Painters at Artful Dreamers Studio during the tour.

Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Delray Beach: Artist sees flourishing gallery off the beaten path

By Ron Hayes

BOYNTON BEACH —Shortly after 5 p.m. on July 19, a Molly’s Trolley carrying about 35 enthusiastic men and women left Cuthill’s Backyard restaurant on Northeast Fourth Street and went in search of art.
Participants ride the trolley from one arts venue to the next.

They found it where you’d expect to find art — colorful galleries in a shopping plaza, tiny strip malls along Federal Highway.
And then they found it where you’d least expect art — an industrial district off Boynton Beach Boulevard, just west of I-95, just north of Lloyd’s Auto and Wendy’s burgers.
In row after row of concrete bays built to house heavy equipment and light construction, painters, sculptors and graffiti artists are constructing a creative community. The bays are filled with paintings and macramé, metal sculptures and stone carvings, some in progress, some for sale.
You can’t miss the artists’ bays. The once-gray metal doors are now bright murals, bursts of color in a formerly dangerous neighborhood.
“This is fantastic,” marveled Kim Weiss as she strolled from bay to bay, “I’ve lived by the beach for about four years, and all I knew is the more local galleries. But here, I could be in Miami or New York and I wouldn’t know the difference. It’s very high-end art. It feels very urban here.”
It feels like a secret the trolley tours hope to expose.
Dubbed “Breezing Through The Arts,” tours are slated the third Thursday of each month beginning in October. For $20, travelers visit local galleries, enjoy a bit of wine and cheese, and meet the artists. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and the Creative Business Alliance, a new consortium of local artists and gallery owners, sponsor the program.

Sporting a custom-painted hat, Lori Durante provides information during the tour.

“It’s coming from artists who are vested here with their own galleries,” said Lori Durante, the executive director of the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History, who led the first tour. “This is a seed they’ve planted, and they’re nurturing their field for an artful harvest.”
Among the galleries highlighted on the inaugural tour were Art-Sea Living, Beachcomber Art, Artful Dreamer’s Studio, ActivistArtistA Gallery and Tortoise Treasures.
At Beachcomber Art at 112 S. Federal Highway, a singer, balloon sculptor and psychic entertained as visitors perused owner Debbie Brookes’ amazing selection of chandeliers, mirrors and stuffed fish, all covered with seashells.
“This is my play therapy,” Brookes explained.” I’m an embellisher in many ways.”
She began by embellishing boxes with shells and selling them to friends in the Ocean Ridge Garden Club, which  led her to place them in boutiques. When she saw the markup, Brookes opened her own shop, where a sailfish covered with shells ($5,200) hangs from the ceiling, not far from a shark ($5,500).
Lamps, busts, obelisks and vases, Brookes embellishes them all. She even has a cocktail table covered with oyster shells ($3,200), some with pearls.
“You need the whimsy,” she explained.
The undisputed highlight of the tour, however, was the burgeoning arts district on West Industrial Avenue, where Rolando Chang Barrero is leading the renaissance.
The area’s artistic beginnings came in 1986, when metal sculptor Rick Beaulieu moved into what was then a crime-ridden neighborhood. Three years later, the city pronounced the stretch a “Neighborhood Arts District.”
A Miami native who came to Boynton Beach a year ago, Chang Barrero opened his Activist-ArtistA Gallery in one of the bays, then sought other artists willing to pay about $450 a month to move in. Now nine artists are working there, and three have galleries.
“People are surprised to find that there’s even an arts district in Boynton Beach,” says Chang Barrero. “It’s always been on the down-low, but now, with the upswing and marketing, we’re trying to put Boynton Beach on the map.”              

For information about the next Breezing Through The Arts trolley tour on Oct. 18, call 737-2600 or visit www.creativebusinessalliance.com.

Vincent Cacace shows off artwork to Anne Walsh.
 Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Boynton Beach: Trolley takes enthusiasts on art-related tour

By Mary Jane Fine
    
DELRAY BEACH —Vincent Cacace envisions the future of Artists Alley as if it were a canvas awaiting his brush. The colors. The shapes. The blocking.
    This is how it can be: “I see that as a gallery, at the end,” he says, pointing down the alleyway to a vacant building. “And there’s a guy who wants to open a café down there, and he’d hang the artists’ paintings on his walls.’’
    Cacace foresees bamboo plantings — the purple variety, 70 feet tall — and a butterfly garden where, now, there are only grass and shrubs. And a mural, a stylized wave, on the side of that concrete structure,  the one festooned with mildew drippings. That little red-and-grey-brick pocket-park, across the way, the one the city built? That’ll be a sculpture park.
    Dream it and they will come: the art aficionados, the collectors, the buyers. Since April’s initial third-Thursday Open Gallery and Studio night, there’s already been modest success: 100 or so people who found their way to this admittedly hidden enclave along the railroad tracks, on the edge of Delray’s Pineapple Grove District. The “street sign” is hand-painted; the studio/galleries occupy space in featureless rows of former garages.

A handpainted sign directs visitors to Delray Beach’s Artists Alley.

    Cacace flips open a page in a ring-binder of photos. This one shows him standing on an oil-stained concrete floor, the ceiling high above, the walls bare. That once-barren garage space is now his gallery-and-studio, its walls hung with paintings of banana trees and shorelines and poinciana-shaded houses. Nearby are the Vladimir Prodanovich Studio and Jeff Whyman Studio and Ian Levinson’s Cloud House Pottery and the Linda White Gallery, where Rebecca Kline hangs her paintings. (Levinson is fashioning the pineapple-topped ceramic totems that will mark the entry to Artists Alley; Kline’s stylized-wave mural will wash over the mildew-covered box-building across the way.)

Artist Rebecca Kline, artist Harry McCormick, and gallery owner Linda White visit at Linda White Gallery in Delray Beach.

    So far, nine galleries participate in the monthly Champagne-and-hors d’oeuvres open-studio evenings.
Another garage bay, 20-by-80 feet, rents for $1,600 a month — “the last possible spot in this downtown that’s affordable,” says Cacace, who used to rent space on Atlantic Avenue until, as he says, “The rents went up, and the area got younger. It’s more boisterous now, the pace has quickened. It’s less art-hip.”
    Certainly, there’s still work to be done here on Artists Alley, and, sometimes, getting permits for one thing or another makes for slow-going.
    “We got permission to put a mural on that building,” Cacace says, gesturing toward the future wave-mural site. “We need permits for sign boards. This is an arts area and they (city officials) need to treat us differently. Art needs to be a little free.”
    As Cacace and Levinson and Kline and their fellow artists see it, their burgeoning art colony is more than a venture whose time has come; it’s long overdue.
    The Pineapple District as an arts destination has been, in Cacace’s words, “sputtering along for 15 years.” He views Artists Alley as “the right thing at the right time. We have a very cohesive group of people who just happened to come together.”
    No one has to sell Chris Lano on the concept. He’s hooked. “I think it’s a great idea,” says Lano, who lives on Hypoluxo Island and is a longtime fan of Cacace’s work. “I think it’s something Delray needs, and if the city gets behind it, they could create a walking area . . . it’s another destination for people to come and do things.” Lano and girlfriend Anne Walsh, who lives in Ocean Ridge, try to attend every Open Studio.
    They’re just the kinds of visitors Artists Alley seeks to attract.
    “We don’t want everyone here,” Cacace says. “We want people who are interested in art here.”                                         

By Tim O’Meilia
   
Four things learned from last month’s visit of President Obama and Vice President Biden:
    1. Waiting onlookers and reporters like pizza, ice cream and cinnamon-nut French toast.
    2. Roped-off parking lots mean no parking meter revenue and no beachfront breakfast crowd.
    3. No school buses parked nose-to-tail were harmed during the presidential and vice-presidential visits.
    4. You can get from Manalapan to the Palm Beach International Airport in 17 minutes even if the bridge is out — if you’ve got a Secret Service escort.
    President Barack Obama’s motorcade didn’t buzz up to the Ritz-Carlton’s back door until after 9:30 p.m. July 19, giving well-wishers and television news crews hours of milling-around time in the Plaza del Mar shopping center at the corner of Ocean Avenue and State Road A1A.
    “It was the best night we’ve had since we opened,” beamed Dean Ismajli, who opened his second Lantana II Pizza two months ago in the Plaza courtyard. The restaurant wrote 227 order tickets that night.
    Ismajli suspected the Secret Service had been reconnoitering the plaza for several weeks.
“Well-dressed, clean-cut, big,” he said, flexing his shoulders and arms. “They won’t tell you (who they were) but you could pretty much tell.”
    Around the corner, the Ice Cream Club didn’t have a Rocky Road to the White House cone on the menu, but they did have a “Welcome, President Obama” sign.
    Not that the president could see the sign from behind the row of protective school buses lining the plaza parking lot along A1A. Some of the crowd wondered if

ABOVE: Security atop the Ritz-Carlton in Manalapan keeps a lookout as crowds wait for President Obama to pass.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star | See more photos

schoolchildren had been bused in to greet the president.
    “We didn’t get the president over here, but we got a lot of other people. It was a fun and exciting event,” said store co-owner Rich Draper.
    Wendy Yarbrough of John G’s in the plaza was expecting a presidential customer for breakfast. “The Secret Service were all over the place,” she said.
    The staff and locals were ready for their close-up with the POTUS. But world events intervened overnight.
    “It’s unfortunate about the horrible tragedy in Colorado,” Yarbrough said, “and we are praying for the victims, but yes, we were disappointed that he couldn’t make it.”
    Locals lined up outside the restaurant at 7 a.m. when Yarbrough opened the doors. “But they wouldn’t come inside — they all just hung out on the sidewalk to see him.”
    While Vice President Joe Biden spent barely 45 minutes at the hotel, the president’s overnight entourage occupied two floors of the resort and required metal detectors at every elevator.
    The visits didn’t ring the cash register for everyone.
    With the Lantana beach parking lot next to the Ritz roped off for security concerns, the beachfront Dune Deck did little Friday morning business until the president left at about 9:15 a.m.
    “The police came in and bought, so it wasn’t so bad,” said co-owner Costa Panais.
    With no parking lot and a downpour Monday morning when Biden arrived, Panais decided not to open. “We had to do what we had to do. You’ve got to protect the president,” he said. “It was out of my hands.”
    The town of Lantana is taking a different tack. With their metered parking blocked off for a day and a half, town officials calculated a loss of $4,275 in parking meter income. The Town Council decided to ask the feds for a reimbursement.
    The town can’t afford to lose the money, said Mayor Dave Stewart, since the council faces a $140,000 deficit unless taxes are raised. “That’s money we would have brought in, anticipated revenue,” he said, suggesting the town needs a new $5,000 ATV for beach patrol.
    “We can ask for it. I really don’t expect to get it,” the mayor said. “Maybe we’ll get a nice letter back saying sorry for the inconvenience.”
    The two visits forced Manalapan and South Palm Beach to call in extra officers, but the overtime was minimal, both police chiefs said. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office bore the brunt of providing security.
    One South Palm Beach onlooker counted 93 motorcycles, trucks and limousines in the president’s motorcade and 63 in Biden’s. The Sheriff’s Office did not respond by press time to a request for the cost.
    “It was a very smooth operation,” said Manalapan Police Chief Carmen Mattox. “All the businesses in the plaza cooperated and the Ritz-Carlton cooperated.”
    South Palm Beach Police Chief Roger Crane said several hundred people lined A1A for a glimpse of the president’s motorcade and all followed instructions to stay on the sidewalk. “No one jumped out in the road to take a picture,” he said.
    The Ice Cream Club’s Draper is eager for more campaign visits before the November election. “Whatever brings in the television coverage and gets the plaza and the Ritz talked about,” he said, ever the businessman.                           
Jan Norris contributed to this story.

By Tim Pallesen
    
Every registered voter in Palm Beach is eligible to vote in nine races on the Aug. 14 primary ballot. That’s a change from the days when primary elections were strictly closed elections for Republicans and Democrats to select their candidates for a November general election.
    Democrats and Republicans still have closed primary elections on the Aug. 14 ballot. But August elections in Palm Beach County have evolved to also include important elections for all registered voters.
    The countywide races for four constitutional officers will be decided Aug. 14 without the need for a November election.
    Four incumbents — Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher, Property Appraiser Gary Nikolits and Clerk of the Circuit Court Sharon Bock — are seeking re-election.
    Voters changed the county charter in 2004 so future candidates for sheriff, elections supervisor and property appraiser would be nonpartisan.
Those candidates no longer campaign as Republicans or Democrats.
    A Democratic primary in the clerk’s race was opened to all voters when no Republican or write-in candidate filed for that race.
Tax Collector Anne Gannon will be reelected if she wins a Democratic primary because no Republican filed in that
race.      
    Five judgeships also will be on the ballot for all Palm Beach voters to study and vote upon. Those races also are nonpartisan with no need for a Nov. 6 General Election.
    U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is the highest-ranking incumbent in a closed party primary. Nelson has a Democratic opponent and four Republicans want his seat, so both political parties have Senate primaries.
Former West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel faces Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs in a Democratic primary for U.S. House.
State Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff has a Republican primary before she can face Sen. Maria Sachs, a Democrat, in the general election.
A Senate district that includes Manalapan and South Palm Beach has a Democratic primary between Mack Bernard and Jeff Clemens.  

Gulf Stream resident Pamela Goodman has dropped out of the State House race for coastal South County because of her husband’s health.
“It’s a pretty serious illness. I can’t stay on the campaign trail,” Goodman said after notifying Democratic Party officials. “Family comes first.”
Goodman was set to oppose Rep. Bill Hager, the Republican incumbent for District 89 in the Nov. 4 general election.
Goodman became a candidate after pushing for legislative redistricting as vice president of the Florida League of Women Voters.
District boundaries have been redrawn for fall elections with near equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans.
“The campaign had been going great,” she said. “Support was just tremendous.”
County Democrats will name a candidate to replace Goodman on the Nov. 4 ballot.
She said she has interviewed potential candidates at the request of County Democratic Committee Chairman Mark Alan Siegel and promised help in the new party nominee’s campaign.
Tom Gustafson, former speaker of the Florida House, was expected to be named by Democrats on July 31 as the replacement for Goodman in the race, said Siegel.
Gustafson, a former Broward County legislator who now lives in Wellington, will move into District 89, Siegel said.
— Tim Pallesen

By Steve Plunkett
    
Deputy Boca Raton Manager George Brown is a “Home Rule Hero” to cities across the county and across the state for helping derail a proposed Florida law on sober houses.
Richard Radcliffe, executive director of the county League of Cities, gave Brown a plaque on behalf of the state league at the City Council’s July 10 meeting.
He said he learned how hard Brown works during this year’s legislative session.
    “I would call him and he says, ‘Oh, I’m at a health fair,’ and I would call him somewhere else and he would say, ‘Oh, I’m at the library working on this.’ … He just seemed to do every job in the world,” Radcliffe said.
    The plaque cites Brown’s “outstanding legislative advocacy in 2012 in the fight for municipal home rule.”
    “As most of you know, it [home rule] is a passion of mine,” Brown said. “Each city is different. Each city has its own unique character that derives from its home rule actions.”
    The exercise of home rule powers “has made Boca Raton a beautiful, successful city, and it sustains us as a premier community,” Brown said.
    Mayor Susan Whelchel said everyone on the dais considered every day a George Brown Day. “We’re thrilled to be here with you while you receive this award,” she said.
    A bill that would have “exempted certain licensed facilities in a way that negated the required adherence to local occupancy standards” died in committee last spring, the state league notes in its legislative final report.
    Delray Beach also opposed the sober house bill.
    Radcliffe said the state league and even the county league had not taken a stand on the bill until Brown became involved. “I saw it firsthand,” Radcliffe said. “The man worked some wonders.”

By Tim Pallesen
    
Delray Beach has given the Caron Foundation approval to operate two high-end sober houses near the ocean, ending a costly lawsuit that city commissioners feared they would lose.
    The July 17 settlement came after a federal judge said it was likely that Caron could prove at trial that the city discriminated against recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.
    “It is foreboding what’s going to happen at trial,” Matthew Mandel, the outside attorney hired to defend the lawsuit, told commissioners.
    “The judge is trying to send us a message to say how he will rule if there’s a trial,” Mandel said. “I believe the city has no choice but to settle.”
    City Attorney Brian Shutt estimated the city would owe at least $950,000 in damages and fees if it lost at trial. Shutt also urged commissioners to settle.
    “We have run into an immovable object,” Mayor Woodie McDuffie concluded. “To pursue this further would be fiscally unconscionable.
    “I see millions of dollars in damages,” McDuffie said before the unanimous vote to settle. “A city of our size cannot stand the loss of revenue of the magnitude this could reach.”
    The settlement allows Caron to house eight recovery patients at 740 N. Ocean Blvd. and six patients at 1232 Seaspray Ave.
    “We’ve established an absolute right to be there,” Caron executive vice president Andrew Rothermel said after the city gave up its fight.
Caron’s “Ocean Drive” program provides upscale housing and amenities for clients who pay $55,000 a month to live in the seaside houses while they undergo treatment at Caron’s facilities in Boca Raton.
    Caron promises not to seek any additional sober houses in the city. The nonprofit treatment provider got the city’s permission to relocate its Seaspray Avenue sober house if it finds a more peaceful location.
“That house is in a neighborhood that’s so up in arms,” Rothermel said. “We might move if we could find a house with a greater degree of privacy.”
    Neighbors have focused a webcam on the Seaspray house and put protest signs in their yards.
Ray Jones, who lives across the street, said the protest hasn’t ended because of the settlement.
    “We still don’t want a boarding house in our neighborhood,” Jones said. “We are going to continue to fight in any way we can.”
    But Cary Glickstein, another opponent, said that there’s nothing more the city can do to legislate against sober houses in single-family neighborhoods.
    “This can only be summed up as a victory for Caron,” said Glickstein, the chairman of the city’s planning and zoning board and mayoral candidate. “The neighborhood got screwed.”
    The issue at trial would have been whether the city violated federal laws that prohibit housing discrimination against recovering alcoholics and addicts.
    Federal Judge William Dimitrouleas had criticized McDuffie and Glickstein for their public comments in an April order. The judge said Caron already had shown “a substantial likelihood for success at trial in demonstrating that the city has discriminated.”
    Coastal residents called for laws to restrict sober houses when they learned in December that the city had approved Caron’s request to house seven patients at its North Ocean Boulevard house. The city then denied Caron’s request to open the Seaspray Avenue sober house and required both houses to have landlord permits.
 

To preprare for the competition, Bob Gittlin practices his dance moves with partner Mariya-Khristina Shurupova at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Boca Raton. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Paula Detwiller
    
Bob Gittlin believes so strongly in helping kids go to college, he will do practically anything to support the cause — and that includes ballroom dancing lessons, six days a week.
    Gittlin has been training to compete in a Dancing with the Stars spinoff event called Boca’s Ballroom Battle that raises thousands of dollars annually for the Boca Raton-based George Snow Scholarship Fund. The fund provides educational grants to young scholars throughout the area, a mission that transforms lives, Gittlin says. So he agreed to try to transform himself into a dancer for the big event on Aug. 17.
    “My hips don’t move, I have two left feet, I don’t have great posture. All the things you would want to have as a dancer, I don’t have,” says Gittlin, 64, of coastal Delray Beach. “But it was something I wanted to do to help the Snow Foundation. You can really see the difference they make in the world.”
    A huge believer in “paying it forward,” Gittlin has been recognized by many charitable organizations for his service over the years. He is currently on the board of directors of the Golden Bell Education Foundation, which brings much-needed funding to Boca Raton schools. For a decade now, he’s played Santa Claus for nonprofit organizations during the holiday season. He also actively supports “Golden Retrievals,” a South Florida golden retriever rescue organization.
    A theme of charitable giving runs through his work life, too. As president of JKG Group in Boca Raton since 1994, Gittlin has grown the company from a small printing and graphics firm into a multifaceted marketing and corporate communications provider with national and international clients and a track record of pro bono work for the nonprofit community. The Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce named Gittlin its 2001 Business Leader of the Year, and the JKG Group was awarded the Chamber’s Company of the Year title in 2008.
    One of JKG’s most visible local clients is the Office Depot Foundation. In 2001 Gittlin and his staff helped the foundation launch its National Backpack Program, which supplies free backpacks to underprivileged children at the start of each school year.
    “We design the backpacks, source them, distribute them, and create the entire PR campaign around them,” Gittlin says. “This year we will celebrate the foundation giving away their 2.9 millionth backpack to at-risk children, both domestically and globally.”
    When it comes to personal achievements, Gittlin is proudest of his efforts, as a single dad, to raise his son, Grant Gittlin. “I used to take him with me everywhere, to all my business meetings, from the time he was about 8 years old. And even then he could hold his own,”  Gittlin says.
    Today Grant is 27 and “right-hand man” to the chairman and CEO of MediaLink in New York City and Los Angeles.
    Perhaps Grant inherited his dad’s tenacity. It’s the trait that keeps Gittlin striving to improve his health and fitness with daily 6:30 a.m. personal training sessions at The Facility, a Boca gym that caters to older adults.
    “My trainer told me one day that I’m the most tenacious [guy] he’s ever trained,” Gittlin says. “So when the program coordinator for Boca’s Ballroom Battle said we need a stage name for you, and it can’t be Twinkle Toes, I said, OK, it’ll be Tenacious Toes.”
    Mariya-Khristina Shurupova, his dance teacher and partner at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Boca Raton, where all eight of the event’s contestants are training, has choreographed a routine for him to the soundtrack of The Pink Panther. Tenacious Toes won’t reveal many details, but he does acknowledge that his costume is pink, and a little outrageous.
    “I have three goals,” he says. “To raise as much money as I can for kids’ scholarships; to give people kind enough to attend the best performance I can give them; and to inspire someone sitting in the audience to volunteer to dance next
year.”          

Fifth annual Boca’s Ballroom Battle
Benefiting the George Snow Scholarship Fund
Boca Raton Resort & Club
Aug. 17, 6-10 p.m.
Theme: Going to the Movies Tickets: Members $150
Non-members $225
www.scholarship.org/
Dancers:
Bob Gittlin
Peter Baronoff
Kristin Calder
Darci McNally
Beth Osborne
Lisa Pechter
Dick Pollock
Fernando X. Rodriguez
For more information,
contact Debi Feiler, 347-6799

By Tim O’Meilia
    
Imagine unmanned drones patrolling the Manalapan shoreline or helium-filled balloons surveilling the beach or infra-red cameras spying north and south after dark along the oceanfront. However fantastic and unlikely — except perhaps the cameras — those are some of the solutions town commissioners learned could be used to combat beach-going trespassers.
    Town commissioners will consider those and more mundane and practical solutions, such as weekend marine and beach patrols, during an Aug. 27 budget workshop.
    Commissioners all but vetoed the idea of contracting police services with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office during a July 18 workshop.
    Although they didn’t take an official vote, five of six commissioners said they would rather stick with their own police force even if it means spending more to protect against beach-going trespassers.
     Mayor Basil Diamond said the issue should be reconsidered periodically and noted the town made an unsuccessful effort at joint cooperation on policing with other coastal towns.
The sheriff’s office has offered a two-year contract at $1.17 million, compared with the town police force cost next year of $1.3 million.
    Police Chief Carmen Mattox and Town Manager Linda Stumpf have proposed hiring two part-time police officers for a Friday-Sunday daytime beach patrol and contracting with Lantana or the sheriff’s office for Saturday and Sunday marine patrol.
    In addition, they would restore a police support services position to help with administrative duties and increase police liability insurance to $5 million. The police budget would increase to $1.52 million.
    Adding similar marine and beach patrol duties to the sheriff’s contract would raise it to $1.28 million, making the difference about $240,000 annually.  
    “It’s got to be demonstrated to me there is significant difference in cost,” said Commissioner David Cheifetz. “We’re not going to save much money and we’re not going to get any more coverage. I’m at the point that the PBSO should be taken off the table.”
    All but Commissioner Donald Brennan agreed. “The (cost) gap is significant. To manage outsourced vendors and patch it together and fill up the gaps is the wrong way to go,” he said. “We ought to continue to pursue a full-service operation.”
    Commissioners refused to slam the door on talks with the sheriff’s office, defeating Commissioner John Murphy’s motion to end any negotiations by a 4-3 vote with Diamond casting the deciding ballot.
    “The quotes in the sheriff’s office offer aren’t worth the paper it’s written on,” Murphy said.
    With the sheriff’s offer all but dead, commissioners said they would resume contract negotiations with the police union.
    Commissioners spent several minutes examining a photograph of weekend beachgoers north of the sand transfer plant, trying to determine where the mean high water mark fell (which delineates public and private property) and which beachgoers would have to move their blankets.
    “The amount of illicit sex — mostly homosexual — taking place in heavy sea grapes is unacceptable,” Brennan said of his encounters with beach lovers who he said dug foxhole-like love nests on his seaside property.
    Commissioner Louis DeStefano, a 22-year oceanfront owner, said the solution is not confronting beachgoers. ‘‘I don’t say a word to anyone and no one bothers me,” he said.
    Mattox said a series of steps has been taken to discourage beachgoers from treading on the property of Manalapan homeowners.
    A beach access sign at the Boynton Inlet will be removed and the gate closed after 8 p.m. The roped pathway to the beach will direct beachgoers to the inlet beach and green signs emphasizing Manalapan’s ordinances will be erected.  
    In other business:
    Commissioners set a tentative tax rate for next year at $3.35 per $1,000 of taxable property value although all indicated the rate would be reduced before the September budget hearings. The current rate is $2.78. Commissioners said they wanted flexibility to deal with the possibility of increased costs for upgrading the police force. DeStefano opposed the rate.
    Commissioners also agreed to place a term limit question on the March 2013 ballot. If approved, commissioner and the mayor would be limited to three consecutive two-year terms in each office or four terms in combination.    

By Margie Plunkett

    Ocean Ridge had full police coverage in county parks for the July Fourth holiday week, protected by marked and unmarked patrol cars, marine patrols, motorcycle officers and even a helicopter as the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests to step up efforts against crime.
    “We had no incidents,” said Ocean Ridge Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi, who added, “We greatly appreciated” the effort.
    Both Ocean Ridge and Manalapan had asked for more sheriff’s coverage over the holiday.
    In June, Yannuzzi wrote a letter to PBSO decrying the rising crime in Ocean Inlet Park and Hammock Park after budget cuts had reduced Sheriff’s Office presence and “seeking your assistance in reducing the criminal activity that is occurring.”
    “We look forward to having an action plan in place quickly,” Yannuzzi’s letter said.
    The Sheriff’s Office prepared a lengthy operation plan to beef up its coverage, Yannuzzi said, and plans to review the statistics in August to determine the resulting impact. “They’ll be permanently stepping up patrols in the area,” he added.
    Yannuzzi’s letter shows calls for the Sheriff’s Office rising to 371 in Ocean Inlet Park and to 208 in Hammock in 2010; at the same time, calls to the Ocean Ridge Police Department were eight and six, respectively.
    The number of sheriff calls dropped in 2011 to 139 in Ocean Inlet and 49 in Hammock after that department cut coverage, and at the same time Ocean Ridge calls rose to 40 and 10, respectively.
    Yannuzzi contends in the letter the statistics on reduced sheriff’s calls reflect the absence of routine patrols by that law enforcement office.
    This year’s increase in violent crime includes at least two armed robberies, two sexual assaults and several physical altercations — one including a gun, Yannuzzi’s letter said.  
The Manalapan Police Department, which has a mutual aid agreement with the Sheriff’s Office to respond to calls on its side of Ocean Inlet Park, also requested added coverage for the July Fourth week. PBSO agreed to increase its presence at the Inlet on the Fourth of July and the following week, Manalapan Police Chief Carmen Mattox told that town’s commissioners in his monthly report.
    Ocean Ridge does not have a mutual aid agreement with the Sheriff’s Office. Yannuzzi declined to sign, he explained in his letter, as “ORPD was suffering (and continues to suffer) the same budgetary woes PBSO was facing.
    “Our staff was reduced. We went through a reorganization process, and we could not absorb the expense/time associated with     the initial report, follow-up investigations  and prosecution of county cases,” Yannuzzi wrote.           

Ocean Ridge Commissioners passed an ordinance in July that requires residents to remove foliage that’s dead or dying due to pests like the white fly.  The ordinance gives residents 60 days to try to treat the plants; if plants don’t respond, however, they must be removed.
— Margie Plunkett

By Mary Thurwachter

    Tax rates haven’t been raised in Lantana for 11 years and that won’t change this year.
    Council members set the preliminary tax rate at $3.24 per $1,000 of a home’s assessed value at their July 23 meeting.
    “We’ve been through the worst (of the recession),” Mayor Dave Stewart said, expressing confidence in the town manager’s handling of the budget and adding that the town had sufficient reserves.
    “This is not a good time to raise taxes on constituents,” council member Tom Deringer said. The town will make adjustments, he said. “We need three police cars, we’ll buy two.”
    But council members Cindy Austino and Lynn Moorhouse voted against the proposed rate, arguing that it should be set higher this year.
    “Everything else has gone up,” Moorhouse said. “I just don’t think it’s a reasonable end. It’s hard to let everything run down and fix it.”
    Employees haven’t had a cost of living raise since 2007, although each received a one-time $1,000 cash payment last year.
    Moorhouse said he was concerned about morale. “When you compare us to other towns, we’re not at the top of the pay list, we’re not even in the middle,” he said.
    Austino said the town needed to look very closely at every expense. She said the proposed rate should be set higher, adding that it could always come down.
    “If we’re gonna do it (raise taxes), this is the year to do it,” she said. “We can always lower it later, but we need to leave that option open.”
She suggested the town consider not replacing the ATV at the beach, a $5,000 expense. “Do we really need it?” she asked. “Our beach area is very small.”
    The council voted to let the decision on whether or not to replace the ATV up to Town Manager Deborah Manzo, who will discuss the matter with lifeguards. Lantana will have its first public budget hearing at 6 p.m. Sept. 10. A second hearing will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 19. Both will be held in council chambers.

By Tim Pallesen

    Ocean Ridge commissioners have proposed an increase in next year’s property tax rate of 9.52 percent.
     “I don’t see any way that we’re not going to raise the millage [rate],” Mayor Geoffrey Pugh said before the 3-2 commission vote to up this year’s rate of $5.25 per $1,000 of assessed value to $5.75 for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.
    The increase would add $500 to the $5,750 tax bill this year for the owner of a home valued at $1 million after exemptions.
    Town Manager Kenneth Schenck on July 25 proposed an operating budget of $5,239,101 to keep the tax rate unchanged.
    But the proposal has a $197,292 revenue shortfall and the town doesn’t know yet what a police union contract and employee health insurance will cost.
Commissioner Gail Adams Aaskov made the motion to approve the higher preliminary tax rate. Pugh and Vice Mayor Lynn Allison voted with Aaskov, saying it could be lowered later, while Commissioners Edward Brookes and Zoanne Hennigan objected.
    The town has scheduled a second budget workshop for 5 p.m. on Aug. 6.      

“Let’s start out realistically with what the town can afford,” Brookes cautioned.
    Commissioners now must weigh this month whether they can cut services, raise fees or take money from the town’s reserves to cover the shortfall and keep the tax rate stable.
    “There’s not much left in here to cut,” Schenck said as he gave commissioners his budget.
    Commissioners agreed with him during their first review.
    They agreed to increase the cost for police to monitor burglar alarms in single-family homes from $180 to $300 per year, but they rejected a suggestion to find a cheaper attorney and engineer.
    Commissioners then added two police patrol cars to the budget, increasing the revenue shortfall by $68,000 more.
    They were split on whether to explore if Briny Breezes should pay more than the $180,000 it does for Ocean Ridge to provide police services each year. Brookes wanted staff to calculate the town’s actual cost to provide law enforcement.
    Pugh said that number might jeopardize the pact with Briny Breezes, which has contracted with Boynton Beach for police services in past years.“That’s such a profit area,” Pugh said. “I don’t want to kill that horse so they go out shopping again.”
    Commissioners agreed to ask Boynton Beach to renegotiate the $905,113 that Ocean Ridge currently pays for fire-rescue service if Boynton closes the fire station located closest to the town.
    Public hearings on the budget will be at 5 p.m. on Sept. 10 and Sept. 25.                     

Sometimes in the depths of summer it’s difficult to leave the chilled cocoon of the house and drag myself into the office. But as we began to put together this August edition, I was re-energized by the dedicated, ongoing support of our readers, advertisers and peers.  
    As you read this month’s issue, please take a moment to notice the 65 or so local businesses that support our publishing efforts over the summer months.
    Many of these are your neighbors and friends and they know we don’t all head north during hurricane season (even though we might wish we did!). So, please make a point of frequenting their establishments this summer. They know we’re all in this together.
    They also know they are supporting an excellent group of local journalists who work hard to bring you the news of your community. How good are they? Just ask the judges of the Florida Press Association.
    At their July 7 convention in Destin, they granted 11 awards to Coastal Star writers, editors, photographers and designers. For the first time, we entered this contest in the over 15,000-circulation category and were thrilled to accept a first place for Community History.  Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley’s fine story telling on the 85th anniversary of the Boca Raton Resort & Club was noted by the judges, as was the package’s design by Scott Simmons. Congratulations to them both and to the 10 other Coastal Star winners who placed in seven other categories.
    Our summer subscribers have also shown that they care about our local journalism. As our calendar editor spent time cleaning up our outdated subscribers list, she mailed out close to 75 renewal notices. In just three weeks, more than 50 re-upped for another year. Impressive.
    We work hard all year to earn the loyalty of our readers and advertisers. Please accept this sincere “thank you” — especially during these long, hot days of summer.

— Mary Kate Leming, Editor

By Angie Francalancia
    
Boynton Beach commissioners once again are talking about closing the city’s downtown fire station, which ran on more than half the calls in Ocean Ridge last year, to cut costs.
    During budget workshops last month, Commissioner Steven Holzman said the city could almost balance its Fire Department budget by closing Station No. 1, laying off six of the firefighters who now staff it and moving the other three to Station No. 4 on Federal Highway near Woolbright Road.
    The city has agreed to once again hold a workshop to discuss closing the station located on Boynton Beach Boulevard just east of City Hall. It’s tentatively scheduled to take place in October, after the new budget year begins.
    If Boynton Beach laid off six firefighters at Station No. 1, it could save about $435,000 — the amount in contractual raises Boynton Beach has promised firefighters in collective bargaining agreements.
    But the move could jeopardize its annual $900,000 contract with Ocean Ridge for fire service, cautioned Lori LaVerriere, Boynton’s interim city manager. While there’s nothing in the contract that specifies which station would serve Ocean Ridge residents — according to City Attorney James Cherof — LaVerriere said Ocean Ridge felt it was implied that Station No. 1 would serve them.
    Ocean Ridge officials said there would be ramifications to the 12-year contract if the station were to close. Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi, who oversees the contract, said that when the contract was written in 2004 there was no anticipation of closing the station. “There is no contract that covers every contingency. You can only address the issues that are at hand,” he said.
    Boynton Beach has contracts with both Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes for fire rescue service.
    “We need to take Ocean Ridge out of our decision,” Holzman said at the workshop. While he vows to continue to press the issue, Holzman acknowledges he doesn’t have the support on the council to close the station now.
    “I am not in favor of closing Station No. 1,” Vice Mayor Mack McCray said. “These people are paying for keeping it open. If Ocean Ridge still wants to keep that contract, I’m sure we’ll find a way to keep Station No. 1 open.”
    Yannuzzi, who coordinates all public safety for the town, has said he’s concerned about response times and has collected data showing the response times for calls.
    Late last year, officials from both towns had agreed to explore the possibility of housing Boynton’s Fire Station No. 1 at Ocean Ridge Town Hall. That move would have preserved the close proximity of a fire station for both Ocean Ridge and Boynton Beach’s downtown residents.
    But that idea was put on hold earlier this year, Boynton Fire Chief Ray Carter said, because the city got no acceptable bids on three pieces of property it was looking to sell, which would have financed a larger police station. Boynton is discussing using Station No. 1 to expand its police headquarters. At the July budget workshop, Carter raised issues about the cost of renovating Ocean Ridge’s garage.
    Ocean Ridge Town Manager Ken Schenck said he’s never seen a cost analysis.“To the best of my knowledge, nobody has looked at numbers for this,” Schenck said. “It never got that far.”
    Last year, Boynton fire rescue responded to 55 percent of the Ocean Ridge calls from Station No. 1, nearly 10 percent more often than in 2010, according to data that Boynton supplied to Yannuzzi.
    “Even last year during all this conversation about whether it should remain in existence, Station No. 1 became more necessary to Ocean Ridge,” Yannuzzi said. “Keep in mind that some of those calls would have been to their own beach [located in Ocean Ridge.]”
    If more calls had to be answered from a station farther away, it could mean delayed service, Yannuzzi has said.
    There were 246 calls in total during 2011, a number that has remained nearly constant for the last four years. The majority of the calls — 134 — were for emergency medical services.
    Holzman said he believes there would be no delay in service, given that half of Ocean Ridge’s calls already come from different stations, primarily Station No. 4.
    “I’m absolutely sure that by closing Station No. 1, we’d still retain enough staff to respond to all calls in Boynton Beach as well as Ocean Ridge. I believe we are overstaffed at the present time.”       

By Steve Plunkett
    
Gulf Stream town commissioners may decide to raise property taxes up to 7.1 percent for the coming budget year, mostly to rebuild reserves used last year for the underground utilities project.
    Commissioners set a maximum rate of $3.10 per $1,000 of taxable value, a rate that can be lowered but not raised in subsequent meetings. A home assessed at $1 million after exemptions last year paid $2,927 in town property taxes. If that home’s value rose the average 1.1 percent of all property in Gulf Stream, it would owe $3,134, or $207 more, this year.
    Town Manager William Thrasher first suggested a rate of $3.01 per $1,000, which he said was enough to pay for design work to expand Town Hall and to buy Ford Explorer SUVs to replace aging police cars.
    With upswing in property values, “I do not believe we need to be fearful of our costs,” Thrasher said.
    “Don’t we want to make that a little higher than what this is?” Commissioner Garrett Dering asked, urging his colleagues to propose the $3.10 rate. Thrasher said the higher figure would give commissioners about $60,000 extra.
    Thrasher’s proposed budget also calls for a 2 percent raise for town employees and new software for police to track cases. Any money left over from the $50,000 earmarked for designing a larger Town Hall would go into reserves, he said.
    Thrasher said Town Hall would be expanded on the west side of the building to provide more room. “There’s no place for storage, there’s no place for records. If you walk into any office … you’ll see that there are plans everywhere,” he said.
    Thrasher also budgeted $428,197 to pay for fire and rescue services from Delray Beach, which includes payment since March for serving the unincorporated pocket annexed that month.
    “This is a combination of catch-up and then also our regular contract including the annexed area,” Thrasher said.
    The annexed area will mean about $208,000 in additional tax revenue if the maximum rate is adopted.
    Gulf Stream’s tax rate was $3.10 for the 2007 budget year but was held under $3 for the next five budgets, according to Thrasher’s proposal. It hit $4.09 in 1998.
    The proposed 2013 budget includes $14,000 for a study of how Gulf Stream and other coastal towns might share the cost of providing their own fire-rescue service. A consultant would not be hired unless the other towns pitch in. Commissioners will consider the budget again at their Aug. 10 regular meeting, then hold public hearings on the budget at 5:01 p.m. Sept. 14 and 25.                

Planning and Zoning Board Chairman Cary Glickstein announced his candidacy for mayor in July, seeking a seat that current Mayor Woodie McDuffie plans to vacate early to campaign for county Supervisor of Elections.
    “There has been a gaping leadership void in the city for far too long on many levels,” Glickstein said in making his announcement.
     “We need proactive and independent thinking, not more elected puppets, complacency, band-aid solutions, or more missed opportunities to accelerate a sustained economic recovery for our town.
    “Like other cities, there are tough choices ahead for our town, but I am ready to step up and lead,” said Glickstein, president of Ironwood  Properties. Delray Beach’s next election is set for March 13.
— Margie Plunkett

By Tim Pallesen

Delray Beach commissioners must cut $4 million from a $97 million budget proposal to avoid raising the city’s current property tax rate.
City Manager David Harden presented his proposal to the city commission July 17, recommending that $1.6 million be taken from the city’s reserves to cover a portion of the revenue shortfall.
The city’s current tax rate of $7.19 per $1,000 of assessed value equals a $7,190 city tax bill for the owner of a home valued at $1 million after exemptions.
Commissioners have workshops in August to decide whether to cut services, raise fees or take more money from reserves to avoid a tax rate increase.
An attempt to cover the $4 million shortfall by approving a new fire service fee failed by a 2-2 vote at a July 31 budget workshop.
Mayor Woodie McDuffie and Commissioner Adam Frankel supported an annual $85 fire fee for every homeowner in the city, but commissioners Al Jacquet and Angeleta Gray opposed it. Commissioner Tom Carney was absent.
The added revenue from the fire fee would raise $4.6 million and allow the city to lower its current tax rate to $7.09 per $1,000 of taxable property.
 McDuffie, Frankel and Harden encouraged Jacquet and Gray to say where they think the budget can be cut to avoid a tax increase.
Jacquet suggested cutting some of the city’s costs for special events. Gray asked Harden to explore incentives to encourage some city employees to retire early.
But neither savings is expected to have a significant impact.
The city’s tax rate would have to be raised to $7.69 per $1,000 of taxable property if commissioners don’t make the $4 million in cuts.
Commissioners were scheduled to decide on a preliminary tax rate at an Aug. 3 meeting.
 A first public hearing on the city budget will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 4. Commissioners will set next year’s final tax rate after a second public hearing at 7 p.m. Sept. 20.

The construction of a one-story residence on the Fontaine Fox House property was conditionally granted a certificate of appropriateness by Delray Beach’s Historic Preservation Board in July.
    The residence at 605 Andrews Ave., which is west of the Fontaine Fox House, was required to have further review of placement of mechanical equipment pads and landscape screening and to provide additional details of a planned wall.
    Neighbors questioned the placement of the residence’s generator, but were told that it will be subject to a separate review that is routinely required.
    The Fontaine Fox House was owned by the famous cartoonist of the same name and designed by his friend, renowned architect John Volk.
— Margie Plunkett

By Steve Plunkett
    
A second unscheduled opening on the Gulf Stream Town Commission may allow the remaining members to add youth as well as experience to the dais.
    Fred Devitt III sold his North Ocean Boulevard home and resigned his seat July 18, just five days after being selected as vice mayor.
    On July 13 commissioners split 2-2 over how to fill the vacancy created by longtime Mayor William Koch Jr.’s recent death. Devitt and Garrett Dering supported Bob Ganger, chairman of the Architectural Review and Planning Board for three-plus years. Muriel “Mert” Anderson and acting Mayor Joan Orthwein wanted 35-year-old Tom Stanley, a lawyer who joined the architectural board as an alternate last fall.
    The Town Hall received 10 letters of support for Stanley and four for Ganger. Stanley supporters included Joel Strawn, who is both Stanley’s cousin and the late mayor’s lawyer and friend.
    “This town has gotten much younger,” Orthwein said. “The young people have made their statement in these letters, and I’m trying to listen.”
    “On reading the letters from people who are younger, it really became clear to me that this is one part the commission is lacking,” Anderson said.  
    Devitt and Dering thought otherwise.
    “I do feel that it’s important for this commission to respect the time and the effort that people have put in on committees below this level such as the architectural review commission,” Devitt said.
    “I think experience makes a lot of difference,” Dering said.
    While the letters backed Stanley, people in the audience were mostly behind Ganger.
    “I am not speaking here as a member of the aging community or the old guard, but … I think at this juncture in our history it would be appropriate to give the nod to Bob,” resident Tom Murphy said.
    “Bob is unbelievably involved in what goes on in this town, and he’s got the pulse of the people,” said Danny Brannon, consulting engineer for Gulf Stream’s underground utilities project. “I don’t think you could do better than Bob.”
    Commissioners voted 3-1 with Devitt dissenting to defer the selection to their Aug. 10 meeting and asked that a letter be sent to residents notifying them of the open seat. Then they named Orthwein mayor and Devitt vice mayor.
    Orthwein, Anderson and Devitt favored Dering over Ganger for an empty seat last October, saying Dering, who lives in a Ballantrae condominium, would better represent the newly annexed area.          Ganger also is a nine-term president of the Gulf Stream Civic Association and president of the Florida Coalition for Preservation. Devitt was a town commissioner for 15 years.  His departure follows former Commissioner Chris Wheeler’s,  who sold his house in Hidden Harbour in October. Anderson has her Place Au Soleil home listed for sale.