John Holger Westerback

By Jane Smith

SOUTH PALM BEACH — John Holger Westerback, a founder of the Nordic Heritage Society of South Florida, died Jan. 19.

He was 86 and died from complications of Parkinson’s disease, his wife, Sonya, said.

Mr. Westerback was born in Worcester, Mass., to the late Anna and August Westerback. The family returned to Narpes, Finland, when he was 6. At age 22, he came back to Worcester after serving in the Finnish Army.

In 1952, he met Sonya Johnson at a dance in Worcester. “Something Swedish was playing,” she recalled. “He spoke the right language — Swedish.” Her parents were Swedes, and her soon-to-be husband came from the Swedish-speaking part of Finland. Plus, he was good-looking, she said.

Then he was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Japan for two years, during and after the Korean War.

He attended New England Aircraft School (later to become Boston University School of Engineering) for two years. The Westerbacks spent their working years on Long Island, N.Y. He was employed at Kennedy Airport by SAS Airlines for 13 years, and then by Finnair (Finnish Airlines) for 20 years as an airline maintenance manager.

Sonya Westerback worked as a chemical engineer with Gruman Aerospace, Bethpage, N.Y. She attributes their long marriage to both working outside the home. “The years just rolled on,” she said.

The Westerbacks began spending winters in South Palm Beach in 1999 and returned to Brewster on Cape Cod, Mass., for the summers. 

Mr. Westerback had one brother, Alf G. Westerback, who is deceased.

In addition to his wife of 60 years, Mr. Westerback is survived by a son, John Henrik Westerback (Britta), three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren living in Korsholm, Finland. 

He was a long-time member of Living Word Lutheran Church in Lantana, Nordic Heritage Society of South Florida, Vasa Order of America, and Sovittaja Finnish Club in Massachusetts.

Instead of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to Living Word Lutheran Church, 2116 W. Lantana Road, Lantana, FL 33462; Norden Newspaper, 335 East 51st St., 7B, New York, NY 10022, or a charity of your choice. 

The funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Feb. 2 at Living Word Lutheran Church. Cremation is private.

George Howard ‘Jake’ Jacobus

By Emily J. Minor 

GULF STREAM — George Howard “Jake” Jacobus, described as a brilliant businessman and outdoor adventurer who would much rather have talked about family and philanthropy rather than the successful development company he once co-founded and ran, died Jan. 8.

Mr. Jacobus was 82.

Born in Caldwell, N.J., at the height of the Great Depression, Mr. Jacobus was a natural athlete and student leader, graduating from Dartmouth College in 1953 with a degree in government. As a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, Mr. Jacobus trained other young pilots to fly T33s — once used by the military to run drone missions — and he held onto that passion for flying, at one point in his retirement training to fly a Learjet.

“He was extremely courageous, in business, in family, in sailing,” said his wife, Catherine. “And he was a tremendous American citizen.”

He also fought illness, for many, many years.

Born with a chromosome abnormality, Mr. Jacobus was in his early 40s when he was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, a bone marrow leukemia that he would battle for life. 

Test treatments were common, as were hospital stays. But Mrs. Jacobus says her “beloved Jakey” was always brave and funny, never dwelling on illness and always pushing himself to enjoy life. To the world, he was healthy as a horse.

He was also a staunch Republican who several years ago persuaded the hospital nurses to remove his tubes and needles so his wife, a Democrat, could drive him to the polls to vote.

“He had needles all tucked up (in his clothes),” she says. “That was typical. He valued his country, hugely, and read all kinds of American history.”

After moving his family to the Delray Beach area in 1976, Mr. Jacobus started Connark Company, an investment and real estate development company located in Delray Beach. And he used his business success to give back to the community.

Among his favorite causes was the Achievement Centers for Children and Families of Delray, and the family asks that any memorials for him be made to that center.

Stephanie Seibel, the achievement center’s executive director, said Mr. Jacobus supported their work for 25 years, and called him “a dear friend” of the foundation. “Few have put their heart and soul into the work of the centers more than Jake,” she said. “He was truly one of a kind.”

In the end, it’s believed the treatments that kept Mr. Jacobus alive and healthy for so many years may have conspired to shut down his body. In the 11 months before he died, Mr. Jacobus lost weight and strength, but never his will, said his wife.

“We were all hugely blessed,” she said. “Sometimes in life, you just get lucky.”

In addition to his wife, Mr. Jacobus is survived by their six children and their families: Ann Jacobus Kordahl, of San Francisco; William R. Jacobus of Tallahassee; Sarah Lacy Jacobus of Dallas; Alexandra Cook of Boston; Todd H. Jacobus of Chevy Chase, Md.; and Christian H. Jacobus of Saginaw, Mich.

In addition, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild survive him.

Mrs. Jacobus said well over 100 people attended her husband’s funeral and reception on Jan. 12. “My Jakey was well-loved,” she said.

By Ron Hayes 

DELRAY BEACH — An area resident for more than 30 years, Margaret Sheffler died on Dec. 17 at Harbor’s Edge retirement community after battling Alzheimer’s disease and other ailments. She was 79.

“It was a shock, but she didn’t suffer at all,” said her husband, Richard L. Sheffler.
The couple, who would have been married 57 years in July, came to the area from Rocky River, Ohio, as seasonal residents in the late 1970s. They lived first at Ocean Pines in Highland Beach, then moved to several other condos before arriving at Seagate Manor in 2000.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Sheffler is survived by three sons, Richard Jr. of Jacksonville; Mark F. of Virginia Beach, Va., and David R. of Fort Walton Beach; a brother, Richard Thompson of Cleveland, Ohio; five grandchildren and nieces and nephews.
A memorial service was held Dec. 20, followed by entombment at Boca Raton Mausoleum.  The family asks that donations be made to Hospice of Palm Beach County, 5300 East Ave., West Palm Beach, FL 33407.

By Tim O’Meilia

Saying that oceanside residents feel underrepresented, Manalapan Town Commissioner Donald Brennan called for a restructuring of the town’s court-approved voting districts and process.

But, as happened when he made the same plea in October, other commissioners disputed his contention and Brennan’s proposal died for lack of support at the Jan. 22 commission meeting.

In 2002, Point Manalapan residents went to federal court to overturn the town’s voting districts, which gave ocean residents twice the number of commission seats despite having half the population. 

A federal judge threw out the system. Voters approved and the judge signed off on the current plan, which requires two seats to be held by ocean residents, two by point residents and two more and the mayor elected from anywhere in town. But all voters cast ballots for each seat.

Brennan proposed whittling the commission from seven to five, with two seats elected by ocean voters, two by point voters and the mayor by all voters. 

“We have a seven-headed horse here — unwieldy,” he said. Returning to geographic districts “would instill a greater sense of equality to the legislative process.” He has said that ocean residents pay 70 percent of the town’s taxes yet can be outvoted easily by point residents.

“The judge made a point: Don’t put in place one dictatorship in place of another dictatorship,” Brennan said.

Mayor Basil Diamond, one of the leaders of the challenge 11 years ago, said the principle of one-man, one-vote applied to Brennan’s proposal would mean the districts would have to be changed periodically.

“We don’t want a system we have to re-apportion every year. It’s impractical and we’re too small for that,” he said. 

“When everything can be controlled by one part of town, that flies in the face of one-man, one-vote,” Brennan said.

Brennan said that a certain sense of isolation develops on the ocean where mansions are closed off by walls and gates. A certain fatalism sets in, leading to little participation by ocean residents, he said. 

“Our personal security is a big issue. The issues of concern are different from the rest of the community,” he said.

Diamond noted that four ocean residents sat on the commission a few years ago and Commissioner Bill Quigley said the commission responded to safety concerns by hiring two part-time officers to patrol the beaches in an ATV. 

“I regret there are some people who feel they’re underrepresented. It’s not so in my mind,” Diamond said. 

Oceanfront Commissioner Louis DiStefano said most ocean residents do not feel underrepresented. 

“We have a system approved by the courts. I am not sure it makes a whole lot of sense to reopen the entire issue,” said Commissioner David Cheifetz. 

In other business:

• Commissioners unanimously approved spending $1,200 for a landscaping plan for the Town Hall. The eventual project could cost $50,000 to $75,000 spread over several years. • Commissioners unanimously approved spending $4,500 on the design of a sewage interconnection with the town of Palm Beach, in case of an emergency.    

Cara Capp, of the nonprofit group Clean Water Action, says the county
is lax in protecting wetlands. Photo by James Capp

By Cheryl Blackerby

Cara Capp doesn’t understand why people spend money on fertilizers and pesticides that their grass doesn’t need, and then overwater so the toxic brew contaminates Florida’s waterways and kills fish, wildlife and coral reefs.

Save money, save our water, save our wildlife: Where’s the downside to cutting back on the chemicals? she wonders.

And Capp, Florida program coordinator for the nonprofit environmental group Clean Water Action, doesn’t understand why Palm Beach County commissioners seem so unconcerned about it. Why did they draft a fertilizer ordinance that did only the bare minimum of what the Florida Department of Environmental Protection forced them to do — basically prohibiting spraying within 3 feet of a waterway if you use a shield, or 10 feet if you don’t?

“Three feet? Don’t they understand the problem is runoff?” she asked, in exasperation.

Martin County, after all, went above and beyond what was required and adopted one of Clean Water Action’s protective measures — a ban on fertilizers during Florida’s rainy season from June 1 to Sept. 30.

The lawns in Martin County haven’t turned brown and blown away as naysayers predicted, she said. More than 50 other Florida towns and counties have adopted the rainy-season ban, including St. Petersburg, Tampa, Sarasota, Sanibel, Naples, Venice, Fort Myers and Clearwater, and Pinellas, Lee and Charlotte counties.

Clean Water Action, a national organization formed 40 years ago to support the federal Clean Water Act, moved its state office from Miami to Boca Raton two years ago when the group found itself working mostly in Palm Beach County on rock-mining issues and commercial farms’ pollution in the Everglades.

Capp drew applause from residents at the Oct. 30 County Commission meeting when she pointed out that commissioners got no input from environmental groups such as Clean Water Action or the Sierra Club before they drafted their ordinance restricting fertilizer use.

County Commission Chairwoman Shelley Vana admitted that the ordinance was a “baby step” and that commissioners would take another look at the ordinance in a year. Capp marked it on her calendar, but experience has taught her not to get her hopes up.

The Delray Beach resident, who got her master’s degree in urban planning and sustainable development at Florida Atlantic University, has worked for Clean Water Action for two years.

“We do a lot of work on Everglades issues. We’re concerned about urban fertilizer use and water conservation. We work on educating people about water quality. This is such a critical issue for our region.”

Many homeowners go to Home Depot and buy a bag of fertilizer without giving it much thought, she said. She spends a lot of time educating community groups and speaking to environmentalists.

“Nitrogen and phosphorus are naturally occurring, but when we get an overload in fertilizer, it’s much higher than we would find naturally,” she said. “That’s when we get toxic algae blooms, which can make people and livestock sick, and can be very toxic to marine life.”

Fertilizer and pesticide runoff has adversely affected inland waterways, rivers and both coasts, she said.

“We’ve had massive fish kills that shut down local fisheries. Contaminated waterbodies have huge economic impacts. I talked to a gentleman who runs a recreational fishing boat, and he took a family out on the St. Lucie River and came across a pod of dead dolphins [killed by toxins in the water]. Those people are not coming back to Florida.”

Her biggest hurdle, she says, is that homeowners don’t think the fertilizer they use on their lawn will do any great harm.

“But what someone puts on their back yard goes into the sewers and to the coral reefs, and all the way down to the Everglades. It’s all connected,” she said.

She wants people to know that over-fertilizing and watering more than once a week are not making their lawns any greener.

“They can save money and protect the environment,” she said. “Large amounts of fertilizer are not benefiting your grass whatsoever.”        

Trolley tour participants enjoy a stop at the Briny Breezes
oceanfront clubhouse. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Tim O’Meilia

More than a dozen community leaders — and a sprinkling of elected officials — took a trolley tour along 10-plus miles of State Road A1A between Delray Beach and Manalapan last month to acquaint themselves with their neighbors.

At the invitation of the Florida Coalition for Preservation, and co-sponsored by The Coastal Star, the tour passengers visited Manalapan’s new Tranquility Park, squeezed through the Town Hall parking lot, inspected the new gates at Ocean Inlet Park and toured Briny Breezes’ oceanfront clubhouse.

They glided past Gulf Stream School, the only school on A1A, checked out one of the controversial sober houses in Delray, ate box lunches at the McCormick Mile Beach Club and were shooed out of the St. Andrew’s Club parking lot by a security guard.

Dubbed the “A1A Future Plan Trolley Tour,” the three-hour expedition was meant to show coastal leaders the unique aspects and concerns of the seaside communities, said tour guide Kristine de Haseth, the coalition president.  

“Every one of these communities has a character. They are what they are and they like what they are,” said Robert Ganger, a Gulf Stream commissioner and a coalition officer. 

“None of us wants to lose the individual character that we have, and we’re trying to balance that with the need for cooperation for our mutual benefit. That is the challenge,” he said.

De Haseth led the tour through seven jurisdictions — including the unincorporated so-called “surf pocket” — that include, by the coalition’s count, three hotels, eight parks, 10 residential clubs, one assisted living facility, five commercial districts and one post office. 

Almost 9,900 people live in nearly 6,000 housing units along the strip, which is worth $3.7 billion in property value.

In 2011, the coalition launched its A1A Future Plan to engage local leaders in common problems such as police and fire efficiency, building density, water and irrigation costs, beach renourishment and transient housing. 

Several of the tourists were impressed with the excursion. “It gave us a chance to understand what’s going on in the different communities. We can build on that in dealing with mutual issues,” said Jeff Lee, an Ocean Ridge resident and owner of several shopping centers.

“I was surprised by what the coalition has done and what they’re trying to do,” said Gulf Stream resident Frank Augustyn. “I’m trying to absorb it all and spread the word. The problems are many and we can’t solve them all at once.”  Ú

The Briny Breezes Town Council has tentatively set four meetings in March, including two public hearings, to discuss a new comprehensive plan that could lead to traditional single-family homes, two- or three-story condos and some commercial buildings along State Road A1A.

The town planning and zoning board will hold a public hearing on the plan March 7 and a regular meeting March 14. The town council will have a public hearing March 21 and a regular meeting March 28 to consider final approval of the plan. All four meetings will be held at 4 p.m. but no locations have been decided yet. 

— Tim O’Meilia

By Emily J. Minor

HYPOLUXO ISLAND — Lillian Martucci, a native of New York who loved travel, nature and the classic style of Grace Kelly, died Jan. 21 after a three-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. A beloved wife and mother, she was 83.

“She was a homemaker, but she never sat home,” said her daughter, Judi Hildebrandt, who lives in Wellington. “She taught us to see the world. In our eulogies, everybody just said she had such refinement and elegance and good taste and class.”

Born Dec. 9, 1929, in Mineola, N.Y., Mrs. Martucci stayed close to Long Island almost all her life, except, of course, when she was traveling. It was there that she met her husband, Frank, when she was just 15 years old.

“My mom was walking in a pair of penny loafers and neatly pressed shorts with bobby socks and my dad spotted her legs,” says Hildebrandt, recalling the famous family story of how her parents met. “I guess my dad said, ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry,’ and they were together ever since.”

The Martuccis were married for 62 years when Mrs. Martucci lost her battle with the mind-crippling disease, and her husband cared for her well into the illness. For more than two years, her dad cared for her mother at the couple’s Hypoluxo Island home, Hildebrandt said. But about three months ago, it simply got to be too much.

“I looked at my dad and he was gray and pale and I said, ‘I’m not losing two parents to this disease,’” she said.

When Mrs. Martucci died, she was under in-patient care with Hospice. The family asks that any memorials be made to Hospice of Palm Beach County.

The Martuccis began coming to the area in the 1960s, and Hildebrandt said she and her sister, Gail Klewicki, can remember when there were only a few developments “with jungle in between.” 

The sisters’ father and grandfather — who were New York developers — built La Renaissance condominium, at 3230 S. Ocean Blvd. From then on, the family spent many summers and winter vacations here. 

Gail Klewicki lives on Hypoluxo Island, and her parents began living in their own home there full-time about seven years ago.

Besides her husband and two daughters, Mrs. Martucci is survived by two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She was buried Jan. 23 at the South Florida National Cemetery.

While her mother’s death has, of course, been difficult, Hildebrandt said it’s also been a lovely time to reminisce. “She never worked, but she had so many facets to her,” Hildebrandt said. “I guess you could say she was a real Renaissance lady.”

A good love story is welcome in every season, but February seems an especially appropriate time to highlight some of our local sweethearts. Since romance is in the air, we’re featuring three love matches: a darling couple joyfully embracing their second chance at love; a pair who married late and are now enraptured with their young son; and a couple whose next anniversary cake will have the numbers 7 and 0 prominently displayed. (She’s 100 and perhaps qualifies for cougar status, since her husband is just 95.)
Each couple has wisdom to share about love’s lessons.

Stories by Anne Rodgers

Photography by Libby Volgyes/The Coastal Star

Lenny and Roz Sutton, Harbour’s Edge

For this couple, love is just as sweet

the second time around

Dr. Lenny and Roslyn ‘Roz’ Sutton first met in 1960. They have been married 11 years.

The Sutton’s first met in 1960, at a family wedding. Roz’s sister was married to Lenny’s brother, and the clan was always getting together.

“I loved her husband and she loved my wife,” explains Lenny, a retired cardiologist with perfect diction and a twinkle in his eye. “I was Uncle Lenny to her sons!” 

Roz was widowed after 38 years of marriage to her cherished Bernie; Lenny enjoyed 52 years with his spouse, Harriet. 

Neither ever expected to love again. 

But Roz was family, so of course Lenny looked her up whenever he visited his sister in Florida. 

And when Roz rented an apartment in Providence R.I. (her sister lived there), Lenny offered to show her around, since he was a local. 

Before long, waiters in town were asking the couple how long they’d been married.

“People said we were a cute couple, and I always told them it’s because we’re not married,” says Roz, laughing.

Lenny fell in love first. 

“She was so warm; every statement she made was just filled with warmth. It wasn’t a put on. I just loved her honesty.”

For him, “The bells rang and the lights went on.” 

It was Sept. 3, 2000. The couple had decided to eat in to celebrate Lenny’s birthday; Roz had bought a fruit tart and decorated it with a single candle. 

“I was leaning against the kitchen door jamb and I had the tart in my hand and I suddenly said ‘Marry me!’” Lenny relates gleefully. 

“That was the first big kiss I got from him,” Roz chimes in. “A kiss on the forehead was all he’d done till then.”

Though Roz was drawn to Lenny’s kindness and thoughtfulness, she wasn’t sure.

“I was afraid; I thought it can’t happen to someone twice,” she says. “How could love be so wonderful the second time?” 

Of course Lenny won out; the lovebirds have now been married 11 years. They are constantly talking, they kiss openly (even in public, admits Roz), and hold hands on their morning walk. 

“We just keep finding and discovering things about each other,” says Roz, who at 80, is 10 years younger than Lenny.

The couple speaks openly of their first spouses, which brings them both joy.

“It was a different phase of life,” Roz explains. “We were raising families and building businesses. It would be sad to have to cut that out of your life suddenly, like you didn’t exist before the other person came into your life.” 

“We recall wonderful moments with each other’s mates,” agrees Lenny. “Unfortunately, some people don’t want to speak of their previous marriage because someone might get jealous or something silly like that.

“We love each other with the same intensity as our first,” he shares. “It’s just a different chapter of your life.”          

Mike and Lillian Levine, Abbey Delray South

 A love affair that has endured seven decades shows no sign of cooling down.

Mike and Lillian Levine are looking forward to their 70th anniversary this year.
Lillian turns 101 in March. Mike is 95.

This couple counts 69 years — so far — of married life. They were friends for a decade before he popped the question, and they remain best of friends today. 

They got hitched in 1943, just four days after Mike graduated officers school, and only a couple days after they first discussed the idea of marriage. But once the bit was between his teeth, Mike seized the first excuse for a wedding.

On the spur of the moment — when the couple discovered all planes were grounded for a planned trip from Chicago to New York — Mike suggested they get married instead. 

“I didn’t do it; it was all him,” insists Lillian. So instead of driving home to wait for the weather to clear, the couple stored their bags, caught a cab and got a blood test on their way to City Hall. 

“We stopped at Marshall Field’s, too, because I’d lost my gloves,” Lillian chimes in. 

The newlyweds then made a switch from planes to trains, and ended up honeymooning in a private room on the 20th Century Limited from Chicago to New York City.

“Everyone said it wouldn’t last,” says Lillian. “I don’t exactly know why I said ‘yes’, but I’m awfully glad I did. He’s a keeper.” 

The couple — she was an interior designer, he won sales awards at automotive dealerships — moved to Abbey Delray South in 2005. An Oriental flair is evident in much of the artwork and décor in the apartment, which features bright rugs and white sofas.

When Lillian turned 100 last March, no fewer than four parties commemorated the occasion, while Mike looked proudly on, telling any and everyone that he was five years, seven months and 10 days younger than his wife.

“I studied the actuarial tables,” he says wryly. “I knew women lived longer than men.” 

So what’s kept them together through the decades?

“Glue!” quips Mike, as Lillian tackles the question head on. 

“Well, he’s one of the brightest men I know,” she answers. “Plus, he is such a good husband. He does things for me that are absolutely fantastic. He makes the bed every morning, he does the dishes, he helps me whenever he can.”

Her praise spurs Mike to compliment Lillian as a great housekeeper, an imaginative cook and a great hostess.

“Plus, she’s a good listener and I talk a lot,” he continues. “And she’s good company! What more could you ask
for?”                                           

Lia Schultz and Tyrone Halfhill, Briny Breezes

 In this relationship, each partner helps the other achieve the goals they have set.

Tyrone Halfhill and Lia Schultz met when she was walking her dog
back from the beach and he was  getting ready for a toga party.

Living proof that opposites attract — Lia and Tyrone found one another in 2004. 

“I like a beer on the beach and she likes classical piano,” Tyrone explains. She’s the introvert; he most definitely is not. 

When they met, Lia was an Iowa farm girl with just a few years of Florida living. 

While walking her dog back from the beach, she spotted Tyrone there on Briny Breezes Boulevard, cutting some rope to use as a belt for that night’s toga party. 

“I thought she was attractive,” recalls Tyrone, 41, who moved to Florida 18 years ago. “I talked to her and she blew me off. But I tried again. The third time I said something, she flinched, and I was like, ‘Yeah, got her.’ ”

Lia says she agreed to don a toga that night “because my field is higher education and I thought it was a professional requirement to go to at least one toga party.”

The party’s setting was lush, she recalls, and she decided Tyrone was the “best guy there.”

He asked her to come back to the beach the next day to learn about kite surfing, which she did. 

From there, it was a short road to moonlit sails on Tyrone’s catamaran and romantic bonfires on the beach. 

“He’s the only person who never holds me back,” says Lia, 37. “I know I can grow and learn and reach my potential with him as my partner.” 

There was no formal proposal; but Tyrone and Lia wanted to focus on a family and together they just agreed that 11/11/11 was the perfect wedding day. The plan was to get hitched in Hawaii, but son Tytan made an early arrival, so the couple got married close to the spot where they met.

These days, they confess to being enraptured with their son, and say parenting him connects them deeply. 

Though they sleep at their home in Boynton Beach, each day after work finds them in Briny Breezes, at the trailer where Tyrone’s mom lives, spending quality time with their 1-year-old. 

Right from the start, the couple wanted things to be special for Tytan.

“We had a home birth,” Lia says. “Tyrone was so tuned in and supportive through the whole process. It was really a bonding experience for us — in a big way.” 

“She didn’t even take an aspirin,” Tyrone adds with pride.

When asked if there’s a secret to their success, Lia says it pays to keep a desire list and help one another achieve it. 

“Focus on daily pleasures instead of conflict.”                

There’s been a change in his title, but the job description remains the same for Boca Raton’s Steven Abrams.

By a 4-3 vote in mid-January, Abrams, the District 4 Palm Beach County commissioner, became the mayor of Palm Beach County, instead of the commission chairman. Vice chairperson Pricilla Taylor became vice mayor.

The name change, which was Abrams’ idea, will help put Palm Beach County on par with Broward County, Miami-Dade County and other Florida counties with mayors, Abrams said. It was not about individual prestige, he said.

 The title will move around each year to a different commissioner and won’t give anyone any extra powers.

While not a strong mayor proposal, the title change “accomplishes some of that intent for those who would want a more visible leader in the county,” Abrams said.

Commissioners who voted yes (Abrams, Paulette Burdick, Taylor and Hal Valeche) suggested the measure would allow the commission to improve quality of life and recruit business to the county.

Opponents (Commissioners Jess Santamaria, Shelley Vana and Mary Lou Berger) said the title will not bring business to the county. Vana argued that if the county were going to have a mayor, it should a ballot issue.

Abrams was mayor of Boca Raton from 2001 to 2008. 

— Staff report

By Tim O’Meilia

A Manalapan resident’s complaint that the town police engage in racial profiling has been transferred to a different agency for possible investigation and the resident could complain to a state civil rights agency as well.

In a Jan. 7 letter to resident Kersen de Jong, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it lacks the jurisdiction to investigate alleged violations of a state policy forbidding racial profiling by police departments.

“The failure to have such a policy or to effectively enforce that policy is not a crime,” wrote FDLE attorney Michael Ramage. He also said the FDLE cannot conduct internal investigations of other police agencies. 

The FDLE forwarded de Jong’s complaint, including 37 pages of backup material and a recording of a Dec. 5 meeting with town officials, to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tallahassee, which had asked for the documents after speaking with the FDLE.

De Jong claims that both Police Chief Carmen Mattox and Officer Keith Shepherd told him on separate occasions that 1,400 traffic stops made by Manalapan police in 2011 were designed to keep non-residents and “riffraff” out of town. 

Both Mattox and Shepherd denied making statements to that effect. 

In referring the complaint to the U.S. Attorney, FDLE’s Ramage noted the recording of the Dec. 5 meeting. “I believe the substance of that discourse may demonstrate to you that there is some degree of ‘lack of communication’ between de Jong and the police department that contributes to his perception that racial profiling is occurring. At least, that is the conclusion I reached after listening to it,” he wrote. 

In a response to FDLE’s letter, de Jong said he and a victim of profiling have consulted a West Palm Beach law firm and may complain to the Florida Commission on Human Relations.  “The issue of profiling is indeed not one for only actual victims, but also for the community at large,” he wrote in his FDLE response. 

In an email to The Coastal Star, de Jong said he also may ask the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office to investigate.

De Jong made several other allegations in his complaint, including that Mattox, Shepherd and Town Manager Linda Stumpf misled him about Shepherd’s employment. Shepherd was dismissed at the end of his probationary period in 2010 by then-Chief Clay Walker and rehired by Mattox in February.

Commissioner Howard Roder, who listened to the tape, concluded that Mattox and Stumpf lied during the meeting and Shepherd lied on his employment application. He told other commissioners in an email that they should review the situation. 

Roder got no support from other commissioners at the Jan. 22 Town Commission meeting. Commissioner Louis DeStefano said Roder was trying to make an end run around the commission’s vote of confidence for Stumpf at the November meeting. Roder had proposed firing her. 

“I don’t see a policy violation in the hiring of Officer Shepherd,” the town’s labor attorney, Jeffrey Pheterson, told the commission.                      

By Tim O’Meilia

Gulf Stream town commissioners had planned to start excavation to place power, telephone and cable lines underground by last May.

Eight months later and with nary a shovelful of dirt yet turned, grumbling commissioners agreed to complain gently to the state Public Service Commission over the delay. 

The problem is Florida Power & Light Company. By the Jan. 11 commission meeting, FPL had yet to submit a binding cost estimate for doing its share of the work. Estimates from AT&T and Comcast are already in hand. 

Without the estimates, the design can’t be completed and the construction begun. 

“FPL says, ‘We’ll get it next week,’” Brannon told commissioners. “We started last Feb. 1 and still don’t have a design. FPL treats these projects as bottom priority.”

FPL did submit a partial design estimate a week later, but it was incomplete and included some installations the town didn’t need.

Brannon suggested the best solution would be to nudge FPL into action with a positively worded complaint to the PSC. The power company presently has a rate case before the PSC and Brannon said FPL would be “sensitive” to complaints filed while its case is pending. 

“We need to be proactive,” Mayor Joan Orthwein agreed. “I think it’s important we file this complaint in a positive manner.”

The commission took no formal vote, but directed Brannon to file the complaint after the town attorney reviewed it. 

The $5.4 million project, financed through assessments of town property owners, is projected to be completed by late 2014, nearly a year behind schedule. That assumes a May construction start.

The town has spent $344,000 in conceptual design, survey and conversion costs. 

Brannon noted that following the hurricanes of 2004 and ’05, FPL preached a five-point plan to protect the power grid from storms. “No. 5 was undergrounding to improve the distribution system. The fact that they’re giving no priority to this is unreasonable,” he said. “A year is way too long.”

In other business, commissioners advised volunteer sea turtle monitors to seek financial help for expenses from the town’s civic association or the Florida Coalition for Preservation. 

Jackie Kingston and six other volunteers monitor the sea turtle nests from March 1 to Oct. 31 along a 2.5-mile stretch that includes nearly all of Gulf Stream and a bit of Ocean Ridge. 

In a detailed expense report, Kingston appealed to the commission for $514 to pay for wooden stakes, a container for the stakes, white paint, markers, staples and T-shirts for the volunteers for the upcoming nesting season. 

Commissioner Garrett Dering said a contribution would be good publicity for the town, but Commissioner Robert Ganger and Orthwein suggested Kingston approach the civic association or the preservation group. Ganger is former president of the civic group and an officer of the coalition. 

Turtle nest monitors typically receive a small stipend from beach cleaning firms, largely to encourage the monitors to do their jobs early and quickly because beach cleaning cannot be done by law until the monitoring is completed each day. 

 “We do it for the love of doing it. We don’t do it for the money,” said Kingston, who has been counting turtle nests for 12 years. She said the stipend “is on the order of dollars per day.”

Volunteers tallied 584 loggerhead, 289 green and 14 leatherback turtle nests in Gulf Stream last year, the largest by far in at least five years. 

“We’re seeing so many more sea turtle nests annually, we just need a lot of new supplies,” she said. 

The commission also voted to move its March 8 commission meeting to March 15, three days after the annual commission election. The meeting will begin at 11 a.m. with the swearing-in of new commissioners at noon.      

Better backyard photography: Sue Dickes, a guest of The Grass River Garden Club,
photographs a bloom in the gardens of the Sundy House during a recent class. 

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

 Simple tips to create better backyard photographs

Meet the Photographers: The Coastal Star's Award-winning team

By Emily J. Minor

Remember the old days, when photography meant buying the film and lugging the camera and finagling with one of those shiny cube flashbulbs, the ones that rotated after each impressive pop? And taking your kid to Sears for the first birthday portrait. Remember that?

Of course you do. It wasn’t that long ago.

But today, everyone’s a photographer. Using smartphone apps like Instagram, Snapbucket and Hipstamatic — Who thinks of these names? — most of us are out there falling in love with the visuals around us, from a fiery sunset to a shadowy palm frond to a certain someone’s toothless grin, brightened with just one careful touch of the fingertip.

And, boy, do we love sharing, instantly, waiting only seconds for the compliments to start rolling in. Like!

In the past few months, Instagram — the mobile app that allows us to fiddle with our images, almost as if we’re taking the film to the darkroom, sitting it in the soup, then lightening it up or darkening it, just a tad — has hit 100 million users. The company claims its users post 40 million images a day.

And Polaroid estimates we’re using digital devices to take 1.5 billion images a day. Old barns and fluffy kittens and fun nights out on the town.

So, what do the professionals think about all this? Is it good for the industry? Bad for the industry? How are they keeping up?

Spectators used smartphones, as well as point-and-shoot, high-end digital SLR
and waterproof cameras, to document a recent turtle release at Gumbo Limbo in
Boca Raton. Coastal Star file photo

 Well, for starters, Addie Lorber, who is one-half of the husband-wife team that owns Boca Raton’s Hasselblad photography store, says she loves that photography is so popular, and it doesn’t surprise her. After all, she’s been married to renowned panoramic photographer Peter Lorber for many, many years.

“I think people have always enjoyed photography,” she says. “Today, the smartphones just make it convenient.”

And when her husband saw this coming, about 10 years ago, they started changing their business. Today they still help customers turn their images into works of art. But the staff is smaller, the space is smaller — and the work is much more high-tech. 

Addie and Peter Lorber own Boca Raton’s Hasselblad photography store,
where they now help people process digital images. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

 “They email me the image,” she says. “We have a 55-inch screen and we pop the images on that screen and we go over it with people. We spend time, and we listen to what the client wants.”

The changes, of course, are industry wide. Polaroid is set to open its first “Fotobar” retail store in late February at 14851 Lyons Road in suburban Delray Beach, where it will help us “easily liberate our favorite images from the confines of (our) digital devices.”

How kind.

At the new store, customers will be able to upload images to one of the store’s bar-top workstations, and turn those digital moments into everything from a 4-by-6 print to a giant, glossy poster.

The store, say the folks at Polaroid, will be “cool, hip and experiential” — just like that classic, white bleed-off border the company brought us 75 years ago.                                  

Dorothy McNeice first came to Briny Breezes in 1938. 

Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

In October 1938, when Dorothy McNeice’s father first parked his 18-foot travel trailer in Briny Breezes, the little park with the oceanfront view had a single gas pump where the Ocean Clubhouse stands today. Residents used communal showers, shared one phone, and the rent was $7 a week. Dorothy was 11 that year.

There is a Texaco station on the west side of A1A now, where dairy cows once grazed, and residents no longer shower together — unless they choose to. 

But Dorothy McNeice, 85, is still here, a living library of Briny history.

“They put in another pump and built a grocery, which my father ran from 1938 until 1942,” she remembers. “Then when the war came, there were German submarines off the coast, so we went back to Michigan.”

Her father and mother ran a small resort of their own on Lake Huron, and for the next 70 years, with some extended breaks to raise a family, Dorothy spent her winters here.

She still does, traveling back to Norton Shores for the summer months. The 18-footer that brought her to Briny all those years ago is long gone, and the permanent home on Mallard Drive she inherited from her parents has been expanded to more than twice its original size. With three sons, Jim II, Greg and Michael, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren visiting, she needs the space.

She has no intention of leaving any time soon.

Her mother was 102 when she died in Traverse City in 2000. “She lived in three centuries,” Dorothy says proudly, “the 19th, 20th and 21st.”

Her father died at 90 in 1984, and her husband, Jim, in 1997.

Last year, Dorothy sat down, wrote about her love affair with Briny Breezes in longhand and gathered a collection of photographs to illustrate it.

Her daughter-in-law, Valerie McNeice, has turned those words and pictures into Looking Back In Time, a book that captures a simpler Florida that newcomers can only imagine. 

— Ron Hayes

Dorothy McNeice (second row, third from the right) was among the Briny
Breezes students who attended Boynton Beach School in 1938. Photos provided

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

A: I started kindergarten through third grade in Detroit, then we moved to Lake Huron for fourth through eighth grades and Boynton Elementary for fifth through eighth grades, but only during the winter months. Changing schools let me meet a lot of different people. It gave me variety.

Q:  How did you take on the role of historian for Briny Breezes?

A: My mother lived to be 102 and came to Briny in 1938. She acquired all that history from people who gave her things, so I just naturally became interested in it.

Q: Have you had other careers or hobbies? 

A: I worked 16 years in the clerk’s office at Norton Shores. I also knit and I’m active in the Briny Breezes hobby club. I love to walk and bike ride, and I exercise in the pool.

Dorothy McNeice’s father ran this gas station from 1938 to 1942.
It stood where the Ocean Clubhouse now stands.

Q: Tell us about your book.

A: It’s called Looking Back In Time, a history of Briny Breezes and my family’s time, with a lot of pictures. I started it in 2011 and finished in April 2012. At this time it’s only available to residents of Briny Breezes.

Q: How did you come to have a home in Briny Breezes?

A: We left Michigan in 1938 and drove an 18-foot travel trailer to Daytona Beach. One evening by the picnic tables, a gentleman told my father about Briny, and within two days [we] were here.

Q: What is your favorite part about living in Briny Breezes?

A: The people and the activities. It’s a wonderful place to live.

Q:  What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax?

A: The music you could dance to. From the 1940s and ’50s. Maybe some ’60s. Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. My husband and I never missed a Briny cabaret.

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

A: “If we celebrate the years behind us, they become stepping stones of strength and joy for the years ahead.” — Anonymous.

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

A: Doris Day.

Q:  Who/what makes you laugh?

A: Just being with people and reminiscing can make me laugh. We look at each other and say, “Did we really do that?” and we laugh.                Ú

Patsy Randolph used the pillars of a gazebo to frame her subject to create a
photo that provides nice sense of the gardens.

By Jerry Lower

I have been a photographer and picture editor for most of my career and a teacher for a small part of it.  I had the chance recently to bring these skills together in a photography workshop for about 40 members and guests of The Grass River Garden Club. We wanted a location with great photo potential for this class, so we choose the Taru Gardens of the Sundy House in Delray Beach.  

Cody Jones took full advantage of the scene-setting ability of
a wide-angle lens to show the scale of the pools,
while the shaded foreground leads the eye to the seating in the background.

The class’s photographic skills ranged from beginner to advanced amateur. The equipment ranged from smartphones, simple point-and-shoot cameras, to advanced digital SLRs with interchangeable lenses.

After 35 minutes of viewing some quality photo examples and listening to a few helpful hints on how to create “better backyard photos,” members of the group took the next 30 minutes to shoot their assignment.

Tina Smith, looked for an interesting angle and let the diffused backlight
illuminate the bloom of this angel’s trumpet. 

On this page you’ll find the photos the Grass River Garden Club students created in January — published here with only limited image processing to make sure they reproduced well on newsprint. 

Most of the basic instruction during the class dealt with camera angle, lens choice and quality of light. You will find these related tips in each photo caption on this page.

When asked, “What’s the best camera?” I always respond, “the one you have with you.” You can have thousands of dollars of camera equipment, but if you don’t take it with you because of weight or bulk, it’s no better than that smartphone in your pocket.                        

Two photos, both from less than six inches away:  Christina Benisch used a macro lens
to isolate the lip of the blooms above from the green background, while
Laura Evans used a wide-angle lens held very close to the bloom of this red ginger plant
to show both the bloom and the character of the leaves of the plant and its surroundings.

Jerry Lower is the publisher of The Coastal Star and an award-winning photographer and designer.  

 The Coastal Star’s award-winning team of professional photojournalists brings captivating images to the newspaper each month. 

Jerry Lower

Professional experience: More than 35 years as a photojournalist and editor for newspapers in Illinois, Texas and South Florida.

Specializes in: Nature photography and real people in real places.

Equipment: Nikon

Can be reached at: publisher@thecoastalstar.com | 561-337-1553

Tim Stepien

Professional experience: More than 10 years as a photojournalist in South Florida.

Specializes in: Portraiture with a keen eye for lighting. Also news, nature, food, architectural and art photography.

Equipment: Canon

Can be reached at: timstepien@earthlink.net | 561-767-7628

Libby Volgyes

Professional experience: More than 10 years as a photojournalist in South Florida.

Specializes in: Food and restaurant photography, plus people, places and pets.

Equipment: Canon

Can be reached at: Libby@LibbyVision.com | 561-307-7788

Kurtis Boggs

Professional experience: One year as a photo intern for newspapers in Ohio and Florida, with five years of general photographic knowledge.

Specializes in: Editorial, sports, landscapes and real estate photography.

Equipment: Nikon

Can be reached at: Kurtis@KurtisBoggs Photography .com | 561-207-8585.

Note: Events are current as of 1/25. Please check with organizers for any changes.

FEBRUARY

Thursday - 2/14 - Annual Orchid Auction presented by the Orchid Society of the Palm Beaches at Mounts Auditorium, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach. 6:30 pm. Free. 491-8033.

Saturday - 2/16 - Living with Flowers: You’re So Special with John Klingel at the Society of The Four Arts, 2 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach. Explore your creativity with a seasonal variety of mixed, colorful flowers utilizing strong vertical and horizontal lines. 10:30 am-noon. $65/materials included. 805-8562 or www.fourarts.org.

2/16 - Family Fun Workshop: Miniature Garden at The Morikami Japanese Museum and Gardens, 4000 Morikami Park Road, Delray Beach. Create a miniature Japanese style garden using real plants and rocks. For ages 7 and up. 11:30 am-12:30 pm. $5/with paid museum admission. Registration: 495-0233 ext. 237.

Friday - 2/22 - Weeds: Pesky Plants of Lawns & Gardens at Mounts Botanical Garden, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach. Dr. George Rogers helps identify common weeds of lawns and gardens and entertains with facts about their biology. Price includes a south Florida weed book. Bring weeds in sealed plastic bags for identification. 1-3:30 pm. $20/members, $25/non-members. Reservations: 233-1757.

2/23 - Making a Garden Trough at Mounts Botanical Garden, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach. Trough containers resemble old stone and are lightweight, durable and perfect for miniature gardens or small plants. Create your own trough. Wear old clothes and bring well-fitting, waterproof gloves. 10 am-noon. For cost, call: 233-1796. Reservations: 233-1757.

MARCH

3/2 - Designing, Creating & Maintaining a Home Landscape at Mounts Botanical Garden Auditorium, 531 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach. Three-session workshop takes participants through all the steps needed to improve a home landscape. Held again 3/9 & 16. 9 am-1pm. $55/Mounts members, $60/non-members. Registration: 233-1757. 

The magenta blooms of the Brazilian cloak tower
over Gene Joyner, a contrast to the orange and yellow
of the helconia behind him. He served as Palm Beach
County/University of Florida Extension’s urban
horticulturist for 35 years. 
Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley

Driving down the gravel lane in West Palm Beach, you arrive at a chain-link fence covered with bamboo matting. You can’t help but note the signs warning you to “beware of dog” and avoid the “very bad dogs.”

But don’t worry. 

Once a month the gate is opened for guided tours of the forest you’ll find inside. In fact, this is the only “working” tropical rainforest in the United States, according to Gene Joyner who started planting it in 1970. Today a mile of trails wander through 2½ acres of dense greenery.

“I started this project from scratch,” he says. “It was built from the ground up to look exactly like what you’d see in the rainforest.” 

Joyner’s Unbelievable Acres Botanic Garden is home to more than 1,200 kinds of plants from all over the world.

“I figured when I got too old to travel I could step outdoors and enjoy my own rainforest,” says Joyner, 66, who grew up on the two-acre property next door. His father had a nursery and Joyner continues to use it for that purpose. 

He started planting after getting a degree in botany from the University of Florida. There were only two pine trees on the property. Many of the trees that today loom over 40 feet tall started out as only cuttings or even seeds. 

Larger than a football, sausage fruit hang at eye level along a path in the garden. 

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the untamed yard is the sausage tree. Joyner planted its seed 39 years ago and today it rises 65 feet in the air. He hand-pollinates the velvety red flowers to produce the fruit that hangs from strings like sausages in a deli and can weigh up to 30 pounds.

Following the soft and springy mulch paths, you wind your way through the dense underbrush enjoying the dappled light and the aroma of fresh earth. “Sometimes I think you need a machete to keep the paths clear,” Joyner says. 

This variegated salvia provides a riot of colors in the garden. 

He points to palm trees that he started from coconuts 35 years ago. A giant hibiscus has 14 vertical trunks that grow southeast, south, west and then north. Joyner calls this the “traveler tree” because it grows in a circle.

And he takes great pride in his shingle tree that was 6 feet tall in 1972 but today measures 90 feet. It’s been certified as the largest specimen in Florida. Joyner tells us that in rural parts of India the large, tough leaves are used to shingle roofs.

As the sun filters through the thick canopy, it looks like spotlights illuminating massive leaves camouflaging the trunks of the trees. These vines don’t harm the trees, but need to climb in the forest so they can get light. The oversized green leaves of one named Swiss cheese philodendron have holes in them. 

Young leaves and fruit begin to
form in the crown of a papaya tree.

On the ground, the leaves of bushes come in many shades. One of our favorites, the party time Joseph’s coat, has bright pink, green and cream leaves. And the yellow and green leaves of the pocket plant curl around to form a cup that holds water for insects. Of course, there also are plenty of colorful flowers. Angel wing begonia is named for the shape of its dark green leaves that contrast with its delicate pink flowers. And the dwarf wax ginger has a neon pink, cone-like flower. 

Oh, and don’t forget the fruit trees. Joyner has more than 150 varieties, including his favorite —  mangoes, of which he has 12 varieties.

“Just about any fruit you see at the supermarket I have growing here,” he says. And a whole lot more.

Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley is a certified master gardener who can be reached at debhartz@att.net when she’s not digging in her yard.

The Rev. Charles Mory shares a lighthearted moment with parishioners
at the Church of the Palms in Delray Beach. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

 By Tim Pallsen

The Church of the Palms may have had the most beautiful gardens and stained glass windows when it opened on North Swinton Avenue a half-century ago. 

But the congregation was dying when the Rev. Charles Mory, 74, innocently appeared for Sunday services last May ready to join a congregation that he knew nothing about.

Church membership had plummeted from 412 to 70 under the previous pastor, who announced that same Sunday that he would be leaving the church.

Those who remain know they can’t attract a new pastor quite yet because of their history of strife. So Mory put his retirement on hold to become their interim pastor.

The congregation is crediting this loving old pastor for signs that Church of the Palms might be growing again. About 20 new members have joined in the past two months. 

“He has built up a fire in everybody,” church moderator Margo Beck said. “He gets us smiling. We’re having a good time. I wish he was going to be here forever.”

Mory has delayed his retirement before. Three other United Church of Christ congregations called him to be their troubleshooter as interim pastor in the last 10 years.

“He understands the huge job that an interim pastor has when a church has fallen from the heights to the depths,” said the Rev. Linda Harper,  associate pastor.

Mory thinks two to three years of hard work will be necessary before Church of the Palms recovers. “We can’t form a search committee for a new pastor until we can say we have the leadership to get this congregation back on its feet,” he said.

Mory’s presence is giving church members hope that day will come.

“Pastor Charles has brought the miracle of new life to this congregation with joy and hope and his wonderfully positive attitude,” Harper said.

“He’s bound and determined to get things working,” church member Lois Clement said. “I know he’s just the interim. But he can stay as long as he wants.”

The musical talent of eight congregations join in concert Feb. 17 to benefit the interfaith nonprofit that provides emergency food and shelter for homeless families with children.

The Sounds of Promise Concert will feature music ranging from spirituals to Hebrew songs, praise bands and traditional choirs.

Family Promise of South Palm Beach County is supported by volunteers in 24 congregations who take turns providing shelter for homeless families in their churches and synagogues.

Congregations sending musicians to the 3 p.m. concert at First United Methodist Church in Boca Raton are First Presbyterian of Delray, Temple Beth El, St. Gregory’s Episcopal, Congregation B’nai Torah, Congregation B’nai Israel, Glades Presbyterian and Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Tickets for $20 can be purchased by calling 265-3370, ext. 103, or online at www.familypromisespbc.org. 

Members of Chabad of South Palm Beach take part in a procession
to welcome an 1860s Torah written in the Belarusian region of Smolensk
to their synagogue. At right is Rabbi Stolik of Chabad of South Palm Beach.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

A coastal Jewish congregation is celebrating the restoration of a 19th-century Torah scroll with a fascinating history.

The Chabad of South Palm Beach inaugurated the scroll Jan. 21 at Plaza Del Mar in Manalapan.

Experts analyzed the parchment and style of text to determine that the scroll was written in the 1860s was written in the White Russian (Belarusian) region of Smolensk.

The Torah went underground when Communists took power in Russia. After World War II, it was rescued and taken to Brooklyn by a Holocaust survivor who kept it in his home with 60 other rescued scrolls because he couldn’t afford restoration. His heirs sold the scrolls for restoration after his death.

Members of the Chabad of South Palm Beach became intrigued by this particular scroll when they were searching for a Torah to restore for use in their synagogue.

“Our families experienced the difficulties of life under the czars, the chokehold of the Communist regime on Jewish practice, the horror of Hitler and ultimately resettlement in the United States after the war,” Rabbi Leibel Stolik said. “This scroll continues the legacy of the Jewish nation in a way that is very close to home for us.”

It was 25 years ago that Alzheimer’s Community Care found a loving home at Advent Lutheran Church in Boca Raton.

Advent’s weekday bustle of activity includes 480 children enrolled in its K-8 school and day care. The campus also has an assisted living facility for seniors.

“We serve from infancy to eternity,” the Rev. Andrew Hagen said proudly.

But Advent offered no weekday gathering place for seniors who live off campus. Now Advent has launched a $400,000 fund-raising campaign called Space for Grace to address that need.

The plan is for ACC day care to move out of the fellowship hall into a single-family home that the congregation purchased near its campus.

“We’ve loved having Alzheimer’s Community Care there, but the church was not able to develop a daytime church ministry,” Hagen said. 

The fellowship hall then will be renovated with the addition of a new daytime café. Seniors can enjoy hobbies such as quilting, study the Bible and learn to operate a computer as they socialize.

“If you feel lonely, just come on over,” Hagen said.

The fund-raising drive includes money to buy bleachers in the school gym.  

Gay couples can now sanctify their unions with a special blessing at area Episcopal churches.

“We are responding to God’s call to extend God’s love to all children,” said the Rev. Andrew Sherman of St. Gregory Episcopal Church in Boca Raton. “We are proud that our church has opened itself up to acknowledge, bless and honor gay people.”

The ceremony, called “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant,” began in December after it was approved by the national Episcopal Church last summer.

Gay rights issues have torn all Protestant denominations in recent years. The Episcopalians approved their first gay bishop in 2003, causing some conservative parishes to break away from the national church. 

“Our church has taken a lot of criticism from the larger Christian community,” Sherman said. “The changing attitudes have been painful and difficult for some.”

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach has a seven-week course to help parishioners understand the church’s interpretation of gay relationships.

Global warming is an impending peril for the faith-based community to examine.

It’s no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton is sponsoring a March 2 community workshop on climate change. 

Unitarians draw upon both science and world religions to set their direction. One of their seven guiding principles is respect for interdependent existence. “So this is a logical blend,” organizer Jan Booher said.

But the Unitarians are not alone in their concern. Consider what the leaders other religious faiths are saying:

“Climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms … it’s about the future of God’s creation and the one human family,” the U.S. Catholic Bishops wrote.

“For Jews, the environmental crisis is a religious challenge,” the Consultation on the Environment and Jewish Life concluded. “As heirs to a tradition of stewardship, we cannot accept the escalating destruction of our environment.”

“Christians must take action now to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world whose lands, livelihoods and lives are threatened by the global climate crisis,” the United Methodist Church’s board on church and society agreed.

The public is invited to participate in the workshop, which brings the faith community, scientists, government leaders and activists to support a regional climate action plan.

The fellowship is located at 2601 St. Andrew’s Blvd. Call 482-2001 or register at  www.SFLClimateActionPartners.org.

Tim Pallesen writes about people of faith, their congregations, causes and community events. Email him at tcpallesen@aol.com.

Cookielicious baked goods are available at the Boynton Beach Green Market.
Photos by Mary Kate Leming/The Coastal Star 

By Jan Norris 

The green markets are in full swing this winter, with dozens of local offerings, both edible and not. This month we visit Delray Beach and Boynton Beach.

At Delray’s Green Market, catch up with the gal who starred in this year’s Neiman Marcus catalog. Svetlana Simon brings fresh eggs and goat milk from her 15-acre Heritage Hen Farm in Boynton to the market. 

Chat her up and she’ll gladly explain that the color of eggs she sells is determined by the earlobe of the chicken — of which she has at least 30 varieties on the farm. She sells raw goat’s milk products — milk, yogurt and butter, and farmer’s cheese — all labeled for “pet consumption” because USDA regulations don’t allow the sale of raw milk for humans. But it’s OK for pets, the agency has said — and for many, OK for the pet owners, who swear by it.

Meet the Minnerly sisters — college students and makers and sellers of Inika Foods. Nicolle and Natasha Minnerly make their foods on Friday, then sell hummus, eggplant dips and other foods that are gluten-free, vegan and dairy-free.

Svetlana Simon brings raw goat milk to the Delray  market.

Raw foods — nonbaked crackers, breads, cookies and more, along with dried fruits and vegetables, all gluten-free, are available from the Three Anns. Based in Delray Beach, the women make foods that conform to the raw diet standard with all natural ingredients not cooked, but dried or dehydrated.

Stop by the Fun with Food booth, where Diane Ziegler-Hoffman has gluten-free, sugar-free treats, vegan and other foods available for sale. She gives classes and demos, and teaches kids to cook. 

Delray Beach Green Market is at Old School Square Park, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Saturdays through May.

In Boynton Beach, the green market was reopened in June, in partnership with the Community Farmer’s Markets of South Florida. The 15 or so vendors have a variety of food, prepared and raw ingredients. Market manager Jerry Kugel says more vendors are signing on.

At A Touch of Spain, husband and wife team Gianni and Cristina Morandi cook up a tortilla de patatas — a Spanish omelet.

Gianni explains the Spanish fast food — served in all tapas bars and eaten as a quick snack throughout Spain — is made with eggs, potatoes and onions cooked in a special pan over the stove — different from an oven-baked frittata.

“It’s tall, that’s another difference, and the dexterity of the cook in flipping it onto the plate to keep it high is key,” he said.

It’s the most popular dish at their booth and can be made with chorizo or ham, sold by the piece or as a whole. Olive oils and olives and more also are available.

Wayne Beiderman sells nine flavored goat cheeses at his Quiet Creek Dairy booth. Cooks favor the herb roll flavored with roasted garlic, dill and chives, but the mission fig and almond flavored one is also a big seller. The cheese is made from goat milk that comes from a co-op dairy that gets its milk from Arcadia and Orlando goat farms. It’s processed in Jupiter Farms, where Beiderman gets it and blends it with flavors. Also at his booth is the popular miniature goat milk cheesecakes, which sell for $3 each or two for $5. “Everyone loves those,” he says. “People ask for them if they don’t see them and if we run out, they’re really disappointed. We’re known for them.”

A former hotel pastry chef is behind the Cookielicious booth, where cookies, artisan breads, pastries and more can be found. Jonathan Grotsky is a former pastry chef from the Boca Resort & Club and Seminole Hard Rock Casino. 

He started selling his baked goods on his own about four months ago and has a following.  His raspberry oatmeal thumbprint cookies are the best seller by far, he says, but the banana and orange breads, coconut macaroons and savory breads also have fans. He takes special orders and can be contacted via cookieliciouspastryshop.com.

Boynton Beach Green Market is at the southeast corner of Boynton Beach Boulevard and Federal Highway every Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.                  

Coming next month: Boca Raton and Lake Worth