Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office URGES Fireworks Safety

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is urging Palm Beach County residents to think about safety as they make plans to celebrate the “Fourth of July.”

Every year thousands of people and animals are killed or critically injured by fireworks.  Keeping horses and pets comfortable is important! Know where they feel safe and check to be sure your fields and stalls are free from hazard. If necessary, contact your veterinarian and inquire about giving horses or pets a sedative to help keep them from hurting themselves. Take the time to check all fence lines and door latches to insure pets cannot get loose. Fireworks can result in severe burns, scars and disfigurement that can last a lifetime, for that reason. “fireworks are illegal to use without a permit.”

Some of the illegal fireworks prohibited for normal resale are as follows:

- Common Bottle Rockets                    - Firecrackers (Rolls)       - Standard Fireworks

- M80’s with Mortar                            - M80’s                            - Projectile Fireworks

- Launchable Rockets with Stands

(The above listed items are only a few samples commonly purchased by people that are prohibited for sale.)

- WARNING -

You should not sign “waivers” in order to purchase fireworks.  A “waiver” will not clear you of responsibility should you be caught using illegal fireworks.  The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office will be enforcing the use of illegal fireworks.  Using fireworks illegally is a first degree misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

If you are using “legal” sparklers, novelties and trick noisemakers there is still a risk of injury.  When lit, some sparklers can reach temperatures between 1,300 and 1,800 degrees, which are at least 200 degrees hotter than standard butane lighter.

Follow these precautions to celebrate safely:

·      Use sparklers and other “legal” novelties on a flat, hard surface.  Do not light them on grass.

·      Use sparklers in an open area.  Keep children and pets at least 30 feet away from all ignited fireworks.  Also keep in mind that livestock such as horses, cows, etc. can also be frightened by fireworks.

·      Light only one item at a time and never attempt to re-light a dud.

·      Don’t purchase or use any unwrapped items or items that may have been tampered with.

·      Keep a fire extinguisher or water hose on hand for emergencies. 

Remember: “IF IT LAUNCHES OR EXPLODES, IT IS OFF LIMITS.”

Reminder - during extreme drought there is a heightened chance of fires.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office wishes you a safe “Fourth of July”

The Container Story Private Preview Party
Town Center Mall, Boca Raton  – June 13

ABOVE TOP: Members of The Container Store’s executive team share a kickline to salute new employees. ABOVE:  Garrett Boone, chairman emeritus of The Container Store, with Junior League of Boca Raton President Crystal McMillin. The store donated $13,000 of its grand opening weekend sales to the Junior League.
Photos provided

By Thom Smith  

Unless something dramatic happens, literally, at the midnight hour, the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach in Manalapan will become Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa.
    Rest assured, it didn’t happen overnight. Two years ago, the resort’s owners, RC/PB, sued the resort’s management team, Marriott International and Avendra for “utter disregard of fiduciary, contractual and statutory obligations.”  Essentially, RC/PB says Marriott is skimming profits, the suit claimed.
    Marriott and Avendra have countersued for breach of contract. Down in Miami, the legendary Eden Roc has severed its ties with Marriott’s Renaissance management company for similar reasons. RC/PB has assured its more than 450 employees that they will retain their jobs and salaries if they stay.
    To handle sales and marketing at Eau, RC/PB has hired Preferred Hotel Group, which is hardly new to the neighborhood. Based in Chicago, Preferred contracts with hotels on every continent except Antarctica, including Jupiter Beach Resort and, in Delray, the Colony and The Seagate. Eau. Uh, eau.  
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    Surprise, surprise! Trader Joe’s is coming to Boca.
A month ago, all the talk was about the hot, hot, hot California-based specialty grocer opening its first South Florida store in Miami this fall and another in Palm Beach Gardens next year. That all changed June 25 when the company added Boca Raton ... sometime next year.
No word on what this might mean for the proposed Delray Beach location at Linton Boulevard and Federal Highway.        

Joe’s is hip. It sells lots gourmet, organic and “alternative” food. Cheeses, wines and beers, tofu, even vitamins. No MSG or trans fats. No artificial hormones in its dairy products. Service is a cornerstone. In 2009, Consumer Reports and MSN Money ranked it No. 2 in customer service.
The brand is owned by the German family trust Markus-Stiftung, parent company of Aldi Nord, a supermarket chain which recently began to open Aldi supermarkets in Palm Beach County. Compared with large grocers such as Publix, which may stock 50,000 different items, Trader Joe’s offers about 4,000, most of which carry its own brand names, which helps keep prices lower.  
The Boca store, planned for the East City Center, a new three-building complex of shops and offices, will occupy only 12,500 square feet, about one-third that of the Publix a block away. You can bet the Lakeland-based big boy already has taken notice.  
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Long before Boca began to bustle with trendy, chic, hot, hot, hot restaurants, the standard by which all others were measured was “the old house.” In French it sounds so different, so much more pretentious —  La Vieille Maison — but for three decades it was the place to go.
Built in 1927 as a home on East Palmetto Park Road, a block east of the Intracoastal, it was bought it in the ’70s by Leonce Picot and transformed into a French delight. Several dining rooms. Tuxedoed, multilingual waiters. Menus without prices for women guests. Food to live for. Constantly ranked among the state’s best. Groupon-like deals, forget it.
    But age and economics forced Picot to sell in 2006. In 2011, the building was deemed beyond repair and bulldozed.
    One of the people who grew up in Picot’s shadow was Arturo Gismondi. Over the years he’s become the Italian equivalent to Picot, with two highly regarded restaurants (Arturo’s Ristorante on North Federal, Trattoria Romana on East Palmetto Park Road), Cannoli Kitchen takeouts east and west and, most recently, Biergarten Boca Raton, a Tyrolean drafthouse in revitalized Royal Palm Place.
    Now Gismondi wants to try something French. He’s found a site — the former Lilly’s in the building (at 5 Palms apartment complex) next to Trattoria Romana. Proposed as an homage to La Vieille Maison, but with a modern twist, it will be called La Nouvelle Maison (“The New House”). Arturo plans a January opening.
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    Westward, ho! … Merchants along Atlantic Avenue complain business is suffering because too much happens on Delray’s “main street.” Street festivals, parades, dining events at long, long tables — it’s just too much. So the folks who organize many of those events — the Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative — are moving in a different direction.  
    Instead of running east along Atlantic Avenue from Swinton, the Aug. 8 On the Ave celebration will run north-south from the bandshell at Atlantic and Northwest Fifth Avenue to Spady Elementary School. A month later, the party will move back east but will keep the north-south orientation through Pineapple Grove.
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    The recently renamed Delray Beach Center for the Arts at Old School Square — still known to hoi polloi as Old School Square — has always offered a little something for everyone. With acts such as the Lettermen (Nov. 22-24), Home for the Holidays on Ice (Dec. 20-22), Flipside — The Patti Page Story (Jan. 17-19), Hair (Feb. 14-16); Rhythm of the Dance (March 7-9) and The Golden Dragon Acrobats’ Cirque Ziva (March 28-30), the 2013-14 season continues that skein.
    Executive Director Joe Gillie will have a difficult time, however, trying to top this season’s lecture series, which opens glamorously Jan. 16 with Golden Globe and People’s Choice winner Linda Evans. The star of Big Valley and Dynasty is no stranger to the area, although Delray has certainly changed since her 10-year relationship with Manalapan resident Yanni ended in 1998.
    Next in on Feb. 13 will be Elizabeth Smart, a national advocate for nationwide reform of child abduction laws. Her memoir about her abduction in 2002 will be published this fall. At age 14, Smart was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City and sexually abused for nine months before her abductors were captured. Legal proceedings dragged on for years. In December 2010, a jury rejected Brian David Mitchell’s insanity defense, and in May 2011 he began serving a life sentence.
    In February 2012, Smart married Matthew Gilmour, whom she met in Paris, where both were serving as Mormon missionaries.
    Tony Mendez, the mastermind behind the hostage rescue mission chronicled in Oscar-winner Argo — he was played by Ben Affleck — speaks March 20, followed April 10 by Story Musgrave, the 30-year NASA astronaut who performed the first shuttle spacewalk and led the Hubble telescope repair team.  
    “It’s crazy; it gets better every year,” Gillie said. “The lower level is already sold out. There won’t be a seat left.” (243-7922 or delraycenterforthearts.org)
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    Just in time for the city’s 100th anniversary celebration, the Lake Worth Historical Museum — closed for 17 months after the City Council cut it from the budget — is open again on the second floor of the City Hall Annex. A small staff of volunteers welcomes the public from 1 to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, with more hours to be added as additional volunteers sign on. Call 533-7354.
    Art to the east, art to the west … If everything works out with the Community Redevelopment Agency’s grant application, the old shuffleboard center on Lucerne will become an art center. City commissioners voted in mid-June to lease the center to the CRA and to spend $37,500 to design the renovation. It’s part of the CRA’s plan to emphasize art, which sparked the move of the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County to 601 E. Lake Ave. and construction of 12 live/work townhomes for artists across the street. Of course, if the CRA’s application for a state grant falls through, the lease will be killed.
    The CRA envisions an arts district extending west to Lake Worth High School. Goals and reality, however, often don’t jibe. Lake Worth may be ambitious, but the town isn’t as well off financially as Boca or Delray, and while development of an arts community would seem to be a noble cause, some residents like shuffleboard, others just don’t want change and still others would like to see the city return to what it was like 100 years ago.    
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    Tripping the not-so-light fantastic … The folks who run the George Snow Scholarship Fund have announced the participants for the Sixth Annual Boca Ballroom Battle. The Aug. 16 event at the Boca Raton Resort & Club pairs members of the community with professional dancers from the Fred Astaire Dance Studio who compete for a grand prize — the coveted mirrored ball.
    The lineup includes Miami Dolphins chief financial and administrative officer Mark Brockelman; Gary Collins, general manager at Frenchman’s Reserve Country Club; plastic surgeon Dr. Anthony N. Dardano; Dorothy MacDiarmid, partner at Cloud 9 Consulting; Marie Occhigrossi, an attorney with Weitz & Luxenberg; Global Communication Networks founder and CEO Chris Palermo; Cecilia Peters, educator at Westminster Academy; Marie Speed, editor at Boca Raton magazine.
    The Ballroom Battle, patterned after TV’s Dancing With the Stars, raises money for the George Snow Scholarship Fund, which has provided more than $4 million in college scholarships, including $580,000 to 80 students this year. To contribute or buy tickets: 347-6799 or www.scholarship.org.
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 The temperature may be up, but life on the FAU campus seems to have cooled down. Give credit to Dennis Crudele, who took charge immediately after being appointed interim president. In mid-May FAU’s board of trustees chose Crudele to replace Mary Jane Saunders, who resigned after the ill-advised attempt to name the school stadium for GEO, the prisons for-profit corporation with headquarters just across I-95 from the campus.
On- and off-campus reports have Crudele, former senior vice president of financial affairs, with a steady hand on the throttle. And barely a month on the job, the school’s trustees moved him from acting to interim president. That gives the board some time to search, since Crudele is set to retire at the end of 2014.
                                             ***
As Saunders headed out, some new, much-needed faces headed in — to improve public relations. And not just with the GEO and mislabeled “Stomp Jesus” classroom controversies. Two professional public relations agencies have been retained to develop a better system for getting the word out about the positive contributions FAU makes in the community. Until that move was made, the school employed only two full-time publicists; most schools of its size rely on 10 or more.  
    One of their first projects will be to spread the news about Dr. Deandre Poole, the communications instructor involved in the so-called “Stomp Jesus” incident last spring. Using an exercise developed at a Christian institution and used at many schools, Poole instructed his students to write “Jesus” on a sheet of paper and then step on the paper. One student took issue with the exercise, protested vociferously and confronted Poole.
    School administrators at first suspended the student, for reportedly threatening Poole. Then Gov. Rick Scott jumped in — the student was reinstated, and Poole was suspended pending an inquiry. School administrators cited concerns for his safety. National media jumped all over it, especially conservative Christians. With no supporting evidence, many suggested that Poole, himself a devout Christian, had some other agenda because he is vice chair of the Palm Beach County Democratic Executive Committee.
    Actually, the textbook was written by James Neuliep, a professor at St. Norbert College, a small Roman Catholic school in De Pere, Wis. Neuliep has used the exercise in his classes for 30 years without incident.
    On June 21, Poole was reinstated.
                                             ***
    FAU’s baseball team made it to the NCAA tournament before being eliminated by top-seeded North Carolina, 12-11 in 13 innings.
    How far has the football team progressed since Coach Carl Pellini took over the program last year? It should provide some answers on Aug. 30 when the team plays the University of Miami. Not just alums who don’t travel to Sun Life Stadium in Miami, but also a national audience can assess the Owls on national TV, courtesy of ESPNU.
                                             ***
    FAU’s MBA program in sports management has been ranked fifth in North America and eighth in the world in the 2013 SportBusiness International rankings of master’s-level sport courses by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. FAU is the only school in Florida to make the top 25 world rankings. Ohio University was ranked No. 1, followed by FIFA’s International Center for Sports Studies in Switzerland. Impressive company.
    An estimated 9,000 fans, most of whom had never been on campus, now know the new stadium is also an excellent venue for soccer. Germany battled Ecuador in a “friendly.” German striker Lukas Podolski scored with barely nine seconds gone in the match — reputed to be the second-fastest goal ever in an international match.
    The stadium may not have a sponsor, but new Athletics Director Pat Chun, who cut his administrative teeth at athletic powerhouse Ohio State, is trying to land a new bowl game to wrap up the 2014 season. It wouldn’t be anything near the caliber of an Orange or Rose Bowl, but the location is ideal, the weather is good and the signs are encouraging.
    “The only lights we’ve had are green,” Chun told Chuck King of Owl Access blog. “Nothing yellow and nothing red.”
                                             ***
On June 16, shortly after being admitted to Boca Raton Regional Hospital, Boca Raton Airport Manager Ken Day died from an “undisclosed illness.” Speculation has arisen that Day, 56, suffered a heart attack, but the cause of death has not been disclosed.
    “We’re a bit stunned around here, to say the least,” airport public affairs director and office manager Kimberly Whalen said.
    Back in March when the word of the day was “sequestration,” folks around the airport got a little antsy as the Federal Aviation Administration threatened to eliminate financing for control-tower staff. Concurrently, departing Airport Authority member David Freudenberg began to question the $1.2 million in salaries and benefits paid to airport employees. He was particularly critical of Day’s $218,000 salary, especially since Bruce Pelly, the boss at much larger and much busier Palm Beach International Airport, makes $15,000 less.
    Supporters jumped to Day’s defense, noting that during his 13-year tenure, the airport’s cash reserves grew from $600,000 to $6.5 million. Authority Chairman Frank Feiler said he wished he could pay the staff more because the airport “is well-run, well-managed and well thought of.”
    A search committee has been appointed to find a successor, but as Whalen noted, Day will be hard to replace. A scholarship fund has been established in his name to help students further aviation careers. Donations can be made to the Boca Raton Airport Authority.

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

One of the best-known and most admired brand names in the world is Ritz-Carlton. It connotes glamour, elegance and luxury.  For over 20 years, The Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach was our little “ritzy” spot.
    Of course, we’d chuckle at that “Palm Beach” tagline. Sure, we understood the hotel wanted to tell tourists they were staying in Palm Beach, but we knew better. The Ritz was our luxurious little secret in an almost private sweet spot at the confluence of South Palm Beach, Lantana and Manalapan.
    Now “our Ritz” has become the Eau Palm Beach Resort and Spa.  I hope this management change doesn’t overlook the hotel’s long relationship with the community.
Granted, it’s not an everyday stop for most of us who live here, but the hotel has always been there to welcome us when we’ve wanted to put on a little “Ritz.” And of course, it’s where Manalapan residents have historically had their private social club.
    As a small-business owner, I know very well how important it is to build and sustain a brand identity. For The Coastal Star, it’s how our readers and advertisers feel about our product. It’s our reputation. We believe our brand illustrates that we care about our customers and our neighbors.
    I know the new team at Eau Palm Beach Resort and Spa have their work cut for them establishing a new brand. I can only hope they will also care about their customers and neighbors.
I wish them luck.
— Mary Kate Leming,
Executive Editor

A temporary sign for the Eau Palm Beach was installed July 1.  Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Tim O’Meilia
    
The former Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach is now the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa.
    But eau so many Manalapan residents dislike the new name and the loss of the Ritz-
Carlton brand.
    “How and why did you change that name?” wondered Manalapan Town Commissioner John Murphy at the June 25 meeting. “In general, people don’t like it. The reaction has not   been favorable.”
    Nevertheless, the commission approved by a 5-0 vote two temporary signs with the new name to adorn the 310-room luxury resort.
    The Ritz officially became The Eau on July 1, following a mid-June announcement by the hotel owners, RC/PB Inc., that a management agreement with Ritz-Carlton, owned by Marriott International, had been canceled following a two-year dispute over management fees.
    The resort will be affiliated with Preferred Hotels, which handles 15 other five-star, five-diamond hotels worldwide.
    Former mayor Basil Diamond suggested that the hotel name could not be changed without the commission’s approval, based on an amendment to the planned unit development agreement that led to the hotel’s opening in 1991.
    “The only reason we have a hotel in Manalapan is because we had a Ritz-Carlton, a brand everybody knew and everyone understood what that brand was,” he said.
    At the heart of Diamond’s concerns — and those of other residents, including Mayor David Cheifetz — is the future of the La Coquille Club at the hotel.
    In an unusual arrangement, the town approved the construction of the Ritz on the oceanfront site of the decades-old La Coquille Club under the condition that a club be maintained at the resort for the use of town residents.  
    In recent years, resident-members have complained that private-member lockers had been used by resort guests, a promised steam room is only a steam shower, food and service at the club has deteriorated and a 20 percent summer dining discount was discontinued, among other things.
    Eva Hill, president of Britannia Pacific Properties which owns RC/PB, met with interested town residents last week and spoke at the commission meeting.
    “We don’t anticipate any changes to (resident) rights to use the club and access in and out of the property,” Hill said, adding that the owners were considering adding 15 nonresident members to the club. Unlike residents, nonresident members pay a fee to belong. Club board member Kathryn Diamond — the former mayor’s wife — estimated there are 25 to 35 nonresident members.
    “It is our extreme desire to bring the La Coquille Club back to the vibrant club your members want to enjoy,” Hill told the commission.
    She said the locker sharing has ended. The hotel is considering offering special party and event packages to members and the dining discount would be re-examined.
    Hill said she already has met with club board members Kathryn Diamond and Chauncey Johnstone, who is also a town commissioner.
    RC/PB must seek an amendment to the PUD in coming months because of the management change.
    “It needs to include safeguards so we don’t find ourselves in the same position, being asked to rubber stamp changes after the fact,” Basil Diamond said. “What if another group comes in? We need safeguards so it doesn’t become a Motel 6 or a Ramada.”
    Cheifetz asked Basil Diamond to sit on a committee that will negotiate the revised PUD. “I want to assure everyone that this commission will be looking out for the town’s interest,” the mayor said.
    “What we really want is a first-class luxury hotel with our La Coquille Club in it,” Basil Diamond said.
    As for the name of the hotel, Hill said it was titled Eau Palm Beach to capitalize on the brand equity of the Eau spa, built at the resort in 2009. “The name is now recognized as quality,” she said. “We didn’t want to go with just another household brand.”
    Said Commissioner Howard Roder: “With everyone talking about the name change, you’re getting a lot of free
publicity.”                                

 Palm Beach County will be closing the Linton Boulevard Bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway the next two weekends to perform maintenance on the span.

 The bridge will be closed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day to vehicle and pedestrian traffic on Saturday June 22 and Sunday, June 23, and again on Saturday, June 29 and Sunday, June 30. The planned closures have been scheduled on weekends to minimize traffic impacts in the area. Navigation should not be affected.

The Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach will change names and management beginning July 1 following a two-year legal dispute between the owners and Marriott International, which operates the Ritz-Carlton chain.

The 270-room hotel in Manalapan will be re-named Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, owners RC/PB Inc. announced June 11. The firm said the resort will continue to be operated as a luxury resort.

“We anticipate an efficient and smooth transition that will carry on the tradition of luxury and service our guests, employees and the Palm Beach community have come to expect from our hotel,” said Eva H. Hill, president of Britannia Pacific Properties Inc., which owns RC/PB, in a statement.

RC/PB bought the property in 2003 and has invested $120 million in improvements. The resort closed for more than a year in 2006-7 as the lobby, terraces and entry were remodeled, a second swimming pool installed and the restaurants remodeled.

Later a 24-room guest tower was erected, a 40,000-square foot spa built and meeting space added.

The owners sued Marriott and Avendra, a major vendor, in 2011, claiming it was cheated of $75 million in profits through fees and kickbacks to Avendra, of which Marriott is a majority owner.

Hill said most of the employees would be retained in the management changeover.

— Tim O’Meilia

Revelers enjoy their beer during this year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in Delray Beach. The city wants to ban alcohol from next year’s parade. Local businesses want to limit events such as the parade that closes Atlantic Avenue to traffic. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Watch Delray Beach St. Patrick's Day Parade video from International Fire Service

By Tim Pallesen

Just as firefighters take control of Delray Beach’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the city for unrelated reasons might shut down the parade.
City commissioners are under pressure from business owners to reduce festivals that close downtown streets. City staff has recommended that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade be the first to go.
“It’s the one we hear the most complaints about,” Assistant City Manager Bob Barzinski said. “It’s a tough event for police to manage.”
An estimated 100,000 spectators watched the March 16 parade, prompting the city to suggest banning alcohol if the parade is allowed next year.
“The alcohol needs to stop,” Mayor Cary Glickstein said at a May 14 workshop where Barzinski recommended that the parade be eliminated.
Commissioners postponed a decision. “This is an issue for everyone to weigh in on,” Glickstein said.
The parade’s promoter predicted a public outcry if Delray cancels the parade.
“The Irish of Palm Beach County will rise up against that idea,” warned Bernard Ryan of Festival Management Group. “There will be a green storm.”
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is a tradition in Delray Beach that began 45 years ago with an Irish bar owner carrying a pig in a small parade down Atlantic Avenue.
The parade struggled after the founder, Maury Power, died in 1996. Festival Management took control five years ago, replacing the marching bands that charged fees with Palm Beach County firefighters playing bagpipes and drums in a band that marched for free. The firefighter theme took off in 2010 when the Dublin Fire Brigade Pipe Band came from Ireland to perform.
More than 500 firefighters from Florida as well as Boston, New York City and two foreign countries came to march in the March 16, 2013, parade. Twelve ladder trucks from Miami to Martin County hoisted giant banners along Atlantic Avenue proclaiming their hometowns.
Parade grand marshal Harold Schaitberger, the president of the 300,000-member International Association of Fire Fighters, lists Delray Beach among the four best cities in America for firefighters to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. “The big parades are in New York City, Boston, Savannah — and Delray is right there,” he said.
Festival Management announced on May 3 that management of future parades has been given to county firefighter John Fischer and two co-workers, with Ryan continuing as a consultant. A press release referred future parade inquiries to IAFF Local 2928 in Palm Beach County.
City commissioners said they will determine which street-closing events to eliminate based on who benefits by each event.
“We have to start chopping,” Commissioner Al Jacquet said at the May 14 workshop. Events sponsored by the city, the Chamber of Commerce and local nonprofits are most likely to survive.

A firestorm over pensions
After the workshop, Fischer said patriotism and community unity are the worthy purposes of his parade. But on parade day he called the parade a “public relations bonanza” for firefighters seeking public support against cities and counties that cut their pension benefits.
“Children need to see clean-cut firefighters marching tall and proud with honor and dignity,” he said in March. “This parade couldn’t come at a better time than now, when firefighters across the country are being attacked by politicians.”
Schaitberger echoed that to motivate firefighters who marched in Delray’s parade.
“There are those who don’t appreciate us until they’re in need,” the union president told marchers during his pre-parade speech.
“They attack our benefits and retirement,” Schaitberger said. “I hope citizens of Delray Beach and Florida will realize in their time of need that none of you question your responsibility even in an economy that’s gone bust.”
Governments have been forced to cut pension benefits after they discovered that their pension fund investments weren’t generating the money that was promised before the recession.
Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens and Boca Raton were the first nearby cities to respond with pension reform.
But Delray Beach avoided the dilemma until the same May 14 workshop, where a city auditor alerted commissioners to a $94 million shortfall in their pension fund for police and firefighters.
Commissioners have set a June 11 workshop to discuss the implications of that unfunded debt and whether pension benefits need to be cut here. “Taxpayers need to understand how significant these costs are,” Glickstein said.    

The annual Walk of Recognition, presented by the Boca Raton Historical Society, added new stars at a ceremony on May 9 under the Mizner statue at Royal Palm Place.  The new stars are for Mike Arts and Barbara and Irving Gutin. Arts was president of the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce for 20 years. A former member of the City Council, he was a founding board member and chairman of the Florida Atlantic University Research and Development Authority. Barbara and Irving Gutin are involved at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, where Irving is a member of the Boards of Trustees of both the hospital and the BRRH Foundation. Barbara serves on the Women’s Advisory Committee of the Lynn Health and Wellness Institute.  Two years ago, after learning that Boca Raton Regional Hospital did not offer robotic surgery, they funded the da Vinci robotic surgical system along with a simulator that allows surgeons to train on the robot. The system became so popular that the Gutins funded a second da Vinci last year.
ABOVE: (l-r) Barbara and Irving Gutin with Marta Batmasian
ABOVE: (l-r) Al Travasos and Mike Arts

Pete Dye walks across a green at Gulf Stream Golf Club, where he is overseeing renovations. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Steve Pike

    Pete Dye took one hand off the steering wheel of his golf cart and pointed to a patch of torn-up ground.
    “Pure rock,” he said. “We’re riding on pure rock.”
    Dye, the world’s most famous living golf course architect, has been working since April 15 on renovating the back nine of Gulf Stream Golf Club. He’s been a member of the private club, just a few minutes from his Gulf Stream home, for 30 years.
    “They didn’t listen to me for 29 years,” he said in pure Dye-speak — straightforward laced with a dollop of self-deprecation.
    “Mr. Donald Ross was here one day,” Dye said, referring to the legendary architect credited with Gulf Stream’s original design in 1924. “He staked it, put the greens where they are and the tees where (the members) wanted them. Then he had a contractor come in and build it. They ran into rock and quit — they just put sand on top of it.
    “Mr. Ross was smarter than me. He just walked away.”

Golf course designer Pete Dye surveys rocks dug up during work at the Gulf Stream Golf Club.

    That’s the way Ross, generally considered the patron saint of golf course architects in America, worked on many of the courses that bear his name.
    But walking away has never been Paul B. “Pete” Dye’s style. Not from his first 18-hole design in 1962 at what is now Maple Creek Golf & Country Club in Indianapolis to these days as an 87-year-old living legend who still rides bulldozers and backhoes to get the results he wants.
    A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Dye first came to Delray Beach in 1932.He has designed some of the world’s most revered (and feared) golf courses, including TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course, Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., and Teeth of the Dog at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic.
    And he and his wife of many years, Alice, designed one of the nation’s top public courses, The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C., site of the 2012 PGA championship.
    “Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Greg Norman... they draw up plans and get somebody to build their golf courses,” Dye said. “I build everything I do. I’ve never drawn up plans in my life — don’t know how.  I just build it and hope it has 18 holes and a driving range when I’m done.”

Rocks are placed along a pond to improve shore stability.

    At Gulf Stream Golf Club — one of the state’s more prestigious private golf clubs — Dye is following up on last year’s renovation work on the front nine with similar work on the back nine. That is, he is improving drainage, moving tee boxes, rebuilding bunkers and recontouring the greens, most of which he termed “unplayable.”
    “The greens were so tilted back-to-front that the ball would just roll off them,” Dye said.
    He also cut down the sea grapes along the 18th fairway to open up expansive views of the Atlantic Ocean, and replaced the saltwater-tolerant Paspallum grass on the fairways and tee boxes with Celebration Bermuda grass that holds up well to stress and drought.
“We use more fresh water here than salt water,” Dye said.

The club’s logo flies on the flag at the oceanfront  putting green.

    When it’s complete in July, the renovated Gulf Stream Golf Club course will play 7,100 yards from the tips (back tees) — more than 300 yards longer the previous routing. The front tees will play from 5,000 yards and the course will maintain its five sets of tee boxes.
Best of all, it will be pure Pete Dye.                                            

To everything there is a season.
Tourist season is over, sea turtle season has already started and hurricane season officially begins on June 1.  Must be summer.  
    This time of year our Coastal Star staff takes a bit of a breather and we scale back our production load. As a result, you’ll notice some changes in this month’s edition:  
Our Secret Gardens column takes a summer break.
    Our Pay It Forward philanthropy calendar merges into the Community Calendar.
    You’ll also notice that our news section could, from time to time, include stories from all of the municipalities from South Palm Beach through Boca Raton. We’ll change the story mix a bit, depending on which newspaper lands on your lawn (or in your condo). But generally over the summer you’ll be able to meet new neighbors from other towns and learn what concerns and issues are top of mind in nearby coastal communities.
    You might also see advertisements in our paper that are new to your distribution area.
    We hope over the summer you’ll find a chance to take a leisurely drive along A1A and visit each of the communities in our unique barrier island home. As you pass the Coastal Star office in Ocean Ridge, feel free to stop in and say “hello.” We love to meet our neighbors.
    But if we aren’t in the office, we might be at the beach. After all, for everything there is a season.
— Mary Kate Leming, executive editor

Jaana Moisio with (l-r) Caroline, 7, Lauren, 11, and Moisio’s husband, Tom Bennett. The girls have three piggy banks marked ‘save,’ ‘spend’ and ‘share.’ The ‘save’ money goes to the bank to pay for college and the ‘share’ goes to the Children’s Home Society. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

Finnish-born Jaana Moisio moved to southern Palm Beach County as soon as she finished her education in the colder climes of Canada and Ohio.
She knew the area and enjoyed its warm winter weather when she visited her Finnish great-uncles during their annual snowbird trips to the Lake Worth-Lantana area.
“I wanted to get out of the cold, so I ended up moving here,” she said.
Since then, Moisio has established deep roots in the coastal community.
She was living and working as a divorce lawyer in Boca Raton when she met her husband on a skiing trip to Taos, N.M. “It was a setup that everyone knew about,” she said, except for Moisio and her soon-to-be husband, Thomas Bennett, a money manager living in Delray Beach.
Through her work at the Hodgson Russ law firm, she became involved with the Executive Women of the Palm Beaches. About eight years ago, she invited Cora Brown of the Children’s Home Society to sit at the firm’s table for a luncheon. Brown told her about the more-than century-old statewide agency where she is now regional director of philanthropy.
Moisio learned about its Nelle Smith Residence for abused and neglected teenage girls. The group also has a Transitions home where pregnant teens and teen mothers with their babies live in a group-home setting.
“They have so many needs; the recession really hit them hard,” she said.
Soon, Moisio was on its board and served for six years. She had to give up the board seat as her business grew, but she still is a “wonderful ambassador for us,” Brown said.
Moisio, now living in Point Manalapan, remains active in the organization by attending and hosting money-raising events, holding diaper drives, making sure the charity is well-known at her daughters’ school at Christmas time, and even indoctrinating her two daughters, ages 11 and 7, who have three piggy banks — marked save, spend and share. The “save” money goes to the bank to pay for college and the “share” goes to the children’s group, Moisio said.
When her first daughter was born, Moisio, then age 38, was still working as a lawyer and didn’t have time for shopping to set up a nursery. Even so, she managed to create an elegant nursery for Lauren.
It soon became the talk of parents at the Unity School in Delray Beach. At age 2 and a half, Lauren was enrolled in its preschool program. She had play dates and when parents came over to pick up their kids, they saw Lauren’s room and asked who designed it.
Soon Moisio found herself sketching designs for parents while wanting to leave divorce law because she did not want to become “hard and bitter from seeing the worst in people.” After her husband suggested she charge for the designs, that thought became the catalyst she needed to leave the law firm.
She created the palmbeachtots.com website to sell luxury furnishings for little ones. Her store ended up in Palm Beach Gardens not because she did any demographic studies that showed it was a good area for her merchandise but because she knew the owners of the Downtown at the Gardens. They simply invited Moisio to translate her online store into a real shop, where she stayed for two years.
Ever the pitch woman for the Children’s Home Society, she talked the project’s managers into adding the charity to its list receiving monthly donations from its carousel proceeds. She also held an author signing for Annie Falk’s Palm Beach Entertaining at her store. All of the proceeds from the book, which retails for $45, go directly to the children’s group.
The book is still available at her store, which now sits on South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. She found that location serendipitously.
As her daughter Lauren grows up, she is developing her own style and prefers modern furniture. Moisio, being a good mom, was driving that stretch of Dixie Highway, known for its antique and consignment shops, searching for suitable items when she saw the perfect desk for her daughter.
She got to talking with the store owner and saw that her Palm Beach Tots store would fit in well with the other stores on that stretch of Dixie. And now she is talking with her retail neighbors about hosting an event for the Children’s Home Society.                                     

By Tim Pallesen

The developer of Atlantic Crossing has hired veteran local architect Bob Currie to redesign the controversial project to win City Commission approval.
Commissioners approved 356 rental apartments on the East Atlantic Avenue property after heated debate last year.
The developer returns before the city this month to get approval for the project site plan and design.
“The difficult challenge with a project this scale is to find an approach that doesn’t feel like a project this scale,” said Don DeVere, project manager for the Edwards Companies.
Currie has earned local respect with his architectural designs for Old School Square, Sundy House, the Marriott Hotel, City Hall and other Delray Beach projects.
“Bob is a great resource because he’s got a long-standing history of being involved in the resurgence of Delray Beach,” DeVere said. “He is passionate and protective, and he understands the local aesthetics.”
DeVere declined to release renderings of the redesign that city officials will see when Atlantic Crossing files its site plan this month for approval.
But he said Currie’s firm and three others have broken down the massive appearance of Atlantic Crossing by giving each building within the project its own unique architectural design. A building with a modern design, for example, could be built next to one with a Mediterranean style.
“Bob is able to weave these designs together and bring out each style,” DeVere said.
Currie said the project now looks “like it has been created over time by different hands.”
Architects also have tried to soften the massive appearance by designing facades with openings, balconies and upper-floor setbacks. The street-level redesign encourages more pedestrian movement with covered walk areas, benches and fountains.
Currie is vice chairman of the Beach Property Owners Association, which decided not to join a lawsuit filed by some neighbors protesting the density and height that commissioners approved for Atlantic Crossing last year.
Bill Morris, a local consultant for the Ohio-based developer, says Currie’s hiring is a response to those neighborhood concerns.
“There have been many changes to be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood — changes that people wanted to see,” said Morris, who lives in coastal Delray Beach. “Bob doesn’t mind speaking his mind. He can be very critical about things he doesn’t like.”
The BPOA asked the developer to improve the appearance of the southeast corner of the project that coastal residents see as they drive west across the Atlantic Avenue Bridge. Currie says architects responded to that concern and all others raised by commissioners and neighbors.
“Trust me — they are listening to the community,” Currie said. “I’m surprised by how much time and effort they are putting in.
“We critique their work as professors would do. They hired us because they know we are a part of this town and care about it.
“This is probably the most important project that Delray Beach will see,” Currie said. “We’re creating an architecture that fits in our town and enhances the progress that Delray has already made.”    

By Cheryl Blackerby

    Officials in Boca Raton and Delray Beach were surprised and elated when they were notified by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in early May that they will receive long-awaited restoration money for beaches damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
    Boca Raton will get $4.5 million, which will be used to restore 1.45 miles of the north beach.
    And Delray Beach will receive slightly less than that — $4.46 million — to renourish beaches north and south of the areas not covered by the recent offshore dredging project.
    “We weren’t expecting it,” said Jennifer Bistyga, engineer with the city of Boca Raton. “We did everything they asked. There was a chance we would get it, but it was a shock when we made the cut.”
    Even though the city staff had little hope of getting the money, particularly in the wake of Sandy’s devastation in the Northeast, they spent a lot of time trying, she said. “We did a lot of work to get to that point with surveys and comparisons. We worked very hard.”
    Officials in Delray Beach also never lost hope even after watching news coverage of the catastrophic damage to the Jersey Shore.
    “We asked to be considered, but it was a surprise,” said Paul Dorling, director of planning and zoning for Delray Beach. “We needed the money to do the project, and we were hopeful. We didn’t know how much it was.”
    The two cities’ beach projects were among 16 around the state that the Corps considered for emergency assistance in response to Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storm Debby. After the Corps’ damage reports were completed, 12 projects were approved to receive the emergency funds, including three in Palm Beach County — Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Jupiter/Carlin Park.
    Delray Beach will use the money to bring in additional sand on beaches from Atlantic Avenue north to George Bush Boulevard, and more sand south of Atlantic.
    “This is a larger project that will repair storm damage from Sandy with additional sand north of where we stopped the last project,” said Dorling. That damage had galvanized residents to ask the city to expand the spring dredging project to include  those beaches.
    The clock is ticking on this money, although no one knows the exact deadline, which is available only for a short period of time. Work is expected to start Nov. 1, but no one knows yet which of the three projects will go first.
    “We’re working on permits with the Army Corps and the DEP (Florida Department of Environmental Protection). All the agencies know this money is only for a limited time, and we have been told we have to spend it quickly,” Bistyga said. “The Army Corps is putting the projects out to bid.”
    The three beach projects will share the same offshore dredge to save money. “Mobilization of the dredge is $3 million, so we save across the board by working together,” she said.
    Delray, too, is pleased with the amount of money it is getting and the tight deadline for getting the job done.
    “Barring any crazy kind of bidding quotes that come in, it’s enough money to do the job,” Dorling said. “The Corps is preceding with permits in a small time frame, and is pushing like crazy.  We would not be able to meet the time frame without them.”
    In Boca Raton, some sand has returned to the beaches but not enough.
    “The beaches are recovering, but the problem with this storm is that we lost a lot of height, and that’s not coming back to the level we would like. The beaches are a lot smaller and won’t regain that height,” said Bistyga.
    The dredge will extract sand 2,500 feet offshore from Boca Raton adjacent to sites in the same area that was dredged in 2010. None of the federal money can be used for projects already completed, such as the recent dune restoration in Boca Raton. The Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District has been asked pay $200,000 for the dune project, which will also include planting sea oats and other vegetation on the dunes.
    The beach projects damaged by Hurricane Sandy that will receive emergency funds: Brevard County — North Reach and South Reach; Martin County; Fort Pierce Beach; Palm Beach County — North Boca Raton, Jupiter/Carlin and Delray Beach; and Broward County, Segment 2.
    The beach projects affected by Tropical Storm Debby that are getting emergency funds are Treasure Island in Pinellas County; Anna Maria Island in Manatee County; and Gasparilla and Captiva in Lee County.                                     

By Thomas R. Collins
    
That Tweedle Dee, that Tweedle Dum, that Ku Klux Klan-esque hood labeled “satire,” and a mule labeled “Mayor” on the side of Martin O’Boyle’s house?
    They’re “not just paint.”
    They’re constitutionally protected free speech, O’Boyle says. And he’s filed a federal lawsuit to keep town officials from making him paint over the cartoons.
    O’Boyle has been at odds with the town after a decision in March rejected his request for variances he wanted in order to build a 25-foot entry tower as part of the remodeling of his $1.6 million waterfront home on Hidden Harbour Drive. O’Boyle argues that variances are actually not needed for the changes. He has made his displeasure with the town known with a collection of cartoons making fun of — and outright insulting —town officials. A green ogre wearing a shirt and tie, for instance, is labeled as the “Vice Mayor.”
    Town officials have cited O’Boyle for code violations, saying the paintings amounted to unauthorized signs, that the colors are not on the approved list and that the paintings did not go through the proper review process.
    O’Boyle is scheduled to appear before the town code enforcement magistrate on June 4.  But the suit seeks an injunction to stop the town’s code-enforcement efforts in its tracks, arguing that O’Boyle’s case is likely to succeed and that continuing with code enforcement would cause O’Boyle irreparable harm.
    “O’Boyle maintains that the paintings … are in fact speech, and not just paint,” his attorney, Robert Gershman of Delray Beach, argues in the suit.
    He says that other homes are decorated for holidays and special occasions and are not subject to code enforcement.
    “Decorative wreaths, skeletons, turkeys, angels, snowpersons, and other like type adhesive decor has been placed upon the Town homes in a common and annual ritual,” he says.
    Gershman downplayed one difference: that those decorations can be removed easily while paint is more permanent.
    In an interview, Gershman said, “Practically and lawfully, the issue should not be the mobility or content, it should be preventing the town from selectively enforcing what they don’t like.”
    Asked about the effects should every home in the town be painted with free-speech-protected cartoons, Gershman said he couldn’t speak for other homeowners, but said, “Mr. O’Boyle’s are legitimate, purposeful and within his constitutional rights.”
    The town’s attorney, John Randolph, is out of the office as of this writing and Town Manager Bill Thrasher had not replied by deadline to requests for comment.                        

After a nationwide search, the Wayside House board of directors has named Boca Raton resident Cathy Cohn as the agency’s new executive director. Cohn comes to Wayside House with nearly 30 years of experience in providing fiscal, strategic and operational leadership in the non-profit sector.  As executive director, Cohn will work to ensure that Wayside House meets its financial objective while achieving its mission as a treatment provider for women with substance addictions.  
The former CEO of Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies Coalition of Palm Beach County, Cohn headed a 70-person staff and oversaw a $6 million budget.  
Cohn also was the prenatal care director for Planned Parenthood of South Palm Beach and Broward Counties.
— Staff reports

By Thom Smith

     Boca entertainment has never been like this. Bob James and Fourplay one week, followed by Molly Ringwald, then Larry Carlton, with James returning with David Sanborn on June 20 and Steely Dan at the Mizner Park Amphitheater on Sept. 12. Just what the doctor ordered.
    Of course, Michael Fagien isn’t your typical doctor. He spends the day looking at PETs (Positron Emission Tomography images) on his home computer and telling other doctors what’s wrong with their patients. The rest of his time is spent with his other “pet” — Jazziz, a two-headed musical monster. One head is the magazine, Jazziz, which claims after 30 years to be “the undisputed authority on jazz and style.” The other is Jazziz, the restaurant, a complete reworking of the old Zed 451 at the south end of Mizner Park.
    “It’s not a jazz club,” Fagien insists as he sneaks a french fry from his son’s plate. “It’s a restaurant. The food is great. It’s fresh, local. We have a great chef (Justin Flit) and a see-through kitchen. We have a cigar lounge, a caviar bar, champagne room, private dining room, outdoor bar. We could be like a Wine Spectator or Cigar Aficionado.”
    But with the promise of live entertainment seven nights a week, he concedes he’s “creating a culture of jazz.”
    Actually, it could be called Jazziz Redux. In 2004, Fagien opened the prototype next to Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood. Two years later, he closed it — wrong clientele. He regrouped, found new backers, and looked toward home.
    “This is what people in Boca have been waiting for,” he said. “They’re more attuned to an upscale concept here.”
    Fagien seldom slows down, except perhaps to marvel at the keyboard artistry of James, who gave us the theme to Taxi, or listen to Ringwald, who went from child singer to teen film star to mother of two to grownup torcher. But he isn’t playing solo. Twin Steven, a plastic surgeon, also has a stake in Jazziz, and wife Zakiya, an obstetrician/gynecologist, is the magazine’s publisher.
Other artists appearing this month are singers Bobby Caldwell (June 5-6) and Jon Secada (June 12-13), and guitarist and former Tonight Show bandleader Kevin Eubanks (June 26-27).
    Jazziz Nightlife is at 201 Plaza Real in Mizner Park. Tickets range from $35 to $95; visit www.jazziznightlife.com, or call 300-0732.
                                           ***
    Here they come, just down the street … at Mizner Park Amphitheater July 27, hey, hey, it’s the Monkees, extending their reunion tour with the no longer reclusive Michael Nesmith and paying tribute to Davy Jones, the band’s local member (Indiantown) who died last year.  

Poet Richard Blanco, who read his poem One Today at the second inauguration of President Obama, gave a reading and talk May 1 at the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach in Manalapan for the Plum Blush of Dusk Soirée, which benefited the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council. Blanco said he did not know how he was chosen to read at the inauguration. After the event he met with the president, who hinted that the poet’s work had been recommended to him. Mary Kate Leming/The Coastal Star

                                           ***
    The hills are alive …  with the sounds of construction, trunk lids slamming, dollies creaking and employees and volunteers trying to figure out what goes where. Welcome to The Wick, South Florida’s newest performance house, which has taken over the old Caldwell Theatre on North Federal in Boca. The curtain won’t rise until mid-September, but Marilynn Wick, the woman behind the name, has lots of work to do.
    She’s already begun remodeling the lobby. Walls will fall to create a space for the “ladies who lunch,” a la Tavern on the Green. She’ll create a cabaret and a space for her Broadway Collection, America’s largest repository of theatrical costumes that she moved from Pompano Beach. And she’ll put on a show or two, beginning Sept. 18 with The Sound of Music.
    “Everybody loves it and it hasn’t been done here in a while,” Wick says. “Plus we have Mary Martin’s original costume (Martin originated the role on Broadway), and all the kids will be local.”
    The opening season is tried and true — White Christmas, 42nd Street, The Full Monty, Steel Magnolias and Ain’t Misbehavin’, but Wick needs time to settle in. She thought she had lined up Douglas C. Evans, former Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment CEO as managing and producing director, but that is tenuous.
    She does have an artistic director on board — Jonathan Van Dyke, a veteran of many South Florida productions who worked most recently at the David Straz Center in Tampa. Van Dyke is lining up directors and planning auditions.
    At least he won’t have to worry about costumes.   
                                           ***
    Father’s Day. What to get Dad? The folks at the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County have about 1,400 ideas. The Council’s Uniquely Palm Beach gift shop at 601 Lake Ave. in Lake Worth is a showcase for works by more than 50 artists that would suit that “gem of a man.”
    Mobiles made of found objects, books, men’s jewelry, money clips made of glass, candles, bars of soap, note cards, jigsaw puzzles and, of course, paintings. Prices start at $3.
                                           ***
    Speaking of art, the 62nd All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition continues through July 14 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. Mark Scala, curator at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, selected 149 works by 122 artists. He chose the paintings, graphics, drawings, sculptures, installations, photographs, computer-generated images, and videos because they “could be shown … anywhere in the world without there being a question of (their) artistic merit.”
                                           ***
    I wonder where John Boehner would have been more comfortable.
    At the April 27 Palm Beach wedding of Michael Jordan to Miami model Yvette Prieto? Or the May 10 wedding in Delray Beach of daughter Lindsay to Dominic Lakhan? Palm Beach is a great repository for Republican campaign funds; the guest list was full of NBA Hall of Famers and some decent golfers, including one named Woods; and the speaker of the House does like to play golf.
    Delray, by comparison, has less money, but it is more fun, has better nightlife, has more public beach, has a few celebs … and, after all, that’s where Lindsay was sequestered.
    Plus the gardens at the Sundy House are more romantic than the Gothic Bethesda-by-the-Sea.
    When Boehner’s younger daughter, Tricia, married James “Jak” Kinney, two years ago, the media paid little heed. Not so with Lindsay and Dominic … for several reasons: The groom is Jamaican, 38 years old, works in construction, sports waist-length dreadlocks and several years ago was busted for possessing less than a quarter ounce of marijuana, enough for six to eight joints.
    Media reports fell slightly short of Watergate standards. Lakhan may have been cited for marijuana possession, but no record was produced of any judicial action. Because of the dreadlocks, the event was dubbed a “Rasta” wedding, despite lacking any evidence that Lakhan is a Rastafarian. Several news reports identified him as “black” or “African-Jamaican.” Though the groom and his mother were born in Jamaica, his father came from Trinidad and is of Indian descent.   
    The wedding was small, 60 or so guests. The groom and the father of the bride both wore light gray suits. A trio played as Boehner danced with his daughter.
    We do not know if the music included any Bob Marley tunes, although “One love, one heart, Let’s get together and feel all right” would have been fitting. We do know that Lindsay’s father supports the Defense of Marriage Act and opposes any legalization of marijuana, even for medical reasons.
    We don’t know much about Lindsay either, other than she’s 35. No info on what she’s been doing for 15 years — nothing on colleges, jobs or where she’s lived. Not even a Facebook page. Ditto for her sister and both spouses.
    Boehner spokeswoman Brittany Bramell told the Cincinnati Enquirer in an email: “The Speaker’s daughters are not public figures. Accordingly, our office does not comment on their personal lives, even with respect to joyous family occasions such as their weddings.”
    But that didn’t stop the screaming headline in The National Enquirer: “Secret Service Goons Wreck Boehner Wedding.” As second in line to the presidency, the speaker of the House receives Secret Service protection. Where he goes, they go; and they do their job. They check everyone.
    However, the Enquirer’s photos — shot from a helicopter — don’t suggest an “armed camp” at The Sundy House. Guests hardly appeared disturbed — except possibly by the chopper, as suggested in a tweet from the speaker’s deputy chief of staff, David Schnittger: “Paparazzi rent-a-chopper over Boehner family wedding tonight. Hope you got some good pics. Congrats Lindsay and Dom.”
                                           ***
    If you plan to catch the Fourth of July fireworks in Boca, here’s a tip: Don’t go to the park!
    For years, the display was held on the campus of Florida Atlantic University. But without consulting with FAU officials or the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Parks District, the city administration decided to move the event to the district’s new DeHoernle Park on Spanish River Boulevard. It’s big, 80 acres, but it’s filled with soccer and baseball fields, jogging paths and native scrub. Its 403 parking spaces are adequate for a baseball or soccer crowds, but not the thousands who watch fireworks, especially when many will be occupied by game booths, children’s rides, food vendors and a few black and whites (police cars).
    Furthermore, the park has only one entrance. Good luck if you want to get home at a reasonable time.
The city is arranging for bus or tram transportation from Boca Corporate Center, the old IBM campus on the north side of Spanish River Boulevard, but it, too, has limited access, and district officials warn that limited access could result in round trips of 40 minutes or more.
    The Parks District’s board is elected by residents who live in the city and beyond to the turnpike. Though not a city agency, it has cooperated closely since it was created in 1974 to provide parks and recreation facilities for the area. Rather than risk damage to the new fields, the district board offered to absorb some of the cost if a fireworks show could have been accommodated in FAU’s new stadium. The city ignored the offer.
    If the fireworks produce any duds — attendance, parking, emergency vehicle access, potential field damage, cleanup — the city and its residents will pay. The district’s board members are not happy and suggest that future negotiations may not be so cordial.
    Let the sparks fall where they may.

Fans swarm The People Upstairs, a South Florida reggae band, during the end of the 2013 Old School BeerFest at Delray Beach Center for the Arts at Old School Square in Delray Beach.  It had begun to rain. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

                                           ***
    Harvey Oyer III was thrilled to accept his Distinguished Author award May 15 at Florida House in Washington, D.C., but he was more pumped at being upstaged … by Francesca Alfano, his 12-year-old stepdaughter. At the award luncheon, she sang the national anthem and, as Oyer noted, “crushed it. She was the star.”
    That night at a dinner at the Smithsonian, she gave another boffo performance that  led to an impromptu tour. A Smithsonian administrator led the family to a room where he invited her to play a piano — George Gershwin’s piano.
    “Are we allowed to do this?” Oyer asked.
    “We’re doing it!” the official replied, and explained that Francesca was the first to play it since Paul McCartney. Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon had preceded the Beatle.
    “She doesn’t really appreciate who Gershwin is,” said Oyer, a fifth-generation Floridian and great grandnephew of the legendary Barefoot Mailman. “But someday she’ll have a great story for her grandchildren.”  
    A Boynton Beach native and land-use lawyer, Oyer was cited for his children’s books, The American Jungle, The Last Egret and The Last Calusa, which schools throughout the state use to give students a vivid picture of “old Florida.”
    Florida House was established by Sen. Lawton Chiles and his wife, Rhea, in 1973 as an “embassy” to showcase Florida’s culture and diversity. Funded solely by contributions from Florida residents, its programs include annual trustees awards to an author and an artist. Marine artist Guy Harvey will be honored this fall.
                                           ***
    Mr. Rapoport goes to Washington. Fortunately for Burt Rapoport, it involved votes but not politics. The South Florida restaurateur made the trip to accept the Community Excellence Award for his Rapoport Restaurant Group at the Small Business Summit of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In February the Chamber included the Rapoport Group among its 100 Blue Ribbon Small Business Award winners, and then it was up to each winner to drum up votes. Rapoport asked the charities his restaurants have supported to return the favor. They did by a 1,200-vote margin.  
                                           ***
    The County Commission wants to build a hotel at the Morikami. The one-story ryokan, initially proposed more than three decades ago, would feature traditional Japanese architecture and be built with private funds. As for possible names, how about Hotel Amanohashidate. That’s “Bridge to Heaven” in English. The bridge, one of Japan’s three most scenic wonders, is near Miyazu, George Morikami’s hometown and Delray’s sister city.

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

By Thom Smith
    
Don’t think for a moment that Mary Jane Saunders’ resignation as president at Florida Atlantic University will allow the campus to resume its persona as a tranquil haven for higher education.
    Granted, her departure was inevitable, a fall necessitated not only by her actions but also by a board of trustees that lost sight of its mission. These are tough times, financially and politically. The governor and the Legislature may not know how to run education, but they have the money and therefore the power to control it.
    Cynical? Many university trustees are appointed because they give lots of money to candidates’ campaigns or have political capital.
    Angela Graham-West, for example, possesses impressive academic credentials — a bachelor’s degree in finance from Kansas State University, MBA from Long Island U. and Ph.D. in education back at Kansas State University — and she’s a financial adviser for Raymond James and Associates. But would Gov. Rick Scott have appointed her to FAU’s board had she not been married to then-Rep. Allen West, his Tea Party comrade-in-arms?
    Dr. Jeffrey Feingold, a Delray Beach dentist and another Scott appointee, operates seven comprehensive dental HMOs. Before he lists his academic credentials on his FAU résumé, he lists his service as chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council of the Republican Party of Florida.
    Among Scott appointees, at least Butch Teske has some experience with running a school.
The decorated Army veteran with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Murray State University in Kentucky and a doctorate in education from Nova Southeastern University was a middle school principal and later an assistant superintendent in Indian River County.
    Scott’s most recent nominee backed out when reports were published about her missteps and misdeeds. Elizabeth “Betsy” Fago Smith built an empire by taking over nursing homes in remote communities. She lived lavishly; she donated to noble causes; but she borrowed heavily and built up $110,000 in federal tax liens. In 2004 she organized a $1.5 million fundraiser for Gov. Jeb Bush, who appointed her to the state oversight panel for Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter. She gave Scripps two $1 million gifts, but in 2005, she resigned that position because of conflicts with Chairman Marshall Criser Jr., former president of the University of Florida.
    Lest we forget George Zoley. An FAU grad, dynamic chairman and CEO of Boca-based GEO Group and major contributor to political campaigns, his appointment to the board of trustees was a no-brainer for Bush.
    Zoley eventually became chairman and also headed up the search committee that hired Saunders. So who would expect her to object when his company, which runs prisons for profit, offered $6 million for naming rights to the Owls’ stadium? The administration spread its wings and hooted about the windfall.
    Students, faculty members and some community leaders struck like hawks.  GEO’s rep wasn’t something to crow about.
    In explaining her resignation, Saunders cited a “perfect storm” of bad news. The Fago Smith fiasco. Professor James Tracy’s off-the-clock suggestions that the Sandy Hook massacre and the Boston Marathon bombing were government conspiracies remain puzzling. (Does he not own a high-definition TV?)  The woeful mishandling of communications instructor Deandre Poole’s “Stomp Jesus” exercise still hasn’t been rectified.
    The latter two go to the heart of the university’s academic integrity. But in the Saunders tableau, they were eagles nibbling Prometheus’ liver. Had she handled them candidly and with conviction, those wounds would have healed.
    From the outset, instead of showing some guts, she totally ignored the crucial issues, resorting to platitudes and issuing a litany of recent FAU successes. The GEO blow was fatal.
    In a post-mortem in FAU’s student newspaper, The University Press, board Chairman Anthony Barbar offered this insight: “We’re looking for somebody that’s going to build on the trajectory that [Saunders] started. We’ll be looking for somebody with vision, somebody that’s able to deal with the various stakeholders in the university: students, faculty, administrators, community, donors. And somebody that’s decisive, able to make a decision and have a clear vision of what the future is for Florida Atlantic University.”
    Sounds like excellent standards for board members, too.                                            

By Tim O’Meilia

    Gulf Stream town officials are girding themselves for a long battle with unhappy resident Martin O’Boyle by dipping into town reserves for an extra $100,000.
    Eight O’Boyle-related suits have been filed against the town since April 15, including a federal suit in late May over his paintings of town officials as cartoon characters, monsters and KKK-like members on the sides of his house.
 Although they didn’t announce it publicly, commissioners are preparing for legal fights with O’Boyle and his associates.
    Commissioners voted 4-1 at the May 10 meeting to allot an extra $80,000 for legal expenses and $20,000 more for professional services in the current budget. Commissioner Garrett Dering opposed the move, largely on budget procedural grounds.
    In addition, O’Boyle has attended recent Town Commission and Architectural Review and Planning Board meetings, challenging the building and zoning code interpretations of Town Manager William Thrasher and town planning consultant Marty Minor of Urban Design Kilday Studios on items not related to his own property.
    The centerpiece of O’Boyle’s lawsuit is an appeal of the commission’s March denial of his request for a 25-foot entry tower as part of a remodeling of his 1983 home on Hidden Harbour Drive. Commissioners rejected three of four variances by a 3-2 vote.
    O’Boyle’s suit argues that town officials misinterpreted the building code and that variances are not required.
In the federal suit, O’Boyle claims the paintings on his house are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech and that the town code is illegal if it prohibits the drawings.
    The other four suits are over public records requests made by O’Boyle, his Commerce Group business, one of his employees and a public records activist. None of the suits relate to his own property but to an application for a new home at 3211 N. Ocean Blvd.
    Among other things, O’Boyle challenged the 15 cents per-page copying charge and a permitted charge for labor on extensive requests. One suit said he was charged $1.75 for clerk’s time and another, by public records advocate Joel Chandler, said $3.50 was charged.
    O’Boyle claimed that only the actual cost of copying should be charged and that the few minutes required to make other copies should not require the additional fee.
    In a response filed to one suit, the town said the extra charges were made because of the work load prompted by a large number of requests and the research involved in assembling the documents. “The $1.75 was part of 366 public records filed in piecemeal fashion requesting 1,559 separate documents,” the town’s response said.
    O’Boyle also claimed some records were redacted and others not provided in a timely manner. The town denied that.

    In other business:
    • Commissioners voted unanimously to institute a five-minute limit for speakers on non-agenda items and to move public comment to the beginning of the meetings. The action was prompted by O’Boyle’s courtroom-style questioning of commissioners and town officials during recent meetings. The new policy allows speakers to make comments but not question town officials. “The presentation is just that. It’s not time for a Q and A,” said Town Attorney John Randolph, who drafted the new policy. The commission decided against a three-minute limit.
    • Commissioners decided the demonstration street light and pole erected beside the police station is too tall and the wrong color. Instead they prefer a forest green 12-foot pole. Another demonstration pole may be erected. The proposed $380,000 street lighting project calls for 53 of the lantern-style lights on residential streets and 35 cobra-head lights on A1A.
    • Commissioners postponed until June a decision on a request to divide property at 1410 N. Ocean Blvd. into three lots so the owner and neighbors can work out an agreement over landscaping and fencing.       

Members of the mass choir swirl their flags during the performance. Photo by David R. Randell

By Ron Hayes
    
Devin Dykstra is an apple. His brother, Blake, is a banana.
    On a Monday evening in May, as the two Manalapan brothers waited in a mirrored rehearsal hall at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, it was essential they remember this.
    Devin’s the apple, Blake’s the banana.
    They also had to remember when to clap, when to sway, when to wave their American flags and when to let rip with the kazoos.
    Devin is 11, Blake is 9.
    The median age in Manalapan is 61.
    “I grew up here myself,” says their mother, Kim Dykstra. “It’s a wonderful town, but there aren’t a lot of kids their own age around.”
    And then, three years ago, she discovered the Young Singers of the Palm Beaches — six countywide choruses for boys and girls 8 to 18.
    Now the Dykstra boys have about 350 friends.

Devin Dykstra waits to take the stage during rehearsals. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

    “The hardest part is the choreography,” admits Devin, who joined in 2009. “But that first year I had trouble getting to the stage.”
    This is where the apples and bananas come in.
    When the 78 members of the Treble Chorus march onto the Kravis Center’s main stage for their part in the Young Singers’ 10th anniversary concert May 19, Devin and the other “apples” file in from the left, Blake and his fellow “bananas” from the right.
    Knowing what you are tells you where you’re supposed to be.

Blake Dykstra sings during rehearsals. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

“The hardest work is the choreography,” agrees Blake, “but it makes me feel great. I love hearing the applause.”
    The Young Singers of the Palm Beaches was founded in 2003 by a group of local music teachers who envisioned a nonprofit children’s chorus where only the singing mattered. Not race, religion, income — or shrinking school budgets.
    That first season featured 79 singers and two choirs.
    At the spring concert this year, 350 singers would perform.
    In between, they’ve sung all over Palm Beach County, as well as in Boston, New York, Vienna and Disney World.
    “Right now, our biggest challenge is how to manage our growth,” says Beth Clark, the executive director. “The minute Glee came on TV, our auditions went from 60 to 100 that June. Suddenly it was cool to sing.”
    But not inexpensive. The YSPB has an annual budget of $600,000. Singers pay a tuition of $650 a year.
    “And that’s only about 34 percent of our budget,” Clark says. “The rest I have to raise. But we’ve never turned a qualified child away because of financial need.”
    About 20 percent of the members receive some sort of help with tuition, but the other children don’t know who these are, and they don’t care. They don’t have time.
    From August to May, they are meeting for 90 minutes every week with artistic director D. Shawn Berry, four conductors and two accompanists, learning both the music and the moves for their holiday and spring concerts.
    For the older singers, the choreography is sophisticated and complicated. Real Broadway show-tune dancing.
    For the younger singers, like Devin and Blake, it’s unsophisticated — and complicated.
    Just try singing You’re A Grand Old Flag while standing on risers, swaying from side to side — one row swaying left when the other row sways right  — and everybody waving little American flags in time to the tune.
    At this Monday evening rehearsal, a week before the concert, Berry was as attentive to the apples-and-bananas aspect of the show as he was to the music.
    “Sweetheart,” he told one little girl, “I don’t see where you’re standing …”
    They had only two more last-minute rehearsals before the Sunday night show.
    “I think I did pretty well,” Devin said after Berry had led the Treble Chorus through a perfunctory run-through. “But the the real concert is a lot more fun.”
    Blake was equally self-confident.
    “I think I sounded fantastic,” he announced.
    And now it’s 7:05 p.m. on Sunday night, May 19, and the lights in the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Concert Hall are dimming. The stragglers rush to their seats, and all 350 Young Singers find their places in the dark.
    The chorus is so big it overflows the stage, down the sides, into the aisles. 
    This year, the spring concert is titled Ubuntu, an African word that signifies the interdependence of all humanity. Mark Hayes, a nationally recognized composer, has written a world-premiere anthem for them.
    I am me because you are you, they sang, softly at first, then louder, louder.
    I am who I am because of who you are  
    And these kids sounded … absolutely fantastic.
    Even if you were not a parent, grandparent or close family friend, they sounded flabbergastingly good.
    The Young Singers of the Palm Beaches are amateurs, but they are not amateurish.
    On the upbeat fiddle tune Cripple Creek  and the reverent hymn Exultate Justi in Domino, they were upbeat and reverent.
    Grace, a new arrangement of Amazing Grace by Hayes, was inspired, and when the lights went down for the pop hit Fireflies and the Intermezzo chorus sang it while rhythmically sparking tiny flashlights in the dark, the audience broke into spontaneous applause.
    For an hour and half, they sang somber spirituals —Peace Like A River — and frothy pop songs — Rockin’ Robin.
    When Cris Carianna sang and danced The Brotherhood of Man from How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, you wondered if maybe a Broadway touring company had wandered onto the stage unannounced. He was that good.
    And then, just before the final reprise of Ubuntu, the Treble Chorus arrives, apples on the left, bananas on the right.
    The T-shirts and blue jeans are gone. Devin and Blake are grown-up and spiffy in black shirts, slacks and royal blue neckties, along with everyone else.
    They begin with Alleluia! I Will Sing … a song of love and freedom.
    Then comes I Whistle A Happy Tune, from The King & I, but they don’t whistle the chorus. They all whip out kazoos and the audience goes wild.
    And now the George M. Cohan medley.
    Devin, the veteran singer, stands tall and dignified, reaching the back row, sure of himself.
    Blake, new this year, has somehow mastered the art of grinning from ear to ear while singing his heart out.
    You’re a grand old flag!
    You’re a high-flying flag!
    The entire chorus is swaying in time, this row left, that row right, waving their flags, Yankee Doodle Dandies all, and suddenly audience can’t help whistling, cheering and clapping along.
    “Listen to me, kids,” you want to tell every one of them, “you went out there apples and bananas tonight. But you came back stars.”                               

    Beginning July 15, the Young Singers of the Palm Beaches will offer a three-week workshop in musical theater with master classes taught by guest artists direct from Broadway. For information about auditions and fees, visit www.yspb.org.

By Tim O’Meilia

    The Palm Beach County Inspector General has begun an audit of the financial operation of the town of Briny Breezes.
    A representative of the Inspector General’s audit division has met several times with the town staff in April and May. Documents and a recording of one of the meetings were subpoenaed in early May.
    The chief of the Inspector General’s audit division, Dennis Schindel, declined to reveal why the audit is being conducted, or whether it was prompted by a complaint, until the investigation is completed. The audit and subsequent report may take several months.
    Briny Breezes Town Attorney Jerome Skrandel said the investigation was a performance audit — an examination of the internal controls of the operation of the town.
    During a May 13 special meeting, Skrandel was critical of the Inspector General’s office for seeking a subpoena to determine if an April 25 meeting of the audit representative and town personnel was taped illegally.
    Skrandel said the recorder was in plain view and an announcement that the meeting was being taped was made so town employees could refer to it to supply the information that the audit required.
    During the meeting, the auditor asked if the April 25 meeting was being taped and did not object, Skrandel said. Investigators returned April 29 with a subpoena.
    “I think the conduct by the Inspector General’s employee was reprehensible,” he said, referring to the auditor’s apparently seeking a subpoena to investigate the taping as a criminal act.
    The recording and recorder were returned to the town by State Attorney’s Office investigators May 16.
    Detectives Robert Flechaus and Daniel Amero said the taping case would not be pursued, but that town employees had improperly taped the meeting by neglecting to get everyone’s consent on the tape.
    Under the Inspector General’s auditing procedures, the town will have an opportunity to meet with the auditors over the preliminary findings and later be able to include its own response and make comments to the final report.

    In other business:
    • Alderman Nancy Boczon said the town was negotiating with Hi-Byrd Inspections to continue as the town’s building official. The firm planned to resign as of June 2 over a dispute with the management of Briny Breezes, Inc., the corporation that owns the town. If an agreement is not reached or another building official is not found, town residents may be forced to seek permits through Palm Beach County, which would greatly prolong the application period.
    • The town will submit address lists and “living quarters” counts to the U.S. Census Bureau as part of its challenge to the number of housing units reported in the 2010 census. The town insists it has 484 mobile homes and four empty lots. The census counted exactly 800 dwellings. If the number is corrected, the town’s official population of 601 would likely drop as well, since the population figure is derived using a statistical formula based on the number of housing units. The correct numbers are needed for the town’s comprehensive plan and would have little effect on the amount of state revenue-sharing the town receives.