Summer Faerman, with Salvation Army Major Cece LaLanne, got the idea for Little Free Food Pantries as she distributed books to a Little Free Library in Boca Raton. Photo provided

By Jan Engoren

Summer Faerman had an epiphany while replenishing books in her Boca Raton neighborhood’s Little Free Library.
Faerman, the director of the Meryl and Ron Gallatin Tzedakah, Learning and Chesed program at B’nai Torah Congregation, called her friend Penina Bredoff to come help distribute books that were taking up space in her garage.
At the last stop, the two sat down to rest and Faerman remembers thinking, “I need to fill one of these boxes with food.”
Bredoff called her husband, Shane, who, using trash left out for bulk pickup, built a prototype.
“It’s a safe way to help people,” says Faerman, 42. “If you have, you give; if you need, you take. There are no hurdles, no judgment, no obstacles, no paperwork, no age or income restrictions.”
According to Feeding South Florida, more than 184,110 people in Palm Beach County are food insecure, many of them children, families and older adults, and the pandemic has made the situation worse.
“Our B’nai Torah com-munity has the means and wants to give back,” Faerman says. “They don’t always want to write a check and this enables them to be hands-on.”
Bredoff, director of the Florence Melton School for Adult Jewish Learning at the congregation, says her “magic carpet” ride with Faerman began when the two met seven years ago.
“People want to help but don’t know where to begin,” she says. “If you know Summer and express a desire to help, she will find you a place to contribute.
“She’s a tremendous asset to the community,” Bredoff says.
Her whole family — including two sons, Spencer, 20, a junior at Washington University in St. Louis, and Nate, 18, a senior at American Heritage School in Delray Beach — got involved in the effort.
The first food pantry was installed at the Salvation Army at 300 SW Second Ave. in Boca Raton on Aug. 23, and Bredoff says the project has taken on a life of its own.
“People have been falling over themselves to either sponsor a pantry or to help build one,” she says.
The Salvation Army is next to Boca Elementary School, a Title 1 school. Kids take food on their way to and from school, says Bredoff. Other Boca locations include Advent Elementary & Middle School and Ebenezer Church.
B’nai Torah also has little food pantries on Swinton Avenue in Delray Beach and on Lantana Road and plans for others in Boynton Beach, Margate, Pompano Beach and Deerfield Beach.
The pantries are stocked with bottled water, granola bars, oatmeal, beans, pasta, beef jerky, cans of Chef Boyardee, Kind bars and GoGo squeeZ fruit snacks.
Faerman has partnered with the Salvation Army, Advent Lutheran Church and the Fusion Academy.
Jessica Ballas, ministry director at Advent Lutheran Church, says, “I was so taken by Summer’s enthusiasm, I had to get involved.
“It’s an amazing concept,” she says. “I’m in awe of Summer’s passion and what she has accomplished.
“Look what we can do if we pitch in a little,” Ballas says. “Just imagine what we could do if we pitched in a lot.”
Faerman updates her Facebook page on which boxes need replenishing and people respond to her updates.
“It’s one thing to be involved in a food drive, but when you actually go out and put food in one of these pantries, it’s a very satisfying experience and makes the need in our community very real,” Faerman says.
“It’s a Field of Dreams situation,” she says. “This project was my dream and it brings joy to me every time I go.”

To learn more visit btcboca.org/littlefreepantry or on Facebook at TLC Little Food Pantry.

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach City Commissioners fired their City Manager George Gretsas Nov. 20 by a 3-2 vote with Commissioner Adam Frankel and Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston dissenting.

After nearly five months, the vote to terminate with cause means the city will part ways with Gretsas without owing him any money.

“We are hearing allegations and not facts,” Frankel said. “I feel comfortable with the motion to terminate without cause, although I know there are financial consequences.”

Commissioner Juli Casale pointed out that doing so would cost “another $180,000 of taxpayer money.” She was referring to a clause in Gretsas' contract that required a $180,000 payment if he was terminated without cause.

Boylston said, “If I voted for what is best for the city, it would be the motion to terminate with cause. But I can’t make that determination based on what was presented today.”

Boylston called the city’s relationship with Gretsas “irreparable” and brushed aside the third choice of Gretsas returning to his job as the Delray Beach City Manager. Frankel also agreed that the relationship was broken.

Gretsas, who did not attend the hearing because he was in Montana, was suspended with pay on June 24.

On Oct. 21, Gretsas hired new attorneys and they asked for time to prepare his case. The termination hearing was moved to Nov. 20 from Oct. 23. In exchange, the city required Gretsas to give up his $265,000 salary and benefits on Oct. 23.

Following the terms set out in his Oct. 1, 2019 employment contract, the city followed the procedures when parting ways with Gretsas: approved the notice to terminate on June 24, accepted the written charges on Aug. 24 and accepted the investigative report on Oct. 20.

“We followed his employment agreement to the letter,” said City Attorney Lynn Gelin who participated in the hearing as a witness.

Gretsas sent a text after the hearing that read: “No professional City Manager would have sat by quietly after discovering serious issues with the drinking water and corruption at City Hall.

“Although getting fired for speaking the truth is not what’s supposed to happen in America, I did what I had to do to protect the health and safety of the residents of Delray Beach.”

But the three commissioners who voted to fire Gretsas see the issue differently.

“The circus was created by Mr. Gretsas,” said Mayor Shelly Petrolia. He created a paid Facebook page and sent documents to the media about water quality problems in the city.

“We want to take this moment and move on,” she said. “The city is running well, and people feel safe.”

Boca Raton residents Amanda Clark (l), 20, and her mother Kate Clark are battered by the winds and rain of Tropical Storm Eta as they observe the power of the storm from the pavilion of South Beach Park in Boca Raton Nov. 8. The intense wind and horizontal rain made it necessary for most observers to hide behind the support poles for protection. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Strong winds and heavy rain from Tropical Storm Eta caused beach erosion and damage to the the beach access mat at South Beach Park in Boca Raton. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Boca Raton resident Natalie Conte walks her two dogs Nico and Rocky along the flooded sidewalk in Highland Beach Nov. 9. Heavy rain and strong winds from Tropical Storm Eta caused localized flooding, downed trees and power outages throughout South Florida. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Drivers on State Road A1A in Highland Beach Nov. 9 navigated their way through flooded roads to get to their destination. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Delray Beach resident and fisherman Peter Moccia appears to be missing the lower part of his body due to the significant beach erosion caused by Tropical Storm Eta. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

A member of Delray Beach Fire Rescue navigates his ATV up and over the beach erosion caused by Tropical Storm Eta. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Billy Blackman, owner of Able Tree Service, secures broken sea grape and coconut palm branches on Old Ocean Boulevard in Ocean Ridge as Tropical Storm Eta left its impact on Coastal Star communities. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

A family takes a group selfie on the north Jetty of the Boynton Inlet Nov. 8 as Tropical Storm Eta unleashed strong winds and torrential rains on South Florida. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Contractors are staged to restore power along State Road A1A in Manalapan Nov 9. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

A man removes pylons from the flooded roadway along North Atlantic Drive in the Hypoluxo Island portion of Lantana on Nov. 9. Heavy rains flooded the road and yards. While the road was passable, the water was at least 8 inches deep in places. Lantana Mayor Dave Stewart, who lives in the neighborhood, says this is nothing new. “When you have the king tides, there’s always flooding in certain areas of Hypoluxo Island,” he says. “It’s been that way since I moved here in 1977. You can’t control Mother Nature.” Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

A man walking his dog gets along Beach Curve Road on the Hypoluxo Island portion of Lantana gets caught in one on the many squalls associated with Tropical Storm Eta. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Marybeth Hegarty grabs hold of her hat as she walks down toward the beach to check on the impact of Tropical Storm Eta Nov. 8. "Our beach is gone," she exclaimed a moment later as she got near the surf. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Mary Thurwachter contributed to this report

Beachgoers rinse their feet near the sea grapes that form a canopy along the shore in Delray Beach. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Consensus emerges that
trims are better for dunes

By Larry Barszewski

When it comes to managing sea grapes at the beach, what’s an environmentalist to do?
Should the growing trees and shrubs be left alone to provide a friendly habitat for birds and small animals and shield the beach from man-made light that can disorient sea turtle hatchlings?
Or should the sea grapes be trimmed to stop them from crowding out other plants and allow for a far more diverse beach ecosystem?
In September, Delray Beach commissioners voted 3-2 to cut away, approving a plan to slash some remaining untouched sea grapes — five arbors up to 20 feet tall — to a height of 4 feet. These sea grapes were spared this summer during an extensive trimming at the beach, where they form canopies that create green tunnel pathways for beachgoers.
Nearby residents, whose views of the ocean have been blocked by the tall sea grapes, complained the tunnels are dangerous, house homeless people and should be cut back.
Others see the beach’s sea grape archways as iconic, creating a more natural look that should be preserved.
Leaving the conflicting aesthetics debate aside, many coastal experts say the city is moving in the right direction from an environmental viewpoint.

Some residents were upset in May when sea grapes were trimmed from tree height to waist high. They have since resprouted leaves.

Explosive growth
“You have this one species that is exploding, and it outcompetes and kills everything underneath it,” said George Gann, the chief conservation strategist for the Institute for Regional Conservation based in Delray Beach. “The sea grapes have not only grown up, they’ve also grown out. They’re overwhelming so much of the biodiversity on the dune.”
Gann compliments past dune restoration work at the city’s public beach, saying it is “one of the most biodiverse and successful beaches in Southeast Florida.” But, he cautions, “the sea grapes threaten the good work that has come before.”
In addition, Gann and coastal management consultant Rob Barron said the sea grapes have brittle wood and shallow root systems, increasing the chances they could blow over or become projectiles in a major hurricane. They’re also not great at capturing sand or providing erosion resistance, Gann and Barron said.
At the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Dave Kieckbusch says you can trim or not trim in environmentally friendly ways depending on your preference. But the sea grapes are invasive, he said. Even though they are native, they can grow prolifically and potentially harmfully.
“You plant the sea grapes, they’re very nice looking, but they’re very fast-growing and they can shade out the [other] native plants,” said Kieckbusch, an environmental specialist who serves as the department’s field inspector for Southeast Florida.

 Clusters of sea grapes dwarf all other vegetation in some areas, creating a monoculture.

Sea turtle concerns
One of the main environmental arguments against trimming is that the taller sea grapes shield the beach from artificial light emanating from buildings along State Road A1A, light that could disorient sea turtle hatchlings and discourage female sea turtles from nesting. Kieckbusch said trimming permits require lighting surveys before and after the work is done to assure light along A1A won’t get to the beach during nesting season.
Even a February consulting report prepared for the city — one that recommended leaving the remaining tall sea grapes untrimmed — said “the ultimate solution is for upland homes and buildings to comply with the city’s lighting ordinance and install turtle-friendly lighting.”
It took until 2017 for the significant light issues immediately north and south of Atlantic Avenue to be resolved to protect sea turtles and hatchlings, making it possible to do the remaining trimming that has now been approved, Barron said. He has been involved with the city’s beach management for decades and was a leading proponent of the trimming.
For Kieckbusch, a big environmental problem along the coast is private property owners who trim illegally and expose the beach to artificial light sources.
“This is starting with the snowbirds coming down. This is our busy time of the year” for permitting and enforcement, Kieckbusch said.

Shadows on the beach
From a sea turtle’s perspective at the municipal beach, Barron said the taller sea grapes don’t make a difference. Delray Beach’s sandy dunes themselves block out lighting that’s lower than the tops of telephone poles, he said.
But David Anderson, the sea turtle conservation coordinator at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton, doesn’t dismiss the benefits of taller sea grapes — even if direct light sources aren’t an issue.
Tall sea grapes not only shield the beach from light along A1A, but also can help block out the ambient glow created by light from cities to the west, Anderson said. To the extent sea grapes cast a shadow on the beach from the ambient light in the night sky, they provide darker spots that will attract nesting sea turtles, he said.
“Those turtles are just offshore, sticking their head out of the water, looking for a dark beach,” he said.
The narrower strip of beach next to Red Reef Park in Boca Raton, for example, next to high dunes and with shading from tall sea grapes, has made nesting density greater there, Anderson said. In the same way, tall beachfront condos with turtle-friendly lighting actually have a beneficial effect, attracting nesting sea turtles by casting shadows that block the ambient light, he said.

George Gann of the Institute for Regional Conservation works with Keith Buttry of Neglected Plants LLC to plant sea lavender in a more diverse stretch of the Delray Beach dune. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Delray’s sea grape history
Sea grape plants are native to Florida, but historically hadn’t been a significant part of the region’s beach dune system, which was full of grasses and saw palmettos, Barron said.
In the early 1970s, beach erosion had ocean water lapping near the edge of A1A, prompting the city to do a beach-widening project, Barron said. When blowing sand from the new beach caused problems of its own, the city initially rejected a proposal to plant sea oats — an idea derided at the time as “hayfields on the beach,” he said.
Sea oats, which conservationists say are one of the most effective beach plants at trapping sand and building up dunes, were eventually planted in the mid-1980s and are now a significant part of the beach’s foredune.
The sea grapes west of the oats, between the foredune and the sidewalk, were planted earlier in the 1980s and started thriving after the sea oats were introduced, Barron said. They doubled their footprint about every nine years and quickly overtook the community of plants in the coastal strand portion of the city’s beach ecosystem, he said.
Gann wants to see numerous plant species returned to the beach’s coastal strand once the sea grapes are trimmed and the exotic vegetation removed. That will create a habitat for dozens of species of butterflies and birds and rejuvenate the natural ecosystem, he said.
At the end of October, the city began adding new native vegetation following the trimming and the removal of exotics done during the summer. The plantings include bay cedar, golden beach creeper, Walter’s ground cherry and sea lavender.
Some argue the sea grape trees near A1A provide a fertile habitat for small mammals and migratory birds, but Gann said there’s not much place for the mammals to hide and the sea grape fruit is attractive only to larger birds, such as blue jays. Trees are typically part of a maritime hammock to the west of the coastal strand. But that type of hammock, which is in place at the city’s Atlantic Dunes Park, is not present at the municipal beach.
Gann compared the sea grapes at the beach to cattails in the Everglades.
Just as the cattail population explodes as a result of nutrient-rich agricultural runoff flowing into the Everglades, the sea grapes take advantage of excess nutrients near the beach to proliferate out of control, he said.
“In hindsight, it would have been a lot better to plant other things,” he said.

Reclaimed water project lacked ‘institutional control’

Related Stories: Cleaning of drinking water tanks set to finish this month |Timetable unclear on reclaimed water issues

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach has not had “institutional control” over its reclaimed water program, according to a forensic review released on Oct. 23.
The program has not had the appropriate resources, funding, oversight, policies and internal expertise in place to effectively manage its parts, Fred Bloetscher, president of Public Utility Management & Services Inc., wrote in a report the city hired him to do.
One of the most serious findings was that without city personnel apparently present, water customers had “converted back” to potable water on their own by hiring a plumber to go into the meter box or connect to the city’s water main to re-establish potable water service for irrigation.
“It’s all or nothing with reclaimed water in residential areas,” Bloetscher said. “You can’t have residents opting out on their own. It’s a criminal act if they tamper with the city’s public water system.”
Bloetscher’s Hollywood-based firm was hired by Delray Beach in late April to review its reclaimed water program. The city agreed to pay $20,000 for the study. His work experience includes utility department positions in two Broward County coastal cities: Dania Beach and Hollywood.
Delray Beach has relied on consultants to design, construct and monitor the estimated $30.59 million reclaimed water system since its beginning in 2003.
Reclaimed water is highly treated wastewater that can be used only for lawn irrigation, but it is not suitable for human or pet consumption.
Public Utility Management said its investigation was hampered by a lack of records available prior to 2018. That’s one reason the firm focused its report on the final area where reclaimed water was installed on the barrier island.
The work included the installation of residential reclaimed connections and other utility infrastructure such as potable water mains as well as sewer and storm water mains. The project ran from January 2018 to March 2019. Within this area there were reports of cross connections and contamination between reclaimed water and drinking water and of residents opting out of the program with no city oversight.
The area studied in the report included Lewis Cove south to Del Haven Drive on the west side of State Road A1A and along the east side of A1A from Casuarina Road south to Del Haven.
After reading the review, Mayor Shelly Petrolia agreed that the city needs to strengthen its mandatory reclaimed water ordinance.
New Utilities Director Hassan Hadjimiry concurred.
His department is working closely with staff from the city’s Development Services, Code Enforcement and Attorney’s Office. That approach will allow for greater oversight of the reclaimed water permitting process and enforcement of the city’s ordinance, according to Hadjimiry, who responded via email.
“Customers who chose to disconnect without proper oversight are potentially endangering the safety of the public water provided to other city customers,” he wrote.
In addition, he stated that he already has addressed many of Bloetscher’s concerns.

Culprit not identified
The report also found that the city allowed backflow prevention devices to be buried, making them difficult to access. The buried devices were cheaper to install and their underground placement meant they were out of sight.
“Esthetics are not important when you are protecting public health,” said Bloetscher, associate dean for undergraduate studies and community outreach in environmental engineering at Florida Atlantic University.
The city staffer or consultant who made that decision was not identified in the report.
Bloetscher suggested the city replace its dual-check valves, which cost about $500, with the more expensive devices, called reduced pressure zone devices, which sit above the ground. The RPZs cost about $1,800 each.
To help with ongoing costs of the upgrades, Bloetscher suggested the city replace the devices over time as they wear out.
Dual-check valves and RPZs are backflow preventers that protect the drinking water supply from contamination. RPZs are better because they dispose of any backward-flowing water if their valves fail.
The area studied in the report was found to have 21 missing backflow devices out of 136 locations.
The project area just to the north was missing 54 backflow devices out of 150 total. Work in that area began in May 2016 and ended in February 2017. In a separate contract, awarded to another firm, backflow devices supplied by the city were installed in the adjacent area.
In all, 194 backflow devices were found to be missing on the barrier island.
Most cities in the county, including Delray Beach, use the cheaper dual-check valves because they are allowed under the state’s Administrative Code. Dual-check backflow preventers cannot be tested and must be replaced every five years, according to Hadjimiry.
Delray Beach requires larger residential buildings and commercial sites to use RPZs, Hadjimiry wrote.
The American Water Works Association, an international nonprofit aimed at improving water quality, recommends using an RPZ for its superior protection of the public water supply.
One of the most troubling concerns Bloetscher’s report found was that Delray Beach does not have a point person in charge of the installation of backflow preventers and inspection at each reclaimed water location.
City documents included in the report state that the city would provide oversight for inspections and that a “cross-connection specialist” was to perform the inspections, but no position within the city was found to exist and there was nothing on file to show the inspections had been done.
Since arriving in early June, Hadjimiry has created a regulatory compliance section within his department to implement the cross-connection control and industrial pretreatment programs. An existing open position is being reclassified to a cross-connection control coordinator to oversee that program, Hadjimiry wrote.
Bloetscher also noted that city staff added a change order to the construction contract in August 2018, adding backflow preventers at a cost of just over $26,000. The original contract did not include them for the installation of reclaimed water in the southern portion of the barrier island. Whether the devices were part of the original contracts for the other four barrier island areas of the reclaimed water project is unknown.
Petrolia found the review hard to read and lacking in key information. “Who was responsible for adding the backflow preventers?” she asked. “I thought that was the purpose of spending $20,000 on the forensic study.”

Director wants to add jobs
Despite rumors swirling on social media, the City Commission was found to have little involvement with the reclaimed water system, according to the review.
Mark Lauzier, who was city manager in December 2018, updated the commission at its Dec. 11, 2018, meeting. He talked of a cross connection in the final area of the reclaimed water installation, which led to a boil-water order for the southern portion of the barrier island.
Cross connections happen when reclaimed water lines are connected to drinking water pipes.
Lauzier stated “staff will address the communications issues and require maps for these type of things in the future.”
In February, then City Manager George Gretsas told commissioners how he shut down the reclaimed water system to avoid a citywide boil water order. That was done to satisfy Florida Department of Health inspectors. They were investigating a complaint from a South Ocean Boulevard resident who did not think she was adequately informed of the December 2018 cross connection.
In early May, Gretsas rated the reclaimed water program a D-minus in his presentation to the commission.
Delray Beach has another problem with how it tracks the reclaimed water program, Bloetscher found.
The city has two methods to record locations, installation dates, tests and photos for each reclaimed water site. Some staffers use Excel spreadsheets, while others use graphic information system maps. The GIS method is preferable, according to the review.
As part of the cross-connection control program, Delray Beach will use a web-based system for testing, tracking and reporting of backflow preventers, according to Hadjimiry.
At the Nov. 17 City Commission meeting, he will seek commission approval to add four new positions — professional engineer, plan reviewer/engineer and two inspectors — to the department’s engineering section. The change will require a budget amendment, Hadjimiry wrote.
Delray Beach also plans to educate its reclaimed water customers, following AWWA guidelines, by providing annual notifications to make sure customers know about the origin, nature and characteristics of reclaimed water, according to Hadjimiry.
“The city’s website has been updated to include educational information and videos on reclaimed water and its uses,” Hadjimiry wrote.
Barrier island resident Chris Heffernan was not surprised by any of Bloetscher’s findings.
“The city manager form of government is clearly not working. Delray Beach has outgrown it,” he said of a system in which the commission makes the policies and an appointed manager runs the city. In other places the elected mayor runs the city.
“We are a city run by bureaucrats and part-time politicians,” Heffernan said.

Army veteran Ed Manley, 98, receives two ready-made meals, a loaf of bread and container of juice from John Sallee at his home in Briny Breezes. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

On June 6, 1944, a U.S. Army paratrooper named Ed Manley jumped into Nazi-occupied France on a D-Day mission to blow up the cannons overlooking Omaha Beach.
He was 22.
On Sept. 11, 1944, he jumped into Holland during Operation Market Garden, on a mission to capture roads and bridges in the vital communications city of Eindhoven.
On Dec. 17, 1944, he was in Bastogne, Belgium, helping to hold off Hitler’s Fifth Panzer Army in the Battle of the Bulge.
And on Oct. 9, 2020, Ed Manley was at home on Hibiscus Drive in Briny Breezes, waiting for someone to bring his lunch.
He is 98.
“I was lying in a ditch,” he explained, “and John came along and said, ‘Can I help you?’”
The ditch is a metaphor, of course, but the help John Sallee brings is real. Like the U.S. Army’s 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Meals on Wheels of the Palm Beaches has a mission.

The slogan on a volunteer’s T-shirt states the organization’s goal.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, a team of five couriers leaves the organization’s kitchen on Old Okeechobee Road in West Palm Beach, bearing both hot and frozen meals to 40 volunteers, who deliver them to about 300 elderly clients living between Tequesta and Lantana.
Here comes John Sallee now. As his 2017 blue Ford Equinox stops on Hibiscus Drive this Friday morning, Manley eases down the steps of his mobile home to greet him.
Sometimes Chef Daniel Laudia prepares meatballs and mashed potatoes, salmon with rice and broccoli, or glazed pork and sweet potatoes. Veggie lasagna. Chicken piccata. Laudia cooked at a country club before coming to Meals on Wheels.
Today, it’s quiche, Tater Tots, a side salad, juice or milk and, October being National Cookie Month, extra cookies.
“The food is excellent!” Manley exclaimed. “I wasn’t eating enough vegetables and they give you a lot of grass. They give you spinach and carrots and peas and string beans.”
He paused.
“The only thing I don’t like is the beans, because they give me gas.”
Actually, Ed Manley’s Friday lunch didn’t really begin on Old Okeechobee Road that morning. It began back in September, when his caregiver at the VA Hospital called Debbie Emerick, Meals on Wheels program director.
“Ed was OK cognitively,” Emerick recalls, “but she had concerns about his nutrition. He’s homebound, his family’s in Washington state, and neighbors were bringing him groceries. As soon as I heard he was a World War II vet, I wanted to help.”
“I was getting old,” Manley said. “It’s that simple. I was cutting down to two meals a day.”
Now, to make sure this old soldier eats well, Meals on Wheel isn’t just going an extra mile. It’s going an extra five miles.
Briny Breezes is south of Lantana, the agency’s southern boundary, but Ed Manley is being served anyway, thanks to the Quantum Foundation, which gave Meals on Wheels a $75,000 grant last year to support its Meals For Veterans outreach. Most of the agency’s 95 vets, who had been paying about $7 a meal or less on a sliding scale, now pay nothing.
The organization’s $1 million annual budget comes primarily from donations and grants. Meals on Wheels of the Palm Beaches receives no government funding.
John Sallee is a courier, but because there’s not an official delivery route this far south, he delivers Manley’s meals.
“It’s very satisfying work,” Sallee says. “You get to know people like Ed. I’ve been doing this 2½ years, and I can only think of one person I didn’t like. And he moved into assisted living.”
After delivering the quiche, plus a frozen meal for the weekend and a big loaf of bread, Sallee didn’t speed off. He waited, smiling and nodding as Manley talked on. He listened.
“That’s our More Than A Meal model,” says Pam Calzadilla, the organization’s president and CEO. “You’re not just getting a UPS truck dropping a bunch of meals off. It’s making sure they’re well and giving them that social interaction.
“We provide check-in and report back to clients’ families. And we call 911 on occasion as well. Too many times.”
For clients who have pets, there’s Animeals. During hurricane seasons, there’s a box of shelf food to last three days. On birthdays, there’s a cake.
Before the COVID pandemic struck, meals were delivered five days a week. Now John Sallee and his colleagues arrive on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only, with frozen meals to tide the clients over.
“We’ve had trouble getting some foods from vendors,” Calzadilla reports, “and we’ve had to change some of our meals because they had no stock or had furloughed employees.”
Manley is Briny Breezes’ only Meals On Wheels client, so far.
“Now that we’re there, we can accept more seniors who need the service,” Emerick says. “This is how we build. We find a need, then another, and establish a volunteer route.”
For Manley, old age seemed to come suddenly.
“Two years ago, I was hanging out with 45-year-olds,” he told Sallee. “I had a 6-year-old Mini Cooper with 9,000 miles on it. I went to Publix, the bank and the hospital. But I fell asleep twice while I was eating and woke up 45 minutes later, so I quit driving. I was afraid I could hurt somebody.”
Born in the Bronx in 1921, Manley grew up in an orphanage called Sheltering Arms at 129th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem.
“They used to give us two nickels every Wednesday to go down to the YMCA on the trolley,” he recalled, “and I’d hang on the back of the trolley to save the nickels.”
Before joining the Army, he played trumpet in an 11-piece band. In the Army, he played the afternoon dances for the noncoms.
After the war, he was a New York State trooper, and 40 years ago he arrived in Briny Breezes on a sailboat from Ocean City, Maryland.
Dorothy Ann died in 1984, after 31 years of marriage. His two sons and a daughter are far away. He lives alone.
“I’m a widower,” he said, “so I was cooking for myself.”

While recounting his younger years, Ed Manley breaks into dance on his porch steps. Manley says the Meals on Wheels food is ‘excellent.’ Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

On Jan. 3, 1945, Ed Manley was wounded in Bastogne, taken prisoner and imprisoned in Stalag 12A for 4½ months, until he escaped.
He has two Bronze Stars, from Normandy and Bastogne, a Purple Heart and two presidential citations.
In 1994, he jumped out of an airplane once more, to mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
He was 72.
In 2009, he had a triple heart bypass.
“But I look around and I see other people,” he said, “and every time I think I’m hurting, I see how the powers-that-be have taken care of me. How many people live to be in their 90s?”
On Nov. 5, he will turn 99.
“Meals On Wheels was a big surprise,” he said, clutching this day’s delivery. “They surprise me all the time with this stuff.”
And then, turning to go back inside, out of the midday heat, he paused.
“When I was in shape,” he added, “you didn’t mess with me.”

To learn more, call 561-802-6979 or visit www.mealsonwheelspalmbeaches.org.

For those of you who know me, you know it is not in my character to ask our readers for anything other than a quote or permission to publish their photo in the paper.
But the challenges of 2020 have taken a toll on local businesses, The Coastal Star included. The impact of COVID-19 has been such a shock to our community that we have seen a significant drop in advertising. Most restaurants had to close for months and entertainment venues have had to delay their season’s plans till next year.
In our April edition, we asked you to help by paying for advertising to promote those local businesses, and many of you did. Thank you.
But the impact of the virus has been relentless and we were forced to publish in alternate months for the summer to avoid significant losses.
So now we ask again for your help.
The Florida Press Association is partnering with its members, including The Coastal Star, to launch the Community News Fund, creating a way for readers like you to make tax-deductible donations to support community journalism.
In many of the small towns that we cover, it has been more than a decade since any reporter, other than ours, has shown up to a commission meeting or other local events. We are filling that responsibility, and we enjoy it.
By donating to The Coastal Star, you will help our journalists keep our residents informed, hold officials accountable and cover the most important topics in our community.
For example, your donations will ensure that we have the space in the paper to report on philanthropy, the arts, the environment and health and medicine.
My friend Jim Fogler, the CEO of the Florida Press Association, put it well: “Local newspapers play a critical role in our communities, making us all stronger and more engaged citizens. Newspapers are dedicated to keeping you informed. Whether it is a local issue or a worldwide pandemic, they are there to provide consistent news coverage that you can trust.”
To contribute, go to https://fpf.column.us/the-coastal-star.
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— Jerry Lower, Publisher

Robin Deyo has worked on Junior League projects that have touched everything from hunger to family/child welfare and the community garden. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Sallie James

Innovative ideas. An amazing history of volunteerism. A techy background and a winning personality.
Those qualities and more are why Boca Raton resident Robin Deyo was named honorary chairwoman for the Junior League of Boca Raton’s 33rd annual Woman Volunteer of the Year awards ceremony, which this year will be virtual.
“I am honored to partake this year — it’s such a compliment,” said Deyo, a sustaining member of the Junior League and the former co-owner and co-founder of Cendyn, which provides technical assistance to more than 30,000 destinations and hotels in 130 countries. 
Instead of honoring a single volunteer, this year’s program will celebrate the Junior League’s decades of volunteerism. The virtual program, planned for 6:30-8:30 p.m. Nov. 13, will celebrate 100 years of women’s voting rights, the Junior League of Boca Raton’s 50th anniversary and the contributions of 685 women who have been nominated for their community volunteerism over the years.
“We will … be sharing stories about people’s experience being volunteers in the community. There will be a historical perspective on the 19th Amendment and the 685 women nominated over the last 32 years,” Junior League President Cristy Stewart-Harfmann said.
Deyo’s background, dedication and years of involvement with the Junior League made her the perfect fit for honorary chair.
“She is amazing. She is level-headed, kind, thoughtful and a past nominee for Woman Volunteer of the Year,” Stewart-Harfmann said. “Virtual sounds so simple but it is not — that is one reason it’s been so nice she is here to help us. We have been able to really focus on the logistics and how we create the event.”
The Junior League’s aim is to develop women’s potential and better the community through the action and leadership of trained volunteers. And celebrating women is why Deyo has remained involved in the organization for 20 years.
“I have loved being honorary chair this year. I just jumped into the deep end in wanting to solicit sponsorships and ads and helping with the scripts for the presentation,” she said. “It’s just going to be a wonderful celebration of women.”
Deyo, 56, has worked on Junior League projects that addressed hunger, family/child welfare, the community garden and fundraising. The Junior League also provides assistance to Boca Raton’s Diaper Bank and Boca Helping Hands.
Deyo joined the Junior League while she was working in the hotel business. At the time, the Junior League had hired Cendyn to create a CD-ROM to accompany its annual cookbook. Thanks to Deyo’s involvement, the cookbook won a 2001 James Beard Foundation Award for excellence. 
Deyo called the project “a turning point” in her life.
“Junior League cookbooks around the world are well-known because they are really good. A lot of people collect them,” Deyo said.
Deyo served as vice president of finance, cookbook chair, international PR co-chair, fund development assisting adviser, worked on project development and planning as a board of directors member, and served as assistant chair for the Woman Volunteer of the Year event.
Deyo has continued her involvement as a sustaining member for the past six years, with this year’s work especially relevant because programming had to go virtual during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was a good year for me to participate — it was in my wheelhouse,” Deyo said.
Junior Leaguer Dorothy MacDiarmid said Deyo’s contributions began the minute she joined and never stopped.
“When she joined we were publishing the first cookbook and she came up with the idea of putting the cookbook on a CD-ROM, which was a high-tech thing then. We had this beautiful coffee style cookbook on the CD-ROM. We were the only Junior League in the country that had a cookbook like that,” said MacDiarmid, a Junior League president in 2005 and 2006 and chair for Woman Volunteer of the Year in 2006.
“She is just amazing. Sometimes it is hard to find someone who has that really awesome technical ability and has so many people skills and such a soft side. This is the perfect year for her.”
When Deyo first joined the Junior League, her husband, Charles, jokingly called Tuesdays at work “nonprofit Tuesdays” because so many Cendyn employees were busy with their Junior League obligations that day.
“We gave everybody flexibility to be active and participate in their committee roles,” Deyo recalled. She said more than 15 of her employees were Junior League members and the company paid for all their memberships.
Her daughter Ryn, now 19, grew up volunteering at Junior League events. Deyo said she hoped to set an example.
“I always told Ryn my biggest rule is to treat others the way you want to be treated. I think volunteerism is just an extension of that. Give a lot of good and contribute to your community and I am sure it will come back to you,” Deyo said.
Stewart-Harfmann said Deyo’s lifetime of dedication is part of what makes her contributions so special.
“Robin has done so much for the Junior League and we are so happy we will be able to honor her. … She really epitomized what we hope all our members will be — women who are able to balance a career and also volunteer in the community.”

Woman Volunteer
of the Year
What: Junior League honors 32 years of volunteering.
When: 6:30-8:30 p.m. Nov. 13
Where: Virtual
Tickets: $50
Info: jlbocaraton.ticket.qtego.net/tickets/list

The Witches of Delray hosted a ‘Witches Brew’ happy hour fundraiser at Tim Finnegans Irish Pub. Proceeds from the event benefited the Achievement Centers for Children & Families. The ninth Annual Witches of Delray charity bike ride was modified because of COVID-19 concerns. In place of a group bike ride through the city, the witches held various opportunities to ‘get wicked’ live and virtually throughout downtown Delray Beach. This year’s events raised more than $7,000. RIGHT: Lynn Korp shows off the bicycle she decorated and named ‘Day of the Dead.’ Donated for auction, the bicycle drew a top bid of $1,195. Korp is an artist who operates Renaissance Restoration Studio on Atlantic Avenue. Tim Stepien /The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

After months of meeting virtually, municipal government leaders throughout south Palm Beach County are about to take their seats on a dais — but they won’t be getting too close.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to end an order that allowed virtual meetings means that towns and cities that had virtually gathered elected officials are scrambling to come up with safe ways to hold meetings in person again.
Some towns and cities are moving to larger spaces to make social distancing easier during the coronavirus pandemic, while others will require visitors to get temperature checks before they can sit down in the council chambers.
“Everybody is taking a different level of precaution, but everyone is doing something,” said attorney Glen Torcivia, whose firm represents several coastal communities, including South Palm Beach, Ocean Ridge and Highland Beach.
With a deadline of Nov. 1, some communities were still finalizing preparations in late October, but one precaution that seems most common is the installation of plexiglass partitions between elected officials. All are also requiring face coverings, and most are providing hand sanitizer for those who attend in person.
Highland Beach officials plan to have commissioners and a limited number of residents attend meetings in person due to CDC guidelines and the capacity of the commission chambers. People wishing to attend will have a chance to register a day in advance and will be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis.
Residents and visitors will still be able to view and participate in meetings virtually, Town Manager Marshall Labadie said.
“We’re moving closer to how it used to be, but with CDC guidelines it could be a little tricky,” Labadie said.
To help ensure the safety of those attending a meeting in person, the town will conduct temperature checks and require masks and social distancing.
Delray Beach has crafted a detailed protocol for visitors that is explained in a video posted on Facebook. Those wishing to attend a commission meeting will first see a sign outside City Hall with reminders on social distancing and mask wearing. Once inside, they will answer a series of screening questions to determine if they have been exposed to the coronavirus. They will then have their temperatures scanned before entering the commission chambers, where they will find many seats blocked off to ensure social distancing.
To handle an overflow, Delray will let people watch on television in the Civic Center.
Like many communities, Delray Beach will continue to make it possible to view the meetings online.
One exception is Gulf Stream, which recently discontinued online access and now offers only in-person attendance. For several months, the town offered hybrid meetings combining virtual access with in-person attendance.
Ocean Ridge has also been holding in-person meetings all along while still offering virtual access to the public. One commissioner, who has a summer home out of state, was attending remotely but that is likely to change, Town Manager Tracey Stevens said.
Ocean Ridge will also require actual attendance by residents wishing to comment.
“We will still provide live audio feed for people to listen to the meeting, but no public participation will be available unless it is in person,” Stevens said.
Lantana has also offered in-person meetings since the beginning of the pandemic but will now require all elected and appointed officials to be at Town Hall. The town will continue to broadcast meetings live via telephone and, like Ocean Ridge, make audio recordings available the day after the meeting.
Manalapan officials plan to hold in-person meetings and will arrange chairs to be socially distanced. Masks will be required, and hand sanitizer stations will be set up.
Although the state will require elected officials to attend meetings in person, Torcivia said there are exceptions and he believes commissioners or council members with health issues should be OK attending virtually.
That could be good news for elected officials in South Palm Beach and Briny Breezes who don’t want to chance contracting the virus.
In South Palm Beach, which is adapting the small Town Hall auditorium to accommodate social distancing, some council members could be attending the meetings by phone.
In Briny Breezes, where some council members have similar health concerns, virtual meetings have been held since the spring. The town plans to hold in-person meetings but will move them from the tiny Town Hall auditorium to the corporate community center, where it is much easier to social distance.
Boca Raton City Manager Leif Ahnell invoked home rule authority on Oct. 27 to disregard the governor’s order and continue virtual City Council meetings.
In Boynton Beach, where a hybrid system is used with the mayor at a government building but commissioners accessing remotely, an emergency ordinance passed unanimously on Sept. 30 giving commissioners an opportunity to invoke home rule and continue holding virtual meetings until December. City leaders have yet to decide if they will meet in person before the end of the year. Ú

By Dan Moffett

After months of debate and deliberation, Ocean Ridge has a new ordinance in place that it hopes will regulate homeowners’ installation of storage sheds and quiet disputes among neighbors.
The ordinance, which the Town Commission passed with a 4-1 vote on Oct. 5, distinguishes between two general varieties of sheds: those larger designs that will require building permits to put up; and those often prefabricated models that now will require only an administrative review to install.
Town Manager Tracey Stevens said the new regulations aren’t meant to infringe on homeowners’ rights or signal a wave of shed policing. They are, however, intended to give officials a way to respond to an increasing number of complaints from residents, most often unhappy next-door neighbors.
“The town will enforce this ordinance just like any other ordinance on the books,” Stevens said. “It isn’t the goal of our code enforcement officers to go around looking for code enforcement issues. Most of the code enforcement cases are complaint-based.”
To fall into the category that needs no building permit, a shed must have no plumbing or electric and must not exceed 100 square feet or 7 feet in height. The ordinance prohibits sheds from being installed in front yards or waterfront setbacks, and they must maintain a 5-foot rear property line setback and at least 3 feet on the sides. All sheds are required to drain only onto the owner’s property.
Only one shed is permitted for each lot and must be screened from the view of adjoining properties.
For a shed to satisfy the administrative review requirement, a town building official must inspect it to certify it conforms to standards and is property anchored and installed.
“The last thing it is ever intended to do is to be adversarial,” Mayor Kristine de Haseth said, arguing that town officials needed the guidelines to help resolve shed disputes among neighbors.
Vice Mayor Steve Coz voted against the ordinance, saying it was likely to penalize homeowners with smaller lots and failed to grandfather-in existing sheds. He argued that if sheds cannot be seen by neighbors, and if there were no complaints, then restrictions are unnecessary.
“If you’re really going to get serious about this, then you should wait until there’s more people in town,” Coz said, noting that seasonal residents should have had the opportunity to weigh in on the issue.
Before commissioners voted, the Planning and Zoning panel considered the restrictions for weeks. The ordinance also provided new definitions and regulations for homeowners’ dune crossovers, setting uniform sizes and clarifying placement restrictions. The rules permit only one dune crossover per parcel.
In other business:
• Because of COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings, the town will not hold its annual holiday event at Town Hall in December. Instead, plans are in the works for a parade through town featuring Santa Claus, Stevens said.
• Town Attorney Brian Shutt announced in October he was stepping down to take a job with another law firm. Shutt has done legal work for the town since 2016, after serving nearly 20 years as an attorney for Delray Beach. The West Palm Beach law firm of Torcivia, Donlon, Goddeau & Ansay, which is under contract to represent Ocean Ridge, has not yet named a permanent replacement for Shutt.

By Steve Plunkett

Talking points from the presidential contest are filtering down into this year’s rematch between state Rep. Mike Caruso and challenger Jim Bonfiglio.
The barrier island residents’ statehouse race in 2018 was decided by a scant 32 votes. Republican-leaning District 89 stretches along the coast from Boca Raton north to Singer Island.
Caruso, a first-term Republican, warned South County voters in September that Delray Beach was “defunding the police” by cutting $421,121 from the department’s budget.
“Once crime takes hold in Delray Beach, it will spread to all corners of South Palm Beach County,” Caruso said.
Democrat Bonfiglio fired back, calling Caruso’s email “reckless and irresponsible.”
“Representative Caruso, who brags about his Forensic CPA credentials and tenure as a former Delray Beach Police Advisory Committee member, failed to talk to (Police Chief Javaro) Sims and instead fear-mongered for political gain,” Bonfiglio said.
Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia, a Democrat, also weighed in, saying the $421,121 was “for overtime no longer needed due to canceled events.”
“Representative Caruso’s misleading statements and unfounded attacks on our City Commission and police chief are greatly disappointing,” Petrolia said.
On his campaign website (electmikecaruso.com), Caruso also supports cutting taxes, extending sales tax holidays and helping small businesses cope with the coronavirus pandemic.
Bonfiglio, meanwhile (on jimbonfigliofordistrict89.com), lists Medicare for all as an “ultimate goal” and promises to work for a state law requiring a permit to purchase a gun and banning the sale of military-style weapons. He also wants to raise Florida’s minimum wage from $8.65 to $15.
Caruso, 62, says he wants to safely reopen the state’s economy and get people back to work. “It is incumbent on all of us to do our part by following CDC and state guidelines as well as getting tested if you believe you are sick,” he said.
Caruso, an accountant in Delray Beach, also has a local legislative office in Boca Raton.
As of Oct. 16, the latest numbers available, Caruso reported collecting $397,461 in campaign contributions and spending $319,591.
Bonfiglio, 67, is a lawyer and sat on the Ocean Ridge Town Commission from 2014 to 2018, the final eight months as mayor. He had $348,914 in campaign contributions through Oct. 16, including $77,500 in self-loans and $6,000 in in-kind donations. He had $285,105 in expenses.
Early voting continues from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Nov. 1 in Boca Raton at Sugar Sand Park, Spanish River Library and Florida Atlantic University; in Delray Beach at the Delray Beach Community Center; in Boynton Beach at the Ezell Hester Community Center; and other locations across the county.
Election Day is Nov. 3.

Jody Sorrels stands amid dance props at her shuttered studio in Boynton Beach. She hopes to teach somewhere else.

By Mary Hladky

When Jody Sorrels closed her Boynton Beach dance studio on March 17 because of the coronavirus pandemic, she expected to eventually reopen.
But she struggled to figure out how she could change her teaching style to keep her students safe. They would have to be socially distanced, with no hugging or holding hands.
Even if she took all precautions, Sorrels still worried about the possibility of a student contracting COVID-19 at the studio.
Her family’s health concerns also weighed on her. Her husband, Scott, is a kidney transplant recipient and her son, Joshua, had a kidney transplant on Sept. 6. Reopening could expose them to the virus and jeopardize their lives.
Sorrels finally decided the reopening just could not happen. The studio she owned for 20 years at 1700 Corporate Drive is now permanently closed.
“It is like a death in the family,” she said. “I am mourning my studio. It was my dream to open it. This is not the way I wanted to close it.”
Miss Jody’s Place to Dance is one of many small businesses felled by the pandemic.
Data on business closures is sparse, but it is clear that closures are mounting.
The online review company Yelp said in mid-September that 97,996 businesses across the United States had permanently closed as of the end of August, a 34% increase since its mid-July report.
In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area, 1,949 permanently closed as of July 10, including 417 restaurants and 285 retail businesses. By the end of August, the number had risen to about 2,600, Yelp’s data shows. Not all businesses are listed on its site.
U.S. Census “small business pulse survey” data released on Oct. 1 showed that 1.5% of small businesses in Florida permanently closed in the last week. Data released in early September showed that 0.9% had closed in the last week.
A review of information posted on the websites of some south Palm Beach County businesses shows that closure does not necessarily mean the company is out of business. Some are relocating, possibly to get better rent deals elsewhere or to reduce rent costs by moving into smaller spaces.
A number of businesses operating in multiple locations are scaling back. For example, Le Macaron French Pastries has closed its store on East Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach, but its store in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park is open.

For rent and for lease signs are commonplace in Delray Beach.

In downtown Delray Beach, a Downtown Development Authority inventory started in early May showed that 55 ground floor spaces were empty along Atlantic Avenue between State Road A1A and Northwest Fifth Avenue and along Northeast Second Avenue as of Oct. 9, said DDA Executive Director Laura Simon.
The number of vacancies is much higher than normal, she said.
She estimated about 15% of those vacancies are related to COVID-19. Reasons varied for the others. Some were vacant before the DDA started its inventory. Some of the others had decided not to renew a lease and moved to another part of the city or to a different city. She didn’t know if rent costs were a factor in those decisions.
If non-essential businesses had not been shut down in March, she said the city possibly would have lost only a few of those businesses.
In a second conversation 12 days later, Simon said three businesses had opened downtown, and three more planned to open. “That is good news,” she said.
The turnabout in the downtown’s fortunes was completely unexpected since 2020 was expected to be a “stellar year,” she said.
“On March 13, we went into full crisis mode,” she said. Since then, the DDA has taken steps to help businesses. That includes letting the public know which businesses are open or offering take-out meals, providing information on business assistance programs and generally “being a lifeline for our business community.”
The DDA also plans to implement a business recruitment plan.
National business organizations are sounding the alarm that the situation is dire, worsened because federal financial assistance to businesses has run out.
The National Restaurant Association said on Sept. 14 that one in six restaurants, nearly 100,000, are closed either permanently or long term, with nearly 3 million employees still out of work. The industry is on track to lose $240 billion in sales by the end of the year.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey in July found that 70% of small businesses were concerned about financial hardship due to prolonged closures and 58% worried about having to permanently close. Two-thirds feared they would have to close again or stay closed if a second COVID-19 wave occurs.
Business groups are intensely lobbying Congress to approve additional economic relief, but as of late October no deal was in sight.
“Unless Congress acts there is no opportunity for these small businesses to access another round of (Paycheck Protection Program) funding or even the employee retention tax credit,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and chief policy officer Neil Bradley said on Sept. 1.
The need for congressional action is “critical,” said Dennis Grady, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches. “It would behoove us if politics could be put aside and a next round of PPP would come out.”
Businesses are in a “can we survive another day mentality,” said Troy McLellan, president and CEO of the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce. While he thinks Congress will eventually act, the uncertainty leaves business owners to grapple with “how many weeks and months can I hang on.”
But it’s too late for Stacy Silvestri, owner of five Calico Corners fabric stores in Florida and whose grandfather started the company in 1948.
She shut down her Jacksonville store in July and was holding liquidation sales for her stores in Vero Beach, Stuart, Orlando and at 170 NW 20th St. in Boca Raton in October.
The stores were struggling pre-pandemic as her parent company did not allow her to sell online and fewer people are sewing or interested in custom fabrication.
But when Silvestri reopened after a two-month closure in the spring, customers were leery of in-person shopping and her employees in high-risk groups were nervous about returning to work.
“We got to the point where we had to close them,” she said. That leaves about 65 employees out of work.
“That has been the hardest part, for the employees and the customers,” she said. “It was a very difficult decision to make.
“We had an outpouring from our customers of being very sad,” Silvestri said. “We have a lot of customers who have been very loyal for years.”
Not all Calico Corners stores are closing, with three on Florida’s west coast and others owned by the parent company across the country still in business.

Jen Scoz and Hawk Stillwind closed House of Zen Dali, which they ran for a decade on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Jewelry designer Jen Scoz also decided it didn’t make sense to keep House of Zen Dali in Delray Beach open since profitability had declined after she reopened in May.
She and co-owner Hawk Stillwind closed their store, at 424 E. Atlantic Ave., in August after operating it for 10 years. Five employees lost their jobs.
“I felt OK with it,” Scoz said of the decision. “I felt it was the right thing to do. If you are not being supported in what you are creating, it is time to move on.”
But her loyal customers “were really, really sad to see us leave,” she said. “We were such a stable and beautiful and spiritual part of the community.”
Scoz said she will continue to design and create, although “I don’t know what that looks like yet,” she said in late September.
Sorrels also was deciding next steps in late September. She expected she would teach at another local dance studio.
But launching a new studio once the pandemic is under control is not an option.
“It would be like opening from scratch,” she said. “I can’t put my family in financial jeopardy to do that.”

A late green sea turtle laid this nest Sept. 24 on the beach in Gulf Stream. The eggs were expected to hatch in about 60 days from then. Sea turtle season officially ends Oct. 31 and begins again March 1.
Photo courtesy of Sea Turtle Adventures

By Larry Keller

Navigating the perils of ocean pollution, watercraft, high tides and other hazards, sea turtles are concluding another robust nesting season on South County beaches.
“I think overall it was a good season,” said Joseph Scarola, senior scientist at Ecological Associates Inc., which monitors Delray Beach’s 3-mile shoreline.
Turtle nest monitors in Highland Beach, Boca Raton and elsewhere along the South County coast said much the same.
Three species deposit tens of thousands of eggs on local beaches — loggerhead, green and leatherback turtles.
Nesting season is March 1 to Oct. 31, although some species may venture ashore before or after those dates in very small numbers. At Highland Beach, for example, two existing nests likely won’t produce hatchlings until sometime in November, said Barbara James, who has the marine turtle permit there.
Leatherbacks are the largest sea turtle species and few of them dig nests on South County beaches, preferring oceanfront somewhat to the north. Only 13 leatherback nests were tallied on Boca Raton’s 5 miles of beaches, compared to 18 in 2019, said David Anderson, sea turtle conservation coordinator at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, which keeps tabs on nests there.
That decrease was more than offset elsewhere, however. Last year a record number of 15 leatherback nests were found in Delray Beach. This year saw a new high with 21, Scarola said.
It was a similar story along a 3-mile expanse of beaches in Gulf Stream, Briny Breezes and a portion of Ocean Ridge. Nest monitors from Sea Turtle Adventures located a record-high 19 leatherback nests there. That topped the previous high of 16 nests in 2009, said Jackie Kingston, the nonprofit’s president and founder.
Green turtles are an anomaly in that they nest locally in much greater numbers in odd-numbered years than even-numbered. Last year, a record number of 393 green turtle nests were recorded on Boca’s beaches.
This season’s 132 nests are more aptly compared to the total in 2018, when only 19 nests were counted, or 2016, when there were 38 nests. In fact, this year’s count is a record for an even-numbered year, dating back to 1988 when nest numbers were first tabulated by Gumbo Limbo.
“We jokingly like to say it was a high low,” Anderson said.
Maybe there was an influx from Delray Beach. Green turtle nests there dropped from 58 in 2019 to 42 this year, Scarola said.
Kingston’s 3 miles of beach saw similar results to those in Boca Raton. She said “it was a high low year to our surprise … more greens than we expected for a low year.”
Loggerheads are the most prolific nesters on South County beaches. This year’s 756 nests fell short of last year’s 913 in Boca Raton, but exceeded the 686 nests found in 2018. “It was an above-average year,” Anderson said.
In Delray Beach there were 285 loggerhead nests this year — five shy of last year’s record high of 290, Scarola said. Like Anderson, he said numbers are preliminary, but unlikely to change much.
Although South Florida didn’t suffer a direct hit from a hurricane this season, Hurricane Isaias still managed to “wipe out a lot of nests,” Scarola said. In all, 76 nests were lost to erosion or inundation in Delray Beach this year, compared to 61 last year, he added.
On Boca Raton’s beaches, 108 nests were lost. About 80% of that was due to Isaias and high tides, and 20% to foxes and raccoons, Anderson said.
High tides that reached the dunes also adversely affected Highland Beach’s nests, James said.
Turtle monitors also assess the number of false crawls — instances where tracks indicate a turtle came ashore and then returned to the sea without nesting. Factors such as people on the beach at night, too many lights nearby and unsuitable sand can cause a turtle to delay laying eggs.
All three species had similar false crawl rates as last year in Delray Beach, Scarola said.
In Boca Raton, turtles that came ashore to make a nest returned to the sea more than 60% of the time, Anderson said. They almost always return to try again, he added.
It’s too soon to know the full impact of this season’s temperatures on hatchlings’ gender. FAU professor Jeanette Wyneken’s ongoing research has found that hotter temperatures during sea turtle incubations result in vastly more female hatchlings. In the past two years, she found no males at all in her samplings on Boca’s beaches.
However, a small sampling of hatchlings from two loggerhead nests this season offered encouragement. “We did find some males,” Wyneken said.

By Jane Smith

The much-anticipated public hearing for suspended City Manager George Gretsas was delayed for another month by a unanimous vote of the Delray Beach City Commission at a special hearing Oct. 21.
Gretsas has hired new attorneys to represent him at his termination hearing, now set for 10 a.m. Nov. 20.
The new attorneys, hired on Oct. 20, are Thomas Ali and Stuart N. Kaplan, of the Stuart N. Kaplan law firm in Palm Beach Gardens.
Ali called and sent an email to Lynn Gelin, city attorney, on the morning of Oct. 21. Gretsas’ attorneys requested a two- or three-week postponement to prepare for the hearing. But the earliest time the city’s outside labor counsel, Robert Norton of Allen Norton & Blue, had available was Nov. 20.
In early summer, a different attorney at the same Coral Gables law firm had investigated bullying allegations against Gretsas. Suzanne Fisher, who resigned from her assistant city manager position on Sept. 7, made the accusations.
Allen Norton & Blue issued its report July 3, finding that Gretsas’ behavior toward Fisher was retaliatory and Fisher’s bullying allegations were corroborated by other city employees.
Gelin recommended against pursuing the bullying charges because they would divide the city staff into two camps: for Gretsas or against him.
The new attorneys representing Gretsas agreed that his city manager salary of $265,000 and benefits package worth more than $50,000 would end on Oct. 23. Gretsas was receiving that compensation since he was formally suspended June 24.
Commissioners wanted to stop paying Gretsas while also paying an interim city manager. Jennifer Alvarez, purchasing director, was elevated to the interim city manager position on June 24. During her tenure, she will make $189,500 a year and have a $500 monthly car allowance and $100 cellphone allowance.
“The city failed to turn over a significant amount of public records, some of which I requested almost two months ago,” Gretsas said in a text message sent on Oct. 21. “The documents that I have requested include public records that the Mayor has been storing on her private devices.”
On Oct. 22, Mayor Shelly Petrolia said she has turned over everything.
She is also seeking an opinion from the county’s Ethics Commission. She had called the commission on Oct. 19 to see whether she could participate in the hearing.
Possible conflicts were alleged by Gretsas’ attorneys. They said the vote on Gretsas’ employment status could benefit Petrolia in her own investigation by an outside agency.
Three of the city commissioners agreed Sept. 22 to have Petrolia investigated on whether she improperly directed the interim city manager, possibly violating the city charter.
Petrolia, though, said the Ethics Commission gave her a verbal OK to participate. “But now that we have more time, I will go back and ask for a deeper review,” she said.
City commissioners will act as the judge and jury at the Nov. 20 hearing in commission chambers. The basis for the hearing will be a 38-page report compiled by Julia Davidyan, internal auditor. She interviewed 31 current and former city employees. Davidyan also reviewed numerous emails, the city charter and Florida laws.
In the investigation report given to city commissioners on Oct. 9, Davidyan found Gretsas had “disregarded the city’s interests and policies in the areas of personnel, purchasing and information technology.”
She also found that Gretsas had possibly violated Florida’s Open Records law. His private server did not allow access for the city’s Information Technology Department or city clerk, who needs to pull documents to fill public record requests, Davidyan found.
Any questions brought up outside of the report’s seven possible violations will be considered irrelevant, Gelin told commissioners on Oct. 20.
In 2019, Davidyan also investigated Mark Lauzier. He was fired as city manager on March 1, 2019.
On April 29, 2019, Lauzier sued the city on two counts. The first count claiming whistleblower status was dismissed and lost on appeal in February to the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
The wrongful termination count is headed for a jury trial, expected to start in February, Gelin told commissioners. Ú

By Steve Plunkett

Former Delray Beach Mayor Cary Glickstein is cobbling together a deal that would add a new street to Place Au Soleil with 14 homesites, including two on the Intracoastal.
The Gulf Stream Golf Club and the Florida Inland Navigation District (FIND)would swap acres to create the new development, just north of Place Au Soleil. The developers also hope to buy the homesite at 2900 Avenue Au Soleil but are still in negotiations, Town Manager Greg Dunham said.
In a tentative site plan that Gulf Stream’s land-use consultant is reviewing, the new street is labeled Water View Lane. That drew an objection from Commissioner Donna White, who lives in Place Au Soleil.
The neighborhood’s original developers took inspiration for naming streets from a rainbow they saw while surveying their land purchase, she said. They decided “to name the streets after the colors of the rainbow,” White said, listing Cardinal Circle, Tangerine Way, Canary Walk, Emerald Row, Orchid Lane and Indigo Point.
White said the Water View developers should pick a “colorful” name to go with the rest of Place Au Soleil.
Separately, Dunham reported success in having FIND clear some trees and other growth from its large parcel on the south side of Place Au Soleil after he threatened to take the agency to a special magistrate hearing.
“We’ve been having difficulty with them maintaining the vegetation that comes right up to the fence line,” Dunham said.
In other business in September and October, the town:
• Approved a property tax rate for 2020-2021 of $3.76 per $1,000 of taxable value, the so-called rollback rate that will generate the same revenue that Gulf Stream collected the previous year. Town employees will get a 4% cost-of-living pay raise.
• Promoted police Lt. John Haseley to the rank of captain. Haseley joined Gulf Stream’s Police Department in September 1992, became a sergeant in 2000 and lieutenant in 2016.
• Approved a variance to allow the Little Club to enclose a space on the west side of the clubhouse for an employee lounge and locker room. The lounge will come up to the property line, but was acceptable to all 10 owners at neighboring Las Casitas. Ú

By Jane Smith

Delray Beach commissioners passed a $151.4 million budget on Sept. 22 by drawing $5.2 million from reserves and making $2.76 million in cuts.
The reserves will be used to pay for one-time expenses, including a $150,000 generator for the information technology department, $953,605 for the city’s share of the Homewood Boulevard reconstruction joint project with the county’s Transportation Planning Agency, and a replacement air-conditioning system for the police headquarters at $400,000.
The major cuts came from stopping the city’s free transportation services in the summer months, saving about $500,000; postponing software improvements in Development Services that would allow online filing of permits, saving about $1.05 million; transferring $1 million dedicated to economic development to the general construction fund, and reducing police overtime, saving about $421,000.
Police Chief Javaro Sims said the overtime cuts will not harm police services. City special events have been reduced because of the coronavirus restrictions against large gatherings. That reduction led to fewer overtime details for city police.
After the commission’s Aug. 11 workshop when commissioners had asked for more cuts, interim City Manager Jennifer Alvarez had suggested layoffs might be needed to balance the budget. But by the final budget meeting it was determined that no employees would be laid off or forced to take furlough days.
The coronavirus impacts have hurt cities nationwide by reducing income from parking meters, street valets, sales tax dollars and bed tax money.
Delray Beach just restarted its meters downtown on Sept. 18. They had been turned off for six months. In addition, the commission granted reprieves to valet operators for the rest of the year.
The budget includes $39,000 for salary increases for the commission and the mayor. The raises will go into effect after the new commission takes the dais in late March. The annual commissioner salaries rose to $24,000 from $9,000 and the mayor’s salary increased to $30,000 from $12,000.
That is nearly a 300% increase. The commissioners said they recognized the timing was not ideal when everyone was cutting back because of coronavirus concerns. They also said their salaries are much lower than those of elected officials in nearby Boca Raton and Boynton Beach.
Plus, they agreed that if the economy does not turn around in January, they could always postpone the raises.

Lawsuit against broker reflects tide of adversity businesses have faced

By Mary Thurwachter,
Larry Keller and Jan Norris

When news hit the streets of a court case filed against one of the county’s foremost restaurant brokers — one who once managed a block of struggling shops on Ocean Avenue — no one in Lantana seemed particularly surprised.
While the broker, Tom Prakas, dutifully collected shop owners’ rent each month after he became manager in March 2016, he stopped turning over the money to the property owner 18 months later and used the cash as his personal repository, according to a series of jarring admissions in a sworn deposition.
Prakas spent the money for pricey family vacations and expensive dinners at restaurants, and doled out thousands of dollars to his family, according to a lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. The allegations stem from an eviction lawsuit over $343,000 in unpaid rent. A judge evicted Prakas in 2018.
This news was no shocker to Dave Arm.
“This is an old story,” the Lantana Chamber of Commerce president said. “We’ve known about this, but it finally hit the papers.”
Prakas, Arm said, “has probably been the most successful restaurant broker in South Florida. He’s the go-to guy if you want to buy a restaurant, sell a restaurant, lease property, or buy property and put a restaurant in. He’s the guy. For some reason, he decided he wanted to control this property. He went to Burt Handelsman (who then owned the property) and came up with this idea of doing a 99-year lease.”
The property — a collection of small, colorful old shops on the north side of the 200 block of Ocean Avenue — became Lantana Village, and Prakas put up a sign so everyone would know. But the sign disappeared a few years ago along with Prakas’ dream of turning Ocean Avenue into Lantana’s version of Mizner Park, Arm said.
Only three shops are currently occupied: Mario’s Ocean Avenue, Oceano Kitchen and Jeannie’s Ocean Boutique. The vacancies are a mix of recent closures and buildings that were empty when Prakas arrived.
“There was a hair cutter, but she’s gone,” Arm said. “Set back in there was a little smoothie café, but that’s closed now.”
Arm said one of the features of the Handelsmans’ real estate program “is they really never fix anything up and they never sell anything.” The shops between Oceano and Mario’s are “really dilapidated,” he said.
“They’ve been empty since I’ve been in Lantana,” said Arm, who arrived in 2006. “Tom (Prakas) came up with the idea of getting a master lease on the whole thing, trying to fix up and lease out those shops in the middle that are empty, and also control the leases for Mario’s and Oceano Kitchen and the clothing store,” Arm said. “Apparently Prakas had no idea how code works and how parking works and what the story is in Lantana.”

Breaking the lease
Prakas began deviating almost immediately from terms of a 49-year master lease (with a 49-year option) that he signed in March 2016 for the shops known as Lantana Village. The owner of the properties was Love Lantana Point LLC. Real estate magnates Burt and Lucille “Lovey” Handelsman and their son Steven each had a 33% stake in the company.
The lease stipulated that Prakas — via his own company called Lantana Village LLC — would pay $18,450 a month. The rents he collected from the shops’ subtenants were to cover his own monthly rent on the master lease, as well as taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs, maintenance and the like.
Prakas, however, paid only $15,000 a month from April 2016 through March 2017, and stopped paying any rent at all beginning in October of that year. He purportedly collected $16,000 to $20,000 per month from the tenants. Even when he paid his own rent, he sometimes paid late and sometimes bounced checks, according to court records. He also failed to pay other costs such as insurance and property taxes.
Love Lantana Point sued Lantana Village LLC in January 2018 and sought to evict Prakas and recover unpaid rent and taxes. Prakas, his wife, Donna Gibson, and a son, Nicholas, were later added as defendants for alleged fraudulent transfers and civil conspiracy.
Prakas contends the rent was too high — in part because of insufficient parking — and that he had a verbal agreement with Burt Handelsman, his longtime friend, to pay the lesser amount. The lease, however, stipulated that any amendments had to be in writing.
Meanwhile, the Handelsmans were in the throes of a complex divorce starting in March 2016. Nearly 90 family businesses — including Lantana Village — were among the marital assets contested by the couple. Burt Handelsman, 92, tried to keep the Lantana properties and continue with Prakas as the master lessee.
A judge eventually awarded the properties to his ex-wife and their three children. They are now managed by daughter Marsha Stocker. Prakas said he attempted in vain to reach a settlement with her.

Henry Olmino, who opened Mario’s in 2015, says the restaurant has had good relationships with members of the Handelsman family. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Tenants weigh in
Word of Prakas’ legal problems also came as no surprise to chef Henry Olmino, owner of Mario’s. Because of the ongoing lawsuit, Olmino didn’t want to comment, but he did say he was happy with the relationship he has maintained with Burt and Lovey Handelsman initially and currently their daughter Marsha.
“By the time Prakas took it over as manager everything was done,” said Olmino, who opened Mario’s in 2015. “We were at full roll and all I did was write him a check every month. I have a triple net lease, which means if something breaks, I fix it. So all he did was come by and pick up the rent.”
Olmino began paying rent directly to Handelsman’s wife and children (or Love Lantana Point) after the Handelsmans informed him that Prakas hadn’t been turning over the rent to them. And that’s just fine with Olmino, who says he has a good working relationship with his landlords.
While Olmino was able to weather the Prakas reign, a former tenant was anything but pleased with the former manager.

Good Vibes Acai Bar was one in a string of businesses in this location. The owner feels she was driven out. Photo provided

“We were driven out against our wishes,” said Tara Huber, owner of Good Vibes Acai Bar and smoothie café. “Tom Prakas became our new landlord in April 2016 and by the end of 2017 he succeeded in destroying everything we built and drove us out officially. Due to current litigation, I can’t speak of all the particular things Tom did to us at this time, but I feel telling the truth in short about why we left is no secret to many who know us.”
Huber said she couldn’t understand why Prakas was making it so difficult for her to stay in business. She thought she and her family had created a wonderful community together and brought life to that end of the street. “We assumed we would be his key benefit to helping him build the Lantana Village he often spoke of. 
“We soon found out exactly why,” Huber continued. “His underlying motive and purpose of driving us out was because he loved our concept and all we had built and wanted it for himself and his children to claim the glory of it.”
Prakas nearly tripled Huber’s rent only to gift the shop to two of his sons, Alex and Aristotle, for a fraction of what Huber was paying, she said.
The sons opened a vegan shop, the Current Café, that sold acai bowls and smoothies. Prakas reimbursed them for expenses they incurred to spruce up the property, he said in a deposition.
The Current Café closed in January 2019. Huber had moved her business west to 6169 S. Jog Road in Lake Worth in 2018.
Dak Kerprich, creator of Pizzeria Oceano, was on the block before Prakas arrived but sold his restaurant in early 2017 to Jeremy Bearman, who rebranded it as Oceano Kitchen. Prakas brokered the sale.
“We were not there that long with Tom,” Kerprich recalled. “I introduced Tom to the town of Lantana. That’s when he kind of figured out what they were doing with that property. I introduced him to Dave Thatcher (Lantana’s former director of development). I’ve known Dave for years.
“I worked with Thatcher when I opened up Oceano, then Burt (Handelsman) actually opened up two (parking) spots for me,” Kerprich said. Parking on the avenue has long been an issue.
“I’m probably the only one in the world who can’t say anything bad about Burt,” Kerprich said. “I’ve never had a problem with him. I paid my rent. I liked him. I like listening to him: He’s very interesting — a pleasure to talk to.”
Kerprich also said Prakas was an interesting guy. “You have to take him with a grain of salt. He basically told me what he wanted to do with the block and I told him I was ready to move from Pizzeria Oceano.”
Unlike Olmino, Bearman has a regular lease at Oceano Kitchen. If something has to be repaired at the building, landlord Love Lantana Point pays for it.
“What happened between Tom and Burt,” Bearman said, “was obviously a lot of scheming. It ended up pretty much a bad situation for everyone that was involved. Definitely cost us money in lawyer fees and all the rest of that.
“We don’t have any problems, nobody comes around and asks us anything,” Bearman said. “We do OK with what we have. Nobody’s told us we have to go find other parking.”

Parking issues
“Basically, the empty shops have no parking,” Arm said. “Oceano Kitchen has some parking spots and Mario’s has some parking spots. The parking spots are basically given by the landlord to the tenants to control so they can fulfill the code. So, say Mario’s needs 40 parking spots, it left no spots for these stores. You can’t have a store with no off-street parking. I don’t know if he (Prakas) didn’t know that going in or didn’t research it or thought he’d be able to get around it.”
Prakas, 63, went to the Lantana Town Council on Sept. 26, 2016, to ask for a shared parking agreement that would allow the empty shops to share a town lot on the west side of Dixie Highway on Third Street with Mario’s. But that didn’t work out.
In May 2019, the town did significantly reduce the parking requirements for downtown businesses, and Mario’s, which offers valet parking, no longer needed the town lot. In fact, Olmino said Mario’s never once parked a car on the town-owned lot since he signed the lease for the lot in 2015.
While there is an ongoing debate about whether Ocean Avenue has a parking problem, Arm said he doesn’t think the code is restrictive anymore.
Mayor Dave Stewart adds: “Of course, on Friday evenings and when there are football games and when people go out to the restaurants, yes, parking is at a premium. But every resident can go purchase a parking permit for one year for $36 plus tax and they can park at any spot, anywhere without having to pay a meter — anywhere along Ocean Avenue (where there are no meters), or in the kayak park, Bicentennial Park and Sportsman’s Park where there are meters. I believe we have provided ample spaces for them.”

Prakas’ side of the story
Being a real estate broker, Prakas was hardly a novice at leases and contracts. He says he sold Handelsman millions of dollars of property over the years. When he was young, he worked in the restaurant and bar industry for his parents. By age 21, he opened his own establishments, accumulating 28 restaurants and nightclubs throughout Ohio, Georgia and South Florida. He shed them all in the 1990s, he says, and switched his focus to commercial real estate.
Yet in a pair of sworn depositions, Prakas was fuzzy on details about his bank accounts, said he failed to put agreements in writing and couldn’t explain some of his expenditures.
He contends that Burt Handelsman agreed to the $15,000 in reduced rent until he resolved the parking issues. “I never could get the parking settled,” he said in one deposition.
But he also agreed to the lease even though he said two to four of the structures were so shabby that it would be more economical to tear them down. Prakas said he spent $30,000 on awnings, decks, landscaping and painting the structures. His lease should have been around $10,000 a month, he said.
“It was a bad decision,” Prakas said. “I made a bad deal.”
Handelsman vouched for Prakas’ account. “He didn’t pay the rent that was stipulated in the lease because I said he could take an allowance,” Handelsman said at a court hearing in July 2018. “I made a management decision, what’s best for the company. He was putting back buildings that were falling apart. He was spending far more money than he or I even contemplated that he was going to need.”
In the fall of 2018, Circuit Judge Howard Coates Jr. ordered Prakas to deposit almost $343,000 into a court registry for unpaid rent. Prakas said under oath earlier that he had held onto the subtenants’ rents that he received. But none of the money was paid, and interest is accruing.
Instead the Prakas family treated Lantana Village income as though it was “their personal piggybank,” attorney Jeffrey Fisher, representing the Handelsman children, said in a court filing.
“All told, the Prakas family has conned Love Lantana out of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Fisher wrote.
The entire family — Prakas has six sons and two daughters — spent Thanksgiving and Christmas 2016 on visits to Atlanta, staying at a luxury hotel in the city’s swanky Buckhead area.
Prakas conceded that his son Nicholas — who he said managed Lantana Village for him — repeatedly spent tenants’ rent on personal expenses such as airline tickets, Uber Eats, Starbucks and Domino’s Pizza.
He also acknowledged transferring Lantana Village rent to his wife but said it was to repay a loan she made to Lantana Village. There is no promissory note, he said.
And Prakas transferred Lantana Village income in what he said was “a very small amount” to a Delray Beach building on which he held the master lease. The owner: Burt Handelsman.
“You made a conscious choice to pay yourself and your family members rather than the rent, right?” Fisher asked.
“Well, yeah,” Prakas said.
Prakas, who hasn’t held leases on Ocean Avenue since 2018, was hesitant to comment on the litigation.
“It was a rent thing,” he said. “It was a negotiation. I was trying to renegotiate the lease and got embroiled in the middle of a family battle with the Handelsman family, with the father. That’s all I can say. It’s a Greek tragedy. There are three sides to the story — yours, mine and the truth. They only told one side.”
A trial date has not been set.

How to fill empty shops?
Arm said the Chamber and all of Lantana would like to see something happen and get some businesses into those empty shops.
“I’m not certain how it could be done. It’d be great if something could open up there, if the owners of the property could make that happen,” he said, referring to the Handelsman family.
Alan Ross, whose Shades of Time sunglass shop across the street at 214 E. Ocean has been on Ocean Avenue for 26 years — the first several years in one of the vacant shops the Handelsmans now own — said people have to be realistic about the street’s potential.
“I don’t know what the intentions are of the people that have that property,” Ross said. “In my opinion, 25 years later, this isn’t a street that has a lot of walking traffic at all. You have to have the willingness and/or ability to make yourself a destination with a product that works or you’re just not going to do business.
“I’ve seen businesses come and go and the reason they’ve come and gone is they didn’t do the upfront work they should have done to investigate what the street and its potential was or is.”

Max Weinberg, drummer for Bruce Springsteen, keeps a drum set in the garage of his Delray Beach home. He joined the city’s Planning and Zoning Board this year to serve his new community. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Max Weinberg has spent much of his adult life splitting time between being the drummer for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and serving as bandleader on Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show. But through it all, he has retained a keen interest in real estate, architecture and city planning.
So it may not be surprising that, after some urging from friends, Weinberg earlier this year applied for and was appointed to a position on the Planning and Zoning Board of his new hometown, Delray Beach.
“What you try to do as a drummer is keep the conversation going,” Weinberg said. “So as a Planning and Zoning Board member I’m trying to keep the municipal planning conversation going. And it’s tough.”
Weinberg, 69, started drumming when he was 6 and, at 23, was hired by Springsteen after answering an ad in the Village Voice. One of the high points of their association, which continues to this day, came in 1984 with the release of Born in the U.S.A., an album that spawned a record-tying seven Top 10 hit singles and prompted Springsteen to later say, “Max was the best thing on the record.”
In 1993, a chance meeting with O’Brien resulted in Weinberg’s hiring as bandleader on O’Brien’s late-night show. Weinberg put together a band — The Max Weinberg 7 — and that relationship lasted until 2009.
Weinberg moved to Palm Beach in 2015 before heading to Delray Beach in March 2017. His first meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission was Sept. 21, so he’s still navigating the territory. So far, he’s relying heavily on a 20-year comprehensive plan titled “Always Delray” that came out just last year.
“My interest is to serve the very diverse constituencies who not only are the residents of Delray but who have a vested interest in Delray,” he said. “You have to make sure everybody in the city is being served, and I’m not so sure that’s being done.
“I’m at a time in my life where enough people asked me to get involved that I finally said yes. My professional activities are curtailed, just like everybody else’s,” he said of the coronavirus pandemic, “and I don’t see that changing much during my (two-year) term as a board member. I hope that’s not the case, but I’m not super-optimistic.”
Weinberg, an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band, has been married for 39 years to Becky, a former history teacher. The couple has two children: Ali Weinberg Rogin, a senior producer of foreign affairs for PBS NewsHour in Washington and wife of Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin; and Jay Weinberg, a drummer with the heavy-metal band Slipknot.
Weinberg’s other accomplishments include authoring a book, The Big Beat: Conversations With Rock’s Greatest Drummers, which profiled Ringo Starr, Levon Helm and others; graduating from Seton Hall University at age 38 after a lengthy hiatus due to his band work, and being honored by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for his work with that organization.
— Brian Biggane

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I was born in 1951 in Newark, N.J. We moved to the suburb of Maplewood, N.J., and then to South Orange, N.J. Maplewood-South Orange shared a school system and it was top notch.
I graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood in 1969. In high school I played drums in the marching band, the concert band, stage band and orchestra, so my day was filled with music.
The opportunities back in the ’50s and ’60s for playing music locally abounded and gave me a chance to grow as a player. As a consequence, I was already in a band when the Beatles broke big in 1964. My teen band was sort of the local “stars,” if you will.

Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: Although I have served as an actor and late-night bandleader for many years, and written a book about my favorite drummers called The Big Beat, the professional accomplishment of which I’m most proud is my 46-year association with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.

Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: Recently, I received an honorary doctorate from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and was asked to speak a few words to the graduates. They asked for some career advice. Well, any career, especially today, is so tough and likely to change over the course of one’s working life. But I do believe that it helps to be the first one to arrive on the job and the last one to leave. You’re probably not going to love every working moment, but one should gain a sense of reward from that component of life.

Q: How did you choose to make your home in Delray Beach?
A: My wife, Becky, and I have lived in New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. We chose to live in Delray Beach after several years in another Palm Beach County town for the small-town scale and the extremely friendly and diverse population that comprise the city.
As a newly appointed Planning and Zoning Board member I hope to be able to make a difference in helping to maintain this unique human scale ambience, preserve the best of what Delray offers, particularly architecturally, and improve the rest for all the constituencies comprising the city.

Q: What book are you reading now?
A: My interests are pretty diverse. Most recently I finished The Age of Eisenhower, as I have felt a need to fill in the blanks of my childhood, particularly the widespread misconception that the 1950s were such a “placid” decade. That period was anything but.  
I’d also recommend Freedom’s Forge, which tells the story of FDR and America’s response to the growing dangers of World War II, a conflict for which in 1937 the United States was ill-equipped and unprepared to wage. This book could be a primer for how we need to face our current challenges and those in the future.

Q: What music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: I listen to Sinatra to relax — what else? What music do I find inspiring? Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Letter to You, is my go-to at the moment. Bruce’s stories are real and uplifting and the E Street Band is my musical North Star. Beethoven works well for me as well — and Pavarotti. I’ll get into a heavy Beatles marathon from time to time — no one’s done rock better except for maybe Chuck Berry.

Q: Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A: My father, Bert, was a huge influence, as was my mother, Ruth. They had great values — discipline, strong work ethic, willpower, dignified posture — everything a family needed to get through hard times, and there were certainly a few of those.

Q: If your life story were to be made into a movie, who would play you?
A: Paul Newman, of course, but that would have been unlikely. More likely — Harold Ramis or Eugene Levy.

Q: Who/what makes you laugh?
A: I’m a latecomer to Seinfeld but recently we’ve started at episode one and I find it hysterical and so true. Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel taught me so much about comedy when I was on TV all these years. I still find them both hysterical. Conan: Smart guy, smart humor!

Q: Do you have a favorite cause? If so, why is it so important to you?
A: Save the Chimps in Port St. Lucie is a marvelous sanctuary for these lovely, yet powerful creatures. We support them and also have been longtime patrons of The Gorilla Foundation. I cry when I see the injustices perpetrated on the human species’ closest relatives.  
The Golden Rule should be extended to all animals, as it’s heartbreaking to witness the effects of climate change on defenseless creatures, let alone we humans.  
Take a look at the iconic photograph Earthrise and embrace the reality that we are killing our unique habitat. One doesn’t need to be an astronaut to marvel at what we’ve been given and are so in danger of losing.
Apart from the preceding I am a strong supporter of preserving our architectural past. Whether public buildings like the destruction of New York City’s Pennsylvania Station between 1963 and 1966 or locally and most recently, the misguided demolition of legendary Sarasota School architect Paul Rudolph’s historically recognized Biggs House on Seabreeze Avenue is distressing to say the least.
I serve on the board of the Delray Beach Preservation Trust and, whether or not one is a fan of a particular architectural style, once they’re gone, they’re gone. And our collective physical history suffers the consequences.