Athletes and film crew produce a Gatorade commercial on Delray Beach in March. The city is steadily becoming a popular destination for the film industry. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Dan Moffett

Frustrated town commissioners are looking for ways to accelerate Gulf Stream’s utilities project after learning it might not be completed until the end of the decade.
“It seems to me this town may need to take some appropriate steps to force the issue,” said Mayor Scott Morgan on hearing town engineering consultant Danny Brannon’s report about the slow pace of progress in burying utility service lines.
Not much has happened since FPL workers completed the first phase of the $5.4 million project and moved power lines underground on the south side of town. Neither AT&T nor Comcast has begun moving their telephone and cable wires off poles in the southern neighborhoods, and FPL is months   away from beginning Phase 2 work on the north side.
Brannon told town commissioners at their March meeting that, based on experience he’s had in other communities such as Jupiter Inlet Colony, it can take between two and three years to get the telephone and cable wires moved after FPL puts its electric wires underground. He said Comcast and AT&T are working on the design plans they’ll need to have in hand before they can begin moving lines to finish the project in the south end.
“I’ve been sitting here for a year on this commission hearing what you’ve reported,” Morgan told Brannon, “and it seems to be about the same. I’m not being critical of you or your company — you’re a marionette at the end of the string from Comcast and AT&T.”
Morgan said the town should consider negotiating a tougher timetable for the north end and get an agreement with the two companies to complete their work in a specific amount of time. He said the town should consider imposing penalties for delays.
Another option is for the town to hire contractors of its own to move the cable wiring. AT&T fabricates its own wires, but the cable company’s work could be done by someone else, and Commissioner Robert Ganger thinks that’s worth exploring.
“I’ve hardly ever seen a Comcast person here — there’s always a truck with some no-name on it that Comcast hires to do their dirty work,” Ganger said. “It’s not that complicated to take a pole, stick wire in some conduit and pull it. This is not rocket science.”
Brannon said outside contractors could cost the town twice as much as Comcast. “But if time is of the essence, then we’ll have to weigh that,” he said, and told commissioners he had discussed the idea with Comcast representatives in Atlanta.
“We can’t go over this budget,” Ganger said. “But by the same token, we can’t have poles in the skies for the next decade.”
After Comcast and AT&T complete their work, perhaps several years from now, FPL still has to come back and remove all the poles. At the current pace, that conceivably could run into 2019 or beyond.
Commissioners found solace in two positive points: So far, the project has stayed roughly within its budget. And if, heaven forbid, a hurricane should strike the town this season, at least south end residents would have electricity, if nothing else.
“We’ve achieved about a tenth of what we wanted to achieve,” said Ganger, who started pushing the project in 2008. “But at least we’ve achieved something.”

By Dan Moffett

Facing a federal lawsuit from Gulf Stream over hundreds of public records requests, Chris O’Hare has filed complaints against two of the town’s attorneys in two different arenas.
In Palm Beach County Circuit Court, O’Hare is asking Judge Peter Blanc to disqualify Robert Sweetapple, an outside attorney Gulf Stream hired last year, from representing the town against him. O’Hare says Sweetapple represented him 17 years ago when he lived in Ocean Ridge and had a dispute with the town over code violations after the construction of a roof on his house.
And in Tallahassee, O’Hare has filed a complaint against longtime Town Attorney John Randolph with the state Commission on Ethics, alleging he has referred business to his law firm without first getting proper contractual approval from the town.
O’Hare says that his prior relationship with Sweetapple could damage his chances of defending himself against a RICO suit the town has filed against him and another resident, Martin O’Boyle.
The suit alleges the two men conspired to extort legal settlements from Gulf Stream by filing hundreds of frivolous requests for public records.
“He knows things, even some of those private things that could do real damage,” O’Hare said. “Like everybody else, I have private information I want to keep private.”
During four hours of deposition with O’Hare in February, Sweetapple repeatedly asserted that the work he did for O’Hare in 1998 has no relevance to the work he is doing for Gulf Stream today. Sweetapple told O’Hare that as long as nothing he does now compromises the outcome he achieved in the Ocean Ridge matter, then there’s no legal reason for his disqualification.
    “Is there anything I’m doing in this case that impacts the Ocean Ridge settlement?” he asked O’Hare.
“You have information that could be very damaging to me that I don’t want the town to have,” O’Hare said.
O’Hare also maintains that he sought legal advice from Sweetapple after Hurricane Wilma damaged his Gulf Stream house in 2005, though the lawyer did not formally represent him — there were no fees paid or contractual agreements signed.
Gulf Stream hired Sweetapple last March to defend the town against lawsuits filed by O’Hare and O’Boyle. He also has become involved in the RICO suit that the town filed in February.
Blanc has scheduled a hearing sometime in mid-April to consider the motion to disqualify Sweetapple.
O’Hare’s ethics complaint against Randolph drew a response from a state ethics investigator in February.
Roberto Anderson-Cardova notified O’Hare that the ethics commission found the complaint to be “sufficient for investigation.” Anderson-Cordova said he intends to interview witnesses who might substantiate the claim.
Vice Mayor Robert Ganger has said that the commission, by voting to authorize Mayor Scott Morgan to lead the town’s legal defense, also implicitly authorized Morgan to send work on cases involving O’Hare and O’Boyle to Randolph’s West Palm Beach law firm, Jones, Foster, Johnston & Stubbs. “It’s precisely what we expected to happen,” Ganger said.
Commissioner Joan Orthwein said, “We gave Mayor Morgan explicit directions to be the head of the counsel for any litigation. I think he’s acting exactly as he should have” in hiring Randolph’s firm.

By Steve Pike

    The Brown Jug — symbol of golf supremacy in Gulf Stream — went to the Little Club on March 26. The host Little Club defeated neighbor St. Andrews Club 18-15 in the annual event that began in 1975.
    The tournament, which featured two-man teams from each club, was played in a Nassau point system, with the most points any team could get being three.
    A “tournament within a tournament’’ also was held, with each foursome competing in a Best Ball format. The Little Club team of John Lynch, Charles Begg, Henry Hagan and Peter Stockman recorded a 17-under score of 37 on the par-three layout (2,102 yards) to win that event.
    The Brown Jug is one of the more anticipated events of the year at each club.
    “It’s a fun event,’’ said St. Andrews Head Professional Jim Simon. “This year it seems like we had more participation than last year.’’
    St. Andrews member (and resident) Bruce Bone has participated in many of the Brown Jug tournaments over the years, dating back to his first event in 1977.
“It’s a big event for us at St. Andrews,’’ said Bone, who splits his year between Gulf Stream and Toronto. “We don’t like it when the jug is over here (at the Little Club).’’
    The Brown Jug is the first of two big tournaments at the Little Club this season. The club will host the South Florida PGA Southeast Section Pro-Pro tournament on April 17 and then shut down the course on May 4 to renovate its greens with Platinum TE Paspalum grass.
    Little Club Head Professional Wanda Krolikowski said the plan is to reopen the course in late August. Legendary golf course architect (and Gulf Stream resident) Pete Dye — who along with his wife, Alice, are founding members of the Little Club (1968)— is overseeing the renovation, which also will include the reshaping of some greens.
    The greens renovation at the Little Club make it a Gulf Stream trifecta for Dye, who has recently renovated St. Andrews and Gulf Stream Golf Club. At Gulf Stream, Dye replaced Paspalum with Celebration Bermuda grass basically because that course uses more fresh water than saltwater tolerant Paspalum.
    “We have more salt intrusion, which is why we’re using Platinum TE Paspalum,’’ Krolikowski said. “We have more salt intrusion than St. Andrews, but we’re on the same aquifer. Because of that, Pete Dye’s recommendation a long time ago was to stay with the natural flow of the Paspalum.’’
    Platinum TE Paspalum, Krolikowski said, is a “much thinner blade’’ of grass than the strain of Paspalum currently on the greens.
    “It creates a much better putting surface,’’ Krolikowski said.

St Andrews Club members Noel Copen  and Dick Morris at the tee of the 8th hole.

Joseph Hardiman, who plays for the Little Club, won a prize for the closest to the hole, with a drive that stopped just 7 inches from the cup.  Photos by Jerry Lower/ The Coastal Star

Part of the foursome with the best overall score, Little Club member Jack Lynch was swinging some classic hickory-shaft clubs.

By Dan Moffett

When Palm Beach County voters overwhelmingly approved the creation of an Inspector General’s Office in 2010, they made a binding contract with cities and towns that requires them to help pay for the new watchdog.
That is the centerpiece of Circuit Judge Catherine Brunson’s 11-page ruling in the four-year legal fight between the county and a coalition of 14 municipalities over how the IG office should be funded.
In her March 12 decision, Brunson sided with the county on almost every point of contention in the lawsuit. She dismissed the cities’ claim that the county was imposing an unlawful tax. She rejected the notion that municipal residents were victims of double taxation.  She gave no weight to complaints about interfering with budgeting. She threw out the argument that sovereign immunity prohibits the county from interfering in how cities and towns govern themselves.
Brunson, after deliberating nearly eight months since the August trial, sent out a relatively simple message to the plaintiff municipalities: The voters have spoken. Now deal with it.
“The court ruled essentially that voters, by approving the referendum, executed a valid and binding contract on behalf of their municipalities to pay for the countywide program,” said Manalapan Town Attorney Keith Davis. “The court said the payments are not an unlawful tax but are in fact a user fee which the municipalities could have opted out of at the point of the vote on the referendum.”
Delray Beach City Attorney Noel Pfeffer said there was “a lot of legal nuance” in the judge’s decision, as well as “both policy and legal overtones” that could impact the way governments interact with each other.
“This ruling touches on four or five cornerstones of local government law with respect to cities’ municipal powers,” Pfeffer said. “There’s a lot for elected officials to consider.”
Pfeffer said he intends to discuss the ruling with city commissioners during their first April meeting to find out whether they want to continue as a plaintiff and pursue a probable appeal.
Davis has already received the go-ahead from his Town Commission to stay in the case.
“As we’ve said all along, we truly believe that the law is on the side of the municipalities,” Davis said. “I don’t think anybody truly believed this would be resolved at the lower level. The belief was it would ultimately go through the appellate process so the law can be decided once and for all.”
 On March 26, the cities petitioned the court for a rehearing on the grounds that Brunson, to make her decision, went beyond the issues discussed during the trial. The motion is unlikely to be granted.
 Davis said West Palm Beach has committed to continue “doing all the heavy lifting” and paying for the appeal case, making the decision to stay in the suit easier for the other plaintiffs. Coastal communities Boca Raton, Gulf Stream, Highland Beach and Ocean Ridge appear likely to remain in the group of 14. Other members include Riviera Beach, Lake Park, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, Tequesta, Palm Beach Shores and Mangonia Park.
The cities aren’t challenging the existence of the IG office — just how to pay for it.
“That idea could set in motion a dangerous set of events,” Elliot Cohen, a spokesman for West Palm Beach, said of the ruling. “If a public referendum can give any county the right to reach into any cities’ pockets and collect any amount of money it claims is needed, it not only violates the sovereignty of the cities, but it wreaks  havoc with the cities’ ability to properly and predictably handle their budgets.”
Brunson disagreed. “The municipalities overstate the extent of their discretion with respect to establishing a budget as it relates to this issue.” She said the voters’ approval of the IG office overrides the authority of towns and cities to spend tax dollars as they see fit.
“Each municipality’s power to make a budget is not a purely discretionary function as its discretion may be modified or restricted by the electorate through its referendum powers,” she wrote.
The plaintiffs also lost the argument that taxpayers living in municipalities were paying twice for IG services compared with taxpayers who live in unincorporated areas and have no local government to pay. Brunson said residents of towns and cities can take advantage of distinct benefits from the IG office in their own communities.“The municipalities and their citizens have the opportunity to file complaints and receive investigations, audits and reviews of their own governing body,” she wrote. “This is clearly a real and substantial benefit uniquely provided to the municipalities.”
Perhaps most compelling, Brunson shot down the idea of sovereign immunity — that towns and cities inherently have the autonomy to set up their own governments and run their communities as they want without interference from the county.
“The municipalities present no persuasive legal authority to support these assertions that sovereign immunity invalidates the vote of approval by their respective citizens,” she wrote, again pointing to the ballot box as the ultimate authority.
Gulf Stream Town Manager William Thrasher said voters didn’t have all the information they needed when they went to the polls. “The IG was a good idea and there is great need, but it was very vague in the referendum language,” Thrasher said. “I think there is justifiable reason to argue against the funding method presently being used.” Ú

Editor Mary Kate Leming and Publisher Jerry Lower, were honored by the Boys and Girls Club.
Photo provided

When we started The Coastal Star in November 2008, the last thing we anticipated was to be recognized with a community award.
After many years in daily journalism, we knew the important role a newspaper can play in its community, of course. And we understood it was critical to dig into local coverage: to put pressure on government when questions of transparency and fairness arise, to let the majority know what is happening when the few try to make change happen without public debate. Hell, we learned sometimes you even have to count the votes.
It’s seldom an easy job and we often get weary of the work hours, the staff management and, more recently, the legal fees.
So, we were honored (and humbled) to be recognized by the Naoma Donnelley Haggin Boys & Girls Club of Delray Beach with the Forrest & Francis Lattner Community Impact Award at their March 19 “Be Great” dinner.
Recognized that same evening was Kyra Dobard, 17, the 2015 Youth of the Year award winner.
Kyra, too, is an important part of our community. After nine years as an active participant at the Boys & Girls Club, she’s about to head off to college to pursue a pharmacy degree. We wish her much success.
We hope she’ll return to the area when she graduates. Young people like Kyra are the rock on which we build our future. Kyra makes me believe our future is solid.
In our shifting media landscape, I suspect it will be a rare day when Kyra holds a print newspaper in her hand. We hope that her mobile device will deliver digital “news” where the principles of journalism have not been chipped away by corporate desires for cheap and easy niche marketing and unrealistic profit margin expectations.
We are fortunate to have so many local businesses that support our journalism. We work closely with these businesses — and with our friends at the nonprofits — in many ways to strengthen the broader community. The Coastal Star is honored to be part of this ongoing relationship and grateful for this community recognition.
And because we believe all of the children in our community hold the keys to our future, we ask you to join us in supporting the work of the Boys & Girls Club of Delray Beach.
To support the Naoma Donnelley Haggin Boys & Girls Club of Delray Beach, call 561-683-3287 or visit bgcpbc.org.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

By Jane Smith
    
Delray Beach needs to provide Disney-style service for its downtown to maintain its image as a world-class destination, said Don Cooper, its new city manager.
    But achieving that high level of service is difficult and costly in a downtown that operates 18-20 hours a day, seven days a week. Compounding the challenge are the dozens of festivals, parades and art shows held every year in the downtown.
    Since more than 80 percent of the property taxes from downtown property owners — nearly $8 million a year — goes to the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, the city is looking to the CRA for more of that money.         The City Commission and CRA board will hold a joint goal-setting session this month after holding individual sessions in February.
An additional $1 per $1,000 of taxable value — $676,032 — goes to the DDA, which markets and promotes a defined downtown area within the CRA boundaries.
“We do not traditionally do a joint goal-setting session,” Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Marjorie Ferrer responded via email, “but will put the question to the board at our May meeting, which is also being attended by the city manager to discuss the goals.”

High on the city’s list of topics to discuss is the number of special events held downtown. “The original purpose was to bring people into the downtown, but now they are having a negative impact of people’s budgets,” Cooper told commissioners on Feb. 13. “Too much of a good thing?”

(l-r) Dawn Lamb (big hat), Michael Sylvestre, Brandon Sylvestre, 4, Colbie Wynn, 4, and Keith Wynn show their ‘Irish’ during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Delray Beach March 14.
Parade organizers estimate almost 50,000 people watched the parade featuring fire-service bagpipe bands and 12 fire engine ladder trucks hoisting giant flags along Atlantic Avenue.
Tim Stepien/ The Coastal Star

    In June, city commissioners will review a policy governing special events. They will be asked to identify the ones the city should host. At the group’s goal-setting session, holiday-related events were mentioned. They are St. Patrick’s Day, Delray Affair, July Fourth, Veterans Day, Christmas Tree lighting and First Night.
    That June session also would include the CRA’s and DDA’s special events where those agencies pay a portion of the costs. Private events will have to pay all costs, including police overtime, street closures, maintenance and cleanup.
    The goal is to limit the number of special events in the downtown.
    Cooper warned the commissioners, “Stakeholders out there who want to have these events will pressure you, the commissioners.”
    His warning was echoed by Francine Ramaglia, assistant city manager, when she said, “We definitely need a policy to prevent event-organizers from going around us to the commission.”
    Mayor Cary Glickstein, Vice Mayor Shelly Petrolia and Deputy Vice Mayor Jordana Jarjura attended the meeting. Commissioners Al Jacquet and Adam Frankel were absent
    At one point Jarjura teased the mayor saying he was known as “the grouchy one.”
    Glickstein defended himself and said, “I’m not grouchy but using common sense.”
    In addition, the Clean and Safe program for the downtown needs a comprehensive restructuring and the city needs a master plan for its beach, Cooper said. Most of the focus is on the downtown, but west of Interstate 95 needs attention to determine what is needed out there and what can be done.
    “You framed our mission perfectly,” Glickstein said. “It is an art to concisely and succinctly define what we need to do.”

‘A complete disconnect’
    “There is a complete disconnect that impacts every department in the city,” Glickstein said, “because that money is not remaining in the city but is going to the CRA for deployment in other areas. Those decisions are being made by other people.”
    Jeff Costello, executive director of the CRA, attended the meeting and said, “I understand … Specific to the downtown, we’ve got to maintain it. To create the Disney effect, you need resources to do that. … Let’s have a plan.”
    City commissioners also want the CRA to consider expanding its eastern borders to include the beach to help pay for the work that needs to be done there.
    But the CRA board members balked.
    “They don’t want buildings on the beach,” Annette Gray, a CRA board member, said during its goal-setting session. “But they want us to move our boundaries to be able to spend more money on the beach.”
    When the city was reviewing its downtown height limits last year, she said, the commission was focused on the CRA moving its boundaries and didn’t look at other possibilities such as attaching an extra fee to builders who want permission to build to five stories and have that money go to preserve and maintain the beach.
    Gray said the city was not expecting a formal response, but the commissioners “are just testing the waters.”
    CRA board member Reggie Cox said, “We need to spend money throughout the district before we start having conversations about prioritizing other areas.”  
    He blamed the funding of public safety pensions as the reason the city was cash-strapped and looking for “sources to provide the services that people want.”  
    Cooper agreed the public safety pensions are eating up more of the city’s budget. During the current financial year, city contributions to the public safety pensions increased by 17.8 percent or $1.6 million over the previous year.
    “The city has a large unfunded liability with the public safety pensions, but it’s being addressed through recent contracts with the police. We need to negotiate a similar one with the Fire Department,” he said.
    But to blame it solely on “public safety pensions would be wrong,” he said.
    There are many reasons for the city’s current financial challenges. As an example, he said, “Property values have come back (in the downtown) after the recession, but most of that money goes to the CRA and not the city.”
    Costello tried to direct the board to find a project east of the Intracoastal such as a parking garage.
    “I attend all of their meetings, workshops,” Costello told his board. “I try to redirect their focus to their priorities such as Old School Square Park Phase II and Veterans Park, instead of broaching that subject.”
    Costello was able to reach a consensus with his board about the CRA’s goals: Old School Square Park Phase II, alley projects in the northwest and southwest areas, expansion of the West Atlantic Redevelopment Plan, Veterans Park renovations, reassessment of the Clean and Safe program and a parking management plan. The CRA board will discuss how to meet the goals at its April 9 meeting.
    Cooper gave this warning to city commissioners in February: “What we need to do is the city needs to catch up and needs CRA assistance, from the maintenance and operations side.”
    The city’s Clean and Safe program, which covers the general cleanliness and safety of the downtown, needs to be restructured with defined boundaries and one person responsible for the program and its budget, Cooper said.
    Otherwise, he predicted, downtown property values “will decline because it’s an unpleasant place. We have to make a maintenance investment to keep the property values up and desirability. That’s our revenue structure. The nature of the money, it is that simple.”

Harvey and Virginia Kimmel have funded a six-figure matching grant to jump-start the expansion of the children’s section at the Delray Beach Public Library. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

Virginia and Harvey Kimmel were renting an apartment in downtown Delray Beach last year when they decided to go for a stroll and learn more about the community.
Along the way, they passed the Delray Beach Public Library.
“We decided to walk in one day,” Harvey Kimmel says. “We got to chatting with the people in the children’s department, and we asked ‘What is it you need?’ That’s when we found out they wanted to expand the children’s section.”
That conversation led the Kimmels to donate more than $5,000 for equipment, including tools kids can use with 3D printers to reshape plastic.
More importantly, that impromptu conversation also led the Kimmels to give a six-figure matching grant to jump-start the expansion of the children’s library section.
The timing of the Kimmels’ generous donation, Library Director Alan Kornblau says, couldn’t have been better.
“We had just started planning for the expansion of the children’s department when all of a sudden, like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, here come Harvey and Virginia Kimmel,” he said.
The gift from the Virginia and Harvey Kimmel Family Grant Program, along with a matching $100,000 to be raised from the community, will go a long way toward helping the library grow the children’s area by 5,000 square feet. Once completed, it will include everything from shelves on wheels that can be moved to create more space, to a recording studio and a family reading area.
“The matching gift gives us an opportunity to go into the community and reach out to prospective new supporters who may not know about how incredible our library is,” said Nancy Dockerty, president of the library’s board of directors.
On the surface, the genesis of the gift from the Kimmels may appear serendipitous. The reality, however, is that chance had little to do with the Kimmels’ decision to support the Delray Beach Public Library, a nonprofit organization run by a board of directors.
Now permanent Delray Beach residents, the Kimmels have a proven track record of supporting education and arts — especially for children — in the communities they call home.
Longtime residents of Philadelphia and surrounding areas, they have been driving forces behind programs there that make it possible for children from underserved communities to do everything from seeing stage productions to going to the movies for just $1. They also have been strong supporters of a program that allows high school students in Philadelphia one year of free admission to the city’s top museums.
Harvey Kimmel — who ran a successful business buying troubled companies and bringing them back to prosperity — was a founder and board chairman of Dancing Classrooms Philadelphia, and the couple strongly supports the Philadelphia Young Playwrights program.  
They are parents of two adult daughters, and in Michigan, where they have a summer home, the Kimmels support an arts assistance program in the public schools and more recently provided seed money for a children’s film festival.
Since moving into their Delray Beach home, with a view of the Intracoastal Waterway, the Kimmels, both 71, have increased their emphasis on helping children here, specifically through their donation to the library.
“This is our home now,” Virginia Kimmel says. “We love Delray Beach and we want it to have the best possibilities for the children.”
Virginia Kimmel’s dedication to helping children and supporting library programs traces its roots back to her childhood and her early professional career as a primary-school teacher working with inner-city kids in Chicago.
“I grew up with not much money and always felt comfortable and safe in the library,” she said. “I knew I could always go there and find a good book to read.”
With their gift to the library, the Kimmels hope to provide more children of Delray Beach with the same opportunity.
“This is our little attempt in the short term to give children of all ages a place to go and in the long term to grow into better citizens,” Harvey Kimmel said.

By Rich Pollack

    Plans to install license-plate recognition cameras along State Road A1A are moving forward, but not as quickly as many from the law enforcement agencies involved had hoped.
    Late last month, Highland Beach town officials gave Police Chief Craig Hartmann preliminary approval to continue negotiations with contractor NDI Recognition Systems, which currently provides cameras and software to the Delray Beach Police Department and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.  
    In asking the town to waive its requirement for three bids before selecting a contractor, Hartmann said that working with NDI would make it easier for Highland Beach to partner with neighboring law-enforcement agencies and thus reduce costs.
    “It’s going to be cost effective for our town to partner with Delray Beach or the Sheriff’s Office and share data,” Hartmann said.
    License-plate recognition systems, like the one offered by NDI, use cameras to scan license plates as they pass. Should a license plate number match one in a database as being on a stolen vehicle or vehicle used in a crime, for example, an alert would be given to dispatchers or police personnel monitoring the system.
    Because Highland Beach does not have its own dispatchers, it would need to rely on either Delray Beach or the Sheriff’s Office to house the database and provide monitoring.
    Though it appears the Highland Beach Police Department has the green light and the funding to move forward with the project, Hartmann said it will still be months before cameras are installed.
    “We’re still in the development stages and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done before it’s operational,” he said.
    Hartmann and other police chiefs, who have been working on providing a coordinated license-plate recognition system for several months, discovered late last month that there may be even more work than anticipated.
    At a meeting with representatives from Florida Power & Light as well as Palm Beach County’s traffic division, law enforcement leaders learned there is still more coordination required with other county and state agencies before the project can move forward.
    “We learned that there are more entities that need to be involved in the decision-making process,” says Jeff Messer, a spokesman for the Delray Beach Police Department. “We aren’t as close to finalizing this as we thought we’d be.”
    Delray Beach currently has a mobile license-plate recognition system but is hoping to install a fixed system as well.
    A lingering issue that still needs to be worked out is whether cameras will be allowed on state rights of way along A1A.
    In addition, not all municipalities involved in the project have signed off on funding.
    Still, there is optimism that a coordinated license-plate recognition system will be in place.
    “At this point its still a viable concept,” says former Ocean Ridge Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi, who serves as a consultant for the initiative. “This is the first time out of the box for us to try to do a multi-jurisdictional project of this magnitude.”

By Mary Thurwachter

Walking tours have long been a favorite of tourists and locals. They provide an entertaining way to dive into culture and history — and in some cases, food and wine — all while getting a little exercise, to boot.

 Here’s a look at six guided tours to get you going.

Lori J. Durante leads a Taste History Tour through West Palm Beach’s Northwood neighborhood.
Photo provided

Taste History Culinary Tours
Founded in 2011, Lori J. Durante’s Taste History is the first of its kind in Palm Beach County. This year’s culinary tours serve up a taste of the cuisine, culture, art and history of the main streets and historic districts in Northwood Village/West Palm Beach, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Lake Worth and Lantana.  
The tours are both educational and entertaining, Durante says.“It’s a bus ride and a lot of walking.” She does all the narrating.  
Tour partners include family-owned eateries, bakeries, markets, cafes, juice bars, tea bars, art galleries and nonprofit cultural centers highlighting local artists. Durante, born and raised in Delray Beach and the executive tour director, developed the Taste History Culinary Tours as an extension of the narrated bus tours of historic Delray Beach that began in 2004.  
“I had a culinary epiphany on Easter Sunday,” she recalls. “I watch the Food Channel all the time and think food is a good way to introduce culture.”
Tickets are $45-$50 per person, free for children younger than14 (accompanied by a paid adult family member).Pre-payment is required. Tours board at Macy’s at the Boynton Beach Mall.  Call 243-2662 or email tour@tastehistoryculinarytours.org. Private group tours also are available.

Denise Righetti (right) leads one of her Savor Our City Culinary Tours.

Savor Our City Culinary Tours
Denise Righetti , another fan of the Food Channel, launched Savor our City Culinary Tours 10 months ago.
“I was familiar with the concept of food tours,” Righetti says. “But it wasn’t until I experienced one in San Francisco that I realized this was what I wanted to bring to South Florida.”  
She provides historical food tours in walkable neighborhoods in Delray Beach, Boca Raton and Palm Beach Gardens, where small business owners, artisans, purveyors, farmers and restaurant chefs share food stories and their passion for local, seasonal, sustainable eats.
Guests are treated to signature tastes from four to six different stops along the way.  
“Our tours are gourmet adventures that take local and visiting foodies behind-the-scenes into each city’s hot culinary communities, where they will be introduced to delicious savory treasures and sweet gems one bite at a time,” she says.
A former marketing manager for Investments Limited in Boca, which has more than 100 restaurants in its portfolio, Righetti wrote food reviews and blogs and then set up tasting menus at restaurants. The culinary tours were a logical next step in her career.
Tours are $65 plus tax and tip. Private tours, art tours and team building outings are available. (954) 410-3177; SavorOurCity.com.

Jo Ann Messuri, one of a team of six Boca Raton Historical Society volunteers, leads a tour at the Express Train Museum at the FEC Railway Station, Count de Hoernle Pavilion. File photo/The Coastal Star

Boca Express Train Museum Tour
The Boca Raton Historical Society provides tours of the Express Train Museum at the FEC Railway Station, Count de Hoernle Pavilion. On display are two 1947 Seaboard Air Line streamliners — dining and lounge rail cars. Both have been restored to their original splendor and deliver a nostalgic look at the glamorous days of train travel.  
“We’ve become a more interactive tour,” says Jo Ann Messuri, one of a team of six Boca Raton Historical Society volunteers at the station. Messuri plays conductor, greets visitors at the depot, tells them about the train cars, blows her whistle and shouts “all aboard.”
“After that, I’m the mover-arounder,” she says, as she leads the visitors to interact with the docents who play waiter and bartender. They have already met the station agent and ticket seller in the depot.
“It’s a lot of fun,” she says. “The chef makes corn muffins with guava jelly for everyone.”
Historically, guava jelly was served to passengers after their train crossed into Florida.
Tours, at 747 S. Dixie Highway, Boca Raton, are on at 1 and 2 p.m. April 10 and 24. A 3 p.m. tour is available for children once a month.
Tickets: $10 for adults, $5 for Boca Raton Historical Society members. Reservations required. 395-6766, ext. 100; bocahistory.org.   

Docent Betty Ristau leads a tour of the Boca Raton Resort & Club. Photos provided

Boca Raton Resort & Club Tours
Those who tour the Boca Raton Resort & Club are amazed at how large and beautiful the property is, says volunteer docent Bonnie Dearborn.
“It’s kind of overwhelming,” says Dearborn, who has been giving tours of the resort for six years. “People find it exciting to learn about how Addison Mizner helped put Boca Raton and the resort on the map and how the hotel has evolved.”
The resort was founded by Mizner in 1926 as the Cloister Inn. The advertising for the hotel was so good at the time and local builders couldn’t keep up with demand. Supplies were hard to come by, Dearborn says, and northerners were coming down in the summer when mosquitoes were fierce.
It all spelled trouble for Mizner.
Clarence Geist, owner of a Philadelphia utilities company, took over Mizner’s bankrupt Cloister Inn and reopened the hotel in 1930 as the Boca Raton Club.
Dearborn, one of a half-dozen volunteer docents from the Boca Raton Historical Society who lead the tours, especially admires Mizner’s design of the Cloister Inn, still a vibrant part of the 89-year-old hotel. But she also applauds the architectural work of S. Fullerton Weaver, who, with his partner, Leonard Schultz, created a 300-room addition to Mizner’s original 100-room inn.  
Tours, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., are available the first and third Tuesday of the month through May. Tickets: $15, plus $10 for hotel valet parking. Reservations are required. 395-6766, Ext. 100; bocahistory.org/tours/

Rick Rose leads his Historical Walking Tours of Worth Avenue each Wednesday. Mary Thurwachter/The Coastal Star

Historical Walking Tours of Worth Avenue
A shopping mecca for the rich and famous, Worth Avenue has a fascinating story to tell, and Rick Rose is there every Wednesday to tell it during Historical Walking Tours of Worth Avenue.
Tours, which benefit (Ernie) Els for Autism Foundation (ElsForAutism.com) and are sponsored by the Worth Avenue Association, are a good way to learn about the history of the Avenue — and Palm Beach.  
As walkers make their way through bougainvillea-covered vias and past bubbling fountains and designer shops and boutiques, Rose weaves in details about fashion and architecture. Gucci, he says, debuted fashions on the Avenue and Lilly Pulitzer opened her first dress shop in Via Mizner.
No discussion of Palm Beach history would be complete without a primer on Addison Mizner, who gave the Avenue and Palm Beach its distinctive look — and buried his pet spider monkey, Johnnie Brown, in Via Mizner. Tours last 75 minutes and begin at 11 a.m. Wednesdays from November through April.  
Starts at 256 Worth Ave. (Via Amore). Tickets: $10. Reservations aren’t necessary. 659-6909; worth-avenue.com. 

Historical Walking Tours of Downtown West Palm Beach
Architect and historian Rick Gonzalez leads seasonal one-hour guided tours that showcase the evolution of downtown West Palm Beach buildings and landmarks and includes an historical urban design overview through recent development.
The next tour, presented by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County, begins at 4 p.m. on April 10. Participants meet at the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, 300 N. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach.
Free, but donations may be made to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. Registration: 832-4164, Ext. 103 or www.historicalsocietypbc.org.

Impact 100 Palm Beach County Co-Presidents Sue Diener and Susan Duane. Photo provided

By Amy Woods

One woman. One meeting. One vote. The model on which Impact 100 Palm Beach County was founded has attracted more than 300 local philanthropists united in the goal of making a difference.
Upon joining, each member agrees to give $1,000 to a pooled fund that, after a detailed vetting process by a special committee, donates $100,000 grants to a handful of area nonprofits.
“We’re doing some incredible things,” Co-President Sue Diener said. “I like the impact we’re having.”
Grants for the 2014–15 year will be presented April 16 at the organization’s Grand Awards Ceremony. The amount of money in the coffers — as of press time, it was around $350,000 — determines how many charities will receive the welcome windfall.
“Everything we generate by members we put back out into the community,” Diener said. “It’s amazing what some of our recipients have done.”
When Impact 100 Palm Beach County debuted in 2012, it met an initial $100,000 fundraising goal and deemed the Parent-Child Center its first beneficiary. The social-services agency used the funding to pay therapists to work with families onsite when authorities remove children from homes in domestic-violence situations.
The program quickly was recognized in Tallahassee.
“They ended up getting another $600,000 grant from the state to make it a statewide program,” Diener said. “We’re just thrilled at what we helped start.”
The fundraising goals for 2013 and 2014 were $200,000 and $300,000, respectively, and this year’s goal is $400,000. All grants go to charities that fall into five focus groups: arts and culture; education; environment; family; and health and wellness.
“Last year, I turned my $1,000 into $300,000,” Diener said. “My husband, he’s a stockbroker, and he’s good, but not that good.”
More than 50 members serve on the committee that selects the finalists. They whittled down 71 applicants to 23, and then the 23 to no more than six. The entire membership will vote on the winners during a 30-minute, closed-door business meeting at the ceremony.
“There’s a little bit of magic in the room,” Co-President Susan Duane said. “It’s interesting. Every woman — although we may not have the wherewithal to donate $100,000 individually — we all feel at that moment as if we did.”
The fundraising goal for 2016 is $500,000 so all five focus groups can be impacted. Bigger goals lie beyond that, Duane said.
“If we are fortunate, and if we work hard in the next 10 years, our goal would be to distribute 10 $100,000 grants every year,” she said. “A million dollars. That’s big.”

The 58th-annual affair attended by 700 guests made history with its ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ theme. Current and former ambassadors stood in a receiving line, as did special guests Shirley MacLaine and William Shatner and the evening’s performer, Wayne Newton. ABOVE: Dr. Robert Mackler, with Lois Pope. Photo provided by CAPEHART

A moving and powerful documentary about temple member Michelle Brandfon’s family’s experience highlighted the monthly series. Titled ‘No Place on Earth,’ the film shares the story of Jews ages 2 to 78 who survived the Holocaust by going underground and living in caves in the Ukraine. Brandfon, a descendent of the families portrayed in the film, and the film’s producer, Susan Barnett, participated in a question-and-answer session with the 500 attendees. Sharon Wagman, Congregation B’nai Israel’s executive director, said many tears were shed during the screening. ABOVE: Gary Weiner, Wagman, Barnett, Claire and William Kalman, Brandfon and Rabbi Robert Silvers. Photo provided

The University Club of the Florida Atlantic University Foundation celebrated its gambling-themed gala with gaming including blackjack, craps, poker, roulette and slot machines and dinner-by-the-bite. Funds raised benefit academic programs and scholarships, as well as the Louis and Anne Green Memory and Wellness Center. ABOVE: Victor Hadeed and University Club President Marlis Hadeed. Photo provided

The Palm Beach Symphony turned a dreamy night into reality during the annual gala. ‘The annual gala is an opportunity to help the Palm Beach Symphony sustain the world-class symphonic music that it has been providing for over 40 years,’ Co-Chairwoman Arlette Gordon said. The evening included a reception, dinner and dancing, live and silent auctions and an orchestral performance. ABOVE: Chips and Sarah Page. BELOW: Diana Paxton and David Kamm. Photos provided by CAPEHART

Leaders celebrated the first phase of the center’s ‘West Wing’ improvements, which include the opening of the Hall of Discovery, a space that has been expanded by 5,000 square feet and features hands-on, interactive exhibits with a modern twist. A highlight of the opening included the first bilingual exhibit, which explores nanoscience and engineering. RIGHT: Jay and Marilyn Spechler. Photo by Esteban Parchuc/South Florida Science Center and Aquarium

The 12th-annual event themed ‘Friends of A Feather Flock Together’ honored women while empowering local children by supporting education in art, journalism, science and other disciplines. The theme symbolizes the 45th year of ‘Sesame Street’ and Big Bird. The 2015 award recipients are Iris Apfel, Herme de Wyman Miro, Eddy Taylor and Kathryn Vecellio. ABOVE: MaryEllen Pate, Wendy Roberts, Dr. Nicholas Perricone, Rhoda Warren, Suzi Goldsmith and Elaine Citirico. Photo provided by Janis Bucher

The Palm Beach International Film Festival anounced it now has a home at the Plaza Theatre in Manalapan’s Plaza del Mar.  The location not only will provide a headquarters and home for movies, but also will be used for small theater productions and classes. ABOVE: Festival Chairman Jeff Davis, with Rhonda Small, John and Gil Ingram and Festival President and CEO Randi Emerman.  Jerry Lower/ The Coastal Star