By Hector Florin
The Delray Beach Marriott plans to expand its 271-room hotel with 36 additional suites in two new buildings, as well as add space for shops and a new kitchen for banquets, and expand its restaurant space and pool deck. City commissioners on Nov. 3 approved three development waivers associated with the revamp of the hotel on State Road A1A and East Atlantic Avenue. Two of the waivers allowed for visibility to be reduced for the exit and entrance ramp into the hotel’s parking garage. “I think this is a huge mistake,” resident Kevin Warner said at the meeting, citing concerns of cyclists, pedestrians and drivers trying to cross in front of the garage. “It’s just unsafe.” Nine cabana suites will be part of new two-story addition, a plan that required a third waiver because the building won’t meet minimum 25-foot-high standards. Another 27 suites will be built in a new four-story building that will front Atlantic Avenue. The four-story addition will also include shops. Commissioners unanimously approved the development waivers, with Commissioner Gary Eliopoulos abstaining because he is the project’s architect.
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By Antigone Barton
LANTANA — A precarious structure in front of a condominium to the north, a rush to build when supplies are scarce, and a drill-resisting bed of cement-like sand are among the challenges this town faces in building a wall to save its beach, an engineer told council members at the end of November.
Noting these challenges, and a million-dollar price tag for the wall, which is to be built under a permit granted to protect buildings fronting the beach, a resident had a question at a recent Town Council meeting. “Are we spending this money to save the buildings?” he asked.
“We’re spending the money to save the beach,” Mayor Dave Stewart replied. “The buildings provide the opportunity.”
Since rain and rough seas collapsed dunes and walkways at Lantana’s public beach in September, three buildings — a marine safety center, a pavilion that has housed a souvenir and beach goods store, and the Dune Deck Café, have stood perched atop a fragile ledge, vulnerable to the next strong storm.
It is that threat that allows the town to bypass restrictions that could prevent a wall from ever being built, and build one immediately, Town Manager Michael Bornstein told council members in late October. If anything happens to the buildings before the wall is built, the emergency justification disappears.
And with seawalls on either side of the town’s 750-foot stretch of shoreline, engineers have said the town needs a wall to protect its remaining beach.
Thus the rush.
That impetus is part of a complicated equation of clashing interests that council members said is pushing them to act quickly while still voicing concerns that the wall they will get in the process falls short of what they want.
The wall presented by engineer Hugh Verkerk at November’s second Town Council meeting would stand about 20 feet in front of the threatened buildings, be about 12-and-a-half feet high — roughly the height of the Dune Deck’s lower level — and 600 feet long. It will be built to last about 50 years, the planned life span of other neighboring seawalls — which, built in the middle of the last century, stand rusting in front of mansions and condominiums from Manalapan to South Palm Beach.
Council members asked if the town could get a wall with a longer projected life span.
Perhaps, Verkerk said, but such a wall might not be built in time to save the buildings that stay standing. Almost all the material being made now is going to New Orleans, he explained.
Council members also questioned the length of the planned wall, which will stand before the buildings but fall short of covering the last 150 feet of public beach.
The emergency permit would allow them to erect a wall as much as 250 feet to meet an adjoining wall — but state permitters have not accepted the barrier of blocks standing before the neighboring Imperial House in South Palm Beach as an adjoining wall, Verkerk said.
Vice Mayor Elizabeth Tennyson said that this will mean leaving the remaining dune between the beach and the town’s park unprotected.
“The buildings, on a scale of one to ten, are a one for me. The park is a ten,” she said. “I don’t want to build half a wall.”
Trying to get permission to build a longer wall could take more time than the town can risk, however, Verkerk said.
Once plans are finalized, construction of the wall can be completed within three weeks, Verkerk said. The entire project, with ramps and steps, should take about three months, he said.
The work will require special equipment to push the wall material into the bed of compacted, rock-hard sand below the beach, he said, to avoid drilling or hammering that could damage the neighboring Ritz Carlton and Imperial House.
An emergency meeting will be scheduled this month to finalize plans, Bornstein said.
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By Ron Hayes
Sometimes there are towns before there are town halls.
Ocean Ridge was incorporated — as Boynton Beach — in 1931. But its first Town Hall wasn’t built until 1937.
As Gail Adams Aaskov recalls in The History of Ocean Ridge, the first town meeting was held on May 16, 1931, in a private home — one of 12 in the town at the time. And when Ocean Ridge finally built its own Town Hall in 1937, the building was only 10-by-10 feet — but it served the purpose until 1962.
The town of Gulf Stream was incorporated in 1925, but Town Clerk Rita Taylor can’t find a record of a real Town Hall meeting before 1950. Until then, government met in private homes or the golf club on the beach.
“Our first Town Hall was nothing but a little bathhouse,” says Mayor Bill Koch. “When a bunch of people came to meetings, they had to stand outside and talk through the screen door or the window.”
Whether the bathhouse was, in fact, an actual bathhouse is unclear, but Koch has called it a bathhouse for so long that it’s now known as such.
Either way, the bathhouse served until 1962, when the town took up donations to build a genuine building. “We didn’t even go into bonded indebtedness,” Koch boasts. “I went around with some of the other people and got it donated.”
When a bigger Town Hall was constructed in 1986, the donated building became the current Police Department.
As for the original bathhouse, it’s long gone, but a photograph hangs proudly in the present building. Delray Beach never had a Town Hall on the beachside, reports Dottie Patterson, archivist for the Delray Beach Historical Society.
“Before 1911, when the town was incorporated, a group called the Ladies Improvement Association had a clubhouse in the 400 block of Atlantic Avenue, next to what is now the Arcade Building,” says Patterson. “Between 1902 and 1911, they used that.”
Before Briny Breezes built its present town hall in 1991, the council met in the old ocean clubhouse, a former restaurant called the Seascape.
“Christmas dinner was $1.98,” remembers longtime resident Joan Nicholls.
Manalapan Town Manager Greg Dunham held the same post in Ocean Ridge in 2000, on the night the Manalapan Town Hall didn’t blow up.
“I was in bed about 3 a.m. one night,” he recalls, “and my phone rings and it’s the Ocean Ridge dispatcher. She said, ‘Sorry to bother you, but the Manalapan Town Hall just blew up.’ I said, ‘That’s probably an item you should call me about.’ ”
Actually, it wasn’t the 20 year-old Town Hall that exploded, but a propane tank in a vacant home behind the Town Hall. No one was injured, but the blast scaled a 6-foot wall and blew out all the glass and framing. “We had to put a new roof on it,” Dunham said, “but we took advantage of the situation to remodel some offices and build some new walls.” And then there’s the glory that might have been. Incorporated in 1921, the town of Lantana was about to erect a real showcase of a Town Hall in 1926 when the Florida land boom went bust.
“It was going to be a grand affair,” says Town Manager and amateur historian Michael Bornstein. “Sort of Mediterranean, two stories — and the town went bankrupt, so it was never built.” During the 1930s, the Chamber of Commerce building at Iris Avenue and Dixie Highway was the Town Hall, and in 1962, the current Town Hall on Greynolds Circle was built on the site of the intended 1926 structure. “The original footprint was kept, and two large beams that were to be part of the original building, they were incorporated. They’re still there.”
And so, too, he added, are real estate booms and busts.
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OCEAN RIDGE — The best beaches for people can be the most treacherous terrain for newly hatched turtles searching for the sea, environmental analysts say.
That is one explanation for preliminary data showing that 1,784 sea turtles hatched in Ocean Ridge this year wandered lost — falling to predators, dehydration or exhaustion before reaching the water.
Why? Among other reasons: no towering condos to block the disorienting glow lighting the sky from neighboring areas, as hatchlings navigate the comparably wider beaches of this town, where a road and dune separates mostly single-family homes from the shoreline.
That, however, is not the entire story, as local turtle counters continue to tally the losses and successes of the season that officially ended Oct. 31.
Ocean Ridge’s total represented a 46 percent increase in disoriented hatchlings from the year before, according to numbers from the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resource Management. Delray Beach also saw a steep rise, with 542 lost hatchlings.
Those came from 19 nests in which disorientations were recorded, county environmental analyst Carly de Maye said.
Two of those were attributed to a light from a home near the southern end of the beach, said John Fletemeyer, who has recorded sea turtle counts in Delray Beach for the last 25 years. No single cause could be identified for the others, which were attributed to ambient sky glow, he said.
Topped in the last two years by Boca Raton and Singer Island only, Ocean Ridge has consistently counted more disoriented turtles than most other county towns for which data were available. Neither Gulf Stream nor Briny Breezes has given data on hatchling disorientation in the last two years, but it is not clear if that is because there were no disorientations or because they weren’t counted, de Maye said.
A number of factors influence the differences sea turtle data collectors see year-to-year and town-to-town, and weighing the influence of each can be tricky, she said.
More rain this year likely washed away more hatchling tracks before they could be counted in some towns. At the same time, responsibilities of turtle counters can vary from town to town. Those responsibilities, including completing a count of nestings and hatchings quickly enough to allow beach cleaners time to rake the beach, can make getting a full count of disorientations difficult, she said.
At the same time, Jean Higgins, an environmental analyst for the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation commission, said that data on disoriented hatchlings are becoming more accurate with improved training and greater awareness of the challenges that beach renourishment projects and development present to newly hatched turtles.
Often uncounted, though, Higgins said, is the impact of "sky glow” on mother turtles’ decisions not to nest on a beach — a false crawl — or disorientation that could leave her exhausted and vulnerable even after she returns to the water.
And, of course, Ocean Ridge’s higher than average numbers do not suggest that towns fronted by high-rise buildings necessarily present a more turtle-friendly environment.
Singer Island, with its nearly unbroken line of hotels and apartment towers, has consistently seen the highest numbers of disoriented hatchlings in the county, according to de Maye. That is likely due in part to higher numbers of tourists, less familiar with the need to keep light off the beach during turtle season, she said.
She adds that though environmental officials can enforce rules to keep lighting off the beach only from March 1 to Oct. 31, nests continue to hatch into November. She suggests residents keep an eye out for unhatched nests and adjust lighting appropriately.
Final numbers on hatchling disorientation are expected later this month.
— Antigone Barton
Light Info: Coastal lighting should be minimized during the sea turtle nesting season (March 1 to Oct.31 in Palm Beach County). Lighting visible from the beach can deter female turtles from nesting, and can cause hatchlings to travel in directions other than directly to the water, causing predation, dehydration and exhaustion. Coastal properties should appear dark to a turtle’s perspective, not actually be dark. Techniques such as redirection and shielding can be used to provide light that is not visible from the beach.
Questions regarding turtle-friendly coastal lighting can be directed to ERM’s coastal lighting coordinator at 561-233-2400.Read more…
By Antigone Barton
GULF STREAM — Calm had come to the southern end of Boynton Beach since the raucous strip club across the street had finally closed, and Gulf Stream’s Place Au Soleil residents eagerly awaited the shops and trolley stop that city officials had said would replace the bar.
It was, after all, a year since police had arrested club owner Norman Goddard on charges of drug selling and running “a house of ill fame.”
And it was six months since Boynton Beach commissioners had, to the applause of Place Au Soleil residents, announced they would pay $1.2 million for the club’s licenses, and ensure “a healthy entry” to the city that borders this Gulf Stream neighborhood.
Then one day in late October, on the marquee that the now-closed “Platinum Gold” club had used to advertise its dancers, residents saw this instead:
“MR GS ROC BAR,” the new sign said. ‘COMMING SOON.”
Wondering what he had missed, Ned McDonald, a Place Au Soleil resident who had welcomed the city’s plans to buy the strip club and turn the blighted spot into a “gateway” to Boynton Beach, began to search the Internet.
A short article in the previous day’s paper brought him up to date.
While Boynton Beach had bought the club’s liquor and cabaret licenses, the city had since decided to pass on buying the building, the article said.
This left the way clear for Goddard, who now was home on probation, to negotiate with Mr. G’s Rock Bar of West Palm Beach, according to the article.
McDonald sought more information about the announced new neighbor:
“There are always surprises at Mr. G's Rock Bar & Grill. Would you expect any less from the preferred after-hours hangout for adult entertainers? We think not!” he found on the Web site for the bar’s West Palm Beach location. “Things tend to get really interesting at Mr. G’s in the wee hours. Maybe it’s because Dancers drink free? In the planning stages are events like our Strippers Ball in November and Fetish parties starting in October . . .”
Photos of G-string-clad women on the Web site rounded out the picture.
By 9 a.m. the morning after the sign on Federal Highway appeared, Place Au Soleil Homeowners Association President Joe Spadafora said, “the phones were going berserk.”
At their November meeting, Gulf Stream commissioners took up the questions of the property in Boynton Beach that Mayor Bill Koch called “our little problem.”
“This is a two-prong thing,” Commissioner Muriel Anderson said. The question of who might own the building that has served as a strip club under several previous owners was just one part of the problem. The other question, she added, was this: “Is Boynton Beach going to change their zoning?”
And while Boynton officials have said they want no more “adult entertainment” venues in their city, McDonald said, Mr. G’s is no trolley stop.
“It is in fact a strip club,” McDonald said. “No matter how the owner identifies it, the product right now involves stripping.”
Boynton Beach Mayor Jerry Taylor in turn, maintains that a restriction tied to terms under which the city bought Platinum Gold’s liquor and cabaret license ensures a strip club will not occupy that spot again. And in late November, he still had heard nothing of a deal for Mr. G’s to buy the spot.
A call to Mr. G’s for this story was not returned.
In any case, Taylor said, with control over the liquor license, which the city has about six months more to sell, the city has say over what business moves there.
Place Au Soleil residents aren’t so sure. Even if Mr. G’s doesn’t seal the deal for Platinum Gold, a business with a liquor license can still buy the place, they pointed out.
“They spent $1.2 million and they’re back where they were six months ago,” Spadafora said. “We did everything we could do, but it’s not our city.”
Timeline
1989 — Boynton commissioners vote to reduce buffer between strip clubs and residential areas from 1,500 to 1,000 square feet.
March 2006 — Boynton Beach commissioners decide not to pursue banning alcohol or other restrictions at “adult entertainment venues.”
September 2007 — Platinum Gold owner Norman Goddard arrested with seven others at club after a monthlong investigation uncovered prostitution and drug dealing.
March 2008 — Police return to Platinum Gold when Goddard is hurt in a 2 a.m. fight at the club over payment for lap dances.
April 2008 — Police again are called to the bar after men armed with paintball guns fire on dancers there. May 2008 — Place Au Soleil residents attend Boynton Beach City Commission meeting and applaud when commissioners agree to buy the club’s liquor and cabaret licenses for $1.2 million. Club is closed.
September 2008 — Goddard gets probation after drug-selling and prostitution charges are reduced to operating a public nuisance where controlled substances are illegally kept and sold.
October 28 — Boynton Beach commissioners decide not to buy the building.
October 29 — Place Au Soleil residents see sign announcing “Mr. G’s" coming soon.
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By Ron Hayes
OCEAN RIDGE — When residents gathered for their annual Light The Lights celebration Dec. 5, those long strings of twinkling white bulbs didn’t brighten only the holiday season. They also shone on a beautiful new Town Hall and a new chapter in the community’s history.
The $4 million building is three times larger than its predecessor, equipped with state-of-the-art communications and capable of withstanding a 160-mph hurricane.
It’s been built to last a long time — and it’s been a long time coming.
“We were speaking of the need for a new building when I first started as a dispatcher back in 1981,” remembers Town Clerk Karen Hancsak, “so I’m ecstatic it’s happened during my tenure here. And it is beautiful.”
At 11,000 square feet, the new complex is a mansion compared to the first Town Hall, a 10-by-10-foot concrete box at the east end of the Ocean Avenue bridge.
“The original foundation is still standing back in the mangroves,” says former mayor and town historian Gail Aaskov. “If the police wanted to go to the bathroom, they had to walk across the bridge.”
The Town Hall Hancsak began working in 27 years ago was built in 1962.
“And these past few years, the storms really took a toll on it structurally," says Mayor Ken Kaleel. “Wilma, Frances and Jeanne — we got hit by all three, plus we had asbestos problems and mold and air quality issues. It was falling down, and this one is going to stay up.” For its design, the Town Commission turned to a resident and former mayor, architect Digby Bridges, who turned to South Africa for inspiration.
“The style is called Cape Dutch,” Bridges explained one November morning, as landscapers scurried to finish planting in time for the grand opening. Developed in the 18th century during the Dutch Colonial presence around Capetown, the style is characterized by large, ornately curved gables. Cape Dutch homes are traditionally painted either white with green shutters or yellow with blue, and adorned with pagodas on either side of a front door.
Bridges opted for white with green shutters and added pagodas. But while the true Cape Dutch building is usually H-shaped with a thatched roof, Bridges has modified the H and substituted a mansard-style roof with slate tiles.
Ponder those gables a moment and, yes, you can see them on an Amsterdam canal.
“My partner, Mark Marsh, said, “We’ve tried and tried to get this style into domestic architecture with no success,’ ” Bridges recalled. “So this is the first we’ve done, and now everyone loves it.”
Traditional Cape Dutch buildings don’t include a kiosk and fishpond on the grounds, but the new Town Hall has both, thanks to twin brothers who died more than 20 years ago.
When longtime residents Tom and Paul McGinty passed away within months of each other in 1986, they left $25,000 for a memorial. The money remained in trust, unused and drawing interest, until now.
But while the Town Hall’s exterior looks back to the 18th century, the building’s interior looks to the 21st. “The construction company, BSA, really rose to the occasion,” says Mayor Kaleel. “They were right on budget and on time — except for the plane crash.”
And that wasn’t their fault, of course. On July 22, a twin-engine plane crashed into the nearly completed building. The pilot wasn’t seriously injured, but the landing gear cracked the main gable and sliced through the roof of what is now a sunny front room set aside for the town's first library.
“We call the library the hangar because that’s where the wheel was hanging down,” Kaleel says. He can speak lightly now, but the accident did $130,000 in damage and delayed the project six weeks.
The staff, who moved out of the temporary doublewide trailers and into the new building in early October, are still struggling to find words grand enough to praise it.
“The police are walking around in shock,” says Chief Ed Hillery of his 14-person force. “You have to remember, when we moved from the old building into the doublewide, that was an upgrade.”
Now the Police Department stretches down a long hall at the rear of the building, and includes a fully equipped exercise room donated by the town’s Police Support Group.
“Our copy room was a converted cell,” laughs Hancsak, the town clerk. Now the town staff has a real copy room, a break room and small meeting rooms.
And the two holding cells are at the opposite end of the building from the commission chambers.
“The old jail was like Barney Fife,” quips Mayor Kaleel. “Over the years, there were times when we’d have somebody in jail, and we’d be trying to conduct a town meeting, and you could hear a bit of a ruckus through the walls.”
In the lobby, a 35-foot skylight pours sunlight on the reception desk, and Hancsak serves residents from a spacious administration area.
The commission chambers seat about 120, but a retractable wall at the rear can create a separate community room for special events. While town voters were helping to elect a new commander in chief on the morning of Nov. 4, the regularly scheduled code board meeting was being held in the commission chambers, thanks to that retractable wall, which turned the space into a voting precinct. In the previous building, the meeting would have had to be rescheduled.
In the chambers, the Town Commission, town manager and town attorney sit at a desk equipped with sunken computer screens, on which Hancsak can broadcast any documents or videos needed during deliberations.
“In the old days,” Mayor Kaleel recalls, “if we had a hurricane watch, we had to move everything out of the building. We won’t have to do that anymore.” The Town Hall wasn’t cheap. There’s a 20-year, 4 percent mortgage to be paid. But the mayor says it is money well spent, and appreciated, too.
“There’s more to it than just a building,” Kaleel says. “It’s really a testament to the community that showcases the town and how the residents feel about the town.
“This is a Town Hall that will be here for the next 50 to 70 years, or more.”
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Delray Beach resident Kari Shipley can always be found doing something for others. Whether making a special dinner for a friend who is going through chemotherapy, or finding volunteers for myriad local events, she can always be counted on for much-needed help. In addition to being the “family manager” of the never-quiet Shipley household, Kari is involved with several not-for-profit organizations in the community. The Boys & Girls Club of Delray Beach, The Achievement Center for Children & Families, Bethesda Memorial Hospital, and First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach are just a few organizations that can thank Kari for her extraordinary dedication and commitment of time. Through her committee work, she has helped to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars that find their way to needy children and families in the Delray Beach area.
Kari Shipley was nominated by Stephanie Shipley to be a Coastal Star. “She is an amazing daughter, sister, wife, mother and volunteer, and I am very lucky to have her not only as a stepmother, but also as a friend.”
How wide and how deep?
Options for changing the Boynton Inlet:
Alternative 1: Same width but 5 feet deeper. Estimated cost: $2.2 million.
Alternative 2: Same width but 10 feet deeper. Cost: $3.1 million.
Alternative 3: 50 feet wider and 10 feet deeper. Cost: $8.9 million.
Alternative 4: 200 feet wider but depth kept the same. Cost: $11.4 million.
Alternative 5: 200 feet wider and 10 feet deeper. Cost: $21.8 million.
Alternative 6: Dredging of Ebb Shoal to 8 ft. Cost: $3 million
Source: Applied Technology & Management report, November 2007Read more…
By Thomas R. Collins
Since it was built in 1927, the Boynton Inlet has seen regular nips and tucks and tweaks, with changes to its jetties and a system installed for shifting sand to the sand-needy south end.
Time for an all-out overhaul, some local officials say, arguing that the inlet is unsafe for boaters and should be widened and deepened.
Oh, no, you don’t, say others, warning that they don’t have enough information about potential flooding or harm to reefs.
Engineers working for the Boynton Inlet Committee have drawn up five proposals for inlet changes and the committee is scheduled to start ranking them at its Dec. 12 meeting.
But the plans also bring worries about hurricane storm surge. And any major changes couldn’t happen until the A1A bridge over the inlet is replaced — a project that isn’t even on the table.
Officials with Boynton Beach, which has hired engineering firm Applied Technology & Management to analyze the options, hope that at least some changes can be made.
“It takes a seasoned seaman or seawoman to get through there,” Boynton Beach City Manager Kurt Bressner said.
Ocean Ridge Commissioner Geoff Pugh, a member of the committee, said there are too many questions to even begin ranking the proposals: Might the extra water flowing into the lagoon flood the barrier islands? With pollution, now bottled up in the lagoon, flowing out into the ocean through a bigger channel, what might be the effect on nearby reefs?
“Is it going to flood or not, and is it going to kill my reefs or not?” Pugh said. “Yes or no?”
The firm produced an 83-page report using a $200,000 grant from the South Florida Water Management District.
The inlet is criticized not only for being narrow — about 60 feet narrower than the Boca Inlet, ATM engineer Michael Jenkins said — but also because the jetties on either side limit visibility as boaters try to make their way into the Atlantic.
Even worse, shoals to the east of the inlet create shallow waters that promote waves that have broadsided and capsized even professional boat captains’ vessels.
“This one is particularly notable for safety issues,” Jenkins said.
But if the inlet were widened by 200 feet — the most ambitious of the options — an extra 2 feet of storm surge would flood Ocean Ridge, Manalapan and Hypoluxo Island in a once-in-a-hundred-years storm, according to ATM’s report. And that doesn’t factor in rainfall or other effects, such as a storm hitting the coast at a particularly damaging angle.
But Jenkins noted that 7 feet of surge would already hit — flooding the barrier islands and leaving Hypoluxo Island totally underwater — in such a storm. The effect on structures from the extra surge hasn’t been evaluated.
Manalapan Town Manager Greg Dunham said the conversation should have stopped with the finding that so much more storm surge would hit the islands.
“It goes without saying, this one is the most important criteria for the town of Manalapan and the results are not good,” he said.
Then there’s the problem of the bridge: It would probably cost $50 million to $100 million to replace, according to the ATM report, and it’s not going anywhere.
“The cost and difficulty of effecting such a change would so dominate the decision-making and cost estimates that it really needs to be elevated to near the top of the issues during any further work or discussion about changing the inlet,” wrote Cliff Truitt, director of engineering for Coastal Tech, a firm working for Manalapan.
With the bridge there, nothing could be done to widen the inlet, which engineers say would improve water quality by flushing the lagoon of harmful nutrients.
Bressner said he hopes that some smaller improvements that don’t require replacing the bridge — changes to that dicey shoal area, for example, and signs letting boaters know about dangerous conditions — can be made for relatively little, but can make the inlet somewhat safer. Jenkins said it’s worth it to start planning, even if everything can’t be worked out at one time.
“If you look at all the constraints up front,” he said, “you will quickly come to the conclusion that nothing can be done.”
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1 ¼ cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 ¼ cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
grated zest of 1 orange
½ teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spread coconut on a baking sheet; bake until lightly toasted, stirring occasionally — about 10 to 12 minutes. Cool.
Using an electric mixer, beat butter, ½ cup of the sugar, and vanilla in a bowl to blend well. Beat in flour, orange zest, and salt. Stir in coconut. Cover and chill at least 1 hour.
Scoop out walnut-sized pieces of dough and form into balls. Place 1-1/2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned.
Roll warm cookies in remaining sugar and place on rack to cool. When cool completely roll again in sugar. Makes 3 dozen cookies.
Note: This dough freezes well. Keep cookies in airtight container. Coconut may be omitted if desired and the result is an orange-scented cookie. Cookies will spread slightly without coconut, however.
(Recipe courtesy Robin Davis, food editor of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.)
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This cookie has great legend behind it, linking it to a Revolutionary War veteran in Marblehead, Mass. The story and recipe I got come from the cookbook, America’s Best Lost Recipes. They write that Black Joe Brown, a freed slave, and Aunt Cresse opened Black Joe’s tavern in a part of Marblehead called Gingerbread Hill. They used to make these big, flat, pancake-like cookies there and there was a frog pond out back. Somehow, the cookies became associated with “Joe’s frogs,” and the name bent to Joe Froggers over time.
Legend has it that the molasses cookies were made with seawater, to give them a salty flavor, and rum. It’s one of the best versions I’ve tasted. These are flat, big, chewy cookies — don’t expect the soft, puffy ones, since the soda’s leavening power is purposely killed as it’s stirred with the molasses. And don’t try to substitute out the rum — they simply won’t be the same; there are many other good recipes for molasses cookies that don’t require it.
Joe Froggers
¹⁄₃ cup dark rum (such as Myer’s)
1 tablespoon water
1 ½ teaspoon salt (finely ground sea salt recommended)
3 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¹⁄₈ teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup mild molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
Stir the rum, water and salt in a small bowl until the salt dissolves. Whisk the flour and spices in a medium bowl. Stir the molasses and baking soda in a large measuring cup (the mixture will begin to bubble) and let sit until doubled in volume, about 15 minutes.
With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium low and gradually beat in the rum mixture. Add the flour mixture and molasses mixture alternately in two batches, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until stiff, at least 8 hours, or up to three days. (Do not skip that step.)
Adjust two oven racks to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Working with half of the dough at a time on a heavily floured surface, roll out to ¼-inch thickness.
Cut out cookies with a 3-inch cookie cutter (see note), spacing them 1½ inches apart. They will spread; do not place them too close to the edges.
Bake until the cookies are set and begin to crack, about 8 minutes, switching and rotating the baking sheets halfway through baking.
Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough.
The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to one week.)
Makes about 24 cookies.
Notes: You can use a large-mouth jar or drinking glass to cut the cookies, or a shaped cookie cutter with a broad design. Fine details would be lost, as the cookies spread. This dough freezes very well.
(Recipe from the book America’s Best Lost Recipes by the editors of Cook’s Country Magazine, published by America’s Test Kitchen, 2007.)
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By Ron Hayes
BRINY BREEZES — His name was William, but friends called him “Bill.” Fellow sailors called him “Captain.” Patients called him “Doc.” And come December, children called him “Santa."
Dr. William R. Tolford was a big man with a long white beard who donned a red suit for the town's annual Christmas party, then rejoiced in challenging young doubters to pull his beard. When the beard proved real, the children were reassured that Santa Claus must be, too.
Dr. Tolford, an optometrist whose family has been part of the town for half a century, died Oct.11 at his summer home in Falmouth, Maine. He was 84 and had suffered from heart disease. Born June 1, 1924, in Portland, Maine, Dr. Tolford first discovered Briny Breezes when his parents, Dr. Ronald and Margaret Tolford, bought a home on Hibiscus Drive. In the 1970s, he purchased his own place on Juniper Drive. When his parents passed on, Dr. Tolford inherited their home and passed his along to his daughter, Nancy Aceto. A regular winter resident since retiring in the early 1980s, Dr. Tolford threw himself into the life of the community.
In addition to serving on the town’s board of directors, he initiated pizza parties to encourage neighbors to be more neighborly, an idea that spread through the town.
Later, Dr. Tolford brought a taste of Down East down to Florida by establishing annual lobster parties, with fresh lobsters flown from Maine for the occasion. Ticket sales reached about 250, with profits going to the town’s volunteer “Kitchen Crew.” A member of the Portland Toastmasters Club, he was often master of ceremonies at the town’s Curtain Raisers Club and participated in the skits.
Dr. Tolford’s lives in both Maine and Florida were linked by a lifelong love of the sea. From deep-sea fishing in the Casco Bay Tuna Tournament, he went on to develop a passion for tall ships that took him on transatlantic cruises in 1971 and the Bicentennial Tall Ships races from Bermuda to New York in 1976. In the winter months, he cruised the Bahamas and Caribbean.
“He was a wonderful, generous, caring, kind, big man with a booming voice,” said his daughter. “And he loved Briny Breezes.”
Ruth Watt Tolford, his wife of nearly 40 years, passed away in 2002. In addition to his daughter, Dr. Tolford is survived by his son, Timothy; a granddaughter, Sarah Tolford Selby; a grandson, Christopher William Tolford, all of Falmouth; a sister, Rhoda Tolford Stone of Sarasota; and his close friend and confidante, Nancy Boczon of Briny Breezes.
A memorial service for local friends will be held at a later date. Donations in Dr. Tolford’s name may be made to any charity of the donor’s choosing.
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Local Voices
The eventual redevelopment of Briny Breezes is inevitable: The land is too valuable, the trailers are unsafe in a storm, and the shareholders have been offered a fortune. But Briny’s recent flirtation with Ocean Land Investments painfully divided the close-knit Brinyites and the opposition from the neighboring residents has left the barrier island communities mistrustful of each other and wary about the future. Worse, Briny’s dismay at the organized effort to compel it to pursue redevelopment in a manner consistent with Florida land-development law has resulted in Briny’s contracting off-island for its police force, giving Boynton Beach a further toehold on the beach. Boynton is becoming the dog that gets fed at the table. And make no mistake about it: Boynton wants to annex Briny and the county pocket; Boynton needs the money and will stop at nothing to grab island land and redevelop it into a Singer Island for South Palm Beach County, where high-value high-rises will fund municipal projects citywide.
These economic and social pressures will drive redevelopment unless all of the residents of the barrier island find a meaningful way to participate in the planning process before it's too late.
Instead of more of the same — three municipalities and the county pocket squabbling among themselves, conducting redundant bureaucratic functions, and letting Boynton Beach push them around — maybe it’s time to consider a completely different future. Maybe it’s time to consider doing the work necessary to create one barrier island community: a single municipality that would stretch from Delray Beach to the Boynton Inlet. In this municipality, there would be room for diverse single- and multi-family zoned areas, just as currently exist. In this municipality, there could be a commercial core, similar to what is here presently but perhaps better planned along the lines of a New England village square with a handful shops that would serve the local populace. In this municipality, growth and re-development could be controlled by the residents. In this municipality, there could be town-sponsored amenities like tennis courts, a town green, bike paths, golf cart paths, walkways over the dunes, a beach for local dogs, lifeguards … the possibilities are endless and subject only to the limits of local imagination.
It will not be simple to do this, but it is possible. The road map would look something like this: First, Briny Breezes should annex the pocket and the commercial enclaves on A1A. This would create 60 or so landowners in Briny, rather than just one, which is the present situation and which resulted in last summer’s usurpation of municipal function by a developer’s staff. Having more property owners in Briny-the-municipality — in fact having just one more property owner in Briny — would likely prevent a repeat usurpation. Pocket residents and Briny shareholders who opposed Ocean Land’s plan would be able to prevent a similarly drastic scheme from being approved by the Briny Planning and Zoning Board.
The second step would be the merger of Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes/pocket to create a new municipality. This new municipality could then work with Gulf Stream and the residents of the St. Andrews Club and, using the legislative process, persuade Boynton to relinquish its residential holdings on the barrier island. Finally, Gulf Stream and Ocean Ridge/Briny Breezes/pocket would merge and the barrier island residents could get on with the business of planning and protecting their community.
Those many Brinyites who prefer, with their neighbors to the north and south, to see a plan for responsible, environmentally sound, and cooperative redevelopment of the middle of the barrier island would have a voice. They would perhaps find a way to become landowners rather than shareholders. Pocket residents could look forward to local rule and, with it, the ability to participate in the regulation of their most valuable asset: their homes. Municipal residents could happily do without three of everything: three town halls to staff and run, three zoning boards, three police forces, three sets of politicians, three or four contracts with Boynton for water. In any case, all barrier island residents should join together to protect themselves from the City of Boynton Beach.
Cindy Bortman Boggess is an attorney. She and her husband, Boyd, are former county pocket residents who have moved off the beach, but still maintain close friendships with residents in all four communities. Cindy's e-mail address is cindyb@post.harvard.edu.Read more…
By Steve Pounds
The $90 million Seahorse oceanfront condominium has been canceled, the victim of a tough economy and the recession in the housing market.
“It’s dead for financial reasons,” said Ann Bane, a spokeswoman for Palm Beach Gardens-based Catalfumo Construction Inc. “We did the initial preconstruction work and prepared the site, and then the project stalled.” The low-rise development suffered from inconvenient timing. It began last year as the housing market was beginning to wind down.
The decades-old Seahorse started out as a 32-unit co-op with a swimming pool and restaurant for Ohio polo enthusiasts, situated on 300 feet of oceanfront on A1A in unincorporated Palm Beach County on the north edge of Gulf Stream.
Then last year, a Cincinnati-based development company, JFP Group, began making presales for a new condominium project on the 3-acre parcel that is divided by the highway. The project was made up of 42 single-floor units in one four-story and three three-story buildings.
Catalfumo would be the builder, while the project was to be financed by LaSalle and Mercantile banks, said Dave DeMay, Catalfumo vice president of sales.
The development group did not return phone calls. But DeMay confirmed that JFP had pre-sold seven units. Still, it would need a handful of additional presales for the banks to bankroll the project, and the market never materialized.
“Without enough presales, the banks wouldn’t finance it. That’s standard for the industry,” DeMay said.
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How Green Is My Island?
By Mary Kate Leming
Seed catalogs come at the wrong time of year. Each spring, we curl up in our favorite chair and indulge ourselves in page after page of award-winning zucchinis and crayon-red tomatoes. But while we’re distracted with fantasies of deep, dark topsoil and giant, wiggling night crawlers, the South Florida summer sneaks in with saturating humidity. Better for growing mildew than honeydew.
But we can’t put down the catalogs. We frantically scan the glossy illustrations for anything that might survive Zone 10. Maybe we can still plant collard greens? How about jalapeños? Wishful thinking. Before we even finish selecting seed packets, we’ve missed another growing cycle.
Not this year. Throw away your Old Farmer’s Almanac. November is the perfect month to plant your winter vegetable garden.
Now is the ideal time to begin haunting hardware stores and greenmarkets for seedlings, topsoil and cow manure. Once you have the key ingredients, just mix the loamy elements together in as large a pot as you can find. Then gently insert the tiny plants, add a little water and let the magic of winter begin.
Of course, it’s not quite that simple. That’s why the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences creates publications to help us out. Here are some of its tips for growing basic winter vegetables in South Florida:
Locate your garden near the house and within reach of a hose or other water source.
Plan to water at least two to three times per week and make sure there is good drainage.
Our South Florida soil benefits from mixing it with some organics such as animal manure, rotted leaves or compost. Unless you’re buying this stuff in a bag, mix it into your garden soil about a month before you plant. If you’re not inclined to use the organic fertilizers, you can purchase commonly available grades like 8-8-8 or 15-15-15. If you use these artificial fertilizer products, mix them in at least two weeks before planting.
If you’ve had a garden plot (or pot) before, get rid of the old soil. Chances are good, there are too many things left behind ¬— like the scary-sounding nematodes — that can destroy your tender plantings.
Consider all pesticides as potential poisons, but know that you’ll probably need to resort to this extreme to grow a well-rounded, ruby-red, table-ready tomato. Start by using organic soaps — about four tablespoons per gallon of water. But if you’re still not happy with the results, there are plenty of more powerful poisons on the market: Carbaryl, Malathion, Diazinon. Most of these can be found in on-the-shelf pesticide mixes available at your local hardware store. If you do use these chemicals, be sure to keep them out of the reach of children and irresponsible adults.
So now you’re ready to plant. What can you grow in your South Florida garden?
Try these yummy and healthy suggestions: Snap beans, pinto beans, pole beans, lima beans, cantaloupe, sweet corn, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, black-eyed peas, peppers (just about all kinds), sweet potatoes, pumpkins and squash, tomatoes (of course), and watermelon.
If you procrastinate long enough for the weather to turn chilly (December or January), you might have luck with these edibles: Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, Chinese cabbage, collards, endive/escarole, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard greens, onions, herbs, peas, potatoes, radish, spinach, turnips, and even strawberries.
Remember: Once the glossy seed catalogs arrive in the mail, another gardening season will have come and gone. So, don’t waste time; get your South Florida winter vegetable garden started now.
To get more specific growing instructions, check out the IFAS Web site at: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/VH021Read more…
By Antigone Barton
MANALAPAN — While election season raged elsewhere, change came quietly to this town, with the ascension of William “Tom” Gerrard to mayor.
Even without the clamor of a contentious campaign, the vice mayor who was appointed by unanimous commission vote in September to succeed outgoing Mayor William Benjamin, hopes to make a difference that will usher in a more connected Manalapan.
“I’m certainly not just doing it for the title,” he said. “I have a big love for this town and community.”
The 62-year-old mayor was born in New York, but spent the first 11 years of his life in Indiana. He has moved up the coast in steady increments since his family moved to Miami Beach in 1957. He moved to Manalapan from Boca Raton in 1994. His “new to do list,” he says, includes a plan to make town meetings available for viewing on the Comcast cable system that serves Manalapan. In addition, Gerrard, who in his business life found success as a telecommunications entrepreneur, would like to get podcasts of the meetings on the town’s Web site.
“I think it would be very beneficial to residents, especially as a number are gone during the summer months,” Gerrard said during an interview with The Coastal Star. “There’s nothing like being there.”
The podcasts would be available at the click of a button on the same site where town meeting agendas are now posted.
“So if residents who are up North see something on the agenda of interest, they can watch it,” Gerrard said. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
More immediate, though, are resolutions of the town’s two most pressing issues: renovations to the town’s water plant and the completion of roadwork that will conclude a six-year drainage project.
The water plant currently is a “blended” one, which filters water from surficial wells and also uses reverse osmosis technology to filter water from the deeper Floridan Aquifer. While reverse osmosis remains the more expensive technology, diminishing water supplies from shallow wells have prompted commissioners to consider a plant with all reverse osmosis capability. That way it can, if needed, draw more of its water from the more reliable Floridan Aquifer.
Adding to these considerations has been talk that the South Florida Water Management District would ease two-day-a-week watering restrictions for towns using “alternative” water sources.
If “alternative” includes the Floridan Aquifer, commissioners have said, that would add to an incentive to spend more money upgrading the plant to all-reverse osmosis technology.
That should not make a difference, either way, Gerrard said in the recent interview.
“It would be very difficult for us to plan our water plant management based on what South Florida Water Management District decides to do,” he said. “We should make the decision based on business.”
While the town is in the middle of water plant plans, it is reaching the end of a flood control and road project that has been six years in the works.
That project began after the Florida Department of Transportation officials launched its plans to resurface the county’s stretches of State Road A1A.
The plan did not then include improvements to drainage along the town’s stretch on which six inches to a foot of water rose during rains and high tides.
Town videotaping of the road’s flooding persuaded FDOT officials to change the plan, Town Manager Greg Dunham said.
“Water on roads is a safety problem,” Dunham said.
It also was an environmental one, with storm water carrying unfiltered pollutants directly into the Intracoastal Waterway.
Raised to allow water to drain onto the swale and into eight new drainage filters, the new road is designed to address both concerns.
“I think it is a well-designed and way overdue project,” Gerrard said.
And, he points out, residents voluntarily granted easements on their properties for runoff “soaking” areas. “So it shows there are environmentally concerned residents.”
This is comfort to Gerrard, who calls the repeal last spring of an ordinance that would have ridded the town of exotic water-hogging and invasive plants “one of my disappointments.”
With only Gerrard voting against the move, commissioners voted to reverse the ordinance, which had given residents four years to eliminate the plants from properties, as its deadline approached, although a series of horticultural and environmental experts touted its benefits to the town.
Given a chance to reintroduce the ordinance, Gerrard said, he would. His term is young, he pointed out. “I’m going to spend the next couple of months reviewing and revisiting issues.”
In Manalapan, the mayor votes to break ties, runs meetings, sets agendas and appoints committee members.
Those are his opportunities to guide the town, Gerrard said. “I hope to be effective.”
Oct. 28 Town Commission Meeting
• Appointed Marilyn Hedberg to fill the vacancy of Seat 3 on the commission
• Ratified the appointment of Commissioner Kelly S. Gottlieb as vice mayor and appointed Commissioner Peter Blum as the new mayor pro tem.
• Accepted hearing continuances from Venture Concepts International and Terry and Cynthia Taylor on variance issues.
• Approved Consultant Services Agreement with JLA Geosciences, Inc.
• Began hearing summary of Zoning Commission’s Recommended Amendments to the Zoning Code.
• Changed meeting time for the Nov.19 regular commission meeting to 2 p.m.
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By Thomas R. Collins
Mayor William Koch Jr. has been the mayor of Gulf Stream since 1966 and has gotten to know many a politician. As far as he’s concerned, one of the good eggs is County Commissioner Mary McCarty. When the town needed help with paving roads that ran through town, she came to its aid. When it needed help resolving problems with Florida Power & Light, McCarty was there. So when Koch heard that federal investigators had raided McCarty’s house for documents and that she had become the latest public official to find herself in their crosshairs, it was unpleasant news to him. And if the investigation resulted in adding her name to any list of recently indicted public officials? “It would be a shock to me,” Koch said.
Few faces are as familiar in the political landscape of southern Palm Beach County as that of McCarty. She has championed the southern reaches of the county, including its coastal communities, since 1990, with an often-public in-your-face style.
Before election to county office, she spent three years on the Delray Beach City Commission. She will leave the County Commission in 2010 because of term limits.
On Sept. 26, federal agents left her yellow, one-story house in Delray Beach with several bins filled with documents. Delray Beach City Manager David Harden said that he and other managers in the city have been questioned about whether McCarty influenced a city decision to hire her husband’s underwriting firm to handle a 2007 bond issue totaling $24.6 million in utilities work.
“They asked a lot of questions about why we went to negotiated sale rather than competitive bid,” Harden said. “They’ve spoken to a number of city staff about that, and looked at documents related to the transaction.”
Cities can negotiate deals rather than bid them out, if officials judge there are certain benefits to that method. Harden said he wasn’t aware of any undue influence McCarty might have exerted, and said the city has always enjoyed “a very good relationship” with her.
McCarty, who has continued to attend county board meetings, was pleasant recently in fielding a call from a reporter, until she was asked about the investigation. “I’m not going to talk about that,” she said, and then hung up.
Her Fort Lauderdale attorney, J. David Bogenschutz, said McCarty has met with federal investigators at least once and was cooperative.
“Certainly Commissioner McCarty does not feel, nor do we feel at this point, that any evidence exists that she has in any way violated the public trust,” he said. “We are as anxious as anyone else to see where this investigation is headed.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kastrenakes — who has worked on the cases against former County Commissioners Tony Masilotti and Warren Newell and former West Palm Beach City Commissioners Ray Liberti and Jim Exline, all of whom ended with federal prison sentences — also wouldn’t talk about the case or when it might be resolved.
“Investigations that are complex investigations are measured in years usually, not months,” he said. “But I can’t say.”
McCarty has been investigated for at least the last year, her former attorney, Bruce Reinhart, has said. Reinhart has since stopped representing McCarty because he is a former federal prosecutor who worked in the same office that has been probing public corruption in Palm Beach County.
One who would likely miss having McCarty around is Manalapan Mayor Tom Gerrard. “I know that on every occasion that Manalapan wanted to work with the county on any issue, she has been right there and been very attentive,” he said. When he learned of the investigation, his reaction was, “Oh, I can’t believe it.” “I just think Mary, as far as anything I know, has been absolutely top drawer,” he said.
“I would be surprised if there’s any basis for any wrongdoing.” Mayor Koch of Gulf Stream held similarly warm views of the commissioner.
“She seeks the information from the different mayors,” he said. “And I think she serves us very well.”
But Koch reserved judgment on whether McCarty should step down if it’s found that she’s done anything improper. “That’s really up to McCarty herself.”
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DELRAY BEACH — City commissioners this month will debate the first in a series of necessary approvals that would allow for the development of condos, shops and office space west of the Intracoastal Waterway. Commissioners on Nov. 18 will address a request from the property’s representatives for permission to construct buildings higher than 48 feet; three of the six buildings in the plan will go 60 feet high. The Atlantic Plaza II proposal, northeast of Atlantic Avenue and Federal Highway next to Veterans Park, includes 197 condo units and more than 200,000 square feet of shops, restaurants and office space on some 8.65 acres, according to a city planner. Some stores, offices and an apartment complex that are on the site, would be demolished if all approvals are met. The city’s planning and zoning board on Oct. 20 supported the height change. Other votes will follow at later dates, include vacating, adding and moving roads internal to the project. One current change is suggested to move Northeast Seventh Avenue 70 feet to the east. Commissioners will also vote on the site’s specific plans. – Hector Florin
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By Mary Kate Leming
BOYNTON BEACH — The city’s 1927 high school won a 3-2 decision in its favor, when city commissioners voted Oct. 21 to research funding or potential partnerships to rescue the old building. At the outset of the hour-long discussion, City Manager Kurt Bressner offered three options for the building, located next to the Schoolhouse Museum on Ocean Avenue: demolish it, leave it as is, or make it available to some organization like a nonprofit to fund the restoration.
Nine residents spoke on behalf of saving the building; none advocated tearing it down. Mayor Jerry Taylor, however, carried a pile of papers and binders to the dais, and spoke about his frustration with past failed efforts to rescue the decaying building. “I’ve had fifteen years of talking about it. I know I sound like a hard-core guy, but we need to keep the city running. I think we should demolish it.”
The city pays $42,000 a year to maintain the vacant building.
Voncile Smith, president of the Boynton Beach Historical Society, expressed interest in talking with the city about the possibility of leasing the building for a cultural center. Commissioner Woodrow Hay noted that no one from the public spoke to tear the building down. “In the past we have failed, but it doesn’t mean we can’t succeed.” He added, “At the end of the day, this commission has to explore every plan possible.” Vice Mayor Jose Rodriguez and Commissioners Marlene Ross and Hay voted to approve the measure, asking the city manager to return to the commission with different options for possibly saving the school. Mayor Taylor and Commissioner Ron Weiland voted against the measure.
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By Hector Florin
BRINY BREEZES — Months after the completion of three new residential tunnels across State Road A1A in Manalapan, the Town Council will consider whether it should follow suit.
At the Oct. 23 Town Council meeting, Briny Breezes Inc. director Robert Purcell addressed the idea of building a tunnel, and council members agreed to continue talks on Nov. 20. The town had been sidetracked by talks with Ocean Land Investments when Purcell said he previously raised the issue.
The day after the Oct. 23 meeting, Purcell said he contacted the firm that helped the Town of Gulf Stream build its tunnel at the golf course — A&B Engineering of Wellington.
Purcell said A&B sent him pictures of previous tunnel projects as well. “They had experience with tunnels,” he said. He and Town Alderman Nancy Boczon agree that digging a tunnel will allow for unimpeded, safer access and will prevent accidents with golf carts.
While state law prohibits unregistered vehicles to cross a state road such as A1A, it’s common to see carts crossing the road in town. “Luckily no one’s gotten hurt” recently, Boczon said. “We’re getting more and more golf carts.”
She recalled discussions of tunnels as far back as 20 years ago. “Now that they’re the popular thing” — with Manalapan and Gulf Stream adding them — it’s natural for the topic to resurface.
Both Purcell and Boczon think the crossing of Marina Drive across A1A to Ruthmary Avenue would be a good spot for the tunnel. A cost estimate is still unknown. But with the chance that the town might yet be sold, Boczon wonders whether some town residents would support such an expense, reasoning: “Why put all that money into something and then move?”
Purcell did mention at the meeting that the Florida Department of Transportation could be approached for grant money. He also broached the tunnel idea at the Oct. 9 Planning and Zoning Board meeting. Another alternative would be to legalize carts crossing A1A by requiring owners to obtain Florida license tags. Construction of Manalapan’s three residential tunnels concluded in July and took place at the same time as the milling and repaving of State Road A1A through the town.
The Town Council on Oct. 23 also made the following decisions:
• Approved naming Town Alderman Kathy Bray town clerk pro tem, replacing Nancy Boczon. Also accepted the resignation of Deputy Clerk Janice M. Moore, who is going to work in Highland Beach.
• Gave preliminary approval to the Housing Element and Traffic Circulation Element chapters of the Planning and Zoning Evaluation and Appraisal Report. The two sections will be sent to the Florida Department of Community Affairs, which will review the entire report and offer comments before returning it to the Town Council for a second vote. The report is part of an update to the town’s 1989 comprehensive plan.
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