasses the damaged hair cells in the inner ear and converts sound waves into electrical energy to stimulate the auditory nerve. 

Since their approval by the FDA in 1985, cochlear implants have evolved into highly sophisticated microprocessors with enough computing power to fly a jet airplane, Balkany says. And he should know: he holds 14 U.S. and international patents on cochlear implant technologies, and has written three books and more than 300 scientific publications on the topic. 

He also has trained more than 300 surgeons and actively worked with manufacturers to develop and test experimental implants.

In recognition of his tireless work in improving cochlear implant design, functionality, and surgical standards, Balkany received the AXA Advisors Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce in May.

The inspiration for his life’s work came during medical school at the University of Miami when his wife, Diane, who was then the director of a home for developmentally disabled children, introduced him to a 14-year-old resident named Deano.

“Deano was a ward of the state of Mississippi, and he was being warehoused in this South Florida facility,” Balkany says. “My wife noticed he was very different from the other kids. He didn’t speak but he was bright and alert. We brought him to the medical school for testing and discovered he just couldn’t hear.” 

That experience tugged at Balkany’s emotions; he couldn’t do anything to help Deano, but he resolved to work toward helping other kids avoid Deano’s fate.

“Every day without hearing is a day when that child is falling behind in their intellectual development,” Balkany says. “Hearing is not just about the sound of the doorbell or listening to Mom teach you how to say ‘Da Da.’ It’s about the entire development of the intellect and social structure of the child.”  

 Balkany recalled one of his most memorable cases, a young deaf boy whose family was initially against cochlear implants.

“Eventually, as his hearing loss progressed, the family decided to let the child have the cochlear implant, at 18 months. He was one of the youngest recipients at that time.

“Now he’s graduating from high school as a leader in his class, played all the sports, and happens to be really cute so he gets lots of girls chasing after him,” Balkany says with a grin. “He’s extremely bright, and now gives lectures about cochlear implants to national organizations.”

To date, Balkany has performed cochlear implant surgery on approximately 1,000 children and another thousand adults from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. One of those adults is 59-year-old Jim Frogner of Lantana. 

Frogner was a little concerned when he first met Balkany because of the surgeon’s large hands. “He could palm a basketball, no problem!” Frogner says. “But the more I got to know him, I felt totally confident. His hands are huge, but they’re rock steady when he’s doing microsurgery.”

In his spare time, Balkany enjoys being a “family guy” and writing poetry, a lifelong hobby. Some of his poems have been published in the Miami newsletter of Mensa, the international high IQ society he joined in college after passing the requisite intelligence test. 

With his calm, unassuming demeanor, it’s not readily apparent that Balkany is a highly accomplished surgeon, a gifted poet, or a Mensan.

“He’s the kind of guy you’d love to sit on the back porch and have a beer with,” says Frogner.                        

Kate, the leatherback sea turtle who has a problem nesting,
heads back into the Atlantic Ocean after a failed attempt to
lay eggs along the beach in Ocean Ridge. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Leatherback turtle facts | See photos | Watch video

By Tim O’Meilia

Officially, she’s female leatherback turtle UUN669.  That’s what the tag on a back flipper reads. 

But everyone calls her Kate.

She’s the one still on the beach at mid-morning, scraping around in the hot sun, her flippers trying to clear a spot to lay her eggs. 

On May 31, Kate was spotted across from the Boca Highlands, at the Boca Raton-Highland Beach line. The day before that, she was in Ocean Ridge. Before that, she was in Palm Beach. 

Late in April and early in May, she trundled ashore in Juno Beach. 

That’s not unusual. Leatherbacks often make three to five trips ashore in a season to make nests and lay their eggs, said Kelly Martin, a biologist with the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach. 

Sea turtles usually come ashore at night, deposit their eggs and waddle back into the surf by dawn. All within a couple of hours. Not Kate. She’s out there well into the day, attracting a crowd and becoming something of a celebrity.

“She’s always on the beach after daylight,” Martin said.  “You don’t really see turtles coming out in the daytime. Quite a few people know her now. ”

Gumbo Limbo staff members and Highland Beach
onlookers carry an exhausted Kate back to the surf. 

Photos by Staci-lee Sherwood and Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Turtle monitor Chris Perretta and Robin Trindell, who heads the sea turtle management program for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, were among those who tended to Kate in Ocean Ridge.  

“We were just observing her and she was looking like she was doing things turtles do to lay their eggs, trying to kick away the sand,” Trindell said. 

After it was clear that wasn’t working, Trindell and Perretta crept up behind the 800-pound turtle and helped dig a chamber. But eventually Kate crawled back out to the ocean without making a deposit.

“She could have been struck by a boat previously and sustained an injury or perhaps she has some genetic anomaly that causes the difficulty in nesting,” Perretta said. “It is pure speculation either way and may remain one of nature’s little mysteries.”

Turtle experts Chris Perretta (left) and Robin Trindell,
confirmed Kate’s identity from her tag before digging a
nesting cavity on the beach in Ocean Ridge. 

The next day, monitors for the Highland Beach Sea Turtle Program spotted a tagged leatherback on the beach after daylight. After learning it was Kate, Staci-lee Sherwood and volunteers from the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center followed instructions from the Marinelife Center biologists and dug a chamber for the turtle.

Eventually Kate laid her eggs. 

“She was so exhausted, we had to help her back into the water,” said Kirt Rusenko, marine conservationist at Gumbo Limbo. They used a blue tarp from the Marinelife Center. “She had been out of the water for more than seven hours,” Rusenko said.

The leatherback nesting season is winding down, although loggerheads and other species are still laying eggs, and Kate is likely finished with her motherly chores. 

Workers at the Marinelife Center had previously helped her make egg chambers this year to successfully lay eggs. 

Kate, a rare ‘day-time’ nester, heads back into the surf.
 

She was first tagged last year in Juno Beach, which was probably her first year of nesting, Martin said. She was named for the young daughter of the center’s board of directors, who joined the monitoring team the morning Kate was found.

The center gives unscientific but human names to many of their tagged and all their rehabilitated turtles. The center has been tagging leatherbacks since 2001 in an ongoing project to study the mating, nesting and migratory habits of the leatherbacks.

Turtle monitors have seen 148 different tagged leatherbacks in the Juno area this spring. Those turtles have made 360 or so trips to the beach, the third highest number since the project began.

Gumbo Limbo has counted 32 leatherback nests so far this season. They are always far fewer than loggerhead turtles on South County beaches. Based on leatherback behavior, it may be a year or two before Kate returns to Palm Beach County. 

Her first batch of eggs laid in Juno Beach hatched June 27 and dozens of hatchlings were last seen scurrying for the ocean.    

The Boca nest won’t hatch for another month.                        

Noah Yablong, 23, is Paralympics bound. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Emily J. Minor

When he was a kid back in Fort Wayne, Ind., limping along all of a sudden, out of the blue, forced to give up all the sports he loved, Noah Yablong never dreamed it would come to this. Never. 

“Once I got diagnosed, it all pretty much just stopped,” says Yablong, 23, who has a not-so-little something called Legg Calve Pertheshen. “Before that, I played everything — basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, swimming. The whole shebang.”

But when he was 10, Yablong was diagnosed with the rare and degenerative hip disease that stops blood flow to the bone, eventually causing the bone to die.

It got to the point where the young kid who was so fast that coaches on the other team would issue a heads-up when Noah Yablong came up to bat couldn’t even walk without excruciating pain. Today, he’s in a wheelchair, able to walk very, very short distances.

That’s the bad news.

The good news? Here’s a kid who made lemonade from lemons. Big time. And this July, Yablong, the son of Nan and Jeffrey Yablong of Ocean Ridge, will represent the United States in the Paralympics wheelchair tennis competition.

Go ahead. Take a peek on YouTube. Wheelchair tennis is pretty awesome.

From his chair, Yablong can deliver a killer serve. His backhand is stellar. And in his special chair with the tilted wheels and stabilizing mechanism, he can turn so quickly and accurately, predicting the path of the ball as though he has some sort of odd intuition, that one of the sport’s best coaches snatched him up when he was just a kid — Kari Yerg-Reddy.

“We used to send him down here and he’d spend summers with her,” says his mother. “She recognized that he had talent, and was a nice kid.”

Noah and his family moved to Ocean Ridge about two years ago.

So ever since middle school, he’s worked out with the best — eventually giving up his other love, wheelchair basketball, to focus on tennis. In 2007, Yerg-Reddy was named United States Professional Tennis Association Coach of the Year and has been a World Team Cup Coach seven times.

Noah Yablong said he got the call that he’d made the Olympic team a few weeks ago. Indeed, the phone roused him from a sound morning sleep. Bigwigs don’t worry about time zones when there’s good news to deliver. Now he’s training like a maniac, more than 30 hours a week, intense cardio and strength, going at it in the mornings, taking the afternoons off, and then going back for more at night.

Oh, and one other thing. He just graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in mechanical engineering and engineering management. His mom said they chose Arizona because it had the best adaptive sports program.

For Noah Yablong, living with a disability is second nature by now, just part of who he is.

Indeed, he’s always had an interest in understanding disabilities. When he was a kid, before he was even diagnosed, he used to spend hours with a best buddy at the Turnstone Center for Disabled Children and Adults in Fort Wayne. His friend had muscular dystrophy, and Yablong would go to the center and work out. Once he got over the shock of the diagnosis, he knew he’d be able to eventually get back into sports.

But he admits he never dreamed it would come to this: London. The Olympics. The whole family there to support him. “We’re breaking the bank,” says his mom.

Noah Yablong will be overseas for about three weeks in July.

“I generally don’t get nervous, which I guess is kind of a blessing,” he says. “But once I get there and get on the court, that’s when it will hit me.”     

For information about how to help with Noah Yablong’s journey to London, go to his Facebook page and click on Journey to the 2012 Paralympic Games.

By Margie Plunkett

Motorists will have hundreds of new parking options each evening and on weekends in Delray Beach.

Mayor Woodie McDuffie got the word that the city can open the County Courthouse parking garage for use after hours seven days a week as city lawmakers and staff continue puzzling through creation of a viable parking plan and how to pay for it.

The additional garage spaces, part of a 500-space parking complex near the library, came in answer to questions the mayor had on his to-do list following City Commission’s workshop meeting June 12. At that meeting staff presented downtown parking options that included metering, an assessment and the status quo in an attempt to resolve long-standing parking issues.

“It’s insane to me to think that we have that many spaces sitting there once they close the courthouse,” McDuffie said at the workshop meeting. 

The city had use of the garage in the early 2000s and opening it now would come with the same stipulation: The city has to staff it.

Commissioners and staff have discussed using its parking garages for an employee parking program designed to open more spaces for patrons by shifting the cars of the 3,000 people who work downtown from prime spaces to secondary areas. 

The second question on the mayor’s list, still to be answered: How many of those employees are downtown at specific times of the day and night?

At the June workshop, commissioners didn’t appear ready to accept a metered parking option as proposed for the downtown area between the Intracoastal Waterway and Swinton Avenue, backing away from elements such as charging patrons to park during the day and varied rates designed to manage parking.

The meeting ended with staff planning to check further into assessment options — including voluntary assessment — and reworking its numbers to reflect commission requests such as for free daytime parking if meters are used.

The proposed metering option “is the craziest system I’ve ever seen,” commented Commissioner Adam Frankel. “This is the most confusing system in the world.”

Frankel, who does not want meters and favors staying with the city’s current parking system, pointed to Boca Raton’s Mizner Park as an example of what happens when meters are installed: “No one’s there.”

Commissioner Al Jacquet also doesn’t want meters, but wants to get employee parking off the street. “There’s a high chance of getting more hurt than help from the parking meter. We have enough parking spaces in the city. We’re just not using them.”

Proposed metered rates would range from $1.50 an hour on side streets to $2 on Atlantic Avenue, intending to steer motorists to park on less-traveled streets and the city’s lots and garages, where rates were $1 and 50 cents an hour respectively. The plan provided one free hour of parking downtown during the day.

“In addition to calling the plan’s varied rates confusing, commissioners also objected to paid parking downtown during the day and wanted to consider a voluntary assessment plan rather than metering.

“My suggestion would be have it free parking in the daytime to a certain time, then to start paying,”said Commissioner Angeleta Gray. “I’m willing to put meters on Atlantic Avenue, but have them on at night. We need to generate more revenue.” She said she preferred that the commission explore a voluntary assessment of at least the area downtown. The city’s attorneys are looking at the assessment option, City Manager David Harden said, with a question to the ethics commission of whether commissioners would be in violation of ethics policy by soliciting businesses for the voluntary assessment.

“I’m not sure I’d be prepared to assess small businesses these days,” said Commissioner Tom Carney. Carney said he wasn’t saying no to meters, but he was “convinced meters during the day are probably not good for our merchants.

“It has to be carefully implemented and consistently applied,” he said.

McDuffie said “I’d like to simplify” the metered system. “This is really confusing. At an individual meter, you can make it simpler.”                                Ú

Pamela Goodman

By Tim Pallesen

Pamela Goodman fought hard for redistricting as a League of Women Voters leader.

So the Gulf Stream resident says it makes sense for her to become a candidate now that the boundary for a coastal South County state House district has been redrawn with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans.

Goodman, a Democrat, has filed to oppose Bill Hager, an incumbent Republican, in the District 89 race this fall.
“If we allowed the incumbent not to have an opponent, what we aimed at achieving would not happen,” Goodman said. “How could I allow that to happen?”

Goodman served as president of the Palm Beach County League of Women Voters from 2005 to 2009 before she advocated redistricting as vice president of the Florida League of Voters for three years.

The Florida Legislature was forced to redraw district boundaries for this year’s elections after Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to eliminate districts that favor incumbents and political parties.

The representative for District 89 will serve coastal residents who live between the ocean and Federal Highway, from Boca Raton to Palm Beach.

Registered voters are 37 percent Republican and 36 percent Democratic in the new district. The others have no party affiliation.

Goodman, 56, has volunteered for community causes such as literacy and public broadcasting since she and her husband, Barry, moved to Gulf Stream in 2000.
She is president of the county’s Homeless Coalition, which opened the first government-supported homeless shelter on June 25.

Goodman was raised in Iowa, where she attended the University of Iowa for three years. She worked 14 years for Limited Express, a women’s apparel company, where she rose to be president and CEO.

Bill Koch and his wife, Mary Lou, with polo stars
Del Carroll, Buddy Combs, Russell Firestone and William Mayer.

 By Ron Hayes

If the people of Gulf Stream remember William F. Koch Jr. as lovingly as he remembered the town, history will have been served.

At his death on June 17, Bill Koch had been Gulf Stream’s mayor for 46 of his 91 years. But he’d come here first as a boy in the late 1920s, and he remembered it well.

He remembered when Gulf Stream had caves where the St. Andrews apartments stand today, because he’d played in them.

He remembered “Cap,” the local beachcomber of his youth, and kept the broken neck of a green, hand-blown bottle Cap gave him, all his life.

Koch (third from left) flew 27 missions during WWII.

Mayor Koch remembered Prohibition, when lanterns were hung from the town’s water tower to guide rumrunners through Boynton Inlet.

“He used to tell me he remembered when his grandfather would take him to Key West on the old Flagler railroad, and watching the coal sparks fall in the water,” his son, William Koch III, remembers. “He used to tell me how much he loved doing that.”

Mayor Koch was a Midwestern boy who grew to become a Florida man and made Palm Beach County a better place without making a lot of noise while he did it.

“He never asked for public recognition for anything he did,” said his daughter, Claudia Koch Burns. “He never sought out the limelight, or accolades for his public service. He just truly enjoyed helping build his little area of South Florida.”     

William Frederick Koch Jr. was born Feb. 18, 1921, in Ann Arbor, Mich., the son of William Frederick and Luella Koch, and first saw Florida during winter visits to his grandfather’s Delray Beach home.

At Ann Arbor High School, he was a freestyle swimmer who made the Olympic trials. In Delray Beach, he was a lifeguard.

Congratulations were in order for friend and town
clerk Rita Taylor after the recent annexation vote,
while Vice Mayor Joan Orthwein and Bob Ganger look on.

He enrolled in Rollins College, then left to serve in World War II. As a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Corps, he flew in a squadron of B-17s on D-Day. His plane had a painting of the actress Lana Turner on the side, and its mission was to destroy railroad targets in Nazi-occupied France. Looking down, Bombardier Koch remembered what he saw.
“The trees were covered with what looked like giant white flowers,” he told his son. “But they weren’t. They were the parachutes of our guys who had been shot and just left hanging there.”

After the war, he returned to college, earned a degree in business, and met his wife. Bill and Mary Lou Koch — whom everyone knows as Freddie — celebrated their 64th anniversary on May 31.
In 1956, he opened a realty office in Delray Beach, and when he complained about the mosquitoes tormenting Gulf Stream’s polo field, the town gave him $150 and named him mosquito commissioner.

He sprayed twice a week and joined the commission. The mosquitoes stayed, he remembered, and he left to serve on the county’s planning board.

Ten years later he returned, was appointed mayor, and stayed mayor through 15 terms, for the next 46 years.

Rita Taylor, the town clerk, has known him since the early 1970s.

“He was always here before the Town Hall opened so we had an opportunity to discuss business,” she remembers. “Many people probably didn’t see the side of him I saw. He could be gruff, but to me he was a very kind gentleman. He had a lot of empathy for mankind.”

When state environmentalists declared Australian pines a non-native species and ordered them destroyed, Mayor Koch led the fight to have State Road A1A through town declared a historic highway. The trees are still there.

After checking in at the Town Hall each morning, he drove on to the real estate office.

“He was really amazing,” remembers Muriel Mowry, the office manager for 11 years. “He just had so much energy for his age. He came in every single day and would go out to lunch with the guys and his friends.”

He favored the Fifth Avenue Grill and La Cigale.

“We always had to flip for lunch,” remembers George Elmore, a friend for 30 years. “Of course, when he’d lose, he’d grumble, and when somebody else lost he’d tease them a little. Talking to him, he was gruff and outspoken, but he was a very caring man.”

Another lunch pal was Joel Strawn, his personal attorney since 1966.

“You never needed to worry about what was on his mind, because if you asked him, he would flat-out tell you,” Strawn remembers. “He was forceful and honest, but with a great sense of humor.”

In his time, Mayor Koch served on the boards of Episcopal churches; WPBT-2, the public television station; and SunTrust bank.

In the mid-1950s, he was among a group of residents who decided Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach was too far away. Four years later, Bethesda Memorial Hospital opened in Boynton Beach.

“He was involved from day one and stayed on as a board member,” says Roger Kirk, the hospital’s current president and CEO. “We were always a little better prepared when we knew we were going to face Mr. Koch, because we knew he would ask the tough questions. But we grew to love and respect him.”
After his death, Mayor Koch’s daughter was asked if he had any hobbies. She had to think for a moment.

“If he had a hobby,” Claudia Koch Burns said at last, “I guess you’d have to say it was community service.”

In addition to his wife, son and daughter, he leaves a daughter-in-law, Laura, of Gulf Stream; a son-in-law, Scott Burns; a grandson, Scott Frederick Burns, and a granddaughter, Lauren Christine Burns, all of Phoenix, Ariz.

The family suggests that donations be made to Bethesda Hospital Foundation, 2815 S. Seacrest Blvd., Boynton Beach, FL 33435.

In 1929, when Bill Koch was a little boy playing in Gulf Stream’s caves, the town had 16 registered voters.

Today, there are 650.

In 1929, the town’s total assessed value was $111,260.

Today, it’s $652 million.

When Bethesda Memorial Hospital opened in 1959, it had 32 doctors and 70 beds.

Today, there are 650 doctors on staff and 450 beds.

In his 91 years, Mayor Bill Koch saw Gulf Stream grow and change, and change again, from hidden caves to dazzling mansions. Some of the changes he championed, and some he opposed, but he always worked for what he thought best for his town.

And for that, he should be remembered.                            
    

By Tim O’Meilia

Rex Taylor’s seventh anniversary as South Palm Beach town manager is this month and to mark the occasion his employers will review his performance for the first time. 

But not before he does it first. Then next year, the council will come up with a permanent evaluation form and process. 

“The charter requires an evaluation,” said Councilwoman Stella Jordan, who first brought up the topic in May. “I’m more interested in getting it done than the actual form.”

Taylor and Jordan have discussed an evaluation format but nothing had been determined. 

This year, Taylor will fill out a self-evaluation by the middle of August and each council member will do a similar critique.

The reviews could be discussed at the July 24 council meeting. No one has expressed any displeasure with Taylor’s performance. 

“We really need to get this done. Then, if we need to, we can revise it for next year,” Jordan said, referring to the evaluation format.

Aside from the town attorney, the manager is the only employee who reports directly to the council. 

This isn’t the first time the council has revamped its procedures because it wasn’t following the town charter. Last year, the council revamped how advisory board appointments were made to meet charter requirements.

Resident Isabella Ralston-Charnley repeated her opinion that recommendations made by previous advisory boards should be discarded because the boards were improperly constituted.

In other business at the June 26 meeting, the council voted unanimously to spend about $10,000 to refurbish the council chambers. The room will be repainted, the carpet cleaned, accent wallpaper will be added behind the council dais, the peeling popcorn ceiling will be replaced with a textured finish, the shredded carpet near the entrance will be replaced with entry tile and the speakers improved.

The council appointed Councilman Robert Gottlieb in May to make recommendations on refreshing the chambers.

“The carpet is worn out; painting has not been done in years and years. We just need some rejuvenation,” Mayor Donald Clayman said then. 

The council will consider during budget hearings this summer whether to install a video screen and a new audio system.

The chamber also is used for lectures, other meetings and art shows.                                        

Council members also postponed indefinitely a discussion on letting Manalapan take over police and dispatch services. Councilwoman Stella Jordan, who proposed considering the year-old offer from Manalapan Mayor Basil Diamond, said she needed more time to investigate the legal ramifications.

Diamond had suggested that South Palm Beach could save $500,000 or more, depending on how the merger was structured. Ú

Nicky Mill with dad Andy and a permit fish he
caught on a fly rig in Cuba last year.  Photo courtesy Andy Mill

By Thom Smith      

It was a high school tennis tournament, more than 40 years ago, in Pompano Beach. The final score was 6-0, 6-0. The winner was upset because her opponent managed to score one point in the match.  

Four decades and millions of points later, Chris Evert watched her son play in the state high school tournament. He lost in the No. 2 singles quarterfinal, 6-1, 6-1; but in the No. 2 doubles final, his overhead closed out the match and an undefeated season and clinched the team title for Saint Andrew’s School.

It felt like the greatest victory of her life “because my son won,” Evert said after Nicky Mill’s match. 

But unlike Mom, who had one of the greatest careers in sports history, Nicky is finished with tournament tennis. 

“I’m sad,” Evert said, “because, of all the boys, he took his tennis the farthest. He was a nice player, but he is his father’s son.” 

Evert and former husband Andy Mill raised three sons, all athletic but more inclined to dirt bikes, skateboards, surfing and, in Nicky’s case, fishing. 

 “He’s a natural with a fly rod,” said Mill, who is featured in an article on the “sexiest grownup guys” in the current issue of AARP, The Magazine. “He’s caught a pile of fish (tarpon) this year between 120 and 140 pounds.

“It was great watching him play tennis, but he’s only 5 feet 8 inches [tall] and in today’s game he’s under gunned. He’s gonna be one hell of a fisherman. But whatever the boys want to do is fine with me.” Mill said, “ I just want to teach them what passion and living large are. If they can do that, they’ll always be successful.”

Nicky will enter Lynn University in the fall. Older brother Alex attends FAU. No. 3 Colton is still in high school.   

                                         ***

Also on the court, the child of another sports legend did very well at the state high school tennis finals. Undefeated in 14 matches for American Heritage in Delray, junior Rasheeda McAdoo won the state Class 2A singles and over-all singles titles and teamed with Mia Horvitt to do the same in doubles. More recently her dad celebrated an NBA title. Pro basketball Hall-of-Famer Bob McAdoo is a Miami Heat assistant coach. 

                                         ***

The event is called S.O.S. but the only people needing help might have been the few who couldn’t stop wolfing down the cobia morsels, or were a bit skittish at trying octopus. S.O.S. is Share Our Strength — Taste of the Nation, an annual orgy of dining delights from several dozen top restaurants at the Kravis Center’s Cohen Pavilion. The money it raises through ticket sales and auctions support Feeding South Florida food bank, No Kid Hungry Florida after-school meals, the Boys and Girls Club and the United Way, plus community garden and programs that teach families how to eat healthy.

Despite making a big jump from Café Boulud in Palm Beach to the country club scene at Addison Reserve in Delray Beach, Zach Bell once again teamed with Clay Conley of Palm Beach’s Buccan and Imoto to chair the event. For added oomph, they brought in Mango Gang’s original Allen Susser.

 “I wish we had more,” Bell said as he surveyed the packed hall. “I’ll be happy when there’s only enough room for them to sign their names on the bid cards. With more than half the kids in the public schools qualified for lunch help, we need to do a lot more.”

            Bobby Campbell                             

Boca philanthropist Bobby Campbell is a popular fellow around Lynn University. He just gave the school $1.2 million to build a new soccer stadium worthy of the Fighting Knights’ many national championships.

This stadium allows Lynn to expand the athletic offerings to include lacrosse. Fundraising will continue for the project, which has a $2.6 million pricetag.

Campbell’s company, BBC International, based in Boca Raton, is one of the leading children’s and athletic footwear design and sourcing companies in the world.

                                         ***

Delray’s Falcon House, known more recently as Triple Eight Lounge, has closed. Owner Karl Altermann, a longtime veteran of South County restaurant wars, left for greener pastures near Orlando.

                                         ***

Tough luck for Miera Melba. The Delray interior designer was the fifth competitor dismissed from HGTV’s latest Design Star series. Judges cited “poor time management and an unfinished project.” 

Summing up her experience, Melba said, “I wanted to prove to the world that my designs were timeless and ageless and I could represent the Baby Boomer generation. And I wanted to prove that I could keep up with all the youngsters in the show... They’re all my childrens’ ages...   I’m disappointed, that’s all. I thought I’d get a lot farther.”

                                         ***

For more than two decades, Michael Capponi has been the go-to guy in South Beach. First it was the nightlife, the club scene and the parties, and while he continues to be a major presence, boys grow up and expand their horizons. For Capponi, construction seemed like a good idea. He teamed with Ken Gross, former VP at WCI and Todd  Pennington, former Exec VP of Bovis Lend Lease, to create Capponi Construction Group. 

With a résumé that includes The Bass Museum of Art, The Forge Restaurant l Wine Bar and Loren and J.R. Ridinger’s Casa de Sueños estate, he is now ready to expand his influence. On July 26, he’ll cut the ribbon at his second office at 444 East Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton. 

Capponi will hit the social circuit a couple of weeks earlier  — as a bartender at Ta-boo in Palm Beach on July 11. It’s a special fund-raiser for WPB Friends of Fisher House, a program that provides homes away from home for families of veterans receiving care at military and VA medical centers. He’ll be joined by Andres Fanjul, Carlos and Tommy Morrison, Jane Holzer, race driver Jay Cochran, CBS Tech correspondent Herb Tabin, Food Network personality Josh Lyons and NFL Hall of Famer Tucker Frederickson. Also on the bill: a Chinese auction, Black River Caviar Station, designer showcases. $20 donation. Call  317-1101.

                                         ***

The grand opening of the iPic Theater complex in Boca’s Mizner Park took on a little extra flash with an appearance by Paula Abdul.  She and boyfriend Jon Caprio were guests of Boca plastic surgeon Dr. Daniel Man. Turnout at the ultra-plush cinema has exceeded expectations and should improve, says its visionary creator and CEO Hamid Hashemi, now that Tanzy restaurant is open on the ground floor. 

 Tanzy’s roots reach deep into the soil of Italy. Everything is fresh. Herbs are plucked from a small garden in the patio and from a five-acre tract in West Boca. Instead of a sushi bar, guests can whet appetites at the Parma Bar — cured meats, cheeses and breads handpicked by Executive Chef Angelo Morinelli, formerly of Cucina d’Angelo in Boca Center. 

In recognition of National Ice Cream Day, July 15, Corporate Chef Andre Lane will offer an unusual gelato: rosemary and olive oil gelato. You have to taste it to believe it. 

                                         ***

The wait is almost over for Publix shoppers. The Sunshine Square Publix in Boynton Beach that has been undergoing a remodel for the past year is set to reopen on August 2 at 7 a.m.

Shoppers can expect a larger more updated store when the doors reopen. The new store will be about 14,000 square feet larger and have better access from both Woolbright Road and U.S. 1.

                                         ***

A lot of water has gone over the falls since Deliverance was released 40 years ago. Amazingly, all four stars of that iconic movie are still alive, so it made perfect sense for Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty, Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds to get together. The reunion, including the canoes used in the film, was recorded at Burt’s institute in Jupiter for a special Blu-ray reissue of the movie. 

Cox was back in those mountains the weekend of June 24 performing at the inaugural Chatooga River Festival in Rabun County, Ga., He signed copies of his book, Dueling Banjos: The Deliverance of Drew, a collection of stories about the movie, and performed with Billy Redden, the movie’s iconic banjo picker, whose distinctive look was provided not by genetics but by a makeup artist. Redden, 56, didn’t pick then but does now.

Voight’s ties to Palm Beach County go back to the  ’60s. His parents Elmer, better known as “Whitey,” and Barbara were among the first residents at PGA National, now BallenIsles, which opened in 1962. Whitey, a popular New York-based pro golfer, died in a car crash in 1973; Barbara lived out her life at BallenIsles, dying of cancer in 1995. 

                             ***

The Caldwell Theatre Company may be closed as it struggles to beat bankruptcy, but the building, the Count de Hoernle Theatre, is open and about to host another show. Jesus Christ Superstar, a joint production of Entr’Acte Theatrix and Palm Beach Principal Players opens July 5 for 10 performances. 

As a special treat after the Sunday, July 8, matinee, the producers will host a special piano bar/pizza party tribute to Jan McArt, who founded the Royal Palm Dinner Theatre and now serves as director of Theatre Arts Program Development at Lynn University. Reserved seat tickets are $25 in advance, $35 with the party. Call (877) 710-7779.

              Mayor Dave Stewart

Lantana may be a small town, but it has a big voice. The Palm Beach County League of Cities said so recently by presenting Mayor Dave Stewart with its first William “Bill” Moss Memorial Member of the Year Award.

Stewart was honored, Lantana Town Manager Deborah Manzo said at the June 24 Town Council meeting, because he has “given his heart and soul to the League.”

Manzo related the comments of League Executive Director Richard Radcliffe: “His (Stewart’s) handprints are left on the League like no other. Probably his greatest achievement was the spearheading of the Let Us Vote referendum. He is the man who from the back of the room would say something that pushed the limits of what is politically correct and make everyone smile and cringe a little at the same time. Yet he was also the one who from the back of the room would say something and everyone would think, ‘Thank God that he said that because it needed to be said and I’m not doing it.’”

Revelers at Boston’s on the Beach enjoyed the music of The New Orleans
Suspects and dozens of other bands during the annual July 4th Red, White
and Blues Fest. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Thom Smith is a freelance writer. Find him at thomsmith@ymail.com.

Ann Rutherford of Boca Raton brought her charitable activism
to another level with her book Flags of Freedom, honoring the men
and women who serve in the armed forces. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

What does being an American mean to you?

That’s the question Ann Rutherford asked her son David to ponder as he was shipping out to Afghanistan just after Sept. 11. She handed him a small notebook and asked him to write down his thoughts on the subject while serving with his Navy SEAL platoon.

David did that and more. He passed the notebook around to his fellow SEALs. As they worked together day by day, tracking Osama bin Laden and his followers through the mountains and caves of Afghanistan, the SEALs wrote about being American, and defending America. Fresh memories of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon fueled their writing.

When David came home and returned the notebook to his mom, she felt compelled to share the handwritten personal essays inside. She published them, along with 26 of her own photographs showing Old Glory flying proudly, in a book called Flags of Freedom: A Pictorial Salute to American Soldiers.

“I have taken thousands of photos in my life,” says Rutherford, who lives in Boca Raton’s Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club. “And when I looked at my collection, I noticed there were a lot of American flags. Over a period of 35, 40 years, I took flag pictures, and everywhere we went on vacation I searched for a cemetery or someplace where I could find a flag to photograph.”

Why did she focus on the Stars and Stripes? 

“I guess because I’m a patriot,” she says. “And I didn’t realize how strongly I felt about our country until I started working on the book.”

Rutherford, 67, describes herself as a “doer.” She was a tennis champion growing up in Michigan, winning a statewide tournament at age 13 and later playing throughout the Midwest in the Wightman Cup junior program. 

A car accident at 22 changed her life in an instant, and became the impetus for moving to Florida. It happened when her husband, Charlie, was in law school at Wayne State University.

“We were on our way home from Detroit for Christmas,” she says, “It was icy, and we spun around and hit a cement overpass. I was sitting in the back seat holding our firstborn son, Eric, and the front seat broke loose and crushed my leg. I had a cast on for nine months, trying to take care of a 1-year-old. It was a traumatic experience in our life, so we decided, no more Michigan.”

The Rutherfords arrived in Pompano Beach in 1971, moving to Boca Raton in 1973, when Charlie opened a law practice there. 

They had a second child, David, and became involved in community and charitable organizations. 

Ann started a career as a real estate agent in her 40s and continues to work as a Realtor for Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Boca Raton. She still excels at tennis, despite lingering nerve damage from the accident.

As we mark another Independence Day, Rutherford wants Americans to give more credit to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces.

“Whatever you are, Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter… If we didn’t have our service people, we wouldn’t have the freedoms we have. I mean, these troops are giving their lives for us,” she says.

 — Paula Detwiller

Q. Where did you grow up and go to school?
A. I grew up in Muskegon, Mich. I graduated from the University of Michigan, where I met my husband, Charlie.

Q. What are some highlights of your life?
A. Sports have played a huge part of my life, tennis in particular.  Winning some state junior tennis championships in Michigan was very exciting. My family and I are event-oriented, so watching my sons in their sports championships and theatrical performances was thrilling. Sharing our family’s successes couldn’t be more rewarding for a mother. 

I also have been very involved in the charity community in Boca for a long time. I am a founder of the Boca Bacchanal Wine Festival for the Boca Raton Historical Society, which is in its 10th year. And, of course, this book, Flags of Freedom, is a very special endeavor for me.

Q. What is your favorite part about living in Boca Raton?
A. Charlie and I have made lifelong friendships and participated with these same friends in helping to shape Boca Raton into one of the most civic-minded communities in the country. 

We have participated in charitable events at Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, the Boca Raton Regional Hospital, Boca Bacchanal Wine Festival, Saint Andrew’s School, Festival of the Arts, and my favorite charity, Spirit of Giving, of which I am a board member.

Q. What do you consider your greatest accomplishment in life?
A. Being married to Charlie for 44 years, and raising two sons, Eric and David. They are now young adults and have the same compassion for life as my husband and I do.

Q. What did you learn about yourself from writing Flags of Freedom?

A.  The more I worked on the book, the more I came to realize how much the book and its subject — our soldiers, and the freedom they have given Americans to live life as we do — affected me emotionally. My patriotism and the pride I have for my son David for whom the book was created, is unmatched. 

The words written by his SEAL teammates have touched many people with family members who have served their country. I am donating part of the profits from the book to the Navy SEAL Foundation.

Q. Do you have plans to do another book? If so, what would be the topic?

A. I want to do a book on the veterans who have re-entered civilian life after serving their country. Through my photography and character studies, I want to show the struggle they have in this process. Hopefully we Americans will come to realize how important it is to help these veterans reclaim their lives.

Q. If someone made a movie of your life, who would you like to play you and why?
A. I am not worthy of such an idea, but I would probably pick Anne Hathaway, an up-and- coming movie actress who continually lights up the screen in her understated way. My maiden name is Ann Hathaway.

Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A. This is probably unusual, but I like the Nike quote, “Just do it.” That slogan exemplifies my attitude about life — which is to approach life and, in turn, problem-solving as if there is no excuse not to succeed if you give it your best effort.

Q. What was your most humbling moment?

A. When I was 44, I started my real estate career at Arvida Realty, which was comprised of all top producers, and I was a novice. 

I would get stomach pains every day when I walked into the office. It took months before I felt I could handle the pressure and could fit in with the group of accomplished Realtors.

Q. Who or what makes you laugh?
A. I am a member of an investment club named Blush, composed of eight good friends. If the monthly meetings were taped it would be very embarrassing because we laugh more than we invest!     

To purchase a copy of Flags of Freedom: A Pictorial Salute to American Soldiers, visit  http://navysealtributebook.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-anniversary-book.html.

By Mary Thurwachter

For the second time in seven months, Lantana plans to splurge on a waterfront land purchase on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway just north of Ocean Avenue. The town will spend $965,000 for lots at 206, 210 and 302 N. Lake Drive. 

When last sold in 2005, the price for the land was $3.3 million. The current market value, according to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser, is $1,223,074.

In December, the town bought Intracoastal property just steps away at 106-122 N. Lake Drive for $1.2 million. That property last sold in 2006 for $5.3 million.

Money for both buys came from the town’s reserves.

Most Town Council members were supportive of the move to scoop up waterfront properties at such bargain prices.  In December, Stewart said buying the land was an opportunity similar to the $4,000 Lion’s Club 1940s land purchase, which eventually gave the town a beach.

At the council’s June 11 meeting, Stewart said he thought the effort was a “great opportunity” that would preserve waterfront property for future generations, which is one of the town’s long-range goals. 

“We’re not walling in our town like other cities that gave up their waterfront,” Stewart said.

The town hasn’t said what its plans are for the land, although there has been some speculation about turning it into a park.

Not everyone supported the purchase. Council Member Tom Deringer, who voted against the land buy in December, also cast the lone “no” vote on the current investment.

“Why are we purchasing more property?” he asked. “We didn’t even have enough money last year to have fireworks. We haven’t had enough money to fix the parks we have and yet we’re buying more?”

Last year, the town dipped into its reserves to balance the budget and make some needed improvements, including road and drainage repairs and some landscaping.

Since parking for restaurants and shops on Ocean Avenue is at a premium, some have suggested the newly acquired properties be turned into a parking lot.

There will already be some relief to Ocean Avenue parking woes since the council gave a thumbs-up to a rezoning request from Wayne Cordero at The Old Key Lime House to build a parking lot next door at 106 S. Lake Drive.

A house owned by Cordero will be torn down to make room for the parking lot.